Slashdot Mirror


NIST Releases Report On WTC 7 Collapse

photonic writes "After three years of study, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finally released its report on the collapse of World Trade Center building 7. The main conclusion is that the building came down due to fire, not due to debris damage or some conspiracy demolition team. The fire started pretty small after the collapse of WTC 1, but was left to burn several floors out completely. The important finding is that the collapse was triggered by thermal expansion of beams, which could detach asymmetrically loaded girders from the main columns. Some limited pancaking of floors then caused a lack of lateral support and buckling of a single column. This triggered the failure of the entire core of the building, which finally fell down as a single piece. Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here. All documents can be found at NIST's WTC page, which read like a porn magazine for finite element junkies. Simulation movies are also available. And yes, they used Beowulf clusters to do the simulations, some of which lasted for several months."

1,331 comments

  1. nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    And yes, they used Beowulf clusters to do the simulations, some of which lasted for several months."

    No! You stole my +5 funny!!

    1. Re:nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      you stole my first post!

    2. Re:nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      You got peanut butter in my chocolate!

    3. Re:nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      No, you got chocolate in my peanut butter!

    4. Re:nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Oh, thank goodness you're here Officer Reeses...

    5. Re:nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nooo (Score:5, Funny)

      Looks like you're doing just fine on your own.

    6. Re:nooo by CatherineOmega · · Score: 0

      Whew, there it is!

    7. Re:nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yes, they used Beowulf clusters to do the simulations, some of which lasted for several months."

      No! You stole my +5 funny!!

      So what you are saying is that it actually took months to find the 1/infinity of cases where the building actually would collapse... (Brute force is science too!)

    8. Re:nooo by WhiteHorse-The+Origi · · Score: 1

      It turns out these used Pentium 90's and after correcting for the floating point error, the building was not collapsible without high-velocity explosives placed in the rivets.

    9. Re:nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately, the collapse left Officer Reeses in tiny, delicious pieces.

  2. Waiting for one of the crazies to deny it. by TheSovereign · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I guess 2 minutes.

    1. Re:Waiting for one of the crazies to deny it. by edcheevy · · Score: 1

      1 minute, but thanks for playing!

    2. Re:Waiting for one of the crazies to deny it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      As soon as it is Slashdotted, someone will come along with, "hey, they are blocking access to the report - what are they hiding?"

    3. Re:Waiting for one of the crazies to deny it. by Forty+Two+Tenfold · · Score: 0

      I guess 2 minutes.

      No chance - almost 7 years ago.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WYdAJQV100

      --
      Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
  3. You've GOT to be kidding! by cmacb · · Score: 5, Funny

    Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here.

    1. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think he meant to say

      Science can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the crackpot theories here.

    2. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with that statement is that people who support crackpot theories believe that those theories ARE supported by science; it's just that the science has been suppressed by "the man" or just not understood by the public.

    3. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some of the simulations last for months? I don't have that kind of time.

    4. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, building engineers don't ACTUALLY know how fire safety works.

    5. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Das+Modell · · Score: 0

      I have a simple, intuitive explanation for 9/11 that should satisfy everyone: some shit got fucked up.

    6. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't bother. If you agree, he's obviously right. If you disagree, you're obviously brainwashed and/or sent by the government.

      Welcome to the wonderful world of self-confirming delusions, wherein you need never admit you're wrong.

    7. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Lars+T. · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I have a simple, intuitive explanation for 9/11 that should satisfy everyone: some shit got fucked up.

      Well, doesn't satisfy me - nobody got fired for their part of the shit.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    8. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have a simple, intuitive explanation for 9/11 that should satisfy everyone: some shit got fucked up.

      Umm, no. The RIAA, SCO and MS black ops teams found out somebody was downloading Britney Spears MP3s on a linux box and kinda overreacted.

    9. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Ok guys, no discussing about heat bending-steel and collapsing building here. Let's stick to the science.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    10. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by twistedcubic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, if NIST says so, it MUST be true.

    11. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I think he meant to say:

      In Soviet Russia, discussion limits YOU!

    12. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Ihmhi · · Score: 1

      I'd rather they be fired out of a cannon.

    13. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by ilovegeorgebush · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Welcome to the wonderful world of self-confirming delusions, wherein you need never admit you're wrong.

      What part of delusions implies you admit anything anyway?

    14. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by arminw · · Score: 1

      ....no discussing about heat bending-steel and collapsing building here...

      No discussing how fast a building can collapse either. What is known about the acceleration of gravity must not be discussed here.

      --
      All theory is gray
    15. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Phroggy · · Score: 1

      They wouldn't be very good delusions if I had to admit I was wrong about them!

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    16. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by marcello_dl · · Score: 1

      The 911 truth sites i visited seemed focused on the peculiarity of inflamed building collapsing on themselves. Did nobody make a rough scale model of a skyscraper, comparatively more fragile than the wtc 1 2 or 7, imbibe it in fuel, light it up and see what happens? Scale matters but as I said making it more fragile should compensate. Simulations are not as effective: given three years and a beowulf cluster one can model improbable events, and an improbable event verified three out of three times in the case of the WTC buildings won't satisfy conspiracy theorists.

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    17. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by beav007 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Quick, call the Mythbusters!

    18. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Stanislav_J · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Simulations are not as effective: given three years and a beowulf cluster one can model improbable events, and an improbable event verified three out of three times in the case of the WTC buildings won't satisfy conspiracy theorists.

      Nothing satisfies conspiracy theorists...

      --
      "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
    19. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by LaskoVortex · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Welcome to the wonderful world of self-confirming delusions, wherein you need never admit you're wrong.

      Yes, in delusional worlds, or "delusional science", or even more precisely, "delusional simulation", as I like to call it, you start with a some assumptions about your system that are difficult to prove false and a limited set of constraints (aka observations) and then, you run simulations, either with a computer or in your head, tweaking a potentially infinite array of parameters that far exceed the observations, until the result of the simulation is similar to the model you had in mind when you began. This is a good methodology to prove any point you want, including any theory for 9-11. I've seen more than a few prestigious papers that have taken this approach.

      --
      Just callin' it like I see it.
    20. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by BlueStraggler · · Score: 1

      and an improbable event verified three out of three times

      Sorry, are you arguing against or for the conspiracy theories?

    21. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Look all is needed to shut up these conspiracy theorist forever is to do a simple chemical analysis on the debris. No doubt all of the steel from the world's biggest crime scene is _easily_ available.

      So check for arson. And be done with this debate forever.

    22. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by sleigher · · Score: 0, Troll
      I would love to stick to the science. I did not read TFA, but I would be interested to know how the fire started. The summary said:

      The main conclusion is that the building came down due to fire, not due to debris damage or some conspiracy demolition team.

      If nothing hit the building, then why did it all the sudden catch fire right at the same time as the other buildings collapse? No conspiracy here, I am asking seriously...... Was there an investigation as to what caused the fire?

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
    23. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by kcelery · · Score: 1

      The building was down in hours, so it should not be hard job to do it again. May be people should build a 1/4 size model and ask these NIST professional to repeat the collapse one more time. My guess is, they have to burn it for a month.

    24. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      What they were a little light on was the focus on how well the fire rating of the structural elements had been done. There was a bit of information early on in the 11/9 saga that detailed the failure to properly fire rate the structural elements in all those buildings that collapsed. Corruption, shonky building inspection, greed to get the jobs finished and start earning rent, all lead to failure to properly achieve 240/240/240 fire ratings on structural components of those buildings.

      I have done insurance inspections of steel framed buildings after a fire and massive beams become a twisted deformed mess like strands of liquorice draped about the place, oddly enough timber framed structures last better than unprotected steel framed structures (the timber chars and provides a temporary protective layer from the fire, large structural elements only).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    25. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by WhiteHorse-The+Origi · · Score: 1

      1. Airplane hit building
      2. Airplane get gas leak
      3. Smoker light cigarette
      4. Plane go boom
      5. Fire go burn
      Seriously though, I hear the planes had just taken off so they would've been fully fueled and that 120 Octane gas will ignite if you even fart near it.

    26. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by extrasolar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, it isn't that it's a conspiracy theory that's the problem.

      In fact, that al-Qaida, an international network of terrorists that want to launch jihad against the western world, is responsible for the 9-11 attacks is a conspiracy theory.

      The difference is that with the above they don't have to accuse people of being brainwashed in order to get people to accept the theory.

    27. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 0, Troll

      I don't know about Slashdot but WE, the people who believe that the NIST report is nothing more than pseudoscience, ARE NOT KIDDING.

      There are over 400 Architects that agree with us. They HAVE the scientific evidence that YOU can see.

      Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth.
      http://www.ae911truth.org/

      Video interview with Richard Gage (architect) in vancouver on Omni TV
      http://www.ae911truth.org/omnitv_interview.htm

      Review if for yourself.

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    28. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by RockDoctor · · Score: 3, Informative

      Did nobody make a rough scale model of a skyscraper, comparatively more fragile than the wtc 1 2 or 7, imbibe it in fuel, light it up and see what happens? Scale matters but as I said making it more fragile should compensate.

      You can scale the dimensions and strengths of your model to account for the differing stiffness -to- weight-per-unit-length and weight-per-unit-area of the models materials. That would allow you to model loadings like (for example) if the top of the two towers were linked by a cable, and the cable tensioned, how much would the towers pull together (not that that could ever have happened (by the way, the film is very good, if you like talking with people with the "thousand yard stare")).
      Unfortunately, for modelling the fires, and the spread of fire, you have a number of additional things which you've got to scale correctly and simultaneously - the thermal responses of the materials, the heat-release-per-unit-volume-per-unit-time, and probably most difficultly, the changes in viscosity and density of the air with temperature.
      A broadly comparable disaster that I'm familiar with used physical 1:4 modelling to understand the destruction of the gas compression module on the Piper Alpha. But they didn't try modelling the spread of the fire similarly, nor the step-wise collapse by heat-buckling of the platform structure. Which is probably because the experiment would have been very expensive and wouldn't have yielded much new information ("Don't set fire to oil rigs with hundreds or thousands of tonnes of hydrocarbons on board" was a well known lesson before 1998-07-06.). It's a lot faster (particularly when you take into account construction time) to do a stimulation than to build a model. And you can always burn your simulation down again tomorrow. And again. And again.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    29. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by sleigher · · Score: 1

      Yeah but it says that nothing hit building 7. I love that me asking a serious question makes me a troll.... Only on /. You guys do get that no airplane hit building 7 right?

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
    30. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by ePhil_One · · Score: 1
      1) Moden Jet engines burn Kerosene, not 120 Octane gasoline (used in some piston aircraft, though I don't think the octane ratings are equivalent w/ pump gas) If I recall, it has a more dangerous vapor point than gasoline or diesel; while gasoline vapors will create too rich a mixture to burn in a closed environment like a tank, and diesel too lean, Kerosene is just right. So you last comment is both wrong and right.

      2) Per the video and article, teh fire in Building 7 was started by falling debris for teh main buildings, not by the airplanes.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
    31. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by WhiteHorse-The+Origi · · Score: 1

      Sorry, it says the debris from the other buildings started the fire. Even so, I'd like to know how the CIA was able to control the planes from the ground and fly them into the towers...

    32. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by WhiteHorse-The+Origi · · Score: 1

      Either way, it's all the fault of smokers!! jk

    33. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by tha_mink · · Score: 1
      This is from the ae911 site.

      And exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire, i.e.

      Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, intact, from the point of plane impact, to the side most damaged by the fires)

      When have you ever seen a 47 story building tip over sideways?

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
    34. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by hobbit · · Score: 1

      How on earth would the submitter purport to know which theories are sound and which are crackpot, without using the scientific method?

      He needs to leave his preconceptions at the door.

      --
      "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
    35. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 1

      When have you ever seen a 47 story building collapse other than controlled demolition? not counting 911.

      The question is rhetorical and not relevant.

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    36. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by sleigher · · Score: 1

      I am confused then. If the summary says no debris hit building 7, but 'debris from the other building started the fire', then there is something wrong.

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
    37. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      As an aspiring architect (Master's degree) as well as an engineer BS Aero, I can tell you that architects are some of the last people who you can trust to tell you how a building's structure might fail. It's like asking a sculptor to build an automobile engine, or perhaps to tell you how the engine might react when the exhaust gasket fails. Big heavy things like to fall straight down, and the asymmetrical initial condition will cause more general failures which then leads to the big heavy thing falling straight down.

    38. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't bother. If you agree, he's obviously right. If you disagree, you're obviously brainwashed and/or sent by the government.

      And conversely, if you agree with NIST, you're obviously right. If you disagree, you're obviously a crackpot conspiracy theorist and/or a terrorist.

      Whatever....

    39. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am confused then. If the summary says no debris hit building 7, but 'debris from the other building started the fire', then there is something wrong.

      You're only confused because the summary doesn't say that "no debris hit building 7." It only says that the collapse was not (directly) caused by debris hitting it.

    40. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by sleigher · · Score: 1

      ok... sure thing. How did the fire start then? If building 7 (1 block away) caught fire from debris then why didn't the buildings directly adjacent (couple hundred feet maybe) to the towers catch fire? They had a lot of damage from debris yet no fire. I cannot believe that it is accepted that a building that far away collapsed as a result of some debris but the buildings right next to it did not suffer the same or similar fate.

      I digress..... Silverstein gave the order to pull the building.

      Those are HIS words. Not mine. This whole topic is ridiculous.

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
    41. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by tha_mink · · Score: 1

      When have you ever seen a 47 story building collapse other than controlled demolition? not counting 911.

      Why can't that building count? It was clearly not a "controlled" demolition, even in the loosest definition of the term. There's tons of YouTube videos of building collapses, albeit smaller buildings, that just have the ole fire > implode cycle. I don't why this can't be that?

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
    42. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 0, Troll

      and there are tons of pictures and vids of smaller buildings toppling over too. I believe you stated the parameters were 47 stories. Now you want to change them,

      It was a controlled demolition plain and simple.

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    43. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Palshife · · Score: 1

      imbibe it in fuel

      That word: I do not think it means what you think it means.

      --
      Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
    44. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 1

      The last person I would trust to tell me how a building's structure might fail is an engineer BS Aero, It's like asking a impressionist painter to build a paper airplane, or like asking George Bush to tie his shoes properly.

      Etc... Etc... Ad Nauseum

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    45. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by unitron · · Score: 1

      No doubt all of the steel from the world's biggest crime scene is _easily_ available.

      Of course it is. Just dial 1-800-NY-MAFIA!

      Operators are standing by!

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    46. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 1

      SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture

      The term architecture can be used to mean a process, a profession or documentation.

      As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and constructing buildings and other physical structures by a person or a machine, primarily to provide socially purposeful shelter. A wider definition often includes the design of the total built environment, from the macro level of how a building integrates with its surrounding man made landscape (see town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture) to the micro level of architectural or construction details and, sometimes, furniture. Wider still, architecture is the activity of designing any kind of system.

      As a profession, architecture is the role of those persons or machines providing architectural services.

      As documentation, usually based on drawings, architecture defines the structure and/or behavior of a building or any other kind of system that is to be or has been constructed.

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    47. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by operagost · · Score: 1

      It's in the Arthur Kill landfill. Start diggin'.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    48. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Damn dude, you forgot the car in there. The op came close with the engine but no analogy is complete without a car somewhere. How about this, "like asking George Bush to tie his shoes properly, before he gets out of the car".

    49. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Well, what is wrong with the heat and expanding steel theory? I've seen it happen on smaller scales before. In fact, I broke metal 5 foot away after attempting to fill the bottom third of a pole with aluminum. it expended then snapped around the weld holding it to another piece or metal. The weld held but the steel didn't.

    50. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by tha_mink · · Score: 1

      It was a controlled demolition plain and simple.

      Oh, yeah. I see it now. You're 100% right. There is no other explaination other than a controlled demolition. I don't know why I couldn't see that before.

      1. Plant thousands of lbs of explosives in buildings while alerting nobody.
      2. Crash two airliners into government owned real estate
      3. After fire ensues, detonate explosives. (assuming your det-cord is still in one piece)
      4. Excavate site, while distracting population with some war. *bonus* get paid from "industrial military complex.
      5. Build new site with *significantly* less rental space
      5. ???
      6. Profit!

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
    51. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by sumdumass · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know if it was building debre, plane parts, or just a ball of burning fuel, but when you watch the second impact video, you see a large fireball shoot off to the side and arc down. I have always contended that this fireball, whatever it was made of, landed on building 7. It was on fire just after the second tower was hit.

      Of course if it was an engine, something would have been left behind to show that. But if it was part of a fuel tank, either aluminum or magnesium or some composite material, it could have burned up with the fire or simply been mistaken for building debre. And yes, both of those metal will burn and aluminum will turn to an ash (from oxidation I think) But that is my guess, and I at one time mapped this out on an impromptu trajectory-building placement cocktail napkin and was satisfied enough for my own self. But I'm pretty sure that it would map out in real life too. The angle of the fireball shooting from the impact side of the building should have placed it at or around building 7.

    52. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by sleigher · · Score: 1

      I appreciate a thoughtful response.

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
    53. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by VeNoM0619 · · Score: 1

      I believe the "crackpot" theories stated something like: 5. Collect from insurance companies.

      Assuming I've been vaguely following along correctly...

      --
      Disclaimer: I am not god.
      We may not be created equal
      But we can be treated equal.
    54. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by tha_mink · · Score: 1

      Collect from insurance companies.

      So "they" think that that day plus the ensuing war was just insurance fraud?

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
    55. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by wudukes · · Score: 1

      How can asymmetrical damage cause a perfectly symmetrical collapse?

    56. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      and the asymmetrical initial condition will cause more general failures which then leads to the big heavy thing falling straight down.

      I don't understand your question.

    57. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by wudukes · · Score: 1

      The collapse was perfectly symmetrical. Watch the video online. How can asymmetrical damage cause a building to fall in perfect symmetry? Wouldn't asymmetrical damage only cause a partial collapse of subsequent floors or at least a toppling or falling over effect? The building fell perfectly into its own footprint, straight down, at near free-fall speed. 47 floors, around 7 seconds for a complete fall, which meant all supporting beams had to have been destroyed at the same time as there was no resistance.

    58. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      No it was not perfectly symmetrical, how can a video possibly show that? The heat of the fire caused the asymmetrical structure to begin to fail. Once it starts to fall gravity takes over, and the massive floors fall essentially straight down, and that led to a pancake collapse of the building. Any sideways or twisting forces from the initial failing conditions would quickly be overwhelmed by the much larger forces due to the mass of the structures falling. They most likely would completely disappear after the first pancake event. The complete fall is difficult to time, and you would need to resort to seismic records to begin to estimate it. Trying to time it from a video is, well, the stuff that conspiracy theorists thrive on, but it is not conclusive in the least. I'll leave it to you to figure out how much resistance would have to be in place to stop 15 floors of the tower falling 20-30 feet. The energy in that is an enormous value, and it is likely that there were several floors where the steel was sufficiently weakened such that the first few pancakes had much less resistance than they otherwise would have. Go take a structural engineering class and quit repeating the mindless rants of people who don't know any better.

    59. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by wudukes · · Score: 1

      Okay Fair enough. Thank you for your response. Let me ask you a simple question. NIST has ruled out controlled demolition because of a lapse of sounds of explosions. However it is alleged that Thermate was the chemical compound used to demolish the building, which makes no sounds, only an exothermic reaction. (Sulfer residue was found on steel beams (product of Thermate) (FEMA report) as well as Thermate found in the dust particles (Steven Jones, ae911truth.org) Let me ask you this. Could it have been possible, scientifically, for the collapse of WTC7 to have been a result of controlled demolition?

    60. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      Yes of course.

    61. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What they were a little light on was the focus on how well the fire rating of the structural elements had been done.

      That's probably because nobody felt a need to do so. WTC7 took something like 7 or 8 hours to collapse after fire initiation, with essentially no firefighting measures, so its fire protection performed well enough.

      WTC1&2 are thought to have collapsed more quickly than would've been expected due to fire alone, but they had airplanes crash into them. This did more than just the obvious immediate structural damage to the building: even after the airplane's structure had been shredded into tiny pieces too small to cut any more beams, the jet fuel and debris had more than enough remaining momentum to scour fire insulation off any structural steel in its path, since fire insulation is just a sprayed-on foam and is not particularly robust physically. Raw structure damage plus intense fire plus compromised fire protection on the remaining structure led to quick collapses.

    62. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by wudukes · · Score: 1

      Scientifically... Pretend this was not 911 and this was just some random building somewhere, ignore the circumstances... and someone asked, how did it fall? What is more likely? A controlled demolition or "New Phenomenon" which occurred for first time ever

    63. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      That's a loaded question. If it was a fully loaded (fuel) airplane crashing into it, I would say yes, that is more likely. If it was, oh, let's say, an alien space ship with sharks and frickin lasers, then I would say it was someone on the inside. In no event would I call it a "controlled demolition" as there was far too much damage to the surrounding area.

    64. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Fjandr · · Score: 1

      It didn't have a plane crash into it. The article is about Building 7, not either of the twin towers.

    65. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Candid88 · · Score: 1

      "Scale matters but as I said making it more fragile should compensate."

      You're right, scale does matter. It's not a case of making the model more or less fragile compared to the original to compensate, rather that the model would just simply behave completely differently. Nothing would be proved either way.

      Computer models can help, but using scale models for an event as complex as a skyscraper being consumed by fire is pointless.

    66. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 0, Troll

      Larry Silverstein "acquired" his 99 year lease on the 3 buildings (tower1,2 and 7) and purchased billions in insurance immediately prior to the attacks. Funny how only the buildings he owned "collapsed".

      second the motives were clearly to convince the American people that war was necessary which provided profits in the hundreds of billions of dollars for the Bush family and his oil buddies as well as the defense industry.

      It also allowed them to gain a foothold in an area of the world they have wanted for a long time.

      Finally, every major war has been started by a false flag operation. The Vietnam war was started by the Gulf of Tonkin attack that officials now ADMIT never happened.

      The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the U.S. Department of Defense for a war with Cuba involved scenarios such as hijacking a passenger plane, sinking a U.S. ship, burning crops and blaming such actions on Cuba. It was authored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nixed by John F. Kennedy, came to light through the Freedom of Information Act and was publicized by James Bamford.

      But oh no...our government would neeeever do something like that would they?

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    67. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 1

      The paragraph about Operation Northwoods is from Wikipedia

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    68. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by marcello_dl · · Score: 1

      and an improbable event verified three out of three times

      Sorry, are you arguing against or for the conspiracy theories?

      The problem is, for a real scientific discussion it shouldn't matter.

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    69. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by marcello_dl · · Score: 1

      Thank you all for the informative replies. I have one couple last observations though. Modelling fires could be extremely tricky, but how hard do you really need to try since three buildings collapsed with fire set in different places and at least under two different conditions (inbound plane vs. whatever set fire to wtc7)? Besides, just collapsing because of fire would undermine some 911 truth claims.

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    70. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by tha_mink · · Score: 1

      But oh no...our government would neeeever do something like that would they?

      No, I don't think they would blow up 3 of the largest buildings in OUR country to start a war and so a handfull of individuals could make some money. (Money that, BTW, they'd be able to make anyways. Last I checked, the Bush family had more money than it could ever spend anyways) Plus, how'd that end up working out for him? Looks like he made a whopping $719, 274 last year. So, I'd like to see some proof of the hundreds of billions of dollars you say he made.

      Larry Silverstein "acquired" his 99 year lease on the 3 buildings (tower1,2 and 7) and purchased billions in insurance immediately prior to the attacks. Funny how only the buildings he owned "collapsed".

      And if you leased the three buildings, would you not insure them for billions of dollars? Is that what you're saying?

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
    71. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      I was going to ignore you, but you might want to re-read the post I was replying to. But thanks for the pedantic and incorrect assessment. Yes, we are talking (prior to the above) about WTC-7. A building that at best had a 4 hour fire rating on its structure, and had a fire burning in it for at least 7 hours. Regardless of the cause, this kind of situation can (and in this case did) cause a complete collapse of the building. There are some who claim that "just a little fire" could not cause this. I am attempting to refute that claim. If you want to contribute to the debate please read and understand the thread, and then post.

    72. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by tha_mink · · Score: 1

      Larry Silverstein "acquired" his 99 year lease on the 3 buildings (tower1,2 and 7) and purchased billions in insurance immediately prior to the attacks. Funny how only the buildings he owned "collapsed".

      Ok, he got insured. In total his policies were worth about $4.2 billion. He pays (still) $10million/month for the property. So yearly, he's paying $120Million with *no* income on those three properties. Since 9-11-2001, he's paid over $700 Million in rent for *nothing*.

      So, he's got a 99 year lease right? Silverstein properties has some rights to re-develop the site, but has given some back to the port authority in order for them to assist. Now, the projected costs for the redevelopment of *just the buildings* is somewhere in the $15Billion range. He's got 4 billion from his settlement with the insurance companies and the city is going to allocate 8. That leaves about 3 (billion) that he'll cough up out of his pocket.(or at least silverstein properties) All of this, mind you, with that property producing exactly $0 income. So, how exactly is that beneficial to him?

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
    73. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by wudukes · · Score: 0, Troll

      Forget the plane. Forget 9-11. Ignore all outside circumstances, focus on the collapse of the structure. If you analyzed characteristics of the building collapse scientifically, which would you say was more likely? A. It was brought down by demolition B. A 'new phenomenon' occurred via thermal expansion of long floor beams, one column fails and brings the entire structure down with it.

    74. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      When the new phenomena is a fire that burns for 7 hours, then it is the likeliest candidate. By inserting this "new phenomena" strawman you are trying to make it sound as if the less likely event (A) is more likely than this "strange new phenomena we have never observed" (B). This is wrong because we are not talking about an alien ship with lasers (which would fit into your description of B). We are talking about a fire, that burned far longer than the best case fire protection on the structural members. This may not happen very often, or ever in this kind of building, but classifying it as a "new phenomena" is a falacy. This phenomena very well when the structure was designed, which is why there is fire protection and a fire code, and a life and safety code, and rules about accessibility and safe landings etc. I will forget about the planes, and 9/11, and simply look at the fact that a fire burned for 7 hours. If you want me to also ignore that, then you are asking about some alternate universe. But with the fire then it is most likely that the fire was the cause of collapse. Why is that so hard to grasp? The fire burned on 3 floors, and was hot enough to move the structure such that a main column failed. It is very likely that this would lead to further failures because of the extent and temperature of the fire, and the fact that the fire protection had ceased to be effective for over 3 hours. So this naturally leads to a cascade of other failures.

    75. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by wudukes · · Score: 0

      New Phenomena is exactly how NIST phrased it. Terms were used to describe the cause of collapse as "New Phenomena" and "extraordinary event". This supposed thermal expansion event has never before happened. Why is it so hard to grasp? Americans feel they are being lied to about 911. Let us disregard the major defense failures, prior knowledge, attempts to stop investigation by Bush administration, no accountability, story of Cessna single engine trained terror pilot able to bring down jumbo airliner from 10000 feet to 30 meters off the ground to hit the pentagon nose first, a passport found outside the trade center of one of the hijackers by FBI =x, Bin Ladin not on FBI most wanted list for lack of evidence, Hijackers turning up alive, etc etc and just concentrate on the physical evidence of world trade center collapse. You are correct, physically there were fires in all 3 buildings. That fact cannot be ignored. Here is what we find in terms of physical evidence. Molten Steel in large pools found in SubBasement Levels of World Trade Center 1,2, and 7. Smoldering for weeks after 911. Many witnesses reporting explosions, some resulting in serious injury, in sub-basement floors before planes hitting towers. Video evidence of people reporting that the WTC 7 building would be coming down. Sulfur found on steel beams Thermate signatures found in WTC dust. Squibs popping out sides of the building during the collapse well below the collapsing section Photos of people standing in hole that the plane hit that fires were supposedly hot enough to weaken steel to the point of bending / total collapse. Red fires with Black smoke indicating cool fires. WTC 1 and 2 towers falling almost identically, in rapid speed. They collapsed in a time of around 10 seconds through the path of greatest resistance. The collapsing section fell straight through the rest of the building underneath (at least 60 floors worth) with almost virtually opposing force. If you can take these facts out of the context of the situation. What is implied...Yes, it is huge. However, look solely at the physical evidence, you can form a better analysis. ....Many people are involved in try to figure out what really happened on that day. The Bush administration tried to stop an investigation for almost a year before it was brought to court by Victim family members. The 911 commission members said it was "setup to fail" and NIST is a government agency whose executive director is appointed by the president. The Media is not covering this issue.

    76. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 1

      I'm saying the acquisition and insurance was suspect due to it's close proximity to the time of the attacks. Detectives investigating a murder often use relatives insurance acquisitions on the deceased immediately prior to the murder as evidence against them in investigations.

      Secondly the "billions" I referred to were "collectively" made by bush AND his oil buddies

      Tha Mink said: "No, I don't think they would blow up 3 of the largest buildings in OUR country to start a war and so a handfull of individuals could make some money."

      What you THINK they may or may not do is irrelevant and it shows clearly that they can do just about anything and get away with it in your eyes.

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    77. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 1

      I seriously doubt he's gonna pay the same amount in leasing fees now that the buildings are gone. If I lease a property with office buildings on them and they are burned down or destroyed or a plane falls on them I'm not going to continue to pay the lease without the OWNER which is the US Government rebuilding the buildings or renegotiating the lease if I'm going to rebuild.

      As a side note Silverstein tried to collect DOUBLE the insurance policy because he claimed that the attacks were two separate events.

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    78. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Fjandr · · Score: 1

      But thanks for the pedantic and incorrect assessment.

      You seem to seriously have your back up here. I was mostly just poking the argument, so you probably should have gone with your first instinct. Since you didn't, I have to ask: Which part is incorrect?

      It didn't have a plane crash into it. or The article is about Building 7, not either of the twin towers.?

      Maybe it was a case of my misunderstanding what you meant due to a serious overuse of pronouns coupled with a lack of information necessary to determine each of their respective targets. Perhaps you were talking about one of the twin towers without ever referring to them by anything other than an undefined pronoun. If that's the case, then I certainly would agree that my first statement was incorrect. Otherwise, I'm still baffled.

    79. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately a lot of the "911 was an inside job" speil seems to be misinformation, designed to hide those that profited as a result of the attack (very suspicious stock market trading just prior to the attack), a high degree of incompetence in preventing the attack, Saudi Arabia as being at the core of the attack, a real whiff of some parts of the current US administration being aware of the likelihood of an attack as well as the high level of corruption that is required to allow those buildings to be occupied when the required fire protection systems had not been properly installed as those are specifically inspected prior to a certificate of occupancy being issued (that is because of the extreme risk of complete failure that it represents).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    80. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by tha_mink · · Score: 1

      I seriously doubt he's gonna pay the same amount in leasing fees now that the buildings are gone.

      What you believe is irrelevant since it's a fact. (Look it up)

      As a side note Silverstein tried to collect DOUBLE the insurance policy because he claimed that the attacks were two separate events.

      I'd say that the insurance companies tried to pay him half. Silverstein argued that since there were two planes, that amounts to two events. How can you really argue that? If you research the case, and his policy, he was entitled to "double" (not really double in my opinion) since one plane should have been one event and the the other plane should have been the other event. That makes sense to me. If your company got hit my lightening and then a tornado, should you not be entitled the damage caused by both events?

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
    81. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by tha_mink · · Score: 1

      Secondly the "billions" I referred to were "collectively" made by bush AND his oil buddies

      How exactly in your view have his oil buddies made billions because of these fallen buildings again? And were they in cahoots? Was Silverstein in on it too? I'm kinda getting confused as to how many people were involved in this deal. So far, we're talking about Bush, his administration, the military, norad, Silverstein and Bush's un-named "oil buddies". What about Cheney and his military for hire buddies? Them too?

      What you THINK they may or may not do is irrelevant and it shows clearly that they can do just about anything and get away with it in your eyes.

      Yeah, it's me who's blind to the facts. Do you know how many individual people would have to be involved in flying planes into buildings and then collapsing sed buildings? Like regular blue collar type guys? What makes you think that a government that can't hide a blowjob is capable of keeping a secret *that* big?

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
    82. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      Scientifically... Pretend this was not 911 and this was just some random building somewhere, ignore the circumstances... and someone asked, how did it fall? What is more likely? A controlled demolition or "New Phenomenon" which occurred for first time ever.

      I was listing two "New Phenomenon" one that has not happened and one that has only happened twice, in quick succession, and had not been previously seriously considered as a failure mode. Neither of which were the actual case being discussed, as per the request of the poster I quoted. If you had read that post perhaps you would have understood, but as far as I can tell you did not, saw something and misunderstood it, and then posted your "clarification". That baffles me.

    83. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      The new phenomemon was a result of a fire burning that long. Yes it has not happened before, but it is not a new phenomenon that is a highly implausible event. We know how steel acts when heated, and the structure of this building behaved in a way that is predictable according to our knowledge of the material. You are trying to spin New Phenomenon as something that is highly unlikely. Which it is not. The behavior of the building was in line with what it might have been with such a fire, some parts smoldering in oxygen starved environments (due to the long burn time), suddenly getting oxygen because of collapse, which would be an explosive event. Collapsing buildings would also have a large compressed air mass ahead, which would look and sound like an explosion. You can believe what you want, I am pointing out that the NIST explanations are not unlikely or implausible. If you think they ignore other aspects and that is what you are trying to come to terms with, then fine, I am sticking to the plausibility of the NIST explanation. Which is "very".

    84. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by wudukes · · Score: 0

      So the structure of the building behaved in a way that is predictable yet this is the first time in history that a collapse has ever occurred in this manner. If the knowledge of the material was so predictable, to thermally expand, shift and collapse.. first the internal part, then the external structure (lol), then why would they build the building like this in the first place? How long has structural engineering been in practice? Is this building really that unique.. yes it had long floor spans.. oh please. I suppose we do not need controlled demolition companies anymore, if we want a building to collapse neatly onto its own footprint I can just sprinkle some gas on some random floors and light a match. I hit the right column, sweet! Lets just ignore all the physical evidence (molten steel pools in basement, sulfur residue on steel beams, thermite signatures on steel beams and dust, people blatantly saying that the building is going to collapse, countdown) that would alter out achieved result, which is avoiding self-indictment... If I am a fruit expert and I show you an apple and tell you it is a banana just nod and everything will be okay. I mean hell, rather live in a false reality then wake up and realize the god damn government killed thousands of Americans and a police state is already here (can you say NSA spying and secret prisons?) Shhh.. don't show dissent, big brother is listening.. Not unlikely or implausible...? I would say a lot less likely and plausible then a controlled demolition. The heads of the largest victims family groups know 911 was an inside job and we are looking for justice for all the people who died on that day. I challenge you to watch zero an investigation into 911 or 911 mysteries, both on youtube. or visit the journal of 911 studies, google it. alright im done.. good show.

    85. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by REALMAN · · Score: 1

      Those are all EXCELLENT questions, yet hard to get answered with people like you around.

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    86. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by Fjandr · · Score: 1

      You're baffled that misunderstandings happen and people might respond based on a misunderstanding?

    87. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

      Essentially. Especially when I do it.

    88. Re:You've GOT to be kidding! by tha_mink · · Score: 1

      Those are all EXCELLENT questions, yet hard to get answered with people like you around.

      Yeah, goddamn reality. It's tough, I know.

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
  4. tr00f by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here.

    Hah! What an optimist.

    1. Re:tr00f by pilgrim23 · · Score: 1, Funny

      I am sure it was the gay space aliens under comander Elvis what done it. Oh, and superglue took care of MY pot thank you!

      --
      - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
    2. Re:tr00f by rk · · Score: 2, Funny

      You know what, Stuart, I like you. You're not like the other people here in this trailer park.

    3. Re:tr00f by pieisgood · · Score: 1

      but do you know what the queers did to the soil of WTC 7?

      --
      Eat sleep die
    4. Re:tr00f by macs4all · · Score: 1

      Wow! A Beelzebubba reference! Thanx for making my day.

    5. Re:tr00f by el_gordo101 · · Score: 1

      +1 Funny for the Dead Milkmen reference. Bravo, sir!

      --
      TODO: Insert witty sig
  5. Imposter! by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 5, Funny

    Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here.

    What site is this, and what has it done with Slashdot

    --
    -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
    1. Re:Imposter! by photonic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here.

      What site is this, and what has it done with Slashdot

      Well, for sure Digg is one of the places where this is happening, some idiots over there get +100 for the most ridiculous comments. What this has done to Slashdot? I hope they drew away some of the trolls from here...

      --
      karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
    2. Re:Imposter! by tinkertim · · Score: 3, Funny

      Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here.

      What site is this, and what has it done with Slashdot

      I think the submitter meant to say:

      Please limit the science to the discussion.

    3. Re:Imposter! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see over at Digg they think Thermal Expansion is a "new phenomenon"

    4. Re:Imposter! by Ticklemonster · · Score: 0

      OMG!!! The world is upside down and all semblance of order is lost!

      We've been Dash Slotted!!!!

      --
      Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
    5. Re:Imposter! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      <typical slashdot answer>
      It's all Microsoft's fault!

      Windows gets pirated, and piracy funds terrorism (says the MAFIAA), so MS (a truly evil company) funded terrorism indirectly by letting piracy happen (to ensure they maintain their illegal monopoly), and terrorism made this happen. Yep, it must be Ballmer's fault! Terrorists! Terrorists! Terrorists!
      </typical slashdot answer>

    6. Re:Imposter! by KillerBob · · Score: 5, Funny

      Optimist... :P

      I'd like to introduce you to Tabbed Browsing.

      --
      If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
    7. Re:Imposter! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh my God! After seeing that thread, let me never complain about the idiocy of discussion on Slashdot again!

    8. Re:Imposter! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The digg article/comments are hilarious. I like the big red disclaimer they added to the top:

      Warning: The Content in this Article May be Inaccurate
      Readers have reported that this story contains information that may not be accurate.

      I suppose if the groupthink on slashdot is too subtle and nuanced for you, there's always digg.

    9. Re:Imposter! by UncleTogie · · Score: 1

      We've been Dash Slotted!!!!

      Mr. and Mrs. Incredible would like to speak with you concerning your after-school activities with their son....

      NOW.

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    10. Re:Imposter! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about Larry Silverstein's comment about having the building "pulled"? Sounds like the fire department decided it wasn't worth saving, so the decision was made to have it taken down.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WYdAJQV100

    11. Re:Imposter! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Ya, I'm sorry to see many people asking questions and only getting downmodded as 'Troll' as an answer.

      Maybe people can come up with answers, they just don't like it. Think I should head over to Digg. :-)

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    12. Re:Imposter! by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

      The comments at that site are absoloutely inane, I am at a loss over there, my stupid internet addiction has me posting in the odd comment, occassionally I get a +5 or +8 but often I'm dugg down for no reason whatsoever!? Do not even go slightly against the grain over there, if you don't all agree or aren't making a joke, then you're dugg down.

      Informative post, dugg down, correcting an error, dugg down.
      I posted yesterday agreeing with someone on something - dugg down (while his post was up high) ?!

      Fuck digg comments.

    13. Re:Imposter! by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Posting a story on 9/11 to Slashdot and telling people not to talk about conspiracy theories is a joke. I noticed the Slashdot editor removed your Digg reference from the Firehose entry, but left the rest in. He should have just taken the whole sentence out.

    14. Re:Imposter! by mpe · · Score: 1

      Posting a story on 9/11 to Slashdot and telling people not to talk about conspiracy theories is a joke.

      It's a joke because it's hard to come up with a conspiracy free theory to explain multiple hijackings happening on the same day. (Never mind anything else).
      Very few people, including the US Government and "mainstream media", have ever mentioned (let alone advocated) anything other than conspiracy theories in relation to "911".

    15. Re:Imposter! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think he told the fire department commander to demolish the building? Since when is that something firefighters are trained and equipped to do?

      I think they simply pulled the firefighters out and let the building collapse, because what they were doing was incredibly dangerous and not likely to accomplish anything.

  6. oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    more whitewashing, make sure you never watch the actual footage of that building coming down either, looks pretty symmetrical to me

    1. Re:oh ok by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And your point is? It's a common misconception that random events don't or can't look very neat and tidy. One of the common mistakes people make when faking random data is to make it look too random. Meaning they don't have enough places in the data which appear to be non-random.

      The way that a skyscraper is designed and built favors it falling more or less straight down rather to one side or the other. The reason being that if it were to topple, as remote a possibility as that is, the building shouldn't be allowed to hit other buildings. Nobody wants a set of dominoes that large.

    2. Re:oh ok by canadian_right · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Another big reason large buildings tend to fall straight down is that is the direction gravity is pulling them. Anything much bigger than three or four stories is going to come apart very soon after leaving vertical, and the pieces come straight down.

      --
      Anarchists never rule
    3. Re:oh ok by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It needn't be as subtle as seeing patterns where there are none, although we know that happens all the time.

      In simple terms, things tend to fall down. Surely, if it were easier to get a building to topple over sideways, a team of terrorists isn't going to go through the trouble of averting what would surely be a larger and more spectacular catastrophe.

      People whose experience with construction is limited to building models tend to imagine buildings are much lighter relative to the strength of materials in them then they are.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    4. Re:oh ok by worthawholebean · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is pretty simple math; the weight increases with the cube of the scaling factor as you scale up a model, yet the strength of the materials used only increases with the square of the scaling factor since it depends on the area of the cross section of the member.

    5. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Sorry if I don't believe you, but is that how it works?

      Does the mechanism that makes one side of a building collapse in full synchronicity if the other side is much more damaged also have a name? Let me guess - magic? Structural telepathy?

      As everyone knows, skyscrapers are best demolished one floor at a time. From the bottom up. Don't believe me? Check this video.

    6. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      The way that a skyscraper is designed and built favors it falling more or less straight down rather to one side or the other.

      Crackpot theories were explicitely banned.
      Otherwise, [citation needed]

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    7. Re:oh ok by kae_verens · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nobody wants a set of dominoes that large.

      Speak for yourself...

    8. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Another big reason large buildings tend to fall straight down is that is the direction gravity is pulling them. Anything much bigger than three or four stories is going to come apart very soon after leaving vertical, and the pieces come straight down.

      That is simply not true.

      You people and your crackpot theories, pfff.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    9. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 2, Funny

      Surely, if it were easier to get a building to topple over sideways, a team of terrorists isn't going to go through the trouble of averting what would surely be a larger and more spectacular catastrophe.

      Which is why efforts to keep the damage to a minimum would point to an "inside job" conspiracy rather than a "bunch of guys in some desert cave" conspiracy.
      Duh.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    10. Re:oh ok by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Another big reason large buildings tend to fall straight down is that is the direction gravity is pulling them. Anything much bigger than three or four stories is going to come apart very soon after leaving vertical, and the pieces come straight down.

      Yeah, you really have to keep in mind just how big these structures are. With the two main towers, there were dozens of floors above the impact point. It's already a phenomenal engineering feat to hold up that amount of weight. Then consider once the frame becomes weakened. Once any point in the structure starts to give, all those floors above start to move, the weak point is going to buckle. Just think about the amount of kinetic energy all that building gains after accelerating only a few feet. There's no way the structure underneath can survive that even if was completely undamaged. Thus why it seemed as though the towers went into free-fall, the amount of downward force being exerted simply tore through everything like it was cray paper, which then itself fell adding to the mass.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    11. Re:oh ok by mSparks43 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Quite a few actually, they look like this

      Making a building not fall sideways is a complicated task that requires a lot of training and preparation. The thought that you can get three out of three perfect collapses by splashing them with a bit of aviation fuel must have demolition companies shaking in their boots

    12. Re:oh ok by Majik+Sheff · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The difference being that that building was reinforced concrete stack, which is essentially monolithic.

      The discussion is about steel skeleton buildings, which have riveted/welded joints that create natural pivots and fulcrums when stresses become off-centered.

      --
      Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
    13. Re:oh ok by photonic · · Score: 1

      more whitewashing, make sure you never watch the actual footage of that building coming down either, looks pretty symmetrical to me

      Sorry to feed the troll, but just for the record: the claim about asymmetry refers to the layout of the floor beams, which is asymmetric around some beams due to the trapeziodal shape of the building.

      --
      karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
    14. Re:oh ok by digitrev · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I would like to direct your attention towards Benford's law. The one about the frequency of the first digit in natural data. Not to be confused with Benford's law of controversy, although equally applicable to the situation.

      --
      Cynical Idealist
    15. Re:oh ok by 615 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's a common misconception that random events don't or can't look very neat and tidy. [...] The way that a skyscraper is designed and built favors it falling more or less straight down [...]

      It could also be that anyone who has ever watched a Discovery Channel documentary on professional demolition of large buildings has been led to believe that safely and completely collapsing such a building requires weeks of planning and absolutely precise placement and detonation of lots of explosives.

      Or you could just thow some kerosene on it.

    16. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His point is: given two theories A and B (say, conspiracy is A and no conspiracy is B), both predict the same result for this measurement. Both would predict a NIST report that concludes with structural failure. So this fact alone does nothing do support or disprove either theory.
       
      If you look into the report in depth however (something I have NOT done), you might find something. Theory A would predict fundamental logical or factual errors in the report, while theory B would not. If you find such errors, it will support a conspiracy theory, but not really disprove a non-conspiracy theory.

    17. Re:oh ok by Walkingshark · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nobody wants a set of dominoes that large.

      Wow, you've never met a human male, have you?

      --
      The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
    18. Re:oh ok by moosesocks · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It looks as though that building fell down because it either became detached from its foundation, or because the foundation wasn't firmly planted in the ground. The above-ground construction of the building doesn't seem to have been the primary cause of the collapse, as the whole thing seemed to remain largely intact before hitting the ground.

      I'm not going to say that it's "Apples and Oranges," but that video seems to depict a pretty different scenario.

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    19. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes. And fall in the same time as a ball dropped from the top of the building, with nothing but air to slow it's descent.

    20. Re:oh ok by R2.0 · · Score: 1

      "cray paper"?

      I believe you mean "crepe paper", unless therer is something REALLY new in the world of supercomputing.

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    21. Re:oh ok by Gates82 · · Score: 1

      ...the weight increases with the cube of the scaling factor as you scale up a model, yet the strength of the materials used only increases with the square of the scaling factor since it depends on the area of the cross section of the member.

      This may be true with respect to shear (which is area dependent) but Section Modulus (for resolving bending moment) is a cubic function and moment of inertia (for deflection) is to the fourth power.

      --
      So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?

    22. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 1, Informative

      The difference being that that building was reinforced concrete stack, which is essentially monolithic.

      If you say so...

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    23. Re:oh ok by Shihar · · Score: 4, Funny

      The way that a skyscraper is designed and built favors it falling more or less straight down rather to one side or the other. The reason being that if it were to topple, as remote a possibility as that is, the building shouldn't be allowed to hit other buildings. Nobody wants a set of dominoes that large.

      I can safely say with 100% assurance that that is absolutely not true. I would kill to see a set of dominoes that size.

    24. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok so you you got a smaller mass ( the higher collapsing flours) falling over a bigger mass (the lower floors - which were also supported by the ground under them). So now my common sense is suppose to accepts that that smaller mass is able to cause the bigger mass the be pulverized without any resistance?

      Also there is a difference between falling straight down and collapsing onto itself.

    25. Re:oh ok by hey! · · Score: 5, Informative

      Presuming, of course, that such efforts existed.

      "Uncontrolled" collapses of very large buildings are exceedingly rare events, so nobody would really know a priori how the WTC collapses "ought" to have looked. After the fact, the way the floors pancaked doesn't seem at all improbable. As the force of the collapse propagates downward, it meets elements designed to spread a fraction of a single floor's weight onto vertical supports. Since the force of the collapse would be orders of magnitude greater than what these elements were designed to support, it seems probable that they would impede the progress of the collapse to about the same degree that a cloud of smoke would impede a lazily swung sledgehammer.

      Of course, this is just after the fact rationalization, but the engineering analysis confirms it the intuition that no special measures would need to be taken in order for the collapse to proceed in a way that superficially resembles a controlled implosion.

      This conspiracy theory has the usual problems of conspiracy theories, such as providing what mystery writers call "motive, means and opportunity". Motive is a particularly vexing issue, given that seven buildings were destroyed past recovery and numerous other ones damaged, it's hard to connect the end result to the purported motive. Another commonsense question would be whether a government that could not keep Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Echelon, or warrantless surveillance under wraps could have engaged in what must have been a substantial engineering effort on three busy Manhattan buildings without anybody noticing.

      The real appeal of any conspiracy theory is this:it provides an illusion of control. Limited control, that is certain, but the seat of the pants risk evaluation is actually quite astute: if it were some cabal of government officials, you'd actually be less exposed than if twenty men, each armed with a tool costing $1, could kill nearly three thousand people and bring the country to a virtual standstill for weeks.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    26. Re:oh ok by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It could also be that anyone who has ever watched a Discovery Channel documentary on professional demolition of large buildings has been led to believe that safely and completely collapsing such a building requires weeks of planning and absolutely precise placement and detonation of lots of explosives.

      Or you could just thow some kerosene on it.

      I never understood this weak attempt at a sarcastic rebuttal from you "truthers". It's like you just can't wrap your minds around the fact that one of the goals of a controlled demolition is to not cause billions of dollars in damage to surrounding buildings...

      --
      People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
    27. Re:oh ok by HiThere · · Score: 0, Troll

      I don't think your evidence is strong.

      OTOH, I'm not at all sure that I trust any government report to be honest. NIST used to be honest, or at least reliable, but this administration has been repeatedly shown to muzzle those who disagree with it, and to be willing to use paid liars with degrees.

      To me the verdict is: Not Proven.

      It probably CAN'T be proven. Proof requires that you trust those supplying you with evidence, and any trust in the government, or any arm of it, has been systematically undermined during this entire administration. This doesn't automatically mean that they are lying, but it does mean that *I* can't trust them when they say something that doesn't contradict the known government line. (Note the large area of uncertainty!)

      If I were to guess, I would guess that if the report hadn't followed the official line, then they wouldn't have been allowed to publish it. This doesn't mean that it's full of lies, but it certainly leaves the possibility open. They may have been ordered to produce a publishable report, with criteria as to what constitutes publishable.

      I would expect that the report contains few direct lies. (Note, I haven't read it. This is a prediction.) I would also not be surprised if it contained massive equivocation. Did anyone actually read the report of the Warren Commission on the assassination of President Kennedy? That's the kind of report I expect. One that will allow those who interpret it to the public to draw the official conclusion, but which if read closely doesn't say that at all, but rather leaves multiple possibilities open. (Experts hate to directly lie.)

      What do I believe about this? It still changes from moment to moment. The evidence appears equivocal about who actually did what (except for a few people who are dead, and unable to testify further). It doesn't appear to have surprised the government, however, though perhaps the exact date did.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    28. Re:oh ok by Dun+Malg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So you're saying that examples of buildings falling over due to unintentional and intentional bottom floor support failure ((the Manila collapse video and the controlled demo photo) prove that internal fires across multiple floors don't make buildings collapse vertically? There's no point in arguing with logic like that.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    29. Re:oh ok by Hao+Wu · · Score: 1

      People whose experience with construction is limited to building models tend to imagine buildings are much lighter relative to the strength of materials in them then they are.

      Like raising a long pipe, or maybe a flag pole... We could call it a "scale model" for building a tower. Safely keeping construction proportional to the model would be impossible beyond a small increase in scale.

      --
      I suggest you read Slashdot
    30. Re:oh ok by hey! · · Score: 1

      Well, that just means as you scale members to take larger loads, it is shear strength that becomes your limiting factor, doesn't it?

      Which would explain (in an extremely general and hand waving way) why buildings would tend to fall down rather than over.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    31. Re:oh ok by Dun+Malg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ok so you you got a smaller mass ( the higher collapsing flours) falling over a bigger mass (the lower floors - which were also supported by the ground under them). So now my common sense is suppose to accepts that that smaller mass is able to cause the bigger mass the be pulverized without any resistance?

      It didn't pulverize the ENTIRE REMAINING BUILDING simultaneously, genius. The falling, growing, and accelerating mass destroyed the remaining building one floor at a time.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    32. Re:oh ok by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It could also be that anyone who has ever watched a Discovery Channel documentary on professional demolition of large buildings has been led to believe that safely and completely collapsing such a building requires weeks of planning and absolutely precise placement and detonation of lots of explosives.

      Or you could just thow some kerosene on it.

      You have a bizarre perception of the bounds of "safely". Also, the "controlled" appearance of the collapses is a illusion due to the enormity of the scale. The towers didn't fall over, but neither did they tumble straight down into two neat piles within the bounds of their own foundations. The debris field spread out of several blocks.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    33. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 0, Troll

      This conspiracy theory has the usual problems of conspiracy theories, such as providing what mystery writers call "motive, means and opportunity".

      WTC7 was where the evidence in the case of the Enron trial was stored.
      That evidence went up in smoke, these generous contributors to the Bush campaign went free.

      For the whole attack, motive was outlined by the Project for a New American Century, featuring such obscure members as the vice president: One of the core missions outlined in the 2000 report Rebuilding America's Defenses is "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars."
      The report also states:

              "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event â" like a new Pearl Harbor"

      As a result of the 9-11 events, the budget for the "intelligence community" (the same people telling you it was done by Ossama, and that there's a huge arsenal ready to strike in Iraq) has literally doubled since then.
      Money is a very common motive.

      Motive is a particularly vexing issue, given that seven buildings were destroyed past recovery and numerous other ones damaged, it's hard to connect the end result to the purported motive.

      Also, removing all that asbestos (which was no danger to breathe, according to your oh-so-trustworthy government) from those buildings was going to be one hell of a future expense.

      Another commonsense question would be whether a government that could not keep Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Echelon, or warrantless surveillance under wraps could have engaged in what must have been a substantial engineering effort on three busy Manhattan buildings without anybody noticing.

      Anybody noticing the work would simply be told it was routine maintenance.
      Office people do not question men in hard hats drilling behind tarps.
      You see some workers doing work in your building, do you call the police?

      Common sense is that when work is being done in a building, you bitch aboput the noise, you do not assume a terrorist conspiracy.

      The real appeal of any conspiracy theory is this:

      Ah. yes: arm chair psychology! Way to go. You can't imagine the ovious motive of scaring the people so much they'll let you grab extraordinary powers, as they promtly did (funny how fast that USAPATRIOT ACT was written, huh?), but you can see into my soul! Very good.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    34. Re:oh ok by shmlco · · Score: 1

      So whose point are you trying to prove? The arguments portray the building being brought down in a controlled fashion. Which, according to what you just said, meant that teams of people wandered throughout WTC7 weeks beforehand drilling columns, planting explosives, and weakening and/or removing key support structures. All unnoticed and undetected.

      A fire, OTOH, is largely an uncontrollable event. I doubt that a demo company would be willing to guarantee that any building brought down by simply lighting a fire would NOT inadvertently damage adjacent structures. Or that said fire and debris would NOT spread elsewhere.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    35. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't really care all that much what happened.

      However, the comment, "...the building came down due to fire, not due to debris damage..."
      is interesting. What caused the fire, if not burning debris?

      Maybe smokers in the lobby?

      When I first read "1984", I was concerned about the government extending its control into everything. Then I relaxed, as I realized it was being run by the same people who bring you the Post Office.

      I now realize that only SOME of the people need to be competent. The rest can control things incompetently. Proof of this is left to the reader, as an exercise.

    36. Re:oh ok by R2.0 · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Another big reason large buildings tend to fall straight down is that is the direction gravity is pulling them."

      Bullshit - Gravity is just a theory, just like Evolution.

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    37. Re:oh ok by easyTree · · Score: 1

      Anything which forces me to remove my blinkers-of-denial is bad. UR a conspiracy nut and I'm a good American.

      </irony>

    38. Re:oh ok by 615 · · Score: 1

      So whose point are you trying to prove?

      You're catching on. ;-)

      But seriously, the purpose of my original post was merely to suggest an explanation for why lots of people have a hard time accepting the apparent symmetry of the tower collapses being due to chance. (And kudos if you can parse that puppy on the first try.)

    39. Re:oh ok by lgw · · Score: 1

      And when you watch the film, it's obvious. My first thought on 9/11 was "controlled demolition", but watching the towers fall the second time it was clear that the top potion of the building was in freefall, taking outone story at a time as it fell.

      The top portion of the building (above where the plane hit) falls as a unit. The bottom portion fails one floor at a time. If you watch videos of controlled emolitions, the only part that looks the same is the "falling" part.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    40. Re:oh ok by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Informative

      "If you say so..."

      The building you're showing has about 10 floors. WTC 1 and 2 had 10 times that and weighed exponentially more, in spite of being made with substantially similar materials. What would be strong enough to act as a pivot point for a 10 story building would buckle like a house of cards under a 100 story building, long before leaning over enough to "topple over" properly.

    41. Re:oh ok by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      WTC7 was where the evidence in the case of the Enron trial was stored.

      Well, in the first place your chronology is off. The first Enron trial began in 2004. As of 9/11/2001, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were still in charge, and in fact the first public questioning by analysts of Enron's valuation were only a few months old at that time. The SEC investigation didn't begin until October 2001, so if it all were an attempt to cover up Enron evidence, it would quite literally be prescient.

      In any case, there are easier ways to get rid of evidence if you have this kind of power. It is hardly necessary to destroy seven buildings when a fire starting near a single room would do. Even a simple burglary is both easier and more likely to succeed. Add this the fact that the destruction of so many buildings and lives means there would be commission afterwards to investigate. This commission could, of course, be controlled, but if the power to do this certainly it could much more readily have squelched the original investigation.

      This kind of "evidence" is typical of conspiracy theories, which have three hallmarks:

      (1) Require remarkably smooth coordination between conspirators with no demonstrable ties and considerable reason to distrust each other.

      (2) Require the conspirators to choose convoluted, uncertain, and risky means where more direct, more reliable and safer means would presumably be at their disposal.

      (3) Concoction and defense of dramatic "facts" that are either can't substantiated or are even (as here) demonstrably impossible.

      Anybody noticing the work would simply be told it was routine maintenance.

      Now what work, exactly, could be (a) passed of as routine, (b) be so non-invasive that witnesses would fail to recall it later and (c) reliably bring the building down?

        Remember, the whole reason or this theory is that the building could not have imploded without considerable preparation. If a few plastic explosive charges here or there could due the trick, why couldn't extensive structural damage followed by a raging fire?

      Ah. yes: arm chair psychology! Way to go. You can't imagine the ovious motive of scaring the people so much they'll let you grab extraordinary powers, as they promtly did (funny how fast that USAPATRIOT ACT was written, huh?), but you can see into my soul! Very good.

      Armchair it may be, but whereever it proceeds from it is well supported in evidence that conspiracy theories such as this do not explain the facts very well. It follows that since the "explanations" involved are not very convincing in terms of how they reconcile facts, they must be convincing for other reasons. The exact nature of those reasons are, admittedly, a topic of speculation. Who can know for certain? However, I think my explanation is both plausible, and more charitable than the more common assumption that conspiracy theorists are just bat-shit crazy.

      Now, I want to go on record that I do think Enron's senior executives were evil, and that I believe the Bush administration is both evil and wildly incompetent at pursuing its nefarious aims. However, I don't think it is within their scope of competence (or incompetence) to execute this putative conspiracy, nor is there any evidence requiring explanations of this sort.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    42. Re:oh ok by dbcad7 · · Score: 1

      It would seem to me, that it is more likely that it would be the exception rather than the rule for them to fall straight down.. because all it would take is for one of 4 sides to be weaker and collapse first and then weight would shift towards that weaker side increasingly..

      I want to see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenga recreations... now that's some science.

      --
      waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
    43. Re:oh ok by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Informative

      It didn't pulverize the ENTIRE REMAINING BUILDING simultaneously, genius. The falling, growing, and accelerating mass destroyed the remaining building one floor at a time.

      Exactly - it's the same principle which allows a martial-artist to smash through 10 stacked concrete slabs. If you stacked the slabs directly on top of each other he'd smash his fist into goo before doing any damage to them, but if you leave a gap - even just a quarter of an inch - it creates enough space for the slabs to break individually instead of as a combined mass.

    44. Re:oh ok by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event Ã" like a new Pearl Harbor"

      Ah, yes, the favorite canard of the conspiracy idiot. Too bad the rest of the report then goes on to outline in detail the exact opposite strategy of what followed after 9/11.

      That passage of the PNAC report is a good litmus test for the honesty of conspiracy theorists. If you quote it as evidence of conspiracy, it becomes obvious that you haven't actually read the PNAC report, nor have you bothered to look at any evidence which contradicts your theories. It's handy in that it allows me to immediately ascertain that you're an idiot, and move on to debating people who may actually care about the truth.

    45. Re:oh ok by Gates82 · · Score: 1

      Well, that just means as you scale members to take larger loads, it is shear strength that becomes your limiting factor, doesn't it?

      No, two reasons: shear and bending are completely different beasts, and shear is linear while bending moment is squared.

      The point of this thread is comparing ideal models and analysis tools; comparing scale models to larger structures becomes extremely complicated due to these difference and how section properties scale. This is why most structural analysis labs perform their tests with full sized components.

      --
      So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?

    46. Re:oh ok by arminw · · Score: 1

      ...The falling, growing, and accelerating mass destroyed the remaining building one floor at a time.....

      amazingly in the same amount of time as an object would, freely falling through the air from the top of the building?

      --
      All theory is gray
    47. Re:oh ok by robbak · · Score: 1

      Yes, that is correct. Exactly as the theory says it should.
      With that much mass falling at that sort of speeds, the existing structure would not have much effect on its collapse.

      --
      Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
    48. Re:oh ok by Erie+Ed · · Score: 1, Interesting

      History is a pretty good example to use. Considering that WTC 1,2,7 are the first skyscrapers ever to collapse from a fire. Also pretty interesting considering WTC 7 didn't even get hit by anything... just somethings to think about.

    49. Re:oh ok by inKubus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This kind of "evidence" is typical of conspiracy theories, which have three hallmarks:

      (1) Require remarkably smooth coordination between conspirators with no demonstrable ties and considerable reason to distrust each other.

      Like, for instance, a random group of guys from the middle east..

      (2) Require the conspirators to choose convoluted, uncertain, and risky means where more direct, more reliable and safer means would presumably be at their disposal.

      Like for instance living in America for several years, taking flying lessons, and then hopefully taking control of an airliner full of hundreds of people with a KNIFE, and then, never having flown a plane, mind you, fly the gigantic airliner into a huge city of skyscrapers and successfully impact the plane into a cross section of several hundred feet, TWICE?

      (3) Concoction and defense of dramatic "facts" that are either can't substantiated or are even (as here) demonstrably impossible.

      Such as finding a perfect, unscathed copy of the attacker's passport in the wreckage?

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    50. Re:oh ok by Spit · · Score: 1

      Or just stack up some office equipment and paper.

      --
      POKE 36879,8
    51. Re:oh ok by Dirtside · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Demolition companies are just as concerned with preventing debris from ejecting sideways from the building as it collapses as they are with preventing the building as a whole from falling sideways.

      However, to my knowledge, no building as large as the WTC towers have ever been demolished under controlled conditions, and few (if any) buildings with the same internal design (the steel tube core). The steel core of the WTC towers may have very well lent itself to a vertical collapse under any conditions.

      Again, not saying anything conclusive, but merely because three buildings happened to fall more or less straight down when they collapsed is no proof that something secret went on. It could also be argued that since WTC 1 and 2 were more or less identical in structure, they should have been expected to collapse the same way given the similar conditions (of being impacted by jet planes), therefore it's only "two" perfect collapses. (Other problem: define "perfect collapse", the WTC 1/2 debris impacted other buildings, that's hardly perfect.)

      It could *also* be argued that if you're going to demolish giant skyscrapers and kill thousands of people, you're also not going to care about collateral damage, so why not make them topple sideways so that it looks more accidental? Basically, it's bogus to assume that a straight-down collapse implies shenanigans in the first place.

      --
      "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
    52. Re:oh ok by bm_luethke · · Score: 1

      "It could also be that anyone who has ever watched a Discovery Channel documentary on professional demolition of large buildings has been led to believe that safely and completely collapsing such a building requires weeks of planning and absolutely precise placement and detonation of lots of explosives."

      Actually, it does require that. It requires a vast amount of labor *and* highly specialized and complex physics/engineering.

      Of course the operative word there is "safe" - it isn't uncommon for them to totally destroy a building and have a mostly glass front on the building next to it have *no* damage. It also takes removing a vast amount of the mass of the building beforehand.

      It's not that hard to get a large structure to fall, especially *really* large ones. In fact it's probably harder to get them to stand up. It's just hard to get one to do so safely.

      None of the WTC centers fell neatly or safely, the fell in an uncoordinated and dangerous way. The *did* topple over sideways to a large extent, they are just *really* large structures and the amount of sideways movement they can do before gravity becomes the dominate force and the pivot points gives isn't a very visible. They did significant damage to the structures around them (and, in fact, caused some to collapse also).

      There is the occasional video of one of the (un)controlled demolitions going bad and the building "toppling" - it looks about like the WTC collapses too for the same reason. Gravity is a bitch when things go into free fall, it dominates pretty much all the other forces in play.

      Heck, it isn't that hard to find where a fuel truck wrecked on a small to medium bridge and the resultant fire weaken the steel and caused a collapse (that went pretty much straight down). It wasn't *that* long that one such incident made the national news on a large bridge and a small one near my house had the same fate last year.

      --
      ------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
    53. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Except the part about a 100+ story building falling completely to the ground in 11 seconds. I guess if each floor provided absolutely NO resistance then it could happen. wait a sec.... that would mean... That isn't science!

    54. Re:oh ok by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      Hahahahaha what garbage...terrible physics, just terrible.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    55. Re:oh ok by sir+fer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Since the force of the collapse would be orders of magnitude greater than what these elements were designed to support, it seems probable that they would impede the progress of the collapse to about the same degree that a cloud of smoke would impede a lazily swung sledgehammer.

      More handwaving bullshit. You have no idea that anything you have stated is true apart from the fact you pulled it out of your own stinking arse.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    56. Re:oh ok by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      You forget that high-rise buildings are not constructed as to make it easier for a cosmic martial-artist to smack and break it, like the 'example' you mentioned.

      There's a steel core, reduntant braces, supports. Not no easy to judo chop it now, champ. :-)

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    57. Re:oh ok by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      1. Start me a demolition company that uses exclusively aviation grade fuel.
      2. ???
      3. profit!

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    58. Re:oh ok by terjeber · · Score: 1

      Nothing on earth falls as in free fall. Everything is acted upon with forces in the opposite direction of gravity. One of the notions spouted by the conspiracy nuts is that the building fell exactly as if it was falling in one standard Earth gravity.

      The above leaves us with two possible options. Either the "government" who brought down the WTC managed to change the laws of physics, or the conspiracy nuts are simply wrong when they calculate the time it took the building to fall. I know what I think is more likely.

      Now, the other interesting point here is that in order for the "government" to create a fall like that by controlled demolition, they would have to hire quite a bunch of experts. These would have to go up and drill holes in the infrastructure, pull wires all over the building, and put a crapload of explosives all over the place. They would have to do this in a building with staff that is in place 24/7, and with nobody noticing.

      The conspiracy nuts need to go take their medication.

    59. Re:oh ok by terjeber · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, and the thought that you can have a demolition crew in place in two of the most crowded work-places in the world for weeks ahead of Sept 11, and nobody notices them is a lot less of a weird thought.

      If more than 3 people share a secret it is no longer a secret. No government brought down the WTC, no space ships have ever landed on earth (in human history anyway) and no, Santa Claus does not exist.

    60. Re:oh ok by terjeber · · Score: 1

      Given that the WTC was fairly unique in it's construction (with a massive core) and that all of the buildings were built in a similar manner, it is not too strange.

      It is for sure less strange than the idea that there was a bunch of invisible demolition crews running around the place drilling holes in walls with soundless pneumatic drills, pulling invisible cables all over the building and in so many ways behaving in violation of physical laws and common sense.

    61. Re:oh ok by terjeber · · Score: 1

      WTC7 was where the evidence in the case of the Enron trial was stored.

      That is, by far, the most insane of all the conspiracy theories I have read. Simply because it involves the usage of a time machine. The Enron collapse came long after 9/11. Sorry dude, you are crazy. By definition.

      Anybody noticing the work would simply be told it was routine maintenance.

      Yes, and since a huge number of people who worked in the buildings actually did not die, and therefore a huge number of witnesses to these crews are still alive. It is good for you that the government used the MIB Neuralizer to erase the memories of those individuals.

      You can't imagine the ovious motive of scaring the people so much they'll let you grab extraordinary powers

      Imagination is a little overused with you. Try a couple of quarts of common sense. Add a little logic and education and you will be fine. Don't mind this nice white jacket I have. You will be able to move your head and speak. Don't worry. No, it is not a dinner jacket, it is called a straitjacket.

    62. Re:oh ok by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      I got modded troll too. I understand. :-)

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    63. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The area is clean and safe now. The 1 mile camera shots of the towers falling looked tidy as they fell, but they weren't.

    64. Re:oh ok by MrResistor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Clearly, you have never flown a plane either.

      I am not a licensed pilot, nor have I received any training to speak of, and yet I have flown a plane before. A roughly 30 second explanation of the stick and pedals was quite sufficient, and by the way I was about 10 years old at the time. Of course, I didn't take off or land the plane, but then neither did the 9/11 hijackers. I'm pretty certain I could have hit a building if I had wanted to, even given that the only buildings in the area were single family homes, much smaller than the WTC towers.

      --
      Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
    65. Re:oh ok by Mycroft_VIII · · Score: 1

      I was under the impression most 'skyscrapers' were DESIGNED to collapse straight down if anything ever went wrong, including something asymmetric.
          It stands to reason someone had to realize that a building tall enough to hit it's neighbors if it fell over sideways would be a bad idea (domino effect anyone?).
          In a place as crowded with tall buildings as NYC is I would hope that at least a few people in lawmaking positions would cause such robust design to be mandated.

      Mycroft

      --
      https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
    66. Re:oh ok by notrandomly · · Score: 1
      You need to read this comment, which points ou that you are wrong:

      "There are many examples of other steel buildings that collapsed due to fire before 9/11."

      Also pretty interesting considering WTC 7 didn't even get hit by anything...

      Not hit by anything? It was hit by falling and burning debris from the twin towers! Are you even paying attention? Did you even bother to read the summary in the Slashdot story?

    67. Re:oh ok by savuporo · · Score: 1

      WDYM no spaceships have landed ? Mike Melvill would take issue with that, and quite a bunch of Shuttle or Soyuz pilots as well.

      --
      http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
    68. Re:oh ok by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      More to add to your point, without any training, I've been able to take a 767 and crash it into lots of buildings in MS Flight Sim. The way planes are these days, they are just big video games in essence. Doesn't take a whole hell of a lot of skill.

    69. Re:oh ok by DMCBOSTON · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's like this: It's steel and concrete. Each floor is 200 feet square. That's about one acre. Picture a poured concrete pad of one acre suspended by a (really strong) rope. Cut the rope, it goes straight down. Now try to push it sideways. The inertia of the mass of the concrete resists that force. Gravity wants to pull it straight down. So it wants (cause this is smart concrete and has a choice)to go down. (Insert your own lewd thought here) A pancaking building is doing just that. The weakened steel joints cannot bear the force of the weight above it and snaps. Once you set that mass in motion, and the momentum builds up, it is inevitable that it come straight down. Remember, the building was 110 stories of an acre of concrete each. Such an enormous mass needs an enormous force to do anything but come straight down.

    70. Re:oh ok by terjeber · · Score: 1

      My bad. Replace "space ships" with "alien space ships".

    71. Re:oh ok by LambertH · · Score: 1

      Which is total baloney. I don't have the structural engineering math to refute this, but others have. The WTC towers were over engineered to withstand two jet liners (of the 60'70's era) hitting them. Sure, once the collapse began, there was no way for lower floors to hold up, but neither could they fail instantly and result in free-fall acceleration. The math has been done by others, and they should have taken way more than 10 seconds to collapse.

    72. Re:oh ok by arminw · · Score: 1

      ....conspiracy nuts are simply wrong when they calculate the time it took the building to fall....

      There is nothing to calculate here, because it has all been measured by the video and seismic records. The "official" explanation for the collapse is doubtful, simply because the collapse took place too fast, according to the laws of gravity and inertia.

      --
      All theory is gray
    73. Re:oh ok by FrozenFOXX · · Score: 1

      The difference being that that building was reinforced concrete stack, which is essentially monolithic.

      If the building was monolithic, would that explain how it induced F.E.A.R. in people?

      --
      "Just a fox, a whisper."
    74. Re:oh ok by terjeber · · Score: 1

      The "official" explanation for the collapse is doubtful, simply because the collapse took place too fast, according to the laws of gravity and inertia.

      Good. So not only does the Bush administration have access to invisible demolition crews who have access to silent Thermite and invisible thermite detonation cables. The Bush administration also has access to extra-gravitational devices that makes things fall faster than they possibly could under the laws of gravity and inertia.

      Are you not self-aware enough to understand how insane you sound?

      Any demolition crew would have the exact same problem. There is no way they could make the building fall as fast as you crackpots claim it fell. There is no feasible way of doing this short of completely de-atomizing the entire building below 95th floor. All of the material would have to vanish instantly, but it would have to leave an image of it self as it pretended to collapse.

      What is more likely? The Bush administration has access to de-Atomizers that leave a video of the building in 3D for all to watch as they totally remove every atom below 95th floor or that the crackpot theory about the time of the building collapse is just that. Pure, utter, insane crackpot.

    75. Re:oh ok by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      No, it's not baloney, and it was a civil engineer who designed tall buildings that was telling me this. A side impact from a jet liner is nothing compared to the impact of a large 20 story building falling on top of it, okay? Once it starts to fall, the lower floors would fail instantly, because as over-engineered as it was for the task of supporting a building, it wasn't anywhere close to being built to withstand that. As the engineer who had in fact done the math, using actual specialized domain knowledge said, once it starts to fail that seemingly strong steel structure was going to be more like toothpicks.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    76. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isaac Newton must be spinning in his grave. The amount of downward force on the lower part of the building must equal the upward force on the upper part (Newton's Third Law). The upper part cannot therefore be in free fall or anywhere close to it.

    77. Re:oh ok by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Newton's 3rd Law. So the 20 story building experiences an amount of deceleration equivalent to the amount of force required to destroy the single floor underneath it, i.e. a microsecond of deceleration, followed by more acceleration due to that other great theory of Newton's, gravity.

      So yes, it absolutely can be "anywhere close" to free fall.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    78. Re:oh ok by lgw · · Score: 1

      The tops of the buildings fell a bit slower than free fall, exactly what you would expect given that each floor offered almost no resistance to the falling mass.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    79. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one wants a set of dominoes this large? Are you kidding me? Sign me up!

    80. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe it wasn't supposed to look "accidental" but more dramatic. There's a difference, there.

    81. Re:oh ok by gnuman99 · · Score: 1

      It is only complicated for small structures, like that one in the video. Small, concrete structures.

      WTC was huge by comparison. And it is steel.

      Steel does NOT like being compressed. Steel only works through tension. Compression - bad for steel. Concrete, on other hand, does not like bending, but will take HELL of a lot of compression. The building pictured is steel/concrete so tough -> not easy to break and too small to pancake by itself.

      This is why reinforced concrete structures are difficult to take down. You have to plan ahead, weaken support walls. Heck, put dynamite in support walls.

      In a steel structure, you take out the foundation, and rest basically goes straight down. But because of risks of stuff flying around and ease of taking steel apart, steel buildings are generally taken down piece by piece, from top down. No explosions needed to take them out.

      And please, don't compare crappily built, small buildings to large steel sky scrappers.

      For an example, do the following. Get bunch of paperback books (you know, 400-1000 pages each) and stack 12 of them. Then push them over. They will end up all over the place.

      Now, build a stack 100 books (ok, 60+ should do). Now, push at the 30th book from the bottom. Do they continue to tip over like the 12th story high structure? Probably not.

    82. Re:oh ok by gnuman99 · · Score: 1

      no space ships have ever landed on earth (in human history anyway)

      Now who's the flat earther? Apollo, Soyuz, Shuttle, Mercury. Need to name more?

      As for extra-terrestrials, I think your statement may be premature. Kind of like saying that there cannot be any 2 headed snakes, yet,

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycephaly

    83. Re:oh ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It could *also* be argued that if you're going to demolish giant skyscrapers and kill thousands of people, you're also not going to care about collateral damage, so why not make them topple sideways so that it looks more accidental?

      Because then the fearless truth-seekers would immediately point out that the building fell too far away from vertical, proving that it brought down by asymmetric demolition charges. So the only way to make it plausibly look like a spontaneous collapse is to make it fall just slightly off vertical with lots of ejecta. Just like what happened. Proving the conspiracy!!!

    84. Re:oh ok by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

      You do realize this is WTC7, not 1 or 2

    85. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      The SEC investigation didn't begin until October 2001, so if it all were an attempt to cover up Enron evidence, it would quite literally be prescient.

      Yes, as if they knew they were commiting criminal acts and covering them up. Odd!

      This kind of "evidence" is typical of conspiracy theories, which have three hallmarks:

      You don't even understand that a criminal will know in advance that he will need to cover his tracks. You call that "prescience".
      And you presume to lecture me on my way of thinking? Wow!

      (1) Require remarkably smooth coordination between conspirators with no demonstrable ties and considerable reason to distrust each other.

      Such as business associates with investments in the same long-term endeavours who golf together often.
      You mean these people with no ties and no trust?

      Seriously?

      Explain to me where your assumption of no ties comes from.
      Then your assumption of distrust.

      You take these assumptions as valid dismissal, you offer no proof, and yet you claim that the people you're contradicting are the ones without proof.
      Bravo.

      (2) Require the conspirators to choose convoluted, uncertain, and risky means where more direct, more reliable and safer means would presumably be at their disposal.

      Presumes the man who's unable to understand that criminals foresee the need to destroy evidence prior to the start of an official investigation, and unable to understand that business partners have ties and reasons to trust each other (if one of them goes down, they all go down, they must watch each others back).

      You seem to be making the claim that conspiracies are inherently impossible. Why would there be entriesd in criminal codes the world over mentioning "conspiracy to commit" if conspiracies were inherently impossible?
      I mean, the Nixon administration was not involved in a conspiracy against anyone ataying at the watergate hotel, and surely no one mentioned in the incriminating Nixon tapes was head of the Department of Defense at the time in which there couldn't possibly a conspiracy, right?

      It's all make believe by nuts, huh?

      (3) Concoction and defense of dramatic "facts" that are either can't substantiated or are even (as here) demonstrably impossible.

      You demonstrated nothing. You made ignorant comments to contradict me, but those were demonstrably invalid.

      If a few plastic explosive charges here or there could due the trick, why couldn't extensive structural damage followed by a raging fire?

      That's true, if that's the case, why is there an entire industry devoted to "imploding " buildings?
      All you have to do is set fire to the joint and step back for a few hours, why waste millions paying professionals to spend time and explosives on accomplishing a result that will occur naturally without human intervention?

      There must be a demoliition conspiracy, huh? All these shadowy people in hard hats, convincing the world that only their arcane arts can bring down a building on its own footprint in one smooth motion! Is that your theory?

      BTW, I notice you're getting far far away from your primary dismissal: Lack of motive.

      The motive is : Billions and billions of dollars, as well as a short-time absolute power while everyone is scared shitless.

      Tell me, how could anyone not see the motive? Billions of dollars involved, and you can't see the motive. I don't know if if I find that more sad or more infuriating, to be surrounded by fools who can't see money as a motive for murder.

      It follows that since the "explanations" involved are not very convincing

      None is as blind as those who refuse to look.

      Here's the crux of your argument: "I'm not convinced". It's an emotion, you're not approaching this honestly and rationally, you have an emotional investment in believing that the people who have the power of life and death over you aren't willi8ng to kill you for a buck, and so you rationalise away any evidence that they do.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    86. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event Ã" like a new Pearl Harbor"

      Ah, yes, the favorite canard of the conspiracy idiot. Too bad the rest of the report then goes on to outline in detail the exact opposite strategy of what followed after 9/11.

      following perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections, members of the PNAC, including Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Robert Zoellick drafted an open letter to President Bill Clinton, posted on its website, urging President Clinton to remove Saddam Hussein from power using U.S. diplomatic, political, and military power.

      Ah, yes, they did the OPPOSITE of that.

      You are obviously right, and I am obviously the "idiot", not you.
      Obviously.

      After 9-11, members of the PNAC, including Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, did NOT use perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections to remove Saddam Hussein from power using U.S. diplomatic, political, and military power.

      That did not happen, according to you. Only dishonest conspiracy idiots think that is what happened.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    87. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      WTC7 was where the evidence in the case of the Enron trial was stored.

      That is, by far, the most insane of all the conspiracy theories I have read. Simply because it involves the usage of a time machine. The Enron collapse came long after 9/11. Sorry dude, you are crazy. By definition.

      How could criminals possibly know that they have to destroy evidence of their crimes!
      That's unpossible! They couldn't know that what they did was criminal, they couldn't know where the detailed records of their intricate crimes were located, they couldn't know the jig was up!

      You're mentally retarded, conviced that people with an IQ above yours are simply crazy, by definition.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    88. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      "If you say so..."

      The building you're showing has about 10 floors. WTC 1 and 2 had 10 times that

      We're talking about WTC7.

      Wanna tell me about other, unrellated stuff while you're at it? Your shoe size? The date of the first hot dog eating competion?

      WTC7, not 1, not 2: SEVEN.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    89. Re:oh ok by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      I got modded troll too. I understand. :-)

      It'll happen everytime you imply that the US could do anything un-good.

      And most likely it's happen after the convo has died down. There's people trolling with modpoints, sad, but true.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    90. Re:oh ok by Guppy06 · · Score: 1

      "We're talking about WTC7."

      47 stories, about five times the height of the building pictured. Everything else I said about the weight of a building going up exponentially with height remains the same.

      Now, is there anything else you're too lazy to look, or do you wish to continue feeling self-important?

    91. Re:oh ok by terjeber · · Score: 1

      WTC7 was where the evidence in the case of the Enron trial was stored.

      That is, by far, the most insane of all the conspiracy theories I have read. Simply because it involves the usage of a time machine. The Enron collapse came long after 9/11. Sorry dude, you are crazy. By definition.

      How could criminals possibly know that they have to destroy evidence of their crimes!

      So you didn't even understand what was written, proving that you in fact are mentally handicapped. The statement is that evidence for the Enron trial was stored at WTC. Since there was no trial, no investigation or in any other way a reason to collect (or therefore store) evidence. If there no evidence collected, how can it be stored anywhere?

      That's unpossible!

      Eh... the word you are looking for is impossible.

      they couldn't know where the detailed records of their intricate crimes were located,

      There was no trial, no investigation and no evidence to store anywhere. Dang, you are retarded!

      You're mentally retarded, conviced that people with an IQ above yours are simply crazy, by definition.

      My underwear has a higher IQ than you do.

  7. Wake up sheeple! by neoform · · Score: 4, Funny

    Zombies obviously did it.

    --
    MABASPLOOM!
    1. Re:Wake up sheeple! by maxume · · Score: 5, Funny

      Let's leave McCain out of this one.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    2. Re:Wake up sheeple! by nurmr · · Score: 1

      A wizard did it!

    3. Re:Wake up sheeple! by rfc1394 · · Score: 1

      Zombies obviously did it

      Don't worry, Gordon Freeman will take care of them. I've seen him kill hundreds of zombies. Or maybe I was seeing something, I don't remember exactly; perhaps I had something to do with it.

      --
      The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
    4. Re:Wake up sheeple! by Buran · · Score: 1

      Zombies that didn't fight the fire. Did they bother to simulate the effects of actually fighting the fire? Surely, if you are going to report that a fire caused a building to collapse, you have to factor in "the fire department did not respond to the fire" as part of why the building fell. Perhaps the fire would have caused it to collapse anyway, but what was the possibility that, had the fire department responded to the fire and fought it, the building wouldn't have collapsed?

      No, I don't feel like watching the video.

    5. Re:Wake up sheeple! by Sj0 · · Score: 1

      You're just a Dungeons and Dragons playing Obama supporter.

      You know, Those role-playing games and comic books are tearing America apart!!!

      --
      It's been a long time.
    6. Re:Wake up sheeple! by nimbius · · Score: 1

      zombies? come on, this was obviously the work of the dastardly 4chan.

      --
      Good people go to bed earlier.
    7. Re:Wake up sheeple! by maxume · · Score: 1

      Accusing people of playing Dungeons and Dragons is serious business.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  8. 9/11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is sooo 2001

  9. Re:Really? by Shados · · Score: 1

    YOU GOT IT! Thats exactly it!!! I couldn't I notice myself... It is so obvious now that you mention it...

    Europe has better engineers than America!

  10. obligatory comment. by scenestar · · Score: 1

    And yes, they used Beowulf clusters to do the simulations

    Yes, But did they run linux?

    --
    perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
    1. Re:obligatory comment. by Skiron · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Yes, But did they run linux?" No, XP/Vista - that's whay it took 3 years to do the graphics.

    2. Re:obligatory comment. by jrothwell97 · · Score: 4, Funny

      no, that was because the technician downloaded Smiley Central.

      --
      Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
    3. Re:obligatory comment. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It also took seven years for the study just because they had to upgrade to Vista in the middle of the study.

    4. Re:obligatory comment. by unitron · · Score: 1

      Yes, But did they run linux?

      Yes, according to the scientist I saw on C-SPAN doing the presentation of this report. He specifically said "Linux computers", although he did not use the phrase "Beowulf cluster".

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  11. So... Umm... by vertinox · · Score: 1

    Its a reasonable conclusion that a tower would collapse it it caught on fire, but how did the impact debris catch the tower on fire?

    --
    "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
    -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    1. Re:So... Umm... by EdZ · · Score: 3, Informative

      It didn't. The hundreds of tons of flaming debris ignited by hundreds of gallons of aviation fuel did.

    2. Re:So... Umm... by vertinox · · Score: 1

      Can't type today... There should be an if where one of those extra "it" are.

      This is a serious question. I'm curious to what kind of debris and how much fire it was on as it seemed to enter the lower floors of the other building.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    3. Re:So... Umm... by colfer · · Score: 5, Informative

      About 23,000 gal. of diesel fuel was stored in the bldg, mainly on the bottom floors but some as high as the 7th. "Several months after the WTC 7 collapse, a contractor recovered" the fuel from the tanks and, "unaccounted fuel totaled... somewhere between 0 and 2,000 gallons..." And "The worst-case scenarios associated with fires being fed by ruptured fuel lines-or from fuel stored in day tanks on the lower floors-could not have been sustained long enough, could not have generated sufficient heat to weaken critical interior columns, and/or would have produced large amounts of visible smoke from the lower floors, which were not observed."
      http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_qa_082108.html

      Anyway, steel bends in fires, that's why it has to be insulated and why steel bldg's must have sprinkler systems. I doubt the fire dept. was able to respond effectively in time.

    4. Re:So... Umm... by Martin+Blank · · Score: 4, Informative

      The fire in the North Tower was still burning and spreading when the tower collapsed. While it was obscured somewhat by dust and smoke during the fall, flaming debris did spread out over considerable distances, some of it striking WTC7, breaking through the windows and setting aflame material in the lower floors, which spread rapidly as the collapse of the Twin Towers had done considerable damage to the water systems in the area, and water pressure for the firefighting systems was very low.

      The immediate evacuation of WTC7 (among others) as soon as the evacuation of the main towers was ordered saved a great many lives.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    5. Re:So... Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, we've been so lucky to find Mohammed Atta's passport in pristine condition several blocks from Ground Zero one day after that hell-like firestorm brought down 1.2 million ton of material.

    6. Re:So... Umm... by matria · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Obviously you've never done forensics at a fire scene. I have; my father was on the governor's arson squad (State of California Division of Forestry) while I was a teenager, and they used me as a photographer since my grandfather had given me an excellent camera. You would be amazed at what odds and ends survive the most awful fires.

    7. Re:So... Umm... by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yeah, we've been so lucky to find Mohammed Atta's passport in pristine condition several blocks from Ground Zero one day after that hell-like firestorm brought down 1.2 million ton of material.

      This... survived this...

      --
      People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
    8. Re:So... Umm... by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, we've been so lucky to find Mohammed Atta's passport in pristine condition several blocks from Ground Zero one day after [...]

      Also, this is just wrong. His passport was found on the street below; after the impact, but before the collapses.

      --
      People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
    9. Re:So... Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only that, there was another "passport/visa" found at the 93 crash site...of one of the hijackers....what are the odds of now 2 being found?

      There was also a "passport/visa" found at the pentagon.....guess of who...a hijacker...go figure.....now, what are the odds of all 3 of these not only surviving but being found then? I'm trying to find sources right now but I'm pretty sure that there were at least 3 of the hijackers "passports/visas" found at the crash sites.

      I can go along with one. But three at the three crash sites (I'm including WTC as one crash site)? Now the odds are becoming more and more astronomical.

      Not good since at the Pentagon they cannot find:

      The wings
      Any of the seats
      The tail ...

    10. Re:So... Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Let's do a simple thought experiment here.

      What happens when you hit an airliner seat repeatedly with a sledgehammer? How about an airplane wing?

      OK, now, try hitting the passport repeatedly with the same sledgehammer.

    11. Re:So... Umm... by Dun+Malg · · Score: 4, Informative

      ...since at the Pentagon they cannot find:

      The wings Any of the seats The tail ...

      Who says? Your idiot tr00fer friends? Planes don't make a cartoon like plane-shaped hole when they hit a reinforced concrete building. Delicate structures like the wings and tail planes practically disintegrate. Hell, most of an aircraft is aluminum, and betrwwen fire and impact, not much remains intact. You wanna see the wreckage of AA flt 77? See here. It's right there, in the pentagon, in small, torn up, fire damaged pieces.

      Idiot.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    12. Re:So... Umm... by MadnessASAP · · Score: 1

      Tell me about it, when our garage burnt down the roof was gone, most of the walls were burnt to the ground, the propane tanks had ruptured, the axe had fused to the concrete floor pad, most of the tools were recognizable as blackened misshapen chunks of metal on the floor, my baby videos were (thankfully) vaporized and my dads stamp collection... was slightly charred. never quite figured out how the hell that happened but there you go.

      --
      I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
    13. Re:So... Umm... by matria · · Score: 1

      I learned that if you're going to commit arson, never toss evidence into the area to be burned, presuming that it will be destroyed in the fire.

    14. Re:So... Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyway, I'm a computer geek (past tense, I used to run BBS's in the way back machine [ Tag, renegade, oblivion, and played with quiver for a while just incase you wanted to know]) anyway I'm a civil engineer that does construction testing and one thing I can tell you is they just began testing the fire proofing in these buildings within the last 4 to 8 years (depending on the state). When we tested these materials during those first few years of testing one of the things we learned was NONE and I mean NONE of the materials or the installation provided by the fire proofing contractors met spec. These materials failed pull tests for adherence, density checks, thickness checks, or burn tests. So the lesson from this story is for the crack pots just because there is a code that says something should be fire proof doesn't mean the contractor followed that code to the T.

    15. Re:So... Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does anyone else think this photo looks like a photoshop job?

    16. Re:So... Umm... by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that they not only found seats, but found bodies still strapped into the seats. The Moussaoui trial archive has pictures of the bodies and wreckage, which were used as evidence at the trial.

    17. Re:So... Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "delicate" structures called wings are actually the ones what hold the whole plane from falling. They are supposed to be the strongest part of the plane, they are designed to handle huge frontal loads. They also contain a significant part of the jet fuel. Its mass alone should be enough to ... well ... leave a mark.

      Yet, somehow all the jet fuel went inside the building. I kid you not, NGC animation does show how wings detach and enter into the hole created by the plain body.

    18. Re:So... Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually the wings are designed to do the exact opposite of what you are saying. Wings are designed so that the air flows around them and creates lift which allows the plane to stay in the air. So in fact no they don't handle huge frontal loads.

    19. Re:So... Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They responded in amazing time, then the towers came down and killed 600 of the fire fighters. At that point other buildings nearby that had already been evacuated being on fire was secondary to trying to rescue all those people, including all those fire fighters under the rubble they thought might still be alive.

    20. Re:So... Umm... by terjeber · · Score: 1

      No, no, no, no, no... That accident was staged, and the patch was placed just so that you could use it to defuse the conspiracy theorists. Sorry, the truth-knowers. The fact that you just used it is proof positive that the same demolition crew that brought down the WTC was secretly on the space station damaging the shuttle.

      The really sad thing about this is that now that I have uttered this, these conspiracy nuts will gobble it up as fact. They will use /. as a source of truth, proving that they are right.

      Could we please neuter them together with the entire Bush and Cheney families?

    21. Re:So... Umm... by DrXym · · Score: 1
      Anyway, steel bends in fires, that's why it has to be insulated and why steel bldg's must have sprinkler systems. I doubt the fire dept. was able to respond effectively in time.

      Not only that, retardant rated by how long it will withstand (resist) fire. WTC7 was badly damaged, burning on multiple floors and left to burn all day with no fire suppression. The beams were sprayed with 2h/3h fire resistant material so some of them were well past their certified protection. It's no surprise it collapsed, especially when we have firemen on record reporting scary looking bulges and other signs of structural failure well before it finally came down.

    22. Re:So... Umm... by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      Having a wall of air moving in speeds in excess of 450 mph into a relatively thin skin of aluminum is quite different from hitting a concrete wall at 600 mph.

    23. Re:So... Umm... by wudukes · · Score: 1

      Where are the massive engines? What temperature does titanium melt? Look it up. OVER 65,000C So.. a pilot who took single engine Cessna flight instruction in Florida took a massive jumbo airliner down from 10,000 feet to 30 meters off the ground to hit the pentagon square on? Then the plane disintegrated into a 5 foot hole in the side of the building? Then the FEDs wont release over 80 video tapes of what really happened because of national security... hmmm.... hmm..

    24. Re:So... Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      65,000 C? God, you people are idiots. Get it through your heads that your intuition about what will happen in events involving masses, velocities, and chemical energies this large is *ZERO*. Your life experience throwing baseballs, riding in cars, and watching kindling and paper burn counts for jack shit in this case.

      Here's the next conspiracy to focus on: AIDS doesn't exist. No virus does. How could a virus, with a mass far less than a milligram, kill a person with a mass of 100 kg?

      Mice don't kill tigers, hummingbirds don't kill elephants. Trust your biological intuition and stop the lies!!!One!

    25. Re:So... Umm... by wudukes · · Score: 0

      Due to their high tensile strength to density ratio,[6] high corrosion resistance[2], and ability to withstand moderately high temperatures without creeping, titanium alloys are used in aircraft, armor plating, naval ships, spacecraft, and missiles.[3][2] For these applications titanium alloyed with aluminium, vanadium, and other elements is used for a variety of components including critical structural parts, fire walls, landing gear, exhaust ducts (helicopters), and hydraulic systems. In fact, about two thirds of all titanium metal produced is used in aircraft engines and frames.[21] The SR-71 "Blackbird" was one of the first aircraft to make extensive use of titanium within its structure, paving the way for its use in modern fighter and commercial aircraft. An estimated 59 metric tons (130,000 pounds) are used in the Boeing 777, 45 in the 747, 18 in the 737, 32 in the Airbus A340, 18 in the A330, and 12 in the A320. The A380 may use 146 metric tons, including about 26 tons in the engines.[38] In engine applications, titanium is used for rotors, compressor blades, hydraulic system components, and nacelles. The titanium 6AL-4V alloy accounts for almost 50% of all alloys used in aircraft applications.[39] Due to its high corrosion resistance to sea water, titanium is used to make propeller shafts and rigging and in the heat exchangers of desalination plants;[2] in heater-chillers for salt water aquariums, fishing line and leader, and for divers' knives. Titanium is used to manufacture the housings and other components of ocean-deployed surveillance and monitoring devices for scientific and military use. The former Soviet Union developed techniques for making submarines largely out of titanium, which became both the fastest and deepest diving submarines ever made.[40] Titanium commercial aerospace requirements (including engine components [e.g., blades, discs, rings and engine cases] and airframe components [e.g., bulkheads, tail sections, landing gear, wing supports and fasteners]) for the manufacture of: Boeing (including both the airframes and engines) * B787 â" 295,000 pounds (133.8 tonne) of titanium * B777 â" 130,000 pounds (59 tonne) of titanium * B747 â" 100,000 pounds (45.4 tonne) of titanium * B737 â" 40,000 pounds (18.1 tonne) of titanium do the math, make 2x100,000 pounds of titanium(engine) dissipate into thin air because it somehow disintegrated on impact. Are you in denial? you really trust the government? sad.

  12. Erm... by jez9999 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here.

    You must be new here.

    1. Re:Erm... by rhizome · · Score: 1

      ...but was left to burn several floors out completely.

      Let's talk about the science behind the construction of this statement, shall we?

      --
      When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
  13. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's just get this out of the way first. BULLSHIT!

    The rest of the world knows something suspicious went on, but America has their head in the sand.
    Not long after this shit, there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off. The steel structure was still standing but oxidizing flame was enough to melt or buckle steel in the trade center? The sheer ignorance of the American populace astounds me.

    Interesting. Then I am curious as to what temperature would be required to melt and/or buckle the structure of your aluminum foil hat?

  14. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's just get this out of the way first. BULLSHIT!

    The rest of the world knows something suspicious went on, but America has their head in the sand.
    Not long after this shit, there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off. The steel structure was still standing but oxidizing flame was enough to melt or buckle steel in the trade center? The sheer ignorance of the American populace astounds me.

    Actually not the American populace. There are countless amounts of people here that don't buy this bull. Many people, regardless of where they live are fed crap everyday and take it as gospel. Any opposing view points are shrugged off as "conspiracy theories".

  15. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow, thank God we got that out of the way!

    For a second I thought people might actually try and follow that no crackpot theories line. As long as I can come to Slashdot to hear some crazy kooks yelling, I'll know the terrorists haven't won yet.

  16. It's obvious that... by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

    ...he must be new here.

  17. Unpossible! by mrbah · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do they mean to say that a fire can cause a building to collapse? Next they'll be telling us damage to structures following earthquakes isn't manmade.

    1. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, this is weird still, as the fire they say was in this building was not the kind of superheated fueled fire from engine fuel, rather just the paper and office materials burning from secondary fires. If this building could not stand up to he heat of some normal fires, even without fire suppression working, what does this mean for the safety of other buildings? Seriously, a normal office fire should not be able to bring down a building, thermal expansion should be accounted for considering extended temperatures of normal fires. If not, then every building is capable of easy collapse from fires that are actually pretty common in apartment buildings.

    2. Re:Unpossible! by jcr · · Score: 1

      what does this mean for the safety of other buildings?

      Not much. The key here is that the fire was burning for many hours, without sprinkers, around very long girders that expanded and buckled. It took a combination of factors, not the least of which was that there was no water supply for firefighting, to bring WTC 7 down.

      I used to work in that building, back when I was doing a gig for the soft-dollar desk at Salomon brothers. It still shakes me up to think it's not there anymore.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    3. Re:Unpossible! by smchris · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Do they mean to say that a fire can cause a building to collapse?

      Name another steel skyscraper fire where the building collapsed.

      There was certainly smoke coming out of the towers where the planes hit. I don't remember a lot of smoke around WTC7.

    4. Re:Unpossible! by DavidTC · · Score: 5, Informative

      Um, fires can pretty much bring down every building without some sort of suppression.

      The sole exception is concrete, which can leave a hollow shell. Of course, no one on earth can build a 47 story concrete building.

      Any building with steel as part of the support, on fire long enough, is eventually going to see that steel buckle, which will bring down the building. You can't just let tall buildings burn and then walk in the next day with new paint and furniture.

      When they build steel buildings, they spray insulation on the steel to keep it intact during fires. For the WTC7, that was something called 'Monokote', which is rated for three hours for steel columns. (There is an entirely different 'Monokote' which is just a kind of plastic shrink wrap. Don't get confused.)

      This would have been more than enough if the fire-suppression systems had been working, but they were not. It is also why the firefighters pulled out when they did...enough of the steel had started to buckle that the building was listing to the side.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    5. Re:Unpossible! by Scrameustache · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Do they mean to say that a fire can cause a [fireproofed steel-core] building to collapse?

      It sure surprised the editor in chief of Fire Engineering magazine, but what does HE know, huh?

      he warns that unless there is a full-blown investigation by an independent panel established solely for that purpose, "the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount to paper- and computer-generated hypotheticals."

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    6. Re:Unpossible! by digitrev · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Name another steel skyscraper fire that went completely uncontrolled for 7 hours.

      --
      Cynical Idealist
    7. Re:Unpossible! by bussdriver · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Dark smoke like the towers had is indication of lack of oxygen and therefore poor burning. It wasn't burning that well or as hot as possible and the kind of smoke proves the point.

      WTC 7 could have had ideal burning conditions which would have minimized the amount of smoke.

      I know experts in relevant fields too afraid to go on record with any commentary; the event had unique conditions never seen before and legitimately raises a great deal of questions and problems on that grounds alone-- but the political atmosphere IS limiting open critical analysis by experts (in addition to government not releasing useful information. This report isn't that useful if you are able to do the work yourself; especially if you don't want to get involved in the mess that even a picky correction would bring you.)

    8. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Name another steel skyscraper fire where the building collapsed.

      What, do you think steel framing is invulnerable to fire collapse or something? Steel can soften and bend, you crackpot.

      Normally, fires are contained well before a collapse. In this case, there were extenuating circumstances.

      Why do nutcases always ignore the obvious answer in favor of some wild theory?

    9. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm pretty sure the smoke color was because it was AVGAS. Have you ever seen a plane crash on TV? Dark black smoke. Thats usually what ends up killing people in a crash, providing they survive the fall itself.

    10. Re:Unpossible! by ChrisMP1 · · Score: 1

      Avgas
      Jet fuel
      Two entirely different things.

      --
      <sig>&nbsp;</sig>
    11. Re:Unpossible! by fishbowl · · Score: 1

      >I don't remember a lot of smoke around WTC7.

      I do. I remember numerous, enormous fires that burned all day long.

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    12. Re:Unpossible! by styrotech · · Score: 1

      Um, fires can pretty much bring down every building without some sort of suppression.

      Yep, fire is structurally damaging to just about anything (steel especially).

      The sole exception is concrete, which can leave a hollow shell.

      Reinforced concrete is also somewhat vulnerable in a serious fire - especially when the reinforcing is relatively close to the surface. The heat can cause the concrete to spall off beams exposing the reinforcing from residual water in the concrete turning into steam. The expansion of the steel in the heat causes tensile stress on the surrounding concrete and concrete isn't very good under tension.

    13. Re:Unpossible! by styrotech · · Score: 1

      Doh - that meant to read something more like:

      "The heat can cause residual water in the concrete turning into steam causing the concrete to spall off beams exposing the reinforcing."

    14. Re:Unpossible! by Daswolfen · · Score: 1

      Do they mean to say that a fire can cause a [fireproofed steel-core] building to collapse?

      It sure surprised the editor in chief of Fire Engineering magazine, but what does HE know, huh?

      he warns that unless there is a full-blown investigation by an independent panel established solely for that purpose, "the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount to paper- and computer-generated hypotheticals."

      Good Job quoting a political hit piece as a source. I am sure that your 9/11 truther nut job membership card is in the mail along with the complementary tinfoil hat.

      BTW, that fire-proof coating is only designed to withstand those temperatures for a hour or so maximum. After that, the heat has begun to transfer to the steel which expands which in turn creates fissures in the coating which allows more heat to reach the steel faster which causes the steel to lose its load bearing ability.

      Its simple physics.

      --
      Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
    15. Re:Unpossible! by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      Do they mean to say that a fire can cause a building to collapse?

      Name another steel skyscraper fire where the building collapsed.

      There was certainly smoke coming out of the towers where the planes hit. I don't remember a lot of smoke around WTC7.

      Well, you probably weren't a firefighter there, then. Some of their eye-witness accounts

      but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn't look good.

      How about this video of a lot of smoke around WTC7?

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    16. Re:Unpossible! by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      The sole exception is concrete, which can leave a hollow shell. Of course, no one on earth can build a 47 story concrete building.

      I do believe that most of the CN Tower's main structure is concrete.

    17. Re:Unpossible! by digitalchinky · · Score: 1

      >>> Of course, no one on earth can build a 47 story concrete building.

      It depends on the definition of concrete a little bit. In Asia most buildings are made from concrete strengthened with steel rods. (rebar) These structures regularly pass the 47 story mark. The building I live in has 52 floors above ground, with a further 7 underground. (Some of these are utility but they are still 'floors')

      We've had magnitude 6 earthquakes occur a couple of times as well as the odd typhoon here and there, the only way to notice is a slight dizzy feeling, and you know, looking out the window to see the building swaying a couple of feet.

      I think I prefer this type of construction rather than the steel frame more common in the US. Even the big fires here don't bring down buildings - we leave that to corruption and cutting corners on quality :-)

    18. Re:Unpossible! by NevermindPhreak · · Score: 1

      More importantly, when you have steel beams going the length of the building, it can *expand.* This can push out exterior walls, which then become too wide to hold the other beams, which come tumbling down. Lots of firefighters have seen this happen, albeit at a smaller scale, like houses and small buildings.

    19. Re:Unpossible! by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Well, yes, but reinforced concrete has steel in it, which was sorta my point. :)

      I'm not sure that you could build a totally concrete building, except maybe cinder-block walls and wooden ceilings/floors. I'm sure someone has, at some point in time, built a totally stupid building that was essentially a concrete square with a wooden middle.

      If that burned, the walls would manage to stay up in the fire.

      In an uncontrolled and infinitely long fire, any wood will burn. Any steel will warp, which means if it's supporting anything, it will stop doing so. Any concrete will just stand there, although obviously if it's being supported by steel there are going to be some problems when that stops.

      But, anyway, yes, almost all 'concrete' buildings of any size are actually reinforced concrete building, and hence out-of-control files pose structural risks.

      Interesting fact: Coventry Cathedral, which was attacked during WWII, had its walls and ceiling 'reinforced' with steel girders before that, which caused even more damage when high incendiaries on the roof started a fire that buckled them, causing them to pull the walls down. Without that reinforcement, the incendiaries would have burned straight through the roof and the innards of the church, but left most of the roof and the walls standing, as they were made of stone and bricks. It, in essence, was the 'concrete walls with wooden innards' I was talking about above, but with bricks instead.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    20. Re:Unpossible! by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      It's reinforced concrete...aka, concrete with steel in it.

      Let it burn long enough, and it will fall down.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    21. Re:Unpossible! by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      There's more than a few...There was one in Madrid a few years ago, do your own research you lazy fuck.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    22. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From your own links, it says that Avgas can be used in gas turbine engines, it just isn't. So I don't think they are "two entirely different things". In fact, they wouldn't be entirely different unless one was derived from oil and the other wasn't. Otherwise, its an oil-derived fuel that combusts in order to power an engine. You could duct-tape a cow in front of the engine and have it fart constantly, and I'm pretty sure the mixture would still be pretty damned similar.

    23. Re:Unpossible! by arminw · · Score: 1

      ...Its simple physics....

        that also mandates that the speed of the collapse was WAY too fast if the official domino collapse of the towers were true. The inertia of the large mass of the buildings below the crash sites should have slowed the rate of collapse significantly. The videos of collapse instead show that it took place in the same amount of time that a free falling object tossed from the roof buildings would have taken. The only way any building can collapse in free-fall mode, as if all supports of the entire buildings are instantly removed. This is what is normally done when a building is deliberately demolished.

      --
      All theory is gray
    24. Re:Unpossible! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1
      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    25. Re:Unpossible! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Yea? Check this

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    26. Re:Unpossible! by Sigma+7 · · Score: 2, Informative

      ...Its simple physics....

          that also mandates that the speed of the collapse was WAY too fast if the official domino collapse of the towers were true. The inertia of the large mass of the buildings below the crash sites should have slowed the rate of collapse significantly. The videos of collapse instead show that it took place in the same amount of time that a free falling object tossed from the roof buildings would have taken.

      Speaking of simple physics: The first rule is to measure. You can do that to +/- .5 seconds at: http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/ntc_frames.html

      The second rule is to do math. From these frames, it started at second 3, and ended on second 16, totalling 13 seconds with .5 seconds of error. If it were free fall, the start point is 830m above ground, which is 190m higher than the world's tallest building. An object tossed from the top of the tower would take 10 seconds to hit the ground.

      The third rule is to know what you measure. I measured from where the dust cloud started to grow rapidly until no further downward movement is visible, which is valid but different from a definition of collapse where any debris touches the ground. I also measured with two significant digits.

      Now, what have you done to make your claim?

    27. Re:Unpossible! by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      The Windsor Tower did not burn uncontrollably, but it sorta proves my point.

      It had a concrete core, and the steel parts of the building collapsed, but not the concrete parts.

      Of course, the concrete part is steel reinforced, and thus eventually would deform and melt, but 'luckily' the floors that were burning collapsed before they could do so. (And luckily they were able to contain the fire tot he top of the building.)

      So, I guess, I might be 'wrong' in the sense that, while any building would collapse, even steel framed ones, if the fire 'burned long enough', but that requires the fire actually burning long enough. In buildings with concrete cores the fire might actually not burn long enough before the rest of the building falls down, leaving the concrete core intact.

      Even so, it was so damaged structurally by the heat melting the steel they had to tear it down instead of just rebuilding those floors.

      Of course, this is rather unrelated to WTC7, which didn't have a concrete core, and wasn't just on fire at the top. So when the steel buckled, it just kept falling.

      Although it does prove you don't need 'jet fuel' or any particular special substance to melt steel. The frame of that building is steel, and there it is, the upper floors clearly having collapsed from the heat of a normal fire of normal things. (Actually, there's a suspicion the fire was arson, because there were people seen around inside the building and a door was forced but we'll assume the arsonists used gasoline, and not, for example, a large amount of magnesium or whatever else that the Truthers claim is required to melt steel.)

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    28. Re:Unpossible! by Urkki · · Score: 1

      Windsor Tower

      Widsor Tower was not steel skyscraper, it had concrete core holding it up. Try again.

      Also see the picture at wiki artickle and try to imagine what it would look like if the core was steel too...

    29. Re:Unpossible! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ok... trying again:

      Interstate bank of LA three hours fire, five floors:

      One Meridien Plaza, scorched for 18 hours.

      That 56-story steel framed building in Venezuela burned for over 16 hours.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    30. Re:Unpossible! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      So it burned controllably? Care to explain?

      It burned for almost a full day, _uncontrollably_ ( the firemen couldn't get water up to the hoses, they let it 'free burn' ) and did not topple.

      The WTC towers burned for 1 hour and 1 hour and 40 minutes respectively. And the guy who worked in its construction and died in it, said it was built to withstand a 707 impact that flies at 600mph, although he said that he thought it could take more than one hit.

      If you still believe the planes alone took them down, and, not even that, but just a plain fire took the WTC 7 down, there's nothing I can say that will ever change your mind. :-)

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    31. Re:Unpossible! by Americium · · Score: 1

      The Madrid skyscraper? (The Windsor building). The whole fucking thing was engulfed in flames for hours.

      All conspiracy theorists site it as 'evidence'

      It was just built in a normal way, unlike WTC 7. The twin towers wouldn't have fell without the planes destroying their structure and fireproofing, they could have handled fire.

    32. Re:Unpossible! by DrXym · · Score: 1
      he warns that unless there is a full-blown investigation by an independent panel established solely for that purpose, "the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount to paper- and computer-generated hypotheticals."

      So how does a editor of a Fire magazine in 2002 wanting an independent panel investigating the collapses support idiot truthers who proclaim it was a controlled demolition? Or was it thermite? Or was it basement nukes? Idiot truthers never actually say do they?

      The editor of course doesn't subscribe to any paranoia fuelled conspiracy theory. In fact your own mined quote goes on to say "Clearly, there are burning questions that need answers .... The lessons about the buildings' design and behavior in this extraordinary event must be learned and applied in the real world.".

      So the editor just wanted a independent panel heading the investigation for the purpose of better fire safety and standards. Whether the actual investigation satisfied or allayed his concerns is something you would have to ask him. Irrespective, it is absolutely clear that he would tell idiot "truthers" to get lost if they tried to count him as one of their own.

    33. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah and because the other 2 buildings already collapsed the firebrigade did't bother to put out that little fire.
      But inaction doesn't mean it's the cause.

    34. Re:Unpossible! by Quantus347 · · Score: 1

      It is also important to note the the WTC was designed with a plane impact in mind; it was one of the failure modes they designed for.
      Unfortunately, planes the size of a 767 weren't around or in commercial use at the time of design.

      And thanks to rising fuel prices and the overall economics of it, they won't be again any time soon.

      --
      Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
    35. Re:Unpossible! by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      Do you realize how much bigger a 767 is than a 707? And some random guy who worked in construction? Chances are that if you are welding it together, you aren't smart enough to have actually designed the thing you are welding/riveting. You are following the plans that an ENGINEER cooked up. And so what if *he* thinks that it could take more than one hit? *HE* may not have a freaking clue. If you can't believe that hitting a couple of buildings with giant airplanes won't cause them to come down, then there's nothing I can say that will ever change your mind.

    36. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Name another steel skyscraper fire that went completely uncontrolled for 7 hours.

      mgm grand, dozens of others

    37. Re:Unpossible! by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 1

      Name another steel skyscraper fire where the building collapsed.

      Name another steel skyscraper fire that was in any way similar to the WTC 7 disaster, where a fire with multiple ignition points was allowed to burn out of control for hours.

      According to TFA, "The investigators also reported that if the city water main had not been cut by the collapse of World Trade Center towers 1 and 2 (WTC 1 and WTC 2), operating sprinklers in WTC 7 would likely have prevented its collapse."

      With any luck, we'll never see a set of circumstances like WTC 7 (or, fate forfend, WTC 1 & 2) again.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
    38. Re:Unpossible! by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      It burned for almost a full day, _uncontrollably_ ( the firemen couldn't get water up to the hoses, they let it 'free burn' ) and did not topple.

      Because. It. Was. A. Concrete. Core. Building.

      You. Fucktard.

      The steel parts collapsed. The concrete core stayed up.

      The WTC buildings were made entirely of steel so they entirely collapsed.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    39. Re:Unpossible! by ChrisMP1 · · Score: 1

      They burn differently. So would cow farts.

      Besides, Avgas couldn't be used in a jet engine. A turbine could be built that would take it, but normal jet engines won't.

      --
      <sig>&nbsp;</sig>
    40. Re:Unpossible! by MacCumhail · · Score: 0

      A steel oven does not collapse. Car engines do not melt and steel needs a temperature not met in this alleged conventional fire. Of course if the debunkers installed or helped cover up Thermate cutter charges that would do it. Even if the unscientific debunker canard were true the building would not collapse symetrically. Silverstien acknowledged "pulling" the building on PBS show.

    41. Re:Unpossible! by fprintf · · Score: 1

      How about we name one of similar size and construction?

      --
      This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
    42. Re:Unpossible! by LambertH · · Score: 1
      OK. Given that paper burns @ 451 F, 232 C (as 88 year old Ray Bradbury informed us years ago) and that the plastic deformation temperature of construction steel is about 450 C, how pray did the steel deform, and how did the whole damned building come down in free-fall time?

      NIST has waited 7 years to issue this report, because they have utterly failed to come up with anything close to a convincing explanation, and they hope the intervening years has blurred our memories.

      WTC7 did not fall down, it was brought down, but the real question is who did it, and this whitewash report is supposed to stop people asking that question.

    43. Re:Unpossible! by smilestill · · Score: 1

      On February 14th, 1975, a three alarm fire broke out between in the 9th and 14th floors in the North Tower. Only the 11th floor had significant fire damage. Firefighters had full access to the fire. The fire never left the concrete-enclosed cable shaft on the other floors. It was a 3-alarm fire, not a 12-alarm. The building was not hit by an airliner at 500 mph with resulting structural damage to load-bearing columns and beams. Fire was not fueled by accelerant. Fire insulation was not blown off the steel. According to the New York Times, "The fire leads to intense scrutiny of the towers, and eventually to a decision to install sprinklers." On May 4th, 1988, a 62 storey skyscraper in Los Angeles burned for 3 hours and spread over 4 floors. It did not collapse. Because firefighters fought the fire the whole time and put it out. On February 23rd, 1991, a 38 storey skyscraper in Philadelphia, built in 1973, burned for more than 19 hours and spread over 8 floors. It did not collapse. Fire was contained by fire dept. and sprinklers from floor 30 and up. Bldg was not damaged prior to fire. Fire protection coating was not blown off. Contributor kookbreaker writes, "The Philadelphia fire LC mentions was the Meridian Building. The firefighting efforts were abandoned after 11 hours because the fire department feared (ta-dah) pancake collapse! The building was effectively destroyed in any case. It had a large net over it and had to be reinforced before it could be brought down!" And that's damage caused by fire alone. Suppose it had also been hit by a 767 fully-loaded with fuel and flying at top speed? On October 17th, 2004, a 56 storey skyscraper in Venezuela, built in 1976, burned for over 17 hours and spread over 26 floors, eventually reaching the roof. Guess what? It did not collapse. Fire was put out by military helicopters. No airliners hit, etc. 33:07 On February 12th, 2005, the Windsor Building in Madrid, a 32 storey tower framed in steel reinforced concrete, burned for almost 24 hours, completely eradicating the upper 10 stories of the building. Although the top 10 floors of the building fell, the building itself did not collapse. Building was concrete core, curtain wall construction. Building was not hit by an airliner. Steel beams failed due to heat but the concrete core did not. Here's what ARUP, a major fire-safety engineering firm, had to say about that fire: The fire led to the collapse of virtually all the slab edge bay above 17th floor as well as one internal bay on the north side. The transition floor resisted the impact of the partial collapses. Below this level there was substantial structural damage and deformation, but no significant collapse. The steel perimeter columns, even if they had been protected, or even concrete columns, would not necessarily be expected to survive the effects of such a 10-storey blaze. The central concrete core appeared to perform well in the fire and on initial observations seems to have played a major role in ensuring the stability of the building throughout the incident. The role of cores in multiple floor fires is now an immediate area of study required for the industry, and Arup have commenced investigating this issue. And yet on September 11th, 2001, two 110 storey skyscrapers, completed in 1973, burned for 56 minutes and 103 minutes respectively, over 4 floors, Evidence that they burned on 4 floors only? And did you notice that airliners hit them? Before collapsing completely to the ground. One might argue, that this was due to the construction of the World Trade Center. Or, one might make a much better argument that the buildings stood as long as they did because they were so well built. Let's look at, what was inside those buildings. cite: http://www.loosechangeguide.com/lcg3.html

    44. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The sole exception is concrete, which can leave a hollow shell. Of course, no one on earth can build a 47 story concrete building.

      You are invited to Ramat Gan, Israel, on the border of Tel Aviv, where there is a 68 story building made of solid concrete. Not very far from it there are the three buildings of Azrieli Towers, with 42, 46 and 49 stories of solid concrete.

    45. Re:Unpossible! by arminw · · Score: 1

      ....totalling 13 seconds with .5 seconds of error......

      Even the 13 seconds is way too quick for a one floor at a time Domino style collapse. The time for the supports of each floor to break and for the whole floor and its contents to be accelerated to the next floor and the next and the next should take considerably more time. Maybe somebody else already done the math here.

      --
      All theory is gray
    46. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Windsor Tower Madrid

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Building

      Around midnight, on Saturday, February 12, 2005, a fire was detected on the 21st floor. The fire spread quickly throughout the entire building, leading to the collapse of the outermost, steel parts of the upper floors; firefighters needed almost 24 hours to extinguish it.

    47. Re:Unpossible! by monoqlith · · Score: 1

      Seriously. If someone can look at live videotape of two jet airliners crashing into a skyscaper, then sit and watch those skyscrapers collapse, and then question the connection between Event A and Event B, there is something seriously wrong with how he is processing information.

    48. Re:Unpossible! by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Jesus Christ. I really shouldn't answer this again, but I will.

      Paper doesn't burn at 451 F, it catches fire by itself at that temperature. 451 F is the autoignition temperature at one atmosphere, although that actually varies depending on the paper. The temperature of burning paper is much higher than that.

      I can't find paper off hand, but a cigarette, without air being drawn through it, burns at fucking 585 C, which means you can deform steel by holding a lit cigarette to it. (And it will go almost twice as fast if you'll suck on the end to pull air through. Of course, you'd have to stick your face rather close to incredibly hot steel.)

      Of course, you'd have to hold it there long enough to transfer enough heat, which you couldn't actually do with a single cigarette. And that's not some crazed exception. Candles are twice as hot.

      In fact, to be visible at all, a carbon fire, which is basically every sort of fire you'll commonly run into and is the main ingredient of any building fire, has to be 525 C. Ergo, basically any fire you can see can deform steel if you put steel in it long enough.

      Steel is useful because it is very strong and it is very hard and it's resistant to heat transfer, which means it takes a long time to deform, and even longer with insulation. It is not some magical unmeltable-except-by-God material.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    49. Re:Unpossible! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      So the engineer that helped the construction of the world's largest office buildings at the time hasn't a clue. While the NIST public servant engineers which can't lose their jobs short of murdering a colleague are the top minds and experts? Really?

      You're working yourself into a corner here, but ok... about the plane, depends on the model. Most are about the same size, one 767 is 10 ft longer , and one 767 is 40 ft longer, according to a quick wikipedia lookup. They also fly quite slower than a 707. It's not the Concorde hitting the tower at Mach 2.

      So, about the corner, what about building seven then? Carpet and office fires? Enough to get it to come down symmetrically? Look at what happened to the other buildings, no need to go to a Malaysia building collapse. That should be enough to tell you that something special happened to WTC 7. :-)

      Gosh, haven't you people seen Ray? "Catch a lie, find a thief"? These guys have omitted WTC 7 for SEVEN YEARS on the grounds that 'oh, the loss of life was so great in the two towers, that we didn't think it was important'. Bullshit emotional plea argument. Don't worry about WTC 7, honor our heroes. C'mon...

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    50. Re:Unpossible! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Calm down man. We're arguing, not cursing. Yea, that building wasn't a good example, granted.

      I looked around some more though, and found steel core buildings that did not collapse after some flaming torch-like building almost day long fires. I suppose the WTC 1, 2 and 7 are still the world's first, as far as NIST and the 9/11 Commission are concerned.

      Check this post

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    51. Re:Unpossible! by kidgenius · · Score: 1
      With regards to the planes, they actually cruise at similar speeds. Max cruise is faster in a 707. This is all meaningless because the 767s were not in a cruise mode when they hit the buildings. They were in a dive, most likely in an overspeed condition, so cruising speed is worth a hill of beans in this discussion.

      It is completely possible that fire can weaken a structure, and when it falls, how else do you want it to fall other than down? It's not going to magically list to one side. When one part of it falls, it'll start pulling on the rest to fall. How hard is that to imagine?

    52. Re:Unpossible! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Ok, you brought the differences of the planes into discussions, not me. I agree that doesn't matter if it was hit by a Boing or and Airbus.

      Because for the building to fall straight down, ALL of the support columns had to be weakened simultaneously.

      That what you call 'magically' list to one side, is actually falling thru the path of least resistance. What do you think that is? Air or the dozens of uncompromised floors with dozens of steel core columns?

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    53. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windsor Building, Madrid Spain

    54. Re:Unpossible! by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Did you really just link to one building that everyone agrees had would have been a disaster except for the fire department and working fire suppression systems?

      And another that had enough 'steel beams sag' that they had to work for six months to put in emergency braces to keep it from falling, and that everyone thought would fall?

      And a third that actually did have concrete supports? (Not as a core, they instead had concrete pillars around the outside and concrete floors.)

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    55. Re:Unpossible! by Sigma+7 · · Score: 1

      You didn't answer the "Now, what have you done to make your claim?" question.

      Of course, if you believe it collapsed through controlled demolition, you'd probably be able to explain how they managed to install the necessary explosives - within the five days after the the bomb sniffing dogs were taken off-site, and without being detected loading and unloading the quantity of explosives required. If you need reference, look at the inside job done at Hudson's.

    56. Re:Unpossible! by arminw · · Score: 1

      ....Of course, if you believe it collapsed through controlled demolition...

      That may or may not be, but what I don't believe is the official explanation of a floor by floor collapse. The laws of physics simply don't allow that sort of domino sequence to take place in the short amount of time evidenced by the video and seismic data.

      Many questions can be and have been asked and some of them have plausible answers. Did the owners have anything to gain if these buildings were destroyed? Some have said yes to this because these buildings were not particularly profitable. Was a newer, higher insurance negotiated for this property before this event happened? Some have said yes to this.

      It has been historically well established that those in power in any government or other organized structure tend to want more power than they already have. It is nothing new for those in power to create or allow a crisis of some kind, in order to gain yet more power. It is undeniable that those in power, especially in the federal government as well as other governments, have gained considerably more power and control over their populations, than was available before this event.

      --
      All theory is gray
    57. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even more importantly, the steel framing on the outside of the building DID collapse:

      The fire spread quickly throughout the entire building, leading to the collapse of the outermost, steel parts of the upper floors

      Compare the two pictures, one before the fire and one after the fire. The pictures clearly show that the outer part of the building (with the steel framing), collapsed. The inner core (made of concrete) survived. The structure of the building is visibly different in the two pictures.

      Why do all these crackpots ignore all the obvious evidence in favor of some grand conspiracy theory.

    58. Re:Unpossible! by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Good Job quoting a political hit piece as a source.

      Fire Engineering Magazine is a political hitpiece?

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    59. Re:Unpossible! by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      idiot truthers who proclaim it was a controlled demolition? Or was it thermite? Or was it basement nukes? Idiot truthers never actually say do they?

      Nice strawman, does it come with matches?

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    60. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Madrid Tower in Spain burned for 24 hours and did not collapse

      http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/14/spain.block.fire/

    61. Re:Unpossible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's already been addressed by several other posters.

      The Madrid tower had a typical steel girder construction with a reinforced concrete core. WTC 7 did not, it had a system of load-bearing trusses on a steel frame.

      So again, can you name another STEEL skyscraper fire that went completely uncontrolled for 7 hours?

  18. "Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 0, Troll

    The use of language is interesting, don't you think? I'm not prepared to entertain any real conspiracy theories, but I have been fairly curious about one point I can't quite understand: Why are there so many similarities to the way the buildings fell to a controlled demolition?

    Almost everyone that watches the collapse of the world trade center buildings and compares them to films of controlled demolitions sees that they look the same.

    There are probably many plausible and well researched reasons for this, but no one has addressed them, but merely use language to attempt to discredit any such questions. That's what I find most interesting about the whole thing.

    1. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mrbah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why are there so many similarities to the way the buildings fell to a controlled demolition? Because there are only so many ways a building basic physics allows a building collapse, controlled or not?

    2. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by 1u3hr · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Why are there so many similarities to the way the buildings fell to a controlled demolition?

      Both are afected by gravity, which exerts a downward force.

    3. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 1

      What else do you have to compare it to? How many buildings have you seen destroyed in some way *other* than controlled demolition?

      People say it looked like a controlled demolition, but the central buildings did a lot of damage to the surrounding buildings as well. Perhaps the difference between controlled and uncontrolled isn't how it looks at a macro scale, but how much collateral damage is done by the smaller bit of debris coming off it?

      --
      $_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
    4. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Spad · · Score: 3, Informative

      The principles of demolitions are pretty similar - you destroy the supports of the building causing it to collapse down on top of itself. The WTC towers suffered a similar failure only the primary cause was a combination of damage, stress and weight of material from above that caused the supports to fail, rather than controlled explosions.

    5. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you suppress these theories instead of destroying them for all to see, you cause them to go underground and fester.

      Look at holocaust denial, the people who don't believe that it happened have been routinely denied a forum to state their case and then get torn to shreads because of all of the contrary proof. So what's happened? They've gone underground, they whisper about how the truth is being suppressed. To someone who has no idea about the subject matter it seems like it just might be that they're being persecuted.

      Intelligent Design is another example of this. They feel as though they've been denied access to mainstream debate and as such they've reached the point of a whisper campaign. Ben Stein's new movie is a result of this.

      When these "911 Truth" people start talking their nonsense, let them. Then on a point by point basis disprove them. Let other see that they're not being suppressed, they're wrong and you can prove it.

    6. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by MrLizard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How many skyscrapers have people seen collapse which are NOT controlled demolitions?

      In other words, how many data points do you have on "What does a skyscraper collapsing on its own look like"?

      In other other words, how do you know that "falling straight down" is an artifact of controlled demolition, and not an artifact of being a skyscraper?

    7. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by clt829 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because gravity pulls straight down? Which way would you expect a building of that size to fall?

    8. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by donaggie03 · · Score: 1

      Here's a question for you: how many buildings have you seen collapse that were not due to a controlled demolition? How many buildings have you seen collapse due to earthquake? Unless you've seen quite a few of these, then you have no basis for comparison between the controlled and non-controlled demolitions. These buildings are designed to collapse a certain way, regardless of the cause of the collapse. Maybe this is to limit the damage to surrounding areas?

      --
      Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
    9. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Minor nitpick, buildings that are collapse due to earthquakes actually fail quite differently from controlled demolitions or fire. This is readily explained by difference of collapse mechanisms. The earthquake induced structural failure is due to externally induced movement, which may be in any direction. They usually do not just collapse. Resonances and directed forces may collapse only parts of the building, or they may topple. OTOH a demolished building fails because it cannot support its own weight. In the latter case, the only force acting on the building is gravity, which is always downward.

    10. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      How you ever seen a botched controlled demolition of a building? One where, say, only part of the charges actually detonated? (Kind of like, say, a tower that was struck on one side?)

      Because then the building doesn't follow down all at once. Only one side of it does, and the other side that had been supported by that side starts to lean towards the now-missing supports that had held it up.

      That would be how. There are plenty of videos out there of controlled demolitions that didn't quite go to plan. And none of them look like 9/11.

      Now I suppose it's possible that the planes could have rolled a "natural 20" and managed to damage the tower just-so to mimic a correct demolition. But lightning doesn't strike twice.

    11. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Martin+Blank · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The claims about it being controlled demolition misses some points that are important. No controlled demolition has ever been done for a building even the size of WTC7, let alone the main towers. The tallest ever was done by CDI in 1998, when the 439-foot-tall JL Hudson Department Store was brought down. The original WTC7 was 610 feet tall, and of course the main towers were more than twice that. Trying to map that out without being fairly obvious would be difficult at best.

      It seems to me, in a bit of a thought experiment, that it makes sense that a skyscraper should come straight down, more or less. They are built around structures that are designed to withstand significant loads due to wind, bending slightly but not that much overall. If structural member breaks, even if it breaks outward, there will likely still be some connectivity to the core, preventing it from moving outward. The additional stress added to local joints would cause them to fail, but in a less outward direction, as some of that energy has already been redirected downward. This continues around the building as the collapse continues. Some of the materials in other parts of the building will tend towards their own outward motion, but be pulled back in by the remaining connection to the core, canceling out some of the momentum in the other direction. Ultimately, everything comes straight down.

      I think that makes some sense.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    12. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by 5pp000 · · Score: 0

      In particular, why would it happen at nearly free-fall speed, as if every column in the structure failed simultaneously? That's the thing that gets me. I would expect a much slower, more incremental collapse. Guess I have to go read TFR.

      --
      Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
    13. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I did not post as a troll. I am generally concerned about the use of language "crackpot theories."

      Some people STILL consider "Global Warming" a "crackpot theory."

      Some consider "Evolution" as a crackpot theory.

      Insulting an idea with no logical argument is no less a logical fallacy than the ad hominem attack. You may not agree with people who claim that the buildings were brought down in a controlled demolition, but unless you can understand their argument and refute their points on merit, you are no different than the people who believe in intelligent design or that global warming is a myth.

      I would submit, there are more facts and science supporting a controlled demolition of the word trade center buildings than there is evidence supporting Intelligent Design.

      No, because I don't refuse to consider a controlled demolition as a "crackpot theory" my original post was ranked troll. This doesn't mean I believe it, but there are some serious irregularities in how the buildings came down.

    14. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by segedunum · · Score: 1

      The problem with that theory is that in a controlled demolition you destroy all they key points in a building to come up with an orderly collapse of each floor, and avoid pancaking. A fire simply wouldn't be able to destroy all the key points in a building like demolition would, and you would get pancaking which would dissipate the energy of the collapse. In short, you would still get at least some of the buildings still left standing.

    15. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 2, Informative

      In particular, why would it happen at nearly free-fall speed, as if every column in the structure failed simultaneously? That's the thing that gets me. I would expect a much slower, more incremental collapse. Guess I have to go read TFR.

      Actually, NIST puts the collapse time at 40% slower than free-fall. The reason it seemed so sudden and quick is because we've only ever had video of one side of the building when it finally fell.

      Check out the videos on this page: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/wtc_videos/wtc_videos.html

      --
      People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
    16. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Myopic · · Score: 3, Informative

      So, the implication is that a big conspiracy set up charges to bring down the towers and that this conspiracy is good enough to never be uncovered, but not good enough to make it look unlike a professional demolition?

      Also, I was watching it. The only thing that made it look like a professional demo is that the building fell downward. Professional demos have a bunch of blasts in a visible pattern to take out the major supports; the Twin Towers didn't have any of that, it merely fell in the direction of gravity, which doesn't much surprise me.

    17. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by winwar · · Score: 1

      "The problem with that theory is that in a controlled demolition you destroy all they key points in a building to come up with an orderly collapse of each floor, and avoid pancaking."

      Huh? The point of a controlled demolition is to prevent damage to surrounding structures and allow machinery to clean up the mess quicker and cheaper than dismantling in place. Pancaking occurs in controlled demolitions. If it didn't then you would probably have damage to surrounding buildings...

    18. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Scrameustache · · Score: 0

      How many skyscrapers have people seen collapse which are NOT controlled demolitions?

      A couple...

      In other other words, how do you know that "falling straight down" is an artifact of controlled demolition, and not an artifact of being a skyscraper?

      • Because I have seen uncontrolled demolitions, and it doesn't look the same
      • because the experts in controlled demolition are happy to explain why you have to pay them good money to make the building fall like that

      Now, what do you call the logical fallacy of relying on your own ignorance to prove a point?

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    19. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Myopic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, you're right, holocaust deniers, intelligent design proponents, and 9/11 conspiracy theorists all feel like they've been denied the right to debate their theories.

      The thing is, they're lying to themselves. They have lots of debates. I've heard 9/11 conspiracy theories deconstructed and made out to be bullshit lots and lots of times. Holocaust deniers do have conventions (like the one in Iran last year). Intelligent design, which should be laughed out of any adult conversation, has managed to actually be taught in schools and considered in courts of law. All of these people already get way, way, way, way, way more attention than their theories deserve.

      These people say the opposite of the truth, not only when spouting their absurd theories, but when explaining why other people won't listen to them. "Oh, they're just sheep, led astray by a huge conspiracy." No, actually, you're a petty fool with a reality deficit. We don't ignore you because we are dummies, we ignore you because we have better judgment than you do and can see thru what you say.

    20. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Why are there so many similarities to the way the buildings fell to a controlled demolition?

      Both are afected by gravity, which exerts a downward force.

      We should expect all "implosion" experts to be sued for their scamming all those building owners into believing that buildings don't fall like that on their own, huh?

      It's the end of an entire niche of engineering firms! Oh noes! And in this bad economy too, what a shame.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    21. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by winwar · · Score: 1

      "I would submit, there are more facts and science supporting a controlled demolition of the word trade center buildings than there is evidence supporting Intelligent Design."

      So, as long is there is one fact supporting controlled demolition, then it isn't a "crackpot theory"? Give me a break.

      What physical evidence of a controlled demolition exists that can't be explained in a more likely manner? Do you have any idea how long such a procedure takes? And that the interior is basically gutted? I think someone might have noticed....

    22. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Because gravity pulls straight down? Which way would you expect a building of that size to fall?

      I expect it to fall away from its support structure.

      Which way would you expect something to fall when "straight down" is already occupied?

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    23. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by gregbot9000 · · Score: 0

      A Controlled Demolition and an Uncontrolled Demolition look the same because, at their root, they are the same thing: A demolition.

    24. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We should expect all "implosion" experts to be sued for their scamming all those building owners into believing that buildings don't fall like that on their own, huh?

      Ever seen a botched implosion? Not all of them go off without a hitch you know.

      If you were to take a look at the videos of some of the implosions that don't quite work out, the buildings don't fall any differently. They just don't fall completely. The implosion experts aren't there to prevent a building from not falling straight down, that will always happen (unless you fucked up the design, and just built the structure straight up without properly distributing the weight over the reinforcements). The experts' job is to make sure the structure falls completely the first time, because planting explosives in a half demolished building to finish the job is dangerous as hell.

    25. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by segedunum · · Score: 1

      Huh? The point of a controlled demolition is to prevent damage to surrounding structures and allow machinery to clean up the mess quicker and cheaper than dismantling in place. Pancaking occurs in controlled demolitions.

      Pfffffffffffffffffff. It's controlled and timed pancaking which allows the building to completely collapse. If you allow a tall building to pancake naturally via the top fllors collapsing then the floors below will simply collapse into each other and dissipate the energy. You won't get a complete collapse. Try it any time with a model, some Lego or some Meccano. You won't be able to do it.

    26. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by FuturePastNow · · Score: 1

      It's simpler than that: gravity pulls things straight down. An object might start falling on an arc- but over enough distance, that arc will flatten out.

      A skyscraper is a constant battle against gravity. Weaken the structure enough, and it loses, straight down if it has room to do so.

      --
      Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
    27. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some people STILL consider "Global Warming" a "crackpot theory."

      It is.

    28. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by PapayaSF · · Score: 1

      So, the implication is that a big conspiracy set up charges to bring down the towers and that this conspiracy is good enough to never be uncovered, but not good enough to make it look unlike a professional demolition?

      Exactly, and that's not the only giant logical hole in the conspiracy theories. If you are going to blow up the Towers and/or WTC7 with a controlled demolition, why bother with the unnecessary complication of the hijackings? That just leaves more to go wrong: the hijackers might be overcome by the passengers, or miss their targets. Plus, blowing up the buildings with everyone in them would vastly increase the death toll, which was the plan with the first truck bomb attack in 1993.

      The standard JFK conspiracy theories have a similar logical flaw: if it was an inside job and the insiders are going to cover up the autopsy, why bother recruiting some loony loner and count on his marksmanship? Just have your insiders slip something into JFK's morning coffee, sadly announce that he had an unexpected heart attack, and you're done.

      --
      Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
    29. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uhh, lots? Find any decent book detailing construction mistakes and you're bound to find a few that talk about buildings falling downwards. Have a look at the Hotel New World, or even L'Ambiance Plaza. The Sampoong Department Store also went down in a similar fashion, as did the Highland Towers. These are just a few off the top of my head. Buildings do fall straight down, gravity is too much to ignore.

    30. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have video of a controlled demolition that was botched, left the building standing, but caused a uncontrolled fire which weakened the steel and made building fall over sideways an hour later?

    31. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Both are afected by gravity, which exerts a downward force.

      That would not explain the multi-tons of ejected steel beams that flew a few hundred feet, or the small chunks of human remains found on building rooftops.

    32. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by R2.0 · · Score: 1

      "Why are there so many similarities to the way the buildings fell to a controlled demolition?

      Both are afected by gravity, which exerts a downward force."

      Bullshit! Gravity is just a theory, like Evolution.

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    33. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Dun+Malg · · Score: 1

      The claims about it being controlled demolition misses some points that are important....

      One of the most important (which the video points out) is that a controlled demolition would have required explosives... which make a loud noise. Sufficient explosives to bring down WTC7 would have made a 130db noise, which nobody on the scene heard.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    34. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by daver00 · · Score: 1

      And I suppose you have applied the relevant scaling laws to your lego model? Please, enlighten us to the dimensionless constants which define your system?

    35. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by shmlco · · Score: 1

      Especially when you consider that the interior elements are failing first due to the heat, which in turn directs more of the kinetic energy inward (towards the core) than outward.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    36. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by lgw · · Score: 1

      Now, what do you call the logical fallacy of relying on your own ignorance to prove a point?

      Ooh, ooh, I know this one! "Truther"

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    37. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by lgw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You do realize that the support structure in the towers was entirely on the perimeter, right? Each floor was hung like a (rigid) hammock from the outer walls. When the crossbeams softened just enough (no linger rigid) to pull inward rather than down, the outer walls buckled at that point. How else would you immagine a hammock would fall if you cut its strings?

      Once the mass of building above the weak point got moving, nothing below was strong enough to hold it up, so it was nearly freefall at that point. But look carefully at the video and you'll clearly see that the building above where the plane hit falls as an intact mass, taking out each floor below it in turn.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    38. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Which way would you expect a building of that size to fall?"

      Towards Mecca.

    39. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do people insist that the main towers fell in a way that's consistent with a controlled demolition? Have you ever seen a building demolished by explosives? It falls from the bottom, not from the top. It looks as though the whole building is sinking into the ground, because each floor is moving down in unison. The Trade towers fell from the top (well, from the point of impact near the top), and the resulting collapse looks entirely different. They look as though the top 15% of the building suddenly became too heavy for the support structure to hold (due to, I don't know, a plane slamming into them), and then fell down through the rest of the floors.

    40. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      What physical evidence of a controlled demolition exists that can't be explained in a more likely manner? Do you have any idea how long such a procedure takes? And that the interior is basically gutted? I think someone might have noticed....

      A LOT of people have noticed. A LOT of people have claimed things.

      I'm an atheist, I don't believe in anything without fact. I posses extreme skepticism. I can easily disbelieve either scenario. I don't believe it was brought down by a controlled demolition and I don't believe it was only the result of the plane crash.

      In my mind there are enough irregularities in the whole thing and there is enough world intrigue to justify a HUGE amount of skepticism on all sides. Unless I do the work, myself, or it is done by an organization that I can reasonably trust, I'm not going to "believe" anything if it doesn't satisfy my skepticism.

      I have seen buildings collapse because of fire, small buildings, but buildings. They did not fall neatly into themselves. There is probably a good explanation, but I have not seen one put forth.

    41. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      It is.

      LOL. There is no such thing as gravity, the earth sucks.

    42. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 1

      The WTC collapses severely damaged many surrounding buildings and spread debris over a several block radius. If these experts did such a shitty job you can bet they would all be searching for new careers.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    43. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 1

      That may well be the worst argument I've ever heard, and that's saying a lot.

      The strength to weight ratio of Lego or Meccano is orders of magnitude greater than what you find in a skyscraper. You can't just slap together a six-inch model and "prove" anything about how the skyscraper will behave. Human intuition about how such large objects behave is quite simply wrong.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    44. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      I don't know about WTC7 specifically, but most of these larger buildings in densely-populated areas are designed to fail in very particular ways in different building-destroying situations.

      Controlled demolitions seek to cause those failure modes as ideally as possible. While uncontrolled destruction is often non-ideal, it still bears a particular resemblance to the same failure modes.

    45. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      There are actually very good explanations, and they have been put forth. The fact that you have not seen it shows that you're not looking. It's hard to overlook enormous engineering reports if you're looking for them (though they are terribly boring once you find them).

    46. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well consider this. You have weak support structures on several floors already. When the first floor collapses it doubles the load on the floor below, which has been weakened by the fire in turn collapses on the next and doubling the load on that floor and so on. It doesn't take long to reach a load point where even a non-fire damage support structure can not with stand the load let alone that load suddenly falling on top of it. The collapse just accelerates till you hit the bottom.

    47. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's simple, really. When the discovery channel makes a big deal about how smart those controlled demolition people are in their ability to make the building fall straight down...well, they're simply trying to make you think you're watching a more interesting program than you are actually watching. Fact is that buildings tend to fall straight down no matter what the cause. It doesn't take an explosives expert to make them fall straight down. It only requires an explosives expert because no one else is legally allowed to set the explosives. Truth is any moron could do it, though they'd probably kill themselves in the process.

    48. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In addition, most demolitions of skyscrapers (IE 5+ stories) are what are termed "implosion demolitions" IE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_implosion

      You'll note that one of the key parts of that is the one that mentions they set up the demolition to result in the least amount of falling debris that can hit other buildings...

    49. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because the buildings collapsed due to fire doesn't mean the Bush administration didn't have prior knowledge and called down norad in order to let it happen

    50. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are there so many similarities to the way the buildings fell to a controlled demolition?

      Both are afected by gravity, which exerts a downward force.

      Very good. Now...in an uncontrolled collapse of a monolithic structure, the support infrastructure provides an upward vertical and outward lateral force. Being that the collapse is claimed to have been caused by a non-uniform degradation of structural integrity, one would expect the resulting collapse to be of the same nature -- non-uniform.

      Though it's possible (as almost anything is) to have been caused for the reasons stated on the NIST website, I believe it is not very likely the collapse was caused by anything other than something that was under complete control of humans.

      Ask any professional demolitionist how difficult it actually is to have a building fall straight down without collateral damage. It's quite the science.

    51. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by arminw · · Score: 1

      ...The reason it seemed so sudden and quick is because we've only ever had video of one side of the building when it finally fell...

      There are seismic records of the collapse that corroborate the videos which show the buildings in free fall collapse.

      --
      All theory is gray
    52. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by arminw · · Score: 1

      ....You won't get a complete collapse.....

      You still could get a complete collapse but not in a free-fall time frame which videos clearly show. The only way to get a free-fall collapse of any building is to eliminate the critical support structures instantaneously or in a carefully timed sequence. The official domino collapse scenario could still result in a complete collapse, but it should take a lot longer than the videos clearly show. The timing of these videos is also corroborated by sensitive seismograph records of vibrations the collapse sent into the earth below.

      --
      All theory is gray
    53. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Transcendz · · Score: 1

      If those theories have been "debunked" so many times, why doesn't even a single media only talk about official conspiracy theories ? Why is there no independent investigation ? Many of the "debunked" theories I've seen are only based on hypothesis, nothing more, nothing less. Insulting people who doubt official conspiracy theories is not really fair. Doubt is science's own ground.

      --
      --/ TZ /--
    54. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever heard of path of least resistance? Does that go through intact structural steel?

    55. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      All things being equal the acceleration of gravity is 9.8m/s. As soon as any object loses support and begins to fall that acceleration is constant. The crackpots think buildings would maintain some support during collapse and that support would cause the building to pivot as it falls. The only time I'm aware of a building has ever tipped and fallen was when a building shortly after the Kobe earthquake tipped over. This building tipped over because of liquefaction. The vibration of the sand and water had caused the ground to soften, weakening the foundation and causing the building to tip over.

      This is the only case I'm aware of where a structure tipped over and in this case the structure was completely intact with no damage. Once you damage structural components a single failure cascade as the additional weight transfers to the other members and causes ever expanding failure. Imagine a single floor falling, all that mass, hundreds of thousands of pounds is now moving at significant velocity as it impacts the next floor. No member in the building will be strong enough to resist the force of impact or the additional weight with enough strength to pivot the upper members.

      Buildings are not designed for these forces. We don't design a building to take failure of members and still survive. The entire building must be in tact. There is no question that when the towers came down debris impacted WTC-7. Debris that would have been moving hundreds of miles per hour with lots of mass behind it. Massive structural damage would have been almost guaranteed. Take into account a massive fire that is well documented and you have a structure with softened steel and structural damage. Collapse would be highly likely under those circumstances. That gravity was the largest force and the building didn't resist in it's motion downward is simply logical. There was nothing in the building with enough strength to pivot that amount of weight and cause the building to do anything other that come down as vertically as WTC-7 did.

      If anything what happened in WTC-7 probably confirms that controlled demolition is more about the publicity than the science of making a building come straight down. As it indicates that given no external forces the building will likely come straight down anyway. Although speculating a bit here the explosives are probably strong enough to cause sideways motion during collapse as the structural members would be given horizontal forces immediately before collapse.

    56. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by terjeber · · Score: 1

      There are seismic records of the collapse that corroborate the videos which show the buildings in free fall collapse.

      Actually, no the seismics agree with NIST. Not that conspiracy nuts are going to accept that of course.

    57. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Omg! You got modded troll too! Jesus shit. That's your answer! Damn slashdot....

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    58. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by terjeber · · Score: 1

      I would submit, there are more facts and science supporting a controlled demolition of the word trade center buildings than there is evidence supporting Intelligent Design.

      You submit wrong. There is exactly the same amount of facts supporting a controlled demolition as there is supporting ID. There is less supporting facts for a controlled demolition than there is for Santa Claus (I've seen him).

      there are some serious irregularities in how the buildings came down.

      The only way you can find irregularities is if you assume that some of the assertions by the crackpots are true. They are not. There are no irregularities in the way the buildings came down.

    59. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by terjeber · · Score: 1

      A LOT of people have noticed. A LOT of people have claimed things.

      Thousands of people in the building every day, 24 hours a day. Nobody saw a single person drilling or laying explosives. Nobody saw anything. The only people who "see" things are the cracpots.

    60. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you have any idea how long such a procedure takes? And that the interior is basically gutted? I think someone might have noticed....

      I believe that just a few weeks before 9/11 both buildings were emptied due to a bomb scare, plenty of time to rig something up right there. And lets not forget that not long before that same date the WTC towers were insured for terrorist attacks for a billion dollars... each.

    61. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by DoctorLard · · Score: 1

      You do realize that the support structure in the towers was entirely on the perimeter, right? Each floor was hung like a (rigid) hammock from the outer walls. When the crossbeams softened just enough (no linger rigid) to pull inward rather than down, the outer walls buckled at that point. How else would you immagine a hammock would fall if you cut its strings?

      Total bullshit.

      The buildings had a central core complex made up of 47 box columns, each one metre square in cross-section, formed from six inch thick plate steel. This code housed elevator shafts, stairwells and support conduits, took up at least a quarter of each floor area and was designed to bear the total load of all 120 floors several times over.

      It was designed to withstand hurricanes and plane impacts by allowing the building load to be distributed dynamically by allowing lateral forces (from winds and impacts) to be transmitted from the outside ring (250 columns) to the ground through the core via the floor trusses.

      If it was built as you say it would collapse in the slightest breath of wind.

    62. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, "straight down" is still occupied. You're just saying that the bits that support the system are ignored because the structure would have been unable to fall "down" if they are counted.

      So where did the skeleton fall down? Where did the walls fall to? If the structure didn't fall down, where did they go?

      Basically your refutation was piss poor. If you'd gone on about how the falling centre would pull the walls in but the shape of the interior would stop it from continuing beyond the centre (and therefore cause the opposite wall to fall out or be bounced outward itself by the opposite wall falling toward it) then that would be refutation.

      Yours wasn't.

      PS How many frigging times do we have to read someone coming up with the "proof" of how this was normal because "how many buildings have you seen collapse that were not due to a controlled demolition?"? That's as much proof as saying Aliens exist "because how many aliens would you see if they all had invisibility cloaks?"

    63. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I don't know about you but, I've never seen a skyscraper collapse before, except for September 11th, 2001. Other than that the only time I've seen a building collapse has been a controlled demolition. If someone has video of a building other than the trade center towers just collapsing on it's own I would love to see it.

    64. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      There is exactly the same amount of facts supporting a controlled demolition as there is supporting ID.

      I'm not trying to support or deny the controlled demolition theory, that being said, there are some odd things about the World Trade Center collapse that have not been explained.

      Again, I'm not saying I believe it, but I have a doubt of the official explanation.

      There does seem to be an explosion on impact of the plane. There do seem to be explosions in the building below the floors where the plane hit. The buildings falling within their footprint seems a little too convenient and counter intuitive.

      Now, if I were inclined to disregard the controlled demolition argument, I would disregard these things an satisfy myself with plausible explanations. If I believed the controlled demolition theory, I'd point to these things as proof.

      In the absence of belief either way, they just seem odd in and of themselves. They could just be how these buildings collapsed. The sub-flooring giving way, the insulation on the trusses burning and weakening the internal structure, blowing out Windows as they go. The pressurized building would, of course, "pop" on the impact of the plane, etc.

      I don't believe the government and I don't believe the conspiracy theorists, and, alas, I don't believe government funded scientific institutions since the shrub.

      I do know that the use of language like "crackpot theories" is an intentional logical fallacy intended to discredit a theory without any real intellectual proof. When people use that sort of language, it is intentional. REAL SCIENCE makes a crapckpot theory OBVIOUS and does not need such a characterization. When people use this language, I am skeptical of what they claim.

    65. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      Thousands of people in the building every day, 24 hours a day. Nobody saw a single person drilling or laying explosives. Nobody saw anything. The only people who "see" things are the cracpots.

      People can be in a building 24x7 and not notice anything if it is done right. The cleaning crew, the security guards at night. Hell, fire alarm inspectors. No one would see anything as we quickly decide to see what makes the most sense.

      In a building that large, there are maintenance elevators and access ways to get to inside of the building not generally accessible to others.

      Like I've been trying to say. I'm not advocating the theory, but I think there is room for reasonable doubt and there are things that should give people pause to believing the official report.

      I don't believe the conspiracy theory and I don't believe the official story. I'm just interested in all the facts and history.

    66. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by terjeber · · Score: 1

      there are some odd things about the World Trade Center collapse that have not been explained.

      And that is precisely why you religious nutcases still make noise in a world that ought to be sane by now. For fucks sake we had the enlightenment a long time ago. God is a fiction. Get over it.

      The fact that there are things we don't fully understand with the universe doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Neither does it mean that it was created by some bearded moron who wants his creation to worship his dumb ass. The fact that you don't understand everything about the WTC collapse and that perhaps even the NIST engineers are not 100% sure why some of the things happened, it still happened. Every other explanation for the WTC collapse is significantly more insane than the "official" version. Believing something that is obviously insane over something that has observed data supporting it is absurd.

      Please read up on concepts like "The God of Gaps" etc. Your crackpot insistence that there had to be "something else" is exactly that. No difference between you and the ID and Creationist nuts.

    67. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      And that is precisely why you religious nutcases still make noise in a world that ought to be sane by now.

      I'm an atheist.

    68. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by terjeber · · Score: 1

      I'm an atheist.

      Actually, no, you are not. You are what I would call a selective atheist. You are unable to use the logic that you use to disregard fairies in the sky on other aspects of your life. You are what I would call a wanna-be atheist. Someone who would like to be an atheist but who is unable to let go of some of the fairytale stories.

      Don't worry, if you really have a brain you will grow out of it.

    69. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      I'm an atheist.

      Actually, no, you are not. You are what I would call a selective atheist. You are unable to use the logic that you use to disregard fairies in the sky on other aspects of your life. You are what I would call a wanna-be atheist. Someone who would like to be an atheist but who is unable to let go of some of the fairytale stories.

      Don't worry, if you really have a brain you will grow out of it.

      I'm an atheist
      Actually, no, you are not.

      LOL, what do you know about anything? I should know whether or not I'm an Atheist.

      You are unable to use the logic that you use to disregard fairies in the sky on other aspects of your life.

      So, because I refuse to blindly believe one opinion over another, I am unable to use Logic? Are you insane?

      I would suggest that you cool off and consider what you just accused a person, of which you have no personal knowledge, of being and ask yourself who needs to use their logic functions of their brain more?

      I'm quite skeptical of the whole thing, if you disagree, then lets discuss facts and science. You have merely just used insult assuming your point is so unassailable that only a moron would disagree. Well, personally, I don't have an opinion one way or the other, I just find the contradictions and opportunities interesting and curious.

      Don't worry, if you really have a brain you will grow out of it.

      I'm probably older than you, and from this exchange, I'd bet a lot smarter as well.

    70. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      Ask any professional demolitionist how difficult it actually is to have a building fall straight down without collateral damage. It's quite the science.

      Right, without collateral damage. Do you guys have any idea how stupid you look?

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    71. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      The buildings falling within their footprint seems a little too convenient and counter intuitive.

      I think that right there is the problem. People assume that their intuition on how a complex system they know basically nothing about should work is worth something. It is not.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    72. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      People assume that their intuition on how a complex system they know basically nothing about should work is worth something. It is not.

      Everyone assumes that not agreeing with them is the sign of some form of ignorance. There are lots of things that can't be explained easily in the WTC collapse, and only a fool would overlook such matters as trivial.

      If you care to use a logical argument about why the building fell inward and in place, rather than coming apart and falling any which way, please do tell. Hint: don't use opinion, use facts and science, if you can't, don't even bother posting.

    73. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Rub1cnt · · Score: 1

      Anyone stop to think that the way Trades 1 and 2 were built..the main support for the buildings was the exterior? Its equivalent to a Ziploc bag...the main support is the fabric of the bag. If a large hole were punched into a bag full of water, what would happen? The skeleton of the bag would fail and containment would be breached, resulting in collapse. In a manner of speaking, this is what happened to Trades 1 and 2... a large hole was punched into all sides of the main support structure...perforating the bag...the result was a total, catastrophic failure. One of the towers leaned a bit one way, then fell straight downward...the other just went down.. We're fortunate that the towers came straight down, as designed...otherwise, 1160 feet of Manhattan would have been crushed and there would have been more casualties. The building's tops with the amount of damage they took, trade 1 from 95-105 and trade 2 from I think 70+ to 85 probably would have had to come down anyway from the damage they took. It's sad that they had to collapse with that many people in or under them, but think of how many people it would have been had these attacks occurred only an hour later. The 3000 people would have more likely been 10-100 times that in the area. Point being, it could always have been worse. I think there are many questions still left unanswered, but those will come in time, when a private investigation is funded.

      --
      Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you... :)
    74. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both were also brought down by controlled demolitions, which makes them look more like controlled demolitions.

      I mean, come on people.... there's hundreds of structural engineers and architects that have signed on to say that there's no way WTC 1, 2 or 7 could have come down as a result of a fire. Wake up, people!

    75. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Rub1cnt · · Score: 1

      hmm...what were the makes and models of the 4 aircraft used in the attacks? 2 United flights 2 American Airlines flights.. Strange..there are a few questions that remain unanswered.

      --
      Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you... :)
    76. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by terjeber · · Score: 1

      LOL, what do you know about anything?

      Absolutely everything. Given that you have shown here that you would rather put your faith in absurd fairy tales than in hard science, is proof positive that you are a selective atheist. Once you are able to use your skepticism on every part of your life then you are an atheist.

      So, because I refuse to blindly believe one opinion over another

      Not at all. This is not a matter of believing one opinion or another. Neither is atheism. It is about believing and not believing. There is absolutely no supporting evidence for any of the alternative "theories" about 9/11. Not a single shred of proof. In fact, the alternative theories are not theories at all but conjectures at best. This means that there is currently a single theory that explains what happened. Not one, two or three. One. You can either realize this or you can believe in fairytale hokum. You have chosen to lean towards the fairy tale in this case.

      ask yourself who needs to use their logic functions of their brain more?

      You do. Try to find the source of the following important concept: "That's not right. It's not even wrong". The alternative explanations for 9/11 are "not even wrong".

      I'm quite skeptical of the whole thing

      Actually, no, you are not. Again, try to find out what the meaning of being a skeptic actually is. You are latching on to absurd fairy tales because you don't like "the official" explanation. This in spite of the fact that the "official" explanation is so far the only rational explanation. This is what makes you a believer in flim-flam fairy tales. That is what makes you a non-atheist (sorta, kinda, in a way).

      I'm probably older than you, and from this exchange, I'd bet a lot smarter as well.

      Probably not on the first one, and I guarantee you are wrong on the second one. You have proven through this discussion that you don't even understand very basic scientific concepts and elementary reasoning.

    77. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by lgw · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, I can only argue using facts, logic, and reason. I cannot defeat the force of idiocy. This is why we'll never run out of Trufers.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    78. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > it makes sense that a skyscraper should
      > come straight down, more or less.

      No, it doesn't, unless the damage to
      its support is reasonably uniform and
      simultaneous across an entire horizontal
      expanse of the building.

    79. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      Given that you have shown here that you would rather put your faith in absurd fairy tales than in hard science

      I have no "faith" to put anywhere. I have carefully considered opinions, and IMHO neither camp has unassailable science. Both sides make interesting points.

      This is not a matter of believing one opinion or another. Neither is atheism. It is about believing and not believing.

      "believing" is often a bad thing. As an atheist, "believing" is patently absurd.

      Your argument has been insult and absurdities, when you can present some facts I'll listen.

    80. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by terjeber · · Score: 1

      Both sides make interesting points

      In exactly the same way that both sides of the Evolution debate "make interesting points". In other words, you have rational science and a bunch of lunatic crackpots, and you give credence to the lunatic crackpots.

      Your argument has been insult and absurdities

      Insult, absolutely. Absurdities, not at all. Given the fact that you are actually stating that the crackpots have opinions as valid as those of scientists, you are really not worthy of anything but insult, but I have also tried to use one or two arguments.

      I find it staggering that people who stand up-right actually give credit to the Intelligent Design crackpots. That is what you are doing here. There is no difference whatsoever.

    81. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what does the NIST report say about the conservation of momentum then?

    82. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      In exactly the same way that both sides of the Evolution debate "make interesting points". In other words, you have rational science and a bunch of lunatic crackpots, and you give credence to the lunatic crackpots.

      You keep insulting and impugning, but you have made no rational argument yet. Insults are not reason.

      Given the fact that you are actually stating that the crackpots have opinions as valid as those of scientists

      Again, ad hominem is not debate, it is the rambling of an idiot. It is intellectually barren.

      I find it staggering that people who stand up-right actually give credit to the Intelligent Design crackpots. That is what you are doing here. There is no difference whatsoever.

      That is your opinion, of course, I have a different opinion and I have done my share of reading on the issues. The difference is that I don't see a "slam-dunk" by the "scientists" (Question: how many independent scientific organizations were allowed access to the evidence?) There has been NO independent investigation, and that in itself is problematic.

      So, insult away, be as rude as you want, but note that you are the one behaving unreasonably.

    83. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      the same reason they demonstrate nuclear weapons to the public, so we all know what they're capable of.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    84. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      the Twin Towers didn't have any of that, it merely fell in the direction of gravity, which doesn't much surprise me.

      Yeah, into the path of greatest resistance at a rate not much less than that of freefall.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    85. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by terjeber · · Score: 1

      You keep insulting and impugning, but you have made no rational argument yet.

      Sigh. Reading doesn't seem to be your strong suit. Here is my argument: The NIST report fully explains the events of the day. No other forwarded explanation does. All the crackpot ideas require Deus Ex Machina to work. That is an argument, and if you have missed it I would have to recommend a course in Reading 101.

      Again, ad hominem is not debate

      Pointing out that a crackpot is a crackpot is not an Ad Hominem attack. It is pure reason. I have also described why the crackpots are crackpots, in case you missed it. Look up the concept of Deus ex Machina.

      That is your opinion, of course

      You still seem to to think this is a matter of opinion vs opinion. And, living in the times you do, you probably feel that all opinions deserve equal investigation. You are wrong. You have given credence to crackpot theories. That is observable fact. The fact that they are crackpot theories is also observable fact. In the same way that ID and Creationism is crackpot. That is what is sad here.

      I don't see a "slam-dunk" by the "scientists"

      Putting scientists in quotation marks just proves that you are an ignorant idiot. On the other hand, that entire sentence shows that you are an ignorant idiot. You see, you imply that I have seen a "slam-dunk" anywhere, and I have not. I have never argued that it is a slam-dunk. Again, you are giving credence where none is required. I'll try to take it very slowly just for you.

      1. In the 9/11 investigation we here talk about, there is one, and only one theory forwarded that explains, or tries to explain the events. There is not a set of theories we can select from.
      2. Given that there is only one theory and that this adequately explains what happened, it seems reasonable to assume that this theory is close to the truth.
      3. Given that in 7 years no other theory has ever been presented by anyone at any point in time further leads weight to the assumption that the NIST report is an accurate description of the events.
      4. For reasons only severely demented people can understand seemingly rational people are listening to a bunch of lunatics who claim that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy did it.
      5. The people who think that the SC and TF advocates have a point would like the rest of the world to take them and the SC and TF crackpots seriously.

      There has been NO independent investigation, and that in itself is problematic.

      Sigh. The NIST report is available to anyone who wants it. Go find fault with it and then come back. Until you do you are just a crackpot lunatic. and I am not at all unreasonable when I point this out. The fact that you don't like that I call you a crackpot lunatic and the fact that you your self feel that you are not a crackpot lunatic doesn't change the fact that you are. The only unreasonable behavior here is from the people who think that the Santa Claus theory might have merit.

    86. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by DoctorLard · · Score: 1

      Hey - all I said was the parent post was bullshit. I hear it bandied about that the floors were strung up all flimsy and hammock-like from the outer load-bearing columns, which is completely wrong, as the load was designed to be transmitted to the ground through the central core.

      However if you want to extrapolate from there that I obviously believe that it fell due to some crack government demolition squad, or aliens using gravity rays, or whatever, I couldn't care less, be my guest, but you'd be the idiot.

    87. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Myopic · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure what that means, "why doesn't even a single media only talk about official conspiracy theories?"

      There usually are official investigations. We have official investigations of Roswell, WTC, JFK... but of course the official investigation's findings aren't convincing to conspiracy theorists -- that's why they're conspiracy theorists.

    88. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Myopic · · Score: 1

      Oh, that's strange, other 9/11 conspiracy theorists have tried to claim that the buildings fell faster than gravity, which is a weird claim. I see now you want it to go slower than it actually did.

      I shouldn't do this, but I'll bite: given a skyscraper blasted with lit jet fuel and left to burn, how would you expect it to fall down, or what would you expect to happen? How fast should it fall when it falls?

      (Also, let us know if you are a structural engineer, or have some qualification in this area. For the record, I don't.)

    89. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      The NIST report is available to anyone who wants it.

      But is the evidence? How many INDEPENDENT studies have been done?

      A lot of very good scientists have done some very good work and have been very wrong. An agenda can cloud thinking and very plausible and convincing, but wrong, conclusions can be made. An independent investigation is the only way to come to the facts.

      Again, I don't necessarily accept that it was a controlled demolition, but there are a number of things that don't make sense.

      Until you do you are just a crackpot lunatic.

      Again, you insult, you impugn, if you were confident of your arguments, you wouldn't need to do that. So, I guess you must not really believe the NIST argument and NEED to irrationally protect it, otherwise you'd be forced to accept something you can't accept: doubt.

    90. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by terjeber · · Score: 1

      But is the evidence? How many INDEPENDENT studies have been done?

      As I said, the NIST report, fully ready for your review, is available in it's entirety.

      An agenda can cloud thinking and very plausible and convincing

      Why would NIST have an agenda? Given all the people involved, how on earth would you manage a consensus based on flawed data? Have you ever even met a scientist? Are you not aware that each and every argument you have against the official explanation requires MASSIVE leaps of faith. Far more than is needed to accept the NIST findings. This is why you are a religious crackpot.

      Again, you insult, you impugn

      Nope. I observe, analyze, conclude and report. Nothing more.

      you'd be forced to accept something you can't accept: doubt

      As a skeptic, doubt is part of my nature. Gullibility and fairy tale belief is not.

    91. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by pkphilip · · Score: 1

      Why then are demolition teams paid thousands of dollars if the only way buildings fall is straight down?

    92. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please mod this up, that is good and answers the question. Really, straight down is not the answer. You can't fall straight down on to support columns, only slightly to the sides which should only further cause sideways movement as less resistance is found by falling against air rather than columns and lower floors. Water flows down a hill, not straight down in to the hill because it follows a path of least resistance. Falling directly in to it's own footprint for a building (or in to its core support columns) doesn't sound like following a path of least resistance. I think the comments that say we should expects buildings to naturally fall in to their own footprints to be rather weak. I really don't intuitively understand how that can really happen.

    93. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by mlwmohawk · · Score: 1

      As I said, the NIST report, fully ready for your review, is available in it's entirety.

      But are the evidence and the materials available for independent investigation? No. Who reviews and confirms the NIST conclusions with the same data? SOP in scientific inquiry.

      Why would NIST have an agenda?

      Why would NASA's climate statements be edited by politicians, deleting references to global warming? Why would the army withhold evidence that soldiers were killed by friendly fire? Why would Dick Cheney refuse to testify in congress?

      Given all the people involved, how on earth would you manage a consensus based on flawed data?

      What people? You mean people on the government payroll who depend on a security clearance for their livelihood? Did you read the report on the Challenger explosion? Think about it.

      Have you ever even met a scientist?
      Yes LOTS of them. People I'm sure you've heard of too.

      Are you not aware that each and every argument you have against the official explanation requires MASSIVE leaps of faith.

      That is conjecture, why do they require leaps of faith? On film there are clearly explosions on floors well below the impact site and leading the collapse. I'm open to the explanation that the explosions are the result of the floors collapsing ahead of the building, that makes sense, but it is not the only possible explanation.

      I'm a skeptic, why is the evidence NOT available for independent research? Why can't chemical analysis be done on the rubble by INDEPENDENT scientists? When people withhold information, there is reason to be skeptical.

      Far more than is needed to accept the NIST findings. This is why you are a religious crackpot.

      Again, you insult. Again, I say you must be trying to convince yourself you are right. You try to paint me as a religious nut job, but all I've said in this whole interchange is that I'm skeptical and I don't believe either explanation. It is you that "believe" the NIST and call me a religious crackpot for not believing as you do.

    94. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by 1u3hr · · Score: 1
      Why then are demolition teams paid thousands of dollars if the only way buildings fall is straight down?

      Because they have to make sure ALL the building falls "straight down". If only half does, you have an extremely dangerous and unstable structure to deal with.

    95. Re:"Crackpot Theories" by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      You do realize that the support structure in the towers was entirely on the perimeter, right? Each floor was hung like a (rigid) hammock from the outer walls. When the crossbeams softened just enough (no linger rigid) to pull inward rather than down, the outer walls buckled at that point. How else would you immagine a hammock would fall if you cut its strings?

      Once the mass of building above the weak point got moving, nothing below was strong enough to hold it up, so it was nearly freefall at that point. But look carefully at the video and you'll clearly see that the building above where the plane hit falls as an intact mass, taking out each floor below it in turn.

      you do realize that you're talking about the wrong building, right?

      No plane hit WTC7, the building in question here.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

  19. Re:Really? by CaptainPatent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's just get this out of the way first. BULLSHIT!
    The rest of the world knows something suspicious went on, but America has their head in the sand. Not long after this shit, there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off. The steel structure was still standing but oxidizing flame was enough to melt or buckle steel in the trade center? The sheer ignorance of the American populace astounds me.

    How about if we get this out of the way:

    A statement that one building somewhere at sometime didn't collapse under certain conditions is no grounds (in fact it's a logical fallacy) for saying a building couldn't collapse under the same conditions... and worse, it's also no grounds to subsequently stereotype an entire group of people and flame them.

    Thank you and have a nice day.

    --
    Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
  20. Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere by fotoguzzi · · Score: 5, Funny

    but you can still publish goatse links here.

    --
    Their they're doing there hair.
    1. Re:Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere by Phroggy · · Score: 1, Offtopic
      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  21. Fire? Gimme a break. by hivebrain · · Score: 3, Funny

    Everyone knows the CIA hired the mob and anti-Communist Cuban militants to bring it down.

    1. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      JFK detonated charges which were placed by Princess Diana.

      How ignorant of the facts can you possibly be?

    2. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2, Funny

      Everyone knows the CIA hired the mob and anti-Communist Cuban militants to bring it down.

      I wouldn't rule out Romulan involvement.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    3. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by Das+Modell · · Score: 1

      But there was a third operative.

      "Elvis has left the building."

      Didn't mean much back in the day, but now it has all become clear. It's so fucking obvious. They knew this was coming for decades. When JFK got wind of the plan to build the World Trade Center, he said to himself "not on my watch," faked his own death and then recruited Elvis and Diana. Maybe there are even more people involved. I mean maybe Bernie Mac was in on it too, but decided to talk and got thugged up by George Washington's crew before he could sing. George Washington, you say? Impossible? Not at all. Roswell was just a coverup for Tesla's time travel experiment.

      How stupid do they think we are?

    4. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by Scrameustache · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Everyone knows the CIA hired the mob and anti-Communist Cuban militants to bring it down.

      That was called OPERATION NORTHWOODS:

      8. It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight.

      a. An aircraft at Eglin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone.

      b. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida. From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly into an auxiliary field at Eglin AFB where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. The drone aircraft meanwhile will continue to fly the filed flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will being transmitting on the international distress frequency a "MAY DAY" message stating he is under attack by Cuban MIG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by destruction of the aircraft which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow ICAO radio stations in the Western Hemisphere to tell the US what has happened to the aircraft instead of the US trying to "sell" the incident.

      9. It is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist Cuban MIGs have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack.

      a. Approximately 4 or 5 F-101 aircraft will be dispatched in trail from Homestead AFB, Florida, to the vicinity of Cuba. Their mission will be to reverse course and simulate fakir aircraft for an air defense exercise in southern Florida. These aircraft would conduct variations of these flights at frequent Intervals. Crews would be briefed to remain at least 12 miles off the Cuban coast; however, they would be required to carry live ammunition in the event that hostile actions were taken by the Cuban MIGs.

      b. On one such flight, a pre-briefed pilot would fly tail-end Charley at considerable interval between aircraft. While near the Cuban Island this pilot would broadcast that he had been jumped by MIGs and was going down. No other calls would be made. The pilot would then fly directly west at extremely low altitude and land at a secure base, an Eglin auxiliary. The aircraft would be met by the proper people, quickly stored and given a new tail number. The pilot who had performed the mission under an alias, would resume his proper identity and return to his normal place of business. The pilot and aircraft would then have disappeared.

      c. At precisely the same time that the aircraft was presumably shot down a submarine or small surface craft would disburse F-101 parts, parachute, etc., at approximately 15 to 20 miles off the Cuban coast and depart. The pilots returning to Homestead would have a true story as far as they knew. Search ships and aircraft could be dispatched and parts of aircraft found."

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    5. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by KGIII · · Score: 1

      You guys are all wrong. It was the Spanish Inquisition. It is okay that you were wrong because nobody expects them.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    6. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by couchslug · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Everyone knows the CIA hired the mob and anti-Communist Cuban militants to bring it down."

      No, the CIA hired Gordon Liddy to protect it.
      Less work and no chance the structure would survive.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    7. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by Daswolfen · · Score: 1

      Kind of crazy what those Democrats will do to start a war....

      --
      Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
    8. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      Says who? You? Get real, the building came down in a fashion IDENTICAL to a planned demolition. Your government does not love you, let it go.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    9. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by Americium · · Score: 1

      Tell that to the Billion Muslims!

      [sarcastic]It was a Jewish-Goverment-run conspiracy, FYI .[/sarcastic]

      And sorry to all you muslims I have not met, blame education in Saudi Arabia for my bias. Meeting people from there is ..... interesting/disheartening. They tell me Rupert Murdoch, who was awarded Papal knighthood from the pope, is really a Jew bent on hating muslims or something or other. And that is the least absurd thing they tell me.

      Oh Saudi Arabia, if it wasn't for the oil, you would be the first, and perhaps the only, to be invaded.

      And then it sucks a whole lot more meeting muslims from other countries that are great people that love america more than I do, and yet those are the countries we DO invade. (You meet great people in New Jersey, which to me includes Philly and NYC, now I live in Maine and only meet boring white people that haven't left the country ever.)

    10. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It being done by Al Queda does not rule
      out connivance by the CIA, Mossad, and ISI,
      three tightly bound intelligence agencies,
      well-known for such behavior,
      one of whom supplied 100,000 dollars to
      the highjackers, on the public record.

      Did you know Al Queda was our paid ally
      in Kosovo? Did you know that Ben Laden
      used to receive boatloads of money from
      the CIA?

      The notion that Al Queda is no longer on
      the CIA payroll is not a heavily tested hypothesis.

    11. Re:Fire? Gimme a break. by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      The fact that the CIA had planned false flag activities in the past (on a much much smaller scale and without anywhere near the direct damage to the US infrastructure or loss of lives or the complications) does not mean that any given activity was carried out by the government.

      The overwhelming evidence that the events were orchestrated by Al Queda-backed hijackers and not an inside job by the government combined with the nature of the attack rules that out.

      Evidence provided by the people who carry out false flag operations.

      Let me get this clear, if people who are professionals at fooling you provide you with evidence that one of their employees orchestrated an event, you think that is overwhelming proof that they didn't do it.
      Even if they profit through an increase of 100% of their budget after the event happened.

      And you think I'm crazy, right?

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

  22. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here

    Where the hell do you think you are? If I want science I'll read a journal. I come here to watch armchair scientists duke it out. Kind of like that TV show, you know, Bumfights.

  23. Re:Like ISO before by colfer · · Score: 1

    Good political arguments which you ruin by accepting BS on the collapse.

  24. Why is the crackpot theory not debunked yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If someone left a crackpot burning, couldn't that have started the fire in the first place?
    Ipso diabolico facto nonsensicalico.

    These guys have resources. It could be quite damaging to be caught with a smoldering crackpot.
    Ergo, they crash a plane into the building to cover it all up.

    Sheeple, the answers are RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, just light them up and breathe deeply.

    1. Re:Why is the crackpot theory not debunked yet? by magus_melchior · · Score: 1

      Sheeple, the answers are RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, just light them up and breathe deeply.

      Those answers smell suspiciously like gasoline... I'll just breathe deeply until I feel nauseous.

      --
      "We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
    2. Re:Why is the crackpot theory not debunked yet? by cromar · · Score: 1

      Man I would totally hangout with conspiracy theorists if they were passing joints around all the time.

  25. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Not really. Just better government.

  26. Missed opportunity by bigtallmofo · · Score: 1

    This story should have had banner ads for tinfoil hats instead of InterSystems Cache Post-Relational database.

    They would've sold out in minutes!

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
  27. Re:Really? by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not long after this shit, there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off. The steel structure was still standing [...]

    I'm pretty sure you're talking about the Windsor building in Madrid.

    I've got news for you, buddy: It actually works against you.

    First, the Windsor building had a concrete core and two concrete technical floors. A very different design from that of the Twin Towers.

    Second, the steel portions of the building exposed to the fire did in fact get all melty and collapsey. The only reason the building is still standing is because of the features I mentioned above.

    http://www.911myths.com/html/madrid_windsor_tower.html
    http://www.debunking911.com/madrid.htm

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  28. Re:Controlled Demolition, of course by Martin+Blank · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No one ever expected a fire to burn out of control for several hours. There was always an anticipation that fire units would be dispatched and undertake steps to control the fire.

    Civilian structures are designed based on the expectation that emergency services will be available. They are not constructed as bunkers, for the most part, as the expenses are simply too high to do that. Nevertheless, NIST made a recommendation to evaluate those buildings that use similar construction methods and suggests several possible cost-effective ways of mitigating the risk of collapse under similar circumstances.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  29. To all the conspiracy nuts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Shut the fuck up. For fuck's sake, please just shut the fuck up.

    You're ignorant, you're dumb and you're uneducated. Most of all though, you are fucking annoying.

    I don't listen to your trolling. I don't pay attention to your buzzwords like "sheeple". I didn't start on 9/11 and I'm not starting today.

    One more time for good measure. Shut the fuck up.

    1. Re:To all the conspiracy nuts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who are you to say that I haven't/can't? It's because I didn't come to the same explanation as you, right? Did you sit beside me for the last 7 years?

      No you didn't, you sat there beating your meat with a "V for Vendetta" mask on. You were funny before, but now you just need your ass kicked for being so fucking dumb. It's called growing the fuck up, and you would be best to partake.

      Quite frankly, I'm embarrassed that ignorant shits like you even read Slashdot. Who needs science when you can make shit up? You need to be on one of those creationist forums. They are typically more tolerating of people who have no idea what the fuck they are talking about instead of places like Slashdot where we have better things to discuss than masturbatory fantasies of government conspiracies.

    2. Re:To all the conspiracy nuts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry to say, but it's angry foaming idiots like you that ruin it for scientific debate. Unless of course "fuck" and "shit" have become part of the new scientific lexicon.

      Scientific way:
      "Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit"
      Your AC way:
      "You dumb ignorant shit! Fucking water fucking boils when I fucking tell that shit to"

      Most true scientists prefer the first statement.
      Inbred retards go with the second. The choice is yours.

    3. Re:To all the conspiracy nuts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't see how conceited angry ranting helps us with the scientific point of view. If you can't respond with at least a modicum of self-control, don't proselytize to others on maturity --- Even on Slashdot!

      Cut back on the coffee, beg your parents to let you back into the basement, and "Stay off our side!"

    4. Re:To all the conspiracy nuts by REALMAN · · Score: 1

      No.

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
  30. Ever hear of jet fuel? by jordandeamattson · · Score: 4, Informative

    Let's see...hmm...full tanks of aviation grade fuel.

    The 767-200ER, the UA plane which went into one of the towers, has a fuel capacity of 23,980. The flight was a few hundred miles from it origin at Logan International Airport in Boston.

    Let's assume that the plan had only 15,000 gallons onboard.

    The flash point of jet fuel is 100.4 ÂF (38 ÂC). Many surfaces - including the engines of the plane - would be well above this point.

    In addition, there were numerous electrical connections which could have sparked causing the fuel to ignite.

    Jet fuel has between 127,000 and 135,000 BTUs per gallon.

    Therefore, at the point of impact we had between 1,905,000,000 and 2,025,000,000 BTUs of energy being released in a highly concentrated area (3-5 floors).

    Even without the energy generated by the burning of other materials, this is sufficient to inflame the entire area and to cause the required heat damage to the tower.

    Jordan

    1. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Martin+Blank · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your explanation works for the Twin Towers, but not for WTC7, which is what vertinox was asking about. The jet fuel was probably burned off by the time the north tower collapsed, but debris ignited by it (directly or indirectly) did hit WTC7, starting the fires there.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    2. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, he kinda asked how the fire then spread to the OTHER building, the one this article is about. WTC 7.

    3. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like how you translated the degrees Fahrenheit into degrees Celsius, but didn't do the translation for BTU, which isn't actually used outside the USA (not even in Britain).

      However, 2 billion BTUs is about equivalent to 500kton of TNT, or 500 gigacalories.

      Actually, it still means nothing to me, apart from being a big-ass number.

    4. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Therefore, at the point of impact we had between 1,905,000,000 and 2,025,000,000 BTUs of energy being released in a highly concentrated area (3-5 floors)

       
      This BTU summation assumes uniform and instantaneous phase change. It is reasonable to assume the fuel burn occurred over some measurable amount of time, possibly minutes.
       
      Totally agree with you otherwise.

    5. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by justleavealonemmmkay · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      500kton : metric, short or long ? Anyway, it's about 50 Hiroshimas (Hiroshima:Energy::LOC:Information)

    6. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, there's a flow in your reasoning : none of this fuel did hit the WTC 7. BTW, maybe you, americans, have no problem in believing official conspiracy theories, but why be so agressive against people who simply doubt what they're told to see and think ?

    7. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Funny you talk about BTU's but not temperature.

      Jet fuel has a maximum burning temperature. And WTC's structural steel was designed to withstand MUCH higher temps.

      Keep the BTU crap for air conditioners, please.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    8. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by DragonPup · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Jet fuel burns at around 1400 degrees. While this is not hot enough to melt steel, it is hot enough to make it loose its structural integrity. It only takes 1100 degrees to cause the steel to lose about half of its structural strength from what I have read.

      --
      "Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
    9. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by arth1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The 767-200ER, the UA plane which went into one of the towers, has a fuel capacity of 23,980. The flight was a few hundred miles from it origin at Logan International Airport in Boston.

      Let's assume that the plan had only 15,000 gallons onboard.

      You assume wrong if you place any significance on the fuel capacity. Airliners almost never fill the tank up. Instead, they calculate how much fuel is needed based on the weight of the aircraft, then add a safety margin based on the distance to the nearest alternative airport and flying 30 minutes extra, and tank up that much, and not a drop more.
      Flying excess fuel around is simply not economical.

      In this case, the flight 175 was indeed a 767-200ER. "ER" denotes Extended Range; it's a plane that's capable of flying New York to Tokyo non-stop. Boston to Los Angeles is a far shorter trip, and it wouldn't need full fuel tanks. Especially since it was only about one third loaded. Also, a great part of the fuel had already been used as the plane had finished climbing and had passed New York, New Jersey and into Pennsylvania before it got turned around back to New York. So no, it almost certainly had nowhere near your guesstimated amount of fuel by the time it hit the tower. It likely didn't have that amount of fuel when it took off.

      It did, however, have more than enough to cause critical damage, especially since the targeted building hadn't been built on a budget to specs, and not to be as safe as possible. Much could have been done to make the buildings withstand fire better, but then they probably never would have been built, due to costs.

    10. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about 2 billion Snickers bars.

    11. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by anarking · · Score: 1

      Jet fuel burns at 800Â to 1500ÂF, not hot enough to melt steel (2750ÂF).

      Take your equations back to biology class and understand a simple fact to start from.

    12. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't we have photos and video of people standing in the holes in the twin towers that were at 'steel-melting-or-bending-temperatures?' They seemed to be moving around waiting for rescued not being incinerated....

    13. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Americium · · Score: 1

      You cannot relate BTUs of energy to heating up steel to a certain temperature. It makes absolutely no sense. Heat damage? Steel only weakens with high temperature, so you could dump billions of BTUs of heat at it, but unless it's it's at a high enough temperature, it wouldn't do anything.

      Steel would is also immune to a quick hot flash of heat, it just wouldn't have time to absorb any heat at all. It was the impact that stripped the fireproofing and the fires that followed, burning the carpets, office supplies, everything else that actually heated it up. Paper burns hotter than jet fuel, BTW.

    14. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      You ever watched anybody bend a pipe using a blowtorch? Notice how they heat it up and then bend it? Also notice how the pipe doesn't get all "melty"? It stays in a tubular form? That's because the heat weakened the steel so it could be bent. Now, that's just heating it high enough so a human can actually bend the pipe by hand. It ends up not being a lot of force. If you didn't heat it up as much, it would take a lot more force, but not nearly as much as if it wasn't heated up at all.

    15. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      a blowtorch can go from 2000 to 2800 celsius. jet fuel doesn't come close, and it only burned for the first 10 minutes after the impact.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    16. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      And a bunch of stuff was on fire afterwards. Ever seen an office? Notice how much paper and carpeting and everything else there is in there? Also, you don't have to go very hot to remove the temper out of steel and affect its crystalline structure. Go check out some phase diagrams. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8e/Steel_pd.svg/420px-Steel_pd.svg.png

    17. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a) lose, not loose
      b) usually a skyscraper is built with a safety factor of well over four times. More if it's a new design.

      Also, since we're going on about lessened strength of the structure, the fuel wasn't laid out neatly and burning evenly over the surface. so why did it not lean over when one side broke first?

    18. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see...hmm...full tanks of aviation grade fuel.

      The 767-200ER, the UA plane which went into one of the towers, has a fuel capacity of 23,980. The flight was a few hundred miles from it origin at Logan International Airport in Boston.

      Let's assume that the plan had only 15,000 gallons onboard.

      The flash point of jet fuel is 100.4 ÂF (38 ÂC). Many surfaces - including the engines of the plane - would be well above this point.

      In addition, there were numerous electrical connections which could have sparked causing the fuel to ignite.

      Jet fuel has between 127,000 and 135,000 BTUs per gallon.

      Therefore, at the point of impact we had between 1,905,000,000 and 2,025,000,000 BTUs of energy being released in a highly concentrated area (3-5 floors).

      Even without the energy generated by the burning of other materials, this is sufficient to inflame the entire area and to cause the required heat damage to the tower.

      Jordan

      Uh, last time I looked jet fuel isn't self oxidizing. The biggest throttle on a fire like this would have to be fresh air.

      -Michael

    19. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Jet fuel has a maximum burning temperature. And WTC's structural steel was designed to withstand MUCH higher temps.

      No, it was not. It was designed to survive higher temperatures for shorter periods. It was not designed to have all insulation removed and have jet-fuel temperatures applied directly for over an hour. That was well-outside design specs. Because it is so sensitive to temperature it did have insulation. However, it is suspected that because of the intensity and duration of the fires and the debris and stress from the initial impact, that the insulation was damaged. After that happened, the fires temperatures were able to exceed the design of the structure, to the result observed.

    20. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is the highest temp jet fuel burning in normal atmosphere?

      What is the various temperature failure points of the steel alloy used in the twin towers?

      What is the heat conductivity of the alloy? i.e. the heat produced by the jet fuel needs to melt the steel columns 60+ floors below the impact point and keep melting it after it has finished burning; I believe the fuel burned for about 20 minutes after impact?

      What is the highest temperature the materials in the tower could maintain after the jet fuel was consumed? I believe NY firecode limits materials to less than 900 degrees?

      It would also be interesting to find other skyscraper collapes that weren't demolitions to see how the material fell; pretty much straight down/pancake or topple?

      Any data on multifloor behavior falling from 60+ stories would be useful as well; the top of one of the towers pulverized itself on the way down so an analysis of those physics would be interesting as well.

    21. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      The jet fuel wouldn't burn for the entire hour of the fire even if the jets had full tanks! Most of the fuel burns in the explosion. Did you see it? Huge fireball? Fueled not by fundamentalist hate, and bin Laden's beard, but jet fuel.

      After around 10 minutes it was not a jet fuel thousands of degrees temperature fire, that was gone, but ordinary office fire. I don't know how hot that burns, but these buildings did not collapse because of fire for MUCH longer periods, and I'd like someone to produce even one steel-core high rise that has completely crumbled due to a fire.

      Hey, but we're talking about the WTC 7 people. Focus. No jet impact, 300 feet away from the north tower. Collapse into it's own footprint. *scratches head*

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    22. Re:Ever hear of jet fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jet fuel has a maximum burning temperature.

      Here's your science lesson for the day: there is no such thing as a 'maximum burning temperature' without consideration of the surroundings.

      Temperature is nothing more than the average kinetic energy of the molecules of a substance. Raising temperature requires an input of heat.

      Burning is an exothermic chemical reaction, by which we mean one which releases (rather than consumes) heat energy. This release of heat raises the temperature of matter: initially, the combustion products (the vapor and ash), later surrounding materials (as heat is conducted and radiated away).

      If a fire burns in open air at a given ambient temperature, the temperature of the flame will quickly reach an equilibrium based on the rate of burning and how quickly cool air flows into the flame to replace hot air floating upwards.

      If a fire burns in a more contained space -- such as inside an office building -- the heat is trapped. Some of it may escape through windows but the temperature will rise to levels considerably higher than an open air fire.

      The temperature achieved depends on a number of factors: fire duration, amount and type of fuel consumed, the rate at which heat energy can leave the structure, etc. But you cannot make a blanket categorical statement that a fire burning a given fuel has a maximum temperature in all conditions. That's simply nonsense which betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of physics.

      And WTC's structural steel was designed to withstand MUCH higher temps.

      No, it wasn't. There is no way to design structural steel to withstand even the temperature of even a fire which burns only ordinary office fuel supplies (carpets, plastics, cloth, paper, etc.). It doesn't matter what the fuel is, what matters is that the energy released by burning it has a relatively closed space in which to accumulate, which causes the temperature to rise.

      This is why steel-framed buildings, the WTC included, feature fire protection on all steel structure (typically some kind of sprayed-on foam insulation). This greatly extends the expected life of the structure during a fire by retarding the rate at which the steel's temperature rises. No insulation is perfect, however, and thus building designers think in terms of hours of protection -- i.e. can I design the building to last long ehough for the fire to be brought under control before it collapses?

      In the case of the WTC1 & 2 towers, however, there were two confounding factors. First, the structure was greatly weakened since the airplane crash physically severed or damaged many columns, floor supports, and big chunks of the outside wall (which was a structural element in the twin towers). Second, much of the fire insulation on steel not actually destroyed by the impact is thought to have been stripped off by the aircraft debris and fuel flowing through the building at 400+ MPH. Combine an exceptionally intense fire (due to all the aircraft fuel added to office fuel) with damaged structure and compromised fire protection and you get an inevitable collapse.

  31. Re:Really? by glitch23 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Let's just get this out of the way first. BULLSHIT!

    The rest of the world knows something suspicious went on, but America has their head in the sand. Not long after this shit, there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off. The steel structure was still standing but oxidizing flame was enough to melt or buckle steel in the trade center? The sheer ignorance of the American populace astounds me.

    Let's just get this out of the way first. BULLSHIT!

    The rest of the world knows something evil went on, but America has been the target of fundamentalists for a long time. Not long after this shit, there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off. The steel structure was still standing but oxidizing flame was enough to melt or buckle steel in the trade center? The sheer paranoia of the non-Americans populace astounds me.

    Now to be a little more creative with my response. Do you care to give a reason that you think the U.S. gov't (or whoever you think actually did it) caused these buildings to collapse? By the way, let me remind you that 2 of these buildings were over 2x bigger than WTC7 and were hit by commercial airliners prior to their collapse. Also, do you have evidence that the building in Europe you speak of was built exactly the same way as WTC7 to use it as a fair comparison in showing off your....um...structural engineering prowess?

    --
    this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
  32. Ummm yeah right by Norpg · · Score: 0, Informative

    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/BREAKING_NIST_%3CI%3Efinally%3CI%3E_poses_theory_on_0821.html

    As federal agency declares 'new phenomenon' downed WTC 7, activists cry foul

    According to a federal agency report released Thursday, a "new phenomenon" known as thermal expansion was directly responsible for the mysterious collapse of World Trade Center 7 on Sept. 11, 2001.

    This study, posed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology -- a federal scientific agency which promotes technical industrial standards -- marks the first 'official' government theory on the collapse.

    The building's demise occurred some seven hours after the twin towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, and has been the source of numerous conspiracy theories key to the "9/11 Truth" movement, most of which argue that the symmetrical, seven-second collapse was brought about by a controlled demolition.

    Dr. Shyam Sunder, director of Institute's building and fire research laboratory, oversaw the government's three-year research efforts. The report aims to disprove the controlled demolition argument.

    However, Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and a member of the American Institute of Architects, doesn't believe a word of the theory.

    His group, which has swelled to over 400 architectural and engineering professionals, immediately responded to the Institute's claim in a press conference.

    "Tons of [molten metal] was found 21 days after the attack," said Gage in an interview with a Vancouver, Canada television station. "Steel doesn't begin to melt until 2,700 degrees, which is much hotter than what these fires could have caused."

    "There are holes in this story that you can drive a truck through," Gage added during the press conference. His group asserts that thermite, a steel cutting agent, was used to bring the building down.

    Dr. Sunder disagreed.

    "We conducted the study without bias, without interference from anyone," said Dr. Sunder. "We have only one single-minded goal in this effort."

    While the Institute said it considered the possibility of a controlled demolition taking place at WTC 7, the notion was dismissed due to the absence of any recordings of an explosion sound.

    Thermite, however, does not make an explosion sound. And while this was raised to Dr. Sunder in the media's Q&A session, he dismissed it as impossible.

    "FEMA found it," said Gage. "Dr. Steven Jones found it, in the dust that landed in the entire area of lower Manhattan. And he finds it in the chunks of previously molten metal [from the towers]."

    Specifically, in Appendix C of its World Trade Center Building Performance Study, FEMA claimed:

    Evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting, was readily visible in the near-surface microstructure. A liquid eutectic mixture containing primarily iron, oxygen, and sulfur formed during this hot corrosion attack on the steel... The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified.

    Yet, no study of the mysterious sulfur or melted steel was included in the NIST report.

    After New York City officials cut off the water main to the tower Sept. 11, 2001, the building's sprinkler system was unable to function, Dr. Sunder said. This allowed fires across 10 floors to burn uncontrolled for nearly seven hours.

    The Institute asserts that due to the lack of water supply, an "extraordinary event" occurred, and for the first time ever, steel expanding due to heat from the flames caused columns to separate from structural concrete. Column 79 was the first to fail, according to the report, which brought about a quick succession of failures in adjoining columns.

    "Thermal expansion of

    1. Re:Ummm yeah right by bmo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "It looks like they want to wrap-up this investigation and blame [the collapse] on normal office fires," said Gage during counter-conference.

      Normal office fires? What the fuck is that guy smoking? This was not "normal office fires"

      Oh, I get it, he's got an /agenda/. It's a crackpot agenda though.

      Crackpots are the most annoying of all, because not only are they wrong, but their untested gedankenexperiments are so wrong you don't know where to start pointing out the wrongness.

      "No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified."

      But then this is some reason for Gage to think that the sulfur was part of the mystical "thermite" which contains no sulfur in its composition.

      And he calls himself an engineer.

      I'll tell ya what the source was. The sulfur was in the steel when it was manufactured. Please go look up AISI steel grades.

      http://www.answers.com/topic/aisi-steel-grades

      OMG! STEEL HAS SULFUR IN IT! AND PHOSPHOROUS! AND MANGANESE! AND MOLYBDENUM! AND COBALT!

      Fucking retards

      Making steel is like making brownies. There are recipes for all the grades and they have different elements.

      "400 architectural and engineering professionals"

      Just because it says PE next to your name it doesn't mean you're smart. It means you passed a test. I know of one engineer that totally bought into the bullshit over on Stormfront.org. Seriously.

      Richard Gage is to architects and engineers as Jack Thompson is to attorneys.

      Someone should seriously look into taking away his stamp.

      --
      BMO

    2. Re:Ummm yeah right by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The parent post is probably going to be moderated into oblivion, and I have no doubt my reply will too. However, I urge everyone to look at all the evidence in an unbiased way and come to their own conclusions. The official report on how a steel frame building collapsed due to fire (for the third time in history, the first two being WTC1 and WTC2) is not convincing. The visual evidence suggests controlled demolition. There is physical evidence that is consistent with this. There may indeed have been a "conspiracy" involved here. I am not comfortable with any of the theories that have been put forward, but I certainly do not buy the fantasy in this official report.

    3. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think what he is trying to say by "normal office fires" is identifying the temperature and the fuel sources.

      You can exclaim "fucking retards" but without thermite, there is nothing on the plane or in an office building that can burn hot enough to cause steel to melt. I believe this is the one factor that needs a plausible explanation. Any attempts to gain a plausible explanation for the steel melted in this way has been met with refusal to answers or denial of the question.

      The materials and their state are a matter of historical documentation and it would be a little late to pull references to the liquified steel. It might seem "somewhat" plausible to hear about fatigued or weakened steel, but not this. And frankly, the perfect free-fall of both main towers and the complete lack of lateral motion during the collapse seems REALLY like a professional demolition and would require equally distributed damage across the floors of the building that collapsed. That simply didn't happen. The core columns failed right along with the floors of the buildings. It was nearly perfect. It wasn't quite perfect, though... about 50 stories of some of the second building's core columns remained for a short while before they collapsed... and they too fell perfectly vertically rather than off to the side as one might expect.

      The collapse of the buildings were anything but random as one would expect from an unplanned tragedy such as this. In all the sky scraper fires that have ever occurred before or since has never resulted in this level of complete destruction. This is the first and only time in the history of man kind that a building has fallen like this after a crash or fire, and here we have multiple occurrences of the same phenomenon happening in rapid succession. I find it more than a little amazing.

      Furthermore, there have been several historical cases of large aircraft slamming into a skyscraper without causing a uniform collapse as seen in not just one but two very large buildings. One account was in the 1940's where a bomber slammed into the Empire State building. There was fire, death, injury and some really big holes, but no collapse and this building wasn't nearly as well constructed as the twin towers.

      I can't safely say that I believe anything I've heard or read, but I can safely say that I believe we aren't being allowed to know the truth and without fail there are just too many problems with just about every aspect of every part of the story being told not just about the WTC towers and nearby buildings, but about the Pentagon and the plane that was allegedly crashed by heroic passengers. The explanations being offered don't match the evidence that is publicly available. It's as if they aren't even trying to explain how things happened. And it's not particularly helpful for concerned people who want to understand what happened to be labelled crackpot or unpatriotic.

      Finally, I think there's a huge difference between a "conspiracy theory" and "the evidence doesn't support the official claims." So far, I have yet to hear a complete theory of conspiracy outside of the assertion that these events were staged to allow the current administration to pull in more power to its office and to consolidate everything under the department of homeland security.

      There's a LOT of missing information and the explanations being offered are a lot less plausible than 'crackpot discussions' we've all heard. And no report so far has even addressed the matter of molten steel. It just doesn't occur in fires and other unplanned building collapses. Not one other example exists outside of buildings demolished professionally.

    4. Re:Ummm yeah right by maxume · · Score: 1

      Why would you expect the towers to list sideways as they fell? Just because? You are accusing the official story of using that sort of reasoning.

      The major structure of the each tower was the outer wall (the towers, not WTC7); the lower part of each wall would tend to prevent any structure above it from collapsing any direction other than into the tower.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    5. Re:Ummm yeah right by daver00 · · Score: 5, Informative

      God I get sick of this. Same arguments again and again, 7 years now, 7 years and we are still faced with the same psuedo-scientific babble.

      I'm afraid I'm going to have to summarise here. Steel does not need to be 'melted' to be weakened well beyond safety margins, and beyond its required design strength. At moderately high temperatures it is weakened significantly. Go look up a materials handbook or two. The buildings collapsed in an entirely ordinary and predictable manner, they did not 'free fall'. Structures such as that are designed to collapse pancake style, like a concertina, they do not ever topple over. Can you imagine the extreme dangers that a toppling building of say 110 stories would pose to say, half of the surrounding CBD? The bomber in the 40s was not a jumbo jet, not even remotely close, there weren't even planes that big built back then. Neither did the planes that existed in those days have the same high strength materials embedded in them as in this case. I believe the NIST report suggests that elements such as the titanium axles used in the engines caused significant structural damage to the building core in certain places.

      You *are* peddling a conspiracy theory. Multiple investigations and simulations have drawn the conclusion that the buildings fell down as a result of the observed evidence: Two fucking giant jumbo jets flew into them. Occams razor my friend. And you are here jabbering on repeating the same debunked theories of a small group of complete crackpots in the face of it.

    6. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry you're sick of it, but have you heard a reasonable reason why there was molten steel?

      There WAS molten steel found at the site. It was melted and liquified. That fact has not been disputed.

      You can claim weakened steel caused the failure, but for the pattern you describe to be possible, the heat and damage had to be extremely uniformly distributed and the failure of all critical structures would have to have failed at exactly the same time. If there were any inconsistencies in the failures, the building would have fallen in the direction of whichever area weakened to failure first. But let's just accept for the moment that the failure only required "weakened" steel to fail the way it did. Where did the molten steel come from? What could have burned hot enough to cause that to happen? If you can't answer that, and the official explanations of the event don't touch on it, then what we have is a significant, unanswered question.

      And even if this were as you suggest it was, why is this the ONLY building in existence that ever collapsed this way due to fire? Only, not the only... the only two. Never before and never since has a fire ever done this to a skyscraper and not even older, weaker structures suffered as complete destruction as this when a plane hit it. (I speak again of the Empire State building which still stands after a bomber struck it at the end of WW2.) And for what it's worth, a 767 is not a jumbo jet. It's a "regular" sized jet liner.

      I am peddling no theory. I am stating that the evidence does not fit with the story.

      Do you deny the official accounts of molten liquified steel? From what I have read, it was identified and recorded as being present. If that's true, then something burning at over twice the temperature of the hottest jet fuel had to have burned in order to reduce the steel to liquid. No explanation has been offered for that mystery. It's interesting that you seem to dance around that question as well. The fact that the buildings fell very neatly straight down and failed extremely uniformly might be dismissed or ignored by most people and yourself included (but it's an extremely unlikely possibility) but the liquified steel hasn't even seen an attempt at an official explanation so far.

      Yes, it's true that building such as those are designed to fall pancake style. But that design depends on the main support columns being blasted out from under the floors to make that happen. Failing the main columns being destroyed to allow the orderly collapse of the building, they will not fall that way... in fact, they will hardly fall at all.

      "I believe the NIST report suggests that elements such as the titanium axles used in the engines caused significant structural damage to the building core in certain places." -- I just love this part. In order for this to have resulted in what the whole world saw, the plane parts would have had to have damaged *all* core columns in such a way that they all failed at approximately the same time causing the pancake sequence to start. It didn't happen that way. Instead the structure was fine and did exactly what it was designed to do; withstand the impact of a 707 sized airliner. Then fires started and consumed multiple floors of the building but was otherwise fairly well contained.

    7. Re:Ummm yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are letting your ignorance show through. There was MOLTEN STEEL liquefied on the ground at ground zero for over a weeks AFTER the building collapsed.

      That is what he is talking about, since you know nothing about it maybe you really don't know jack and have done nothing but accept the government report without researching for yourself.

      Just google it you condescending know it all you doesn't know ****.

      That is the by-product of Thermate and there is no other explanation for it to date. NIST lies and denies there was molten steel at all. Go look for yourself, there are plenty of pictures and direct witness testimony to that fact from firefighters as well.

    8. Re:Ummm yeah right by Daswolfen · · Score: 1

      so let me get this straight....

      you are still contending that the fact that fuel burning at 1400+ degrees (300 more than the point where steel loses half of its load-bearing capacity.. a know fact by any structural engineer) is a fantasy, but that the buildings were taken down by a controlled demolition, which would have taken thousands of hours of planing, used up thousands of charges placed at exact points on each structure, would need a crew of several hundred working for weeks just to place(and not one has come forward in 7 years), and it was all orchestrated by a government led by George W Bush... the man who can not pronounce nuclear... that that explanation is the most likely?

      Its called Occam's Razor... paraphrased it is "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best."

      So which is simpler.. the thermal expansion of steel kicked in, or a conspiracy of thousands led by a simpleton not only succeeded, but has remained COMPLETELY undetected for years, despite countless investigations and scrutiny?

      --
      Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
    9. Re:Ummm yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Question #1: How old is steel?

      Question #2: How old is thermite?

      You FUCKING IDIOT. You utter, complete, FUCKING IDIOT.

      Actually, scratch that. I hope you're not a FUCKING idiot. Because if you're FUCKING, you might do the world an immense disservice and actually manage to reproduce.

    10. Re:Ummm yeah right by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      "You can exclaim "fucking retards" but without thermite, there is nothing on the plane or in an office building that can burn hot enough to cause steel to melt."

      Bullshit. You can melt steel in your backyard with some charcoal, piping, and a reversible vacuum cleaner. You also don't need to melt the steel, you just need to heat it to the point of weakening, which is a lot lower than melting.

      Have you ever seen a bellows in operation? It's pretty simple. Take some fuel, set it on fire, then force a bunch of air through it. This creates far more heat than could normally be obtained and amateur metallurgists have been doing this in their backyards for years to melt all sorts of materials from aluminum to silver to steel.

      When the jets crashed into the buildings, it created a natural bellows (restricted opening, lots of burning fuel, natural vacuum effect due to rising air). The fact that under those conditions the buildings lasted as long as they did is no small feat. The fire raged internally, weakened/melted the steel supports, and the top levels collapsed inward and downward.

      There's really no mystery here. You can search online as to how you can melt all sorts of metals with a few household implements. It's not hard.

      ~X~

      --
      ~X~
    11. Re:Ummm yeah right by SocietyoftheFist · · Score: 1

      No, there were no pictures of molten steel. There was steel melted from blow torches, plenty of beam cutting going on. There was red hot steel pulled from the pile, that is true, no molten steel though. The flowing liquid from the south tower was identified as lead coming from a UPS center a few floors above the impact site. There is no cohesive conspiracy theory, though there are conflicting ones. Tell me Mr conspiracy theorists, was Al Qaeda in on this with the US Government? Did they make marty videos to help the US make it look like a terrorist attack. Was the US Government and Al Qaeda in coohots in 93 as well? Perhaps you forget that Al Qaeda declared War on the US after Saudia Arabia allowed us to use their land for Air Bases? Perhaps a lesson in the history of Al Qaeda's jihad against the US is in order?

    12. Re:Ummm yeah right by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      Steel does not need to be 'melted' to be weakened well beyond safety margins, and beyond its required design strength. At moderately high temperatures it is weakened significantly.

      True, steel does not need to be molten to be weakened, but you to need some event that melts steel to explain the molten steel found underneath the trade towers weeks after the collapse.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    13. Re:Ummm yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1346959891e6db1accf1zc6.jpg

      I'm wondering, if that's the case, how fire can cause 'cuts' in the beams like in this picture.

    14. Re:Ummm yeah right by Urza9814 · · Score: 1

      The point though isn't that the steel _needed_ to melt...the point is that it _was_. We _know_ some of the steel melted. They found it in the rubble.

    15. Re:Ummm yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm wondering, if that's the case, how fire can cause 'cuts' in the beams like in this picture.

      Fire doesn't make cuts like that. Thermite doesn't make cuts like that. Ironworkers are what make cuts like that.

      http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm

    16. Re:Ummm yeah right by daver00 · · Score: 1

      Molten steel present.... MONTHS after the collapse? Yeah right buddy, so tell me how this complete physical anomaly that appears to defy all laws of physics confirms your crackpot theory?

      The whole molten steel claim is utter tripe, based on a handful of highly questionable anecdotal reports. By the same quality of evidence we also know that the US government actually blew up the levy walls in New Orleans during Katrina, after all, people *heard* the explosions.

      They call this: "clutching at straws".

    17. Re:Ummm yeah right by Technician · · Score: 1

      You can exclaim "fucking retards" but without thermite, there is nothing on the plane or in an office building that can burn hot enough to cause steel to melt. I believe this is the one factor that needs a plausible explanation. Any attempts to gain a plausible explanation for the steel melted in this way has been met with refusal to answers or denial of the question.

      This melting steel is often mentioned by those who have never welded, cast metal, or done any blacksmith work. Steel softens well before it melts. Watch a blacksmith work sometime. I've tried my hand at it while visiting the Oregon Trail Travelers.

      http://www.ottravelers.com/

      An 1/2 inch iron bar is easly bent by hand after some coal fire warming. A llttle work with a hammer and anvil easly forms the flat end for a good prybar for opening crates. A wood, coal, or oil fire is warm enough to make steel beams plyable and no longer able to support the load without bending long before you get molten iron. In foundry work, I have never gotten anything hot enough to melt, but hot enough to easly bend.

      A floor sagging a few feet and pulling a support out of line by a foot or two is enough to start a major collapse.

      --
      The truth shall set you free!
    18. Re:Ummm yeah right by j.+andrew+rogers · · Score: 1

      As a point of fact, thermite ignition boosters often use sulfur as an oxidizer. Consequently, it would not be surprising at all to find significant sulfur residue at a thermite burn site even though thermite itself contains no sulfur. Which is not to say the guy is not an idiot.

    19. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      Once again, in all of the skyscraper fires throughout history, it is the first time it has ever gone down like this without the help of thermite and/or explosives. The first time ever. And in this case, twice in a row, the mysterious occurrence of at least one floor giving way completely and simultaneously such that it would cause a chain reaction. You don't find it amazing that such an occurrence would happen on such a wide scale? And by wide, I mean World Trade Center wide -- it was a REALLY big pair of buildings.

    20. Re:Ummm yeah right by terjeber · · Score: 1

      You can exclaim "fucking retards" but without thermite, there is nothing on the plane or in an office building that can burn hot enough to cause steel to melt (my emphasis).

      The reason that you are retard is not because you believe retarded things. The reason you are a retard is that you are unwilling to listen to logic. You are also unwilling to learn. Not unable. Just unwilling. That is what makes you retarded. People who are not retarded are not actively fighting knowledge.

      Now to what I emphasized above. The idea that steel melted or had to melt for the towers to collapse. Not required. When steel heats up it does two things, it warps (loses its shape) and loses its load-bearing capacity. It does so at perfectly normal burning temperatures, and when a fire is allowed to rage for 7 hours with nobody fighting it, it is guaranteed to go bad. Since the steel that went bad was supposed to support 15 full stories of steel and concrete, shit happened.

      Now go and get neutered or play in traffic or something so your dumb genes are not propagated into the future.

    21. Re:Ummm yeah right by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      "Thermite, however, does not make an explosion sound."

      Nor does it have anything to do with sulphur, it's made from Aluminium & Iron Oxide.

      My advice is to change your conspracy theory to a jet full of sulphuric acid and continue ranting.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    22. Re:Ummm yeah right by terjeber · · Score: 1

      heat and damage had to be extremely uniformly distributed and the failure of all critical structures would have to have failed at exactly the same tim

      Nope it wouldn't have to be, and in fact it wasn't. The damage was significantly higher on one side of the building making it tip over as it started to fall. The problem is gravity and the building design stopped the tilting and then it fell straight down. You know what gravity is, right?

      Every single one of your assertions have been utterly debunked. Why do you still believe in them?

      Never before and never since has a fire ever done this to a skyscraper and not even older

      You see, this is rather easy to explain. You see, this has never happened to a sky scraper before. Nothing even remotely like this has happened.

      I am stating that the evidence does not fit with the story.

      And that is a statement based on severe religious derangement, not on fact. Read any of the engineering reports to get the facts, and stop reading the insane crackpot websites. They rot what little is left of your brain.

      Yes, it's true that building such as those are designed to fall pancake style. But that design depends on the main support columns being blasted out from under the floors to make that happen.

      The fact that you don't even understand how insane that statement is just illustrates how far your brain has rotted. The buildings are designed to collapse pancake style after an accident. The demolition people only introduce a carefully orchestrated accident. The whole purpose of designing a building so that it collapses onto it self is so that it does it under all circumstances, not just after being demolished.

      would have had to have damaged *all* core columns in such a way that they all failed at approximately the same time causing the pancake sequence to start

      Wrong. As usual. If only one side of the building collapsed and fell onto the floor below, the fall in it self would cause the rest to collapse. That is in fact what we saw. The top 15 floors leaned over slightly as they were collapsing, in other words, only a small portion of floor 95/96 collapsed. Once it fell however the fall caused the rest of the columns to collapse because that is how the building was designed. To collapse onto it self.

    23. Re:Ummm yeah right by terjeber · · Score: 1

      but you to need some event that melts steel to explain the molten steel found underneath the trade towers weeks after the collapse

      No, you don't. You only better facts. Remember, lead melts at much lower temperatures than steel. But again, don't let facts mess up your conspiracy. It is much more fun this way since it is a constant reminder that most people are utter morons.

    24. Re:Ummm yeah right by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      Noticing how they have cranes in cleaning the site up and removing debris? Isn't it rather plausible that some time before the picture was taken, that an ironworking crew has come in and helped cut some of those beams down so they can move the pieces to the landfill?

    25. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Buildings are NOT designed to suffer complete destruction after an accident. Where did you get the idea that in the event of an accident, a building should come down completely offering no chance for survivors in a highly occupied building. If this were true and the public were made aware of it, I think there would be a tremendous hesitation to ever work in a skyscraper. A fire breaks out and the entire building comes down? What the hell kind of design is that?

      Please go find some references on the assertion that buildings are designed to fail like this under ALL assertions. This notion could never fly in any world but the one you live in.

      And I am waiting to see what I have stated has been debunked. And really, what I state are two things:

      1. There were unexplained puddles of molten steel on the site. This is very unusual and has yet to have any official explanation.
      2. That the perfect pancake collapse was something other than an accident.

      This building, that stood a very long time, lost some of its upper floors to a chain reaction of falling floors above it. You're asserting that it collapsed under its own weight? WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7 are the only skyscrapers in history ever to collapse after a fire. And I have search high and low only to find image after image of buildings gutted after being completely consumed by flame. This is the first and only time this has ever happened in history and you accept this as possible? You probably believe in other crack-pot ideas that defy the laws of physics as we know it as well.

      The fact of the matter is that there are more examples of failed building collapses after professional demolition attempts than there are of accidental complete destruction. If anything like this had ever happened before, I might be inclined to believe the official account. It has simply never happened like that before and never since. And the whole series of events is amazingly full of problems. The initial images of the Pentagon attack were missing a lot of things that should have been there like wheels, massive parts of jet engines and damage to the surrounding lawn.

      I wouldn't begin to know or imagine what really happened. But the basic facts and evidence don't fit with the official account.

      But please, if you actually believe what you are asserting is true, that buildings like these are designed to fall this way, cite some references. I actually work with architects and engineers every day -- professionals in the field who know better -- building safety includes considerations of things like survivability estimations. I find it ridiculously hard to imagine that a building catching fire could lead to a complete collapse by design. I really don't believe you will find any such reference information, but if you find it, link it or post it -- I'd really like to be wrong. In my view, most people who are defending the official accounts are denying a lot of public knowledge and have yet to see any experts in the field without direct involvements in the reports themselves agree with the official accounts.

    26. Re:Ummm yeah right by terjeber · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Buildings are NOT designed to suffer complete destruction after an accident.

      Now we know you are retarded. Please stop posting until you have learned how to read. I never said they were designed to suffer complete destruction, I said that they were designed such that in case of complete destruction, it would be a pancake collapse.

      Please go find some references on the assertion that buildings are designed to fail like this under ALL assertions.

      Please go and find a place where I said so. Then go and find a course on reading 101.

      I wouldn't begin to know or imagine what really happened

      Once you have finished Reading 101, try the NIST report. It is quite enlightening.

      I actually work with architects and engineers every day

      The fact that you clean toilets at an architects office doesn't mean you are an expert on architecture. Also, given the fact that you clearly can not read, you never will be.

      I find it ridiculously hard to imagine that a building catching fire could lead to a complete collapse by design.

      And I find it ridiculously hard to imagine that someone who can't actually read is still so eager to post drivel in a public forum.

    27. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      I never said that the fire played no role in what we saw. And what do you mean "how old is thermite?" What kind of question is that?

      The collapse of a joint in an overpass is a lot different from the collapse of every single floor of a skyscraper. There are abundant examples of skyscrapers standing after a fire, and abundant examples of skyscrapers that actually survived controlled, professional demolition attempts. What there aren't abundant examples of, before or after, are events like those on 9-11 where fire led to the collapse of some of the floors which led to the complete collapse of entire building. Furthermore, there was no mention or indication of molten steel at this site. Weakened steel, yes. Fractured concrete, yes. Molten steel, no. And you're attempting to compare the structural design of an overpass to that of a building that was designed to safely contain and evacuate more than 14,000 people (in the case of WTC7 and a LOT more in the case of WTC1 and WTC2) in emergencies such as these.

      But you almost had me convinced I was wrong when you called me a fucking idiot. I'm sure a lot of people were equally moved and impressed.

    28. Re:Ummm yeah right by terjeber · · Score: 1

      There were unexplained puddles of molten steel on the site

      There wasn't any

      That the perfect pancake collapse was something other than an accident.

      It was no accident. Big buildings are designed to undergo pancake collapse in case of total structural failure. In other words, they are designed not to fall down, but in the unlikely event that they do fall down, they are to undergo a pancake collapse. The WTC did what it was designed to do, and it did so partly because of the architect, but mostly because of gravity.

    29. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      Have you ever watched the history channel? Specifically the stories about how massive structures like the world trade center are built? If you did, you would know that even in much smaller buildings, the main support structures are throughout the building. In fact, often is the case where the strongest of the structures are in the center of such buildings rather like a tree.

    30. Re:Ummm yeah right by Technician · · Score: 1

      And in this case, twice in a row, the mysterious occurrence of at least one floor giving way completely and simultaneously such that it would cause a chain reaction

      Just how many buildings in history have a 7 hour fire with no firefighting to compare this to? Remember, the sprinkler system was dead due to the other buildings water breaks.

      7 hours of baking has very little history to compare it to. Other than the fire was allowed to burn with no cooling for 7 hours, what's the point?

      The log rack in my fireplace has the same sagging from only a small wood fire.

      --
      The truth shall set you free!
    31. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      References? Links? Insults alone are a pretty sad basis for your position.

      For a pancake collapse to occur, ALL vertical support structures have to be disabled or removed to allow a floor to fall straight down. Otherwise, the resulting fall of floors tends to swing and rotate as the support structures fall to one side. Ever watch a smaller scale building demolition? Heck, even a card house collapse illustrates that point pretty well. (and before you pick on the card house comparison, I will direct you to your own ridiculous comparison of the WTC buildings to slabs of concrete being held up by plastic drinking straws.)

      Your argumentative skills are amazing. I assert that buildings are designed to be survivable and not to suffer complete destruction from fire as is claimed in the official accounts, and you respond by calling someone retarded.

      I did go back to re-read what you wrote about "in the event of destruction, it would fall pancake style." Here's what you wrote: "The buildings are designed to collapse pancake style after an accident. The demolition people only introduce a carefully orchestrated accident. The whole purpose of designing a building so that it collapses onto it self is so that it does it under all circumstances, not just after being demolished." (I omitted the part about my having a rotted brain, but you do seem to feel it's important to insult people a lot. Have you considered counselling and psychiatric therapy for that? I'm sure I am not the only person you respond to in this way. And looking back on your posting history, I'd say there is a distinct pattern.) Setting aside that this statement is patently false, let's consider the ramifications of your assertion. How much of an accident needs to occur before a building collapse of this nature occurs? Is damage similar to that displayed in the Okahoma City bombing enough? Clearly not in that building's case... only the outer structures collapsed. The rest of it held just fine.

      So let's assume that the buildings, and indeed all sky scrapers, are designed with this pancake fall design built-in. Why is it that in spite of the design, this has NEVER happened before or since? If they are designed to do this as you say, why is it that until this one time, the design has failed for all these decades of building these structures? I imagine the building designers were finally vindicated after all their other buildings failed to collapse as designed under similar circumstances.

      And okay, I should have been more clear with my assertion of working with architects and structural engineers. I HAVE INDEED queried these licensed professionals with literally decades of individual experience (hundreds of years if you count them collectively) on what they think of the official accounts and they all agree that they are extremely dubious to put it mildly.

      And to clarify my point about why it is so hard to believe that fire took these buildings down, there have been over 100 uncontrolled fires in skyscrapers over the past 50 years prior to September 11, 2001 according to reports and none of them resulted in the complete collapse as witnessed in these three examples to the contrary in rapid succession. In human history, only two things take buildings of that magnitude down: controlled demolition and earthquakes. If the official account is true, then fire can be added to this list in spite of overwhelming examples to the contrary.

      WTC7 was most certainly "pulled" intentionally. Buildings closer to WTC1 and WTC2 are still standing and didn't seem to suffer any serious damage and yet WTC7 which was considerably farther failed? It was stated that the building was ordered to be pulled and although some people have asserted that the order was to evacuate or "pull" the firefighters from the building, I have to wonder since when has the owner of a building has ever had the authority to order the withdrawal of firefighters from a building under their jurisdiction? After all, a building on fire endangers not just the owner's building, but the buildings surrounding it. Building owners don't have that authority.

    32. Re:Ummm yeah right by maxume · · Score: 1

      Look it up. The WT Towers were not built like other massive structures, much of the structural support is in the outside wall. Here is a link that describes them as 'tube buildings':

      http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/world_trade.html

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    33. Re:Ummm yeah right by terjeber · · Score: 0, Troll

      References? Links?

      Read the NIST report.

      For a pancake collapse to occur, ALL vertical support structures have to be disabled or removed to allow a floor to fall straight down.

      No.

      I assert that buildings are designed to be survivable and not to suffer complete destruction from fire as is claimed in the official accounts, and you respond by calling someone retarded.

      No, I claim you are retarded because you are unwilling to acquire information that is counter to your insane beliefs. It is also good to see that you confirm this in the above sentence.

      you do seem to feel it's important to insult people a lot

      No, it is not important to insult people a lot. Not if, by "people" you mean "primates with a functioning brain". I rarely, if ever, insult people.

      Why is it that in spite of the design, this has NEVER happened before or since?

      Because no skyscraper, before or since, has been subject to an accident where the entire support infrastructure failed. The WTC was unique.

      HAVE INDEED queried these licensed professionals with literally decades of individual experience (hundreds of years if you count them collectively) on what they think of the official accounts and they all agree that they are extremely dubious to put it mildly.

      Yeah, sure, we believe you. You having "talked to" some people is far more valid than hundreds of scientists doing forensic research and actually working on the problem. Besides, when janitors like you ask architects and engineers stupid questions like "it would be impossible right?" they tend to ignore you with a "yeah, sure, it would be impossible".

      And to clarify my point about why it is so hard to believe that fire took these buildings down,

      Go read the NIST report.

      WTC7 was most certainly "pulled" intentionally

      No, it wasn't, and the assertion is absurd. Since when did fire crews have demolition capabilities of this kind?

      have to wonder since when has the owner of a building has ever had the authority to order the withdrawal of firefighters from a building under their jurisdiction?

      The owner of the building never had such authority, however, in a conversation with a fire chief he is allowed to have an opinion.

    34. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      Well, at least you are willing to go to the point of admitting the WTC was a unique situation that strangely repeated itself three times. But isn't it odd that WTC7 came down from minor fires and damage where other buildings closer to WTC1 and WTC2 survive today without any structural woes? I guess the guy who bought those buildings REALLY made a bad investment... oh, wait... he made a huge profit when the insurance claim paid off... but that's another thread/topic entirely.

    35. Re:Ummm yeah right by terjeber · · Score: 1

      But isn't it odd that WTC7 came down from minor fires

      It didn't. It came down after a severe fire that raged un-fought for more than seven hours.

    36. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      As if 7 hours were a long time... some sky scrapers have burned on for days without a structural collapse. I guess WTC7 was just a crappy building then right? This is certainly not "typical" by any stretch.

    37. Re:Ummm yeah right by terjeber · · Score: 1

      So, what do you think is more likely, some structural aspect of WTC7 made it collapse (you can read the NIST report for details) or that the government has access to invisible demolition crews, silent pneumatic drills, invisible thermite wiring, quiet thermite and Neuralizers?

      You see, without the above implements, there is no possible way the government could have pulled this off. So... please, tell me... just pick one of them... where did G. W. Bush and friends find their invisible demolition crews?

    38. Re:Ummm yeah right by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 1

      Quick - look up the size of a B-29 bomber, its fuel load and engines, then compare those to a Boeing 767. Now remember that the B-29 was running close to empty, while the 767 had a full fuel load.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    39. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      Why do I keep feeding the troll?

      http://educate-yourself.org/cn/collapseofWTCeyewitnessreportsexplosions07feb05.shtml -- under the heading "Opportunities for tempering" indicates some interesting opportunities and frankly, anyone wearing a hard hat and coveralls would likely not have been questioned.

      And while reading there, you can find links to an interesting bit about the seismic sensors at local colleges that mark the time of seismic tremors at "just before the fall of the buildings" and almost nothing by comparison during the time of the impact of the building hitting the earth.

      And who is saying "The Government" did this? Not me. In my view, someone in the government must have been involved, but to say "the government" certainly makes it sound like everyone knew which was clearly not the case... and some players who were not in the government knew what was going on as well.

      And frankly, it was not my imagination, nor that of many others who heard and saw various news media on TV and radio announce that the WTC7 was going to br brought down moments before it happened. Ostensibly, this announcement was explaining that this demolition was to be planned at a later date before "fate" stepped in to make it happen sooner. But are you really going to suggest that the NIST report is more reliable than data collected at the University of Columbia?

      You seem to be really animated when it comes to denying the validity of certain sources of information and simply denying the testimony and reports of countless witnesses at the site many of which are considered to be highly reliable such as police and fire crew. It's pretty clear that your level of faith in the government's [NIST's] information is unshakeable and that you will not allow anything into your mind that might contradict what you are being told. Christians are the the same way when it comes to any evidence that questions their faith as well. But I have to wonder how much conflicting evidence has to be brought to your attention before you see the possibility that your faith is what is broken, and not that of those who are willing to question what we are being told.

    40. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      Quick - go look to see where any current assertion exists that claims the plane hitting the towers caused the collapse. There's none.

      Over the past 50 years prior to Sept 11, 2001, there have been more than 100 uncontrolled fires in skyscrapers and none have resulted in a building collapse such as the ones witnessed in WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7. Following that was one in Spain that was getting a lot of attention so I'm sure you have heard of it... it burned for DAYS without collapse... all that was left was steel and stone. Jet fuel or even gasoline can conceivably burn hot enough to cause various supports to weaken and give way, but not all at once in unison as we all witnessed in three towers. And frankly, the fire from the fuel quite likely burned out quickly during the more explosive parts of the fires from the crash.

      And even if the jet fuel caused a chain reaction pancaking the two towers, what burned hot enough to cause the same in WTC7

      The things we saw on 9-11 have never occurred before or since. The facts we are given do not match the evidence and do not match with anything that has been demonstrated, tested or simulated [by any independent 3rd parties]. And while there are claims that the buildings are designed to do what we saw, then I have to wonder why it has never been seen before or since during a fire, but only during controlled demolition or rarely during an earthquake? Something did happen, but as with other similar crashes, it started at the bottom of the structure as countless witnesses have claimed and seismic equipment has shown, not at the top.

    41. Re:Ummm yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea, well, seven years and I've grown
      pretty tired of pompous, empty bombast from
      people in aggresive denial. The NIST
      investigators didn't come up with
      structural steel in the debris that
      showed signs of annealing at any
      greater than 250 degrees. Just because
      a building is burning at 1500 degrees
      doesn't mean any particular piece of steel,
      which is highly
      temperature ductable, comes anywhere
      close to that temperature. And the only
      evidence NIST has offered supports
      that in the case of the collapses of
      9/11. Just by way of comparison, you
      clean your steel oven at about 750
      degrees.

      > Occams razor my friend.

      Occam's razor--if it looks like a controlled
      demolition, and it sounds like a controlled
      demolition, it is a controlled demolition,
      and assuming otherwise as a predicate of your
      investigation isn't science--it's ass-covering.

      > And you are
      > here jabbering on repeating the same
      > debunked theories

      Really? Debunked? Who debunked the people
      waving from the tower's destruction right
      where those 1800 degree fires were turning
      the steel into silly putty? Who debunked the
      dozens of firefighters who testified to
      sequential explosions previous to the collapses?
      Who debunked the numerous statements by various
      witnesses, including the governor of NY, that
      there wasn't ANY intact cement structure, or
      identifiable pieces of office junk? Who has
      provided a reasonable explanation for the molten
      metal under the debris? Who has provided a
      reasonable alternate explanation for the
      molten-formed steel micro-spheres in the
      9/11 dust? Who has provided a reasonable
      explanation for the exploding cars blocks
      away from the collapse event?

    42. Re:Ummm yeah right by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      True, steel does not need to be molten to be weakened, but you to need some event that melts steel to explain the molten steel found underneath the trade towers weeks after the collapse.

      Now I'm confused. If it were demolished, then there would be lower temperatures. You don't heat the steel to demolish it, you blow it apart. Whether there is molten steel is irrelevant to whether it was demolished by man-placed demolitions or airplane. That, however, does go to support the theories that the fire burned hotten because of the confined spaces, extra materials, and other conditions. That would further indicate that the steel failed from temperature, not demolition. So such statements are anti-conspiracy. Just because it hasn't been explained doesn't mean aliens or the government did it.

    43. Re:Ummm yeah right by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 1

      Quick - go look to see where any current assertion exists that claims the plane hitting the towers caused the collapse. There's none.

      You're kidding, right?

      Look, I can't help you if you insist on comparing apples to oranges. None of the fires you mentioned involved a couple of thousand gallons of jet fuel, a 767-sized airplane, buildings several 100 feet tall and a steel exoskeleton. You can't call on experience to predict what will happen it such a situation, because this situation never occurred.

      You're willfully ignoring any evidence or knowledge that contradicts your pre-conceived notion of a conspiracy. I - and no one else either - can help you with that.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    44. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      1. Jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough. It just doesn't. If it did, international flights wouldn't be possible because it would melt the engines. And it's irrelevent that there was jet fuel at all except that any fire was spread faster. A fire's heat is limited by the fuel's volatility and by the amount of oxygen available to it. So I'm saying that there's a good chance that the fire didn't even burn at its highest potential rate and temperature because it was likely consuming all oxygen available to it as such a rate that it could burn no faster being starved in that relatively confined space. You will note that the color of the smoke was grey most of the time which is a pretty good indicator that something not oil based was not doing the majority of the burning which means it wasn't nearly as hot as you might think it was.

      2. The actual building we're focusing on is WTC7 which is one building that certainly qualifies as going through a more conventional disaster scenario and one that is a lot more like many others. The building suffered some damage but the fire apparently started from within for undetermined causes. Within seven hours, it collapsed at a time that immediately followed a seismic spike of about 2 on the ricter scale according University of Columbia instruments. There was no jet fuel involved.

      I'm not claiming conspiracy. I'm claiming we're being lied to because the evidence doesn't support the story.

      I have to wonder why it is that the government is presumed to be telling the truth at all times and anything counter to that is a conspiracy theory? Other governments do it, but ours is somehow impossibly honest and forthcoming with the truth at all times? I think there's plenty of evidence to the contrary.

    45. Re:Ummm yeah right by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 1

      If it did, international flights wouldn't be possible because it would melt the engines.

      The fact that you don't understand that there are different grades of steel and metal for different purposes means that you cannot contribute in a meaningful fashion to the scientific discussion.

      The problem is that you really don't know what you're talking about, and assume no one else does. That's why people deride the notion of a conspiracy and cover-up. It's not that they implicitly trust the government, it's that the government arguments actually hold water, while the conspiracy theorists can't put together two coherent sentences on the subject.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    46. Re:Ummm yeah right by erroneus · · Score: 1

      That's it? Nothing else to say? I think it goes without saying that different alloys have different melting points, but do you know what those melting points are? Neither do I, so I speak in generalities in this case. The point of saying that jet fuel has a fixed and limited burn temperature is to indicate that it definitely burns at a low enough temperature as to not cause too much weakening of the steal in engines. Yes, it would melt lead and tin. But not likely steel girders of that size and density and frankly, by the time you saw grey smoke, the jet fuel was used up and was no longer a part of the equation. That was pretty damned fast and therefore the jet fuel had little opportunity to do more damage that the rest of the fire's fuel.

      And once again, you completely ignore the fact that WTC7 was a completely separate situation from the towers even though they behaved remarkably similarly.

      Looking back at the vast majority of your comments on various topics, it's pretty clear that you're uninterested in making meaningful or enlightening discussion but would rather skip around attempting to punch holes in ideas and have none of your own.

      The government arguments do not hold water. It completely ignores several bits of evidence such as the seismic timing issues and the evidence of thermite. And the fact that this ridiculously rare occurance of a skyscraper actually collapsing from fire damage repeated itself three times in one day in rapid succession is more than a little weird.

    47. Re:Ummm yeah right by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      They weren't Jumbo jets, fool. Jumbo jets are 747's. What we have here folks is another fine product of the public schooling system.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    48. Re:Ummm yeah right by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      You don't heat the steel to demolish it, you blow it apart. Whether there is molten steel is irrelevant to whether it was demolished by man-placed demolitions or airplane.

      You can't 'concentrate' heat. If you have a campfire stove, and you cook a can of beans on it, no matter how long you have the can on the stove, it will *never* get hotter than the flame.

      Wikipedia says that jet fuel burns at 550 farenheit. So no matter how long the jet fuel or offices burned, they could never get hotter than 600 F, which is the temperature at which jet fuel and office material burn.

      Then the question is, if there was molten steel, how did it the steel get so hot? We know from physics that it can't be jet fuel or offices. So the question is, what produced the heat. Certain chemical reactions, such as thermite and thermate produce heat in excess of 2500 degrees Fahrenheit -- more than enough to melt steel. So, one explanation for how the towers and WTC7 were brought down is Thermite cutter charges.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    49. Re:Ummm yeah right by lawpoop · · Score: 1
      link

      "This is how it's been since day one...and this is six weeks later. As we get closer to the center of this it gets hotter and hotter - it's probably 1500 degrees."

      OK, 1.5 months later, and it's still 1500 degrees. jet fuel and offices only burn at 600 F. What process created enough heat to get the steel temperatures to over 2500 degrees? Remember, you can't 'concentrate' heat. A heated element will get get hotter than the heat source.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    50. Re:Ummm yeah right by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      We have plenty of evidence of molten steel, even 6 weeks after the collapse.

      Do you have any evidence of molten lead, or is this your own personal speculation?

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    51. Re:Ummm yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then the question is, if there was molten steel, how did it the steel get so hot? We know from physics that it can't be jet fuel or offices. So the question is, what produced the heat. Certain chemical reactions, such as thermite and thermate produce heat in excess of 2500 degrees Fahrenheit -- more than enough to melt steel. So, one explanation for how the towers and WTC7 were brought down is Thermite cutter charges.

      Indeed, thermite could have done the trick. Except that there was no evidence of thermite/thermate found at the site - only sulfur (which has lots of more likely possible sources).

      This page explains why an absurd amount of thermite would have been needed to do the job.

      And this page gives a simpler possible explanation for the molten steel.

      It also answers the idiot who thinks that just because the structure below the falling floors was intact, that it would have stopped the collapse. Hint: objects falling onto other objects is work (in the physics sense) and generates heat.

    52. Re:Ummm yeah right by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      It also answers the idiot who thinks that just because the structure below the falling floors was intact, that it would have stopped the collapse. Hint: objects falling onto other objects is work (in the physics sense) and generates heat.

      Falling objects generate that much heat? I doubt it. If that were true, then whenever a plane falls out of the sky, there should be no wreckage, just blobs of molten metal and incenerated organic material. Or if you dropped a penny from a tall building. Is it the mass or acceleration that generates the heat? What is the formula?

      Except that there was no evidence of thermite/thermate found at the site

      No evidence of *anything* was found, because no investigation was done. All the steel beam evidence was shipped to China to be recycled.

      Others have suspected tactical nukes, from the evidence of melted cars that had nothing fall on them.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    53. Re:Ummm yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Falling objects generate that much heat? I doubt it.

      RTFA.

      "The energy dissipated during the fall is about 250 or 300 GJ, and the leftover energy at impact is about 600 GJ. So it's about a quarter kiloton of TNT for the North tower and about a fifth of a kiloton for the South tower; that's still a hell of a lot of energy, more than sufficient to liquefy a pretty healthy chunk of steel, and it doesn't change the fact that there's a lot more energy in the office contents."

      No evidence of *anything* was found, because no investigation was done. All the steel beam evidence was shipped to China to be recycled.

      Tell that to the idiots who think it's as simple as "sulfur = thermite."

      Others have suspected tactical nukes, from the evidence of melted cars that had nothing fall on them.

      Please! Have you ever seen a nuclear detonation?

      There were no nukes involved. Use your head.

    54. Re:Ummm yeah right by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      RTFA.

      "The energy dissipated during the fall is about 250 or 300 GJ, and the leftover energy at impact is about 600 GJ. So it's about a quarter kiloton of TNT for the North tower and about a fifth of a kiloton for the South tower; that's still a hell of a lot of energy, more than sufficient to liquefy a pretty healthy chunk of steel, and it doesn't change the fact that there's a lot more energy in the office contents."

      Sorry, I'm a critical minded skeptic. Show me the equation.

      Others have suspected tactical nukes, from the evidence of melted cars that had nothing fall on them.

      Please! Have you ever seen a nuclear detonation?

      Have you ever seen a detonation of a tactical nuke? I haven't, and neither have you.

      Show me the equations ( meaning, show me the work, not just the results ) and I'll start listening to you. I haven't seen any conventional theory yet that explains the amount of heat.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    55. Re:Ummm yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, I'm a critical minded skeptic. Show me the equation.

      Again, RTFA! It has enough information for you to analyze and/or refute the numbers. You're no skeptic, you're a lazy fuck.

      Please! Have you ever seen a nuclear detonation?

      Have you ever seen a detonation of a tactical nuke? I haven't, and neither have you.

      Yes, I have. Not in person, of course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khyZI3RK2lE

      This is generally regarded as the smallest nuke ever tested. Note the characteristic blinding flash and mushroom cloud. Also note the fallout and radiation. None of which is remotely present at ground zero.

      Show me the equations ( meaning, show me the work, not just the results ) and I'll start listening to you. I haven't seen any conventional theory yet that explains the amount of heat.

      Why should I waste any time trying to convince you? Start using your fucking head. No nukes were used at WTC.

    56. Re:Ummm yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't 'concentrate' heat. If you have a campfire stove, and you cook a can of beans on it, no matter how long you have the can on the stove, it will *never* get hotter than the flame.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace

      TYFP.

  33. Re:Really? by ScentCone · · Score: 1

    there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off

    Uh huh. And that steel structure has also been peppered with large hunks of high-energy flying debris? You know, like one of the tallest buildings in the world collapsing right next to it? Oh.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  34. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    what temperature would be required to melt and/or buckle the structure of your aluminum foil hat?

    Fahrenheit 9/11, of course!

  35. First read as ... by David+Gerard · · Score: 3, Funny

    First read as "NIST Releases Report On Windows 7 Collapse."

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  36. no surprises here by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If the WTC 7 did come down because of a government conspiracy (and I'm not saying that it did or didn't!) then it would stand to reason that a federal agency like NIST would draw a conclusion of structural failure rather than deliberate demolition. No big surprises here.

    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    1. Re:no surprises here by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 3, Informative

      If the WTC 7 did come down because of a government conspiracy (and I'm not saying that it did or didn't!) then it would stand to reason that a federal agency like NIST would draw a conclusion of structural failure rather than deliberate demolition. No big surprises here.

      That's called affirming the consequent. It's not insightful, informative, or valuable in any way; it's a fallacy.

      --
      People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
    2. Re:no surprises here by FeatureBug · · Score: 1

      No, that's incorrect. As the wikipedia article you linked says, the fallacy exists only if the assertion of P is made (If P, then Q, Q holds, so assert P), but the assertion in IGnatius T Foobar's comment above is I'm not saying that it did or didn't! (regarding government conspracy), which is P or not P, so the fallacy does not apply.

    3. Re:no surprises here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok, then it was the weight of the candy boxes in the office on the top floor that made it collapse.

    4. Re:no surprises here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's called affirming the consequent. It's not insightful, informative, or valuable in any way; it's a fallacy.

      FAIL

      The grand parents argument is that the report has no bearing on the conspiracy or no conspiracy discussion. He explicitly states that he is not arguing for either. Ergo, you are a tard who likes big words.

    5. Re:no surprises here by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 1

      No, it's correct. It actually works both ways.

      1) If WTC7 fell due fire, then NIST will release a report saying that it fell due to fire.
      2) NIST releases a report saying WTC7 fell due to fire.
      3) Therefore, WTC7 fell due to fire.

      1) If WTC7 was brought down as part of some sort of conspiracy, then NIST will release a report saying that it wasn't a conspiracy.
      2) NIST releases a report saying it wasn't a conspiracy.
      3) Therefore, WTC7 was brought down as part of some sort of conspiracy.

      This is exactly why it's a worthless argument.

      --
      People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
    6. Re:no surprises here by spleen_blender · · Score: 1

      That is just what THEY want you to think!

    7. Re:no surprises here by fm6 · · Score: 1

      Did you actually read TPP or the Wikipedia article you linked to? If so you read one or both very carelessly. The fallacy you describe would apply if he'd said:

      If there were a government conspiracy, then NIST (being part of the conspiricy) would deny it.
      NIST denies that there was a government conspiracy.
      Therefore There is a government conspiracy.

      Except TPP didn't say anything like that. It was more like:

      I don't know if there was a conspiracy or not.
      If there were a government conspiracy, then NIST (being part of the conspiricy) would deny it.
      Therefore NISTs denial is not trustworthy.

      There are problems with that argument too. But if you're going to attack it, try arguing in plain English. Then you won't trip over technical concepts you don't understand.

    8. Re:no surprises here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is exactly why it's a worthless argument.

      You are misconstruing the original post. The argument is that the report is worthless exactly because of the logic you describe!

    9. Re:no surprises here by FeatureBug · · Score: 1

      No, that's incorrect. You're misunderstanding the fallacy. It doesn't work both ways. The grandparent comment explicitly made the assertion (P or not P) , i.e. there may or may not have been such a conspiracy.

    10. Re:no surprises here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is true, and completely logical. However, there are in fact three reasons why NIST would draw such a conclusion:

      1) That's what happened and they're telling the truth, or as close to it as they can get.

      2) That's not what happened and their conclusion is therefore incorrect, however well-meaning.

      2) That's not what happened and they're trying to help cover it up.

      Regardless of what one might want to believe, IF there is a coverup of this, then that IS the behavior one would expect of a federal agency. If there is NOT a coverup, it is still the logical behavior one would expect, assuming a competent evaluation of the facts. I don't think there are any readers here, of either persuasion, who would seriously believe that an agency of this or any other recent administration would prove a conspiracy of this magnitude EVEN IF it were true.

      Therefore, far from proving a fallacy, nothing is proved at all here absent an independent evaluation of the facts, assuming such a thing is even possible.

    11. Re:no surprises here by ethergear · · Score: 1

      Well stated...but the OP does not seem to have, as the phrase goes, affirmed any consequent. It's just asserting that a government report, coming to approximately this conclusion, was inevitable.

    12. Re:no surprises here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the WTC 7 did come down because of a government conspiracy (and I'm not saying that it did or didn't!) then it would stand to reason that a federal agency like NIST would draw a conclusion of structural failure rather than deliberate demolition. No big surprises here.

      That's called affirming the consequent. It's not insightful, informative, or valuable in any way; it's a fallacy.

      Maybe he didn't mean that NIST drawing a conclusion of structural failure through fire proves the building came down in a controlled demolition, but only that maybe NIST shouldn't be viewed as an unbiased source.

      Apologies if I misunderstood your point.

    13. Re:no surprises here by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      Then you won't trip over technical concepts you don't understand.

      But if people did that there would be much fewer comments on /. !

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
  37. Obligatory Beowulf Cluster post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of WTC buildings.

    Now imagine it crashing.

    Oh wait....

    Mod -1:IN_BAD_TASTE

  38. Wow, That Was Some Crappy Construction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wouldn't hire the designers of that building to build a doll house.

  39. Yes, but... by davidwr · · Score: 1

    They brought it down with fire. I know because the report said the building was brought down by fire.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Yes, but... by hivebrain · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's just one of many theories. Some say it was done with Pop Rocks and Soda. I happen to believe it was done with Mentos and Diet Coke.

    2. Re:Yes, but... by u-235-sentinel · · Score: 1

      That's just one of many theories. Some say it was done with Pop Rocks and Soda. I happen to believe it was done with Mentos and Diet Coke.

      I find your lack of faith in pop rocks disturbing ;-)

      --
      Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
  40. Re:Really? by JebusIsLord · · Score: 0, Troll

    Look, something crooked DEFINITELY went on, but it wasn't in how the buildings were brought down. It's in how the government knew exactly who was responsible, the minute it happened, and flew them the hell out of the country. WE KNOW THIS. Why doesn't anyone focus on it?? Seems important to me. The conspiracy theorist in me believes it is perfectly possible the government hired these men to do it. But I still believe the planes took the buildings down.

    --
    Jeremy
  41. Insane theories one; by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    regular theories a billion!

  42. Wait a damn minute, here! by PrimeWaveZ · · Score: 5, Funny

    Asking Slashdot readers to stick to science, refrain from discussing conspiracies, AND taking the fun out of a beowulf cluster reference?

    This submitter is a black belt troll and you all know it!

  43. I venture quite a few in scale models by davidwr · · Score: 1

    Granted, scale models don't tell the whole story.

    There have also been a number of major earthquakes that knocked down "smallish" buildings, say, them 3-20 stories. These data points can be combined with scale models to predict how larger building will fare under a given kind of stress.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:I venture quite a few in scale models by digitrev · · Score: 1

      An earthquake is an unfair model to use. It involves the entire ground shifting back and forth, causing lateral stress. The stress that caused the WTC to collapse was due to stressed joints and gravity. The only lateral stress was the initial collision, which obviously didn't have enough energy to knock it on its side immediately. Also, scale models suffer from the square-cube law.

      --
      Cynical Idealist
    2. Re:I venture quite a few in scale models by KGIII · · Score: 1

      The ground moves during an earthquake. A great deal. The stresses from that aren't the same as those from a plane, fire, or building debris.

      Not that I have a clue how it really fell down, I'm just astounded that you'd use those types of structural failures as your example of data points.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  44. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/wtc1_core.html?q=wtc1_core.html

    1. Sodamn Insane caused the terrists to destroy America.
    2. He's buddies with Bin Laden, bin Hidin or somethin like that.
    3. We (USA) needs to kick his (Sodamn Insane)ass... cause he's also got lots of oil.

    Last I saw over 50% of American population thought that Saddamn Hussein was behind the terrorists that brought down the towers.

    Look up the reichstag that GERMANY burned down to start world war 2. It's called a false flag operation. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm

  45. WTC owner admits to a controlled demolition by sega01 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Larry Silverstein (owner of the WTC) admitted that they had a controlled demolition. Why is this not mentioned anywhere? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WYdAJQV100

    1. Re:WTC owner admits to a controlled demolition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Larry Silverstein (owner of the WTC) admitted that they had a controlled demolition. Why is this not mentioned anywhere?

      Um, because he didn't say "controlled demolition," he said "pull," and the conspiracy theorists say that "pull" really means "controlled demolition"?

  46. This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by substance2003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Slashdot has always been about freedom albeit in the open source world, this has always included debates on what people read and think. How can anyone on this web site stand there and demand to limit to science as if the fact that the only steel buildings in existence to ever fall from fire all did so on 9/11 (which includes WTC Building 7). This is a fact that goes against the science given which has always fueled conspiry theorists and with good reason. We live in a society that is given the freedom to discuss and this forum has until today always given it's user's the right to says anything that is on their minds. Is slashdot changing it's stance?
    History was not written only once, it was written and rewritten countless times over long periods of time and came to exist as we know it because discussions continue over time and corrections and rewrites and new information that was ignored or suppressed comes out.
    But this only happens because people don't just stand there and accept blindly what is told to them especially when it goes against commen sense.
    I hope the person who wrote this has the curtosy to remove the comment or correct it.

    1. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by cdrguru · · Score: 1

      I believe it is fair to say that never before in history has there been either a fire that has burned in a steel frame building for hours without being put out, nor has there been a fire in a steel frame building which has been fed by tens of thousands of gallons of kerosene.

      These two "never before in history" items make it pretty clear we are dealing with some pretty unusual things.

      You might be able to draw some parallels with early 20th century fires in chemical plants where the building had a steel frame and brick construction. No, I don't know of any offhand. But that is about all that you could ever find with even close to the amount of flammable liquids involved in WTC1 and WTC2.

    2. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by Chas · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      It's the difference between arguing "facts" and "beliefs".

      "I believe THUS" is not subject to any form of rational proof or disproof.

      "But this only happens because people don't just stand there and accept blindly what is told to them especially when it goes against commen sense."

      That's the thing about "common sense". It just ISN'T that common.

      A NIST engineer, somebody who's actually studied the debris, seen the site, and understands the physics involved says "According to the evidence, it happened THUS".

      Bert Armchair, with a lousy example of a third-grade education, is sitting in front of his boob-tube chucks back a Schlitz and goes "Sounds hokey to me. I think Alien Ninjas from the gub'mint blew it up!"

      Now what is YOUR "common" sense telling you at this point?

      Simply having an opinion and an alternate theory on how something came about doesn't make you an authority.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    3. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by nasor · · Score: 4, Informative

      How can anyone on this web site stand there and demand to limit to science as if the fact that the only steel buildings in existence to ever fall from fire all did so on 9/11 (which includes WTC Building 7).

      This is absolutely false. There are many examples of other steel buildings that collapsed due to fire before 9/11. One example off the top of my head would be the Sight and Sound Theater fire of 1997. http://www.firefightersonline.com/opsandtactics/tr-097/ Just google around for a few minutes if you want many more examples.

      The way 9/11 conspiracy theorists mindlessly repeat these lies (like the lie that no other steel buildings have collapsed due to fire) without bothering to spend even five minutes googling around with terms like "steel building fire collapse" is a testimony to their extreme gullibility and intellectual laziness. It's not different than the oft-repeated claim that the fire wasn't hot enough to melt steel, which ignores the fact that steel loses much of its strength well before it actually melts.

    4. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by shmlco · · Score: 1

      Never forget that "common sense" is an oxymoron.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    5. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1
      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    6. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by philspear · · Score: 1

      A witty saying proves nothing.
      -voltaire

      Personal pet peeve: unfounded elitist cynicism which passes itself off as wisdom.

      What do you mean "common sense" is an oxymoron? Are you saying people in general don't have any sense? If so, compared to what? Your common sheep?

    7. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by maxume · · Score: 1

      Hopefully your comment doesn't get deleted.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    8. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by shmlco · · Score: 1

      Funny you mentioned Voltaire. Didn't he also say that "Common sense is not so common"?

      Though Einstein is perhaps closer, with "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." It's a common assumption, masquerading as wisdom (to use your word).

      Or to put it another way, when one lacks facts, they fall back on what everyone "knows" to be true... regardless of whether it's true or not.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    9. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      I am posting anonymously because I believe the moderating in this forum is unreasonably biased against those who question the official explanation of the WTC collapses, myself among them. I fully support having a new, independent investigation of the WTC collapses, rather than the federal investigations we've had to date. I thought I would include the following quotes directly from the NIST Report which I find interesting and relevant to some of the discussions here.

      This was the first known instance of the total collapse of a tall building primarily due to fires. (p. xxxi)

      WTC 7 was unlike the WTC towers in many respects. It was a more typical tall building in the design of its structural system. It was not struck by an airplane. The fires in WTC 7 were quite different from those in the towers. Since WTC 7 was not doused with thousands of gallons of jet fuel, large areas of any floor were not ignited simultaneously. Instead, the fires in WTC 7 were similar to those that have occurred in several tall buildings where the automatic sprinklers did not function or were not present. These other buildings did not collapse, while WTC 7 succumbed to its fires. (p. xxxi)

      ...Only the fires on Floors 7-9 and 11-13 grew and lasted until the time of the building collapse. These uncontrolled fires had characteristics similar to those that have occurred previously in tall buildings. Their growth and spread were consistent with ordinary building contents fires. (p. xxxii)

      Hypothetical blast events did not play a role in the collapse of WTC 7. NIST concluded that blast events did not occur, and found no evidence whose explanation required invocation of a blast event. Blast from the smallest charge capable of failing the critical column would have resulted in a sound level of 130 dB to 140 dB at a distance of at least half a mile. There were no witness reports of such a loud noise, nor was such a noise heard, nor was such a noise [heard in] video recordings of [collapse.] (p. xxxii)

      The reader should keep in mind that the building and the records kept within it were destroyed, and the remains of all the WTC buildings were disposed of before congressional action and funding was available for this Investigation to begin. (p. 13)

      According to the generally accepted test standard... the fire resistance rating for a steel column or floor beam... [is] the time at which... the average column temperature exceeds 538 deg. C (1000 deg. F) or the average floor beam temperature exceeds 593 deg. C (1100 deg. F). (p. 19)

      The initiating local failure that began the probable WTC 7 collapse sequence was the buckling of Column 79. This buckling arose from a process that occurred at temperatures at or below approximately 400 deg. C (750 deg. F), which are well below the temperatures considered in current practice for determining fire resistance ratings associated with significant loss of steel strength. (p. 19)

      NIST performed simulations of the potentially severe pool fires that might have resulted from... diesel fuel present on the 5th floor... 4 types of fires resulting from fuel line rupture... were analyzed... NIST concluded that it was highly unlikely that any fires on the 5th or 6th floors contributed significantly to the collapse of WTC 7. (p 26)

      NIST also evaluated the possible contribution of diesel fuel from the day tanks on Floors 7, 8, and 9... nearly all [that] diesel fuel... was recovered months after the WTC 7 collapse. (p 26)

      Diesel fuel fires did not play a role in the collapse of WTC 7. (p. 44)

      Note Figure 3-14. Buckling of the lower exterior columns... (p. 38)

      Once simulation of the global collapse of WTC 7 was underway, there was a great increase in the uncertainty in the progression of the collapse sequence, due to the random nature of the interaction, break up, disintegration, and falling of the debris... The details of the progression of the horizontal failure

    10. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by Daswolfen · · Score: 1

      I think flying airliners into steel framed skyscrapers is a pretty damned unique occurance.

      And there has been steel stuctures collapsing because of fire before...

      http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/us/29cnd-collapse.html?hp

      --
      Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
    11. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by Chas · · Score: 1

      "Are you saying people in general don't have any sense?"

      Stop right there.

      Ask yourself. Do you want a NICE answer? Or an HONEST one. And no, if you say HONEST while still secretly hoping it's the NICE one, you're going to be disappointed.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    12. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by philspear · · Score: 1

      So the honest answer is yes. Then my question is "compared to who?" Plants? A subpopulation of people handpicked for having more common sense than the general population? An alien race I'm not familiar with? What your ideals for people are?

      I'm willing to submit that people have more common sense than most animals. My cats don't have enough common sense to stay off the counters even though they seem to expect the squirt gun.

      Just saying, if people don't have "common sense," then it's completely ficticious and we should redefine the term to reflect reality.

    13. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      engineers != physicists. I went to university and studied with many engineers and their lack of physics knowledge astounded me. The explanation of all three collapses violates Galileos and Newtons laws.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    14. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      check out the photos of the core columns that have been cut at an angle and are surrounded by once melted steel. And if they "collapsed" where did all the molten metal found afterwards come from? Jet fuel cannot melt steel into a red hot liquid mass, so where did it come from?

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    15. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by Televiper2000 · · Score: 1

      You mean the photos of cut columns taken during the clean-up? The columns cut at an angle by iron-workers using torches. Something anyone who's been through high school shop class should be able recognize? It does look exactly like the one I saw in Zeitgeist.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJyBuANVkQ4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZSFCv9GoWA&NR=1

      --
      New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
    16. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by terjeber · · Score: 1

      So the honest answer is yes. Then my question is "compared to who?"

      Assuming we want a saner, more sensible and more well understood world, then there is a minimum standard for who "should" procreate. Most people are able to do the following. They are presented with some generic statements. A and B. They are then also able to agree with some sort of logic that says that if A and B then logically Y follows. At an abstract level they agree. Then you take them to task on A' and B', two statements about them, and you explain how Y' follows. If that person has some religious or other antipathy towards Y', they will protest, even if they just before agreed that Y' was a logical consequence of A' and B'. The vast majority of people have multiple A's and B's where Y's follow, where they are strongly disagreeing with Y'.

      In other words, the vast majority of the population are utter morons and should not be allowed to procreate.

    17. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by notrandomly · · Score: 1
      What are you talking about? There are physicists at NIST. Physicists were involved in creating this report.

      The collapses violated no laws.

    18. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by infalliable · · Score: 1

      I'd agree with you nasor, the "facts" that the conspiracy theorists consistently go back to are insanely easy to discredit. Things like the lack of a Road Runner/Wiley Coyote cutout on the Pentagon, not enough fuel to melt the steel structure, etc.

    19. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by Spatial · · Score: 1

      It's not different than the oft-repeated claim that the fire wasn't hot enough to melt steel, which ignores the fact that steel loses much of its strength well before it actually melts.

      The utter credulousness this displays is appalling. I mean, doesn't everyone do metalwork/engineering in school at some point? One of the first things I did was heat steel to weaken it, allowing it to be shaped with a hammer... How does someone avoid knowing that heating up metal weakens it? It's mind-boggling.

    20. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by wudukes · · Score: 1

      Correction: Never has fire caused a COMPLETE collapse of a steel framed structure. Also, please note that the official story (cover-up) tells us that asymmetrical caused a perfect symmetrical collapse. This has never happened before and truly defies logic.

    21. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by darkmeridian · · Score: 1

      I agree 100% with you on the lies propagated by the "Truthers." They keep arguing that 1 and 2 World Trade Center "fell into their own footprints" but that's not true. Lots of debris from the falling towers smashed into surrounding structures and caused massive damage. They were finding body parts from the passengers on the hijacked planes in buildings around the Towers (including a pair of a flight attendant's hands that were still plasticuffed together by the hijackers).

      What did the Truthers expect--for the towers to keel over and fall sideways? People saw airplanes hit the towers, which then burned for a while before collapsing. The towers were hit at about the 100 floor. Did they expect the top of the building to fall over?

      More to the point, the Towers very clearly fell from the top down. Imagine there were well-timed explosives placed in the building to destroy them perfectly. The explosives would have to be placed near the top above the point of collision with the jets because that's where the collapse began. After a jet loaded with fuel slammed in the building at hundreds of miles an hour and burned for an hour, how did the explosives still manage to go off so perfectly? The burning jet fuel would have set off the explosives or burned them away. The heat would have at least interfered with the electronics and wiring needed to trigger the demolition explosives.

      Nah. Don't think about the details. You're a sheep if you ever believe the government!

      --
      A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
    22. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by shmlco · · Score: 1

      "Just saying, if people don't have "common sense," then it's completely ficticious and we should redefine the term to reflect reality."

      Since when did anyone let anything as mundane as reality interfere with a perfectly good preconception?

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    23. Re:This is not supposed to be a restricted forum. by notrandomly · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Quote mining? Another creationist tactic. Understand this: They are scientists. They are supposed to explain what they can tell you, and with what certainty. Unlike 9/11 truthers, they are being scientific, and intellectually honest. They explain the limitations of the model, and their conclusion takes these limitations into account under the heading "Accuracy Appraisal":

      "Given the complexity of the modeled behavior, the global collapse analyses matched the observed behavior reasonably well. The close similarity of the timing and the nature of the events up to the initiation of global collapse is strong confirmation of the extent and nature of the structural failures in the interior of the building and the accuracy of the four-step simulation process. The overall simulation of the collapsing building with damage better matched the video observations of the global collapse. The global collapse analysis confirmed the leading collapse hypothesis, which was based on the available evidence."

      Scientist: 1) Observation, 2) hypothesis, 3) testing, 4) conclusion.

      Truther/creationist: 1) Conclusion, 2) lies, deception, quote mining.

      Your quote mining is like reading the standard creationist argument where Darwin says that if we can't explain the evolution of the eye, Evolution is in trouble. They then triumphantly present this text as "proof" that even Darwin knew that his theory was flawed. What they don't do is to quote the next paragraph, where Darwin actually explains how the problem he just posed can be solved.

      Similarly, you quoted only some parts to raise doubts about the conclusions in the document. You didn't bother to look at the data presented. You simply quoted the standard way scientists put forth their findings and presented it as if it was a contradiction. Like creationists like to yell about how evolutionary biologists use a lot of words like "seem", "may", "could", etc. Those words, according to creationists "prove" that scientists are actually doubting their own conclusions.

  47. Re:Really? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

    Not long after this shit, there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off. The steel structure was still standing but oxidizing flame was enough to melt or buckle steel in the trade center? The sheer ignorance of the American populace astounds me.

    I hear ya, man. When my Ford Pinto went up in flames, nobody in America would believe it was because the gubment put a bomb in my car!!! Stoopid ign'rant country.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  48. Which direction should a building fall? by davidwr · · Score: 2, Funny

    Which way would you expect a building of that size to fall?

    Toward Osama bin Laden's massive ego.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  49. NIST Releases Report On WTC 7 Collapse by benjfowler · · Score: 2, Funny

    "All documents can be found at NIST's WTC page, which read like a porn magazine for finite element junkies"

    Guess we should try not to get the pages stuck together huh?

  50. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is a post which beats down a troll modded troll itself? Both sides of the debate can't be trolls. Idiots.

  51. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Congratulations. I'm going to hit all of your posts -1 whenever I get mod points, which is about once a week.

  52. No "crackpot theories" here... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1, Informative

    ... BUT: if fire caused the building to collapse, why did the owner of the building himself say, on public television, that they brought the building down intentionally???

    Larry Silverstein says they intentionally brought down building 7.

    Kinda hard to argue with the owner of the building when he publicly says he did it on purpose! (Note: you might want to take some of the rest of the video with a grain of salt... but the Silverstein part is incontrovertible.)

    1. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 1

      if they did, then whoever did the pulling was really incompetent about it. When WTC7 went down, it did about 1 billion in damage to the verizon building next door.

      So go figure.

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    2. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by gtall · · Score: 5, Informative

      I saw the video link, it might be helpful to you to be accurate and precise with what the owner said when you report. The owner said the firefighters had come to him and said they couldn't sustain the effort needed to control the fire and that they should pull "it". The "it" referred to the effort to control the fire, not pull the building down. The firefighters were admitting what they were doing was ineffective and they couldn't sustain the effort. They concluded there was nothing they could do so they told the owner they'd pull out the effort spent on the building.

      The abutment of that clip with the building collapsing is misleading as is the whole clip. It is just someone's effort for 15 minutes of fame and nimrods like you help him...pathetic...

      Gerry

    3. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by photonic · · Score: 1
      From T-F-NIST-report, page 301:

      According to statements issued by Silverstein Properties, "In the afternoon of Sept. 11, Mr Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on the site at WTC7. The commander told Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building." "With respect to Silverstein's statement, when recounting these events for a television documentary, that 'I said, you know, we've had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it.' (a Silverstein Properties spokesman) has said that by 'it,' Silverstein meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building.

      No need to resort to conspiracies to explain that comment ...

      --
      karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
    4. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      the Silverstein part is incontrovertible

      Semantics will take care of that: He meant something else! He was being ironic, that's all.

      See, I controverted the hell out of it, no effort :)

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    5. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by fbjon · · Score: 1
      Some people keep talking about "intentionally bringing the building down". Here's how it goes:

      Silverstein says they made the decision to pull it. This means they pulled out the firefighters, because they didn't want to risk any more lives than had already been lost. With everyone gone from building 7, no-one was there to put out the fires, and they raged until bringing down the building down as reported in TFA.

      Building is empty except for firefighters. Firefighters are putting out fires. Nobody cares about the building anymore. Firefighters intentionally leave (pull out). Fires continue to rage. Building collapses. Hopefully the last few stragglers will now get this, so maybe we can avoid having it rehashed for the nth time.

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
    6. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by Squiggle · · Score: 1

      My unofficial transcript of video:

      Larry: "I remember getting a call from the fire department commander, telling my that they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire. I said, 'You know we've had such terrible loss of life, the smartest thing to do is pull it.' Uh, and they made that decision, to pull, and we watched the building collapse."

      I don't think there is enough context to decide whether:
      it = building
      it = the attempt to put out the fire

      Supporting the pulled building links:
      http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/silverstein_pullit.html
      http://11syyskuu.blogspot.com/2006/02/destruction-of-wtc-7.html
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58h0LjdMry0
      (in this video you can hear explosions before it comes down, but perhaps not loud enough to cause the collapse?)

      Supporting fires:
      http://911guide.googlepages.com/danielnigro

      What I'd like to see is a full video of the simulated collapse superimposed on a video of the actual collapse and see how well they match up. I have a hard time believing that the fire dept (or someone from the dept) wouldn't admit that they had brought the building down.

      --
      Complexity Happens
    7. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jesus, you gullible conspiracy whack-jobs are on fucking crack!

      The FIRE DEPARTMENT brought the building down??? how did they do that? how COULD they do that??

      Are you seriously suggesting they raced through a burning and structurally weakened building, risking their own lives, to plant explosive charges? all while there were other fires to put out and victims to aid?

      Where did the charges come from? Did Silverstein have a "self-destruct" mechanism wired into the building already, and you think he would bother to tell the firemen about it? Or was Silverstein himself down there handing out thermite to firefighters?

      Unbelievable. 100% laughable hokum.

    8. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by Squiggle · · Score: 1

      The usual reading comprehension skill of ACs... sigh.

      What I was saying is that it is *unlikely* that the fire dept brought the building down even though there is (mediocre) evidence that some people (like Larry) and some firefighters themselves thought they were bringing it down. If they had actually brought it down, I see little good motivation for them to keep that a secret and it would likely be difficult or impossible for the actual people who did the demolition work to be kept quiet.

      That the buildings were already wired and were brought down by someone other than the fire dept is actually much more plausible, but requires a grander conspiracy - which is *much* less probable.

      To sum up, for other AC and reading impaired folks. The chance that the NY fire dept pulled the buildings = almost zero. The chance that they were pulled by others = extremely unlikely. Good, conclusive evidence of exactly what happened that day is hard to find.

      --
      Complexity Happens
    9. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by terjeber · · Score: 1

      Kinda hard to argue with the owner of the building when he publicly says he did it on purpose!

      He didn't. He says "the fire chief called" and notified him of the danger to the crews. Then he told the fire chief to pull. They pulled. Then they watched the building collapse. What was pulled? The fire crews.

      Again, this has been explained time and again since the event. Still conspiracy junkies and other crackpots can't let it go.

    10. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by terjeber · · Score: 1

      Oh, and the nutcases who claims Silverstein "pulled" his own building also claim that he took out terrorist insurance on WTC 7 only a few months before the attack. This is BS and a lie. He insured the building in 1987. He did take out terror insurance on the towers a few months ahead of 9/11 since that was required when he bought them.

    11. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by gtall · · Score: 1

      And he'd have to be a pretty stupid businessman to claim in public that he'd caused the collapse of his own building.

      Gerry

    12. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by notrandomly · · Score: 1
      The owner did not say that. He said that they wanted to "pull it", where "it" referred to the group of firemen in the building, or the firefighting effort.

      Like creationists, you dishonestly make use of quote mining to make a quote appear to be something it isn't.

    13. Re:No "crackpot theories" here... by Sage+Gaspar · · Score: 1

      So let's put it together. At some point there are people in the American government that decide that it's a good idea for the World Trade Centers to get planes flown into them by Muslim extremists. Why? I'm not sure. But there is absolutely no easier, less expensive, or more humane way to accomplish their goals other than to fly planes into buildings. These conspirators then decide, fuck it, planes aren't enough, we have to kill more people and waste more money in a complete demolition of the buildings. So they secretly call in a demolition team to rig up the entire building unbeknown to the many many employees that work there or people walking past it at all hours of the day. For some reason they also decide a building next door has to go and give it the same treatment. Awesome.

      Complicit in this scheme are (1) emergency workers, (2) the owner of one of the buildings, (3) the frickin' BBC, (4) the couple hundred people needed to orchestrate the events and demolition, (5) fundamentalist Muslims. No one among any of these groups have a conscience or expose this conspiracy, which would be the story of a lifetime and guaranteed money and a big blow to the American government... for what reason, again?

      It is one thing to suggest that someone in the government had knowledge of the attacks and let them happen to galvanize the populace, although I'd hope for our sake that they didn't know about the magnitude of the events beforehand. It has precedent it history and is something believable, though I'd still like to think we're not quite there yet. It is another thing entirely to suggest they brought the buildings down themselves and somehow involved and silenced this huge number of people. That is an utterly extraordinary claim with no motive that I can fathom and it would require some extraordinary evidence. True, there are some things that don't add up, but I would be shocked if everything did add up around an event of this magnitude. Life is messy, human knowledge is imperfect, mistakes happen. If intentional deceit was involved I'd find it much easier to believe it was done to cover someone's ass that made a mistake than someone in on a conspiracy to take the buildings down.

  53. Does the NIST report explain news reports? by seeker_1us · · Score: 2, Informative
    This is not one of the twin towers. No plane hit it.

    And major network news reported it falling while it was still standing in plain sight behind them.

    1. Re:Does the NIST report explain news reports? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not one of the twin towers. No plane hit it.

      And major network news reported it falling while it was still standing in plain sight behind them.

      Please allow me to explain news reports.

      To start, lets get one thing straight here.

      Major network news doesn't know its ass from a hole in the ground.

      So if major network news reports something that is A) wrong, B) obviously wrong, or C) so completely fucking wrong that it'd be obvious to a Special Olympian with a head wound then the obvious conclusion is not that there is a conspiracy afoot but rather that major network news is performing down to its usual lowered expectations.

    2. Re:Does the NIST report explain news reports? by cicho · · Score: 1

      Mods: why is a post that merely states two simple facts (no plane hit WTC7, BBC had announced its collapsed before it happened) modded troll?

      --
      "Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
    3. Re:Does the NIST report explain news reports? by kipman725 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      because they always use live footage on green screens. Sigh.

    4. Re:Does the NIST report explain news reports? by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      You're right, it should have been modded offtopic. WTF does NIST have to do with the BBC's error?

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    5. Re:Does the NIST report explain news reports? by fmobus · · Score: 1

      there was a good amount of confusion that day. I remember hearing on the news that 4 other planes were hijacked, but it was dismissed afterwards as misinterpretation of their source. BBC's case could be simply confusion between "firefighters evacuate WTC7 due to imminent collapse" with "wtc7 has collapsed".

  54. Oh gee, that solves it, case closed... by moxley · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'll deny it, and I'm not "a crazy."

    It is compeltely obvious to so many people on so many levels that the building was imploded, and until there is an explanation that can address all of the ignored or glossed over issues, people who have truly looked at this without an agenda and who have a problem with these official theories aren't going to feel differently.

    I am not saying I know exactly what happened, and I am not chiding anyone who wants to believe this report...If that settles it for you, then great. I don't think it settles it for anybody who has questions who has looked at the situation with a critical eye, and who can think for themselves.

    Anybody who knows anything about engineering and controlled demolition can watch the video of that builidng coming down and know that it didn't collapse from a fire; not like that, no way - and that is ignoring all of the testimony from firemen and other who were there who claim it was imploded.

    I would believe that the world mass hallucinated before I would give creedence to some of the bullshit "official explanations" about a lot of the 9/11 events.

    1. Re:Oh gee, that solves it, case closed... by tuffy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It is compeltely obvious to so many people on so many levels that the building was imploded

      Controlled implosions on large buildings require months of preparation, miles of detonator wire, and literally tons of explosive charges placed at thousands of locations - sometimes requiring the demolition of interior walls. I've not yet heard a convincing explanation on how this process could be accomplished without anyone noticing.

      --

      Ita erat quando hic adveni.

    2. Re:Oh gee, that solves it, case closed... by moxley · · Score: 1

      I didn't say I could explain how it was done; but there is nothing to preclude perparation, or people seeing something (as there were reports of this). I certainly didn't say everyone agrees with my viewpoint, but there are many people who do.

      I don't want to rehash the entire argument of what happened that day as it's been debated ad nauseum, but there are a lot of variables and people seem to make a lot of assumptions about how things would have to have been done to create a particular outcome.

    3. Re:Oh gee, that solves it, case closed... by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      People noticed. You just don't believe them.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
  55. Re:Controlled Demolition, of course by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    Hey, dumbass, there's plenty of refutation on the use of the word 'pulled'.

    To 'pull' a building is to attach cables to it and pull it down, not to blow it up. No one in the entire history of mankind has used the word 'pull' to mean 'blow up'. They use it to mean to actually pull something, or to withdraw from it. (Aka, 'pull out', in which you metaphorically attach cables to people and physically pull them out of where they are.)

    The actual quote is that gets you truther morons in such a twist is 'And I said y'know we've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is, is pull it.'

    Why you'd demolish a building to stop the lost of firefighter lives is hard to explain. A much more logical assumption is that he was talking about removing the firefighters from it, aka, pulling the attempt to get the fire under control.

    But logic has never been you guys strong suit.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  56. Proof that tinfoil hats work... by Chas · · Score: 1

    At amplifying my Insanity Waves!

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  57. Re:yah, right by growse · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm guessing that they made a mistake in the confusion of not having very many facts in the wake of something huge happening. Unless you're suggesting that the entire BBC is in on a conspiracy?

    --
    There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
  58. Re:Really? by ScentCone · · Score: 3, Insightful

    in how the government knew exactly who was responsible, the minute it happened, and flew them the hell out of the country.

    Come on, now. It was plain to anyone who'd been studying the situation that Al Queda the culprit. It's not like that was their first time at bat. The question is whether or not you think the Saudi family/ies that were allowed to leave the country were actally Al Queda members or not, or had a hand in it. Do you REALLY think that if the government had hired the suicide attackers that... some other rich people from Saudi Arabia would have been somehow important to the plot, but that the people doing the "hiring" wouldn't have thought to maybe get them out of the way in advance? Please.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  59. So? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Informative

    That still doesn't explain why the owner of the building himself said that they blew it up. Or why the BBC reported its fall 20 minutes before it actually fell.

    1. Re:So? by Ravon+Rodriguez · · Score: 2, Interesting

      the explanation that I read was that he meant to "pull" the firefighters out of the building, not ignite some explosives. I also read that pulling is not a valid demolition term, at least not anymore.

      --
      Jesus loves me, he loves me a bunch, because he always puts Jiffy in my lunch.
    2. Re:So? by winwar · · Score: 1

      "ESPECIALLY when that statement could fuck up his insurance compensation?"

      Would it? If it was caused by a terrorist act maybe the insurance wouldn't cover it? Might they consider it an act of war or god?

      And maybe the owner is a crackpot? Being wealthy does not exclude the possibility of being a wack job.

    3. Re:So? by rainsford · · Score: 1

      It's also worth noting that the owner said in that interview that he discussed "pulling it" with the fire department commander and that they made the decisions to do so to prevent further loss of life. Now I don't know how they do it where you all live, but the fire fighters in my area don't know how to demolish sky scrapers.

    4. Re:So? by digitrev · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because he accidentally used terminology that happens to also be used in the demolition business to refer to something else. And the BBC just fucked up.

      --
      Cynical Idealist
    5. Re:So? by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 2, Informative

      That still doesn't explain why the owner of the building himself said that they blew it up.

      He didn't say that. The word "pull" is only used in demolitions to mean, literally, pull the structure down using cables. The 9/11 "truthers" gave it the meaning of "explosive demolition".

      --
      People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
    6. Re:So? by markana · · Score: 1

      How about:

      1 - the owner was distraught, and didn't have a clue about what really happened (if such a staement was actually made at all).

      2 - prove this actually happened (the BBC timing). I think that's just an urban-crackpot legend.

    7. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    8. Re:So? by TheSkyIsPurple · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Why couldn't this simply have been a mistake?

      There was a lot going on that day, and we've seen how poorly news agencies tend to fact check things when they're trying to get a scoop.

    9. Re:So? by apoc.famine · · Score: 2, Insightful

      [Citation needed]

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    10. Re:So? by danger_nakamura · · Score: 1

      the owner was distraught, and didn't have a clue about what really happened (if such a staement was actually made at all) He said this in a televised documentary for A&E. Paraphrased quote: ...so the decision was made to pull the building... Regardless of what it means, there is no plausible case for denying that he said it unless you were to suggest that A&E doctored the tape (possible but unlikely).

    11. Re:So? by bitrex · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Imagine you're in NYC before 9/11, and someone takes you to the WTC complex and says "Point out WTC 7." Unless you were intimately familiar with the complex, could you do it? Which building is WTC 3? WTC 5? Is the South Tower WTC 1, and the North WTC 2, or vice versa? Now imagine you're a reporter for the BBC who may have spent a total of a few weeks in the United States. WTC 3 was destroyed in the collapse of WTC 1 and 2, and WTC 5 suffered a partial collapse. Are you absolutely positive that in that position while reporting either the partial collapse of WTC 5 or the total collapse of WTC 3 you might not refer to one as WTC 7?

    12. Re:So? by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 4, Funny

      Or why the BBC reported its fall 20 minutes before it actually fell.

      Is that seriously the best argument you fuckheads can come up with? That a news organization got a fact wrong? Don't you morons remember "Dewey Defeats Truman"?

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    13. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That still doesn't explain why the owner of the building himself said that they blew it up. Or why the BBC reported its fall 20 minutes before it actually fell.

      So, "they" told the BBC, yet still kept the conspiracy a secret?

      Yeah. Sure.

      Moron.

      You've got to be dumber than your postings indicate - and that puts you in room-temperature IQ range. Room temperature for liquid helium, that is.

    14. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Don't you morons remember "Dewey Defeats Truman"?

      exactly! Another great conspiracy! The man who dropped the atomic bombs on Japan mysteriously wins the election!!!

    15. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you ever hear the phrase 'pull the plug' in relation to someone on life support? Does it mean 'go in there and shoot him', or 'stop trying to save him'? Think maybe the owner of a billion dollar building, in a time of stress, may think of the building as a person? That seems even more likely when you hear the rest of the interview where he talks about discussing it with the FDNY (the doctors). In this case, not only was the 'patient' doomed anyway, but other peoples lives were in real danger.

    16. Re:So? by Mycroft_VIII · · Score: 1

      I don't buy the whole conspiracy nonsense, however they did NOT refer to "WTC-7", but to the Soloman building (the proper name, if I spelled it right, of wtc-7), and gave brief mention of it's location and size.
          However it's possible some researcher trying to add info to 'raw data' to make the newscaster/news sound better and such scrambled things a bit and the wrong data got fed to the teleprompter.
          More complicated an explanation than simply saying WTC-7 when 3 or some other number was correct, but still far more probable than the bbc being secretly in on the whole deal screwing up the timing on when to release the next item.

      Mycroft

      --
      https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
    17. Re:So? by erroneus · · Score: 1

      Since when does the owner of a building have the authority to order or even request that firefighters withdraw from a building in their jurisdiction?

    18. Re:So? by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      Who claims that he does? He was called up with an update on the situation, and he decided that it wasn't worth risking the lives of those firefighters. It was his building, so he said that they might as well pull the group of firefighters out of the building.

    19. Re:So? by erroneus · · Score: 1

      The building owner claims to have "made the request." "Pull the building" is such an unfortunate and unnatural choice of words when someone means to evacuate or withdraw from a building. Who says that? "Pull out" yes. "Pull the building" no. That's pretty extreme spin.

    20. Re:So? by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      He did not claim to have made the request, and he didn't say "pull the building". He said "pull it", where "it" referred to the firefighting effort inside the building.

  60. Re:Really? by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's in how the government knew exactly who was responsible, the minute it happened, and flew them the hell out of the country. WE KNOW THIS. Why doesn't anyone focus on it??

    Total nonsense. The rest of bin Laden family had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks.

    Also, the hijackers weren't using assumed names, they appeared on the flight manifests, and they were known. It doesn't take very long to add 2 and 2...

    Also, bin Laden's relatives were allowed to leave the country after the national ground stop was lifted and not without being questioned. http://911myths.com/html/family_flights.html

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  61. Has a fire ever brought down a building before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can anyone please cite me a case in the past where a fire has brought down a high rise building? I've seen cases of fires burning for days in high rises and gutting many floors yet have never seen a high rise come down with a simple fire, let a lone a fire that only burned for a few hours.

    If anyone can cite just 1 case where a fire has brought down a high rise building, I'll consider myself a moron. Otherwise, all of you who believe "the party line" will have to count yourselves as morons or at the very lease lemmings or governement lackeys.

    1. Re:Has a fire ever brought down a building before by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      You'll probably have to wait awhile. The chances of another event involving the heat energy available in the 9/11 event happening in one of only a couple of dozen comparably sized structures means that it probably won't happen again for awhile. After all, it hasn't happened before up until 2001.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    2. Re:Has a fire ever brought down a building before by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      Can you show me case where a fire has been on a high rise, covering several floors entirely, and that fire is located at least 15 floors from the roof? If you can cite just one source, I'll consider myself a moron.

  62. Like we learned from the Warren commission report. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...it takes a while to doctor up a study in order to fit a pre-made conclusion.

  63. Re:Really? by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 1

    Also, the hijackers weren't using assumed names, they appeared on the flight manifests, and they were known. It doesn't take very long to add 2 and 2...

    I just wanted to add this: http://www.911myths.com/index.php/Identifying_the_Hijackers

    Also, a much more informative link from the same site about the bin Laden family flight: http://www.911myths.com/index.php/Bin_Laden_family_flight

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  64. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mmm hm. When I'm through with your karma, you'll be lucky to get five points semi-annually.

  65. So? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    That doesn't exactly address my question, does it? If it was a failure, why did the OWNER say that it was done on purpose? ESPECIALLY when that statement could fuck up his insurance compensation?

  66. The Same Old Wrong Conclusions by segedunum · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'm sorry, but buildings that large do not completely collapse like that due to fire. That's why firefighters had no fear whatsoever of going in there. You would have probably got at least half to three quarters of the buildings still left standing because fire would not destabilise and collapse every single part of the building. It's crucial to remember that absolutely nothing was left standing. It certainly wouldn't happen in two, or even three, buildings as well, as appears to be the case. The case of the seventh building is still very flimsy, and the whole thing hinges on the fires somehow spreading from other buildings. You can get simulations to say anything if you ask "What if?" for long enough, but that doesn't mean that it happened that way, and real-life experience tells us it probably didn't.

    Were the buildings demolished? It's certainly possible, and the manner of the collapse(s) were mighty suspicious, but I have never seen any concrete evidence for that, as much as we might want to get ahead of ourselves. Is there some government conspiracy? Possible, but again, people always seem to jump several steps ahead when they talk about that and we still have no evidence at all. Is the above a conspiracy theory? Nope. It's based on years of how large buildings have tended to collapse, and how they react to fire, and all I and others would like is a sensible conclusion which takes that into account. Repeatedly saying "The buildings collapsed due to fire" and coming up with a theory to fit the facts with nothing to back it up is never going to be good enough.

    Cynically, all this report seems to be is a knee-jerk response to the really big elephant in the room - the complete collapse of WTC 7 - discussion of which has been doing the rounds for a while, and has gained some traction.

    1. Re:The Same Old Wrong Conclusions by Aphoxema · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's why firefighters had no fear whatsoever of going in there.

      Citation needed.

      I don't need any research to tell me that if you fly a large passenger airplane into a building then something really bad going to happen to it.

      As far as WTC7, I've seen a whole neighborhood burned down in less than an hour because of one house catching on fire, I'm strangely led to believe that something on a much larger scale could have similar effects.

      --
      "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
    2. Re:The Same Old Wrong Conclusions by segedunum · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Citation needed.

      There is no citation needed. Firefighters don't have too much fear of going into a multi-story building because the risk of collapse is not great. That's why firefighters, ummmm, you know, actually went in there as the fire raged. If there was a risk to them they wouldn't have gone in. That's based on years of experience.

      I don't need any research to tell me that if you fly a large passenger airplane into a building then something really bad going to happen to it.

      No shit?

      As far as WTC7, I've seen a whole neighborhood burned down in less than an hour because of one house catching on fire

      Yer, because, ummm, you know, the fires can actually spread because the buildings and the fires are at the same, ummm, level. This is clearly not the case here. The fires are several stories up, and the notion that a fire can spread from the top of a tall building to a much shorter building and completely demolish it is a huge, huge, huge stretch of logic.

      I'm just asking the questions. Quite clearly, a lot of people really do not want to face trying to answer them logically.

    3. Re:The Same Old Wrong Conclusions by cicho · · Score: 1

      "something really bad going to happen"

      You should join NIST. No really, they need this level of technical acuity.

      Nobody disputes that "something bad" should have and did happen. The question (not that you don't know it) is about exactly what kind of direct and consequential damage would occur, especially to a structure supposedly built to withstand that kind of impact.

      --
      "Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
    4. Re:The Same Old Wrong Conclusions by malv · · Score: 1

      So you're comparing a house which have absolutely no support materials built to withstand fires to a skyscraper. Geez, do you think that perhaps skyscrapers might be built in a somewhat slightly different manner. That maybe, just maybe, they are much more resilient to fires? The shit that gets modded up on here baffles me.

    5. Re:The Same Old Wrong Conclusions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about this:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U%C5%A1%C4%87e_Tower#NATO_Bombing

      It's only a 27 floor building, but it survived 4 tomahawks and is still standing.

    6. Re:The Same Old Wrong Conclusions by sir+fer · · Score: 1
      Try the 300 odd graves of the dead firefighters for your "citation", asshole.

      I don't need any research to tell me that if you fly a large passenger airplane into a building then something really bad going to happen to it.

      In other words, you don't need any facts to know the truth? Idiot

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    7. Re:The Same Old Wrong Conclusions by Aphoxema · · Score: 1

      No, seriously, how can you claim for hundreds of people that you don't know that running into a gigantic, burning building during what many people might be afraid is the beginning of a war that they didn't even have the willies?

      I'm pointing out the logical fallacy, not the material the firefighter's testicles might be made out of. The poster tried to use this claim to support an argument.

      And I don't know the facts, I don't have the slightest understanding of the incredible level of science involved trying to calculate all of this, and these people who say there's some big conspiracy seldom have any better of an understanding than I do.

      I want logic, I want science, I want to trust in studies and peer review, I don't want to believe a bunch of panicky idiots.

      The problem I'm seeing is this is an ideological argument more often than a scientific argument. Statements like "Let's bring up the sheer number of people that died to prove my point" are painful and things like "Because you're assuming that these people you believe to know more than you do about this stuff are right then you must be an idiot" just leaves me flabbergasted.

      --
      "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
    8. Re:The Same Old Wrong Conclusions by Aphoxema · · Score: 1

      Improvements are learned from people making mistakes and seeing how it can be done better. How many planes have been flown into mountainous buildings to date? How many do you think it takes to make a proper analysis? How might this compare to a bomb or a fire? How is it different?

      --
      "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
  67. Re:Controlled Demolition, of course by hattig · · Score: 1

    Sounds like excellent design to me.

    An incident occurred that caused the metal frame to fail high up, and the building gracefully collapsed down on itself [rather than collapsing upwards into the sky, or like the death star!]

    Other factors:

    1) A building isn't a tree. Trees fall over because they don't have empty space to collapse into, the trunk is solid. If the WTC had been a 1000 foot high block of concrete, it wouldn't have collapsed in on itself.

    2) Things fall in the direction of gravity when allowed to do so.

    When you stop and think about it, it makes far less sense for the building to just collapse to the side than it does to collapse down if the incident happened high up. If half of the base of the WTC had been destroyed (bomb, etc) then the building could have falled to the side.

    In addition, a controlled demolition to look like an accident probably would have tried to look random, rather than controlled! Stupid conspiracy theory.

  68. Somebody Explain the free fall speed please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, I am willing to admit that everything is the way it has been presented. The only thing I really need explained is how the towers collapsed at freefall speed. If floors were pancaking, as presented in TFA, then how was freefall speed achieved.

    1. Re:Somebody Explain the free fall speed please by jeremyp · · Score: 1

      Free fall speed was not achieved. If you look at a video of either of the two towers collapsing, you'll see that the debris ejected during the collapse falls faster than the building itself. The debris is in free fall, unless the CIA attached little rocket packs to each and every piece.

      I haven't seen a video of WTC 7 collapsing, but I'm sure it'll turn out to be the same.

      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
    2. Re:Somebody Explain the free fall speed please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First hit on google for "9/11 freefall" explains it all: http://www.debunking911.com/freefall.htm

    3. Re:Somebody Explain the free fall speed please by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      Uh, the collapse of building 7 is identical to many planned demolitions.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
  69. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny, I thought it was only possible for one user to mod a particular post one time.

  70. Re:yah, right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The changing story argues against you actually. If it was some master plan conspiracy, they would have gotten their stories strait before hand. Real eye witness events always have inconsistencies especially when the situation is chaotic.

  71. Re:And even more wrong by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 1

    If YOU have doubts about his statements, then you must not know how the English language works.

    Funny, that... Are you aware that the "they" in his statement refers to the FDNY? Are you accusing the FDNY of demolishing WTC7 and then remaining quiet about it for 7 years while "the government" claims it collapsed on its own?

    All this after they lost over 300 of their brothers?

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  72. Re:Really? by symbolset · · Score: 1

    The rest of the world knows something evil went on, but America has been the target of fundamentalists for a long time. Not long after this shit, there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off. The steel structure was still standing but oxidizing flame was enough to melt or buckle steel in the trade center? The sheer paranoia of the non-Americans populace astounds me.

    Er, different building standards? The US is barely more than 230 years old as a country. In europe that's not old for a middling farm house, let alone an important structure like a church or the hub of a global market.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  73. Re:How did it catch fire? by pembo13 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Troll? Who am I trolling?

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  74. Re:Controlled Demolition, of course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    suggests several possible cost-effective ways of mitigating the risk of collapse under similar circumstances

    Fair enough, but, in a situation like this (e.g. terrorism): who particularly cares if the building collapses? As long as the occupants have had time to get out safely, and (along with people nearby) have had time to evacuate the area, no biggy, right?

    It's good that they're recommending ways to reduce the risk of collapse, but it'd be just as useful to mandate better fire/smoke rules for escape routes, etc.

  75. Re:Really? by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

    Second, the steel portions of the building exposed to the fire did in fact get all melty and collapsey

    After being methiodically stripped of all insulation before the fire and after burning for dozens hour hours.

    Unlike this building, which had its insulation intact and which burned for only a few hours before collapsing.

    Details, details.

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  76. As to crackpot theories... by rfc1394 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As I write on my blog, there's a big group of - for lack of a better name - crackpots who go around claiming the Bush (Jr.) Administration had something to do with the 9/11 events or in the destruction of the two towers. Which is ridiculous for the simple reason I point out: "the (current) Bush Administration doesn't have people smart enough to pull a stunt like that. The current administration's staffing policies have been directed toward political cronyism and connections, even at the expense of even bare competence. From what I've seen, anyone working there that has any self respect or common sense has quit." It's pointless to argue that they have the kind of people smart enough to pull off this sort of thing and keep it secret. If they were that good, they'd have been able to cover up the whole fake "weapons of mass destruction" issue in order to make it look like they really were present in Iraq.

    --
    The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
    1. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if you're so smart than why the fuck do you waste your time on slashdot? the real answer? you're not half as smart as you like to make yourself seem.

    2. Re:As to crackpot theories... by cicho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You are making a mistake by conflating a lot of people, with lots of different opinions, into a single entity. They are not. And the issue of what physical forces caused the buildings to fall as they did is orthogonal to the question of who caused it to happen that way.

      You go on to say
      "the (current) Bush Administration doesn't have people smart enough to pull a stunt like that"

      I don't know about that. They Bush administration got exactly what they wanted in Afghanistan and Iraq, they got exactly what they wanted with the Patriot Act, the FISA bill, wiretapping, no-fly lists, they got exactly what they wanted on things like the bankruptcy bill, now they even got Poland and the Czech Republic to agree to the missile shield, even though it doesn't even work and in both countries the majority of the population are opposed to the project. In fact, Bush and his people have been getting pretty much what they wanted throughout the term, often with a little help from the Democrats (including the confirmation of all the far right nominations to the Supreme Court and elsewhere).

      If you consistently get what you want for 7 years, that's not exactly incompetence.

      --
      "Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
    3. Re:As to crackpot theories... by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      But that's the whole point. They aren't smart. It's obvious those towers got demolished. Put someone who's seen a demolition before and sees the towers topple WITHOUT seeing the planes hit it and they'll tell you "Wow, they imploded the WTC. Shame, I liked those towers". Like the WTC 7 toppled without a plane hitting it. And oh, exactly the same way. Hmmmmm....

      Good god, it's been seven years. Why didn't they release this thing about the WTC 7 earlier? This is damage control and deep down you know it, you're just too terrified to acknowledge it.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    4. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Hao+Wu · · Score: 1

      Also, why would they want to bring this additional building down? Because the towers' collapse wasn't dramatic enough?

      --
      I suggest you read Slashdot
    5. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Shihar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think his larger point is that if you have the resources to kill a few thousand Americans in a very public way and have the magical ability to keep everyone from feeling a pang of guilt and spilling the goods in an operation that would take hundreds of people, what the hell were they doing during Iraq. Planting a few weapons on Saddam would have been trivial compared to to the absurd conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11.

      The government really just isn't that good. It really does suck roughly as much as it appears to. They can't keep a little thing like wiretaps a secret, and you think that they can orchestrate the most elaborate conspiracy in human history without a hitch that involved killing thousands of Americans without anyone snitching? Ha!

    6. Re:As to crackpot theories... by jmorris42 · · Score: 1

      > Which is ridiculous for the simple reason I point out: "the (current) Bush Administration doesn't have people smart enough to pull a stunt like that.

      It isn't a matter of smart. You can't keep a secret of that magnitude in our current society, period. The Soviets or Chinese might, because they can make credible threats against leakers (yer head will come right fscking off!) but we don't have anything sufficient to keep that many mouths closed. Just this weekend is a good example in microcosm. Obama has good loyal people around him and couldn't keep the veep announcement out of the MSM before that famous text message went out. Every network had "highly placed but unnamed sources" talking their heads off the second it looked like SOMEONE was going to talk and they didn't want to be left out. It is a side effect of the sort of ego needed to work a 'high placed' sort of job. The same thing would happen (and probably will Thursday evening) to McCain in a similar situation, I'm not making any sort of partisan political point here.

      All these Bush did 9/11 theories would need tens of civilian types in on it and at least that many intel/military field agents, not ONE of which has talked to the NYT off the record.

      --
      Democrat delenda est
    7. Re:As to crackpot theories... by R2.0 · · Score: 1

      So your basic premise is: "I'm smart and they're dumb, and if you don't agree with me you are even dumber than they are. Or you are evil. Which is it?"

      Somehow, I don't think you are going to win many arguments that way.

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    8. Re:As to crackpot theories... by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      I don't care about winning any argument. Many people are smart, many are dumb. I don't consider myself particularly on any of those limits.

      I'm agreeing with you that the government is dumb. I'd never use the 'you're evil' meme, that's what Penn & Teller used when they tried to debunk 9/11. That was just stupid and dishonest. And I love those guys. :)

      What you forgot to mention was 'scared'. People were scared on that fateful day. And are still afraid today. And to believe that all that terror was in any way connected to the government that performed all those investigations on what happened is... well... scary. Scary things are hard to swallow, especially when presented with a sweeter alternative. Broadcast on all respectable media outlets.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    9. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In a way I agree...

      In another way I dont. Why? They were able to convince us (the majority of the US - many of which still think 1) Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 2) He had WMDs) to invade iraq with several lies that they cycled through and repeated over and over.

      They are enriching there oil and corporate buddies now to the tune of 10s of billions, not millions, of dollars. I could rant longer, point to articles or whatever but if you keep moderately aware of current events this will not be news to you.

      So... I dont think they are 100% involved. I do think something stinks about the whole thing, about ways certain things were handled, about the secrecy. Maybe they intentionally ignored intelligence (we DID have a warning), maybe they covertly steered the terrorists into the right direction. Of course many will say why? The why is mentioned above and is simply lots and lots of money.

    10. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know anyone serious who blames the Bush administration, this came from higher up than the grinning monkey they trot out for the public. I'm sure anyone who could spend 7 years doing modeling and simulations and discover a result that supports some other theory on WTC7. Alternatively we could all go watch TV instead!

    11. Re:As to crackpot theories... by dcam · · Score: 1

      The bush administration has one wild card that got them all that: Look out TERRORISTS!

      --
      meh
    12. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz (and others) are certainly not the kind of incompetent newbies that you might take them for. E.g. they managed to 'oust' Kissinger in a distant past (Team B anyone?). Yes, they are cronies (imho) and did politicize a lot of the governmental apparatus, it certainly does not imply that they are too incompetent too actually achieve what they want to achieve.
      They wanted a war, managed to convince the American (and not just the American) public for it's need and so far managed to get away with it.
      Not to forget about the people with a 'certain past' that popped up at certain positions (John Pointdexter e.g.).
      A lot of people that you might call crackpots would refer you to the document called 'rebuilding america's defences' from the project of a new american century to see what they wanted to achieve and match it what they actually did achieve...
      No I am not saying that they are responsible for the events at 9/11, but to say this administration was too incompetent and not secretive enough to get away with things would be a tat naive imho. I think if the Church committee did not reveal certain dark sides of US foreign policies, people would still be referring to such events as crackpot theories. Hmm.. in fact they still do that..

    13. Re:As to crackpot theories... by bigbigbison · · Score: 1

      Of course if they were smart enough to pull all this off without anyone knowing about it then maybe they are also smart enough to do all these other dumb and incompetent things to make us think they aren't smart enough to do it...

      --
      http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
    14. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you too think that the president is in charge and he rules USA/world, then you are in a fools paradise. The power is with the corporate (a conglomerate of corps like GE, rupert's news companies and others) they make the laws and decide when to have war with countries which are not open to their business, not the president, elections etc are as good as the entertainment tv show "american idol". mccain or obama - it simply does not matter. Just elect the idol and lets continue the entertainment please. -- Life is just another dream, my current dream is "Corporate Slave".

    15. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      Sure, "make-it-happen" is hard, but "let-it-happen" is oh so damn easy, all you have to do is basically nothing. Like ignore "Bin Laden determined to strike in US" reports. Maybe put two or three "war games" up on the day (one of them involving a plane hijacking) to keep the response time of the Air Force a little longer.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    16. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Phroggy · · Score: 1, Troll

      They Bush administration got exactly what they wanted in Afghanistan and Iraq,

      No, what they wanted was for the Iraqi people to greet us as liberators, and to begin withdrawing our troops from a peaceful democratic Iraq by around 2004. Oh, and did I mention the profits from Iraq's oil sales were supposed to bankroll the whole thing, so it wouldn't cost the American taxpayer anything? Of course most of us would call this plan criminally stupid, but that was the plan.

      they got exactly what they wanted with the Patriot Act

      Yes, I wonder how long they'd had that bit of legislation sitting around waiting for the right opportunity.

      the FISA bill, wiretapping,

      No, they just didn't want anyone to find out they were doing it. They're happy with the recent modification to FISA, of course, but their intention was to simply ignore the law, not change it.

      no-fly lists,

      I'm not sure how really this benefits anybody. Although Ted Kennedy getting on the list was pretty funny.

      they got exactly what they wanted on things like the bankruptcy bill,

      I can't speak to this; I'm sure you're right.

      now they even got Poland and the Czech Republic to agree to the missile shield, even though it doesn't even work and in both countries the majority of the population are opposed to the project.

      Yeah, that was a neat piece of diplomacy. Of course it doesn't work, but that was never the goal of the project - the goal was to line somebody's pockets. Any actual security benefits are icing on the cake.

      If you consistently get what you want for 7 years, that's not exactly incompetence.

      If they'd gotten exactly what they wanted, Bush's approval rating would be a bit higher than 30%. We came awfully close to electing John Kerry in 2004 even though nobody (including Democrats) actually liked him. Yes, it's a testament to the genius of Karl Rove that Bush managed to get reelected anyway, and that we haven't yet found evidence of deliberate vote tampering by Diebold, but it was a lot closer than they would have liked.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    17. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Breakfast+Pants · · Score: 1

      Which is ridiculous for the simple reason I point out: "the (current) Bush Administration doesn't have people smart enough to pull a stunt like that. The current administration's staffing policies have been directed toward political cronyism and connections, even at the expense of even bare competence. From what I've seen, anyone working there that has any self respect or common sense has quit."

      I don't buy the crackpot theories whatsoever, but it isn't because of some similar logic to the above. Bush's dad was the head of the CIA; Bush has many more connections available than his publicly visible "cron[ies]".

      --

      --

      WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
    18. Re:As to crackpot theories... by nebular · · Score: 1

      It's not really that the Administration wanted 9/11. In fact the Administration hadn't been in power all that long when it happened.
      What it seems to me is that the existing infrastructure of the US government, dealing with intelligence and foreign policy, basically let this happen. Maybe the CIA even pushed and prodded a few people to help move along the anti-US sentiment. With the Soviet Union gone, the States needed a new enemy. Terrorists are perfect, they can be anywhere and anyone. Religious fanaticism is a great reason as a good number of Americans are either God fearing themselves or understand the concept. Islam is the best choice for the religion because Islamic countries have been quite anti-US (Iran and Iraq), Islam is usually identified with a visible minority in the US (Easy for the public to picture an enemy) but anyone could be a Muslim so you still have that anyone, anywhere aspect.

      I think the US wanted to be attacked, they just didn't expect it to be so big.

      As for WTC-7. All the photos I've seen do make it look like a somewhat controlled demolition. I don't think the fire could have done things quite like that. The small CIA office that was in there probably had some info and operations that were more sensitive than they are willing to admit, and they blew the building to avoid the possibility of it getting out.

      I do believe that the US Government did have something to do with Al Queda and the like becoming the big enemy in the American eyes, I just don't believe they directly involved with 9/11. I just can't see that kind of complex conspiracy holding up.

    19. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isreal

    20. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      now they even got Poland and the Czech Republic to agree to the missile shield, even though it doesn't even work and in both countries the majority of the population are opposed to the project.

      Funny thing happened a couple weeks ago. There was this big country that invaded this little country on its border, and suddenly opinion polls in Poland flipped right around.

    21. Re:As to crackpot theories... by RealGrouchy · · Score: 1

      For me, the best reference argument on the 9/11 conspiracy is the South Park episode "The Mystery of the Urinal Turd", season 10 episode 09.

      Those of you in the US can watch it on the official South Park wesbite, those in Canada can watch it here.

      - RG>

      --
      Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
    22. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The People are working for the Sith Lord you know this! Soon we'll all be under their spell... Might go buy yourself a good robe, I know all the Jedi ones are already taken... I'm going to take the Magicians robe and hat... it'll make me look taller with the point!

    23. Re:As to crackpot theories... by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      ONe word...money...these people have money flowing out their ears...if they suggested to those that were in the know that they'd get $X million dollars and they had better shut up, OR ELSE. I can believe that would keep more than a few mouths shut. Besides Larry Silverstein told PBS that he told the fire dept to "pull" building 7.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    24. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Americium · · Score: 1

      I completely agree, I assumed that the CIA would plant WMDs right away if there weren't actually any there, but they didn't even manage to do that, you've got to be fucking kidding me. They must all hate bush as much as we do, or you know they would have..., or there really were WMDs somewhere.

      As far as all the crazy 'reducing your rights' bills and spying bills... there are fucking terrorists, what would you be doing if you were governing a country. Nothing bad has even happened yet, I can still go to Museums and the public square without being searched for bombs or weapons, and unless terrorism subsides, I can only foresee more and more measures to protect the public being put in place. You can complain all you want, but if you run a large business you most likely have much more surveillance and other security measures in place, for the good of your company and employees. And the employees most likely are happy, knowing they are safe.

      Which really begs the question, legalize pot and you could enact these laws with almost no opposition, but they don't? Which also begs the question, would you really want legalization, considering you will lose half the support against bills invading your privacy once stoners can smoke legally.

    25. Re:As to crackpot theories... by gtall · · Score: 1

      You seem to believe that if one part of the U.S. government knows something, that all parts know it. First, because of the inane Church rules, there was a wall between CIA and FBI and CIA couldn't track people within the U.S. Yeah, you probably don't believe that but then most of us couldn't believe the government was that stupid not to allow information on criminal activity to cross agency lines.

      Then you also have to think that because some people at CIA believe something, that they can get the rest of the government to believe it too. You forget agency turf and to what extent its keepers will go to protect it.

      Not only that, it is not very likely any administration wants to be seen as dropping the ball and allowing a terrorist attack. The idea that Bush or anyone else would think to do this doesn't take into account modern politics where the threat of a gaff leads our politicians to test the public opinion to tell the politicians what they believe that week.

      Gerry

    26. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Rub1cnt · · Score: 1

      Ever heard of the Phrase "Give them time to get the wrong idea, it makes things go smoother"? Its perfect...3-4 years bungling things, then wham...9/11...perfect storm...everyone thinks youre an idiot, carte blanche to do whatever you want. Bush may be a little country, but he's not stupid.

      --
      Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you... :)
    27. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Rub1cnt · · Score: 1

      Okay...since when did we change the tagline of this country from Land of the free and home of the brave to Peace through superior firepower?

      --
      Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you... :)
    28. Re:As to crackpot theories... by u-235-sentinel · · Score: 1

      I think his larger point is that if you have the resources to kill a few thousand Americans in a very public way and have the magical ability to keep everyone from feeling a pang of guilt and spilling the goods in an operation that would take hundreds of people, what the hell were they doing during Iraq. Planting a few weapons on Saddam would have been trivial compared to to the absurd conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11.

      Next thing you'll say is our government didn't know about Perl Harbor before we were attacked...

      And yes, that one did come out decades later.

      --
      Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
    29. Re:As to crackpot theories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's pointless to argue that they have the kind of people smart enough to pull off this sort of thing and keep it secret.

      But a bunch of cave-dwelling 15th-century throwbacks are? Excellent logic!

      If they were that good, they'd have been able to cover up the whole fake "weapons of mass destruction" issue in order to make it look like they really were present in Iraq.

      They only have to convince half the people. Go ask a Republican. Most of them I know still claim to this day that we FOUND WMD in Iraq. Tell me, what consequences have come from the whole "weapons of mass destruction issue"?

      The Bush administration has been extremely competent. Look at all they've gotten away with, from the outing of Valerie Plame to legally justifying torture to indefinite detention without charge to "extraordinary rendition" to unwarranted wiretapping, etc. etc. etc., the list goes on forever. I think maybe your opinion of their competence comes from a flawed assumption of their goals.

  77. truthers == IDers by opencity · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Arguing with truthers is like arguing with creationists. They've already decided, it's a matter of faith. The weird thing is having looked at the structural collapse of the towers, if the official version was controlled demolition and the conspiracy theory was burning jet fuel, from a straight scientific standpoint I'd be inclined to believe the conspiracy. Physically, building catches fire, steel expands, breaks seals makes a lot more sense then Rutger Hauer and why not Whoopy spend a few days planting charges. However, like IDers, truthers decided they can make up various physical laws and ignore others as they go along all the while shouting "science!" (cue: T Dolby). And they get continuously pumped up by right wing trolls who figure quite accurately that they make the left look like a bunch of hairy clowns shouting 'JET FUEL BURNS AT 800 DEGREES MAN' at a fireman's funeral.

    The real cover up is that the buildings weren't code to begin with, or rather David Rockefeller etc bent building codes to get them built. And Rudy had all the fuel stored in 7 against the advice of all the professionals. And that the Saucer People, in league with the Bush Administration, used a gravity ray to make the buildings fall faster then gravity and straight down.

    Actually if you work some UFOs in I'll sign up. How cool would that be?

    --
    Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    1. Re:truthers == IDers by amorsen · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The real cover up is that the buildings weren't code to begin with, or rather David Rockefeller etc bent building codes to get them built.

      Indeed. The person involved in 9/11 that I'd prefer most to see behind bars is the one who approved the choice of plaster for walls of the staircases. Whoever he is, he has at least hundreds of lives on his conscience.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    2. Re:truthers == IDers by cicho · · Score: 1

      "The real cover up is that the buildings weren't code to begin with, or rather David Rockefeller etc bent building codes to get them built."

      And that is why Lucky Larry Silverstein hired the same structural engineer to rebuild WTC7. Because the guy's sure to get it right this time.

      --
      "Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
    3. Re:truthers == IDers by malv · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You know that most of these people you call "truthers" simply want more evidence. It's people like you that have already closed off their minds and the debate. You mock, you ridicule, and you do everything to diminish the validity of the debate. Well, fuck you.

    4. Re:truthers == IDers by opencity · · Score: 1

      I've been over the evidence endlessly because of location - I live a few miles from ground zero. My problem is the arrogant childish denial of science. Skyscrapers are (usually) very well built. Commercial air travel is going on as we speak, cell phones let me call China from the roof of a nightclub without a second thought. This is because when you put numbers in, the same numbers come out. It's not the same as arguing politics or culture. Mathematics is a stern and absolute task master, there's no opinion involved (you PhD math guys let that pass in this case, OK?)

      I have no problem with the rest of the 9/11 conspiracy stuff, I like crime fiction but haven't seen a smoking gun, but I find the obsession with proving that it was the 'big bad CIA / Bushies / Jews / Whoever' kind of racist. It's offensive that the idiot left can't accept that it was a bunch of misguided (to me) wanna be holy warriors trying to make a point on a budget. But no, it has to have been omnipotent all powerful evil white men.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    5. Re:truthers == IDers by Televiper2000 · · Score: 1

      Arguing with truthers is like arguing with creationists.

      Richard Dawkins just finished a great series called the Genius of Charles Darwin. In response to the mantra "there is no evidence of evolution" Richard Dawkins basically said, "you people only believe that because all you ever do is talk to each other." "Pull It" is the best example of this. It's a frequently used phrase in the Demolitions industry. I've never seen a reference to this inside the context of demolitions outside the context of 9/11 truth pages referring to the Silverstein quote. If it's such an important piece of evidence why is never wrapped in industry reference? Simple, they made it up. "A jet fuel fire isn't hot enough to melt that kind of steal" is the Truther equivalent to "How come we've never seen a new species appear all the time."

      --
      New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
    6. Re:truthers == IDers by opencity · · Score: 1

      Obviously I don't have mod points but a Dawkins reference is worth a shout out.

      The weird thing is the sheer number of engineers in the world. Some kid in Iran or Russia or China could make a real name for himself/herself in academia by crunching the numbers and finding weirdness.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    7. Re:truthers == IDers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shall we ask - whats the frequency, Kenneth ?

    8. Re:truthers == IDers by magus_melchior · · Score: 1

      The real cover up is that the buildings weren't code to begin with, or rather David Rockefeller etc bent building codes to get them built. And Rudy had all the fuel stored in 7 against the advice of all the professionals.

      Also known as Hanlon's Razor: "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence."

      --
      "We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
    9. Re:truthers == IDers by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      Hear hear, to hear truthers grouped with creationist is plain wrong. Arguing with truthers is like arguing with a physicist or an evolutionary scientist, you ain't gonna win because the facts speak for themselves.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    10. Re:truthers == IDers by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      Silverstein isn't in the demolition industry, mind you.

    11. Re:truthers == IDers by notrandomly · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You know that most of these people you call "truthers" simply want more evidence.

      That's a typical creationist tactic right there. "There is not enough evidence of Evolution. Show me the evidence!" And when you do, he will say "that isn't evidence" or "that isn't good enough". You have just been presented with a thorough report on the WTC7 collapse. The evidence is right there. Like creationists, however, you simply choose to ignore it.2

    12. Re:truthers == IDers by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      So the people at NIST are not engineers, physicists, etc.?

    13. Re:truthers == IDers by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      You know that most of these people you call "truthers" simply want more evidence.

      I've never seen one that wanted more evidence. If you give them evidence, it will be discounted as falsified. If you give them confessions, they will claim they were coerced or they were funded/controlled by someone else. There is nothing that counts as "evidence" they want to see other than what supports their beliefs. The conspiracy theorists want one and only one thing, confirmation of their delusion. Anything else is ignored. It's a mental illness, and arguing with them can't win, no matter what evidence or proof you have.

    14. Re:truthers == IDers by Yunzil · · Score: 1

      Except what evidence would they accept?

      It's like the UFO believers. "The truth is out there", they say. But they won't accept that maybe the truth is that there aren't any aliens visiting us. They think they already KNOW what the "truth" is, and anything that points somewhere else is obviously wrong, or is part of the Conspiracy.

    15. Re:truthers == IDers by Televiper2000 · · Score: 1

      Does that matter when "pull-it" is trotted out as concrete proof of a conspiracy? Didn't think so.

      --
      New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
    16. Re:truthers == IDers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they wanted "more evidence," they'd actually pay attention to the experts and science that's given to them every day from any one of a hundred million sources. The fact that they persist suggests to me that they just want "evidence" that backs up their preconceived notions; the rest is ignored.

  78. Ok, play along now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since everything is clear now.. I'm sure we can get some CLEAR video material from the Pentagon.

    Let's show it and forever put an end to the discussions..

    Hundreds of camera's pointed at that building.. I'm sure that if nothing more extraordinary than a plane hitting the building has happened it would be no problem to show the cards to the world..

    Right?!?

    OR to turn the tables around for once: IF YOU'VE GOT NOTHING TO HIDE....

    1. Re:Ok, play along now! by digitrev · · Score: 1

      They could give people complete and unfettered access to every single piece of information the government has, and they still wouldn't be satisfied. Why? Because they've left out that one database that contains all the information they're looking for. Face it, conspiracy folk will never be satisfied with explanations because they don't want to be wrong. Cognitive dissonance and all that.

      --
      Cynical Idealist
  79. Re:Really? by Myopic · · Score: 1

    The steel structure was still standing but oxidizing flame was enough to melt or buckle steel in the trade center?

    Yes. Next question.

  80. Re:Emma Watson did 9/11! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Emma Watson can do my 9/11 any day of the week.

    Rowr!

  81. Re:yah, right by AeiwiMaster · · Score: 1

    No, the entire BBC don't have to be in on it.

    When the black ops section of intelligence agencies make this type of opperations, one of the first thing they do is planing what story to feed the press.

    So, apparently BBC got a planned press release 20 min. to early.

    Din't you find it strange that they could identify the teorists as fast as they did,
    when identifying other victims took months.

    That because they already knew who to blame.

  82. "Normal office fires" by Chas · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What EXACTLY is so "normal" about a multi-hour, multi-floor fire started by burning debris and fed by fuel oil?

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  83. Changed the subject. Please answer the question. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0, Troll

    * I * am not accusing anyone of anything! Larry Silverstein did. So please address the question: if it was not intentional, why did he say that it was? Especially when that statement could have had a profound effect on his insurance?

  84. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'm not a conspiracy theorist myself, but I have to laugh heartily at some of these debunkings. The Madrid Tower actually works against you here, and the cited articles actually admit it. For starters, the Madrid Tower is far shorter than the WTC buildings and is much more prone to a complete collapse, which is what we're talking about here. Collapses in taller buildings will tend to leave at least something intact because of pancaking. Secondly, look at the huge intensity of that fire relative to the size of the building itself. It encompassed the entire building:

    http://www.911myths.com/html/madrid_windsor_tower.html

    That didn't happen in the WTC collapses. Alas, that debunking just raises far more questions than answers. You can't melt all the steel in a very large building to induce a complete collapse, especially not in the lower floors of a building where a fire rages multiple storeys up, and the building will not collapse completely when the upper floors collapse because the lower floors are still sound enough to keep at least something left standing.

  85. Re:yah, right by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 1
    On balance, I do not think anyone in the BBC was involved in any conspiracy. However, two things do puzzle me
    • Why did the BBC not correct the erroneous report of the collapse of WTC7 at the time?
    • Was the loss of the live transmission just before the real collapse and failure by the BBC to show the actual collapse later purely coincidental?

    Most likely, media management was being handled elsewhere and the press release to the BBC was made early. I am guessing the BBC did not get around to a correction and coincidence was indeed involved in the BBC's loss of the live feed (or, perhaps, someone outside the BBC cut the feed).

  86. Re:Controlled Demolition, of course by Scrameustache · · Score: 1
    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  87. FRAUD! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a sham, they didn't use physics ot attempt to tell the truth in the slitest bit. 9/11 was an inside job! Where is the plane that hit the Pentagon? If the plane, made out of titanium, steel and aluminum was vaporized by jet fuel then how were they able to identify 174 passengers through DNA?

    1. Re:FRAUD! by couchslug · · Score: 1

      "If the plane, made out of titanium, steel and aluminum was vaporized by jet fuel then how were they able to identify 174 passengers through DNA?"

      Because aircraft, excepting engine core parts and landing gear struts, are tender, thin, and soft. Note how much structure disappears when they burn on the ground. Turbine wheels (or their fragments, since they spin fast enough to come apart when they hit) are tough, but skin and interior parts are built for lightness.

      Humans, OTOH, are basically bags of liquid and take a fair amount of heat to cremate.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    2. Re:FRAUD! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Aicraft are tender thin and soft?

      Humans are tender, thin and soft you insensitive clod!

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    3. Re:FRAUD! by couchslug · · Score: 1

      "Aicraft are tender thin and soft?

      Speaking as an experienced aircraft mechanic, not only that, but they have a certain pleasant smell of fuel and....lubricant.

      JP-4 was nicer, but I can deal with JP-8 since I grew up in New Jersey.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  88. "Pull it" by ezilagel · · Score: 0

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WYdAJQV100 http://www.prisonplanet.com/011904wtc7.html There was no reason for that building to fall. Remember, this was not hit by planes. Simply fire.

    1. Re:"Pull it" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you only listen to one side of the story, you will always be convinced. Here is what the other side has to say: http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm

  89. Re:Really? by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    After being methiodically stripped of all insulation before the fire and after burning for dozens hour hours.

    Unlike this building, which had its insulation intact and which burned for only a few hours before collapsing.

    Details, details.

    I can't tell which building you're referring to, because neither the Windsor building nor WTC7 were "methiodically [sic] stripped of all insulation before the fire".

    But I think your last paragraph may be referring to WTC7, in which case "a few hours" is quite wrong. The fires in WTC7 burned, unfought, for roughly 7 hours.

    Fireproofing isn't the Holy Grail. It's only there to fend off the heat long enough to let whatever emergency response takes place do its thing before Really Bad Things happen.

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  90. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, it looks like I'm not alone in modding you to oblivion.

  91. Re:here's some science for you. by Ian+Alexander · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, "gravity" is ~9.8 m/s^2. That's an acceleration, not a flat rate, meaning that air resistance notwithstanding, the average rate at which something will accelerate when falling is 9.8 meters a second per second. It absolutely should have taken fewer than 23 seconds to fall.

    You may wish to learn a little bit more about gravity here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_gravity .

  92. Nonsense by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A NY radio station was told beforehand that the building was going to be demolished. The BBC reported the fall of the building 20 minutes before it actually fell.

    Sorry, but the actual evidence is very, very compelling. YOU are the one who is rationalizing here.

    1. Re:Nonsense by growse · · Score: 3, Informative

      What evidence?

      The BBC made a mistake, probably because of the huge amounts of confusion that was abound. As for your other claim about a 'NY radio station', that's not something I've heard before, and your lack of detail leads me to believe that you've just made it up.

      --
      There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
    2. Re:Nonsense by rainsford · · Score: 1

      Because, like all good conspiracies, the best way to get away with it is to involve the news media. Do you REALLY think that if the building was intentionally demolished and the folks involved were going to lie about it, they would tell the BBC and a NYC radio station?

    3. Re:Nonsense by mbrod · · Score: 1

      I don't know why they don't just admit they demolished it? Is it for insurance purposes? National Security purposes due to the offices in that building? Either way I don't care.

      What I do care about is that I didn't even know about this until about four years after the fact when Jesse Ventura was asked about it in and interview and mentioned things were a little fishy with the whole story.

    4. Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The BBC reported the fall of the building 20 minutes before it actually fell.

      So you say. They say different. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/part_of_the_conspiracy.html

      That would mean they're part of the conspiracy. So why would they do something that would expose it ("report 20 minutes before")?

      There's a more general objection that covers the NY radio station claim too (which conveniently is unprovable, as no one is likely to have a time-stamped tape that would prove that any such thing occurred). As the following link points out (near the bottom), WHY would the media NEED to know about the collapse beforehand? How on earth would it serve the conspiracy? Why not just let them report when it happened? It makes no sense whatsoever.

      http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm

    5. Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody was told in advance that the building was going to be demolished. Some people mistook the comment about pulling out as an instruction to take down the building. It's not a stretch, given that everyone was panicking and jumping to conclusions, but it is rather nonsensical.

      1: The building owner isn't responsible for making that call in an emergency situation. Just because my property is on fire doesn't mean I can order the emergency services to run inside and start planting explosives.

      2: Firefighters don't demolish buildings. It takes a team of experts with very specific equipment and knowledge (not to mention truckloads of explosives) to arrange a demolition, and no such company is going to run into a burning building on the owner's whim.

      3: It takes weeks to arrange a controlled demolition. The building plan has to be studied in great detail. Shaped charges have to be measured and cut well in advance. Precise calculations have to be made to ensure the right amount of explosives are used, and they're placed in the most effective locations. You absolutely cannot arrange this with an hour's notice.

      How can people be so silly? Why is it so tempting to believe that the building was purposefully demolished? How can you blindly ignore the irrefutable facts about controlled demolitions just so you can continue to believe that government officials had to be responsible for the collapse of these buildings?

      Why is it so tempting for conspiracy advocates to cling to their ridiculous theories and spread fear and distrust for their country's government?

    6. Re:Nonsense by terjeber · · Score: 1

      A NY radio station was told beforehand that the building was going to be demolished. The BBC reported the fall of the building 20 minutes before it actually fell.

      Again, more bullshit. Reuters erroneously reported that WTC 7 had collapsed and the BBC and others carried it. Reuters made a mistake. Again, this is well documented.

    7. Re:Nonsense by DrXym · · Score: 1
      Sorry, but the actual evidence is very, very compelling. YOU are the one who is rationalizing here.

      Sorry but that is evidence that in a maelstrom of conflicting reports some stations chose to report something which was later proven to be wrong. How many people do you think even knew what WTC7 looked like? Why do you think some BBC reporter to be able to pick it out from the skyline especially when she's faced away from it?

      Maybe you think this is "compelling", but then you would be wrong. It is evidence of idiot truther's imaginations amplifying and exagerating minor details, ignoring major details and filling in the blanks in the most fantastic and paranoid way possible.

  93. Re:here's some science for you. by skrolle2 · · Score: 1

    Last I checked, gravity had a tendency to accelerate objects, not make them fall with a constant velocity...

  94. I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 4, Informative

    Do you have ANY idea just how much effort is involved in demolition? Sure, it seems easy from the outside, if you know what you are doing, you can bring a house down with a sledgehammer, but it will be noticed. The same with controlled explosives, this is not a case of slapping a bit of TNT to a wall and walking out, if you do that, the explosion just goes outside and the building keeps standing. No, you got drill a hole into the structure. If it is still beam you got to apply a chaped charge that cuts it through. Buildings are constructed to be able to withstand the loss of a couple of support beams, so you need to cut them all. How the hell would you do that without anyone noticing? It would require truck loads of explosives and days of demolition to setup. No, the conspiracy theories fail NOT because it is impossible to consider the idea that someone might want to fake this but because the logisitics just don't work. I read one theory, that the cia was controlling the planes, the idea being that they were refuel planes because the planes had no windows. Right. Because the CIA, a organisation KNOWN to operate civilian aircraft finds it easier to aquire military planes of which there are only a few instead of buying just one of the countless 2nd hand civilian airliners. Look at the way that red department store in china collapsed, that is know to be an accident and it collapses just the way a controlled demolotion building collapses. You seem to have the idea that because you saw some demo docu's you now think that if a building collapses like that, it must have been done like that. It is as another poster said almost impossible to even start to explain how stupid your logic is.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTC was shut down weeks prior to 9/11 for a "cable upgrade". This is well documented fact. Read the statements of Scott Forbes:

      http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/11/interview-with-scott-forbes.html

    2. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 3, Interesting
      I assume from your post that you have looked at all the evidence and have managed to form a theory that matches all the known facts. I have looked at everything I could find, and am still uncomfortable with any theory I have heard put forward. I am hoping you can finally provide me with an explanation that seems to fit the facts without being crazy.

      The most difficult issue to deal with is what yourself said. Steel frame skyscrapers are hard to bring down. It is especially difficult to bring them down into their own footprint such that there are no residual steel columns left standing. With due respect to the authors of this official report and their three years of computer simulations, I do not believe for one moment that thermal expansion from the burning of paper, desks and plastic fittings (even over a period of many hours) is sufficient to explain this. I also do not think it can explain molten steel in the wreckage weeks after the event.

      It is true that significant preparation for a controlled demolition would have been required. From what I have read, it is not true that tons of TNT would have been required, or that the columns would have needed drilling if thermite charges were used. I am not saying that this is definitely what happened. I am saying it fits the observed collapse and debris better than thermal expansion.

      Forgive me if I ignore your strawmen.

      Now, please, if you have really read everything available and have a good explanation, please lay it out for us.

    3. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by daver00 · · Score: 2, Informative

      "I have looked at everything I could find, and am still uncomfortable with any theory I have heard put forward."

      And you, clearly, are not a fucking engineer so why does your armchair opinion count for more than two bars of shit?

      Every day you walk out of your house, designed and built by engineers, into your car, designed and built by engineers, or onto a train or bus or plane or boat, designed and built by engineers. You LITERALLY put your life in the hands of the competence of trained professionals every... single... day... without so much as thinking about it for a second, without questioning their abilities or knowledge, and yet here at the drop of a hat you throw all that out the window because suddenly the work of engineers doesn't satisfy you?? Because the science you are not trained to understand doesn't make you "comfortable"??

      Occams Razor, the observed facts are: Planes, large ones, flew into large buildings, fire ensued, buildings fell down. Your conclusion involves multiplying the evidence beyond necessity and therefore fails at the basic level of scientific theory. You make your assumptions in events that were not observed trying to debunk the events which were observed.

    4. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 2, Informative

      Surely the article is announcing the very explanation you're seeking. The fact that you choose to reject the official scientifically rigourous report in favour of your own ad hoc opinions cobbled together from a bunch of unsubstantiated and comprehensively refuted speculations about what can and can't collapse a building is a problem with your own judgement, and not a problem with the adequacy of the report. You really should spend some time researching the plentiful refutations to these crazy "arguments", if you genuinely care about the truth.

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    5. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I am an engineer, but you are correct in your assumption that I am not a structural engineer. Are you? I have spoken with two structural engineers about the collapse of WTC 7. They both said that the collapse was odd, but that they were willing to wait for the official report. I have not had the opportunity to talk to either since the report became available.

      I know I should be a good little boy and accept the official report issued by the government. Well, sorry, but experience has taught me that governments do not always tell the truth.

      The fact is that WTC 1, WTC 2 and WTC 7 were all extremely strongly built structures. The first two were specifically designed to withstand impacts by the largest jet aircraft without collapsing. WTC 7 was not hit by any aircraft. With the exception of the three claimed examples of September 11, 2001, no steel frame structure has ever collapsed as a result of fire.

      I am well aware of the implausibility of the "controlled demolition" scenario. I am not saying that that is what happened. I am saying that there are enough demonstrated lies and is enough attempted misinformation around the events of 9/11 to raise strong suspicions that there is more to the events than three buildings failing to meet their design criteria.

    6. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 1
      It is quite possible that you are right about my judgment.

      I have looked at the refutations of the various alternative theories of 9/11 that have been put forward. I reject most of those theories myself. I have yet to see a good explanation of molten steel in the debris weeks after the collapse. Neither have I seen a good explanation of the very small amount of debris following the collapse of these structures.

      According to their design criteria, none of the WTC buildings should have collapsed. I have yet to see this acknowledged in any of the official reports or more informal attempts to debunk alternative explanations for their collapse.

      Most likely, my judgment is faulty, but I shall have to eventually prove that to myself by having the things I imperfectly understand explained to me.

    7. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fact is that WTC 1, WTC 2 and WTC 7 were all extremely strongly built structures. The first two were specifically designed to withstand impacts by the largest jet aircraft without collapsing.

      The one thing that never gets mentioned along with that bit of information, is that the towers were designed to withstand the impact force of an airliner without falling over - and they did. Neither tower fell over when it was struck, only later after weakened by fires.

      Was there any analysis in the design spec of the effect of thousands of gallons of burning jet fuel after impact? No. None. Zero.

      The towers were also designed to have more fireproofing than was actually in them.

      WTC 7 was not hit by any aircraft.

      Correct. It was hit by burning debris.

      With the exception of the three claimed examples of September 11, 2001, no steel frame structure has ever collapsed as a result of fire.

      False, as many others have already pointed out.

    8. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by colfer · · Score: 1

      I do not see the good documentation you claim.
      http://www.911myths.com/html/wtc_power_down.html

    9. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by daver00 · · Score: 1

      "I am an engineer"

      Please, please don't tell me you are a software engineer.

      FWIW I'm a 3rd year Mech Eng student, also studying a second degree in mathematics.

      I'm not claiming to have combed through all the evidence, but I will claim that neither have you. Why don't you trust the engineers who actually have combed through the evidence?

    10. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1
      this seems plausible:

      http://www.911myths.com/html/wtc_molten_steel.html

      this podcast is always interesting to listen to and has a related episode - http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4085

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    11. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      Apparently "we asked a guy in an interview" counts as good documentation.

    12. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by Siener · · Score: 2, Funny

      With due respect to the authors of this official report and their three years of computer simulations, I do not believe for one moment that thermal expansion from the burning of paper, desks and plastic fittings (even over a period of many hours) is sufficient to explain this. I also do not think it can explain molten steel in the wreckage weeks after the event.

      Translation: My common sense is more reliable than all that engineering, science, maths and computer simulations.

      You should start working as a holistic civil engineer. I'm sure companies will be thrilled at all the money they could save by not doing any actual engineering and simply letting you intuit the correct answers.

    13. Re:I have worked in wrecking, do you have a clue? by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      It is especially difficult to bring them down into their own footprint such that there are no residual steel columns left standing. With due respect to the authors of this official report and their three years of computer simulations, I do not believe for one moment that thermal expansion from the burning of paper, desks and plastic fittings (even over a period of many hours) is sufficient to explain this. I also do not think it can explain molten steel in the wreckage weeks after the event.

      First, they didn't collapse into their own footprint. Debris was spread over quite a large distance. A controlled demolition causes the building to fall inward on itself, so the debris stays within the footprint. WTC collapses had debris shooting out everywhere. Second, there were residual steel columns left standing. Hell, there was at least four stories of twisted steel still standing up. Third, it had nothing to do with thermal expansion, but instead had everything to do with steel getting warm and losing some of its structural integrity. Go look at a some charts like what I have in my materials book from my college days that show temperatures as low as 1300F will begin to remove the temper out of a plain carbon steel. Once your steel has lost some of its temper, and the annealing has gone to shit, look out, because that steel is now extremely weak compared to what it once was.

  95. Re:And even more wrong by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    More to the point, Fire Departments don't even know how to demolish buildings. They don't have demolition experts working for them!

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  96. Re:Really? by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For starters, the Madrid Tower is far shorter than the WTC buildings and is much more prone to a complete collapse, which is what we're talking about here.

    What reason is there to believe this is true?

    Collapses in taller buildings will tend to leave at least something intact because of pancaking.

    Do you have examples of this? Keep in mind, they should be as similar to the Twin Towers as possible. Personally, I think you're going to have some serious problems finding comparable data points. Good luck...

    Secondly, look at the huge intensity of that fire relative to the size of the building itself. It encompassed the entire building:

    Right. The Windsor building had a much smaller floor area than the Twin Towers. No surprises here.

    That didn't happen in the WTC collapses.

    Why do you think it had to?

    You can't melt all the steel in a very large building to induce a complete collapse [...]

    Ah-ha! I have a question: why did you lie to me about not being a conspiracy theorist?

    Only conspiracy theorists parrot this asinine claim that "all the steel" had to melt before the building could collapse. I mean, that statement of yours is ignorant on levels no man should ever reach.

    Do you understand why?

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  97. Some People Need Conspiracy Theories by arthurpaliden · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Insecure people need conspiracy theories, they need to make what happened more complicated and devious that it really was. Because if what happened really was this easy;

    Prior to 9/11 several people from a third world countries entered the US legally and took flight lessons and then booked flights. Then on 9/11 they legally boarded the aircraft and once the aircraft were airborne took over aircraft, that basically fly themselves, and then pointed them at buildings.

    They could never sleep at night and it would make people from the third world smarter that they are.

    1. Re:Some People Need Conspiracy Theories by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      That's all correct!

      But that's not why they fell. ;-)

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    2. Re:Some People Need Conspiracy Theories by cicho · · Score: 1

      Um, no. "Insecure people" are those who will not look at or acknowledge any facts that might contradict their worldview, no matter what evidence is available to them. "Insecure people", aka fundamentalists. When I see a fundamentalist, I see a wife-beater - don't you? They're insecure, they won't listen to reason, and they respond with violence to any challenge to their authority.

      I am not saying Bush did 9/11, nor do I believe it. I am saying though, that your ad-hominem attack is entirely misguided and empirically wrong. After all, which is "scarier", if you will: 19 random hijackers killing your people or your own government killing your people?

      --
      "Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
    3. Re:Some People Need Conspiracy Theories by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      >Insecure people need conspiracy theories,...

      Yeah, Stupid architects and engineers, what would they know about buildings?

      Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
      http://www.ae911truth.org/

    4. Re:Some People Need Conspiracy Theories by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      so you'll be agreeing with the architects and engineers that compiled this NIST report then? Or do you only apply the argument from authority to people who agree with your predetermined conclusion?

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    5. Re:Some People Need Conspiracy Theories by NicknamesAreStupid · · Score: 1

      Actually, the concept of events occurring due to human conspiracy is a bit of hubris. We are really not that good, as much as we would like to believe otherwise. Random things happen all the time that seem so 'improbable' because we notice them, not because we created them. When we are sure that it could not have been a conspiracy, we claim that it is a miracle or an act of the devil (depending on the consequences). Ignorance is something that is very hard to tolerate. When we can't understand the true nature of something, we create stories that relieve us of some of uncertainty's burden.

    6. Re:Some People Need Conspiracy Theories by Televiper2000 · · Score: 1

      Actually, the logic follows that conspiracy theorists are rationalizing a much more secure world than that of the official version. The common theme is, this should not of happened, we should be safer than this.

      The 9/11 Truthers have asserted the following:

      1) The hijacked planes should have been intercepted. Someone must have stopped them from being intercepted. If the government wasn't in on this, those buildings would be safe. Rest assured. Under normal circumstances you don't have to worry about planes crashing within the perimeter of an important government complex.
      2) You can't hijack a plane with a box cutter. Those terrorist would have been fended off. Rest assured, unless the government is involved there's always someone on the plane that can fight a group of hijackers who don't have guns, or seriously large knives, we know how tough Americans are.
      3) The planes should not have been able to knock the buildings down. The buildings collapse because the government imploded the buildings. Unless the government blows up the sky scraper you're in, you can rest assured that it won't collapse.

      --
      New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
  98. Re:Really? by pcolaman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah because we know that the impact of an airplane flying as fast as it was going had no effect on the structural integrity of the core. I especially loved how they compared two fires burning to that of the WTC, but failed to mention that neither was impacted by anything with the amount of force that the airliner that hit the WTC did. Sounds like it's more a case of the guy was fired for conducting piss poor experimentation with the intent of proving his own theory rather than finding the truth.

  99. Re:here's some science for you. by ezilagel · · Score: 0

    Either way, thats free fall speed on a building supposedly bending breaking and then falling. Why is it so hard to believe that this whole 9/11 official story doesn't add up?

  100. Re:here's some science for you. by domanova · · Score: 1

    Gravity gives an acceleration of 32 ft/sec/sec. That's not a constant velocity. Falling things start off slow, get faster up to a limit which is determined by shape, air resistance etc
    Drop a cannon-ball from 741 ft, solve 2*s = f*t^2 for t, you get about 6 seconds. It took longer because it wasn't free-falling.
    Your sum is incorrect
    Chaos theory isn't in it
    NIST may be lying, but what you say is wrong, and irrelevant

    --
    Down with categorical imperatives
  101. Several things strange here by LS · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First, I need to say a few things to inoculate myself from being labeled one way or the other:

    1. The concept of a "conspiracy theory" is flawed, and is simply a cop out. There is no such thing as a conspiracy theory. There are just good and bad theories. Labeling an idea a "conspiracy theory" is just a form of jingoism and does nothing to increase the flow of ideas. Labeling something a conspiracy theory is a brilliant tactic to bury an idea as it takes advantage of herd mentality. Judge an idea by its merit and not by its label. Here on Slashdot extremely brilliant and extremely stupid ideas are posited all the time, so why now are we disallowed to discus a certain set of ideas? I thought there was a strong freedom/libertarian mindset here...

    2. If you examine history, conspiracies are actually the norm and not an aberration. Look at Rome, or the times of Shakespeare, or Nazi Germany, or the French revolution, etc etc. Look at the behavior of the current administration of the United States and say there haven't been conspiratory behaviors with a straight face. All a conspiracy means is that more than one person plans together to do something secretly. That happens ALL THE TIME, whether criminally or not.

    3. As Slashdot readers many of you consider yourselves to be scientifically minded and aware of logical fallacies. Why does this mindset breakdown when it comes to politically charged events? You are labeling people nut cases and tinfoil hat wearers and conspiracy theorists the same way people were labeled communists during the McCarthy era. The ad hominem attacks are relentless.

    4. In light of the awareness that several agencies in the US with billions of dollars in funding and specific programs for controlling the flow of information DO exist, wouldn't you think that Slashdot, a hub of meme flow on the internet, would be a specific target of operations? Opinions are manipulated on the net regularly. You only have to look at China with their "wangyou" (internet friends) that are paid 50 cents chinese for each message they post that supports a certain agenda. The manipulation in the US is much more subtle. Teams of PhDs and psychologists know what buttons to press to get a certain response out of a self-admittedly obsessive compulsive crowd of nerds.

    5. Building 7 was never hit by an airplane. The owner of the building admitted to it being demolished, then reneged his statement. There are videos of reporters describing building 7's fall while it is still standing in the background. It took SEVEN years for investigators to come up with a reason for the building to fall the way it did. Is it possible that the SEVEN years were spent honing a story plausible enough to convince even the most skeptical people of it's truth?

    6. Unless you've visited the site of the building and done your own scientific measurements, everything you know comes from suspect media sources. This relates to point 3 above. I freely admit I don't know the truth of what happened due to this single fact.

    In summary: Don't buy into either side of the story. There are plausible explanations for it being due to fire, but there are equally plausible explanations to it being due to malicious intent. Don't follow the herd - a certain subset of humans are purely pragmatic and will do whatever it takes to gain money or power.

    PLEASE PLEASE refer to the last 5000 years of history and don't make the mistake of thinking that somehow right now things are different and innocent.

    LS

    --
    There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
    1. Re:Several things strange here by digitrev · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1. The concept of a "conspiracy theory" is flawed, and is simply a cop out. There is no such thing as a conspiracy theory. There are just good and bad theories. Labeling an idea a "conspiracy theory" is just a form of jingoism and does nothing to increase the flow of ideas. Labeling something a conspiracy theory is a brilliant tactic to bury an idea as it takes advantage of herd mentality. Judge an idea by its merit and not by its label. Here on Slashdot extremely brilliant and extremely stupid ideas are posited all the time, so why now are we disallowed to discus a certain set of ideas? I thought there was a strong freedom/libertarian mindset here...

      A conspiracy theory is a theory that relies on the existence of a conspiracy to keep it quiet. Most of these tend to be bad, as most people realize how difficult it is to keep quiet about things on a large scale. Look at your friends. The more people that are in on something, the more likely it is to get out. As for judging an idea by its merit, fair enough. In my opinion, this idea has no merit. And no one's forbidding you from discussing certain ideas, the editor was just asking people not to bring it up. A perfectly reasonable request, seeing as how a lot of the people who come here are interested in science.

      2. If you examine history, conspiracies are actually the norm and not an aberration. Look at Rome, or the times of Shakespeare, or Nazi Germany, or the French revolution, etc etc. Look at the behavior of the current administration of the United States and say there haven't been conspiratory behaviors with a straight face. All a conspiracy means is that more than one person plans together to do something secretly. That happens ALL THE TIME, whether criminally or not.

      Yep. However, most of those conspiracies were found out. It's incredibly hard to keep a conspiracy quiet for any amount of time. These conspiracies usually fall apart as soon as they've enacted their plans. People are incompetent.

      3. As Slashdot readers many of you consider yourselves to be scientifically minded and aware of logical fallacies. Why does this mindset breakdown when it comes to politically charged events? You are labeling people nut cases and tinfoil hat wearers and conspiracy theorists the same way people were labeled communists during the McCarthy era. The ad hominem attacks are relentless.

      Except that we aren't throwing them in jail. Just mocking them.

      4. In light of the awareness that several agencies in the US with billions of dollars in funding and specific programs for controlling the flow of information DO exist, wouldn't you think that Slashdot, a hub of meme flow on the internet, would be a specific target of operations? Opinions are manipulated on the net regularly. You only have to look at China with their "wangyou" (internet friends) that are paid 50 cents chinese for each message they post that supports a certain agenda. The manipulation in the US is much more subtle. Teams of PhDs and psychologists know what buttons to press to get a certain response out of a self-admittedly obsessive compulsive crowd of nerds.

      And not one of these people would gladly go to the press to guarantee their name going down in history as the one who blew the lid off the conspiracy? Or wait, the media is in on it too! See the problem with suggesting conspiracies? Either everyone is in on it, or the people in on it at are the best liars and deceivers known to mankind.

      5. Building 7 was never hit by an airplane. The owner of the building admitted to it being demolished, then reneged his statement. There are videos of reporters describing building 7's fall while it is still standing in the background. It took SEVEN years for investigators to come up with a reason for the building to fall the way it did. Is it possible that the SEVEN years were spent honing a story plausible enough to convin

      --
      Cynical Idealist
    2. Re:Several things strange here by illegalcortex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      everything you know comes from suspect media sources

      And this is the crux of why it's labeled a "conspiracy theory." Because the people who are clinging to it so desperately so frequently dismiss evidence that disagrees by claiming it's part of a cover-up. You can come up with an explanation for just about everything that involves a conspiracy followed by a coverup.

      Every single person who has ever been murdered at random (whether by someone mentally ill or as part of a robbery) could really have been murdered as part of a planned conspiracy. That doesn't mean there has never been a conspiracy to murder any particular individual. But without solid and conclusive evidence of the conspiracy itself, it's all mental masturbation. And by solid and conclusive evidence, I don't mean evidence that can be interpreted two ways an only fits if you come to it pre-supposing a conspiracy.

    3. Re:Several things strange here by LS · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Fair enough. But the problem is that the majority of people use the epithet "conspiracy theory" to debase an idea whether there is evidence or not.

      --
      There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
    4. Re:Several things strange here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought there was a strong freedom/libertarian mindset here...

      you must be new here

      oh wait

      (seriously, slashdot is libertarian?)

    5. Re:Several things strange here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks to LS for a most cogent and lucid post.

      And as to that simpleton post prior to LS's:

      Which is ridiculous for the simple reason I point out: "the (current) Bush Administration doesn't have people smart enough to pull a stunt like that.

      How any idiot can repeat such prattle, after trillions of dollars have gone missing over the past 8 - 10 years - after the Bushies have emptied out the US Treasury and completely bankrupted this country...is simply beyond rational thought.

      My "A" in highschool physics tells me that some resistance had to have been in effect that day - I have yet to ever see any footage, or have had first-hand experience, with disintegrating buildings and structures where there was a steady-state collapse - other than a controlled demolition.

      Incompetence my ass!!!!

      IntercontinentalExchange + missing trillions + Commodity Futures Modernization Act = massive planning/massive competence - of a diabolical sort...

      sgt_doom (why does /. slow down to a snail's pace when one has logged in????)

    6. Re:Several things strange here by philspear · · Score: 1

      2. If you examine history, conspiracies are actually the norm and not an aberration.

      I think there are some flaws in this line of thinking. If you look back on history for conspiracies, you're going to find plenty of conspiracies and hardly any cases of where there were theories that there was a conspiracy but no conspiracy. Wrong conspriacy theories, once disproven, are generally forgotten.

      The watergate scandal. If you're looking at just the nixon administration, I'm sure there were scores of conspiracy allegations. I have very little knowledge of how many theories there were or if there were more conspiracies that were proven, and of course it's not known how many conspiracies nixon actually engaged in.

      Even if that were the only conspiracy in the history of the american presidency, that one would be enough to disprove the statement "The american presidency has never been involved in a serious conspiracy." However you want to phrase that null hypothesis is fine, you get my drift.

      That's led many to be cynical about the presidency and government in general, but it's a fallacy to assume that because of that, every presidency has been mired in conspiracies and every conspiracy you can think of is worth the internet it's printed on.

      That there have been conspiracies only proves there have been conspiracies, not that they are abberations or norms.

    7. Re:Several things strange here by R2.0 · · Score: 1

      "My "A" in highschool physics tells me that some resistance had to have been in effect that day - I have yet to ever see any footage, or have had first-hand experience, with disintegrating buildings and structures where there was a steady-state collapse - other than a controlled demolition."

      Oh.My.God.

      Are you REALLY basing an Appeal To Authority based on...wait for it...your high school physics experience? And footage of controlled demolitions?

      Well shit - I guess I'll turn in my degree in Mechanical Engineering, and my degree in Philosophy, because not only is your knowledge of the physical world vastly superior to that of anyone on the planet, but it is impossible to even formulate an argument in your presence.

      Ladies And Gentlemen: Chuck Norris is on Slashdot!

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    8. Re:Several things strange here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess I am a "crackpot" because I agree that conspiracies are valid explainations to the incredibly strange events regarding 911 and WTC. It looked to me that building 7 was far enough away from any fire or heat enough to not cause thermal expansion on a scale like they describe.

      I agree that if recorded history teaches anything at all, it teaches that conspiracies have shaped the world as we know it today. What you call it matters if you get the raw end of the deal or not. Que Bono?

    9. Re:Several things strange here by orsocio · · Score: 1

      A conspiracy theory is a theory that relies on the existence of a conspiracy to keep it quiet.

      Eh? Keep what quiet? The theorising or the criminality of the event?

      And not one of these people would gladly go to the press to guarantee their name going down in history as the one who blew the lid off the conspiracy?

      Rather than talk of a conspiracy, the parent had the good sense to reference organised propaganda efforts that receive a lot of investment. Awareness of these should be mandatory; here in the UK we had the discovery of IRD to illuminate this murky area a little. At least you have an FOIA act that works.

      Or wait, the media is in on it too! See the problem with suggesting conspiracies? Either everyone is in on it, or the people in on it at are the best liars and deceivers known to mankind.

      Great little bit of black-and-white thinking, and of pushing words into the parent's mouth. Yes people are difficult to predict and control, er, unless they have some immense disadvantage placed on behaviour that steps out of line. There are oodles of testimonies from insiders about how controlled the news media is. Amazon is your friend.

      I, personally, doubt that such a large-scale event could be pulled off without some mistake or someone defecting and offering proof to the media.

      I haven't a damn clue how it happened, but the whole mess stinks to high heaven. You only have to read Dan Hopsicker's work to see that much. A lot more than what we're aware of surrounds 9/11 - certainly a lot more than most people, myself included, are comfortable with.

    10. Re:Several things strange here by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: 1

      You only have to look at China with their "wangyou" (internet friends).

      Maybe in China but that totally doesn't work in the USA. You can "wang you" all night, but those craigslist chicks never write back.

    11. Re:Several things strange here by caitsith01 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yep. However, most of those conspiracies were found out. It's incredibly hard to keep a conspiracy quiet for any amount of time. These conspiracies usually fall apart as soon as they've enacted their plans. People are incompetent.

      Logically you don't know about the ones which didn't get "found out", do you? You have no idea if 1% or 100% of national-level conspiracies get uncovered.

      Except that we aren't throwing them in jail. Just mocking them.

      As you should know, 'mocking' people - isolating them socially and professionally - was one of the most powerful weapons used in the McCarthy era. Relatively few people were tried for supposed offences - far more were blacklisted in one way or another, and, more importantly, a climate was created where the average person on the street would never dream of expressing certain views. That is the real tool of control - the trials and prisons are just a way of achieving it.

      And not one of these people would gladly go to the press to guarantee their name going down in history as the one who blew the lid off the conspiracy?

      Counter-example - are you saying not one US intelligence agency has ever run a sophisticated propaganda operation which has not been 'exposed'? In addition, such things can be done via relatively subtle means of control, not everyone involved in such an operation would know the details or even the purpose of it.

      In the end I think the OP's point is this: many things which have happened throughout history would be regarded as 'crazy conspiracy theories' if they had not been demonstrated to be real. Why, then, are so many people here so quick to jump on anyone who suggests anything resembling such a theory in relation to contemporary events?

      A mere 60 years ago, the German government burnt down its parliament in order to seize absolute power. In the 1960s and 1970s, the US Government deliberately and systematically tested 'mind control' techniques on its own citizens without their knowledge or consent (look up MKULTRA). Even in starting the current Iraq war the US Government flat-out lied about 'intelligence' it had which has justified a war which has killed tens of thousands, possibly more.

      None of this is causally related to proving any other 'conspiracy theory' - but it does prove that very strange and elaborate schemes can and will be executed by the elites in power for their own purposes, and a wise society would insist on asking very uncomfortable questions about events such as September 11.

      --
      Read Pynchon.
    12. Re:Several things strange here by 1310nm · · Score: 1

      I don't think the responses you see are mostly from "psy-ops" of some sort, but rather people who listen to AM radio, or whose parents listen to AM radio and/or Fox News who have heard their respected right-wing mic jockey emphatically denounce "conspiracy theorists" repeatedly. A lot of facts get distorted and dismissed in the process of building belief - on both sides.

    13. Re:Several things strange here by KevinIsOwn · · Score: 1

      It looked to me that building 7 was far enough away from any fire or heat enough to not cause thermal expansion on a scale like they describe.

      And here's the problem with the entire conspiracy theory surrounding building 7. Until the people putting this garbage forward run their simulation and show scientifically that the collapse couldn't come from fire, most people are not going to believe a word you say. And they shouldn't. Without proof, your theories are meaningless. Go find some Civ/Mech E's to do some simulations and show that the government is lying.

    14. Re:Several things strange here by magus_melchior · · Score: 1

      I'll toss in another example: the NSA mass wiretapping scheme is probably much more of a conspiracy than 9/11. The spineless execs of the telecoms stayed quiet about the deal the Bush administration asked for months before 9/11, but all it took to blow the lid off of the conspiracy was the watchful eye and conscience of a single engineer: Mark Klein.

      --
      "We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
    15. Re:Several things strange here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Ok, so be skeptical. Fair enough. But use your judgment and make up your own mind based on the information presented to you. I, personally, doubt that such a large-scale event could be pulled off without some mistake or someone defecting and offering proof to the media."

      They didn't manage to pull this subterfuge off without mistakes... They made the biggest mistake any evildoer could ever make! They forgot to take into account LS's extraordinary intellect, gut instincts and ability to see through their nefarious scheme, despite leaving no evidence at all behind of their terrible plot!

    16. Re:Several things strange here by terjeber · · Score: 1

      but there are equally plausible explanations to it being due to malicious intent.

      This is where you are wrong. As with Evolution, this isn't about competing theories of explanation this is about A SINGLE theory and a ton or superstitious rubbish. The NIST report gives the only currently available theory. The alternative (not using conspiracy here) explanation is absurd at a level that means it is not a theory.

      Why is it absurd? Simple. The "alternative" theories say that the plane couldn't bring it down, something else must have. In order for anyone, doesn't matter who, to orchestrate a controlled demolition of a building after the planes hit, they would have had to prep the building for weeks in advance. Thousands of pounds of explosives must have been brought in. Thousands of holes must have been drilled in the support infrastructure. Hundreds of miles of cable, very thick cable in fact, must have been laid all over the building.

      Until the government comes up with invisible demolition crews and explosives, pneumatic drills that can drill into concrete and steel without making a single sound and miles and miles of invisible cable, the alternative theory is utterly absurd.

      The difference between Evolution and ID is that Evolution is a theory. It can be tested. It can predict certain things. It has a number of other properties that makes it a theory. ID is not a theory, it is conjecture at best, but in reality a collection of mindless drivel with a fancy name. The NIST report is to the "alternative theories" what Evolution is to ID.

    17. Re:Several things strange here by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      When? The 9/11 truthers are labeled conspiracy theorists because they believe in a huge cover up. When has the term been used widely without evidence?

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    18. Re:Several things strange here by DrXym · · Score: 1
      5. Building 7 was never hit by an airplane. The owner of the building admitted to it being demolished, then reneged his statement. There are videos of reporters describing building 7's fall while it is still standing in the background. It took SEVEN years for investigators to come up with a reason for the building to fall the way it did. Is it possible that the SEVEN years were spent honing a story plausible enough to convince even the most skeptical people of it's truth?

      No, the building owner told the firechief to "pull it", as in pull his men's fire fighting efforts. Though maybe you think the firechief and all his men were in on this conspiracy too? Poor old Larry would've gotten away with it except for you pesky kids...

      Maybe you think firemen like hauling around high explosives, entering burning buildings and rigging them to blow. And that they do all this for an empty building while hundreds of their fellow firefighters are dead?

      No? Then what the hell are you saying? The problem with conspiracy theories such as the one you are insuating is there is no theory to begin with. A theory is meant to be a model which fits the evidence (and in science can be used to predict and correspond to future observations). We'll forget the future observation part and concentrate on the model for now. Tell me of a single 9/11 conspiracy theory which says:

      1. How the explosives were laid
      2. Who laid them
      3. When the explosives were laid
      4. How three huge buildings could be rigged to blow without attracting the attention of anyone in the buildings
      5. How these explosives were detonated
      6. How these explosions were detonated to precisely model a building collapse, and in the case of WTC 1 & 2 starting at the exact points they were struck by aircraft.
      7. Why no detonations were heard or observed
      8. How no evidence of explosives were found afterwards
      9. Which if any of the tens of thousands involved in various government agencies, office workers, emergency responders, reporters, investigators, scientists was "in on it".
      10. Please supply some detail. Of course you could continue to advance some lame insinuations about misreporting or the interpretation of "pull it". But then you're just going to get laughed at. Moaning about it is missing the point entirely.

    19. Re:Several things strange here by ogma · · Score: 1

      Yep. However, most of those conspiracies were found out. It's incredibly hard to keep a conspiracy quiet for any amount of time. These conspiracies usually fall apart as soon as they've enacted their plans. People are incompetent.

      By definition surely a successful conspiracy theory is one which isn't found out? How could you possibly know most were found out? Sounds like a fact made up on the spot to counter the original poster's argument.

    20. Re:Several things strange here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am not expressing my opinion on the WTC7 incident here, rather, a comment you made seems rather odd to me:

      It's incredibly hard to keep a conspiracy quiet for any amount of time. These conspiracies usually fall apart as soon as they've enacted their plans. People are incompetent.

      How would we know that conspiracies usually fall apart that quickly? Better yet, if a subset of such conspiracies never fall apart, how would we know what size that subset has relative to the set of all such conspiracies? Obviously, we wouldn't, since that would contradict the premise that conspiracies in that subset never fell apart in the first place.

      Perhaps one could estimate the relative sizes using some clever statistical analysis of all known proven conspiracies of the kind, taking into account how quickly they fell apart and other relevant parameters, but I have absolutely no idea how one would approach such an endeavor, and never heard of anyone attempting to do such a thing either.

    21. Re:Several things strange here by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      Building 7 was never hit by an airplane.

      Your point being? It was hit by falling and burning debris, actually. Did you even bother to read the Slashdot summary?

      The owner of the building admitted to it being demolished

      No, he said that they agreed to pull a group of firefighters out of the building because it was looking extremely shaky.

      There are videos of reporters describing building 7's fall while it is still standing in the background.

      Your point being? They were running archived footage in the background. It was a simple mistake. And it was only one - from the BBC.

      It took SEVEN years for investigators to come up with a reason for the building to fall the way it did. Is it possible that the SEVEN years were spent honing a story plausible enough to convince even the most skeptical people of it's truth?

      Or is it possible that, unlike conspiracy theorists, actual rational scientists take the time to do the damn research before jumping to conclusions?

    22. Re:Several things strange here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of these tend to be bad, as most people realize how difficult it is to keep quiet about things on a large scale. Look at your friends. The more people that are in on something, the more likely it is to get out.

      Look at software companies, hardware companies, games companies.
      I'd say they are very good at hiding information, even though the number of employees are thousands and tenths of thousands! If they can do it pretty damn well, why wouldn't "top men" with a shared political mind set do it even better?

      2. If you examine history, conspiracies are actually the norm and not an aberration. Look at Rome, or the times of Shakespeare, or Nazi Germany, or the French revolution, etc etc. Look at the behavior of the current administration of the United States and say there haven't been conspiratory behaviors with a straight face. All a conspiracy means is that more than one person plans together to do something secretly. That happens ALL THE TIME, whether criminally or not.

      Yep. However, most of those conspiracies were found out. It's incredibly hard to keep a conspiracy quiet for any amount of time. These conspiracies usually fall apart as soon as they've enacted their plans. People are incompetent.

      Most were found out? How on earth can you know this? Please admit that at least in theory, a large number of conspiracy theories are still viewed as theories, even though they might actually hold a lot of truth?
      So, you really have no clue at all how many are found out in comparison to how many are not, hence still viewed as theories.

      3. As Slashdot readers many of you consider yourselves to be scientifically minded and aware of logical fallacies. Why does this mindset breakdown when it comes to politically charged events? You are labeling people nut cases and tinfoil hat wearers and conspiracy theorists the same way people were labeled communists during the McCarthy era. The ad hominem attacks are relentless.

      Except that we aren't throwing them in jail. Just mocking them.

      On a personal level, it's better to mock them, than to throw them in jail.
      On an intellectual level, it could be just as bad, or worse. Since;
      Throwing them in jail will tell the public that their ideas are dangerous, hence might hold some truth, while "just" mocking them will make them appear as nuts and nullify their ideas.
      In some more liberal countries in Europe, they are neither thrown in jail or mocked. I think this is the only right way to let ideas be free from media added labels.

      4. In light of the awareness that several agencies in the US with billions of dollars in funding and specific programs for controlling the flow of information DO exist, wouldn't you think that Slashdot, a hub of meme flow on the internet, would be a specific target of operations? Opinions are manipulated on the net regularly. You only have to look at China with their "wangyou" (internet friends) that are paid 50 cents chinese for each message they post that supports a certain agenda. The manipulation in the US is much more subtle. Teams of PhDs and psychologists know what buttons to press to get a certain response out of a self-admittedly obsessive compulsive crowd of nerds.

      And not one of these people would gladly go to the press to guarantee their name going down in history as the one who blew the lid off the conspiracy?

      If you're in on it, and share the mind set of the others, why would you suddenly change policies? And if you do, why would you want to "blow the lid off" not just the theory but also yourself as being part of it?
      Is your argument here enough for suggesting conspiracy theories per se cannot hold the truth?

      Or wait, the media is in on it too! See the problem with suggesting conspiracies? Eithe

    23. Re:Several things strange here by u-235-sentinel · · Score: 1

      It took 20 years to run the Air India 182 trial. Things like investigations take a long time. If the explanation came out the day after the fall, you would be claiming that it's proof of a conspiracy, since no one gets a complicated explanation together that fast unless they knew about it in the past. As for the owner of the building, his pull comment was pulling the effort to stop the fire, not setting off any demolition.

      So he recanted his comment to stop the fire?

      HUH?

      --
      Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
  102. Re:Really? by TubeSteak · · Score: 3, Funny

    Interesting. Then I am curious as to what temperature would be required to melt and/or buckle the structure of your aluminum foil hat?

    You generally have to wait for the brai... fluids inside to boil off before the aluminum container will melt.

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  103. Re:Really? by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 1

    Had the structure in Europe just suffered massive structural damage due to a large jetliner impact? No. The events of 9/11 are unique in the history of structural damage.

  104. Re:here's some science for you. by andersa · · Score: 1

    32.1ft/s per second.

  105. if it aint made of wood, it aint any good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    simple as that

  106. Re:Really? by pcolaman · · Score: 1

    Well let's see. First there's the fact that we had intelligence information that proved that Bin Laden was involved in the first WTC attack in 93. Second, the fact that Bin Laden was quoted as having said on numerous occasions that he wanted to see the towers fall. Third, a quick examination of the flights all involved in 9/11 revealed the names of people all linked to Bin Laden. A cross examination of those names within the next few hours revealed that they all attended this flight school. Gee, wierd coinkidink, don'tcha think? So the FBI does some digging over the next few days, finds out that a few of the people attending the school don't care about learning how to land, only want to know how to fly the airplane once it is in the air. Doesn't take a genius to figure this one out. Granted, this isn't enough to stand up in court, but it's enough for us to make a (what appeared later to be very accurate) educated guess that Bin Laden was involved, and of course we know where the hell Bin Laden is, because Clinton launched cruise missiles at aspirin plants thinking he was going to hit Al Qaeda instead.

  107. Irrelevant by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0

    First, again you are not addressing my original question.

    Be that as it may, nobody stated that the fire department had to be the ones actually doing the demolition? Many people have brought up the point that it takes a great deal of time -- sometimes weeks -- to prepare a building for demolition.

    Now, I don't want to get into THAT can of worms... but nobody said that the fire department set up any demolition. Only that the decision was made to demolish it. (Just some of the evidence: A NY radio station was informed that the building was going to be demolished before it fell. It was announced on the air. Also, the BBC reported that the building had collapsed... 20 minutes before it actually did.)

    Who might have actually pushed the button? That is anybody's guess. But this is NOT "conspiracy theory". There is a lot of very solid evidence.

    1. Re:Irrelevant by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Your conspiracy requires that someone had decided to take down WTC7 weeks in advance, and, on 9/11, let all those fire fighters die needlessly in that building trying to save it.

      Yet the singular quote you're relying on said the fire department decided to 'pull it', which you think means 'demolish' and 'it' is the building, as opposed to pull meaning 'scrub' and 'it' being 'the attempt to save the building'.

      In other words, you are accusing the New York Fire Department of knowing in advance and actively participating in a conspiracy to murder their own people in a play-act where they pretended to try to save WTC7 for a while, even though they knew it was coming down.

      Oh, oh, I know this one. Those were holograms of dead firefighters, right?

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    2. Re:Irrelevant by erroneus · · Score: 1

      I was glued to the TV and radio while all this was going down and I'm sure you were too. I heard the announcement that WTC7 was going to be pulled shortly before it was. But yes, it does take a lot of planning to demolish a building... properly. But the act of setting explosives and the like without getting planning and permits and all that nonsense, I believe a building probably only needs a few hours to prepare... you gotta know there's probably a lot of overhead that could be skipped.

      But one thing I think is really interesting about these discussions is that there is a constant and consistent miscommunication with regards to certain assumptions about what is being said. For example, when the whole "pull it" thing got started, the presumption was that the firefighters were the demolition people. That's a pretty wild assumption and not likely that anyone has ever suggested it. The next assumption would be that a team was sent in to place the explosives and get out. That's not an event of record, so truly the only logical presumption could be that the explostives were planted prior to September 11, 2001... and interestingly enough, there is the testimony of at least one IT person in that building that shows exactly when the opportunity for that came about. And I haven't heard any follow-up on that story to determine if electrical work done on that building could be verified as bonafide electrical work... did anyone identify the electrical company or contractor or any of their employees about the event? I don't know. Another interesting thing that people keep confusing is about the mention of molten metal. Yes, we KNOW steel can be weakened and made malleable at much lower temperatures, so no one is saying that the steel of the building had to be liquified to cause the structural failures of the buildings. What people are ACTUALLY pointing to is that something VERY hot and VERY fast was used to cut the steel supports to bring the building down and that the liquified metal, that wouldn't appear when a building is being weakened by ordinary fire, is the result of the application of something used to destroy the steel supports of the building... in this case, people are asserting that thermite was used as the means by which the columns were severed and to bring the buildings down. So the presence of molten steel isn't the indication that people claim that it is. The "weakened steel" argument is not adequate to debunk the argument that there was molten steel found and reported by several independent sources at ground-zero during the aftermath. (And there's the odd angular cut on several of the support beams... there are pictures of it on various web sites... it looks like someone whacked them off with a lightsaber or something... dribbles of previously molten steel shown solidified in the eds\ges of the cut and all that. Some might suggest those cuts were made during the clean-up, but the angle is so weird that the only welder I know thought it was very unusual indeed to cut the steel that way for removal and clean-up purposes, but I'm very open to hear other opinions on that as well.)

      There's no question that the September 11 attacks were premeditated and carefully planned mass murder... the real question is who is responsible. We want to say Al Qaeda, but to this day, Al Qaeda does not accept responsibility and does not claim to have perpetrated the attack. (And they are pretty good at claiming the attacks they ARE responsible for too.) And to this day, they have non hard evidence to support Al Qaeda's involvement and more specifically, Osama Bin Laden's involvement... and interestingly, he's still not mentioned here: http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm either. Several government people claimed they would produce the evidence they have against Bin Laden, but after all this time still haven't produced it, so in spite of everything else we have on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, we don't have a clear connection betw

    3. Re:Irrelevant by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      I heard the announcement that WTC7 was going to be pulled shortly before it was.

      You are incorrect. The 'and they decided to pull it' comment that delusional loons have decided was the owner of the building openly admitting to treason on television for some reason, was demonstratively made months after the fact.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  108. Re:yah, right by growse · · Score: 1

    You're suggesting that in the wake of a large disaster that the media outlets are basing their up-to-the-second event information from press releases? Seriously? Do you understand what a press release is?

    When serious events of this suddenness happen, news outlets don't report from press releases, they report from what their guys on the ground are telling them. In this case, the bbc obviously got it wrong, probably due to a combination of a stressed news editor with everyone shouting at him, lots of conflicting and confusing information coming in from the ground and the desire to just get some information out there. My money says that someone on the ground mistakenly said that WTC7 had already gone down, and the editor on a snap decision decided to break it before anyone else. Turns out he was wrong.

    --
    There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
  109. Re:here's some science for you. by amorsen · · Score: 1

    Gravity is 32.1ft/s

    Please ask for your school money back.

    --
    Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
  110. Re:here's some science for you. by kylben · · Score: 1

    It should have taken 23 seconds for WTC7 to freefall. It took less.

    Wait... you're saying it fell faster than free fall? This would be the first time in history a controlled demolition managed that.

    Now there's a conspiracy theory: George Bush knows how to change gravity!!!

    The planes weren't flown into the buildings, they were sucked in by the black hole in the basement!!!

    --
    Insightful and funny are really the same thing, except one has a punch line.
  111. Explain that? You are bad at math and physics! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Very bad.

    Almost unbelievably bad for /.

    Get out now. You don't belong here!

    Back to dailyKos for you fucknut.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  112. Re:Really? by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Bushco did 9/11? Nonsense.

    Bushco knew what was going to happen and tacitly let it happen because they wanted their New Pearl Harbor? Yeah, I wouldn't put that past a group of sociopaths.

  113. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    High five!

  114. If only I had mod points by Drasil · · Score: 1

    Thank you, that's one of the best and most balanced comments I have seen here in some time.

    1. Re:If only I had mod points by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      Agree 100% with that...thanks for the comment

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
  115. Re:yah, right by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing that they made a mistake in the confusion of not having very many facts in the wake of something huge happening.

    So your theory is that, under stress, BBC reporters posses the power to foretell future events? Wild...

    Unless you're suggesting that the entire BBC is in on a conspiracy?

    Or that the official sources that the BBC reporter was quoting got their timing wrong whilst feeding their script to news organizations from 24 different timezones.

    You know, either something completely logical, or your wild dismissive scenario. Either/or, really.

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  116. darn, misplaced tag by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing that they made a mistake in the confusion of not having very many facts in the wake of something huge happening.

    So your theory is that, under stress, BBC reporters posses the power to foretell future events? Wild...

    Unless you're suggesting that the entire BBC is in on a conspiracy?

    Or that the official sources that the BBC reporter was quoting got their timing wrong whilst feeding their script to news organizations from 24 different timezones.

    You know, either something completely logical, or your wild dismissive scenario. Either/or, really.

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

    1. Re:darn, misplaced tag by growse · · Score: 1

      No, my theory, if you read my post, is that under stress, confusion occurs and mistakes happen.

      Any why on earth is everyone thinking that "official sources" are the only things that news outlets use when reporting on big stories. They had reporters on the ground, phoning in information. They had other stringers on the ground, phoning in information. What the hell is this "official sources that they were quoting" and why do timezones make any difference?

      --
      There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
    2. Re:darn, misplaced tag by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Any why on earth is everyone thinking that "official sources" are the only things that news outlets use when reporting on big stories. They had reporters on the ground, phoning in information. They had other stringers on the ground, phoning in information. What the hell is this "official sources that they were quoting"

      Whatch the fucking video, where they say that they DON'T have people on the ground because the area was cordonned off.

      If you don't know what official sources are, do NOT discuss how news sources get their information, because you're only injecting your own ignorance in the discussion, noise, nothing but noise.

      Official sources are people with an office that pertains to the mnaztter, such as the NY mayors' office, or the NY fire department.
      These offices have people who's job it is to relate to the media the information that the office wants to be made public. The reporters get in touch with these sources.

      The fact that you have no idea that this is how it works, but you're discussing it with great conviction, says a lot about you.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    3. Re:darn, misplaced tag by growse · · Score: 1

      Wait, they cordonned off all of Manhatten?

      I work in the news industry. They had people on the ground. Those people might not have been (a) working directly for them or (b) with the best information or even (c) remotely close, but they were there, in the city, on their cellphones talking to the newsdesks. Someone will have heard a rumour about something and reported that in, which then will have been misunderstood as factual. I know how press secretaries and spokesmen for official departments work, and I'm also well aware that these are not the exclusive source of information for news outlets.

      Did the NYFD or mayor's office put out any information that the building had gone down before it actually did? Are you serious in your claim that the only source of information that news outlets use are the "official" ones?

      --
      There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
    4. Re:darn, misplaced tag by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      I work in the news industry.

      And you had no idea what "official sources" meant.
      Boy, you must be getting a kick out of these replies!

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    5. Re:darn, misplaced tag by growse · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, you've lost me. Where do I not know what official sources are again?

      --
      There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
  117. Re:yah, right by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 1

    My money says that someone on the ground mistakenly said that WTC7 had already gone down, and the editor on a snap decision decided to break it before anyone else. Turns out he was wrong.

    It was also known for a few hours before the actual collapse that WTC7 was in danger of collapsing. My personal belief is that this information was filtered down to the reporter and was, somewhere along the line, misunderstood.

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  118. And you believe a PR statement by his company? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Jeez. And you think * I * am gullible!

    Fact: the upcoming demolition of the building was announced to at least one radio station, which announced in on air -- before the building came down.

    Fact: the BBC announced that the building had collapsed -- by name AND number, there was no misunderstanding -- 20 minutes before it actually fell.

    If you want to call those "mysterious coincidences", then I do not think I am the one who is doing the rationalizing and indulging in "crackpot theories".

    1. Re:And you believe a PR statement by his company? by growse · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can say "FACT" all you want, but you still havn't said which radio station you're talking about, or acknowledged the possibility that the BBC made a simple mistake.

      You're the government, you want to covertly bring down a building. Now, do you get ready press statements saying that the buildings have fallen over, or do you just blow them up and hope that someone notices? There is no universe in which the "BBC got a press release 20 minutes early" makes any kind of sense.

      --
      There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
    2. Re:And you believe a PR statement by his company? by photonic · · Score: 1

      None of your 'facts' is a direct proof that a controlled demolition took place. These reports could easily be explained by the much simpler scenario: 1) The fire is indeed making the building unstable. 2) Firefighters hear the building making sounds and don't trust it. 3) They evacuate everyone with the warning that the building might collapse soon. 4) Two reporters (out of several thousand), based on hearsay, make a wrong statement on a hectic day and misreport an imminent collapse as a imminent demolition.

      1 is made plausible by hard core science, see the NIST report. 2 and 3 are in the public record. 4 is not proven, but some erroneous reporting on a day like that seems entirely possible to me. Do me a favor and list the steps and their probabilities needed in your scenario. I would be glad to discuss Occam's razor with you after that.

      --
      karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
    3. Re:And you believe a PR statement by his company? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So did they already have all the demolition explosives in the building beforehand, or was the fire department running around in there setting explosives while the thing was burning? In either case, someone did some extremely careful work, in order to ensure that none of the 'demolition' explosives went off during the 7 hours the building was on fire, so they could time the demolition with a countdown! What an idiot.

  119. Do you know what 'pancaking' means? by HornWumpus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't think you do.

    Pancaking is what the controlled demolition people deliberately cause ('Implosion' is an incorrect media term) and a fairly common mode of failure during construction. It only takes one floor failing to take everything down below the original failure.

    It's primary characteristics are complete destruction of the affected area and falling straight down.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    1. Re:Do you know what 'pancaking' means? by segedunum · · Score: 1, Troll

      Pancaking is what the controlled demolition people deliberately cause ('Implosion' is an incorrect media term) and a fairly common mode of failure during construction.

      No. The demolition industry avoids the pancaking of floors, because they want an ordered collapse of each individual floor, or at defined levels, to avoid floors completely pancaking into each other and completely dissipating the energy of the demolition. Thus, you see one floor going, and then the floor below a few milliseconds after to avoid the floor above completely collapsing into the floor below to avoid the collapse from being halted and to avoid debris being spread.

      You have to do a controlled collapse of each floor at various intervals to make sure the building completely collapses. If you don't, and all you have are a few weakened floors above collapsing (pancaking) on themselves and on to the floors below, then the floors below will simply absorb the energy, the collapsed floors will fall outwards and keep at least some of the building intact. That's why no building above six stories has completely collapsed of its own accord. There's simply too much of it, unless you've weakened the floors at every level. Seriously. Try this with any kind of model any time. It will run out of steam.

      It only takes one floor failing to take everything down below the original failure.

      Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. If you destabilise one floor there is nowhere near enough energy to collapse the whole building when the rest of it is still largely intact. That's why any demolition will demolish a building bit by bit at specific times and at given floor levels to make sure the whole thing goes straight down.

      It's primary characteristics are complete destruction of the affected area and falling straight down.

      That's why you bring in a demolition company.

    2. Re:Do you know what 'pancaking' means? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "If you destabilise one floor there is nowhere near enough energy to collapse the whole building when the rest of it is still largely intact."

      What does this even mean? Destabilize one floor? As though doing so wouldn't affect the massive weight above it that's counting on every floor below for support?

      What we're talking about here is a progressive collapse triggered by weakened support columns. Large buildings are designed such that each floor is supported by a set of evenly spaced support columns. If a few of these columns are damaged and can no longer support the portion of weight that they're responsible for, then suddenly every other column is quickly going to be faced with the same problem. There really isn't a whole lot of redundancy in there. One column breaks, those around it fail because there's too much weight on them, and the problem spreads across the entire structure. This happens so quickly that it might even look like a perfectly level collapse from the outside.

      Skyscrapers (and other buildings that are taller than they are wide) don't just half fall over if supports on one side have given way. And they never, ever fall sideways like a tree. It's just not possible. They fall the way we saw on 9/11, regardless of where the failure occurred.

    3. Re:Do you know what 'pancaking' means? by multi+io · · Score: 1

      If you destabilise one floor there is nowhere near enough energy to collapse the whole building when the rest of it is still largely intact.

      So you mean the twin towers were also brought down by secret explosives on each floor, detonated with millisecond precision? I guess that makes total sense, especially if you ignore Ockham's razor and common sense passionately enough. And don't even mention the fact that WTC 7 wasn't "largely intact" except for one floor -- it had been evacuated half an hour before the collapse because the building was cracking and quivering so much that the question wasn't if it would collapse, but when. After that, they only thought about how large the evacuated collapse zone around the building would have to be to avoid further loss of life, for god's sake.

      And, if the part of the building above that floor falls one floor deep and crashes onto the lower part, what force do you think that lower part would have to endure to avoid collapsing? Hint: F = weight + F_dynamic = m*g + dp/dt = m (g+deceleration). Depending on what you assume for the deceleration distance, that gives something like 10 times the weight of the upper part -- I wouldn't be surprised if the lower part wasn't designed to withstand that.

      Anyway, the most obvious proof that a building can collapse straight down under its own weight even if the lower floors are intact is the fact that we saw it happen on 9/11. Period.

    4. Re:Do you know what 'pancaking' means? by arminw · · Score: 1

      ....If you destabilise one floor there is nowhere near enough energy to collapse the whole building when the rest of it is still largely intact...

      That could be debated, but the laws of mass and inertia can not be. If the official explanation of the floor by floor collapse domino effect were true, the total TIME taken for the collapse should have been much longer. As the videos clearly show, the buildings collapsed in the same amount of time that a free-falling object would if dropped from the roof of the buildings.

      The only way a building can collapse in the minimum of time of free-fall is if all that supports the entire building are instantaneously removed. Any matter with inertia in the way of the collapse should significantly increase the time for collapse of the building as a whole.

      --
      All theory is gray
    5. Re:Do you know what 'pancaking' means? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ....If you destabilise one floor there is nowhere near enough energy to collapse the whole building when the rest of it is still largely intact...
      That could be debated, but the laws of mass and inertia can not be.

      Oh really? Let's see your math then.

      If the official explanation of the floor by floor collapse domino effect were true, the total TIME taken for the collapse should have been much longer. As the videos clearly show, the buildings collapsed in the same amount of time that a free-falling object would if dropped from the roof of the buildings.

      This has already been debunked. The buildings did take more time to collapse to the ground than a free-falling object would. You can see pieces falling off the building and out-accelerating the collapsing tower, fer cryin' out loud.

    6. Re:Do you know what 'pancaking' means? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "There's simply too much of it, unless you've weakened the floors at every level."

      Sort of like what ramming it at a few hundred mph with a really big heavy object and then setting it on fire with jet fuel might do?

    7. Re:Do you know what 'pancaking' means? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Typical of construction pancakes is the top floor under construction to collapse during the pore.

      That drops onto the next lower floor which can't hold the extra weight. Repeat.

      It's where the term comes from. No single floors supports can hold the weight of the floors above it, much less stop their inertia.

      If the building is full of stuff it may take more then one floor above the failure to trigger the cascade.

      In any case the floors wind up sort of stacked like pancakes.

      Just what the controlled demo people want as well.

      They trigger it with explosives, but typically don't need to blow more then one or two levels to start the building pancaking.

      I am interested in your claim 'That's why no building above six stories has completely collapsed of its own accord.': You realize that the truth of that statement depends entirely on the definition of 'its own accord'? Earthquake? Fire? War? Time? How about smokestacks as buildings? Most buildings above six stories contain plenty of energy to wreck themselves.

      You'd have to have a very narrow view of 'its own accord' and 'completely' to make that statement not BS. I offer as infamous counter examples most of the seven ancient wonders of the world and most of Dresden in WWII.

      You bring in demo companies to not also wreck the neighboring buildings.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  120. Re:Really? by Isotopian · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, yes they can. Both sides can spout rhetoric and useless information, contributing nothing and inciting more useless posts. Sounds like a troll to me.

    --

    It's poetry with a beat behind it! And guns! They're like beatniks with automatic weapons.

  121. Re:here's some science for you. by rk · · Score: 1

    You FAIL physics.

    Gravity is a force, and imparts acceleration, which on Earth is 32.1 feet per second per second.

    You have to use the distance equation: d = (1/2)at^2 + (v0)t + d0. The last two terms are zero in this case. Solve 741 = (1/2)(32.1)(t^2) yields 6.79 seconds.

    I can't speak to NIST's credibility, but unlike you, they at least understand high school physics.

  122. Re:Mission Accomplished by growse · · Score: 4, Informative

    Fire doesn't melt steel. If you did metallurgy in college, you would know that above a certain temperature the most stable crystalline structure of steel becomes one which is a lot weaker. If you really care, you can google to find phase diagrams of steel like this one that tell you exactly how steel behaves when you heat it up.

    If you didn't do metallurgy in college, then you have no idea what you're talking about.

    --
    There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
  123. Re:here's some science for you. by photonic · · Score: 1

    If you start trolling here, at least get your math, your numbers and your units right. First of all, both the report and wikipedia state the height of the building as 610 feet. Second, the gravitational acceleration g (not 'gravity') is given in feet per second *squared*. Last, the formula to calculate the time it takes a distance under constant acceleration is t = sqrt(2*x/a) and not whatever you are using. And real man use SI units.

    --
    karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
  124. past history of outright lying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In case any of you alleged scientific luddites are unaware, it has finally come out after decades that the US government did in fact LIE about the tonkin gulf attack, which they used as the primary excuse and reason to have a very long war with millions of deaths in viet nam. Do you really understand the ramifications of that? Or because it is ancient history to some of you younger guys that it "never happened"? This was high level, deliberate coverup of a complete fabrication- a story, a false report, a lie, that led to genocide on a lot of vietnamese, some say up to three million people murdered, plus 50 thousand US deaths, and many more permanently injured, and they kept it a secret for a very long time. In addition, they LIED about the effects of agents orange and blue, claiming it was harmless, even though many thousands of "our own guys" got hideously sick from dioxin poisoning. And this is completely relevant, because it shows what any real criminal investigation show, a past MO.

    In short to the submitter, I have personal friends who got sick as dogs with that stuff and they got told for decades it was psychological, all in their heads, by fucking official doctors and scientists and politicians and military officers. In short, FUCK YOU, YOU SLIMEBALL POMPOUS AND RETARDED ASSHOLE, this fascist pig government has a past 100% verifiable track record of lying about some really important shit so a lot of fucking rich bastards can get richer with government contracts, plus they used it back then as an excuse to get the police state really moving, exactly the same as they are finalizing it now. It is the SAME modus operandi with 9-11 and the scam war on terror now, except they really did it, they killed those poor people.

    Making sure they aren't lying now is not crackpot at all, it is common sense, it's patriotic, it's the most humane thing to do for the well being of the entire planet and all the peoples on it, it is the only intelligent thing to do. And noting this and your absurd statement you obviously don't have any of those positive qualities so you are incapable of seeing this without it being spelled out for you in detail, and no, I will NOT trust any fucking report from any official US agency on this subject, because that is exactly what happened last time, the official politicians and official high level military officers and the official white coated degreed tame asshole scientists on the payroll COMPLETELY LIED. You don't ask the MOB for a full honest report on the MOB.

    It was an inside job, the evidence is and has been overwhelming despite their bullshit trying to weasel out of it, they lied at first, but finally and very quietly and reluctantly came clean about a huge "training exercise" being run the SAME FUCKING DAY,9-11-2001, about "terrorist seized airliner" planes smacking into buildings. JESUS FUCK what do you want? Are you really that stupid as to believe that horseshit? Just the odds of that being a fucking coincidence are astronomical. You really believe that was a fucking coincidence? We have live witnesses who HEARD AND FELT the explosions in WTC7. The fucking owner is on tape stating they "made the decision to pull it" meaning knock it down on purpose. There's tons of stuff out there on this subject. Fuck you, fuck NIST, fuck the lying asshole traitors in government who pulled off this scam.

    Do you really think a truly independent analysis would even possibly come up with a report that the building came down from controlled demolition and they would release that? FUCK some people just can't think. This outcome was predetermined and just run through the academic bullshit generator. There was only ONE outcome possible from a practicality standpoint, and that is anything that supports the government fairy tale. Those people know that, they know the government was part of mass murder, but there is no possible way in hell they would ever be part of exposing that, it would never ever happen no matter what the real ev

  125. What? by Luscious868 · · Score: 1

    Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here.

    You must be new here.

  126. Re:here's some science for you. by digitrev · · Score: 1

    And even that isn't fully accurate due to various wind resistance effects, turning this into a differential equation. In this case, the speed would quickly reach an equilibrium point, or terminal velocity. And exactly what speed that is would be very difficult to calculate. Which is why it took so damn long to model it.

    --
    Cynical Idealist
  127. Re:Just plain wrong. by DavidTC · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only video I see is one where someone repeatedly asserts the 'pulled' means 'demolished'.

    There are plenty of manuals on controlled demolitions, and they don't get quoted. You know why? Because they do 'pull' buildings. That means to pull over a building using cables hooked to the supports.

    You couldn't do that to WTC 7, and it wouldn't have gone down like.

    The fun thing about the 9/11 Truthers is that their conspiracies make no sense. They have holographic missiles flying around, explosives in advance, news media with a scripted story that sometimes jump ahead.

    Do you want to know how the US government would have actually done 9/11?

    They would have installed non-overriddable autopilots on the airplane, either some sort of sleeping gas, or cellphone/radio jammers to keep the people from contacting anyone.

    They would have tapped the phones of some of the passengers booked on United 93, recorded some of their voices, and forged phone calls from them. Hard to do in real time, but they were in a hostage situation on a plane, so if anyone you're talking to asks a question you can't answer, well, the call would get 'dropped' or the hijackers would take the phone away or something.

    Then they would have flown the actual airplanes into the actual buildings and let whatever happened.

    They would have not contacted any media in advance. They would not have replaced any airplanes. They would not have rigged the twin towers buildings to fall. They would not have used this opportunity to take down an unrelated building. They would not have put the planes they stole back into service under a different number. They would not use actual terrorists who can be found alive later. (They wouldn't have made them all Saudis instead of Iraqis.)

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  128. I don't think we will ever know what happened. by BrendaEM · · Score: 1

    All the evidence was carted away. I cannot believe that anyone could have done an impartial study, meaning that there is to much pressure to prove things one way or another, and that belies scientific study.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
  129. Re:Really? by toddestan · · Score: 1

    Actually, if you read the report, they concluded that debris from WTC 1 and 2 had little to do with the WTC 7 collapse other than initially starting the fires that brought it down.

  130. Who modded this up? by pavon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is WTC 7 that we are talking about, not towers 1 or 2. It wasn't struck by a plane and didn't have hundreds of gallons of aviation fuel in it. As colfer pointed out, it had some diesel fuel tanks in the basement, but these were found to have not contributed largely to the fire (which was on the upper stories).

    The conclusion of the board is that a normal building/office fire starting by falling debris from WTC 1 is what brought the building down. If we are going to be building dense cities with skyscrapers then it is important that a normal fire merely gut the building, not compromise it's structural support. The building techniques used in WTC 7 were not sufficient, and shouldn't be used in the future.

    1. Re:Who modded this up? by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 0, Troll

      They were cut with thermite. Look at the videos of the event.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    2. Re:Who modded this up? by Americium · · Score: 1

      Why do you think WTC 7 was a government building, obviously it was not fit for civilian use, because those people can sue!

  131. It's remarkable by psycho+sparky · · Score: 1

    how many people here confuse WTC7 with the main towers.

  132. Re:here's some science for you. by rk · · Score: 1

    Well sure. The point was that it's difficult to take seriously anyone's criticism of advanced science topics like materials science and fluid dynamics when it's patently obvious that they have not yet mastered the basic science that precedes them.

  133. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Retards.
    Why didn't WTC 5 and 6 collapse? Have you seen the damage THEY took from the collapses of WTC 1 and 2?

  134. Conspiracy theroy how-to by failedlogic · · Score: 1

    Conspiracy theorists tend to use "common sense" which defeats the logic, methods, evidence collection and theories of science. All these detailed schematics, computer simulations, engineers with Harvard and MIT degrees don't make any sense. Any oversimplification of the matter with numbers, facts and figures doesn't have to make *any* sense. If you know what happened, then that is irrefutible. No matter that there are others with conspiracy theories. Yours is always right. Who needs all that engineering stuff? Steven Colbert would call this the "truthiness" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

    Can't you see: conspiracy theory is not about logic, its about saving time! If you can jump to conclusions without any research, then you're already saving yourself a lot of time. If your theory isn't precise, then there's going to be a lot of others to "consult" with who will each come up with a better idea. Pick the better one of all, or continue to disagree, setup your websites, Youtube videos and publish books. Make it all look official.

    Than again, with all this time spent on alternative theories, you aren't saving time. Everyone has to read your version. There's no conclusive ending. If the government is truly good at concocting a conspiracy, then shouldn't they have made one with only one solution to the question of who, what, when, why and how? If there's so many versions of what could have happened, then they probably aren't doing their jobs????

    And then your marketing efforts are wasted. The public is confused with all the messages. This is when the truth is actually the time saver. Thanks NIST!

  135. Re:Changed the subject. Please answer the question by ed__ · · Score: 1

    Maybe that was just the one inaccurate statement made that day. You know because no one else said anything inaccurate amid the chaos. So someone had to meet the quota (1 inaccurate stmt/day...it's a government regulation i think).

    you're probably just used to how usually, breaking news is covered completely accurately and they always have the full story right at the start and never report unfounded rumors.

    Here it's a little different because the person saying it wasn't a super-accurate news person.

    i know that sometimes i have personally said things like 'i'm gonna kill that guy,' and then have to actually kill that guy so as not to be contrary to my words.

    and generally 'pull it' does generally refer to demolition: i remember on one occasion, i was having sex and the girl said to 'pull it', so i demolished her using carefully placed explosives which were surreptitiously planted (i get IED's and IUD's confused a lot).

    While trying to clean up i mentioned to myself, 'hey it looks like someone blew up a box full of tomato paste and hamburger'. Why would i have said that if i hadn't done it? So later on i did...just to keep the t's crossed and i's dotted mind you.

    because i mean, if you can't take a person at his word...what do you have left?

  136. This is getting boring... 911 _was_ an inside job by gd23ka · · Score: 0, Troll

    and so was Oklahoma City, the attack on the USS Liberty was another false flag, so was Russia's attack on Georgia and incidentally how
    WWII started when the Germans claimed they were attacked by Poland.

    So there's a big screen TV right before I get into the office and that usually has CNN on all day. Having all the facts I had to giggle at the
    mere headline they had scrolling past that read "WT7 myth explained".

    At least read these sites and know what they're about:

    http://www.infowars.com/
    http://www.prisonplanet.tv/
    http://www.truthnews.us/

  137. The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by catchblue22 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    The idea that these buildings were brought down by explosives is patently absurd. Period. However there is a "conspiracy theory" that is, to me at least, plausable and believable. Namely that Bush/Cheney and the other neocons allowed 9/11 to happen by looking the other way, and by not doing enough to stop it.

    It is a well known fact, as outlined in the "Project for a New American Century", that Cheney and the other neocons wanted desparately to go into Iraq. It is also a fact that the Patriot Act had been written several years before 9/11, and was sitting in a drawer, waiting to be enacted. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to me to think that Cheney would allow America to be attacked in a hugely symbolic but ultimately non-devastating way, as a way of pushing the country into Iraq, and of foisting laws like the Patriot Act on congress.

    However, I fear that what I propose here will be lumped in with all of the other crackpot conspiracy theories about demolition teams in the twin towers. There is really no compelling evidence to support what I say. Only a strong suspicion based on what was written in the Project for a New American Century document, and observation of how far the neoconservatives seemed willing to go to enact their policies. America under Cheney and his neocon thugs has been a profoundly unsettling place. I often feel that there is a war being waged right under our noses, against freedom and the ideals of American democracy.

    --
    This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
    1. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by Shihar · · Score: 2, Informative

      People highly over rate what it means to have plans sitting around. I am pretty sure that somewhere we have a plan to invade Canada. I bet we also have some shitty legislation for fill in government agency here sitting around that no one wants to enact. The fact that the PATRIOT act was basically read to go with such short notice shouldn't be surprising. The spooks had a wish list that was tossed in a dusty folder somewhere. Shit hits the fans, politicians screams for someone to DO SOMETHING, and the PATRIOT act is dusted off and shoved into the politicians hands.

      If 9/11 had any conspiracy to it, we should just throw in the towel and surrender to the shadow overlords now, because they are playing a game WAY the hell too deep for us. Just consider all the bungled conspiracies that have been leaked out over the life of the Bush administration (and earlier even). None of them even begin to scratch the surface level of conspiracy that attacking the US reaches. Every time the government does something that is simply too sketchy, it gets leaked. The idea that the government could pull off the largest and most devious conspiracy in the history of man kind and NO ONE felt a twinge of guilt and leaked is absurd.

      The only possible explanations left are that:

      1) There is no conspiracy and the government sucks basically as much as it appears to. It can't carry out a conspiracy on any real scale, and even stuff that should be pretty basic, like a few warrantless wire taps is well outside of their abilities to keep a lid on.

      2) The government is playing a vastly deeper game than you realize. All the bungled conspiracies were intentionally bungled to make you think that the government is incompetent and incapable of carrying out even the most basic morally dubious conspiracy. There is a small army of perfectly loyal conspirators with absolutely no sense of guilt that can commit horrible acts and keep them a secret. We are basically fucked and don't even realize it. The best we can hope for is that our evil shadowy overlords have good intentions.

      Personally, I have a feeling that the truth is that people suck and are stupid, and that option #1 is what we are dealing with.

    2. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by catchblue22 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think you are creating a false dichotomy here. Obviously the neocons are on the whole a very stupid bunch, as the execution of the Iraq strategy indicates. I believe that they were firmly convinced that they would be welcomed in Iraq, and that the miraculous hand of the free market would unleash the hidden potential of the Iraqi economy. I believe they were genuinely surprised with the collapse of the Iraqi situation, or else they would likely have sent more troops.

      That said, it actually doesn't take that much intelligence to (a) write the Patriot Act to be enacted in case of a serious incident and to plan a grand military campaign to remake the Middle East as indicated here and (b) to deliberately ignore intelligence indicating an impending terrorist attack that would enable the enactment of their planned strategy. Read some of the documents linked to above. Then put yourself in the place of a leader who wants to implement those far reaching policies. It would be very easy to "allow" an attack on US soil, in order to make the enactment of your grand strategy possible.

      --
      This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
    3. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by canadian_right · · Score: 1

      The USA has had plans to invade Canada in place since before WWII. Us Canadians don't see it as sinister, just a bit overly thorough on the part of your military's planning department. Some plans dating to the 1950's were declassified and partially printed up here in the local papers.

      --
      Anarchists never rule
    4. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by Shihar · · Score: 1

      I think you miss my point. Even something as simple as ignoring an imminent attack is something you can't cover up (at least in the US). It isn't like Dick Cheney sits in the middle of an information spider web where only he sees the true picture. He only sees a fraction of the picture. He gets filtered down summaries and one page briefs. In other words, anything that Bush/Cheney/evil shadow conspirators is know by many other people in the intelligence agencies.

      So, even if you can buy that the neo-cons are pure evil and would happily let an attack, you also need to buy that all the people with their hands in the information in the intelligence agencies also subscribe to pure unadulterated evil. Personally, I just don't buy.

      Take the NSA wire tapping. One scale of 1 to 10 of conspiracies, 10 being slaughtering a few thousand American civilians through action or inaction, and 1 being a perfectly legally legit wire tap, the NSA thing was a 3. What they were doing was legally dubious but vaguely defensible and only mildly morally gray. In this relatively benign case of a conspiracy someone felt morally outraged enough to best the entire thing open. Are you really suggesting that a 9/11 conspiracy (even if it was simply intentional inaction) that involves thousands of dead Americans really could have operated without someone busting it wide open?

      Neo-cons suck, but they are not evil. Intelligence agencies in the US do some shady things, but they are still run by people that leak the greatest offenses. Either there was no deep 9/11 conspiracy, or the shadow overlords are playing a game that is way too deep for us mere mortals to compete in. Personally, I just think that the government is roughly as incompetent as it appears to be when it comes to keeping a secret.

    5. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by gwait · · Score: 1

      I'm reading William Gibson's newest novel,
      and the main theme is

      "There is a cold civil war in America".

      I agree the NeoCons are detrimental to world peace, but I suspect it's the usual government screw ups that prevented 9/11 from being discovered in time to put a stop to it.

      --
      Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
    6. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by catchblue22 · · Score: 1

      I don't think Cheney could ever be a spider at the center of a giant web of true information. I agree with you that Cheney likely only sees a small fraction of the big picture. However, Cheney and his ilk do have control of the reactions to the bread crumbs of information they receive. If they receive a strong hint about an impending attack, then they can either focus the entire intelligence apparatus at the hint, to "shake the tree to see what falls out", as Richard Clark asserts Bush and co. DIDN'T do, or they can respond in a more tepid and cautious way. Cheney chose the latter path, as evidenced by Richard Clark's (the former had of the American counter-terrorist unit) assertions.

      I am not convinced that Cheney knew about the details of what happened. But my unsubstantiated suspicion is that he knew that SOMETHING was going to happen at some point in the near future. I think I can factually assert that Cheney did not put to bear the might of the US intelligence services on these particular terrorists.

      --
      This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
    7. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by terjeber · · Score: 1

      The only possible explanations left are that

      Nope. Wrong explanation. Cheney has a neuralizer and he used it on all the conspirators and all the witnesses to the construction crews setting up the demolition. The only other person fully in on the conspiracy is Will Smith (who's real name is J as in "Jay").

    8. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by terjeber · · Score: 1

      It isn't like Dick Cheney sits in the middle of an information spider web where only he sees the true picture

      People forget something very, very basic. People are morons. The vast majority of them. Most of the time. That includes the ones on top. It is more true today than it was 100 years ago when articulation and logic was important for people in office. These days being a retard is a job requirement.

      This is why the following statement basically is universally true, and more so in political circles than in any other:

      Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

      BTW, and OT: The day that I realized that the vast majority of the worlds population are morons was a good day. The realization makes life a lot easier. You tend to have less heroes.

    9. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by Rub1cnt · · Score: 1

      Amen Brother.

      --
      Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you... :)
    10. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      consider all the bungled conspiracies that have been leaked

      Even better, consider all the ones that WEREN'T leaked.

      Oh wait, we can't, because they WEREN'T LEAKED.

      My point is, you can't say "everything gets leaked". By definition, we have no information on secrets that are actually kept. (We do have stuff that eventually gets declassified, proving that at least SOME secrets are successfully kept)

      In other words, the sample set you are basing your conclusion on has an extreme one-sided bias.

    11. Re:The only conspiracy theory that makes sense by Shihar · · Score: 1

      True, you can't examine what you don't know exists. What you can do is examine what has been leaked. The NSA wire tapping is the best example. The conspiracy was relatively small, while it wasn't overtly legal, it wasn't overtly illegal. You can make a credible argument either way. The level of "evilness" was pretty minimal. Spying on people, while not notice, doesn't even exist on the same scale as "killing a few thousand Americans".

      So, here you have this baby weight, relatively small conspiracy that is only marginally illegal and only mildly morally dubious... and someone cracks and leaks it. Now, the 9/11 conspiracies are a whole different ball game. You are talking about something that is massively illegal, as in "if we catch you we can legally kill you in a civilian court" illegal. Further, you are taking about a conspiracy involving mass murder that is so utterly morally depraved that you basically need to be a sociopath in order to justify it. Finally, to top it all of, you are talking about a conspiracy that is massively complicated and would take hundreds or thousands of people to pull off.

      Maybe my faith in human morality is too high and my faith in stupidity is too great, but I don't buy it. If the government can gather together that many sociopaths in to perform the most elaborate conspiracy of all times and keep every single one of them from leaking... shit I'll throw in the towel. If they can pull that off, they clearly know what they are doing and I'll bow to my far superior shadowy overlords as the rightful rulers of the world.

      Personally, I think I'll keep my faith in human stupidity.

  138. The Only 3 by PenGun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The only 3 skyscrapers in the world to collapse from fire. WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7. Move along nothing to see here.

    1. Re:The Only 3 by Spatial · · Score: 1

      Yes, apparently American engineering is rather substandard.

      Oh, if you were trying to make an argument for a conspiracy, you might want to add an argument on top of that premise and spooky noises. :p

    2. Re:The Only 3 by darkmeridian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even if this were true, the World Trade Center Towers were also the first buildings to be hit by a large passenger jet loaded with jet fuel (enough to fly from Boston to California) at over 500 mph. The B-25 that collided with the Empire State Building had a maximum takeoff weight of 41,800 lb and a 230 mph cruising speed. The 757 has a maximum takeoff weight of 255,000 lb and 530 mph cruising speed. Yeah--six times more weight and over double the velocity. If you count kinetic energy alone (1/2mv^2) then that's twelve times more energy. You'd also have to take into account the extra chemical energy carried by all the jet fuel on board the 757.

      Also, WTC1 and 2 were built with the weight-bearing structure on the outside, and this was severely defeated by the airplanes striking and penetrating the building. Regular skyscrapers have the skeleton built into it. The fire-extinguishing systems were also compromised when they were severed by the jet.

      So, yeah, saying that the WTC towers were the only ones to collapse due to fire is not saying much. Getting hit by a huge passenger jet loaded with fuel at high speeds is kind of a big distinction that explains the difference neatly.

      --
      A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
    3. Re:The Only 3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Also, WTC1 and 2 were built with the
      > weight-bearing structure on the outside,

      That is not remotely correct, but it is not
      surprising that a lot of people believe
      this absurd "fact", since the FEMA report
      went out of its way to make this appear
      to be the case.

      > and this was severely defeated by the
      > airplanes striking and penetrating the
      > building.

      This is also an inaccurate characterization.
      Neither FEMA nor NIST make out any more
      than 14% POSSIBLE destruction of support
      columns in either building. And the NIST
      report does not attribute this as a primary
      explanation--the NIST report blames the
      impact event primarily for stripping the insulation
      around the CENTRAL support columns.

    4. Re:The Only 3 by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      Also, WTC1 and 2 were built with the weight-bearing structure on the outside

      So the 47 interior columns were just for show?

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
  139. Re:How did it catch fire? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't underestimate the amount of debris that hit the building. Pictures of WTC7 show that one whole side of the building was torn off, 1/3 deep into the structure in some places, with smoke coming from every single floor. That's a lot of structural damage. Additionally, any office building is full of fuel for a fire, including in this case a large tank for the diesel generators.

    And the fire wasn't fought at all. The firefighters were evacuated when the towers collapsed and never returned to WTC7.

  140. Slashdot is officially Propagandist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now we know for sure. Thank you for being so clear and evil.

  141. Don't believe in conspiracy theories! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So the government wants us to believe that buildings have a natural tendency to collapse like a stack of dominoes at the slightest bit of heat. Let's look at the logic:

    if ( fire > 2 floors){

    $action = global & uniform collapse of entire steel and concrete structure //WTC7 had 47 floors!

    $ignore[] = $police, $rescue, $civilians, //credible eyewitnesses that reported explosions (like Barry Jennings).

    $ignore[] = $symmetrical_collapse, $pulverized_concrete, $debunked_government_statements, $documented_lies , $known_physics, $squibs, $penthouse_collapse, $pyroclastic_flow, $molten_steel, $max_fossilfuelburn, $leaked_blueprints, $other
    }

  142. OF COURSE they made a mistake. But not that one. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    They described the building both by name (Salomon Brothers) and by number. AND they described its location. Mistake? Sure. Their mistake was the timing.

    Funny, though... in the video, as the on-location reporter is describing the demise of the building, you can see it still standing, through the window behind her!

    So, yeah, they made a mistake all right. But not the one you mean.

    A quick search has not turned up evidence of the radio station I mentioned, so I will provisionally retract that statement. But... how do you explain the firefighters repeatedly telling people to move back, the building is "coming down" and the building is "about to blow up"? This, before any other sign of collapse? Remember... they had been taken out of the building hours before.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwSc7NPn8Ok

    Obviously I am not making this stuff up. It is right there on youtube, folks, for those of you who will take the time to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you do not want to take the time, then don't ask me to do it for you.

  143. Re:here's some science for you. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    gravity is 32 ft / s^2
    x = x0 + v0*t + 0.5*a*t^2
    x0 = 741 ft
    v0 = 0 ft/s
    a = -32 ft/s^2
    x = 0
    0 = 741 ft + 0 ft/s * t - 0.5*32 ft/s^2 * t^2
    -741 ft / -(0.5 * 32 ft/s^2) = t^2
    t = 6.8 seconds

  144. Re:Really? by Scrameustache · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't tell which building you're referring to, because neither the Windsor building nor WTC7 were "methiodically [sic] stripped of all insulation before the fire".

    At the fire, the building had almost no spandrels at upper floors. The steel columns had almost no fire resistance covers at upper floors.

    Too busy pointing out typos to check for truthiness?

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  145. Oh, a new fire-driven progressive collapse by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

    1. Stage a false flag attack against NY to obtain wider emergency powers
    2. ???
    3. profit!

    --
    Send your spendthrift head of state this
    1. Re:Oh, a new fire-driven progressive collapse by cicho · · Score: 1

      Not in this case. When you're a multibillionaire, you don't really need any more money. In this case, power IS profit.

      --
      "Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
    2. Re:Oh, a new fire-driven progressive collapse by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      I never said it wasn't. :-)

      Profit doesn't just mean money. But I get ya. :P

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
  146. Re:Really? by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 1

    There's really no point in furthering this discussion until we get past the mental deficiency that allows you to believe that all of the steel in the entire building had to have melted (or even just been touched by fire) in order for the entire structure to collapse.

    Why do you believe this must be true?

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  147. Re:here's some science for you. by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

    Yea, and a skyscraper below you that has not supposedly had it's center column demolished from the ground level tends to decelerate objects.

    --
    Send your spendthrift head of state this
  148. Re:OF COURSE they made a mistake. But not that one by growse · · Score: 1

    But not the one I mean? Eh? They reported factually inaccurate information. The only other explanation is that they "predicted the future" and managed to look silly and amateurish doing it. Lets be clear, it was an amateur mistake they made by reporting information without first verifying it. Not their finest hour.

    Obviously I am not making this stuff up. It is right there on youtube

    Thanks for the chuckle.

    --
    There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
  149. 1 short by Digital+End · · Score: 1
    Just to play devils advocate here, there WAS supposed to be another plane hitting another building... if they did set this up, it would be hard to explain the demo charges in building 7 if it didn't fall over like they had expected. Better to blow it down as planned and invistigate it after everyone stopped worrying about it.

    About the contents of the building from Wiki:

    World Trade Center 7 housed SEC files relating to numerous Wall Street investigations, as well as other federal investigative files. All the files for approximately 3,000 to 4,000 SEC cases were destroyed. While some were backed up in other places, others were not, especially those classified as confidential.[49] Files relating Citigroup to the WorldCom scandal were lost.[50] The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission estimates over 10,000 cases will be affected.[51] The Secret Service had its largest field office, with more than 200 employees, in WTC 7 and also lost investigative files. Says one agent: âoeAll the evidence that we stored at 7 World Trade, in all our cases, went down with the building.â[52]

    The collapse of 7 World Trade Center is remarkable because it was the first known instance of a tall building collapsing primarily by uncontrolled fires.[53]

    Not to say I buy into the crazy theorys or anything... but building 7 was always the part that didn't sit right for me.

    --
    Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
    1. Re:1 short by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Now that made a whole fucking sense to me. Mod him insightful, please.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    2. Re:1 short by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      But that other plane wasn't heading to NY and even if it was, why the hell would it have been a target? Unlike the iconic WT1 and WT2, WT7 was just another office building.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
  150. Re:Mission Accomplished by shmlco · · Score: 1

    One has only to watch an episode or two of American Chopper to see that simply heating steel lets it bend and deform quite easily. No melting required.

    And you know, of course, that engines and parts of the plane were found five, six, and even seven blocks away from the point of impact.

    Nope, the only conspiracy is how GW and his cohorts shanghaied the event and twisted the aftermath to their own ends...

    --
    Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
  151. video of blasts in a visible pattern;here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCAoJuDw2Ic

    Take a look at the South tower.

    Also, a similiar clip here:
    http://www.metacafe.com/watch/448814/simultaneous_explosions_in_north_south_towers_on_9_11/

  152. Re:Really? by Fallen+Seraph · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ugh, ok, I'm tired of this, so let me explain to you exactly how the building collapsed from my perspective, watching it across the Hudson a few miles away, and then seeing it up close on the news:

    Pancaking, a term which you completely misunderstand, is the event which occurs when you cause the upper floors of a building to collapse suddenly. You question how the fire in the upper floors weakened the lower floors. The answer is that it didn't have to. When the upper floors gave way, they impacted the floors directly beneath them. The kinetic energy that is gained by those floors basically free falling 1 story down is immense, and this cause the floor beneath, also weakened by the fire, to collapse, and so on this process went until it reached low enough that the floor beneath the collapsing floors was undamaged by the impact or fire.

    The problem though is two-fold: first of all, those collapsing upper floors sent a huge shockwave of compressing air down the elevator shafts and stairwells, blowing out the windows on the floors below and causing some very minor structural damage. No big deal, but it's what makes people think the lower floors were "blown out". The big thing is that by this point, the upper floors have gained such an incredible amount of momentum from their falling, which is only increasing with their mass, that the lower floors have no hope of "catching" them. I say "catching" because they're not supporting them, they have to stop them from a freefall, and stopping an object in motion, especially an object composed of tons of concrete and steel falling directly downward, requires more structural integrity than any skyscraper has.

    This is why the Windsor building is a poor example. This event did not occur. It was the WTC's own height working against it, giving the collapsing segments more and more mass until it was enough energy to break through the structurally sound floors.

    People who claim there should have been a core, or or more left of it are people who try to compare this to other events, and often lack an understanding of physics and engineering. ALL of the steel in the WTC towers did not have to melt or be weakened. Only a small portion, in a small area, had to be structurally weakened enough to give way. The rest is simply F=ma

  153. OMG its full of stars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The difference being that that building was reinforced concrete stack, which is essentially monolithic"

    You mean it had the depth/width/height ratio of 1/4/9

    1. Re:OMG its full of stars by Majik+Sheff · · Score: 1

      Hah, the first 3 integer squares. I loved that book.

      --
      Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
  154. MOD PARENT UP by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

    No part of that post constitute flamebait: someone's abusing mod points again!

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  155. Re:Changed the subject. Please answer the question by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    Larry Silverstein has repeatedly explained exactly what he was talking about when he said 'pulled'.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  156. officialists == IDers by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

    Arguing with officialists is like arguing with creationists. They've already been told, it's a matter of obedience. The weird thing is having looked at the structural collapse of the towers, since the official version is jet fuel and conspiracy theory is demolition, from a straight scientific viewpoint I'd get the facts myself. Physically, building have catched fire, steel have expanded, seals have broken, and that gone on for more than one day and those much older buildings haven't collapsed. But that happened to the WTC. And both came down. Exactly the same. After burning an hour or so.

    And then come the 'emotional plea' arguments, that have more to do with creationists than anything else. "Don't you respect the sacrifices of the firemen? Why are you so un-American? How can you BELIEVE the gov't would do something like that?"

    Look, I'm the most pro-American chap you'll ever meet. But don't hide behind science. You're doing as you're told, no more, no less.

    --
    Send your spendthrift head of state this
    1. Re:officialists == IDers by opencity · · Score: 1

      > You're doing as you're told, no more, no less.

      Bullshit idiot. I've never met or read anyone who has more maths than me and makes any sense of the controlled demolition arguments.
      I'd ascribe any level of evil to anyone and despite your trolling all Americans don't always trust this or any other administration, domestic or foreign.

      There is some sketchy stuff around 9/11 (see: the flight school, the FBI agent). None of these issues involve reinventing physics and chemistry to suit your cartoon view of the world.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    2. Re:officialists == IDers by grumbel · · Score: 1

      those much older buildings haven't collapsed

      Those other buildings weren't the WTC. It doesn't require much imagination no conclude that maybe the WTC wasn't build to be the strongest building in town, but to be the highest and that stability suffered from that goal.

      And also, why the fuck would anybody place explosives in the building and risk being caught while doing that? Even if you assume conspiration, they already got two planes hitting the buildings, shouldn't that have been more then enough to get their agenda going? The problem with conspiration theorist is that they go all wildly speculative and nitpicky on topics they have no clue about. So something in the collapse didn't go as expected? Big woop, buildings are complex and the conditions here are rather special, so you really haven't much, if anything, to compare it to, 400 meter high buildings don't get hit by planes every day. I mean how do you expect it would have looked when they collapsed without a controlled demolition? Kind of pretty much exactly the same?

    3. Re:officialists == IDers by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      Arguing with officialists is like arguing with creationists. They've already been told, it's a matter of obedience.

      Seeing as I'm not from the US, nor do I live there, what officials am I supposed to be obedient to? Am I an officialist who does what I'm told because I'm obedient to US authorities even though I'm not even anywhere near the country?

      Physically, building have catched fire, steel have expanded, seals have broken, and that gone on for more than one day and those much older buildings haven't collapsed.

      Lots of steel buildings have collapsed due to fires in the past.

      And then come the 'emotional plea' arguments, that have more to do with creationists than anything else. "Don't you respect the sacrifices of the firemen? Why are you so un-American? How can you BELIEVE the gov't would do something like that?"

      URL?

      But don't hide behind science.

      Right. Like creationists, we should ignore science and go with our own beliefs instead?

    4. Re:officialists == IDers by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Seeing as I'm not from the US, nor do I live there, what officials am I supposed to be obedient to? Am I an officialist who does what I'm told because I'm obedient to US authorities even though I'm not even anywhere near the country?

      You're not obedient to an official, read my post again. You're obedient to what you're told. They said fire took them down, NIST are a bunch of engineers, therefore, NIST is guided by science, not the dept. of Commerce. Period.

      Lots of steel buildings have collapsed due to fires in the past.

      URL?

      And then come the 'emotional plea' arguments, that have more to do with creationists than anything else. "Don't you respect the sacrifices of the firemen? Why are you so un-American? How can you BELIEVE the gov't would do something like that?"

      Just check Penn & Teller's episode on conspiracy theories for something that was on TV, and try to attend a 'Truther' public demonstration and see what shit they get from near passerbys to 'support their troops' and other FOX news gibberish.

      Right. Like creationists, we should ignore science and go with our own beliefs instead?

      No. But NIST isn't on science's payroll, but the government's. A government that tried it's very best and succeeded in preventing any kind of independent, private investigation on the events of 9/11. I think it's fishy. If you don't, ok.

      I don't smoke crack, I believe men landed on the moon and I think evolution is bullet-proof. See? Rational. :-)

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    5. Re:officialists == IDers by wudukes · · Score: 1

      Maybe if was without a controlled demolition there would not be pools of lava in the subbasement floors? Or that floors would be stacked on top of each other in a pancake fashion rather then blown into dust that formed into giant clouds chasing people down streets? Or that steel beams wouldn't be horizontally ejected over quarter mile distances? What has the energy to take a steel beam and eject it over a quarter mile? hmm...?

    6. Re:officialists == IDers by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      You're obedient to what you're told.

      I am? What do you base that claim on? I'm automatically obedient just because I disagree with you?

      They said fire took them down, NIST are a bunch of engineers, therefore, NIST is guided by science, not the dept. of Commerce. Period.

      I don't understand what you are trying to say. NIST are a bunch of engineers as well as physicists and other scientists. They have published a thorough report which the 9/11 truthers have rejected out of hand "cuz itz te gubmint". Instead of automatically rejecting something on arbitrary grounds just because you don't like the conclusion, try looking at the data they are presenting.

      URL?

      Try this comment, which was in fact posted as part of this discussion.

      Just check Penn & Teller's episode on conspiracy theories for something that was on TV, and try to attend a 'Truther' public demonstration and see what shit they get from near passerbys to 'support their troops' and other FOX news gibberish.

      I'm afraid this isn't what I was asking about. I want an URL to a real discussion on the subject where this happens. Whenever I see these discussions popping up, I never see what you descrive. That some nutcase on the street shouts something as he passes by is not what we are talking about.

      No. But NIST isn't on science's payroll, but the government's. A government that tried it's very best and succeeded in preventing any kind of independent, private investigation on the events of 9/11. I think it's fishy. If you don't, ok.

      As someone who believes in a small government, I am still not as gullible as to fall for truther lies. For example, the lie that no steel building has collapsed due to fire in the past. And even if this were the case, just because something happens for the first time doesn't mean that it was a government conspiracy.

      And there's a difference between "there's something fishy" and "the government blew up the WTC".

      I don't smoke crack, I believe men landed on the moon and I think evolution is bullet-proof. See? Rational. :-)

      Rational to a certain degree, certainly, but the 9/11 truther movement is almost exactly like the Intelligent Design (creationist) movement in its methods. It relies on lies and misinformation which is repeated over and over and over again, and when presented with the evidence one asks for, one simply dismisses it or moves the goalpost.

      I want the government to keep its nose out of my business as much as anyone else, but it's crazy to dismiss everything the government does just because it's the government. Heck, it isn't even my government. Why on earth should I feel compelled to defend it? In fact, I am not. I am defending the scientific method and rational though. The facts will lead you to the conclusion that 9/11 truthers are full of horse droppings.

      You see, I make up my mind, not based on what the government does, but based on what the facts tell me.

  157. Loose Change Viewer's Guide by Bazman · · Score: 1

    Read this:

    http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html

      - it points out all the guff in "Loose Change". Checks in with real experts, shows the pictures that Loose Change didn't bother showing (because it doesn't agree with their version of events), and explains everything the 'truthers' try to point out.

  158. Re:Controlled Demolition, of course by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

    The north tower collapsed at 10:28am, flaming debris entering WTC7 and starting multiple fires. WTC7 collapsed at 5:20pm. That's nearly seven hours of uncontrolled fire. There were no serious efforts to fight any of the fires that were found, as there was virtually no water pressure.

    The First Interstate fire occurred around 10:25pm, and firefighters were on-scene by 10:40pm, with the fire being declared knocked down at 2:19am. While sprinkler contractors had depressurized and drained the top several floors to connect the new sprinkler system, the rest of the system had plenty of water, and the building's pumps were supplemented by the LAFD's own equipment.

    For a little less than four hours, the LAFD firefighters actively battled the flames with adequate water pressure, a far cry from FDNY crews only battling spot fires with little more than fire extinguishers and low-pressure water, with most of it being left to burn out. There's really no comparison here, and that doesn't even get into structural comparisons. Was the First Interstate constructed with a central concrete core, or did it use the steel frame construction used in WTC7?

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  159. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth response by leftie · · Score: 1

    Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth had a press conference to discuss the new NIST WTC7 report.

    http://www.ae911truth.org/audio/AE911truth%20News%20Conf%20080821_web.mp3

    I'm afraid you have gotten all this quite in reverse. The science is not backing us the "official" conspiracy theory. The science is clearly on the side of those who wish to expose the truth about 9/11.

  160. People are just blind by kenw232 · · Score: 1

    Crackpot theories? are you fuckin serious? I suppose this is another "Crackpot theory" too: http://www.carnicom.com/culture3.htm

    1. Re:People are just blind by kenw232 · · Score: 1

      its a completely verifiable and reproducible experiment proving his claims. does it make you feel better? to live in a shell and pretend everything is fine? Seems to me you're a bit of a pussy then.

    2. Re:People are just blind by sir+fer · · Score: 1

      Does that include the conspiracy theory put forth by the US Govt? I hope so cuz it's a bunch of hooey.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
  161. Re:Controlled Demolition, of course by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

    All of those suggestions were contained in the report, and echoed suggestions made in the original report over the main tower collapses. The manner by which WTC7 collapsed was similar to, but had differences from, the main tower collapses.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  162. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth response by leftie · · Score: 0, Troll

    Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth had a press conference to discuss the new NIST WTC7 report.

    http://www.ae911truth.org/audio/AE911truth%20News%20Conf%20080821_web.mp3 [ae911truth.org]

    They didn't do a very good job programming the sims that ran on those Beowulf clusters. The AE911truth press conference addresses the so-called sims too.

    Garbage in, Garbage Out.

  163. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1, Troll

    There's really no point in furthering this discussion until we get past the mental deficiency that allows you to believe that all of the steel in the entire building had to have melted (or even just been touched by fire) in order for the entire structure to collapse.

    I don't believe I've said that all the steel needed to melt at all. This is something you're assuming - for some reason.

    However, to get a complete collapse of a whole building that large you have to have destabilised large parts of it at various intervals to ensure that it all goes straight down and not a trace of the structure is left. All the floors below the fire have to be destabilised in some fundamental way to ensure this happens. No demolition company has ever turned up on site and said "Oh, we'll burn five storeys in the top half of this fifty storey building and it will all go down". The entire building needs to be accounted for.

    You've offered no explanation as to how all the floors, most of which were completely untouched, below the few floors that were affected by fire became so structurally unsound that they were able to collapse in. Unless this happens, you simply don't have enough energy to precipitate a full collapse from the action of a few floors at the top of the building collapsing into those below. You will still get at least some of the building intact.

    Why do you believe this must be true?

    I don't. I'm asking the question as to what caused all the floors to completely collapse.

  164. Your are welcome by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    But if you are laughing, you have completely missed a very important point.

    They reported some inaccurate information. Fine. WHERE did they get that inaccurate information? That is the issue here. If you think that the fact that they reported that WTC 7 had come down (again... described by name, number, and location) BEFORE it actually happened is a "coincidence", then you must be a very big believer in coincidences. Sorry, but that rather stretches believability past the breaking point.

    And I did, by the way, find the source of that "radio announcement" of the building coming down. Two separate on-site witnesses reported a red-cross worker, outside the building, holding a radio that was blaring a countdown just before the building collapsed. Their separeate accounts are remarkably consistent.

    Of course, that is not a "radio station" (interesting how stories get distorted)... but at least I was able to find the source. You can also find it on youtube with a quick search.

    So, sorry for your disbelief, but some facts are pretty solid:

    (1) The BBC reported the building coming down before it did. (What was the source of their information?) This is incontrovertible, since in the video you can SEE the building still standing behind the reporter as she reports that it had collapsed. Some minutes later, it did collapse. The probability of that being coincidence is probably much less than that of you getting struck by lightning in a given year, or killing yourself by slipping in the shower.

    (2) Firefighters and red cross workers are on video telling people that the building "is going to come down", and that it is about to "blow up". This, hours after they were removed from the building, and when there was NO external evidence that the building was going to fall. (Remember... before that day skyscrapers had NEVER fallen in this manner, in the history of the world, except for earthquake or demolition. Never. And WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, nor was it even close to the others... closer buildings had little or no damage.)

    (3) Outside the building, a countdown was heard on an emergency worker's radio (by MORE THAN ONE eyewitness who reported their stories on video), coinciding with the building's collapse.

    If you really think that is all coincidence, then you have a funny view of reality. The laws of probability are practically screaming "no" at you!

    So you can chuckle all you want. But if you really are, you are laughing at a joke that is very likely on you.

    1. Re:Your are welcome by growse · · Score: 1

      (1) I've already covered this I feel: They probably got the information from a stringer who was somewhere nearby.

      (2) Having been fighting the fire inside the building, the firefighters were probably in a very good position to asses whether or not the building was going to come down. It seems that in their opinion it was, and they were right.

      (3) Do you have any information about whether this "countdown" coincided with the building collapsing? Some guy hearing "44, 43 ..." on a radio and then a building falling down later on are not automatically linked events.

      --
      There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
    2. Re:Your are welcome by digitrev · · Score: 1

      But if you are laughing, you have completely missed a very important point.

      They reported some inaccurate information. Fine. WHERE did they get that inaccurate information? That is the issue here. If you think that the fact that they reported that WTC 7 had come down (again... described by name, number, and location) BEFORE it actually happened is a "coincidence", then you must be a very big believer in coincidences. Sorry, but that rather stretches believability past the breaking point.

      Coincidences happen. The woman from BBC just fucked up and lied. Check out for her testimony that she just plain old fucked up. Stupidity and lying to cover your ass does not stretch believability.

      And I did, by the way, find the source of that "radio announcement" of the building coming down. Two separate on-site witnesses reported a red-cross worker, outside the building, holding a radio that was blaring a countdown just before the building collapsed. Their separeate accounts are remarkably consistent.

      Of course, that is not a "radio station" (interesting how stories get distorted)... but at least I was able to find the source. You can also find it on youtube with a quick search.

      I'd rather not. Why don't you give it to me, since you're so sure that it's solid proof. Or at least give me the search terms.

      So, sorry for your disbelief, but some facts are pretty solid:

      (1) The BBC reported the building coming down before it did. (What was the source of their information?) This is incontrovertible, since in the video you can SEE the building still standing behind the reporter as she reports that it had collapsed. Some minutes later, it did collapse. The probability of that being coincidence is probably much less than that of you getting struck by lightning in a given year, or killing yourself by slipping in the shower.

      And yet people get struck by lightning, as well as slipping in the shower. She's an idiot and should've been fired for reporting a blatant lie, but she fucked up and made shit up, not let loose the information of some grand conspidracy.

      (2) Firefighters and red cross workers are on video telling people that the building "is going to come down", and that it is about to "blow up". This, hours after they were removed from the building, and when there was NO external evidence that the building was going to fall. (Remember... before that day skyscrapers had NEVER fallen in this manner, in the history of the world, except for earthquake or demolition. Never. And WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, nor was it even close to the others... closer buildings had little or no damage.)

      Firefighters and red cross workers probably wanted people to get the fuck out of there to make their job easier, and lied to get them out of the area.

      (3) Outside the building, a countdown was heard on an emergency worker's radio (by MORE THAN ONE eyewitness who reported their stories on video), coinciding with the building's collapse.

      Citation please.

      If you really think that is all coincidence, then you have a funny view of reality. The laws of probability are practically screaming "no" at you!

      The laws of probability state that certain things are improbably (unlikely), not impossible. Next you'll be telling me that a bowling ball and a golf ball dropped from an airplane will hit the ground at the same time.

      --
      Cynical Idealist
    3. Re:Your are welcome by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 1

      Were you alive on 2001-09-11? Were you actually paying attention to the radio and TV that day? I ask because the one thing that stands out in my mind about media reporting on that day, more than anything else, was just how much they got wrong. Nobody knew how many planes had been hijacked. Nobody knew how many people were in the buildings. All sorts of wild stories were being presented on the air as fact. They got more things wrong than they got right on that day.

      Jounalists essentially make a living at presenting incorrect facts and misinterpreting the correct ones. If your conspiracy theory hinges on "the BBC misreported something" then you're just an idiot.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    4. Re:Your are welcome by terjeber · · Score: 1

      They reported some inaccurate information. Fine. WHERE did they get that inaccurate information?

      If you care about this, why don't you just check it? Why do you get all your "knowledge" from websites that are less serious than Mrs Doodle's Palm Reading and Astrology site? Why not try to get valid information about this?

      90% of news is a reporter sifting through releases from Reuters and other news agencies regurgitating what they have said. Reuters mistakingly reported the WTC7 down and multiple outlets picked it up. This is well documented.

      Go take your medication now. And the straitjacket.

  165. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    You dumb fucking cowards aren't worth the effort anymore.

    Idiocracy was a documentary about America. The rest of the world is laughing at you arrogant pricks. FOAD.

  166. Simply not true by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    *I* am not accusing anybody of anything! I wasn't there!

    I simply asked a question. If you can't answer it, fine! But don't go around accusing me of accusing others. I did no such thing.

    I should also mention that I am hardly "relying" on a "single quote". There is a plethora of good evidence that the building was intentionally destroyed, even after you have discarded the obvious trash. Look it up yourself. It is easy to find.

    1. Re:Simply not true by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      You are, in fact, accusing the owner of the building of having said something that he's repeatedly denied saying. You've taken a word out of context (Actually, not even that. You've invented a new meaning of a word.), added in a failure to realize that almost all building collapses look the same, and and made up some absurd theory that the US government went and told the extremely liberal BBC about a building collapse before it happens, and the BBC has not questioned this.

      And your theory requires the NYFD to participate in the attacks, killing their own people.

      And as for your question, the reason there is not an inquiry is that EVERYONE KNOWS STEEL REINFORCED BUILDINGS FALL DOWN IF THEY REMAIN ON FIRE.

      That's not an 'incompetent design', you idiot. All buildings fall down if they remain on fire long enough. That's why they keep hitting buildings with water long after people have been rescued, to keep the fucking building from falling down. Maybe some small brick or concrete buildings might end up a gutted frame, but not anything larger.

      They ran out of water, or at least water pressure, on 9/11, and were dealing with other very serious problems at the time, and couldn't spend time or resources to put out a fire that was not endangering people. So they cleared the area and let it burn.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  167. Re:here's some science for you. by DragonTHC · · Score: 1

    whoops!

    --
    They're using their grammar skills there.
  168. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    You obviously need to consider what you're talking about because so far you've given us jack shit yourself. Here, let me put it in perspective for you: If you have a human pyramid of 6 people(3 on bottom, 2 in the middle, 1 on top) and you knock over the top person one of the people below it might also "collapse" with them, 2 possibly but probably not if everyone is semi-fit; if you knocked down the middle row they might all fall but since it'd only be a total of 3 people falling and 3 people left supporting, there's still a great chance that there would not be a complete collapse. Now build a human pyramid consisting of 55 people(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10) and make the row 3rd from the top collapse. There you have 6 people(1+2+3) falling on 4 people, there will likely be a collapse of the 4 people which will then be 10 people falling on the row of 5, that will likely then collapse making 15 people collapse on a row of 6 and so on until all 55 people are on the ground. Now that is what happens if it's a pyramid, so if it were a straight vertical tower of people, if the 3rd row of people fell, then the 2 rows above them will also fall making the 4th row have to withstand far more momentum.

    If you know anything about the people who break bricks in martial arts by putting a little space between each brick so that the momentum of the bricks above them will help break the ones below them, well this is the same concept only the space between the "bricks" was 10+ feet instead of 1/4 inch and a brick(or two) about a third from the top broke before the rest causing the chain reaction without the need for the "hand" to break the ones above it. Sorry bro, I know you want to believe but this was just pure physics and there were no explosions HEARD when it happened. If you can show me an explosive that doesn't make a sound but can bring down buildings like the WTC, I'll be very interested in researching it, otherwise you can go back to your basic physics class and learn because explosions like that can be heard clearly for a few miles.

  169. Correction: See my other comments. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    I was wrong about the "radio station. It was in fact the radio of a red cross worker, outside the building, that was counting down. There are at least two witnesses on video who described the same thing. Find them yourself on YouTube.

    I did not say it made sense... although it must be admitted that this government administration has done some astoundingly stupid things.

    And the BBC DID report this as I described. You can find the video yourself easily enough! And the building is right there behind the reporter as she reports that it is gone! Now, I did not claim that I have an explanation for this. But saying that it is coincidence is pretty much beyond believability.

    1. Re:Correction: See my other comments. by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      Find them yourself on YouTube.

      Where?

      But saying that it is coincidence is pretty much beyond believability.

      It was a simple mistake. What's so unbelievable about a simple mistake? People make mistakes all the time.

  170. Re:Mission Accomplished by Timothy+Brownawell · · Score: 1

    If you didn't do metallurgy in college, then you have no idea what you're talking about.

    Um... I didn't do metallurgy in college, but I know that lots of other things get soft before they melt (butter, glass, "processed cheese food", plastic, solder, ...) and I know what a blacksmith does (hint: heat up metal to make it softer, then hit it with a hammer).

  171. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yep, and for those who think the US wouldn't perform a false flag operation (especially against its own citizens), there's Operation Northwoods

  172. But you are ignoring all the other circumstances by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    This was not a stand-alone thing. See my other comments. There are a lot of other facts about this building that are more than just "suspicious".

    And it was not just "2 reporters". If you pay attention to what they actually said (describing the building my name, number, AND location), you can see that the probability that this was some kind of mistake is ridiculously low.

    Further, emergency workers are on video telling bystanders to run because the building was about to "come down", and that (in so many words) that it was about to "blow up". This, well before it actually fell. You can find the videos yourself easily enough.

    Those are just a few among many such "coincidences" that make the fire theory just unbelievable. There are a great many such, which you can verify for yourself if you bother to look. (My guess is that you won't... but that's up to you.) There are far to many to just explain them away as "coincidences". Probability is just plain not on your side, dude.

  173. See if for yourself on YouTube! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You can see the building still standing in the background, even while the on-site reporter is telling you that it had collapsed!

    This is a matter of public record, and EASY to find! Go look for yourself!

    Oh... and the Silverstein comment is also on YouTube. It was on the frigging evening news!

    When you call bullshit on somebody, you should be able to back it up! You lost this one.

    1. Re:See if for yourself on YouTube! by dave420 · · Score: 1

      He said "pull it", where "it" is very vague indeed. He was just previously talking about the rescue effort, so it would make sense that he meant to say "pull [the rescue effort]". If he'd used a different term than "pull", it would have been blindingly obvious what he was on about. And the BBC, just like every other news agency on 9/11, was getting bad information from people running around screaming that the world was ending. They simply reported something incorrectly, which later turned out to happen - no evidence of them knowing what was happening. I think something weird happened on 9/11 - but those two pieces of "evidence" are easily explained away.

    2. Re:See if for yourself on YouTube! by Shamenaught · · Score: 1

      Personally, I find it likely that there was some form of information that the press found/were given saying that the building had collapsed, but don't think it need have been part of any conspiracy.

      Here's another report, probably made at about the same time, in which another reporter states that building 7 was going to collapse, had collapsed, or was collapsing. Again, building 7 is clearly visible in the background.

      Both of them seem incredibly unclear on the facts. The BBC said that details were sketchy, and the CNN reporter giving 3 possible statuses for the building. From this, I think it's likely that they got similar sketchy info and both decided to report it. The BBC mistakenly reported a collapse instead of reporting that they actually weren't sure. I mean, they'd had 3-4 reports of collapses already.

      I put it to you: Would they have said that details were sketchy if they had an actual press release? Do you think they had people at the police cordon asking questions and hoping to overhear information? If they heard someone say that the building came down, don't you think they'd report it? Before that, any info on the ground is likely to have come by word of mouth, and is subject to being misheard and re-phrased several times. "It's gonna collapse" turns into "it's collapsing" which a few minutes later surely would mean that it had collapsed already.

      --
      mysql> SELECT * FROM `places` WHERE `place` LIKE 'home`; Empty set (0.00 sec)
  174. You don't agree with me... by shadoelord · · Score: 1

    therefore you're a witch! Burn her(him)!

    I love how anyone who doesn't agree with the government's findings are "crackpots". How dare we infer those aluminium pipes were for missile delivery systems for WMDs... oh wait, wrong topic.

    Confirmation Bias.

    --
    this is my sig, there are many like it, but this one is mine.
  175. "thruthers" == IDers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Arguing with "thruthers" is like arguing with creationists. They've already been told, it's a matter of ignorance.

  176. Tearing NIST report apart by anome · · Score: 1

    Here's a very interesting webcast of a discussion between structural and chemical specialists about the official NIST report on WTC7:
    http://www.ae911truth.org/audio/AE911truth%20News%20Conf%20080821_web.mp3

    Salient points from the webcast:
    - the unexplained presence of thermite residue in and extreme temperature of the wreckage of WTC7 (cf. the inability of the diesel fuel to burn hot and long in an oxygen starved environment);
    - the failure of NIST to adequately test for thermite in their samples (which were collected haphazardly);
    - the inadequate explanation by NIST of the collapse of collapse of WTC7 pillars 79-81;
    - the inaccuracy of NIST's theory on how a simultaneous catastrophic pillar failure could result in a freefall collapse.

    Useful cheat sheet of the facts about the collapse of WTC7,1&2 (on the right of the page): http://www.ae911truth.org/

  177. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  178. Re:Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth respons by Kid+Zero · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ...there's not a (+1, Crackpot) Option?

  179. This is not Science by AeiwiMaster · · Score: 1

    Science would be to publish the code and the data used in the simulation, and let other scientist check and reproduce it!

  180. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  181. Re: Conspiracy Theories by REALMAN · · Score: 1

    "Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here."

    Who exactly decides what a "crackpot" theory is hmmm? This statement is nothing more than intimidation of those who don't buy the ridiculous made up theory of a fire bringing down a steel structured High rise which has never happened before in the history of mankind. Other high rise buildings have burned in an inferno like blaze for DAYS and didn't collapse. NIST 'claimed" that they found no evidence of thermite like materials yet admitted they didn't look for any. NIST 'claimed" that 25 percent of the building had been "scooped" out by falling debris but then had to back off that lie when confronted with photographic evidence to the contrary, yet we're all supposed to sign on to this magic theory like little sheep.

    Statements like these are nothing more than prior restraint and if Slashdot were the government we'd all be suing for violation of our free speech rights.

    WAKE-UP Slashdot.

    --
    - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
  182. True enough. :o) by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    But my statement was "could"... I was not making predictions. I do know, though, that if it were MY insurance, I would not say something like that on TV.

  183. More on crackpot conspiracy theories by Vexorian · · Score: 1

    2008-3 = 2005.

    In all seriousness, why is it it took ~4 years for this study to actually get started? IMHO you got to thank the crackpot conspiracy theorists, if it wasn't for them this whole thing would have never been explained...

    --

    Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
  184. By the way... there weren't any. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    The official Government story is that there was "no loss of life" in or around building 7.

    So to which dead firefighters do you refer? The ones witnesses said they had to step over in the lobby? Government says they did not exist.

    1. Re:By the way... there weren't any. by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Fine, changed 'died needlessly' to 'risked their lives needlessly'.

      It still requires the NYFD to be in on the attack in advance.

      Which still requires them to have deliberately killed or allowed to be killed 343 firefighters in the other buildings.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  185. Re:Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth respons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With these 9/11 truth junkies, it's usually "Occam's Razor in, Complete Gibberish about demolitions teams out."

    None of these idiots seem to notice the fact that every building that is improperly imploded shows the same "blasting" as accordioning internal structure causes supersonic wind blowing out of the structure, bringing dust with it.

  186. You can build it, but it sure ain't cost-effective by Behrooz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If a structure doesn't have to be cost-effective or inhabitable, you can build almost anything with concrete. The most prominent example of this phenomenon is the 105-story Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang.

    Not inhabitable, certainly not cost-effective, but it is over a thousand feet of concrete structure and interesting in a creepy way.

    Cue the "In Communist North Korea, concrete builds you!" jokes.

    --
    "We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
  187. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  188. Re:Mission Accomplished by growse · · Score: 1

    Fair point :)

    --
    There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
  189. Re:Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth respons by opencity · · Score: 1

    > The science is clearly on the side of those who wish to expose the truth about 9/11.

    Except you can't make science up as you go along. Yeah, yeah, I know, someone saw an old man with mutton chops singing 'hunka hunka burning steel ... ' while dancing on the pile. Somebody heard something weird, too. Read their stuff. Makes less sense than the official version.

    --
    Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
  190. Why don't you watch the damned thing and see? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Are you asking me to do your homework for you? Just go out to YouTube and find the videos! It should take you all of about 30 seconds to do the search.

    1. Re:Why don't you watch the damned thing and see? by growse · · Score: 1

      Repeat after me:

      "Youtube is not a reliable source of information. Anyone is free to make shit up and post it there. Youtube is not a reliable...."

      --
      There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
  191. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    Here, let me put it in perspective for you: If you have a human pyramid of 6 people(3 on bottom, 2 in the middle, 1 on top) and you knock over the top person one of the people below it might also "collapse" with them

    Yes you will, but this action will run out of energy pretty quickly, and will stop pretty quickly, and won't result in a cascade to the rest of the structure - unless the rest of the structure is completely unsound or has been made unsound in some way.

    Now build a human pyramid consisting of 55 people(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10) and make the row 3rd from the top collapse. There you have 6 people(1+2+3) falling on 4 people, there will likely be a collapse of the 4 people which will then be 10 people falling on the row of 5......and so on until all 55 people are on the ground.

    This is a bogus argument, because the reason why this structure collapses is because a structure of a pyramid of people is unsound from the top to the bottom. It doesn't collapse because of the momentum of a collapse in the top half. If you tried to do this to the pyramid of Giza, bugger all would happen apart from a collapse of the top part of it. Using a pyramid as an example is also bogus, because there is less on the floor above than on the floor below. If you had an inverted pyramid, you might have a point, but you don't.

    Now that is what happens if it's a pyramid, so if it were a straight vertical tower of people, if the 3rd row of people fell, then the 2 rows above them will also fall making the 4th row have to withstand far more momentum.

    No, this would not happen at all. It doesn't pick up momentum. It actually loses energy and speed as it goes until it stops. I have never seen an increase in the weight of debris accelerating a collapse beyond the fall of gravity.

    If you know anything about the people who break bricks in martial arts by putting a little space between each brick so that the momentum of the bricks above them will help break the ones below them

    You'd have to have one extremely and dangerously unsound structure for this to be feasible and have any bearing, and even then, it would still be difficult because all the debris compacts into each other.

    Sorry bro, I know you want to believe but this was just pure physics and there were no explosions HEARD when it happened.

    I'm not sure what you think I want to believe, and I'm not interested in any explosions at all. I'm simply talking about how the mechanics of a collapse actually happens.

    If you believe these physics are true then feel free to present your findings at a demolition conference somewhere. The industry will slash their costs like there's no fucking tomorrow!

  192. Re:Mission Accomplished by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you didn't do metallurgy in college, then you have no idea what you're talking about.

    That's right, because college is the ONLY place you can learn about something.

  193. I should have added... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Yes, probability is just that. My point was that when considering what might have actually happened, it behooves one to judge which is MORE LIKELY, given the best evidence.

    My assertion is that all this being coincidence is probably about as likely as losing Rio de Janeiro tomorrow to an asteroid sent down by bugs... that is to say: not.

  194. Re:Mission Accomplished by evilviper · · Score: 1

    I heard Schwarzenegger commenting how he 'saw the steel melted by fire' when that San Francisco bridge collapse happened a couple years ago.

    I have no doubt the Governator saw mangled steel, that was damaged by the fire (either directly or indirectly). The fact that he, an actor and politician, attempted to convey the point with incorrect technical terminology does not surprise me in the slightest. Neither do I think either an expert or an average person would take the word of a politician on technical issues, so I can't see how his comment would further a conspiracy to convince anyone of anything.

    Sorry. I was there and I heard the explosions.

    *sigh*

    I've head from several people who were there, and reported seeing "a small plane" (presumably propeller driven--ie. a Cesna) crash into the first tower.

    I also heard from former pilot who was there, and, 5 minutes after witnessing it, recognized the errant plane in question as a jumbo jet, and even went as far as making an (correct) educated guess that it was likely a Boeing 767.

    So... you heard explosions. Are you an explosives expert? Would an explosives expert, who witnessed the destruction of the towers, report hearing explosions? Or would he, instead, identify hearing loud noises, that did not sound anything like explosions to him?

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  195. Re:True enough. :o) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The owner said nothing about deliberately taking the building down. He discussed pulling the firefighters out. Even if you insist on the ridiculous use of 'pull' in a demolition context, it has nothing to do with explosive collapse.

  196. UK research: Exposed Steel Beams Withstand Fire by leftie · · Score: 1

    This is all from a UK grad student's thesis that's being hosted locally at a 9/11 research site...

    "...While admitting that fire test's such as ASTM E119 are conservative, they do not emphasize that such tests are very conservative. Here is a quote from [1].

    Steel beams in standard fire tests reach a state of deflections and runaway well below temperatures achieved in real fires. In a composite steel frame structure these beams are designed to support the composite deck slab. It is therefore quite understandable that they are fire protected to avoid runaway failures. The fire at Broadgate showed that this (runaway failure) didn't actually happen in a real structure. Subsequently, six full-scale fire tests on a real composite frame structure at Cardington showed that despite large deflections of structural members affected by fire, runaway type failures did not occur in real frame structures when subjected to realistic fires in a variety of compartments.

    So beams and columns that fail when tested according to ASTM E119 or (BS 476) do not fail when they are part of a larger (composite steel frame) structure, when subjected to the same conditions. In fact, experiments done in Britain to test this exact hypothesis, experienced no runaway failure at all. Here is a quote from [2].

    The Broadgate Phase 8 fire is probably the most notable. This accidental fire happened during the Construction phase when the steel frame was only partially fire protected. Despite very high temperatures during the fully developed phase of the fire and considerable deflections in the composite slab there was no collapse. This initiated construction of an 8-storey composite steel frame at Building Research Establishment's (BRE's) large scale test facility in Cardington. Six fire tests were conducted, of varying size and configuration, to observe and ultimately explain why composite steel-framed structures adopt very large deflections during a fire but do not collapse.

    and a quote from [3].

    The Cardington frame fire tests and subsequent numerical modelling has shown that multi-storey steel-frame structures survive compartment fires when all the steel beams are unprotected, despite temperatures in the steel of > 1000ÂC...."

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/WTC_apndxA.htm

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/fire/SLamont.htm

  197. No, YOU repeat after ME... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    "A video that was originally on the goddamned 5 o'clock news cannot be faked by conspiracy theorists! It was made by the NEWS organization, and seen live by THE PUBLIC! Fakers would be caught at their fakery within 5 minutes!"

    Jeez, guy, you will have to do a lot better than that. Have you even TRIED to look at the actual videos yet? I am betting no.

    1. Re:No, YOU repeat after ME... by growse · · Score: 1

      Videos? Plural?

      I've seen the original BBC broadcast. I don't know what other video you're referring to?

      --
      There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
    2. Re:No, YOU repeat after ME... by terjeber · · Score: 1

      A video that was originally on the goddamned 5 o'clock news cannot be faked

      It wasn't faked. It was a mistake. A single persons mistake. Simple as that. Don't attribute to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence.

      Again, this was documented many years ago, why don't you get your information from something with a little higher quality of service?

  198. Sorry, I need enough points for a mug... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Let's leave McCain out of this one.

    You can't do that to him! He was a POW!

    He survived after crashing _5_ planes! You'd be a zombie too, after that!

  199. That doesn't make sense. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0, Troll

    So what if it is ALSO used to mean something else? It was NOT used in that "other" context! He said they decided to "pull", then he said that they watched the building collapse. They did NOT "pull" the building down (the other context that has been mentioned). And he knew that. So... he could not have meant it that way, could he?

  200. Please see my correction elsewhere. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    I retract the statement about the "radio station". What actually happened was that witnesses (more than one) outside the building reported that an emergency worker's radio was giving a countdown that coincided to the building's collapse.

    If anything, that is even more telling.

    1. Re:Please see my correction elsewhere. by Jesrad · · Score: 1

      That story about witnesses reporting a countdown on the workers' radio was completely made up by one of my Discordian friends - who can feel quite proud it propagated so well ! As for the parts *I* made up that propagated... well, I'm not telling.

      --
      Maybe we deserve this world ?
  201. Re:Really? by shmlco · · Score: 1

    "... failed to mention that neither was impacted by anything with the amount of force that the airliner that hit the WTC did."

    Yeah, steel and concrete and other debris falling from the collapse of a 110 story building has almost no force whatsoever...

    --
    Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
  202. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >>I mean, that statement of yours is ignorant on levels no man should ever reach.

    >That's a bold claim. Why exactly?

    Cause if I break your knee, you will fall if you can't support your weight with one knee. If there are 110 of you and #30 from the top has his knee broken, he and everyone above him falls on #31 from the top and if he's unable to support that weight then he falls as well and #32, who isn't much more likely going to support the weight any more than #31 so he collapses. Do we really need to spoon feed this stuff to you or are you simply trolling?

  203. ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by leftie · · Score: 1

    link...
    http://www.ae911truth.org/

    Not witch doctors for 9/11 truth. Not Pentecostal Ministers for 9/11 tongues.

    ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth.

    1. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by opencity · · Score: 1

      Nothing new there. My personal favorite:

      >Chemical signature of Thermate (high tech incendiary) found in slag, solidified molten metal, and dust samples by Physics professor Steven Jones, PhD.

      Whose last media bubble was cold fusion. Who has 'proven' the controlled demolition in a paper he wrote but won't let anyone see.

      You guys just can't accept that it was a bunch of underfunded misguided wanna be holy warriors who weren't white. It had to be big omnipotent evil white men. Except these guys couldn't dummy WMD or manage a press conference during Katrina (assuming the finger is pointed that way). And you're being pumped up by people who don't want you looking at the real stuff around the WTC collapse or Iraq war.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    2. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by leftie · · Score: 1

      I don't see you responding with any scientific evidence at all to dispute the findings. I see you calling people names.

      That's a logical fallacy called an ad hominem.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

    3. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by opencity · · Score: 1

      Hey a wikipedia link. Deep.

      There's nothing on the website that hasn't been refuted by people with more knowledge then me (see, for instance, the comments section of this post). At least as far as I can tell from a glance. Sorry.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    4. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by leftie · · Score: 1

      Wrong.

      You like many other critics keep claiming someone else has or will come along with evidence that dispute the scientific research being posted at websites like Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth, but that scientific research never shows up in discussion like this.

      Stop talking about all the evidence you claim you have that will back the official conspiracy theory. Either present that evidence or stop making such claims.

    5. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      You ever think that maybe, just maybe, some of those guys are bad engineers? Also, architects don't really know shit about buildings. Yeah, they design them and come up with really interesting looking structures, as well as plan out how they can arrange the insides and where they want a bathroom. An engineer is the one who makes all the calculations so that the architects design can actually be built. Sorry, but architects only have *opinions* about building collapse.

    6. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by leftie · · Score: 1

      -Is the name of the website "Only Architects, and no Engineers for 9/11 Truth."

      No, huh.

      It's Architects AND Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

      The Engineers are working in their field of expertise, the architects theirs.

      Really bad attempt on your part to try to pretend engineers aren't involved in the process.

      ----

      -And no, I don't think they are "bad engineers." In fact, I think they must be incredibly talented engineers, because the work they have done for Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has withstood bad attempts to discredit it by those who promote the official conspiracy theory for years now.

    7. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      Chemical signature of Thermate (high tech incendiary) found in slag, solidified molten metal, and dust samples by Physics professor Steven Jones, PhD.

      Seriously?

      They are worse off than I thought.

      If you are wondering why, those "Thermate signatures" aren't "Thermate signatures" at all.

    8. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by opencity · · Score: 1

      There's no science on that site:

      Rapid onset - give me a break.
      Pyroclastic clouds - are they a band?
      Tons of molten metal? Some guy with mutton chops singing 'hunka hunka burning steel'?
      Stephen Jones - PhD: 'I've written a paper proving everything but I have to keep it secret.'

      It's either meaningless psuedo science with some big words, some guy saw / heard something weird or some demolition 'professional' saw some video tape and decided. All the same babble you characters keep repeating to each other.

      But, as pointed out, it's like arguing intelligent design: You've already decided.
      If somebody has a scientific analysis, with like numbers and stuff, that supports your claims they would have probably posted it somewhere by now. They don't.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    9. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by opencity · · Score: 1

      Except read the 'engineers' credentials. Can you say paper thin? And these so called 'engineers' (hey, it's the internet, anyone can be whoever - I'm a famous comic book artist!!) don't present any scientific analysis - they just say: 'I've decided ...' and or descend into political analysis. Pyrocastic flow ?!? - give it a rest already.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    10. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by leftie · · Score: 1

      Now you're just flinging feces hoping some fabrication or insult will stick.

      Bad form.

    11. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by opencity · · Score: 1

      Not at all dude. Point out any actual science on any page. I'll happily admit I missed it and investigate.
      But please not pyrocastic (sp?) flow which sounds cool but isn't relevant.

      You see, I live in Manhattan and have been over this a lot for years now. There is sketchy stuff around 9/11 but any investigation is only confused by bad pseudo science.

      So, basically, put up or shut up.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    12. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by leftie · · Score: 1

      Extremely high temperatures during the World Trade Center destruction
      Steven E. Jones1, Jeffrey Farrer2, Gregory S. Jenkins3, Frank Legge4, James Gourley, Kevin Ryan,
      Daniel Farnsworth, and Crockett Grabbe5.
      1 S&J Scientific Co., Provo, Utah
      2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
      3 Physics Department, University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland
      4 Logical Systems Consulting, Perth, Western Australia
      5 Department of Physics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
      Abstract
      In an effort to better understand the conditions that led to complete collapses of the World Trade Center
      Towers and WTC 7, we apply scanning-electron-microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray
      spectroscopy (XEDS) methods to analyze the dust generated, with an emphasis on observed micro-spheres
      in the WTC dust. The formation of molten spheres with high iron contents along with other species in the
      WTC dust required extremely high temperatures. Our results are compared with those of other laboratories.
      The temperatures required for the molten sphere-formation and evaporation of materials as observed in the
      WTC dust are significantly higher than temperatures associated with the burning of jet fuel and office
      materials in the WTC buildings.
      1. Introduction
      The events of 9/11/2001 were tragic and at the same time remarkable in their physical aspects, such as the
      completeness and rapidity of collapse of three skyscrapers and the large volume of fine toxic dust
      generated. In order to better understand these events, we obtained and examined two independent dust
      samples acquired very soon after 9/11/2001. The provenance of the two samples analyzed for this paper is
      described in the appendix. It is worth emphasizing that both of the samples were collected indoors and
      shortly after the 9/11/2001 event. One sample was collected on an indoor window sill on 9/14/2001, just
      three days after the disaster while searching for survivors in the rubble was ongoing, and in a building four
      blocks from ground zero. The other sample was acquired inside a fourth-floor apartment (whose upper
      windows broke during the WTC collapse) a few days later. We sought for samples acquired very soon
      after the collapses in order to drastically reduce any chance of contamination by clean-up operations (see
      Appendix). Furthermore, as we shall see, samples independently collected by other researchers corroborate
      the high-temperature indicators we observe.
      2. Methods
      A FEI XL30-SFEG scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with an EDAX Genesis X-ray energy
      dispersive spectrometry (XEDS) system was used to acquire XEDS spectra. A silicon detector (SiLi) with
      resolution better than 135 eV was used. The display resolution was set to 10 eV per channel. The operating
      conditions for the dust analyses were 20 keV, and 60-120 second acquisition time (livetime). The samples
      were analyzed at a 10 millimeter working distance and were mounted on carbon conductive tabs. Optical
      examination of the dust samples was conducted using a stereomicroscope (Nikon Epiphot 200) having a
      magnification range from 10-200X .
      3. Results
      We found an abundance of tiny solidified droplets roughly spherical in shape (spherules) in the WTC dust
      samples as shown in figure 1 (optical microscope) and figure 2 (Scanning Electron Microscope).

      The spherules found in the WTC dust were predominately iron-rich (appearing metallic) and silicates
      (appearing glassy under an optical microscope). We observed spherules in a wide range of diameters, from
      about 1 micron to 1.5 mm. Figures 3 -5 provide X-ray energy dispersive spectra for observed iron-rich
      spherules from the WTC dust.

      Figure 3. XEDS spectrum for a typical metal-rich spherule, observed in sample 1.
      K and L lines for noted elements are labeled. Elemental contents in atomic percent
      are approximately: O (63), Si (14), Fe (11), Al (9), K (1), Mg (0.4), Na (0.4), Ni
      (0.3) and S (0.2); the

    13. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by leftie · · Score: 1

      So what you're telling is YOU'RE scientifically illiterate and you never should have joined in this discussion. You can't participate in the discussion when you comprehend basic scientific vocabulary.

      Oh, and the link to the Jones paper has been on the thread in several places, but I'll post it again...

      http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf

    14. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by opencity · · Score: 1

      Interesting but proves nothing.

      As far as I can tell this analysis assumes that the maximum heat attained is the burning fuel which is not necessarily the case. Specifically the physical collapse and compression could create pockets of higher heat.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    15. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by opencity · · Score: 1

      Not at all. I claim no false credentials - which is very easy to do on the internet - but I'm not at all scientifically illiterate. And I really like certain sciences and don't like seeing them abused. I can, however, actually do a lot of the maths. So why won't S. Jones PhD publish his paper where other PhDs can look at it? It's called peer review. If memory serves, the one Prof who did look at it in private called it flawed.

      There is no reasonable discussion with you truthies. It's like your feelings are hurt that people won't sign up. And like the IDers and paper moon types when one of your arguments is disproved (and in many cases ridiculed) you move the goal posts and or change the subject.

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
    16. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by leftie · · Score: 1

      Effects of possible compression were minimal

      As you can plainly see in this picture...

      http://www.waarheid911.nl/wtc2collapse.jpg

      At the instant of collapse, debris was being blown out of site of collapse at a high rate of speed.

      As can be seen from in every single picture one looks at of the collapse, the direction of the energy of the event was out and away from the area of collapse as it moved down the length of the WTC buildings... ... like a series of... wait for it... explosions.

    17. Re:ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS for 9/11 Truth by opencity · · Score: 1

      Nonsense. On a couple of different levels.

      Look, let's just let it rest. If you guys can hang this all on the Bushies and put them in handcuffs I'll genuinely enjoy the turn of events and it'll be great TV. Frankly I think it's a dead end and if you want to investigate look at the flight school and the FBI agent pulled off the case (I don't find the stand down suspicious, just incompetent). I don't think you'll find a smoking gun but I could be wrong.

      NRN this thread is closed

      --
      Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
  204. Has slashdot gone establishment press? by Herschel+Cohen · · Score: 1

    RE: "Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere ..."

    I am not wedded to particular explanations, however, the recent certainty of government explanations that are later proved to be fatally flawed only to be followed by another propagated with the same level of certainty leave me skeptical of all official pronouncements.

    While I think the National Institute of Standards was a class outfit, since the "Reagan Revolution" scientific studies have not been immune to political interference. Moreover, when more than one explanation can explain the observations the simplest is usual given the greater weight. Three years sounds a bit too much time and effort to create another, albeit more complex explanation for an unlikely coincidence leading to a weird physical outcome. An asymmetric heat source left unattended could still bring down a building vertically? That results in a symmetric final failure mode brought together by the happenstance of low probability set of failures. Truly astounding, if it really happened that way.

    On principle, I have qualms about accepting these findings on little more than blind faith from sources that have proven to be unreliable.

    I worry too that the one and only anthrax terrorist has been found and explained (via leaks) to the most credulous and receptive types, i.e. the establishment press corps. I would prefer the skeptical scientific types with relevant skills to evaluate the evidence. Moreover, when you see a key element blown one day to be replaced the next without mention the first was bogus (Washington Post, http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/18/anthrax/), I think we all should give a hearing to the supposed crackpots. I no longer trust anything said or supported by the "realists" and their unlimited credulity to all official explanations. I bring this up, because they too (the establishment press) attack conspiracy theorists, that fail to see the truth as easily as they.

  205. Re:This is getting boring... 911 _was_ an inside j by BrentH · · Score: 1

    Are you Alex Jones?

  206. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    Cause if I break your knee, you will fall if you can't support your weight with one knee.

    Yer, because the weight and mass above is greater than the weight and mass below and will fall over because it has reached a tipping point. Obviously. However, the weight will not collapse the leg below my knee into a pulp into the floor. Everything above the knee will fall over and leave at least the foot relatively intact.

    If there are 110 of you and #30 from the top has his knee broken, he and everyone above him falls on #31 from the top and if he's unable to support that weight then he falls as well and #32, who isn't much more likely going to support the weight any more than #31 so he collapses.

    The momentum and energy of that collapse dissipates and slows as each person collapses until the collapse stops because there is less of you at the top than there is below. You'll be unlucky if more than half of that structure isn't left. However, since you're talking about a structure of people then it's all rather null and void, isn't it?

    Do we really need to spoon feed this stuff to you or are you simply trolling?

    I am astonished that this is the level of pure bile we're getting on Slashdot these days. If the above were the case then the demolition industry is wasting its money.

  207. So, add this money to... by wimg · · Score: 1

    What's the point of spending millions to find out why exactly a building right next to the WTC came down on 9/11 ?
    Add this money to the billions the US spends each month on an unending war and you can see why the US economy is going down.
    Maybe it's time America started focusing on its own people a little more, instead of pretending to be 'the greatest country in the world', while at the same time having more and more people being poorer than most people in former Eastern Europe.

    1. Re:So, add this money to... by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      What's the point of spending millions to find out why exactly a building right next to the WTC came down on 9/11 ?

      To improve future building designs.

      Maybe it's time America started focusing on its own people a little more, instead of pretending to be 'the greatest country in the world', while at the same time having more and more people being poorer than most people in former Eastern Europe.

      Yeah, those bread-lines at Walmart are getting ridiculous, and a few years down the road, poor people might even have to start selling-off their plasma TV's. It's horrible!

  208. Re:here's some science for you. by domanova · · Score: 2, Informative

    I did the sum in reply. I think your response is more satisfying; at least I got a smile out of it instead of...oh, horror at people's ability to quote technical from a basis of complete ignorance.
    As it happens, a lot of this sort of stuff is answered quite gently in the NIST's FAQ
    But that would require reading

    --
    Down with categorical imperatives
  209. D-Day & A-bomb: HUGE successful conspiracies by leftie · · Score: 1

    The Invasion of Normandy proves that large conspiracies can be kept secret. England was known to be crawling with German spies in WW2, yet the Nazis never found out the correct location of the invasion target... Normandy. Matter of fact, the commander of Axis forces at the Atlantic Wall, Rommel (one of Hitlers best generals) was so sure nothing was going to happen in the near future, he left his command to visit his wife and son and was not able to be at his HQ the morning of the invasion.

    Several days after the invasion, Rommel was still so sure the primary invasion was coming at Calais, he withheld his best Panzer units away from the Normandy Peninsula.

    As far as conspiracies within the US, how the Manhattan Project. We blew up a freakin' nuclear weapon in New Mexico, and nobody knew about it for years! We built a whole city nobody knew about too.

  210. A few points on WTC7 by Front+Line+Assembly · · Score: 1

    Some points about WTC7:

    - NIST proved that according to our current understanding of physics its was possible for the building to come down without explosives due to the fires. This doesn't mean that this is 100% sure what happened, but it is dumb to scream "no way was it possible" after this if you have any belief in out physics. So, it was physically possible
    - NIST showed that using explosives to bring the building down would not have matched what we saw when the building collapsed. No broken windows from the pressure wave, no explosive sounds of the required magnitude (before the fall)

    Some points about "truther" theories
    - The collapse didn't look anything like a CD. Sure from the moment the building started to collapse it did, but that's becuase in CD:s gravity also brings down the building. But no CD like explosions and flying debris and "squibs" were seen (before the collapse). Check this video (watch it fully or after about 2:30 you see CD:s). Tell me in what way is this similar to the WTC7 collapse: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2873871255585611926
    - I haven't seen anywhere any calculations, models, tests or anything about how explosives would have been used. That is only now by NIST, but the truther side hasn't provided these. How muchch explosives? Where and how were they placed?
    - Then there is thermite/thermate. I don't know why the truth-movement has clinged to this stuff. Anyways, show me some models or tests how you would cut vertical steel beams with this stuff. No such info has yet been produced. And these guys ridicule NIST for being slow? Yes, sulphur was found at the site, big surprise...

    So the truhter side only likes to try to shred to pieces other people's work, but they have yet to produce one single scientific publication, or any other paper which hasn't been thoroughly dismissed by the scientific community.
    Why is this? If they have all the answers why is it so hard to produce anything? No papers, tests, models, nothing. Just shouting "false flag!" like that proves eveyrthing. Oh I forgot, they only have questions...
    One fool can ask more questions than 100 people can answer.

    1. Re:A few points on WTC7 by wudukes · · Score: 1

      http://www.ae911truth.org/ -- answer to all your questions.

  211. Didn't anybody read the report? by Animats · · Score: 2, Informative

    I actually read the report, which is quite interesting. This is the first time ever that a major high-rise building has totally collapsed from fire alone.

    First, the biggest problem was that the fire sprinklers for the lower floors lost their water supply after the WTC1 collapse, which took out the city water main. The upper floor sprinklers were fed from tanks high in the building, and they were able to contain the fires on upper floors. The firefighters had to abandon the building because they didn't have a water supply.

    The building had surprisingly little structural redundancy. The loss of one key interior column was enough to trigger a progressive collapse. The beams between columns were too long and not heavy enough to provide structural redundancy.

    Fuel storage wasn't a factor. Paper storage and the use of open-plan bullpens was a much bigger issue. With more interior walls, the fire would have spread more slowly.

    The building was built on top of a sizable power substation, but that didn't affect the fire. Nor did the basement-level fuel tanks for emergency generators. Only the small "day tanks" on higher floors fed the fire, and they weren't that big.

    The recommendations in the report are surprisingly weak. They're not recommending any building code changes that would have prevented the WTC7 collapse. They're not recommending backup water supplies for sprinklers, for example. If there'd been some emergency arrangement through which the fire pumps could have drawn water from the nearby Hudson River, the building would have survived.

    Emergency water supply in fires is a huge issue. In the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, the fire-fighting water supply for parts of the city was lost, despite a system that was supposed to be triply redundant. SF has a main water supply, an emergency system with a mountaintop tank, and cisterns under some key intersections. The main system was knocked out by the quake. The emergency system failed because some mains broke, and there was nobody on duty at the valve house at the tank to turn the valves to cut off the broken mains, so the tank drained out. (Due to a budget cut, that job was unstaffed. For seventy years, there'd been people at the tank on standby, with nothing to do until the next quake.) The cistern system had never been extended to the Marina district, so that backup was unavailable. However, there was yet another backup - SF fire trucks have suction hoses and pumps for use with those cisterns, and a few trucks were able to get to the edge of the Bay and suck in salt water. By stringing enough hoses together, they were able to deliver water to the fires.

  212. I have proof Jim Henson did it by scourfish · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you Buy Fraggle Rock, Season 2 on DVD and watch episode 36, titled "The Doozer Contest," you will find, about 3 and a half minutes in, Flange saying "Look the Fraggles are Destroying the North Tower" and then all of the Doozers Cheer. If you don't believe that this is proof positive that Jim Henson was behind the events of September 11th, then you are a disinformation agent and a muppet of the shadow government.

  213. And? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Other videos have been mentioned in this thread.

    But... so you watched the video. Do you still assert that it is a fake? Something that was aired live to millions of viewers?

    If would be extremely easy show that it was altered, if it really were. Just compare the recording to the one BBC archives. But of course that would be a waste of time. It would have been noticed by some of those viewers long ago.

    1. Re:And? by growse · · Score: 1

      I don't understand what you're getting at? I'm not saying that any specific video on youtube is a fake. I'm not disputing that the BBC reported a factual inaccuracy. I'm saying that youtube usually isn't an authoritative source on anything and that the BBC made a mistake in not checking information that they were given.

      I'm going to stop saying things now, because it's a waste of my time and I need to sleep.

      --
      There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
  214. Look at the Report Itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I am posting anonymously because I believe the moderating in this forum is unreasonably biased against those who question the official explanation of the WTC collapses, myself among them. I fully support having a new, independent investigation of the WTC collapses, rather than the federal investigations we've had to date. I thought I would include the following quotes directly from the NIST Report which I find interesting and relevant to some of the discussions here.

    This was the first known instance of the total collapse of a tall building primarily due to fires. (p. xxxi)

    WTC 7 was unlike the WTC towers in many respects. It was a more typical tall building in the design of its structural system. It was not struck by an airplane. The fires in WTC 7 were quite different from those in the towers. Since WTC 7 was not doused with thousands of gallons of jet fuel, large areas of any floor were not ignited simultaneously. Instead, the fires in WTC 7 were similar to those that have occurred in several tall buildings where the automatic sprinklers did not function or were not present. These other buildings did not collapse, while WTC 7 succumbed to its fires. (p. xxxi)

    ...Only the fires on Floors 7-9 and 11-13 grew and lasted until the time of the building collapse. These uncontrolled fires had characteristics similar to those that have occurred previously in tall buildings. Their growth and spread were consistent with ordinary building contents fires. (p. xxxii)

    The reader should keep in mind that the building and the records kept within it were destroyed, and the remains of all the WTC buildings were disposed of before congressional action and funding was available for this Investigation to begin. (p. 13)

    The initiating local failure that began the probable WTC 7 collapse sequence was the buckling of Column 79. This buckling arose from a process that occurred at temperatures at or below approximately 400 deg. C (750 deg. F), which are well below the temperatures considered in current practice for determining fire resistance ratings associated with significant loss of steel strength. (p. 19)

    Note Figure 3-14. Buckling of the lower exterior columns... (p. 38)

    Once simulation of the global collapse of WTC 7 was underway, there was a great increase in the uncertainty in the progression of the collapse sequence, due to the random nature of the interaction, break up, disintegration, and falling of the debris... The details of the progression of the horizontal failure and final global collapse were increasingly less precise. Thus, while the two predictions of the time of descent of the west penthouse also straddled the observed time, the mechanisms of building collapse were quite different... The kink and rotation of the northeast facade occurred 2 to 3 s after the exterior facade had begun to move downward, as a result of the global collapse. The simulations do show the formation of the kink, but any subsequent movement of the building is beyond the reliability of the physics in the model. (p. 40)

    Yet, in the summary at the end of the report:

    Computer simulations of the fires, the thermal heating of the structure, the thermally induced damage to the structure, and the structural collapse can be used to predict a complex degradation and collapse of a building. The overall features and timing of the prediction were consistent with the videographic evidence. (p. 51)

  215. And now for something completely different by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Knock-knock

    Who's there?

    Nine-eleven.

    Nine-eleven who?

    YOU SAID YOU WOULD NEVER FORGET!

  216. That is irrelevant. YouTube was NOT the source! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    If your statements are correct, then you have been wasting everybody's time, not just your own.

    You clearly stated, as if it were a mantra, "YouTube is not a reliable source of information." The implication is obviously that any video on YouTube is inherently unreliable. Many might be... but not in this case, because it was a news show seen live by millions of people.

    The actual source was a reputable news organization, and there is very good reason to believe that the video has not been altered in any way.

    As for your assertion that the BBC "made a mistake", you are still missing the point. How likely is it that they made that particular mistake at that particular time? The idea that it was just "coincidence", that they had all that exact information minutes before it happened, is just not likely enough to be believable. The idea that they were given this information and aired it prematurely is MUCH more likely.

    None of the offerred scenarios are impossible. But which is more likely? Coincidence is not on the top of the list.

    1. Re:That is irrelevant. YouTube was NOT the source! by notrandomly · · Score: 1
      He never claimed that the video was fake. He said that "the BBC made a mistake in not checking information that they were given".

      And I notice you are pulling that old creationist argument: "I can't believe it happened, it's so unlikely, it didn't happen!"

  217. Doesn't matter. Jet fuet doesn't burn hot enough by leftie · · Score: 1

    It wouldn't matter if the entire south end of Manhattan Island was submerged in jet fuel, ignited, and allowed to burn for weeks. The steel structures of the high rise buildings would emerge relatively intact.

    Jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to damage the framework of steel frame buildings.

    -------

    "While admitting that fire test's such as ASTM E119 are conservative, they do not emphasize that such tests are very conservative. Here is a quote from [1].

    Steel beams in standard fire tests reach a state of deflections and runaway well below temperatures achieved in real fires. In a composite steel frame structure these beams are designed to support the composite deck slab. It is therefore quite understandable that they are fire protected to avoid runaway failures. The fire at Broadgate showed that this (runaway failure) didn't actually happen in a real structure. Subsequently, six full-scale fire tests on a real composite frame structure at Cardington showed that despite large deflections of structural members affected by fire, runaway type failures did not occur in real frame structures when subjected to realistic fires in a variety of compartments.

    So beams and columns that fail when tested according to ASTM E119 or (BS 476) do not fail when they are part of a larger (composite steel frame) structure, when subjected to the same conditions. In fact, experiments done in Britain to test this exact hypothesis, experienced no runaway failure at all. Here is a quote from [2].

    The Broadgate Phase 8 fire is probably the most notable. This accidental fire happened during the Construction phase when the steel frame was only partially fire protected. Despite very high temperatures during the fully developed phase of the fire and considerable deflections in the composite slab there was no collapse. This initiated construction of an 8-storey composite steel frame at Building Research Establishment's (BRE's) large scale test facility in Cardington. Six fire tests were conducted, of varying size and configuration, to observe and ultimately explain why composite steel-framed structures adopt very large deflections during a fire but do not collapse.

    and a quote from [3].

    The Cardington frame fire tests and subsequent numerical modelling has shown that multi-storey steel-frame structures survive compartment fires when all the steel beams are unprotected, despite temperatures in the steel of > 1000ÂC.

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/WTC_apndxA.htm

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/fire/SLamont.htm

  218. The missing 2000 gallons of diesel weigh 6 tonnes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's less mass than one single steel beam.

    The article fails completely to mention that sure buildings have been brought down by fire before, but never a skyscraper. And many skyscrapers have burnt uncontrolled for a much longer time than 3 hours.

    I await peer review of the FELT analysis.
    Don't forget a fully fuelled B17 crashed into a NY skycraper in 1945 and that building didn't fall down. (and that had 485 gallons of aviation fuel aboard).

    The two planes crashing into the main towers would have each had probably less than 25 tons of avaiation fuel aboard.

    I'm still sceptical until the math and facts the math is based on is peer reviewed mainly based on taking fuel and trying to bend steel. It takes a lot of fuel. If one single girder is 7 tons of steel, I'm having trouble seeing how 25 tons of aviation fuel (in normally aspirated fire it will burn at 285 degrees Celsius, very very far short of steel's melting 1500 degrees Celsius.
    Plus, the explosion would presumably have burnt a substantial amount of the fuel exterior to the building and therefore this energy wouldn't heat the beams.

    Still, lets get the paper peer reviewed, is there an equivalent for the Twin Towers? (I haven't heard of one).

    Until there is a plausible, peer reviewed scientific explanation for this, there will always be questions. This is the start of the time when doubt will be extinguished, not the end.

    And why did the building owner in the radio show refer to WTC7 being "pulled"?
    Still the math, once picked over, will be irrefutable.

  219. Re:This is getting boring... 911 _was_ an inside j by iMacGuy · · Score: 3, Funny

    That must be nice to have all the facts. Not like all those so-called experts, they don't know anything!

    --
    Why won't slashdot let me change my terrible username :(
  220. Building Cods Changed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have they changed building codes to ensure fires dont do this again?

  221. Re:Mission Accomplished by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm insulted that you don't trust rosey odonnell

  222. Re:This is getting boring... 911 _was_ an inside j by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    Having all the facts

    lol

    It's funny how the biggest fools in the world are always the ones who are utterly convinced that they're right.

  223. if all fuel was concentrated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then 2 billion BTUs is enough to melt 2000 tons of steel, or 300 girders.
    (energy to melt 1 ton of steel = 334 kilowatt hours = 1 139 655.31 BTU)

    However, there was a big fireball at the start (probably consuming at least many tons of fuel), the girders were supposed to be insulated, there would be sprinkler systems.

    Also, would this fuel still be burning 3 hours on?, would a lot of heat have been carried away?

    I still wonder how the pilots, many regarded very poorly by their teachers, could pull off the aerial gymnastics that they did, especially the Pentagon one.

    Anyway, we await the peer reviewed math model for WTC1 and 2.

  224. Re:But you are ignoring all the other circumstance by photonic · · Score: 1

    (describing the building my name, number, AND location)

    Further, emergency workers are on video telling bystanders to run because the building was about to "come down", and that (in so many words) that it was about to "blow up". This, well before it actually fell.

    This would all still be consistent with my scenario that they did expect WTC7 to collapse and that their was a misunderstanding between blowing up and collapsing. I am not claiming this is exactly what happened (we will never know), but in Mythbuster's words, it is a plausible scenario.

    Those are just a few among many such "coincidences" that make the fire theory just unbelievable.

    In your logic, the existence of an alternative theory makes the fire scenario less likely. This is false logic, since none of these 'facts' contradict the fire hypothesis. I don't see how one quote of a reporter/silverman is evidence that contradicts a simulation by NIST. Do read the report, i did and I liked it. It does explain in great detail how an uncontrolled fire can lead to structural weakening and an eventual collapse of the building. It will never be possible to determine how things happened exactly, but they describe a plausible scenario based on hard-core science. Denying this plausibility means you question the scientific integrity of some 50 experts of a highly respected institute. And as things works in science, you will need a consensus among people of similar qualification to counter their arguments, not just a single guy or some random amateur from the internet.

    I could agree with you that they didn't rule out the alternative theory (controlled demolition) enough, although they do a little in appendix D of the report. But you still didn't give me an alternative scenario that would include demolition. I will help you: first we need a suspect with a motive to blow the building up, i can only think of Al Qaida (but they already blew up WTC 1 and 2 with airplanes, why would they take the trouble to blow up a smaller building with a lot of effort), Silverstein (he needed the insurance money, but would he commit a crime for that?) or 'the goverment'/FBI/CIA (but why? to cover up what?). Then we need to know how they did it, especially how they managed to sneek explosives or thermite into the building without anyone seeing. We also need to know when, did they install them in the few hours on 9/11 while the building was evacuated and already on fire? You see, if you try to make a story you quickly run into some hard questions. I dare you to come up with a story that is as simple as the one I gave.

    --
    karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
  225. Re:Really? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    The Madrid building fire was also faught for many hours. The WTC7 fire was not.

    Funny how you get so picky when your theories are being contradicted, yet fail to mention relevant details which contradict you.

  226. The demolition of 3 WTC building WAS screwed up by leftie · · Score: 1

    The explosion of the 3 WTC buildings was screwed up. It was so badly screwed up millions of people that witnessed it knew it was government cover story was a LIE.

    16% of the American people think explosives brought down the WTC.

    Sounds like a pretty big screw up to me.

  227. Re:Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth respons by mctk · · Score: 1

    I would not recommend the crackpot option. That gets you hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh as a motherfucker.

    --
    Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
  228. Re:Really? by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This has been repeated often, and is utterly bogus. No demolition team has ever turned up on site and said "Oh, we'll burn five stories in the top half of this fifty storey building and it will collapse". Never happened. Why? Because there is nowhere near enough energy for those floors to collapse all the floors below them

    Why did you lie about not being a conspiracy theorist?

    Anyway, any structural engineer can tell you that you're full of shit. There's more than enough kinetic energy in a building like WTC7 to guarantee a complete collapse once the mass starts moving. The reason demolition teams normally get involved is simply because if you want a CONTROLLED demolition, you need to be careful about how you bring the building down. On the other hand, if you don't care about damaging half of Manhattan, you can just send in a midget with a sledgehammer.

  229. Re:FACT: It was a deliberate demolition. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    There is only one way in which buildings fall into small pieces and powder: They were deliberately demolished.

    You mean "small pieces" like these?
    http://www.debunking911.com/cstripped.jpg
    http://www.debunking911.com/columnd.jpg

    Apparently you're unaware that deliberately demolished buildings are largely destroyed by their own weight, after their structural integrity is broken with explosives?

  230. Yay, more logic! by Bromskloss · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's called affirming the consequent. It's not insightful, informative, or valuable in any way; it's a fallacy.

    I think your parent's reasoning is that regardless of whether the government is guilty or not, no government agency would say the government is guilty. Therefore, a government agency now saying the government is not guilty carries no information about the guilt of the government.

    More specifically, let G be "The government is guilty." and let A be "The investigating government agency says the government is guilty.". We assume that ~G=>~A, i.e., the agency will not blame the government if the government is innocent. We also assume that G=>~A, i.e., if the government is guilty, they will force the agency to cover it up. Under these assumptions, both G and ~G lead to ~A, so the fact that we observe ~A should be obvious and does not say anything about G.

    --
    Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
  231. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Why did you lie about not being a conspiracy theorist?

    Hmmmmm, yer. I just wonder who the conspiracy theorists are really.

    Anyway, any structural engineer can tell you that you're full of shit. There's more than enough kinetic energy in a building like WTC7 to guarantee a complete collapse once the mass starts moving.

    More than enough kinetic energy where, and what mass starts moving? In what way does this utterly meaningless and non-defined statement pertain to WTC 7 or any of the other buildings? If anything is full of shit, it's that. You can't start a fire and/or structurally destabilise the top few floors in a multi-storey building and have it completely collapse the whole building. Fact. The greater number of structurally sound floors below are more than enough to dissipate any energy and momentum of such a collapse unless you destabilise the floors below (or they are already destabilised) in some way so they respond weakly. Try this on any model that you might care to build. Seriously.

    The reason demolition teams normally get involved is simply because if you want a CONTROLLED demolition, you need to be careful about how you bring the building down.

    No shit?

  232. The real conspiracy isn't in the collapse. by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 1

    Governments lie, but this. . ?

    From the get go, the controlled demolition idea struck me as 'off' somehow. If the goal was to persuade the country into war, then a single airplane crashing into a single building would have been plenty of motivation. Heck, the sinking of one passenger ship, (the Lusitania) was enough to inspire the national outrage required to get the U.S. into WWI. A couple of gun boat attacks on American destroyers in the "Gulph of Tonkin incident", (half of which turned out to be a mistaken report which nobody denies) was enough to get the U.S. to jump into Vietnam. Coupled with the right level of media encouragement, a medium-sized disaster is all that is required. Four crashing airliners on 9-11 was more than spectacular enough to launch a war.

    So why go on to massively complicate things by planning a demolition of the three towers? The only two answers I've seen which suggest motive were the Silverstein profit gamble and the fact that WC7 housed a bunch of incriminating paperwork. But motive does not prove anything by itself; it has to be supported by evidence. --I've seen the Loose Change video and others, I've read all the arguments, and many of them raise clear and logical concerns. And I have gone over all the other evidence from the debunking side. They pretty much cancel one another out on the Twin Towers issue. --This is not to say that the debunkers are entirely rational. (The Popular Mechanics version of reality was perhaps one of the most arrogant, simple-minded and unconvincing.) Rather, it is the work of private individuals who put together the more rational arguments on the "natural collapse due to fire" side. (A good example of this is here.) --Though, even they offer up some pretty thinly-stretched and in my view, totally unnecessary ideas in their attempts to explain certain details. Indeed, everybody, on both sides, sport some pretty poor arguments. --But that's not a problem! All ideas, all questions and the attempts to answer them, the dialogue is entirely valid as people explore what happened on that day. All in all, it has been a spirited and very thoughtful debate with a lot of smart people contributing on both sides.

    My personal conclusions?

    1. Secretive portions of more than one government not only had foreknowledge, but actively strained against the well-intentioned systems in order to allow the attacks to take place, and indeed worked at certain levels to set various elements of it in place.

    2. There is plenty of photographic/video evidence of the steel structure deforming and falling down as a result of fire. The big argument against this is that jet fuel cannot create enough heat. However, there were plenty of other combustibles in the fire, not the least of which being the several dozen oxygen generator canisters the planes were equipped with. I've worked with an iron forge, and simple bio-carbons, like coal in a forge, or in the case of the buildings, furniture and paper and plastics, etc., when subject to a steady airflow like a bellows or high-altitude winds, is sufficient to create high enough temperatures to take steel past the point of structural integrity and even melt it. The "Never Before Has This Happened to a Steel Building" arguments are faulty on a number of levels, not the least of which being that it's not even properly accurate. There are however, as far as I have seen, a couple of unanswered questions remaining; the claims of mysterious construction being done and the removal of bomb-sniffing dogs and the shut-off of security systems in the week leading up to the event is curious to say the least. I wonder if perhaps there might not have been more than one effort involved in the events of 9-11 rather than that of a single unified group.

    3. WC7 is different question and it is less clear cut, but my impression after going over the many, once again valid questions raised by those suggesting that the building was

    1. Re:The real conspiracy isn't in the collapse. by Jack9 · · Score: 1

      I wholeheartedly agree with every point but #4. Either the plane crashed or they had to stash some people somewhere. Nobody is gonna waste the time to kill them on the ground and burn the bodies. Explain where they went.

      I remember watching the newscasters talking to a fire sergeant who said that #7 was going down at a specific time and no it wasn't being demo'd, and he wouldn't comment on why he knew when it was going down to the minute. Due to *hopefully* incompetence by NBC or whoever, that broadcast was "lost" or destroyed so it's really ironic how my opinions rely on first person experiences on this topic.

      --

      Often wrong but never in doubt.
      I am Jack9.
      Everyone knows me.
    2. Re:The real conspiracy isn't in the collapse. by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 1

      I wholeheartedly agree with every point but #4. Either the plane crashed or they had to stash some people somewhere. Nobody is gonna waste the time to kill them on the ground and burn the bodies. Explain where they went.

      The Pentagon took a fair bit of energy to really work my mind around. At first I was astounded that anybody could claim that anything but the airliner struck the building. It was clear that there were impact marks on the walls from wings. But witness testimony is inconsistent on the subject, and malleable given that in a state of shock, it is possible given the right cues to tell people what they saw and have it stick in the form of memory. One of the big items for me was that a pair of big jet engines would have made a pair of big holes, but there was only the single hole. There were many other weird bits and pieces surrounding that incident, flight recorders out of sync with the event, missing video, etc. Unlike with the WTC attacks, the explanations given for the significant questions I take seriously are, I found, nowhere nearly as sound or convincing.

      I don't see why it is unreasonable to think that in a plan to crash airliners and launch a war, there would be any hesitance in killing a few dozen passengers on the ground. It should be noted concerning any bodies recovered at the Pentagon, about which there is precious little information available, the DNA testing itself was done on a military base rather than in the public domain. I don't feel comfortable taking the military's word for what they found given that were there a deliberate attempt to stage the attacks, the military would have had a hand in it in the first place and therefore could not be trusted to be honest after the fact about any crimes they may have committed. We really have no idea what happens inside a military operation, and making sure people do not talk is much easier to achieve within such a system than it is in the public realm.

      When it comes to the plane parts pictured in the aftermath, it always struck me as odd that nobody has yet considered the possibility that pieces might have been loaded on to whatever craft was crashed into the Pentagon. --Assuming that the parts didn't come from the craft itself. Were I in charge of planning the incident, this would have been a fairly obvious ploy and would have certainly been on my list of preparations. --As would have been painting the appropriate colors and even false windows on the stage aircraft in order to create an effective illusion.

      -FL

    3. Re:The real conspiracy isn't in the collapse. by terjeber · · Score: 1

      4. The Pentagon was not hit by Flight 77. There was an appropriate time window and radar drop-out during which Flight 77 could have landed at the military airbase within its range and another craft brought into play.

      Then I have a simple question for you. The entire inside of the Pentagon was littered with airplane debris, including burned and charred bodies strapped in airplane seats. Where did that come from? Did the get people out of jail, strap them into airplane seats, shoot them and set fire to them to "simulate" an airplane crash into the Pentagon?

    4. Re:The real conspiracy isn't in the collapse. by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 1

      Then I have a simple question for you. The entire inside of the Pentagon was littered with airplane debris, including burned and charred bodies strapped in airplane seats.

      Airplane parts I can understand since I think an airplane of some kind struck the building. But the weird thing is that I've never seen any evidence of passenger's bodies at the Pentagon. I've barely even heard of any evidence of passenger's bodies at the Pentagon, and what I have heard is really thin. --Until, that is, the information stream resurfaces at the military DNA lab, where there are no pictures, but only official reporting. I know there is a level of respect which fire fighters show for the dead, but it still seems curious that we should have heard nothing at all.

      I do know there is at least one photo of charred remains floating around, but a cursory look hasn't turned it up again. In any case, I don't recall it being strapped into an airplane seat, so it is just as likely to have been one of the 125 office workers. . , (almost twice as likely actually, given the supposed jet carried 64 passengers and crew plus 5 supposed terrorists). Now, to be fair, I've not spent as much time focusing on the question of bodies as perhaps you have, so maybe my whole theory will fall apart with a simple link, but after nearly seven years of looking through stuff of this sort, it seems odd that so little should have surfaced. Do you have any useful links or pictures?

      -FL

    5. Re:The real conspiracy isn't in the collapse. by terjeber · · Score: 1

      Airplane parts I can understand since I think an airplane of some kind struck the building. But the weird thing is that I've never seen any evidence of passenger's bodies at the Pentagon

      I have never seen Neil Armstrong, neither have I seen Pluto. Doubting that Pluto exists and that Armstrong walked the moon is somewhat retarded though. The cool thing about living in the US is that things like trial evidence is public.

      Try this for wreckage, and this for something a lot more gruesome. Please beware, these pictures are not for the faint of heart.

      I know there is a level of respect which fire fighters show for the dead, but it still seems curious that we should have heard nothing at all.

      Hearing requires listening. Given the enormous amount of noise in our current information society, it also means filtering. Your problem is that your filters are failing and you are listening to what is just random bullshit noise and you think it is communication.

      Now, to be fair, I've not spent as much time focusing on the question of bodies as perhaps you have

      I haven't been "focused" on this at all. The case as such doesn't interest me all that much. It took me all of 1 minute to find the Moussaui images last night however.

      Oh, and you might think that I am posting a lot for someone who doesn't find 9/11 all that interesting, but please note that I am not posting about 9/11, I am posting about the fact that the general retardedness in the population is now at a level where we can elect G. W. Bush for president twice and people would rather believe harebrained conspiracy theories than good scientific evidence. That worries me a hell of a lot more than some insane towelheaded morons in a cave in Afghanistan.

    6. Re:The real conspiracy isn't in the collapse. by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the links, but I will say that you would benefit from adjusting your attitude. Ego games are selfish and people will refuse to accept what they are offered if the person offering is trying to 'win'; all progress slows to a painful crawl.

      Anyway, plane wreckage photos I've seen plenty of, and I do recall now seeing one or two of the burned body images some years ago, but they clearly didn't leave much impact.

      I don't see any of the bodies strapped into airplane seats. I see a couple of bodies at odd angles, not in rows, their clothes sort of fossilized, but no evidence of seat belt straps or buckles, --or airplane seats for that matter. One of the men looks rather like he is wearing work coveralls; possibly a maintenance staff member or contractor working in the building, which would be a reasonable thing to expect given the state of the section under construction at the time. The other burned fragments say little about where they came from. This doesn't really help illustrate anything about whether or not the government's story can be believed.

      I have never seen Neil Armstrong, neither have I seen Pluto. Doubting that Pluto exists and that Armstrong walked the moon is somewhat retarded though.

      I take your point, however, to be very blunt, the Pentagon is not on the Moon, and manipulating the American public into a war-for-profit doesn't hinge on the existence of Pluto. Indeed, there is plenty of excellent, peer-reviewed evidence for the existence of both Neil Armstrong's exploits and for Pluto; untold mountains of it all available for public review with no weird secrecy attached to it. The same cannot be said of the incidents which took place on 9-11. This is why people are asking questions and projecting theories. --You have expressed your frustration with the fact that the public seems to support GWB, so you probably already have some idea how reliable and honest a government he runs. Is it beyond question that he and his staff should perhaps not be considered honest and reliable in this case?

      Hearing requires listening. Given the enormous amount of noise in our current information society, it also means filtering. Your problem is that your filters are failing and you are listening to what is just random bullshit noise and you think it is communication.

      Ha ha. You are in a very poor position be making such bold assumptions about me. --In any case, as a point of note on filtering. . . While you have expressed disinterest in this subject, if for some reason you do decide to continue digging, I would suggest you do some research on that link to [rense.com] you provided. --The man behind that site is a liar, (claims a long career as a respected television journalist where there isn't one), he and those in alliance with him are confessed Christian apocalypse cultists and he has done some very strange and reprehensible things which lead many to consider him a COINTEL tool. I eventually found his site too much bother to pick through; it's hard enough to work out truth from fiction without there being agendas running in the background and deliberately misleading information sown into the product.

      I haven't been "focused" on this at all. The case as such doesn't interest me all that much.

      I am sure you have your reasons, but I always ask: "Why not?" --If the results of that case are not currently shaping your life, they will be soon enough. For my part, I like to know the 'what' and 'why' behind the 'is'.

      -FL

    7. Re:The real conspiracy isn't in the collapse. by terjeber · · Score: 1

      you would benefit from adjusting your attitude.

      Why? I am not a very nice person. I don't like nice people. In short, I am a prick and I don't want or need to change. People need to stop listening to religious nutcases though.

      the Pentagon is not on the Moon, and manipulating the American public into a war-for-profit doesn't hinge on the existence of Pluto

      Ah, but you see, the Pentagon doesn't need to, neither could they pull off, a stunt like this. The American population would have supported an invasion of Belgium in 2003 simply because he vast majority of the American population, as with populations everywhere, are utterly retarded. Trying to do something like 9/11 has a huge risk to it, and the benefit is significantly lower.

      The American population fully supported the first war in Iraq, and all that was needed was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US on TV pretending she was a nurse that had witnessed Iraqi soldiers killing babies in incubators during the Iraqi operation in Kuwait. Hook, line and sinker, and Bush Sr. was allowed to go to war. The incubator story was bullshit, but a hesitant Congress bought it and so did the American population. It took a couple of weeks for the story to get out but at that point in time nobody cared and war was given. Another invasion could easily be justified with another Cole-like incident.

      The people in Pentagon are not the smartest people i the world. If they were they would have gotten jobs in the private sector (which pays a hell of a lot more to really smart people). They are public servants and they neither have the balls, the brains or the capability to pull off something on this scale.

      If the results of that case are not currently shaping your life, they will be soon enough.

      That event stopped shaping things some time in late 2003. The main thing currently shaping events in the US is the fact that the vast majority of the population, even a solid majority of university educated people, are more willing to believe in fairy tales and flim-flam than in logic and rational thought. That is scary. That will have a lasting impact on this society. Bush and friends are morons who will be gone soon. Some other retard will take over and bungle things slightly more or less. All the while the large, mentally handicapped, population will think things like Republican vs Democrat or Jesus vs Satan or other insignificant bullshit actually matters.

      If we can reduce the percentage of severely mentally retarded people in the world slightly down, then perhaps things will get a little better. Until then we must make sure that the mindless majority does as little damage as possible.

      Yes, I am an arrogant prick, probably mostly a prick. Doesn't mean that I am wrong however.

    8. Re:The real conspiracy isn't in the collapse. by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 1

      Why? I am not a very nice person. I don't like nice people. In short, I am a prick and I don't want or need to change.

      Then you have a long, long way to go, my friend. True happiness waits patiently for pricks to stop being pricks, and wisdom is tied to happiness far more tightly than most realize. I'd wish you good luck, but that would defeat the lesson. Bye now.

      -FL

  233. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "No demolition company has ever turned up on site and said "Oh, we'll burn five storeys in the top half of this fifty storey building and it will all go down". The entire building needs to be accounted for."

    That's a pretty silly claim. The primary objective in a controlled demolition is to ensure that the building collapses as evenly as possible, so as to minimize the "spill over" into the surrounding area, which could contain other buildings. Just because a large building probably would collapse with fewer explosives and less care in their placement, doesn't mean it would be a good idea. The towers that fell on September 11th caused a nearly incalculable sum of damage to neighboring structures, cars and other objects over a massive radius. This is why they don't just glue a few giant explosives to a pillar on a middle floor and wait for the whole building to fall at its leisure.

    The entire structure doesn't have to be accounted for unless you're trying to bring the building down safely and discreetly (to the point that a million tons of falling steel and concrete can be discreet).

  234. Re:OF COURSE they made a mistake. But not that one by Daswolfen · · Score: 1

    But... how do you explain the firefighters repeatedly telling people to move back, the building is "coming down" and the building is "about to blow up"? This, before any other sign of collapse? Remember... they had been taken out of the building hours before.

    Hmmm.. maybe because of the fact that 2 other buildings nearby have collapsed and WTC7 was known to contain thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and was in an uncontrolled blaze?

    Either apply some common sense or get back on your medication.

    --
    Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
  235. Re:D-Day & A-bomb: HUGE successful conspiracie by Daswolfen · · Score: 1

    Um.. no.. alot of people knew about the Manhattan Project.

    The Germans knew about it, the Japanese knew about it, Stalin knew about it.

    About the only people who didn't know about it was the American public, because back then, keeping a secret for national security reasons meant something. If that would have occurred today, then it would have been all over CNN and MSNBC in seconds.

    And alot of people knew about D-Day... the Germans KNEW it was coming, but they didnt know when. And besides, the weather was crappy at Normandy and Rommel didn't believe the invasion was going to happen right then because of the weather in the Channel was bad.

    Also, to compare wartime operations from 60+ years ago when it took hours if not days to find out what was happening on the other side of the world to a modern conspiracy is naive. Its not like someone could have picked up a phone in the UK and said "Hey Erwin, I think the Allies are coming, they just launched all there airplanes". Phone calls had to manually routed in those days, and during wartime, all those were monitored.

    --
    Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
  236. All of which Bechtel Corp.is capable of overcoming by leftie · · Score: 1

    As far as compiling suspect lists (the type of thing you are supposed to do in criminal investigations, Bechtel Corp. would top the list.

    Means: Bechtel is the largest engineering co. in the US. Bechtel is a leader in the field of demolitions technology. Bechtel manages the Lawrence Livermore Labs a particularly suspicious form of nano-thermite was researched and developed and discussed in this April, 2000 scientific journal article.

    Making Nanostructured Pyrotechnics in a Beaker
    A.E. Gash, R.L. Simpson*, T.M. Tillotson, J.H. Satcher and L.W. Hrubesh
    Energetic Materials Center
    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
    Livennore, CA 94550

    Abstract

    "Controlling composition at the nanometer scale is well known to alter
    material properties in sometimes highly desirable and dramatic ways. In the field
    of energetic materials component distributions, particle size, and morphology,
    effect both sensitivity and reactivity performance. To date nanostructured
    energetic materials are largely unknowns with the exception of nanometer-sized
    reactive powders now being produced at a number of laboratories. We have
    invented a new method of making nanostructured energetic materials, specifically
    explosives, propellants, and pyrotechnics, using sol-gel ~hemistry.lT-~he ease of
    this synthetic approach along with the inexpensive, stable, and benign nature of
    the metal precursors and solvents permit large-scale syntheses to be carried out.
    This approach can be accomplished using low cost processing methods. We will
    describe here, for the first time, this new synthetic route for producing metaloxide-
    based pyrotechnics. The procedure employs the use of stable and
    inexpensive hydrated-metal inorganic salts and environmentally friendly solvents
    such as water and ethanol. The synthesis is straightforward and involves the
    dissolution the metal salt in a solvent followed by the addition of an epoxide,
    which induces gel formation in a timely manner. Experimental evidence suggests
    that the epoxide acts as an irreversible proton scavenger that induces the hydratedmetal
    species to undergo hydrolysis and condensation to form a sol that undergoes.
    further condensation to form a metal-oxide nanostructured gel. Both critical point
    and atmospheric drying have been employed to produce monolithic aerogels and
    xerogels, respectively. Using this method we have synthesized metal-oxide
    nanostructured materials using Fe3', Cr3+, A13', Ga3+, In3', Hf', Sn4+and Zr4+
    inorganic salts. Using related methods we have made nanostructured oxides of
    Mo, Ti, V, Co, Ni, Cu, Y, Ta, W, Pb, B, Pr, Er, Nd and Si. These materials have
    been characterized using optical and electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy,
    surface area, pore size, and pore volume analyses.
    The epoxide addition sol-gel technique is amenable the addition of
    insoluble materials (e.g., metals or polymers) to the viscous sol, just before
    gelation, to produce a uniformly distributed and energetic nanocomposite upon
    gelation. As an example energetic nanocomposites of Fe,O, and metallic
    aluminum are easily synthesized. The compositions are stable, safe and can be
    readily ignited. Production and characterization data of these novel energetic
    materials will be presented...."

    https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/247064.pdf

    There's been THERMITE RESIDUE in every single sample of WTC ash that's been tested so far by independent labs.

    http://journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/Ryan_NIST_and_Nano-1.pdf

    http://journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf

    Motive: The 9/11 destruction of WTC 7 destroyed the evidence that had been gather for the case the Departmant of Justice was building against Bechtel in "THE BIG DIG" corruption scandal.

    Since 9/11, the only corporation recieving more Iraq/Afghanistan contracts than Bechtel is Halliburton.

  237. Re:Really? by robbak · · Score: 1

    All you have to do is damage enough of it to start a collapse. Like a fire weakening the steel, uneven heating causing some to expand more than others, and loss of support due to physical damage. Loose a couple of floor structures tying the outside supports to the inside, and the outer skin buckles, and down she comes.

    OH, what caused all the floors to collapse? Try several thousand tonnes at 10m/s/s. Not much is going to stop that! Give it 3 seconds, and it's doing 100km/hr.

    --
    Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
  238. Re:Government Report by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    Moderation -2
        50% Troll
        50% Offtopic

    To TrollMods, simple, public, indisputable facts about the chain of command of this report in Bush's government is a "troll". And somehow, specifically how the government is reporting on itself is "offtopic".

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  239. Re:But you are ignoring all the other circumstance by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    "In your logic, the existence of an alternative theory makes the fire scenario less likely. This is false logic, since none of these 'facts' contradict the fire hypothesis. I don't see how one quote of a reporter/silverman is evidence that contradicts a simulation by NIST. Do read the report, i did and I liked it. It does explain in great detail how an uncontrolled fire can lead to structural weakening and an eventual collapse of the building. It will never be possible to determine how things happened exactly, but they describe a plausible scenario based on hard-core science. Denying this plausibility means you question the scientific integrity of some 50 experts of a highly respected institute. And as things works in science, you will need a consensus among people of similar qualification to counter their arguments, not just a single guy or some random amateur from the internet."

    Oh, yes, I do question their integrity. There is no doubt of that. They might have all the integrity in the world. But the simple fact that the report was organized and coordinated by a bureaucratic agency of the Federal Government gives me every reason to question. Remember that this involves the same government administration -- and in part even the same agency, FEMA -- that botched the New Orleans thing so thoroughly. So there is every reason to question. (There was a FEMA office in WTC 7, and a couple of FEMA employees are in fact two of the more credible witnesses who contradict the official government story.)

    Perhaps you think that is unreasonable. Well, look at last year's IPCC report on Global Warming. Some of the science behind it might be reputable, but the conclusions found in the report were not based on that science. Authors of some of the papers cited tried to get their names removed from the report, stating that the conclusions are not supported by their work. And that was a report from the UN, involving literally hundreds of "reputable" scientists. Of course, the IPCC changed their tune in this year's report... which merely reinforces the point that their reports are unreliable. No matter how many reputable scientists they cite.

    A problem here is that you are not looking at the big picture. If if you want to talk about science, then how about the science of probability? Here is a truth about probability: the likelihood of something occurring, given a number of independent variables, is the product of the individual probabilities for those variables. For example, let's take three variables that are pretty much independent: location, weather, and vehicle type. What is the probability that you will get injured by lightning, if you are on an aluminum-masted sailboat, in the middle of a large lake, in a thunderstorm? Not terribly high, really, but higher than would make most people very comfortable. On the other hand, what is the probability that you would get injured by lightning, in your car, on a clear summer day? Very low indeed. So you can take the statistic that 70-some people get struck by lightning every year in the U.S., and that might tell you something in a general way. But it tells you very damned little about the individual circumstances.

    Here is a statistic that is true: prior to that September 11, NO steel-structure skyscraper in the world had EVER collapsed due to fire. Never. Not one. And there have been fires in skyscrapers that completely gutted the buildings. But no collapse.

    The fire scenario is barely plausible regarding the twin towers. But WTC 7 had not been struck by planes. So THREE buildings, one of them built differently from the others by (I believe) a different firm, collapse from a cause that had NEVER been seen before? What is the likelihood of that? The circumstances of WTC 7 must be considered an independent variable... it did not have the excuses for failure that the other buildings did. The probability of this actually occurring is VERY low.

    Eyewitness accounts contradict the government's official story on many, many things..

  240. What are the odds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What an astronomical coincidence it was that all of those things happened at once. The beams expanded and buckled due to the heat, which "could" have detached girders, which resulted in "limited" pancaking which all fell against the central core and then caused the whole thing to collapse at free fall speed. What are the odds? About the same as that burning crackpot fire causing it all.

  241. Re:Really? by arminw · · Score: 1

    ....You will still get at least some of the building intact.....

    That may or may not be true, depending on the structure of the building itself. However, the buildings collapsed at essentially free-fall speed, with apparently no resistance from the lower floors. If the domino theory of one floor collapsing the next one down and so on were true, then the total speed of the collapse should have been considerably slower than what the videos show. The inertial mass of the buildings below where the airplanes hit, was much greater than the mass above the impact point. From the videos I've seen at least, this large lower mass did not slow the fall of the smaller upper mass in any way. Only a deliberate near instantaneous removal of all supports in the entire building, could make the whole structure fall as quickly as it did.

    --
    All theory is gray
  242. Asbestos would have saved the buildings by viking80 · · Score: 1

    New building code forbade use of asbestos. If asbestos had been used to protect the steel from heat damage during a fire, the buildings would not have come down.

    --
    don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
    1. Re:Asbestos would have saved the buildings by Lunzo · · Score: 1

      I think you'll find there are some very compelling reasons that asbestos is no longer used. It causes cancer would be the biggest one.

    2. Re:Asbestos would have saved the buildings by viking80 · · Score: 1

      It only causes cancer if you breath it into your lungs. Mesotheliomas is found in people working in asbestor mines and production facilites. Exposure from use in buildings has basically zero health effects except saving your life in case of a fire.

      From wikipedia:
      Asbestos exposure becomes a health concern when high concentrations of asbestos fibers are inhaled over a long time period. People who become ill from asbestos are almost always those who are exposed on a day-to-day basis in a job where they work directly with the material

      --
      don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
    3. Re:Asbestos would have saved the buildings by Lunzo · · Score: 1

      How about the builders who build the building and have to cut and drill through asbestos. How about the people who work in the factories which make the asbestos sheets used for construction. The point is you can't have everything made out of asbestos and not have people who have to work with it on a daily basis.

    4. Re:Asbestos would have saved the buildings by Shadyman · · Score: 1

      It only causes cancer if you breath it into your lungs

      Well, where else are you going to breathe it?

  243. Re:D-Day & A-bomb: HUGE successful conspiracie by leftie · · Score: 1

    I'm so sorry. That's incorrect. Thanks for playing

    The Germans know nothing about the Manhattan Project. Stalin had one spy infiltrate the Manhattan Project pretty thoroughly, but like many of the Soviet spy successes, Stalin refused to believe the reports the spy was sending in, so the Soviets were ordered to do nothing with the information.

    And the Germans would have sat down in front of a radio transmitter and immediately tapped out whatever needed to be sent on a morse code key.

    You have heard of radio transmitters? I assure you Germans spies were more than capable of getting urgent radio messages out of England instantaneously.

  244. Re:Really? by Fallen+Seraph · · Score: 1

    No shit?

    He's answering your question about why a demolition crew doesn't work that way. Try to keep up.

    I'm not even going to bother to quote you because you've made it apparent that you know shit all about physics, so I'll just make some points before I proceed to ignore you like the troll you are:
    1. I never said that mass causes it to accelerate the collapse, I said mass adds momentum. F=ma. Force = mass * acceleration. The acceleration is constant. I believe that the report cited it as being 40% that of freefall, so 3.92m/s^2. As more and more floors are broken through, the weight of the broken floor itself adds to the mass of the debris that's falling, and since almost every floor is made of, roughly, the same materials, and assuming the fall is constant, that means each time to a floor is broken, the force of the falling debris doubles. So the fifth floor that was broken, for example, had to try to brace 4 times the force of the first floor that broken. It's a linear increase in force as each subsequent floor collapses. This is not "alleged", this is not "a myth". This is simple high school physics, that anyone who's even remotely intelligent can apply to the situation.

    2. As c6gunner pointed out, demolition crews don't do this because it leaves a lot up to chance, and they want the demolition to go as smoothly as possible.

    3.

    More than enough kinetic energy where, and what mass starts moving? In what way does this utterly meaningless and non-defined statement pertain to WTC 7 or any of the other buildings?

    Ok, I lied, I had to quote your utter ignorance of anything relating to this topic. To put it simply, kinetic energy is the energy of a moving body. Potential energy is the energy of a stationary body. If you put a book on a shelf, that book now has potential energy equal to its height off of the floor. If it falls, that energy turns into kinetic energy. The mass that begins moving, which c6gunner refers to, is the collapsing upper floors.

    Let me put it to you as such: A car stands on a hill, and someone pushes it so that it begins rolling. It's possible that, if you're at the top of the hill, and reach the car soon enough, you can stop the car again with little more effort than pushing it with your finger. Try that at the bottom of the hill though, and you'll get run over.

    Now imagine that that car is also getting heavier as it goes downhill. The increased weight doesn't make it faster, but it DOES make it more difficult for something to stop it. Each floor of the WTC was a massive concrete slab. Those weigh A LOT. So assuming that the 3-5 floors that were actually on fire were the only ones weakened, the question because not whether the floor below can support those 3-5 floors, plus whatever was above them, the question is whether the floor below can withstand the IMPACT of that much weight. The answer, as any engineer, and even some high school physics students can tell you, is not a chance.

    All of this being said, pancaking did not cause the collapse per se, pancaking basically just made it sudden and violent. The building was already inherently unstable due to the the heat expansion of vertical columns, due to warping of the materials, etc. Nothing had to "melt". Melting points are mostly irrelevant. Heat causes metals, such as steel, to be soft and pliable, as well as expanding them. The pancaking of the upper floors caused even more severe stresses on the support columns to warp even further until they could no longer cope with the massive and sudden strain they were under, and they gave way.

    PS- Believe what you like, but your ignorance on the matter, in addition to your insistence that you are correct, makes you a card carrying conspiracy theorists.

  245. Re:we need math not conjecture by blueg3 · · Score: 2

    You presumably mean "engineering", not "math", and their collapse was investigated, determined, and documented about a year ago. There are a number of papers in engineering determining the reasons, even. (I should know; I've sat through a fair number of the colloquia.)

    Like many, you seem to think that because nobody has shoved these analyses and models in your face, they must not exist.

  246. Re:we need math not conjecture by Kagura · · Score: 1

    Did you miss the part where jumbo jets loaded for a trans-atlantic flight were purposefully crashed into WTC1 and WTC2?

  247. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fact. The greater number of structurally sound floors below are more than enough to dissipate any energy and momentum of such a collapse ....

    I LOLed, sir.

  248. You know by s13g3 · · Score: 1

    It's funny... No matter how many times you tell people, or how intelligent they may be, for some reason you just can't seem to get people to realize that simulations are often worthless in cases like this, as you can make a simulation say or prove anything you want it to by tweaking it's internal dynamics to support whatever result you want. Regardless, unless you have an overwhelming amount of real-world data and flawless physics computational models, no simulation is ever completely valid - modeling the real world inside a computer to that extent is functionally impossible. There simply isn't enough data on what actually happened (hence the desire to create such simulations to begin with) to create an accurate model in the first place. They don't know exactly what each fire did where - fire is notoriously difficult to predict, as the difficulty in even reproducing believable fire effects in computer animation shows: little things like winds currents, fuel spread, what parts of the plane went where in the building and did what all add up to too many statistical errors for any margin to account for, and all they are doing is best guessing here and claiming it must be true because their model agrees with them - I think the model is likely to have been biased in their own favor from the very beginning, even if not purposefully or intentionally. We as human beings are always biased, and it is not unreasonable to believe that our digital (re-)creations are any more impartial than the people who coded them to begin with.

    Could I make a simulation of a galaxy that looks and behaves like a galaxy? Easy enough. Does that mean that the laws I founded my simulated galaxy on has anything whatsoever to do with how a real galaxy works? Not at all. It just means that I've managed to create a series of conditions within a computer that outputs some visuals and math that happens to look strikingly like a galaxy. Just because you use a really big computer that took a long time running said simulation does not make it any more valid. I could create a "simulation" that would take years to run but still show convincingly - based on data provided - that the building actually collapsed because of a hole through the planet that leads to China that was opened up as a result of an earthquake caused by digging done for a new hydro-dam there - that still doesn't make it correct or even partially true. Too many factors outside our ability to guess or second-guess or intuit or even, honestly, our ability to perceive, are at work.

    How often does it happen that something more complex than a cheap Chinese-made children's toy or other simple item that is designed digitally actually makes it in to the real-world without modification? Does anybody know anybody who has ever designed a 10-story building in CAD that didn't require hundreds or thousands of modifications before construction was completed? I've worked for a (major) aircraft company, and I can tell you for certain that despite all the best modeling and simulation software that a multi-billion dollar aerospace defense contractor can summon, not one of those simulations is ever entirely accurate when it comes to the real world.

    Any video-game company that has an engine with solid physics could recreate on a screen the WTC collapse - does that mean the factors they employed to *simulate* that collapse have anything to do with what actually occurred?

    I find the quote that is on the bottom of this page as I write this to be incredibly succinct and germane - Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits.

    --
    "Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
    1. Re:You know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I posted this in another post, but take a look at NIST's own statements on the simulations, from the report itself.

      Once simulation of the global collapse of WTC 7 was underway, there was a great increase in the uncertainty in the progression of the collapse sequence, due to the random nature of the interaction, break up, disintegration, and falling of the debris... The details of the progression of the horizontal failure and final global collapse were increasingly less precise. Thus, while the two predictions of the time of descent of the west penthouse also straddled the observed time, the mechanisms of building collapse were quite different... The kink and rotation of the northeast facade occurred 2 to 3 s after the exterior facade had begun to move downward, as a result of the global collapse. The simulations do show the formation of the kink, but any subsequent movement of the building is beyond the reliability of the physics in the model. (p. 40)

      Yet, in the summary at the end of the report:

      Computer simulations of the fires, the thermal heating of the structure, the thermally induced damage to the structure, and the structural collapse can be used to predict a complex degradation and collapse of a building. The overall features and timing of the prediction were consistent with the videographic evidence. (p. 51)

  249. Re:Really? by arminw · · Score: 1

    ...requires more structural integrity than any skyscraper has...

    The issue of the structural integrity of the lower section of the building is only of secondary importance. The inertial mass of the falling upper section of the building was much less than the inertial mass of the section below. The downward moving section of the upper floors not only had to break all supports, which might have been trivial, or not, but more importantly had to accelerate the much larger lower mass of the building. This should have slowed the collapse of the entire buildings considerably below the free fall speed which the videos clearly show.

    The buildings fell down at the same speed that a steel ball would fall when dropped from the top of each building. The only way such a thing can happen, is if the entire support structure of the building is removed in an instant.

    --
    All theory is gray
  250. Some accident! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Yeah, sure. They "accidentally" reported the building's collapse... accidentally getting the building's name right, and accidentally mentioning its number, AND accidentally mentioning its location. Mere minutes before the building accidentally collapsed.

    Wow! I don't think I want to live in an area that is prone to such "accidents".

    1. Re:Some accident! by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      Another creationist argument: "It's improbable, so it didn't happen!"

    2. Re:Some accident! by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 1

      Yeah, sure. They "accidentally" reported the building's collapse... accidentally getting the building's name right, and accidentally mentioning its number, AND accidentally mentioning its location. Mere minutes before the building accidentally collapsed.

      Yeah, a building that was part of the same complex as two that had already collapsed, that had been heavily damaged when those two had collapsed, and was on fire for many hours. I'm sure nobody at the BBC would have received any information on the names of the other WTC buildings, where they were, how heavily damaged they were, or that they were on fire. I'm sure that the only possible reason the BBC would have said that WTC7 collapsed was that some henchman told them to say so, not because it had been burning all day, because it was heavily damaged, or because the firefighters had decided that it was too dangerous to fight the fire and they would have to let it fall down.

      ... if you had read just about any of the rest of this thread, you would know that I am hardly "relying" on a single misreporting. That is just one thing among a great many.

      This one thing makes your whole argument look stupid. It would be like me arguing that the moon landings really did happen the way people think they did, and among all the facts about how NASA employed thousands of people who wouldn't keep their mouths shut and the Russians would have exposed the fraud and so forth, I toss in this little tidbit: "Besides, if the moon landings had been faked, that would have made Richard Nixon a liar."

      If you have good arguments, you should stick to those. This business of the BBC reporting the collapse early is at best stupid and at worst willfully deceptive.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    3. Re:Some accident! by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Yeah, sure. They "accidentally" reported the building's collapse... accidentally getting the building's name right, and accidentally mentioning its number, AND accidentally mentioning its location. Mere minutes before the building accidentally collapsed.

      WTC1 and WTC2 had fallen. Someone who was given the report that WTC7 (with its name and location) was on fire and in danger of collapse may make the very simple mistake of saying it has collapsed, rather than might collapse. That's a simple error. They are from the BBC, they won't know what building is what. Most Americans had no clue over which building was which. If you doubt that, ask the next person you see whether the North Tower was WTC1 or if that's the South Tower.

    4. Re:Some accident! by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      They get a report that WTC7 came down. The producer quickly goes on google, pulls up some information about the building (the name and location) and hands it to the reporter to read. What is it about this that is so difficult for you to understand? There is nothing at all accidental or weird about them having some basic information about the building correct.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    5. Re:Some accident! by Yunzil · · Score: 1

      Do you not remember the reports of a car bomb going off at the State Department? Because I do. Nobody really had a handle on what was going on for hours. Is it really so hard for you to accept that someone heard someone say "WTC7 is in danger of collapse", and that it probably got passed through several people, and that it mistakenly wound up on the air as "WTC7 has collapsed"?

    6. Re:Some accident! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      This part of the thread was about the BBC thing. If you did not like that, you should go elsewhere.

      It is NOT stupid to argue that the odds are against an "accident" of this nature happening. It might have happened that way. But -- ask yourself honestly now -- what are the odds of it happening?

      See, the big think is not just that this was unlikely. Unlikely things DO happen. But if you read other parts of this thread, you will notice that there were a great deal of OTHER things going on that were even more unlikely. When you have situations that you can reasonably believe to be independent variables (a news reporter saying something, an emergency worker somewhere else saying something, a firefighter or police officer in yet another area of the site doing something), the probability of them all happening together is the mathematical product of the probabilities of those independent variables.

      There were a LOT of very unlikely things that happened that day. Actually, that is a gross understatement. The idea that they all occurred on the same day, as reported, by accident is ridiculously low. And it behooves one to look at what is actually the more likely explanation.

      Once again... unlikely things do happen. But when one explanation is more likely than another, which would you choose?

    7. Re:Some accident! by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 1

      How can you possibly believe that different people's statements about the same burning building are independent variables? The mind boggles, to be sure.

      Did you also believe in that recent Bigfoot hoax? After all, it was reported in so many different places. And according to your logic, each report was mathematically independent of all the others. Why, given how many reports I saw, the probability of that Bigfoot being real must have been up near 99.99%!

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
  251. Re:yah, right by blueg3 · · Score: 1

    "Din't you find it strange that they could identify the teorists as fast as they did,
    when identifying other victims took months."

    Forgive me if it doesn't fit in with your conspiracy theory, but certainly if I was in the business of performing the forensic analysis, I'd start with "who were the guys that caused this" and not "what are the names of all these other dead people".

  252. Re:This is getting boring... 911 _was_ an inside j by shawn(at)fsu · · Score: 1

    Ugh I was listening to the NIST conference on cspan radio a few days ago. I heard the crackpot from infowars going on and on about his crackpot theories.... All I want to know is how did he get to ask question.

    --
    500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
  253. Re:Really? by arminw · · Score: 0

    ...There's more than enough kinetic energy in a building like WTC7 to guarantee a complete collapse once the mass starts moving....

    That may or may not be true, but is essentially a red herring. The moving mass of the upper part of the building was considerably less than the inertial mass of the building below the break. The weight and inertial energy of the falling upper part of the buildings could theoretically have overcome the strength of the lower support structure, but not its much larger inertia. That inertia of the lower floors should have slowed down the rate of collapse considerably even if the support structure failed progressively or even instantaneously. However, the videos clearly show that the buildings collapsed in the same amount of time that a free falling object dropped off the roof would have hit the pavement below.

    The only way any large building can collapse in such a short amount of time, is if it's ENTIRE support structures is instantaneously removed.

    --
    All theory is gray
  254. By the way... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    ... if you had read just about any of the rest of this thread, you would know that I am hardly "relying" on a single misreporting. That is just one thing among a great many.

  255. Re:here's some science for you. by Trogre · · Score: 1

    I think we're in the presence of greatness here.

    Tell me, Dr Avery, when is the next release of Loose Change (again cunningly released to p2p networks as "United 93" of course) up for release?

    thanks

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  256. Re:D-Day & A-bomb: HUGE successful conspiracie by Daswolfen · · Score: 1

    Um.. no.. read the stuff from Project PaperClip.

    Hitler DID know about our A-Bomb. They didn't know as much as Stalin, but the knew were were close. Stalin had spies at Los Alamos. The Nazi's just knew we had the project, which was more than the American public knew.

    And as far using a radio transmitter, its a cakewalk to jam a local frequency, just by using a more powerful transmitter on the same frequency as the original signal.

    So Thank YOU for playing.

    --
    Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
  257. Pentagon versus Capitol Hill by copponex · · Score: 1

    Well, I can't go into detail, but I'm sure I'm a reputed crackpot anyway. I've spoken to more than one person ranked in a certain military branch, but they're career and obviously no one who wants to move up the ladder is going to say anything publicly. Basically what they said is that the attacks were real, but we knew they were coming. I imagine it was kept at the highest levels, where secrets are kept. Just take a look at everything from the Pentagon Papers, or released documents from CIA ops that were run by very few people - we overthrew Iran in '53 with less than one hundred people who even knew about the operation, which the person writing the after-action report called "excessive."

    What I think happened is that the Bush Administration saw it as their chance to have their Pearl Harbor event as a pretext to complete the job of securing the middle east, especially what was left of Iraq. No matter what the talking heads say these days, oil wins wars. The Germans were at a severe disadvantage because they were cut off from their supply. It's one of the main reasons their North African theater collapsed onto itself, and we went to war with Japan shortly after we stopped sending them oil.

    Anyway, I think some top level officials got a hold of the plans, and they staged the NORAD exercises to make sure the plans were executed successfully. I think both planes that weren't flown into the towers were shot down, one over PA, and another over the ocean. The Pentagon was hit to add fear to the whole equation, in my opinion with some sort of missile or simple explosion. I was glued to the news that day and every single news center started off with "We have reports of an explosion at the Pentagon." There are so many holes in the official story of that I really believe it was a purely American military operation, whether it was carried out by the CIA or some other covert group with US assistance I don't know.

    I think the planes causing the collapse of the building is something no one saw coming, and something they continue to draw out in order to avoid direct questions about Flight 93 and the Pentagon. So, yes the civilian government is dumb, but they can carry out extremely complicated and covert military ops that never touch civilian eyes.

  258. Re:Really? by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 1

    The dynamics of small (9 story in this case) structures are completely different from those of skyscrapers. The upper levels of small structures don't have to be built feather-light to keep the weight down, and their lower levels are under vastly less stress.

    PS: It is sufficient to pose the question without adding an incendiary remark like "retards," dipshit troll.

  259. Re:Really? by LaskoVortex · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, if you don't care about damaging half of Manhattan, you can just send in a midget with a sledgehammer.

    That's one bad ass midget.

    --
    Just callin' it like I see it.
  260. Occams Razor by evanism · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    3 steel buildings fall over, the first time in history, under exceptional circumstances, one thats required 7 years investigation to explain.... OR, they were knocked down deliberately.

    I know where my money is placed.

    --
    Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
    1. Re:Occams Razor by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Dude, Occam is rolling in his grave.

      Planes flown by anti-American hijackers crashed into the buildings, and they fell down, causing massive damage. That is what was witnessed. Pretty simple...crash, burn, fall. Damn them.

      OR

      Most incredibly efficient and amazingly treasonous government conspiracy ever still hasn't leaked in 7 years. The complexity of things to make this true is mind-boggling.

      --
      "I only speak the truth"
      Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
    2. Re:Occams Razor by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Funny

      3 steel buildings fall over, the first time in history, under exceptional circumstances, one thats required 7 years investigation to explain.... OR, they were knocked down deliberately.

      I know where my money is placed.

      A fool and his money are easily parted.

  261. Read a little before spouting off by Schnoodledorfer · · Score: 1

    Was the owner part of a conspiracy?
    Was the media part of a conspiracy?

    You sound like the crackpots, even though you're on the other side.

    --
    Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify. (Ambrose Bierce)
  262. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cowards? Way to go frenchie.

  263. Conscientious incompetence by Slur · · Score: 1, Troll

    All Bush had to do was dismantle and stall anti-terrorism intelligence work, and he knew *something* would happen, and soon. He perhaps didn't expect the WTC to be hit, but the incompetence aimed at allowing it to happen was pretty systematic. Once it did occur, it took only a matter of days before it was cynically being spun to sell weapons and make bank for those who profit from disaster. It was a boon for all the institutions of the day, and big media who are wholly owned subsidiaries of the war industry. Perhaps nobody really allowed themselves to admit how they were using it to profit, but everyone did. Iraq was rolled out over the not-yet-cold bodies of 9-11 without anyone blinking an eye, while leveler heads were roundly ridiculed and marginalized.

    None of these incompetent fuckers are innocent.

    And who most likely told George Bush to lay low and do nothing? Probably, he was sold on the idea in a late night phone conference with Henry Kissinger: "Mister President, perhaps a little trip to Florida is just the thing you need to bolster your plunging numbers..."

    In fact, this will be dramatized in my upcoming made-for-tv film "Homeland Insecurity" which will be released on the day Tom Skerritt apologizes for his role in NBC's racist, jingo-fest made-for-tv movie "Homeland Security" (now available on DVD!)

    Welcome to the pretendocracy, people!

    --
    -- thinkyhead software and media
  264. Re:D-Day & A-bomb: HUGE successful conspiracie by jthug · · Score: 1

    no citing truther says what?

  265. That is a rather large assumption! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Why do you say that? Based on what evidence?

    It was clearly reported (and Silverstein himself said) that Silverstein and the fire department were in close communication long before the building collapsed. (In fact, contrary to the official story, it has been proven that the firefighters were told to leave the building hours before the collapse. So who WERE the people in the building? FEMA employees reported that for some strange reason, there were a lot of police. Not CIA or FBI, which had offices there. Police.)

    Who is to say -- hypothetically only of course -- that the owner of the building did not tell the fire department, at that point, that there were demolition charges in place just for that kind of eventuality?

    Improbable? Sure! But more probable than the building coming down due to a cause that had NEVER been seen at any other time or place in the history of the world. Ever. Before or since.

    Hint: prior to 9/11, NO steel-structure skyscraper had EVER come down due to fire. And there have been plenty of fires, some of them much more extensive than in WTC 7. In fact, skyscrapers -- even much older skyscrapers -- have been completely gutted from fire before, leaving little more than the steel members left standing. But stand they did. And 9/11 saw THREE buildings supposedly collapse due to fire. AND... WTC 7 had not been struck by planes... so it did not have the excuse the other buildings did to fail.

    I am NOT saying that fire did not cause the building's collapse. But I AM saying that just about all the real evidence points to it being unlikely as hell. Much more unlikely than the hypothetical situation given above. Which does not require prior collusion from the fire department for weeks in advance.

    1. Re:That is a rather large assumption! by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Who is to say -- hypothetically only of course -- that the owner of the building did not tell the fire department, at that point, that there were demolition charges in place just for that kind of eventuality?

      ...that kind of eventuality? What kind of eventuality would that be? Why would the fire department, which works closely with building inspectors, silently accept the premise that the building was rigged with explosives?

      Is this some common occurrence where you live, where buildings have self-destructs? I think I'll rig live explosives and a way to set them off in my house and then tell the fire department about them, and see what happens.

      Hint: prior to 9/11, NO steel-structure skyscraper had EVER come down due to fire. And there have been plenty of fires, some of them much more extensive than in WTC 7.

      Okay, first of all, it is impossible to have a fire 'more extensive' than one that destroyed a building.

      Secondly, all those fires were fought. That's why they spray water on them even after everyone is out...at a certain point, the steel buckles. Keep it under that point, and the building is safe.

      In fact, skyscrapers -- even much older skyscrapers -- have been completely gutted from fire before, leaving little more than the steel members left standing. But stand they did.

      Thirdly, you loon, older buildings were built differently. They had a concrete core.

      But more probable than the building coming down due to a cause that had NEVER been seen at any other time or place in the history of the world. Ever. Before or since.

      Two words: Windsor Building.

      Steel outside, concrete core. The steel outside part collapsed straight down onto itself, and the fire department was actually fighting that fire.

      The WTC 7 building, in fact none of the WTC buildings, have a concrete core.(1)

      The upper floors, if you notice, collapsed straight down, as if they were in a 'controlled demolition', or possibly subjected to a force called 'gravity' that mysteriously only operates directly downward. (Whereas in the real world, gravity is noticably random and pulls things in all directions.)

      Of course, here the fire at the top, whereas in the WTC 7 the middle of the building was on fire, resulting the middle floors collapsing instead of the top. The upper floors, of course, should have hovered in midair, except for that 'gravity' theory I mentioned above. And the lower floors, apparently, weren't ready to have 2/3rds of a damn building come crashing into them.

      Oh, and if we're talking about things that have never been done before, no building over 40 stories has ever been brought down by controlled demolitions, either.

      1) If you claim the WTC buildings do have a concrete core, as some Truther loons are doing, so help me, I will bitchslap you into next week.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  266. Coincidence Theorist's Guide to 9/11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    That governments have permitted terrorist acts against their own people, and have even themselves been perpetrators in order to find strategic advantage is quite likely true, but this is the United States we're talking about.

    That intelligence agencies, financiers, terrorists and narco-criminals have a long history together is well established, but the Nugan Hand Bank, BCCI, Banco Ambrosiano, the P2 Lodge, the CIA/Mafia anti-Castro/Kennedy alliance, Iran/Contra and the rest were a long time ago, so thereâ(TM)s no need to rehash all that. That was then, this is now!

    That Jonathan Bushâ(TM)s Riggs Bank has been found guilty of laundering terrorist funds and fined a US-record $25 million must embarrass his nephew George, but it's still no justification for leaping to paranoid conclusions.

    That George Bush's brother Marvin sat on the board of the Kuwaiti-owned company which provided electronic security to the World Trade Centre, Dulles Airport and United Airlines means nothing more than you must admit those Bush boys have done alright for themselves.

    That George Bush found success as a businessman only after the investment of Osamaâ(TM)s brother Salem and reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mahfouz is just one of those things - one of those crazy things.

    That Osama bin Laden is known to have been an asset of US foreign policy in no way implies he still is.

    That al Qaeda was active in the Balkan conflict, fighting on the same side as the US as recently as 1999, while the US protected its cells, is merely one of history's little aberrations.

    The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.

    That one of George Bush's first acts as President, in January 2001, was to end the two-year deployment of attack submarines which were positioned within striking distance of al Qaeda's Afghanistan camps, even as the group's guilt for the Cole bombing was established, proves that a transition from one administration to the next is never an easy task.

    That so many influential figures in and close to the Bush White House had expressed, just a year before the attacks, the need for a "new Pearl Harbo

  267. Re:Really? by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That inertia of the lower floors should have slowed down the rate of collapse considerably even if the support structure failed progressively or even instantaneously.

    Which it did - 40% as per the report.

    However, the videos clearly show that the buildings collapsed in the same amount of time that a free falling object dropped off the roof would have hit the pavement below.

    Neither the videos nor the seismic record show any such thing. If you truly believe that, you've been hoodwinked by the conspiracy idiots.

    For WTC1 and 2 this is easy to demonstrate - simply observe the speed of the cloud of debris falling on the outside of the building as opposed to the main mass. You'll notice a massive difference between the two. As for WTC7, it's a lot harder to tell from the video, but there are seismic records which show it took upwards of 20 seconds from collapse initiation to final impact. No matter what the actual numbers, though, there's certainly no evidence to suggest that any of the three buildings collapsed at unusually high speeds.

    The only way any large building can collapse in such a short amount of time, is if it's ENTIRE support structures is instantaneously removed.

    I see. Which engineering/construction company did you say you work for?

  268. Re:Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth respons by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    All you are going to find there is real science.

    I lol'd :)

    For those of you who visited that site and laughed your ass off at the idiots trying to act like proffesionals, you may also want to check out the Journal of 9/11 Studies. It seems that a few of the nutters finally realized that they'd never get their drivel published in a real journal, so they started their own! Have a look at their "articles" - they're pure comedic genius.

  269. Re:D-Day & A-bomb: HUGE successful conspiracie by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 1

    Yes, militaries keep secrets sense it is sound tactics, but they are always released later on, and lots of people know about them.

    In your examples, they kept a secret for a couple of months, but knowing that the truth would come out with the fruition of the plan. That eases one's ability to maintain a secret...knowing that he will be released of the burden later on.

    That is far different from keeping a secret that is never ever supposed to come out for many years, especially when the more people are in on something, the less likely it is to be be secret, especially when the secret is a heinous human rights violation of treasonous proportions.

    Someone blew the whistle on Enron scams, so there's just as much proof that conspiracies can't hold up over time.

    If you study the 9/11 conspiracies, you can see that match the realm of the desperate, grabbing at any straws they can to support their theories instead of engaging in honest discussions of truth. So much evidence must be concocted to piece everything together that Occam's Razor cuts through their arguments very quickly.

    --
    "I only speak the truth"
    Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
  270. Re:Mission Accomplished by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My fireplace and tools are made of steel. They haven't melted yet.

  271. Re:Controlled Demolition, of course by arminw · · Score: 1

    ....To 'pull' a building is to attach cables to it and pull it down....

    So what evidence is there steel cables were attached to WTC7 which were used to "pull" it down in some fashion?

    --
    All theory is gray
  272. Re:Really? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    The issue of the structural integrity of the lower section of the building is only of secondary importance. The inertial mass of the falling upper section of the building was much less than the inertial mass of the section below.

    Seeing as this is roughly the 6,573rd time you've posted this same nonsense without anyone correcting you, I'll step up to bat before you embarrass yourself any further.

    The inertial mass of the lower section as a whole is largely irrelevant because the building does not act as one solid object. Each floor can and does fail progressively - therefore it's absurd to model the entire building as just two bodies. If you're truly so obsessed with the mass ratios, you should be looking at the mass of the falling structure as compared to the weight of a single floor.

    The downward moving section of the upper floors not only had to break all supports, which might have been trivial, or not, but more importantly had to accelerate the much larger lower mass of the building.

    Once again: the entire mass didn't accelerate at once. The falling mass was much greater than any single floor.

    Seriously, this is simple physics. Unless you think that Sir Isaac Newton was part of the coverup, you've really got no case.

    The buildings fell down at the same speed that a steel ball would fall when dropped from the top of each building

    No, it didn't. Stop lying.

  273. End Times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "They will believe anything, because they cannot afford truth."

  274. You are simply wrong. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    "You are, in fact, accusing the owner of the building of having said something that he's repeatedly denied saying. You've taken a word out of context (Actually, not even that. You've invented a new meaning of a word.), added in a failure to realize that almost all building collapses look the same, and and made up some absurd theory that the US government went and told the extremely liberal BBC about a building collapse before it happens, and the BBC has not questioned this."

    First, * I * did not make anything up. This was not my idea. And I did not "accuse" him of saying anything he did not, in fact, say. Further, I did not "make up" the fact that "pull" means to demolish via explosives. If you would BOTHER to look these things up, you would know that. In fact, the head of the demolition crew that took down Building 6 later used EXACTLY that same term in reference to their explosive demolition, on public television. Regardless of your opinion of YouTube, you can find unaltered clips of his statement that they were about to "pull" the building using explosives. THIS APPEARED ON PUBLIC TELEVISION and was seen by hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. You are simply wrong in that regard. Which you would know if you bothered to research your "facts". It's right there on the net, guy. Provably authentic. Easy to find. Go watch it.

    As I already explained elsewhere, my "theory" does NOT require complicity by the NYFD. Your claim that it does is erroneous. In fact, there are more likely explanations than complicity by the NYFD, which still do not contradict "my" theory (which is not "mine" at all).

    "And as for your question, the reason there is not an inquiry is that EVERYONE KNOWS STEEL REINFORCED BUILDINGS FALL DOWN IF THEY REMAIN ON FIRE."

    Here is where you are absolutely, provably, dead WRONG. Look it up yourself. Prior to that 9/11, NO steel-structure skyscraper, anywhere in the world, at ANY time, had collapsed due to fire! Not one. Anywhere. Ever. There have been fires. Lots of them. But NONE of them ever caused the building to collapse -- EVER -- prior to 9/11. Or since. Even when the interior of the building was completely gutted, the steel structure remained standing. DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, LOOK IT UP YOURSELF! You are WRONG.

    I challenge you to show me even one supportable counterexample to show that is false.

    Your final statement may or may not be wrong, but it is completely beside the point. It has nothing to do with the collapse of the building hours later. I can understand why you think it might, because you obviously believe that fires commonly bring down skyscrapers. But as it turns out, you are just plain wrong on that point. Again, if you can find a supportable counterexample, by all means let's have it. I don't mind admitting that I am wrong... if you can demonstrate that I am. You won't, because I am not.

    1. Re:You are simply wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, you are fucking wrong you lowlife, anti-American piece of fucking shit. The only thing you fucking deserve is a fucking darwin award, or just fucking save nature the fucking trouble and slit your fucking wrists fucktard.

    2. Re:You are simply wrong. by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      If you would BOTHER to look these things up, you would know that. In fact, the head of the demolition crew that took down Building 6 later used EXACTLY that same term in reference to their explosive demolition, on public television. Regardless of your opinion of YouTube, you can find unaltered clips of his statement that they were about to "pull" the building using explosives.

      No, he didn't. You didn't link to it, it doesn't exist.

      I challenge you to show me even one supportable counterexample to show that is false.

      Um, actually, buddy, the balls in your court to show a non-concrete core building that was allowed to burn for an hour without the fire being fought and didn't collapse.

      There are plenty of buildings that didn't collapse. None of them did not have a concrete core.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  275. Re:Really? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    The momentum and energy of that collapse dissipates and slows as each person collapses until the collapse stops because there is less of you at the top than there is below.

    That is, quite possibly, the most retarded statement made so far on this thread. I can't believe you're seriously trying to lecture others about physics.

    The mass of the lower structure is largely irrelevant - it's capability to support weight is the important part. If you drop a bowling ball into a 5 tonne tank of water, it's going to drop right to the bottom regardless of the weight difference.

    I mean, technically you're right - the lower mass WILL eventually stop the collapse. Unfortunately it will stop it once there are no longer any empty spaces within that lower mass, which is exactly what happened.

    If the above were the case then the demolition industry is wasting its money.

    For the millionth fucking time, the reason we have controlled demolition companies is to PREVENT DAMAGE. They're not there because blowing up buildings is hard - it's not - they're there because it's hard to blow one up without destroying or damaging half the buildings in a 5 block radius.

    Seriously, what's wrong with you?? Have you put ANY thought into this?

  276. Inside job (False flag operation: Gulf of Tonkin) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jet fuel does not reach temperatures capable of causing damage to steel and further more quickly burns off due to the highly flammable nature of it leaving only carpets and other highly inefficient fuels to burn...at even lower temperatures. But I suppose this still explains the 45 degree angle cuts in thermite style on the core columns and numerous reports of explosions in the basements and why such low temperatures smoldered liquid steel in the ground for days. Not to mention in all the history of skyscrapers in all the nations in the world and all the fires that have burned in them two towers specifically engineered to take the impacts of planes just happen to break all simple temperature rules and burn on down. Oh and at the same a time a building where gold bars are stored just happened to not only catch on fire but have the same tragic end as the wool over the eyes towers.

    Fucking morons, you will wish you pulled your heads out of your asses when your new overlords put your stupid sheep minds to work in the cotton fields.

  277. Re:Controlled Demolition, of course by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    I think you've mistaken me for a Truther. I don't think WTC 7 was 'pulled' in any manner, and I wish those people would learn some simple physics about how buildings fall.

    I was just pointing out that, of all the terms that people who demolish buildings use, 'pulled' already has an entirely different meaning than 'controlled explosion', so it is unlike to ever be used to refer to such a thing.

    To pull an example from my experience: It is like someone asserting that they heard a stage crew say 'We need to paint the flat.' in a theatre, and they were referring to the stage surface. That may sounds like some reasonable idea to people outside the theatre, the stage is, in fact, 'flat'.

    But it's completely absurd, because 'flat' already refers to a specific thing in a a theatre, namely, vertical flat set pieces that are used as walls. The things people carry or lower into place at the back of the set. Those are 'flats'.(Well, if they lower, they are 'flies', but those are just a specific kind of flat.)

    It's not only not theatre terminology to refer to the stage that way, it's inconceivable that it would ever be. The stage will not ever be called 'the flat'. Nothing will be a 'flat' except the things we're already calling the flat, because that would be too damn confusing.

    Likewise, while 'pulling' a building by blowing it up sound reasonable to people outside the deconstruction industry, it's inconceivable that they'd start using that expression to refer to it, as that already refers to a specific, different thing!

    A thing that quite obviously didn't happen to WTC 7.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  278. Only the Conspiracy Theorists called it "WTC 7" by kriston · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When talking about the so-called controlled demolition theory of 7 World Trade, it was only the conspiracy theorists who called it "W-T-C-7" when talking about it.

    These buildings were known by a different name in colloquial speech:
    The building in question was known as "7 World Trade." The others were "1 World Trade" and "2 World Trade" and the like. Never "South Tower" or "W-T-C-Anything."

    All this internet-based conspiracism by non-locals has renamed them "WTCx" but they were never known as such to the 400+ men and women who died protecting them on 9/11.

    .

    --

    Kriston

  279. How could it be? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0

    They are reporting about the Twin Towers. Then they say that they just received a "report" that the "Salomon Brothers building" (mentioned by name) had collapsed. They described the building AND its location in relation to the others. (All the while, the building was still visible in the window. So there was no mistake about when the report was actually made.)

    How could they have "accidentally" gotten all those other facts straight? Possible, but the odds against it are enormous. And mere minutes before it actually fell? That would be a "coincidence" of world-class proportions. Which do happen... no doubt about that. But when you add it to all the other "coincidences" about the very same thing that very same day, it becomes... well, the word "suspicious" does not even remotely do it justice.

    1. Re:How could it be? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you are basing your claims on what a 'news reporting' agency said; That a tower, which they knew the exact location of, and which was easily visible to them at the time of reporting, had collapsed.

      That's who you are basing your trust, your "truth" on? An agency that can't take the time to look out the frickin window to verify what they are 'reporting'???

      I see...

      This entire story - well, these comments anyway - are infinitely amusing, and at the same time, saddening. No wonder things are so mucked up, if so many people are willing to believe such tripe...

    2. Re:How could it be? by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      This BBC thing is dumbfounding. Every ask yourself if they new the WTC7 was supposed to fall before it happened, why they would have known that? Do you propose that the BBC was somehow involved in bringing down the buildings? If not, how did they know ahead of time. Was it because George Bush was afraid no one would notice that another building fell so he wrote up a press release for it?

      More likely the BBC just screwed up as the media so often does.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
  280. Re:Mission Accomplished by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

    Yea!

    And this building steel's crystalline structure gotta have toppled it to the ground!!!

    Oh wait. It didnt? And the fire completely engulfed it? And it burned for more than 20 hours longer than the WTC?

    Gulp....

    Frankly, this must be why Scientology and Intelligent Design has so many followers. Some people would feel and believe rather than think.

    --
    Send your spendthrift head of state this
  281. just a theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i would just like to point out is what about the plane that disintegrated? what about the pentagon? i still think those are more important to the situation that the WTC. yes it WAS a tragedy (i still think it was set up) but why are we concentrating on the WTC buildings? wouldnt the disintegrated plane bring up more questions? or the pentagon we all know there in NO plane especially jet powered the same size as the explosion? i understand the pentagon if reinforced but even the walls still would have cracked a bit more than they did? i care for the people that died in the WTC building but i think if we are still going to blame terrorist (dont forget over 50% of those terrorist are still alive that supposedly hijacked the planes) that we should look more where they hit the GOVT not where they hit the people. and dont forget they supposedly found a passport from one of the terrorists on the plane in the debris. that brings the biggest question to me. what about the millions of $$ of gold that dissapeared. and last but not least. how long have we the USA been looking for a reason to retaliate for the gulf war. with nato and the UN how can we start a war without it going to WW3? make up information and a tragedy then blame it on whom you want.

  282. Jason was behind 9/11 by All_One_Mind · · Score: 1
  283. Re:Really? by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

    Can someone explain the above post for me? It got modded Insightful, but I can only make out gibberish.

    --
    Send your spendthrift head of state this
  284. I would like to point out... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0

    I do not find Silverstein's explanation of his earlier comment about "pulling" (the building?) to be plausible. According to the article to which you linked, there is another telling fact, which is also reported elsewhere: a spokesman for the Fire Department, when asked about Silverstein's claim that he agreed to "pull the firefighters out", said (paraphrase): "We have complete independent control over whether we pull out of a building on fire. Nobody but the Fire Chief makes that decision."

    In essence, he was (very diplomatically) implying that Silverstein was lying.

    It is certainly POSSIBLE that the BBC report was a mistake. Reuters admitted that they erroneously reported building 7 collapsing. But... THAT BEGS THE QUESTION. The question is: "How could such a mistake have been made???" It is improbable as hell. Even given that it was a chaotic, difficult-to-deal-with day, the odds of that particular "error" happening accidentally at that particular time are vanishingly small. Not impossible, but very improbable.

    1. Re:I would like to point out... by CompCons · · Score: 1

      Do you actually watch the news? They make major mistakes all the time! On average reporters are just slightly less educated than the average citizen. They attempt to be experts on all topics and banter with the true experts while interviewing them. They commonly make huge errors in statistics and object identification. For instance, during the Columbine shootings several reporters stated that a military tank had arrived on the scene, when in fact it was a swat team APC. There's a big difference between the military showing up at a high school with a tank and the police showing up with an APC. They are sensationalizing to get ratings and if they hear a rumor they will repeat it as fact. It's a fun game to watch the news and see how many factual errors you can find per hour.

  285. This is a slap in the face for science by jaminunit · · Score: 1

    WOW This NIST report is a real slap in the face of science, WOW I'm in shock that This garbage gets put out. Check out the independent research that 400+ Architects and Engineers have put out and the Rebuttal against this Abomination of science and decency, http://www.ae911truth.org/audio/AE911truth%20News%20Conf%20080821_web.mp3 Here we discuss the report and deconstruct it. http://www.truthnews.com.au/radio/export/TNRA_20080822.mp3 see the science here http://www.ae911truth.org/

  286. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's just get this out of the way first. BULLSHIT!

    The rest of the world knows something suspicious went on, but America has their head in the sand.
    Not long after this shit, there was a building in Europe, where the fire was so intense, it burned everything off. The steel structure was still standing but oxidizing flame was enough to melt or buckle steel in the trade center? The sheer ignorance of the American populace astounds me.

    Interesting. Then I am curious as to what temperature would be required to melt and/or buckle the structure of your aluminum foil hat?

    come on cant we really try to find out what happened? really it should not be too hard.

  287. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    This has been repeated often, and is utterly bogus. No demolition team has ever turned up on site and said "Oh, we'll burn five stories in the top half of this fifty storey building and it will collapse". Never happened. Why? Because there is nowhere near enough energy for those floors to collapse all the floors below them

    Sigh. There is so much insanity here that it is getting a little sad.

    Let's go through your dumbass comment line for line shall we? Let's look at one tower only, just for fun. The plane hits at 95/96 floor. That means that there is about 15 floors above where the plane hits. That is a fairly tall building. Five floors is high too, but it is not 15.

    Now, can you explain to me why anyone would build a tall building so strong that each floor could hold up the weight of a 15 story building slamming into it after a ten feet fall? How much kinetic energy does a 15 story building have after having fallen 10 feet? Do you know of any commercial building strong enough to withstand such an impact?

    Now, what about your idiot "all the floors below them" comment? Did the top 15 floors of the WTC demolish all the floors below them? Nope, they demolished a single floor. Incidentally a floor that had been weakened by fire. Once they collapsed that floor, we have a 16 story building falling ten feet. Do you think the floor below could withstand a 16 story building falling ten feet? At this point in time we are around 94 floor. Do you think that the first floor was build strong enough to withstand the impact of a 109 story building dropping ten feet onto it? I doubt it.

    That is what pancaking is. The collapsing of a single floor. Many times over.

    Oh, and I forgot about your retarded "demolition team" comment too. Dang, should have done that first. But you are right, no demolition crew would have demolished the WTC in the way they fell. Do you know why? Because the buildings and their debris fell onto an area covering several city blocks, seriously damaging a number of buildings around them. Usually demolition crews try to avoid that.

    Am I harsh? Nasty? A name-caller? Nope. I just have absolutely no patience whatsoever for elected stupidity. If you were mentally handicapped I would have respected your opinions. You are not. You have just elected to have an intellect comparable to a mentally handicapped person, and that annoys the shit out of me.

  288. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    You can't start a fire and/or structurally destabilise the top few floors in a multi-storey building and have it completely collapse the whole building. Fact. The greater number of structurally sound floors below are more than enough to dissipate any energy and momentum of such a collapse unless you destabilise the floors below (or they are already destabilised) in some way so they respond weakly.

    BZZZT! WRONG! There never was a "few" (it was 15 in the case of the tower that was hit higher up) floors that "completely collapsed the whole building". It was a 15 story building collapsing a single floor after falling ten feet onto a 95 story building. Then it was a 16 story building falling ten feet onto a 94 story building and collapsing the top floor only, and then it was a 17 story building ramming into a 94 story building, again collapsing the top floor only. And so on until a 109 story building dropped ten feet onto a single story building, collapsing it.

    Do you know any buildings in the US, single story, that would survive having a 109 story steel and concrete sky scraper dropped on it? Only from ten feet mind you.

    Obviously it wasn't that neat. Once the collapse got going the shock wave increased the overall damage of the building, but if you have a little bit of a brain, perhaps you get the point.

  289. Re:Really? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    Just for fun:

    it burned at temperatures of 800C for more than 18 hours [AFP]... The fire in WTC 1 is reported to have burned at 800C

    And how do they know this? Either of those facts?

    The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it, that was the largest plane at the time.

    Yeah -- designed to. Doesn't mean it was a flawless design.

    this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door - this intense grid - and the plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting.

    That'd be an interesting experiment -- take that mosquito netting, and use it to build a little square tower. What happens if you throw a pencil at that?

    What happens if it's not a pencil, but a welding torch?

    Because as it is, the mosquito netting on your screen door is held up by the door frame. What happens if you kick the door frame hard enough?

    But assume they're right:

    you have to conclude that either a fundamental flaw existed in WTC 1's inner core construction, or a fundamental flaw exists in the official explanation of the building's collapse.

    What's wrong with the former?

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  290. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only way any large building can collapse in such a short amount of time, is if it's ENTIRE support structures is instantaneously removed.

    And the only way to have the entire support structure vanish instantaneously is to have hundreds of professionals working on placing explosives along the entire support structure. These explosives are set of using utterly standard wiring, in the case of something as large as the WTC, hundreds of miles worth of wiring. Finally, the explosives would have to be placed with extreme accuracy all around the building by drilling holes in the support infrastructure.

    Now, what do you think is more likely, either the government has access to:

    1. Invisible demolition crews
    2. Miles and miles of invisible wiring
    3. Tools that can drill undetectable holes in steel completely silently.

    or, they have access to the MIB Neuralizer and they have bee able to Neuralize all the witnesses

    Here's idea: The premise for you conspiracy theory is incorrect. The building never dropped as if all it's support structure was instantaneously removed.

  291. Re:Really? by Urkki · · Score: 1

    The moving mass of the upper part of the building was considerably less than the inertial mass of the building below the break. The weight and inertial energy of the falling upper part of the buildings could theoretically have overcome the strength of the lower support structure, but not its much larger inertia.

    To put it simply, assume the top of the building starting to fall from standstill above the floor(s) where structures break. Now it comes down at least height of a full floor (3 meters?), in other words that much potential energy (mass * height * G-constant) gets converted into different forms of energy, mostly momentum and breaking the structures inside that floor.

    Then this moving mass is going to hit the first intact floor.

    If the top of the building was heavy enough, it now has enough momentum (after falling that 3 meters) to break the intact floor and have some momentum left. The breaking floor adds to the mass of the falling top, and any momentum left also gives some initial velocity instead of starting from standstill. If this is the case, then of course the next floor will break because it'll be hit harder than the floor above it, leaving even more momentum after breaking and adding to the mass again. Repeat until bottom of the building is demolished down to the ground level. And then finally any intact floors at the top will be hitting the debris pile at ground at some velocity (in WTC case, at high enough velocity to destroy them too).

    On the other hand, if the top of the building is too light, it won't have enough momentum after falling the first 3 meters. Then it's not going to fully break the first intact floor, and so it willhit the next floor with less force, quickly halting the pancaking collapse after the weakened floors have collapsed (maybe after that the top would fall sideways, or just stick up there, I don't know).

    You're free to believe that the latter case is true for WTC, and there were additional explosives to cause pancaking. But the collapse accelerating faster and faster on it's own, is quite inevitable with enough mass (I mean, this is common sense, with enough mass there's enough force to pulverize the concrete slab of a floor below). And I'm sure in this case the top floors had plenty enough mass to initiate the accelerating collapse (which is self-maintaining after it starts, as more mass and momentum gets added every floor).

    But feel free to show me the math demonstrating that the first intact floor's concreate slab would have had enough strength to halt the entire moving top of the building. Also feel free to believe that there wasn't enough mass even if you can't show the math. But don't go about saying that a pancaking collapse would always stop, 'cos that's essentially saying that the every floor can withstand impact of infinite force.

  292. Re:D-Day & A-bomb: HUGE successful conspiracie by leftie · · Score: 1

    The Germans only had interest in Allied atomic research. They had no real information on allied atomic research.

    Check the text of pp 347-348 in Heisenberg's War by T. Powers at google books...

    http://books.google.com/books?id=4i2ghEnG6VkC&pg=PA348&lpg=PA348&dq=german+knowledge+manhattan+project&source=web&ots=80jOHCHQxO&sig=nHXDnjxwqM6dbBD-F0da8k78AuA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA347,M1

    This German WW2 radios collection website...

    http://www.laud.no/ww2/se108/index.htm ...shows German spy radio transmitters were built with variable frequency transmitters. Sorry. No single local frequency to block. Jamming attempts would be very hit and miss propositions.

  293. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    I have never seen an increase in the weight of debris accelerating a collapse beyond the fall of gravity.

    Yes, you have. In the WTC. You call it debris, but let's call it what it was. The plane hitting the higher up hit 95 floor or so. Once that floor collapsed the "debris" that came crashing down 10 feet was 15 huge slabs of steel and concrete (plus walls, furniture etc). The 95th story collapsed under under the weight of these 15 slabs. Then 16 slabs rammed into 94th floor. Do you think that 16 slabs of concrete and steel has higher weight than 15? And thus it continued until 109 massive slabs of concrete and steel slammed into the bottom floor from ten feet.

    Here is an experiment for you. Find a solid stick of plastic. 20 concrete slabs, make them about 1x1 foot and about half an inch thick. Drill holes in them and stack them on top of each other with the plastic stick through the holes. Now take the plastic straws and make some space between the concrete slabs. A couple of inches for example. Note that if you do this carefully, the thin straws will easily hold the slabs up.

    You have now build the WTC. Now, set fire to the second floor from the top. Not very hot, only hot enough to bend (no need to melt) the straws holding up the top two slabs.

    When the top to slabs come crashing down on the slab below them, do you think the tiny straws will be able to hold the one slab they have been holding and the next two coming down with some velocity? Probably not. What do you thin happens from then on?

  294. Re:D-Day & A-bomb: HUGE successful conspiracie by leftie · · Score: 1

    You aren't engaging of honest discussions of any evidence here. nI don't see you responding with any scientific evidence at all to dispute the findings. I see you calling people names and lobbing insults.

    That's a logical fallacy called an ad hominem.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem [wikipedia.org]

  295. Oh good, another government commision by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Appointed by the lying Bush administration. Yeah, I believe everything they say. Wait, Cheney has been implicated by ex-CIA in forging fake documents to "prove" that Sadam was working with Al Queda and the Bush white house outed an active CIA agent when her hubby shot down their fake uranium yellow cake documents. Yeah, this white house never fakes documents it releases to the public. Riiiiiight.

  296. naive ? by GDgonzo · · Score: 0

    Perhaps I just don't get it. But metals conduct heat, unless all the metal is enclosed in a hot enough fire , or the fire is concentrated on any one point, wouldn't the structure just act as one big heat sink and dissipate most of the heat? And if the pancake theory is true, then where are all the core columns? Shouldn't there be 100+ floors worth of central columns twisted at the bottom of the rubble? And why did nasa report fires still burning weeks later at elevated temperatures, where did they come from? Leave the conspiracy theories out, these are important questions. We have standards for a reason , and that is to prevent things like this from happening. The report just leaves me feeling stupid.

  297. Re:You can build it, but it sure ain't cost-effect by Americium · · Score: 1

    They use rebar, I'm sure if that heated up it would fail, and the concrete alone can't handle the stress, so it would still collapse, although it would take longer.

  298. Running for US Congress by j0ebaker · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I am challenging a Republican incumbant in the primary here in Wisconsin. I think the events of 911 involve US Government and Israeli Mossad.

    http://www.josephwilliambaker.org/
       

  299. Why is this modded up? by snowwrestler · · Score: 1

    Neither of those statements are true.

    --
    Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  300. Re:OF COURSE they made a mistake. But not that one by terjeber · · Score: 1

    They described the building both by name (Salomon Brothers) and by number.

    Yes, they were quoting the Reuters press release. Big deal. The Reuters release was wrong. A single person gets it wrong and it spreads through the news organizations. The person reporting it at the BBC had no clue what building it was.

  301. Nonsense again. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    "No, he didn't. You didn't link to it, it doesn't exist."

    Garbage. I don't have to link to everything that you can find yourself in 30 seconds on Google or YouTube. Don't ask me to do your homework for you. If you are too lazy, you are too lazy. But that is YOUR problem, not mine! Wrong is wrong, even if you are afraid to prove it to yourself. I am not your mommy.

    "Um, actually, buddy, the balls in your court to show a non-concrete core building that was allowed to burn for an hour without the fire being fought and didn't collapse."

    Nonsense again. I have no obligation to prove to you every claim I make. YOU are the one who called "bullshit". In this society, it is traditionally YOUR job to show that the call has some kind of basis. And in this case it does not.

    "None of them did not have a concrete core."

    Really? NONE of the steel-structure skyscrapers that burned did NOT have a concrete core? That's a rather incredible claim. I know of one such... but only one.

    Regardless, I can meet YOUR challenge easily enough: WTC 7 burned for a good many hours, without active firefighting, without collapsing. The fire department actually gave up on the fire early in the day; the building was not brought down until almost 5:30.

    So: I showed you mine, now it's your turn. How about some evidence? I have given you plenty, for free. You have claimed some things that have turned out not to be true. How about a little evidence to back up your rebuttal, for a change? You are starting to look pretty silly.

    1. Re:Nonsense again. by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Don't ask me to do your homework for you. If you are too lazy, you are too lazy.

      Nonsense again. I have no obligation to prove to you every claim I make.

      And, amazingly, a victory for me. And I was about to give up.

      Here's a hint: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

      Here's another hint: Asserting that things exist on the internet and not providing a link makes you look like a liar. It's one thing to assert things exist somewhere else, like in a book, but not on the internet.

      More to the point, slashdot isn't filled with traditional Truther morons. They understand that if you assert a web page exists, and I assert it doesn't, your job is to link to it. It is logically impossible for me to prove such a video doesn't exist. (Of course, logic? Not your strong suit.)

      WTC 7 burned for a good many hours, without active firefighting, without collapsing. The fire department actually gave up on the fire early in the day; the building was not brought down until almost 5:30.

      Your example of a building that didn't collapse is a building that did collapse? Interesting. I think I'll let that example stand without any comment at all.

      Hey, incidentally, how exactly did all those controlled demolitions charges and control cables required to precisely synchronize them remain intact during a several-hour fire?

      While there are explosives that won't be set off by fire, I don't know of any that would remain intact during a fire.

      Thermite, which is used to cut through supports, in theory wouldn't be set off by the heat, but, then again, because it's so hard to set off, it comes with magnesium to set it off...which would be caught on fire. Either setting off the thermite, or at least rendering it unable to be set off later.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  302. Perfect collapses? Hardly by snowwrestler · · Score: 1

    The thought that you can get three out of three perfect collapses by splashing them with a bit of aviation fuel must have demolition companies shaking in their boots.

    Your premise is ridiculously flawed. The collapses were very, very far from "perfect" by the standards of controlled demolition. The buildings did not fall straight down at all--the outer walls peeled outward and disintegrated, with debris landing hundreds of yards away and thoroughly destroying all neighboring buildings.

    Any controlled demolition company watching the fall would feel very comfortable about their jobs. Those companies don't get paid just to knock buildings down. They get paid to drop the debris where it is supposed to go, and only where it is supposed to go.

    --
    Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  303. Here is another one anyway, for free. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/ENR/20041115a.asp

    The floors weakened, but the building did not collapse. And it did not have a concrete core.

    Firefighters stopped work on this fire in the early afternoon. The fire was described as "raging", and the sprinklers in the building did not work. The fire continued to burn for a very long time after that.

    So... I met your challenge, and it took me all of about 10 seconds to find this case on the internet. Your turn.

    1. Re:Here is another one anyway, for free. by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      And the Parque Central fire burned the top off the building. As opposed to the WTC fires, all of which had at least 30 floors above the fire. (Burning the top off a building without affecting the bottom is easy. Burning the bottom off without affecting the top, not so much.)

      More to the point, the Parque Central, while not with a concrete core, had instead multiple concrete supports around the sides, and multiple concrete floors that said supports attached to. It was not a steel supported building. It wasn't even a concrete core. It was a much better and more modern design, using concrete support columns. It also used much better insulation on its steel.

      But it's fun watching Truthers link to things that disprove another of their claims:

      In the Parque Central fire, the steel beams bent, which is an interesting fact for the idea that steel couldn't buckle under the heat of jet fuel. Here, they bent under the heat of burning offices. No jet fuel, no thermite, the steel bent under the heat of a normal fire, and under the weight of a few floors, instead of a whole building.

      As the buildings was not steel supported, it did not collapse. In fact, as the outside of the building has concrete supports, the floors didn't even collapse like on the Windsor Tower.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  304. Re:How did it catch fire? by SnowZero · · Score: 1

    How did such an intense fire start in the building? I understand that there was debris from the other building, but seems like you would need a better than average fuel source for such an intense fire.

    The ignition source has nothing to do with the eventual intensity of the fire. A refinery fire can start from a light bulb, a forest fire can start from a cigarette. All you need for an intense fire is plenty of fuel and oxygen. An office environment will give you all the fuel you'd need, and debris damage will poke holes to allow air in.

    I remember on CNN, one of the researches claimed that this was the first recorded event of firing taking down such a structure.

    This is not surprising. There really aren't that many 50 floor buildings in the entire world, normally a building would have a functioning anti-fire system, and you would not normally leave a fire burning in such an expensive building. With such a rare sequence of events, it's unlikely that it would happen too often.

    The next such event will probably take place after an earthquake; much of the damage in places that are prepared for earthquakes ends up being due to fires; anti-fire systems are messed up by the earthquake and first responders are overstretched so they have to let some things burn. Hopefully we won't see this in our lifetimes, but time says it will happen.

    So how many unlikely events happened in that one (12 hr?) period? I often hear Occam's razor being suggested to push against ridiculously unlikely events. Any one know what is the approximate probability of that 12hr period occurring as officially stated?

    You act as if they were independent events, but they weren't. It was one unlikely event with a bunch of effects. For example, if you have a 1/10k chance of dying on an airplane flight, the chance that 100 passengers die is not (1/10k)^100, but on the order of 1/10k. That's because an unlikely event (a plane crash) causes a bunch of then likely outcomes (passenger death). Such things can be modeled with conditional probability. People without knowledge of conditional probability are famously inaccurate at estimating outcomes that involve it.

    Also, with things like this, it doesn't make sense to talk about probability of a particular outcome: that will always be very low. What's the chance I will get to work at 9:12:34.26 tomorrow and spill coffee on my co-worker Joe Programmer? -- vanishingly small, but not much different than getting to work at 9:14:12.62 and spilling coffee on Jane. Thus, we usually talk about either simple events (binary), or similarly complex outcomes relative to one another.

    In that light, here's a relative probability for you; The chance of a building falling down given two much larger nearby buildings fell down from a massive jet fuel fire, spewing all sorts of material on this other building, or a grand conspiracy involving hundreds or thousands of people is kept secret for 7 years, and even firemen and police in the building didn't discover the conspiracy, or kept silent about it when hundreds of their co-workers died. Grand conspiracies don't stay secret even in the most locked-down autocratic societies, let alone the US. Besides, if it was a conspiracy we would have made it look like Saddam did it, which would have been more "useful" to the agendas of those in power at the time.

    Just seems to me, that if all these things did happened accidentally (aside from the actual hijacking and plane crash part), this is approaching the miraculous/"God did it"/fate level of likelihood.

    Again, check your independence assumptions, and relearn your conditional probability theory.

    Oh, and one more question, which I probably might know the answer to if I had read the full report: did the research set out to virtually replicate the collapse? Or did they model the entire environment and scenario, and th

  305. A lie hard to cover by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A Beowulf cluster was needed to invent a lie bigger that the 9/11 one, just to try to fool people again.

    The solution is waaaaay simpler. I've got a lot of beer that day and the burp was sooooo big that the entire building was brought down.

    As of credibility the two explanations are more or less on the same level...

  306. Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by leftie · · Score: 1

    There were massive steel beams running through the central core of the WTC buildings.

    To use the martial artist metaphor properly, there would have to be about 12 lengths of rebar running side-by-side securing each board right through the middle of the boards the guy was trying to break.

    1. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      Just because there are big, strong steel beams doesn't mean they can support an infinite load. You are severely overestimating the strength of a little bit of steel. You don't have to collapse the entire column at once. You only need to get collapse one floor. Show me anywhere, where a structure survived after having a 15 story building dropped on it from 10 feet. It will pulverize any and everything.

    2. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      Those beams withstood the impact did they not? The building stayed up. But, once the building starts coming down, they're probably going to buckle. 15 floors falling down 10 feet. Do you have any idea the amount of energy there? Also, look at the ground around the picture you posted. See all that debris? See the black car and the film of dust on it? There is a fine ash there and it was just a pancaking effect. Explosives are not required. Concrete grinding against concrete and pulverizing it will create dust too.

    3. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by leftie · · Score: 0, Troll

      Do you think the beams were designed so they would withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and THEN collapse?

      Not hardly. They were designed with massive enough steel beams so that they could be hit by a Boeing 707 and keep standing afterwards.

      That picture clearly shows that pancaking creates a LITTLE dust. Only a little. Not the monsterous hundreds of feet tall cloud of atomized debris that was visible all the way up to the astronauts in the International Space Station.

      Only massive amounts of explosives can create that kind of massive cloud of atomized debris.

    4. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That picture clearly shows that pancaking creates a LITTLE dust. Only a little. Not the monsterous hundreds of feet tall cloud of atomized debris that was visible all the way up to the astronauts in the International Space Station.

      When a structure is filled with plastered sheetrock walls, office furniture and equipment, and people, it gets pulverized in a collapse. Not to mention the concrete flooring that might have survived a 5-story fall intact instead fell 1000 feet.

      Only massive amounts of explosives can create that kind of massive cloud of atomized debris.

      Yeah, and you still haven't explained how it's remotely possible for massive amounts of explosives to have been planted in WTC, and not detected after the event. No "truther" has ever been able to explain this.

    5. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      First, that was just a concrete parking garage. Drywall, plus an extra 100 stories of concrete over what that parking garage had, would create a crapload of dust. Second, 707 vs. 767. Big difference in planes. So yeah, maybe they would've been fine after a 707, but in the case of the much larger plane, the building took the hit, and stood for as long as they could.

    6. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      You are severely underestimating the strength of massive steel structural beams that were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and still keep the building upright.

      Nobody is. It withstood the impact. What it did not withstand is the dozen stories above it falling down. A 707 is tiny and more importantly feather-light (aluminum vs concrete and steel) compared to a fifteen story building. The steel core of the building was not built to withstand having another building dropped on it.

      Here's a link to a picture of a pancake collapse. The floors remain fairly recognizable stacked one on top of another. There is rubble but there is no pulverization.

      If you really think a 5-story building collapsing is at all comparable to a 100-story building collapsing, then there's seriously no hope for you. Do you have any idea how much energy was contained in that falling building? Obviously not, but suffice to say that you're very very wrong and the complete pulverization of a great deal of the building was inevitable.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    7. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Second, 707 vs. 767. Big difference in planes.

      Why do people that defend the official story tend to spout so much misinformation?

      A 767 is *not* a "much larger" plane than a 707.

      Boeing 707 vs. 767

    8. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Do you have any idea how much energy was contained in that falling building?

      Just to emphasize that point - if I remember correctly, the potential energy contained in the towers was around a Terrajoule, the equivalent of over 200 tonnes of TNT.

    9. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Here's a link to a picture of a pancake collapse. The floors remain fairly recognizable stacked one on top of another. There is rubble but there is no pulverization.

      Great. Now, drop those floors an additional 1000 feet and tell me what they look like then.

    10. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by kidgenius · · Score: 1
      I don't know about you but 30 tons is a helluva a bit of weight and mass. First,the site you quoted is wrong. The max cruise (which is stated correctly for the 707 @ ~600 mph) for a 767 is 568 mph, not 530mph. That's the regular cruising speed, which in comparison to the 707-320B is 550mph, which all of a sudden isn't too big of a difference.

      Also, their thrust numbers for the 767 are completely wrong. Each engine can produce > 60,000 lb of thrust for the smaller engine on the 767-200ER. Not sure where they got 30,000 lb of thrust, but that's half of what each engine will produce. When you recalculate based off just those numbers, the 767-200ER has a MUCH higher thrust to weight ratio (~.31 compared to .21). Refute that if you will.

      Though, in this discussion, a thrust to weight ratio will not play into the max speed that the plane will hit the building at. The higher thrust of the 767 is for efficiency reasons to allow the cruising speed to be close to the vmax. Also, these planes weren't cruising, they were in a dive, and most likely were in an overspeed condition during the dive. So cruising speed really doesn't play a huge role. It would be more for a CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) condition where the plane is flying low and "runs into" a building. These were definitely not that type of condition, but were a "dive bomb" to hit a building on purpose. The maximum velocity is not an airframe rating, but instead is the maximum speed the engines can push the plane in straight and level flight. Those planes can go much faster before breaking apart.

      I'm not going to buy into a site (or series of sites parroting the same information) that is incorrectly stating widely available technical data for the purpose of furthering their point of view. I find it alarming that you would subscribe to theories based on incorrect data.

    11. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by leftie · · Score: 1

      Please stop talking about debris dropping 1000 feet creating dust at impact. It didn't happen.

      http://home.comcast.net/~jeffrey.king2/wsb/media/56016/site1103.jpg

      As one can see in the this linked series of pictures, the creation of the atomized debris cloud began at the moment collapse began.

      There was not a collapse then a big dust cloud that rose up from the ground after impact. The material was atomized at the site of the initial collapse at instant of collapse.

      http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/images/wtc-gallery/nist1-3d/6-19_wtc2-collapsing.jpg

      Another picture from the moment off collapse. The dust blown out at high rate of speed and in the lower right what looks like be ignited thermite being blown out along with the dust.

    12. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by leftie · · Score: 1

      Big numbers that are thrown around to distract and confuse that have no relevance to this discussion.

    13. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by leftie · · Score: 1

      Wrong again. You keep trying to skip past a critical point.

      "...once the building starts coming down..."

      There was no reason for the WTC buildings to start coming down in the first place. The building was designed to withstand a direct hit by a 707 and remain standing.

    14. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by leftie · · Score: 1

      Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

      Stats on the Boeing 707-320B from Boeing.com

      "Advanced 707-320B Wingspan 145 feet 9 inches (44.42 m)
      Length 152 feet 11 inches (46.6 m)
      Wing Area 3,010 square feet (280 m2)
      Gross Weight 336,000 pounds (152,400 kg)
      Cruising Speed 607 mph (977 km/h)
      Range 6,160 miles (9,913 km)
      Service Ceiling 36,000 feet (10,973 m)
      Power Four Pratt & Whitney JT3D turbofans of 18,000 pounds thrust each
      Passenger Cabin 141 passengers mixed class or a maximum of 189 all economy"

      http://www.boeing.com/commercial/707family/product.html

      Technical Characteristics -- Boeing 767-200ER
      Passenger Seating Configuration
            Typical 3-class 181
            Typical 2-class 224
            Typical 1-class up to 255
      Cargo 2,925 cu ft (82.9 cu m)
      Engines 2
      maximum thrust
      Pratt & Whitney PW4000 60,200 lb

      GE CF6-80C262,100 lb

      Maximum Fuel Capacity 23,980 U.S. gal (90,770 L)
      Maximum Takeoff Weight 395,000 lb (179,170 kg)
      Maximum Range 6,590 nautical miles (12,200 km)

      Typical city pairs:
      New York to Beijing
      Typical Cruise Speed at 35,000 feet Mach 0.80 (530 mph, 851 kph)
      Basic Dimensions
            Wing Span 156 ft 1 in (47.6 m)
            Overall Length 159 ft 2 in (48.5 m)
            Tail Height 52 ft (15.8 m)
            Interior Cabin Width 15 ft 6 in (4.7 m)"

      http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767family/pf/pf_200prod.html

      Now as this picture shows...
      http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/images/wtc-gallery/nist1-3d/6-19_wtc2-collapsing.jpg

      No "building being dropped on another building" nonsense happened.

      As the picture clearly shows, the atomized debris dust preceded the collapse. The dust and debris is being blown out of the site of the initial area of collapse at a high rate of speed such as one would expect to see when explosives have been used.

    15. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by leftie · · Score: 1

      Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

      Stats on the Boeing 707-320B from Boeing.com

      "Advanced 707-320B Wingspan 145 feet 9 inches (44.42 m)
      Length 152 feet 11 inches (46.6 m)
      Wing Area 3,010 square feet (280 m2)
      Gross Weight 336,000 pounds (152,400 kg)
      Cruising Speed 607 mph (977 km/h)
      Range 6,160 miles (9,913 km)
      Service Ceiling 36,000 feet (10,973 m)
      Power Four Pratt & Whitney JT3D turbofans of 18,000 pounds thrust each
      Passenger Cabin 141 passengers mixed class or a maximum of 189 all economy"

      http://www.boeing.com/commercial/707family/product.html [boeing.com]

      Technical Characteristics -- Boeing 767-200ER
      Passenger Seating Configuration
                  Typical 3-class 181
                  Typical 2-class 224
                  Typical 1-class up to 255
      Cargo 2,925 cu ft (82.9 cu m)
      Engines 2
      maximum thrust
      Pratt & Whitney PW4000 60,200 lb

      GE CF6-80C262,100 lb

      Maximum Fuel Capacity 23,980 U.S. gal (90,770 L)
      Maximum Takeoff Weight 395,000 lb (179,170 kg)
      Maximum Range 6,590 nautical miles (12,200 km)

      Typical city pairs:
      New York to Beijing
      Typical Cruise Speed at 35,000 feet Mach 0.80 (530 mph, 851 kph)
      Basic Dimensions
                  Wing Span 156 ft 1 in (47.6 m)
                  Overall Length 159 ft 2 in (48.5 m)
                  Tail Height 52 ft (15.8 m)
                  Interior Cabin Width 15 ft 6 in (4.7 m)"

      http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767family/pf/pf_200prod.html [boeing.com]

      707 and 767 is within 85-90% of each other in every key area of measurement.

      If I remember right, Boeing intended the 767 to be almost a direct replacement for the 707.

      Now as this picture shows...
      http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/images/wtc-gallery/nist1-3d/6-19_wtc2-collapsing.jpg [thewebfairy.com]

      No "building being dropped on another building" nonsense happened.

      As the picture clearly shows, the atomized debris dust preceded the collapse. The dust and debris is being blown out of the site of the initial area of collapse at a high rate of speed such as one would expect to see when explosives have been used.

    16. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by leftie · · Score: 1

      Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

      Stats on the Boeing jets from Boeing.com

      "
      Advanced 707-320B

      Wingspan 145 feet 9 inches (44.42 m)
      Length 152 feet 11 inches (46.6 m)
      Wing Area 3,010 square feet (280 m2)
      Gross Weight 336,000 pounds (152,400 kg)
      Cruising Speed 607 mph (977 km/h)
      Range 6,160 miles (9,913 km)
      Service Ceiling 36,000 feet (10,973 m)
      Power Four Pratt & Whitney JT3D turbofans of 18,000 pounds thrust each
      Passenger Cabin 141 passengers mixed class or a maximum of 189 all economy"

      http://www.boeing.com/commercial/707family/product.html

      "Technical Characteristics -- Boeing 767-200ER

      Passenger Seating Configuration
                  Typical 3-class 181
                  Typical 2-class 224
                  Typical 1-class up to 255
      Cargo 2,925 cu ft (82.9 cu m)
      Engines 2
      maximum thrust
      Pratt & Whitney PW4000 60,200 lb

      GE CF6-80C262,100 lb

      Maximum Fuel Capacity 23,980 U.S. gal (90,770 L)
      Maximum Takeoff Weight 395,000 lb (179,170 kg)
      Maximum Range 6,590 nautical miles (12,200 km)

      Typical city pairs:
      New York to Beijing
      Typical Cruise Speed at 35,000 feet Mach 0.80 (530 mph, 851 kph)
      Basic Dimensions
                  Wing Span 156 ft 1 in (47.6 m)
                  Overall Length 159 ft 2 in (48.5 m)
                  Tail Height 52 ft (15.8 m)
                  Interior Cabin Width 15 ft 6 in (4.7 m)"

      http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767family/pf/pf_200prod.html

      Now as this picture shows...
      http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/images/wtc-gallery/nist1-3d/6-19_wtc2-collapsing.jpg

      No "building being dropped on another building" pulverization nonsense happened.

      As the picture clearly shows, the atomized debris dust preceded the collapse. The dust and debris is being blown out of the site of the initial area of collapse at a high rate of speed such as one would expect to see when explosives have been used.

    17. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by leftie · · Score: 1

      Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

      Stats on the Boeing jets from Boeing.com

      "
      Advanced 707-320B

      Wingspan 145 feet 9 inches (44.42 m)
      Length 152 feet 11 inches (46.6 m)
      Wing Area 3,010 square feet (280 m2)
      Gross Weight 336,000 pounds (152,400 kg)
      Cruising Speed 607 mph (977 km/h)
      Range 6,160 miles (9,913 km)
      Service Ceiling 36,000 feet (10,973 m)
      Power Four Pratt & Whitney JT3D turbofans of 18,000 pounds thrust each
      Passenger Cabin 141 passengers mixed class or a maximum of 189 all economy"

      http://www.boeing.com/commercial/707family/product.html [boeing.com]

      "Technical Characteristics -- Boeing 767-200ER

      Passenger Seating Configuration
                              Typical 3-class 181
                              Typical 2-class 224
                              Typical 1-class up to 255
      Cargo 2,925 cu ft (82.9 cu m)
      Engines 2
      maximum thrust
      Pratt & Whitney PW4000 60,200 lb

      GE CF6-80C262,100 lb

      Maximum Fuel Capacity 23,980 U.S. gal (90,770 L)
      Maximum Takeoff Weight 395,000 lb (179,170 kg)
      Maximum Range 6,590 nautical miles (12,200 km)

      Typical city pairs:
      New York to Beijing
      Typical Cruise Speed at 35,000 feet Mach 0.80 (530 mph, 851 kph)
      Basic Dimensions
                              Wing Span 156 ft 1 in (47.6 m)
                              Overall Length 159 ft 2 in (48.5 m)
                              Tail Height 52 ft (15.8 m)
                              Interior Cabin Width 15 ft 6 in (4.7 m)"

      http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767family/pf/pf_200prod.html [boeing.com]

      707 is 85-90% of 767 spec in all key areas.

    18. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Please stop talking about debris dropping 1000 feet creating dust at impact. It didn't happen.

      I never said the word dust. I never said what would or would not happen. I said try it again with a long falling distance and tell me what would happen. If you think falling 1000 feet will have no effect whatsoever, then feel free to disagree. That was my one and only one statement. Nothing about dust. Just an implication on whether the floors would be recognizable after a 1000 foot drop.

    19. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by kidgenius · · Score: 1

      It was hit by a larger plane. That's why it came down. You can ignore "cruising speed", because the plane was in a dive. So maximum speeds, cruising speeds, etc., are only applicable to straight and level flight. This was not the case, so it doesn't apply. Also, the towers did survive the impact. It was the fire, insulation being blown off (which probably had not been assumed to happen during the initial calculations), and inability of fire crews to put those fires out that caused the collapse. How is this so hard? It did remain standing after the plane hit it, and it was fire that was the straw that broke the camels back.

    20. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Big numbers only confuse small minds.

      I've seen you claim earlier that the only way the buildings could have been "turned to dust" is through the use of explosives. Here's my question to you: if the kinetic energy of the towers was equal to 200 tonnes of TNT, and if this amount of energy was not enough to cause the effect we've seen, then HOW MUCH explosive would have been required? 400 tonnes? 600? A few kilotonnes? Are you one of those morons who think a tactical nuke was set off in the towers?

    21. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or maybe that's what 400,000 cubic feet of compressed air, crushed cement pillars, and burning kerosene and sheetrock and carpet look like.

    22. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      And you seriously think 150,000-170,000 kg is anywhere close to the weight to a 10-20 story tall 1-acre area steel and concrete building? You're truly an idiot of colossal proportions. The fact that you'd even post that spewing of mostly irrelevant stats as though it backed you up in any way is hilarious, yet also sad.

      And yes, a building did fall on a building. As soon as the upper stories started to move, they were in fact falling, and the amount of energy it acquired after falling the 10 feet to hit the next floor is ridiculous. Yes you might expect to see dust clouds fly out the lower floors when explosives were used. If you had anything approaching the most basic of clues regarding physics, you would also expect to this to happen when 20 stories of steel and concrete impacted the floors beneath them.

      It's sad, really. With everything that it is possible to find fault with or find suspicious before and after 9/11, you choose to harp on the dumbest -- that when the structure of a skyscraper is weakened by fire, causing the uppermost portion of it to begin to fall, it is impossible for that building to suffer catastrophic destruction without the aid of deliberate demolition. It basically requires ignoring the most basic facts about skyscrapers, not to mention physics, and also requires conjuring a rube goldberg conspiracy theory to justify taking the actions even if they were necessary or possible.

      Good job on the duplicate post, btw. I'll start calling you Doublemint Dumb.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    23. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Big numbers only confuse small minds.

      Yeah, quite a lot apparently. In his my rebuttal to the "707 is tiny compared to a 20 story building" post, he posted a slew of trivial facts including the weight of the 707 at a mere 150,000 kg. Apparently that hits the "omg that's big and thus equal to other bigs" level in his brain.

      Here's my question to you: if the kinetic energy of the towers was equal to 200 tonnes of TNT, and if this amount of energy was not enough to cause the effect we've seen, then HOW MUCH explosive would have been required?

      Haven't you figured it out? Actual numbers and math don't amount to much. 707s are big as buildings, and the only thing that can pulverize a building is explosives. The actual comparative amount of energy that would be required is not the point. Only explosives do that, not falling buildings.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    24. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > the only thing that can pulverize a building is explosives.

      As other people keep pointing out, explosives are not used to 'pulverize' buildings in controlled demolitions.

      They are used to remove the structural integrity and let the building pulverize itself. If I break your knees, I don't have to push you downard to get you to fall to the ground.

      The only explosives used to 'pulverize' buildings are bombs dropped from planes. Look at Oklahoma City; the truck bomb itself didn't do most of the damage to the building, the building did it to itself.

    25. Re:Wrong. Central core of huge steel beams in WTC by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      As other people keep pointing out, explosives are not used to 'pulverize' buildings in controlled demolitions.

      They are used to remove the structural integrity and let the building pulverize itself. If I break your knees, I don't have to push you downard to get you to fall to the ground.

      Yeah, no kidding, yet another way our conspiracy theorist friend is off base. His whole mental defect is he doesn't see how the building could pulverize itself.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  307. UK research: Exposed Steel Beams Withstand Fire by leftie · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Wrongo, old chap!

    Again, this is all from a UK graduate thesis that's being hosted locally at a 9/11 research site...

    "...While admitting that fire test's such as ASTM E119 are conservative, they do not emphasize that such tests are very conservative. Here is a quote from [1].

    Steel beams in standard fire tests reach a state of deflections and runaway well below temperatures achieved in real fires. In a composite steel frame structure these beams are designed to support the composite deck slab. It is therefore quite understandable that they are fire protected to avoid runaway failures. The fire at Broadgate showed that this (runaway failure) didn't actually happen in a real structure. Subsequently, six full-scale fire tests on a real composite frame structure at Cardington showed that despite large deflections of structural members affected by fire, runaway type failures did not occur in real frame structures when subjected to realistic fires in a variety of compartments.

    So beams and columns that fail when tested according to ASTM E119 or (BS 476) do not fail when they are part of a larger (composite steel frame) structure, when subjected to the same conditions. In fact, experiments done in Britain to test this exact hypothesis, experienced no runaway failure at all. Here is a quote from [2].

    The Broadgate Phase 8 fire is probably the most notable. This accidental fire happened during the Construction phase when the steel frame was only partially fire protected. Despite very high temperatures during the fully developed phase of the fire and considerable deflections in the composite slab there was no collapse. This initiated construction of an 8-storey composite steel frame at Building Research Establishment's (BRE's) large scale test facility in Cardington. Six fire tests were conducted, of varying size and configuration, to observe and ultimately explain why composite steel-framed structures adopt very large deflections during a fire but do not collapse.

    and a quote from [3].

    The Cardington frame fire tests and subsequent numerical modelling has shown that multi-storey steel-frame structures survive compartment fires when all the steel beams are unprotected, despite temperatures in the steel of > 1000ÃfC...."

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/WTC_apndxA.htm [wtc7.net]

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/fire/SLamont.htm [wtc7.net]

  308. Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by notrandomly · · Score: 1
    This shows why conspiracy theorists are potentially dangerous. Not directly, but if they manage to influence decision making and take away the focus from making buildings safer based on these findings, we may see such collapses in the future.

    As a result of the investigation covered by this story, they discovered weaknesses in current building designs, and we could potentially save lives in the future by applying new building standards to deal with these weaknesses. 9/11 conspiracy theorists, however, would ignore these findings and stick firmly to their "they bombed it" stance, or whatever they are saying nowadays.

    9/11 conspiracy theorists are trying to prevent us from learning from the mistakes made in constructing these building. They are trying to deflect everyone's attention to other things. Things that won't make buildings safer in the future.

    1. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by crhylove · · Score: 1

      I think having a democratically elected government that relies on science during criminal investigations is a good thing. I don't see how demanding that somehow is contrary to the public safety. Quite the opposite in fact.

      --
      I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
    2. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by gx5000 · · Score: 1

      "I think having a democratically elected government that relies on science during criminal investigations is a good thing."

      You don't on both counts....so, this was a sarcastic right ?

      We all saw it, a lot of us can recognize a demo when we see it because we were trained in the military and have seen
      plenty of them. It takes months to plan something to collapse so well. Enough said. Gimme my Onionskin hat already...

      What's more dangerous is the plethora of mindless yes men and women who say crap like "It's unpatriotic to question your government....."

      --
      End of Line.
    3. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by crhylove · · Score: 1

      I was actually in a agreement with you. I think the 9/11 commission report was a total white wash and devoid of science. :)

      --
      I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
    4. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      Right. My point was that the 9/11 "truthers" who insist on ignoring the science are taking the focus away from improving buildings based on what was learned from WTC7, and to crazy conspiracy theories that add nothing to public safety.

    5. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by notrandomly · · Score: 1
      If you are referring to me, the US government isn't my government. I wasn't born there, and I have never lived there.

      What's scary is when 9/11 "truthers" ignore research that has uncovered flaws in existing buildings to push their crazy conspiracy theories. This investigation has uncovered weaknesses in building constructions that, when addressed, could save lives.

      As for recognizing a controlled demolition, does that include twin towers as well? If so, you may not be aware of this, but controlled demolitions are from the bottom up. The twin towers fell from the top down :)

    6. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by gx5000 · · Score: 1

      You are ignoring all the first hand interviews with the Firemen and Janitors inside the building
      talking about secondary explosions. Actually the Janitors reported explosions moments after the thud overhead.
      But then again, that would be conspiracy theories right ?

      I wasn't there, I only saw the live video footage. But demolitions are not always started top to bottom.
      I'm pretty sure you can find some on you tube. The charge delays and placements depend on the direction
      they want the debris to fall and the size/shape of the structure. I would point you to many engineering sites
      that commented on this the day after, but those pages were all ordered removed, and that's not a conspiracy
      relic, it's fact, I saw some of these pages, and they weren't meant to advance any nutsoed speculation...

      If they had tried to blow up such a structure in one shot bottom up, well it's too tall to even consider this anyways...

      I'm just glad I'm a Canadian.
      Cheers.

      --
      End of Line.
    7. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are ignoring all the first hand interviews with the Firemen and Janitors inside the building talking about secondary explosions. Actually the Janitors reported explosions moments after the thud overhead. But then again, that would be conspiracy theories right ?

      Who knows. Could also be elevators/counterweights plummeting dozens of stories into the ground. Without any evidence, it's just speculation anyway.

    8. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by notrandomly · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Oh dear, it's the Gish Gallop, from a truther... Fail to address what I actually wrote, and instead spew out lots of new and irrelevant claims in the hope that I'll be too exhausted to bother to refute them.

      You are ignoring all the first hand interviews with the Firemen and Janitors inside the building talking about secondary explosions. Actually the Janitors reported explosions moments after the thud overhead. But then again, that would be conspiracy theories right ?

      Not at all. What you are describing is witnesses interpretating something to what they think it should mean, or other people interpreting the witness statements without sufficient data to support their assertions. Ponder this for a moment:

      1. Loud noises are not necessarily explosions
      2. Explosions are not necessarily caused by bombs

      If I observe a hazy figure in the night, and conclude that it is a ghost, is my conclusion automatically right because I was there to observe it? Of course not. Just because I saw something doesn't mean that I picked the right explanation from a list of many possible explanations.

      Like a creationist, you are now going to try to use the "it's self-evident" argument. "It should be self-evident that all this wonderful life on earth could arise without a creator." The argument is completely bogus, of course. Just because you interpret something in a certain way or think that something is self-evident doesn't mean that the actual evidence supports your position.

      Then you are inevitably going to present me with yet another creationist, er, truther argument: "Yeah? But how about this", and then you pick another item from your laundry list of prepared truther arguments that I've heard a million times before, and it still doesn't convince me. Just like a creationist going "oh, but the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex, so Evolution could certainly not have created that!" fails to impress me, every single time.

      I wasn't there, I only saw the live video footage. But demolitions are not always started top to bottom.

      I'm pretty sure that they are, actually.

      I would point you to many engineering sites that commented on this the day after, but those pages were all ordered removed

      Why did they comment on this the day after? Who ordered them removed? It doesn't really matter as far as this discussion is concerned. It's just another item on your creationist, er, I mean truther laundry list of "wow isn't that odd, so my position must be right even though all the actual evidence doesn't support my position!" But it would be interesting to know what you are referring to anyway. They ordered them removed? Why don't "they" order all 9/11 truther pages removed today?

      If they had tried to blow up such a structure in one shot bottom up, well it's too tall to even consider this anyways...

      Structures aren't blown up in one shot (just like life didn't just pop into existence from nowhere, which creationist claim to be the case). Controlled demolitions are series of explosives, timed carefully. Which is why it's extremely unlikely that this happened, because it would take a long time to set up this kind of thing, and they have to tear down parts of the building, and so on. I think people working there would notice :D

    9. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      And you obviously know the science? All aspects of it? Everything from physics to engineering? Or are you relying on your "experts" that mysteriously fail to gain credibility in the scientific community?

    10. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by crhylove · · Score: 1

      You want to be scientific? Let's go crash another plane into another building. I guarantee you it will not fall down in it's own footprint at free fall speed. I think Slashdot is just as dangerously controlled as the rest of the media, and it seems a lack of real 9/11 information seems to bear that out.

      --
      I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
    11. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You want to be scientific? Let's go crash another plane into another building. I guarantee you it will not fall down in it's own footprint at free fall speed.

      You can't guarantee anything of the sort. Being scientific means doing the experiment and then making your conclusions - not cherry-picking evidence to support conclusions you've already jumped to.

      Slashdot is just as dangerously controlled as the rest of the media, and it seems a lack of real 9/11 information seems to bear that out.

      "If you disagree with me, you're either ignorant or corrupted." The comparisons made here between "truthers" and creationists are right on the money.

    12. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      I think the AC answered your comment very well. You have obviously come up with a conclusion in advance, just like creationists. And like creationists, you play the victim card. The more "truthers" I engage in debates with, the more they prove to be just the same as creationists. You confirm this by using the standard creationist tactic of spewing out already refuted arguments and claims. I'm waiting for your Gish Gallop.

    13. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by crhylove · · Score: 1

      This is ludicrous. Believing that a plane crashing into the top of a building can make it explode from the top down in under 10 seconds is much more akin to denying the evidence of the dinosaurs and worshiping invisible zombie virgin children in the sky.

      Ignoring the evidence for thermite at the scene, and ALL the eye witness testimonies, particularly the firemen stating, "It was like they had detonators in the building, the floors were poppin out one by one, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!" seems a far more egregious, stupid, less scientific, and more "bury your head in the sand" kind of response.

      I have questions and am highly skeptical of the official story, as are many of the widows and widowers of the actual victims of these heinous acts. Wanting more information and demanding valid scientific evidence besides "more and further exploration is required to explain this" and "the resulting amount of money was of little practical consequence" in the official investigation are just prudent, moral and reasoned reasons to want more information.

      Why did Dick Cheney tell the fighters that NORAD scrambled to stand down, the order stands?

      Do you seriously expect me to believe that all of this is coincidence, particularly considering all the put options placed on the airline industry mere days before the event, and the recent insurance adjustment for all of the world trade center?

      Have you even examined ANY of the evidence, or are you just another ignorant fuck repeating lines out of some crappy pop journal with a political agenda?

      Having questions and wanting answers is not stupid, and doesn't make "truthers" points of view invalid or unreasonable, or in any way connected to the religious right and the "Jesus did it" crowd. Ironically, it's the "Jesus did it" that so often wants to state "The terrorists did it", with no actual evidence of who the terrorists were, what their motives were, or why they acted that way and how it somehow got turned down as attention worthy by NORAD.

      I've read the bible, and I've read your post, and YOU seem to operating on the principles of wishful thinking. I just want more information, including the NIST steel failure statistics, which have been largely shown to date to be bunkum.

      Please explain THIS picture, and how this happens with planes crashing into buildings:

      http://a986.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/72/l_a567c508f431db9f78e20057b5b59fb9.jpg

      --
      I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
    14. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by notrandomly · · Score: 1
      You didn't address the point I made in my other reply to you. How come? This is how creationists behave: Ignore the points you are making and change the subject.

      Believing that a plane crashing into the top of a building can make it explode from the top down in under 10 seconds

      Straw man, another creationist tactic. Gee, how unexpected.

      And gee, the Gish Gallop. How unexpected too. You see, it seems that truthers share another trait with creationists: They spew out lots of already refuted claims and arguments. Observe:

      Ignoring the evidence for thermite at the scene

      There is none. All the claimed evidence does not show thermite, but rather materials that are common in buildings.

      and ALL the eye witness testimonies, particularly the firemen stating, "It was like they had detonators in the building, the floors were poppin out one by one, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!" seems a far more egregious, stupid, less scientific, and more "bury your head in the sand" kind of response.

      It's the "it's self-evident" creationist argument, addressed in an earlier comment. To quickly summarize, bombs are not the only thing that explode, and lound bangs aren't necessarily explosions. Just because some random guy thinks something look or sound like it was detonated doesn't mean that he is right. See the ghost example in the post I linked to. Eye witness testimonies must be combined with other kinds of evidence because people have an amazing ability to interpret things they way they feel like.

      I have questions and am highly skeptical of the official story, as are many of the widows and widowers of the actual victims of these heinous acts.

      So what? Am I supposed to ignore the evidence just because some random people question it? I'm not going to ignore the evidence of Evolution either just because someone happens to be "skeptical" of it.

      Wanting more information and demanding valid scientific evidence besides "more and further exploration is required to explain this" and "the resulting amount of money was of little practical consequence" in the official investigation are just prudent, moral and reasoned reasons to want more information.

      Creationism again. This report was just released, but you choose to dismiss it out of hand because you don't like the conclusion.

      Why did Dick Cheney tell the fighters that NORAD scrambled to stand down, the order stands?

      I don't know. Did he? And if so, what is the relevance?

      Do you seriously expect me to believe that all of this is coincidence

      Another creationist argument: "It's improbable, so it didn't happen!"

      A lot of things that have never been observed before in the history of the world happen all the time. For example, for a lame example, check out some of the documentaries about plane crashes. They discover new reasons every time. A series of "improbable" and unfortunate events that caused the crash. Had merely one part of the chain not happened, the crash would have been avoided. But it happened, and they learned from it, and ensured that the same chain of events, however unlikely, would not take place in planes in the future.

      "Improbable" chains of events happen all the time. "Improbable" is completely invalid as an argument when the facts speak for themselves.

      particularly considering all the put options placed on the airline industry mere days before the event,

      Another part of the Gish Gallop. There was nothing odd about this. It was traced back to a specific US based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on September 9.

    15. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by crhylove · · Score: 1

      No, that is a pic from before the wreckage was being cleared. In the zoomed out version you can see a fireman on hand, and NO cutting had been done. The wishful thinking you are engaged in is that you really wish that the evil that transpired was committed by a few radical extremists from another country. You probably wish our government was not completely replaced by corporations starting with the Federal Reserve in 1912, and then later more directly when they replaced Kennedy. You probably wish that Dick Cheney was NOT an insane war criminal with direct connections to every oil company and defense contractor enabling him to not only run the operation, but to fund it, cover it up, and then make a mint on the subsequent war and invest over seas while our economy folded. I imagine you wish a lot of that wasn't true, but wishing and the facts don't add up. You cannot refute that picture alone, and it was certainly taken before any debris had been cleared.

      --
      I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
    16. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, that is a pic from before the wreckage was being cleared. In the zoomed out version you can see a fireman on hand, and NO cutting had been done.

      Wrong. There were fireman on the scene for weeks after 9/11: http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm

      Besides, the column shows all the evidence of having been cut by hand - it is not sheared (there is slag on it), and thermite/explosives could not make a neat cut like this.

      Do you have any other evidence that this pic is from before the wreckage was being cleared..?

    17. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is ludicrous. Believing that a plane crashing into the top of a building can make it explode from the top down in under 10 seconds is much more akin to denying the evidence of the dinosaurs and worshiping invisible zombie virgin children in the sky.

      "Believing that our ordered universe and complex life could arise by chance requires more faith than believing in God!" I knew this sounded familiar...

      It's about *evidence* and determining what actually happened - not about what is most believable. Unbelievable things happen all the time.

    18. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      No, that is a pic from before the wreckage was being cleared.

      I'm afraid you are mistaken. And once again it's creationism all over again: Misrepresent the evidence.

      In the zoomed out version you can see a fireman on hand

      They were around for a long time after the collapse.

      The wishful thinking you are engaged in is that you really wish that the evil that transpired was committed by a few radical extremists from another country. You probably wish our government was not completely replaced by corporations starting with the Federal Reserve in 1912, and then later more directly when they replaced Kennedy.

      The US government isn't even my government. I've been to the US once in my entire life, and that was for less than a week. So sorry to tell you, but once more your creationist tactic fails. Your argument here is the equivalent of the creationist red herring "you just believe in Evolution because it supports your atheism, and you are an atheist because you don't want to be responsible to God - you are just rebeling against him."

      No, I have no reason to engage in wishful thinking regarding your government. Just like I have no reason to rebel against an imaginary being which I do not believe in.

      You probably wish that Dick Cheney was NOT an insane war criminal with direct connections to every oil company and defense contractor enabling him to not only run the operation, but to fund it, cover it up, and then make a mint on the subsequent war and invest over seas while our economy folded. I imagine you wish a lot of that wasn't true, but wishing and the facts don't add up. You cannot refute that picture alone, and it was certainly taken before any debris had been cleared.

      Whether Cheney is a war criminal or not is irrelevant to what the facts in this matter point to. Like creationists, you are now trying to change the subject. It's a half-assed Gish Gallop, and you of course completely failed to address the points in my previous reply as well as the comment I linked to.

      But keep it up. You are just confirming my hypothesis that truthers and creationists are driven by the same irrational mindset.

    19. Re:Why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are dangerous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It got awful quiet here suddenly, didn't it?

      This is another tactic frequently seen by creationists on talk.origins when they run out of ammunition. They just stop arguing. The intelligent and humble thing to do would be to say, "oh, I hadn't thought of that - but here's what I think explains it," and try to sort it out. But that would mean admitting that they were wrong.

      The odd thing about that severed column is, when you look at it, it looks like it was cut. It's like Paley's design argument, it just screams "this was done on purpose." So you'd think the first thing to do would be to find out - try to contact some firement or workers who were actually there and ask them about the picture. Ask if it was cut. Find out how. Find out why. But this obvious strategy doesn't seem to occur to truthers, they would rather speculate about thermite, etc.

  309. The molten steel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hate crackpot theories. I can't believe people are stupid enough to believe them.

    So what was the reason they found molten steel underneath the towers? I couldn't find NIST's explanation. I have a crackpot friend who keeps bringing that crap up and I want to FINALLY shut him up for good.

  310. Seismic data shows huge shock preceeding collape by leftie · · Score: 1

    The seismic data disprove both NIST reports.

    Huge explosions in the ground immediately before the collapses of both of the WTC buildings.

    http://uscrisis.lege.net/911/

    Both the old and new NIST reports have no explanation for the huge shock recorded in the seismic recordings immediately preceding the WTC collapses.

  311. Thermite residue in every sample of WTC ash by leftie · · Score: 1

    Every single sample of WTC ash that has been tested by independent labs has found the residue of thermite in that ash.

    http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf

    Science has led to the controlled demolition hypothesis. No other hypothesis fits the data.

    Better take a look at good hard look at what is in the public record regarding what Bechtel Corp. of being fully capable of accomplishing before being so dismissive.

    Any type of credible criminal investigation would have them at the top of the list of potential suspects.

  312. Jet Fuel can't burn down steel frame skyskrapers by leftie · · Score: 1

    You have to make your conclusions based on the actual facts at hand.

    The facts are... ...no amount of jet fuel can burn down a steel framed skyskraper. Period.

    I don't care if Manhattan Island is completely submerged in jet fuel, ignited, and the fire is allowed to burn for years... ... when the fires do go out, the steel frames of the skyscrapers will emerge mostly intact.

    If jet fuel could not burn down the WTC buildings, and it couldn't, then there had to be another cause. The evidence from every single sample of WTC ash tested by independent laws shows thermite residue in every single sample.

    http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf

    -----

    Again, this is all from a UK graduate thesis that's being hosted locally at a 9/11 research site...

    "...While admitting that fire test's such as ASTM E119 are conservative, they do not emphasize that such tests are very conservative. Here is a quote from [1].

    Steel beams in standard fire tests reach a state of deflections and runaway well below temperatures achieved in real fires. In a composite steel frame structure these beams are designed to support the composite deck slab. It is therefore quite understandable that they are fire protected to avoid runaway failures. The fire at Broadgate showed that this (runaway failure) didn't actually happen in a real structure. Subsequently, six full-scale fire tests on a real composite frame structure at Cardington showed that despite large deflections of structural members affected by fire, runaway type failures did not occur in real frame structures when subjected to realistic fires in a variety of compartments.

    So beams and columns that fail when tested according to ASTM E119 or (BS 476) do not fail when they are part of a larger (composite steel frame) structure, when subjected to the same conditions. In fact, experiments done in Britain to test this exact hypothesis, experienced no runaway failure at all. Here is a quote from [2].

    The Broadgate Phase 8 fire is probably the most notable. This accidental fire happened during the Construction phase when the steel frame was only partially fire protected. Despite very high temperatures during the fully developed phase of the fire and considerable deflections in the composite slab there was no collapse. This initiated construction of an 8-storey composite steel frame at Building Research Establishment's (BRE's) large scale test facility in Cardington. Six fire tests were conducted, of varying size and configuration, to observe and ultimately explain why composite steel-framed structures adopt very large deflections during a fire but do not collapse.

    and a quote from [3].

    The Cardington frame fire tests and subsequent numerical modelling has shown that multi-storey steel-frame structures survive compartment fires when all the steel beams are unprotected, despite temperatures in the steel of > 1000ÃfC...."

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/WTC_apndxA.htm

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/fire/SLamont.htm
     

  313. Jet fuel can't burn down steel frame skyscrapers by leftie · · Score: 0, Redundant

    You have to make your conclusions based on the actual facts at hand.

    The facts are... ...no amount of jet fuel can burn down a steel framed skyscraper. It burns at too low a temperature to have any significant effect on the structural integrity of steel beams. Period.

    I don't care if Manhattan Island is completely submerged in jet fuel, ignited, and the fire is allowed to burn for years... ... when the fires do go out, the steel frames of the skyscrapers will emerge mostly intact.

    If jet fuel could not burn down the WTC buildings, and it couldn't, then there had to be another cause. The evidence from every single sample of WTC ash tested by independent labs shows thermite residue in every one of those samples.

    http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf [journalof911studies.com]

    -----

    Again, this is all from a UK graduate thesis that's being hosted locally at a 9/11 research site...

    "...While admitting that fire test's such as ASTM E119 are conservative, they do not emphasize that such tests are very conservative. Here is a quote from [1].

    Steel beams in standard fire tests reach a state of deflections and runaway well below temperatures achieved in real fires. In a composite steel frame structure these beams are designed to support the composite deck slab. It is therefore quite understandable that they are fire protected to avoid runaway failures. The fire at Broadgate showed that this (runaway failure) didn't actually happen in a real structure. Subsequently, six full-scale fire tests on a real composite frame structure at Cardington showed that despite large deflections of structural members affected by fire, runaway type failures did not occur in real frame structures when subjected to realistic fires in a variety of compartments.

    So beams and columns that fail when tested according to ASTM E119 or (BS 476) do not fail when they are part of a larger (composite steel frame) structure, when subjected to the same conditions. In fact, experiments done in Britain to test this exact hypothesis, experienced no runaway failure at all. Here is a quote from [2].

    The Broadgate Phase 8 fire is probably the most notable. This accidental fire happened during the Construction phase when the steel frame was only partially fire protected. Despite very high temperatures during the fully developed phase of the fire and considerable deflections in the composite slab there was no collapse. This initiated construction of an 8-storey composite steel frame at Building Research Establishment's (BRE's) large scale test facility in Cardington. Six fire tests were conducted, of varying size and configuration, to observe and ultimately explain why composite steel-framed structures adopt very large deflections during a fire but do not collapse.

    and a quote from [3].

    The Cardington frame fire tests and subsequent numerical modelling has shown that multi-storey steel-frame structures survive compartment fires when all the steel beams are unprotected, despite temperatures in the steel of > 1000ÃffC...."

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/WTC_apndxA.htm [wtc7.net]

    http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/fire/SLamont.htm

  314. my big 8====D by rentaslut · · Score: 0

    my big 8====D fell on the towers, I admit it, it could have been me sleepwalking.

  315. Well, I'M not kidding ya! by crhylove · · Score: 1

    I keep saying this over and over. Hell, I think these problems are important enough, so let's just build an exact WTC7 replica and see what it takes to duplicate the collapse.

    --
    I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
    1. Re:Well, I'M not kidding ya! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's stopping you from doing this with your own money?

      Why should we spend taxpayers money to build a full-sized model?

      Why should we waste taxpayer money to satisfy a lively group of conspiracy theorists who keep insisting that a secret government agency blew up the building.

      Fire will destroy buildings, given enough time. We've known this for thousands of years.

    2. Re:Well, I'M not kidding ya! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't need to use tax-payer's money. Putin would love to finance a French independent structural consultant firm to do it.

  316. Some basic physics... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ok, let's do some basic Newtonian Physics...

    You know ? the stuff most of you debunkers have flunk in college ?

    Ok, it's been established that WTC1,2 and 7 felled at near free fall speed...

    What does that mean ? If we suppose that gravity was the only force pulling the buildings down it means basically that m * g * h = 1/2 * m * v * v.

    If you had any resistance from the structure, it would have opposed the gravitational force:
    F_net = F_gravity - F_resistance and since F = m * a, it would have reduce acceleration and hence speed of fall...

    Now consider the conservation of momentum... We can consider this collapse as a large number of inelastic collision so
    p_before = m1 * v1 + m2 * v2

    Initially v2 = 0 so p_before = m1 * v1

    After the collision:
    p_after = (m1 + m2) * v3

    Hence by conservation of momentum
    m1 * v1 = (m1 + m2) * v3

    Suppose for example that m1 = m2, we get v3 = 1/2 * v1, so in one inelastic collision, we lost 50% of speed and 50% of energy...

    It follows that a structure collapsing cannot do so at anything even approaching free fall speed unless helped by something else... (And I'm not even talking about the symmetry of the collapse or the fact that it fell down through the path of maximum resistance...)

    But I don't expect so called debunkers to get it though, since this explanation does require that you passed physics in college...

    1. Re:Some basic physics... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      p_before = m1 * v1 + m2 * v2

      Initially v2 = 0 so p_before = m1 * v1

      After the collision:
      p_after = (m1 + m2) * v3

      Hence by conservation of momentum
      m1 * v1 = (m1 + m2) * v3

      Suppose for example that m1 = m2, we get v3 = 1/2 * v1, so in one inelastic collision, we lost 50% of speed and 50% of energy...

      Why would we ever suppose that m1 = m2? In reality, m1 was always many times larger than m2 for WTC1 & 2, since in both cases one or two floors failed partway up the building, leaving a very large mass (m1, all floors above the collapse zone) falling onto a smaller mass (a single floor, m2). If I remember right, even in the tower which was hit higher up there were 20 floors above the impact.

      But I don't expect so called debunkers to get it though, since this explanation does require that you passed physics in college...

      I don't ever expect conspirawackos to do real physics analysis, and this is a prime example. You toss around total handwave figures with obvious fatal flaws and expect us to believe that it's just as good as the rigorous type of analysis carried out by NIST. Them: FEA, attention to tiny detail. You: extremely bogus BOTE. Not gonna go with you over them, sorry.

  317. Re:Really? by ScentCone · · Score: 1

    Can someone explain the above post for me?

    The GP suggests that the government hired the people who did the deed on 9/11. He then, strangely, suggests that part of the group that were hired included the rich Saudis who were allowed to fly out of the US on a chartered aircraft shortly after the attacks. Leaving aside the fact that we have all sorts of evidence about who did, why they did it, and who paid for it... why would some absurd government conspiracy that orchestrated such a large, complex attack include a ridiculous maneuver like flying some of the participants out of the country AFTER the fact in such a highly visible way?

    What role could a handful of rich Saudis play in getting the attackers to crash aircraft into those buildings... and somehow NOT be able to leave the country before it happened? It's obviously a BS notion designed somehow to feed the trolls that are so sure that Bush personally made all of this happen. It would be funny if so many people weren't willing to ignore basic information so that they could harbor such fantasies and maintain their comic-book-villain ideas about someone they dislike personally.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  318. Bad examples. by crhylove · · Score: 1

    Those examples are not connected in any way. Making that connection is fallacious.

    Holocaust deniers and ID proponents are most often politically, spiritually, and scientifically opposed to the 9/11 truthers I've met.

    Most of them seem like godless atheists who want to talk about the burning point of jet fuel and thermate, evidence of which has been found in the dust and wreckage.

    There is clearly a cover-up going on, no matter WHAT you might suppose actually happened.

    --
    I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
    1. Re:Bad examples. by Myopic · · Score: 1

      All of those people think there is a hidden truth that only they can see, and everyone else is just blind to what they themselves see so clearly.

      But -- they're wrong. That's their shared characteristic: an unrealistic belief that they have higher knowledge than everyone else.

      It's hubris, mainly, or conceit. It's not surprising -- most humans are like that.

  319. Al Quada and the CIA. by crhylove · · Score: 1

    Well, actually, the payment of the hijackers was done by high levels of the ISI, Pakistani CIA run largely by our own. The 9/11 commission report suggested this funding and tracing it was "of little practical value." All the Al Quaeda members involved were not on flight manifests. They were out drinking at strip clubs, and some are still alive. Besides which, the CIA has been funding Al Quaeda all along, including during the time we were fighting the cold war in Afganistan against the Soviets.

    But you know, when the mob pays a hit man, police rarely bother chasing the money trail, right?

    --
    I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
    1. Re:Al Quada and the CIA. by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Well, actually, the payment of the hijackers was done by high levels of the ISI, Pakistani CIA run largely by our own. The 9/11 commission report suggested this funding and tracing it was "of little practical value." All the Al Quaeda members involved were not on flight manifests. They were out drinking at strip clubs, and some are still alive. Besides which, the CIA has been funding Al Quaeda all along, including during the time we were fighting the cold war in Afganistan against the Soviets.

      But you know, when the mob pays a hit man, police rarely bother chasing the money trail, right?

      "The mob, pff, that's a crazy conspiracy theory! Criminals would never organize and share prifits, they're criminals! By definition, you are crazy."

      This is how their brain works, I fear :(

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

  320. Why all the desperation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is there so much desperation here that there be NO nefarious activities from the US wrt 11/9?

  321. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    It's a linear increase in force as each subsequent floor collapses.

    No, it most certainly isn't. I'm shocked this is the level of intelligence we've actually got on Slashdot. The collapse loses energy, force and momentum as it goes, and it is slowed even more by the compacting of the debris. To say that an object can collide with another and for there to be no loss of force, momentum or acceleration is just so ignorant and stupid it defies belief.

    I believe that the report cited it as being 40% that of freefall

    Repeating this parrot fashion won't make it true. The report is wrong, because what they say in there has never been practically proven either in any observed collapses in the past, or in simulations with models. They can say what they like, but until they practically demonstrate it it is still fundamentally flawed. The rate of fall will slow dramatically as the collapse progresses until it stops, and that will leave much of the building intact.

    As c6gunner pointed out, demolition crews don't do this because it leaves a lot up to chance, and they want the demolition to go as smoothly as possible.

    No. Demolition companies collapse buildings floor by floor in that manner because it is the only way of completely collapsing a building that tall.

    the question is whether the floor below can withstand the IMPACT of that much weight. The answer, as any engineer, and even some high school physics students can tell you, is not a chance.

    No. The question is whether the floors (notice the plural there) can withstand the impact of that, because the debris and floors compacts together to withstand the collapse, and the further the collapse progress the greater the reactive force from the debris and floors below to withstand the collapse. Like I said. Try this with some Lego, a scale model or anything to give yourself some actual practical experience.

    The building was already inherently unstable due to the the heat expansion of vertical columns

    I'm just wondering how destabilisation and the effect of heat on the eightieth floor of a building affects the structural integrity of unaffected floors at the fortieth or the tenth floor, because this is what is required to completely collapse a building. The firefighters knew this fact, which is why they had no worries at all about going into the building and setting up a base on the unaffected floors below. Try this with a model, any time. You will never be able to collapse a building as tall as the WTC buildings by doing that, which is probably why we've never seen a scale model demonstration of the shit that that report says is true.

    Believe what you like, but your ignorance on the matter, in addition to your insistence that you are correct, makes you a card carrying conspiracy theorists.

    Sweetheart, you have never seen a building collapse in your life - not even a model. If you think this is a conspiracy theory then that's fine, but that's something you're going to have to deal with in your own mind. The questions still remain.

  322. To all the complacent corporate slaves: by crhylove · · Score: 1

    OK, let's suppose a sprinkling of jet fuel DID bring the buildings down with perfectly cut 45 degree angle I beam cuts (of which there are several pictures). Please explain:

    1. Who killed Kennedy.

    2. The role of the Federal Reserve, and IRS, and how it is constitutional.

    3. The electoral college, and the reliability of Diebold voting machines.

    4. Why we can't get candidates not bought and paid for by mega-corporations.

    5. How there is a free press, when every newspaper, magazine, radio station, TV station, book publisher and movie publisher is owned by five corporations: Viacom, AOL/Time, News Corp, Disney, and Bertellsmann.

    6. Why Marvin Bush was in charge of security for the WTC for only one month prior to 9/11.

    7. Why there is no footage publicly released that shows the plane hitting the Pentagon, arguably the highest security building in the world.

    8. Why the Bush family and Bin Laden family are so cozy.

    I mean, even if some stripper loving drunkard muslims did bring down the buildings and live to tell about it later, how do you explain the complete lack of transparency and latent fascism encroaching whats left of our democracy?

    Who wants to volunteer for a water-boarding?

    --
    I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
  323. It's not a theory. by crhylove · · Score: 1

    Stop calling it a conspiracy THEORY. There were tons of put options put up in the week before 9/11 on the airline industry, and the insurance for the whole wtc complex changed hands less than 2 months before. There most certainly was a conspiracy, now the only theories are trying to figure who perpetrated this dastardly deed.

    --
    I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
  324. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    It was a 15 story building collapsing a single floor after falling ten feet onto a 95 story building. Then it was a 16 story building falling ten feet onto a 94 story building and collapsing the top floor only, and then it was a 17 story building ramming into a 94 story building, again collapsing the top floor only. And so on until a 109 story building dropped ten feet onto a single story building, collapsing it.

    No, because what you're doing here is that you're assuming that the collapse will continue unabated. It won't. The collapse dramatically loses force, acceleration and momentum as the debris and the floors below compact and the reactive force pushes back. In the face of that, the debris will then escape to where it can, which is usually out over, causing the collapse to lose even more energy.

    Do you know any buildings in the US, single story, that would survive having a 109 story steel and concrete sky scraper dropped on it? Only from ten feet mind you.

    If the 109 stories were destabilised to collapse straight onto a single floor then yes (which would be the point between the first and second floors), this would happen. However, that cannot happen in the manner you describe because it is totally flawed thinking. You're assuming that one object can crash into another and experience no loss of energy, force or acceleration. That's so shocking it isn't even funny.

    Once the collapse got going the shock wave increased the overall damage of the building, but if you have a little bit of a brain, perhaps you get the point.

    I'm always amused by how people start pulling out other little things out of nowhere such as 'shockwaves' to explain away something immoveable - rather like the rest of the building. Build yourself any kind of model of a building that tall and try and collapse it in the manner you describe. It will never happen.

  325. But they aren't smart enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    since if there IS a conspiracy, there ARE people who know about it. That's what your "crackpots" are saying.

    You also say that they must be so smart that they can hid it (from everyone, as long as "everyone" includes only those who don't know) but also so dumb as to make mistakes. Uh, you can still make mistakes AND make smart moves at the same time. You may walk out the house and forget your car keys yet fail to run over several people driving to work. So you've done dumb things and not dumb things.

    "Unpossible" you say...

  326. Re:Really? by kidgenius · · Score: 1

    You don't have to accelerate the entire mass of the building. You just have to take care of one floor at a time. One floor will not provide much resistance to 15 floors falling on top of it. Once that one goes, you have 16 floors falling onto the one below it. If the floor above didn't stop the first 15 floors from collapsing it, the next floor sure as hell won't stop 16 floors. Keep adding up for the entire height of the building.

  327. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    I mean, technically you're right - the lower mass WILL eventually stop the collapse. Unfortunately it will stop it once there are no longer any empty spaces within that lower mass, which is exactly what happened.

    No, because what you're not getting is that the collapse on to the lower mass will lose energy, force and acceleration dramatically as it goes, which is what happens in a building collapse. As the debris and floors compact their tendency will then to be to go out over and elsewhere, losing even more energy and force at a pretty reasonable rate. It doesn't just keep on going. It is dictated to by:

    a) The ability of the lower structure to take the force.
    b) How much of the building there is to absorb that force, which is crucial in tall buildings.
    c) How the debris and floors compact, absorbing and dissipating the energy, and forcing the debris and mass above into other directions losing even more energy.

    You're assuming that the collapse just cascades down in a linear fashion. It doesn't, and saying that it will continue until there are no empty spaces has a grain of truth in it because the floors and debris will compact quite quickly losing dramatic amounts of energy. You can't just put your hand on a model skyscraper and collapse it like an accordion, which is what you're trying to say here.

    For the millionth fucking time, the reason we have controlled demolition companies is to PREVENT DAMAGE.

    I'm not too sure why you insist on trying to point out this irrelevant factoid here. Like I said: No shit? You also don't get the point, which I'll get to below.

    They're not there because blowing up buildings is hard - it's not

    I can tell you quite categorically that it fucking is hard. Every building is different, has different foundations, a different structure, you have older buildings that might be quite unstable.......... The list is endless. However, there are constants. In the case of tall buildings, demolition companies destabilise the floors below a collapse not just because of safety, but because it is the only way of ensuring the complete collapse of the building.

    Seriously, what's wrong with you?? Have you put ANY thought into this?

    Yes. Unfortunately what you're doing here is coming up with a bunch of theories that don't actually fit the mechanics of what we're talking about rather than going out and doing some practical. There are a lot of other variables at play here.

  328. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    Yes, you have. In the WTC.

    You make my point for me. I have, allegedly seen it in the WTC collapses (from the way certain people describe it anyway) - but no one has seen anything like that anywhere else, ever. Not in reality and not with models either.

    The 95th story collapsed under under the weight of these 15 slabs. Then 16 slabs rammed into 94th floor. Do you think that 16 slabs of concrete and steel has higher weight than 15? And thus it continued until 109 massive slabs of concrete and steel slammed into the bottom floor from ten feet.

    Again, you're repeating a fallacy that pervades these threads - that the collapse continues unabated. It doesn't. What happens is that the debris and floors compact under the weight, resisting the force and forcing it elsewhere, usually out over. The collapse dramatically loses energy and force as it goes. The taller the building it is the further up the collapse stops. Simple.

    When the top to slabs come crashing down on the slab below them, do you think the tiny straws will be able to hold the one slab they have been holding and the next two coming down with some velocity?

    Yes, they will, otherwise you've got yourself one seriously unstable building that would already have collapsed most probably through normal wear and tear. You might get a few floors collapsing and damaged, but the debris will compact, dissipating the energy, the debris will tend to escape outwards and the force and energy will dramatically reduce as the collapse progresses. It is not linear.

  329. Fuel oil not a factor in WTC7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The other buildings were hit by a plane, not that one.

    And how many high-temp elements are normal office fittings? Paper burns about 451F. Wood about 1000F tops (char bricks). Do most offices have flammables that burn 4x hotter than wood or more?

    Look, the "conspiracy" here could be just burying any evidence that doesn't pin the blame on Al Quaeda (and Iraq?). It could be that the building was designed to survive it but it wasn't BUILT on that spec and this cannot be uncovered (else the anger at the deaths by terrorist attack may turn on US companies).

    But you just label them "crackpot" and "nuts" because they sit there and go "hang on, that can't be right".

    1. Re:Fuel oil not a factor in WTC7 by Chas · · Score: 1

      "The other buildings were hit by a plane, not that one."

      That's nice. I never said WTC7 was hit by a plane. I said DEBRIS. As in chunks from the other buildings and possibly the plane. Some of it on, y'know, FIRE?

      And who said anything about high temp? Do you have any concept, whatsoever, of what a sustained low-temp burn can do to structural elements in a building? Especially one weakened in some places and overloaded in others due to structural damage?

      Straw. Camel. Back pain?

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
  330. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    Which it did - 40% as per the report.

    Pulling a figure from the report won't get you out of this. He made the point that the rate of collapse would have slowed, but 40% is still an unusually low figure backed up by no previous observations and it's not apparent at all how they arrive at that figure.

    For WTC1 and 2 this is easy to demonstrate - simply observe the speed of the cloud of debris falling on the outside of the building as opposed to the main mass.

    No, no, no, no. Observing the debris cloud is not the same as observing the collapse.

    No matter what the actual numbers, though, there's certainly no evidence to suggest that any of the three buildings collapsed at unusually high speeds.

    Wow. That's an incredible statement to make considering what actually happened to those buildings, especially versus previous building collapses.

    I see. Which engineering/construction company did you say you work for?

    Fuck. Let me know any buildings you've had a hand in so I can avoid them. Make a list. Please.

  331. Re:Seismic data shows huge shock preceeding collap by terjeber · · Score: 1

    Yeah, right. And the "molten steel" absurdity too. You really need to gauge your eyes out so you stop reading retarded shit like that, it rots your brain.

  332. Re:Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth respons by tha_mink · · Score: 1

    Your reply here does not in any way dispute the scientific research being done there. I don't see you responding with any scientific evidence at all to dispute the findings there. I see you calling people names.

    Well I can ask more questions though? Like the big argument of the 911 "truth" people is that, the building fell straight down and that can only happen when it's a professional job. But here's the thing, show me a 37 story building that tips over sideways and I'll believe it can happen. I've only seen buildings implode straight down. Saw a bulldozer try and tip over a 15 story smokestack once, and even that imploded. (on top of the dozer to boot)

    So I just don't understand why people believe that a huge skyscraper can tip over.

    --
    You'll have that sometimes...
  333. The Offical Government Story is a huge lie. by wudukes · · Score: 1

    The official story of 911 is a huge lie. Even us nerds, as smart as we are, have been pulled into a matrix where we accept authority as truth instead of truth as authority. There are so many holes in the official government story of 9-11. It is completely absurd and almost laughable that the general public has been fed and believes such a fairy tale. I am not going to go into specific points. Once you realize the truth behind the building collapses and the cover-up taken place to hide the truth of 9-11, you never really look at life the same way again. It is really the Matrix red pill. I watched the greatest 911 film I have ever seen last night, and I have seen them all. I invite you to watch Zero: An investigation into 911. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YqET96OO0

  334. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    No, because what you're doing here is that you're assuming that the collapse will continue unabated. It won't. The collapse dramatically loses force, acceleration and momentum as the debris and the floors below compact and the reactive force pushes back

    That is not necessarily true. Now, compared to the weight and the inertia of the concrete slabs that is the floor, the debris "between" the slabs is irrelevant, even compacted. In other words, given the total weight og the floors above, each individual floor (the 10 fee4t of mostly air) will be crushed. Now, if that was the only thing, you'd have 110 huge slabs of concrete more or less on top of each other (a stack of pancakes if you will). Problem is, there is more. Below the building it self there is a huge hole in the ground called a "subway". The building collapse makes this cavity cave in.

    You're assuming that one object can crash into another and experience no loss of energy

    No, I am not. I am assuming that the upward force from the steel beams between the concrete slabs is not strong enough to withstand the weight of an increasing number of slabs falling onto them.

    immoveable

    I am constantly amused that when people want to defend their religious beliefs they invent mythical properties of things to support their superstition.

    The funny thing here is that you are asserting that a building like this can't be brought down at all. Not by accident and certainly not by a demolition crew. According to you any demolition crew that wants to pull down a tall building will run into the following problem "[t]he collapse [will] dramatically [lose] force, acceleration and momentum as the debris and the floors below compact and the reactive force pushes back". So, how do you explain that demolition crews are able to pull down buildings?

  335. I have addressed this question. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    I have addressed this question elsewhere in this thread at least three times already. My opinion on it should be well known by now.

  336. Maybe it can make a difference somewhere. by RoninOtter · · Score: 1

    My hope is these findings will make the people who are considering a crackpot point of view to choose to believe otherwise.

    I feel we should treat the "9/11 Truthers" the same way we should treat the "Flat Earth Society." Ignore the loonies and not give them the satisfaction of any attention.

  337. Be careful slashdot. by ezbst · · Score: 1

    You risk alienating the majority of your readership with something as juvenile as name-calling. I'm a crackpot? Meanie!

  338. Phew! by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

    (There is an entirely different 'Monokote' which is just a kind of plastic shrink wrap. Don't get confused.)

    Oh phew, I was wondering what kind of idiot used RC plane skin as a fire deterrent! I can tell you that stuff doesn't slow fires down one bit!

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  339. Re:Really? by Draconius42 · · Score: 1

    What always gets me is how Bush can be the most evil man in history, but also such a huge and complete idiot. Which is it? (Not directed solely at this post, just a general observation.)

  340. ...it's painfully obvious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Crackpot theories can be discussed elsewhere; please limit the discussion to the science here?

    Well how about this little painfully obvious FACT:
    In the history of modern building, there have been only 3 skyscrapers to ever fall do to fires: WTC1, 2, and WTC 7. Coincidence? I think not. Especially since there was a building in I believe Brazil that burned for over 18 hours and never fell. And those buildings weren't built as well as the three towers were. Go figure. But you guys go ahead and keep believing what they are shoving down your throats...that the laws of physics don't matter.

  341. Theories aside, by ypctx · · Score: 1

    my favorite 9/11 site is this one.

    What do you, sane, non-crackpot people, will say to that? That those cars too were melted by the biblical fires in the WTC 7?
    Btw, what is the point of bringing the 9/11 issue up, over and over again? If you can't make someone believe *your* truth, just make them forget.

  342. Arguments over vision by marleyboy · · Score: 1

    Isn't vision what's really being argued here? It seems that everyone wants to see 9/11 in their own light. There will always be people who want to think that the simple answer is that the government did it. Just because one can watch the YouTube videos of the politicians indoctrinating the audience with words of '9/11' doesn't mean that they were behind the so-called 'attack'. The politicians certainly had their own, now-unravelling agenda after it, but were they responsible for it? Likely not. Maybe financed, through cash that can't be traced so that any investigation would turn up with empty leads.

    Facts can be argued and are being used like bible verses. Paint with a big brush with bristles of bible verses, and you can depict any picture. Facts are not holy writ, especially when they are construed by people who are paid money.

    What's the concern? Isn't it fear? Fear that the government could be responsible for such a thing? Or fear that some jihad might be organized enough to send a symbolic message that world trade is collapsing? Is it the sub-cultural knowledge that very few that don't watch YouTube know about the third building on 9/11, resulting in a severe blindness between the larger culture and the sub-culture? Is it fear that there could be something so deep here that goes beyond the Bush administration, beyond the World Bank and beyond even World War I?

    Instead of arguing over who's right and who's wrong, perhaps what we need to be doing is working to abolish fear of basic survival in our communities. How can we be conscious of the larger world, and how can we respond to the great unknowns? Perhaps it all starts at home.

    --
    Neutiquam erro
  343. This Is A Draft Open For Public Comment by vajrabum · · Score: 1

    Did anybody notice? I spent 5 minutes looking at the NIST site on this and as a interested layman I'd sure love to have a working licensed PE walk me through the draft report. The NIST video leads by saying that no tall building had ever collapsed primarily due to fire previous to 9/11 so they clearly know they had some 'splaining to do. Anyway, it's open for public comment through September 15. If you can see any glaring holes in their logic, if they've omitted pertinent facts, or if they've simply got something wrong you have a couple of weeks to get it together and let them know they're full of BS or maybe even to get your favorite tenured or emeritus engineering faculty member to do it for you.

    1. Re:This Is A Draft Open For Public Comment by vajrabum · · Score: 1
  344. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd agree that one case does'nt necessarily have bearing on the other. Of course the company that built those towers still disagree's with the current view that it was fire. If it was in fact fire that brought them down it will have been the first time in history fire caused a metal framed building to fall. Thats 3 world firsts in one day. I really love that they have gone to extremes to explain the possibility of how this happened, but possibilites aside it would be highly unlikely that those 3 buildings all happened to be weak to fire, when others that exist with nearly identical contruction methods have been renovated by far worse fire incidents and never fell. I'll be examining NIST's analysis more later.

  345. concerning explosions sounds... by Mr_Nitro · · Score: 1

    It is obvious that many of you doesn't take into consideration that most efficient and easy way to collapse a steel structure is to use thermite 'explosive', which doesnt explode at all, in fact thermite generate an extremely powerful exothermic reaction, that can reach temperatures in excess of 2500-3000degrees Celsius. So there is no need to hear any loud bang at all. In addiction thermite is composed of very easily produceable and transportable materials, ferrous oxide (rust+-) plus aluminium powder, which in fact can be carried inside a building without any concerns about security checks and can be installed around main structures without big problems by a team of post-delivery service boys in few weeks-months. Thermite cannot be stopped in any way once the reaction is started , no water , no lack of oxygen, no anything almost. Even a very rough placement of the charges will produce a high destructive flow of molten steel that will weaked/melt any other steel-made parts it comes in contact with. What strikes me more yet is the totally symmetrical way all the buildings collapsed... this is totally unlikely to me.. I would expect the top tower bend in the way the airplane damaged the structure and eventually fall off... but not almost perfect vertical collapse. And the highly thermical hotspots that were present in the ruins for so long time really reminds of active thermite reactions... When there are trillions on dollars in the equation black can turn white and viceversa...really.... cheers mrn

  346. Ever hear of "reading comprehension?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How much jet fuel was in any particular plane is meaningless in this discussion, since NO PLANE CRASHED INTO WTC7.

    Are we in the same conversation yet?

  347. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    Now, can you explain to me why anyone would build a tall building so strong that each floor could hold up the weight of a 15 story building slamming into it after a ten feet fall?

    No, because it's not each individual floor you stupid twit, and that's where the flaw in your thinking remains. You're looking at this from the POV of each floor at a time. That's fucking stupid. It's all the floors underneath which are absorbing that force collectively, because it is one structure. You'll get one floor collapsing into another and so on (so no, one floor cannot take that force by itself to answer your idiotic question), but the floors underneath that will absorb at least some of that energy away, forcing the falling debris and collapsed floors to compact and go elsewhere, dissipating yet more energy and making it less likely the next floor will give way and so on until it stops. The process does not accelerate, as some stupid people are claiming.

    One more time: The collapse does not continue unabated, and repeating that flawed piece of thinking is not going to make it come true.

    Incidentally a floor that had been weakened by fire. Once they collapsed that floor, we have a 16 story building falling ten feet. Do you think the floor below could withstand a 16 story building.............

    Shit. See above as to why. Repeating this shit won't make it true. Basically, not looking at a building as a whole is indicative of some really serious conceptual issues.

    That is what pancaking is. The collapsing of a single floor. Many times over.

    Well, it's the collapsing of another floor into the one below and so on, but well done. You're sort of getting there. The demolition industry avoids pancaking because it's dangerous and won't collapse a building by itself. The collapsed floors just get very compacted very quickly and the effect peters out unless the floors below give way to allow the process to continue.

    Oh, and I forgot about your retarded "demolition team" comment too. Dang, should have done that first. But you are right, no demolition crew would have demolished the WTC in the way they fell.

    Not too sure why you keep repeating this, nor am I sure why you're trying to claim that a demolition crew wouldn't have collapsed the WTC buildings in the way that they did. You probably have your own reasons for saying that.

    My reasoning for that comment I made way back when is that if you could collapse buildings just by destabilising a few floors then demolition companies would have a far easier time. We then got a long line of bullshit that they collapse tall buildings in the manner that they do for safety. Well, yes they do (no shit, really?), and they also do it because it is the only way of initiating a complete collapse of a building from the top to the bottom floor in that manner. Get it?

    If you were mentally handicapped I would have respected your opinions. You are not.

    Yes. I know that you know that I'm not ;-).

    You have just elected to have an intellect comparable to a mentally handicapped person, and that annoys the shit out of me.

    Anyone who cannot look at a building structure as a whole is retarded. Even a child with some building blocks has some conceptual knowledge of this. Your entire line of reasoning rests on looking at each individual floor and saying "That collapses because that collapses because that collapses" one individual floor at a time. It's called a building for a reason.

    I'm aghast at what an educational system can produce.

  348. Re:Mission Accomplished by GigsVT · · Score: 1

    Because college is the only way to learn something, right?

    --
    I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  349. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well I'm bored so I'm going to play devil's advocate to your weak, speculative argument. (Please note I'm not entering the forbidden "crackpot theory" territory and take no position as to what actually happened, I'm merely pointing out flaws in this "non-crackpot" argument)

    These explosives are set of using utterly standard wiring, in the case of something as large as the WTC, hundreds of miles worth of wiring.

    OK, failure of imagination much? Wire is used in conventional demolition because it's cost effective. If cost is not a factor but secrecy is, you'd have to be a grade A moron to string wires everywhere, don't you agree? "Invisible wires" do exist, it's called radio.

    Finally, the explosives would have to be placed with extreme accuracy all around the building by drilling holes in the support infrastructure.

    So now it DOES take extreme precision and planning to bring the building down? I thought the whole thing fell down because of some random fire?

    You can't have it both ways. If you're arguing that random fire damage caused global collapse, you can't then turn around and say demolition would require extraordinary precision and planning for the same result.

    Perhaps, for a "messy, yet still vertical collapse" you don't need as much precision.

    hundreds of professionals...

    Now you're just making shit up. You don't know it would take hundreds, you're just trying to inflate your case by throwing out big numbers. A small team would work fine, it would just take longer.

    In the end, your argument above is essentially, "I don't know how they could've done it, therefore they didn't", which is an Argument from Ignorance fallacy.

    There are some very good "debunker" arguments, but this isn't one of them.

  350. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    That is not necessarily true. Now, compared to the weight and the inertia of the concrete slabs that is the floor, the debris "between" the slabs is irrelevant, even compacted. In other words, given the total weight og the floors above, each individual floor (the 10 fee4t of mostly air) will be crushed.

    Yet again, it's floors (plural) and not floor. You fail to look at the building as a whole structure. Again.

    Problem is, there is more. Below the building it self there is a huge hole in the ground called a "subway". The building collapse makes this cavity cave in.

    You've gone from eighty odd storeys up to the subway in one fell swoop. Hmmmmmmmmm.

    According to you any demolition crew that wants to pull down a tall building will run into the following problem "[t]he collapse [will] dramatically [lose] force, acceleration and momentum as the debris and the floors below compact and the reactive force pushes back". So, how do you explain that demolition crews are able to pull down buildings?

    You've got to be fucking kidding me?

    A building is 'pulled' down piece by piece when it is not feasible to get it down by any other safe means. A building like a tall office block is demolished, sometimes via explosives, by collapsing the floors in advance ahead of the advancing collapse itself, ensuring the collapse continues, ensuring little debris is spread outwards and a pancaking effect is minimised and ensuring the destruction of the building from the top to the ground floor.

  351. Why the heck are we even hearing from NIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > This triggered the failure of the entire
    > core of the building, which finally fell
    > down as a single piece. Crackpot theories
    > can be discussed elsewhere

    what BS. The NIST theory is the crackpot
    theory. Anyone can watch the videos and
    see the evenly sequenced events walking
    up the building just before the collapse
    --unless you think pancaking
    can happen upwards, as well as downwards.

    By the way, NIST repudiated the pancake
    theory respecting WTC-1 and -2 back in
    2006. Didn't hear about that from the
    mainstream press, did you? ......

    why the heck is NIST doing these reports
    anyway? Why did FEMA do the first report?
    Not enough corruptible officials at NTSB?

  352. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    And the only way to have the entire support structure vanish instantaneously is to have hundreds of professionals working on placing explosives along the entire support structure. These explosives are set of using utterly standard wiring, in the case of something as large as the WTC, hundreds of miles worth of wiring.................... Blah, blah, blah

    I don't know. You tell me. I'm not claiming that the WTC buildings were demolished because I have no evidence for that. I just want a credible explanation for the collapses.

    Here's idea: The premise for you conspiracy theory is incorrect.

    Bzzzzzzt. Wrong. You're assuming that I'm implying a conspiracy here when I have no evidence for any such thing. I just want a credible explanation for the collapses. I'm still waiting.

  353. Re:Really? by arminw · · Score: 1

    ...that the first intact floor's concreate slab would have had enough strength to halt the entire moving top of the building....

    The issue here is not the strength of the building, but the rate of collapse. The falling upper structure would not only have had to overcome the structural strength of the lower structure, but much more importantly it much larger inertial mass, to also accelerate the entire mass downward. This domino acceleration, floor by floor and should have been much slower than what was observed and recorded. Even the 40% slowdown figure is way too fast for such a one floor at a time collapse.

    --
    All theory is gray
  354. Re:Really? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    You don't like what is being asked here, and you're assuming I have some government conspiracy packed away when all I'm doing is asking the questions.

    Then let me ask the question. Since you seem to doubt the official report, what do you think happened, and why do you think the trained professionals with much more experience and knowledge than you who made the official report got it wrong?

  355. Assume No Conspiracy. Who was fired? by smilestill · · Score: 1

    Who was fired for the lack of air security over our capitol that day? Over New York? Who was fired because of inadequate communication equipment in the towers for the first responders? Who was fired because the buildings collapsed despite being billed as capable of withstanding such a collision? Who was fired for not taking the previously reported threats of hijacked airplane weapons seriously?

  356. Re:Really? by arminw · · Score: 1

    ...You don't have to accelerate the entire mass of the building.....

    Yes you do, and it doesn't make any difference whether you do it one floor at a time or all at once. Somehow, the structural integrity and the inertial mass of the lower building both must be overcome in order to get it all to fall downward. The issue is not whether it fell because it obviously did, but the incredible speed at which the collapse took place.

    --
    All theory is gray
  357. Just a thought by ragnaruss · · Score: 1

    I know i'm throwing fuel on the fire here And I will say now that I am reletivly undecided, though I will admit I lean to the idea that a gov' which has pretty much limmitless resources could pull this off. Any way, I can accept the explanasion of pancaking, It's makes perfect sense, the momentum and energy in a steel and concrete floor collapsing would be more then enough, an dby the time it reaches and stable floor woul dbe too much. But what i was thinking was, for that theory you only need one of the higher floors to fail, and that means it takes a whole lot less effot to collaps a building, and even less when you consider a plane has just hit it. it's just a thought that particularly in wtc7 where there were several gov angencies, including CIA, that setting one floor of charges may not be all that inpossible.

  358. Re:D-Day & A-bomb: HUGE successful conspiracie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BZZT! Wrong. That there was to be an invasion was no secret at all, really. Too hard to hide several thousand airplanes and gliders, millions of men and the material to support them, as well as the largest invasion fleet ever. What was considered so very secret was the location of the landings of the initial thrust of the invasion.

    Read D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy (or any other concise and well-researched history of that event), and you'll learn that only the people at the very, very top of SCHAEF knew when and where the actual landings were going to take place. It was an extremely closely held secret. Field commanders in our own combined armies were not told their destinations until just a day or two ahead, and which time they were put under what was basically "quarantine" from the rest of Britain, and began the actual movement to their respective method of transport to the invasion beachs.

    Rommel left his post for the family visit because he had roughly the same weather reports we did (which were cause for much concern that we weren't going to be able to pull off the landings). The forecast that he had was that the storm coming in from the Atlantic would be several days duration at minimum. But for a roughly 36 hour break in the weather (IIRC), we wouldn't have been able to pull off the initial landings. He knew the invasion was coming, and very very soon. Were it not for the storm laying down just (barely*) enough for the invasion forces, his decision would have been fine.

    (*We lost a lot of men due to the conditions and sea state. Especially vulnerable were the amphibious vehicles and tanks.)

  359. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    No, because it's not each individual floor you stupid twit, and that's where the flaw in your thinking remains. You're looking at this from the POV of each floor at a time. That's fucking stupid. It's all the floors underneath which are absorbing that force collectively

    Really? So the walls of the 95th floor would not have had any problem with a building 15 stories tall falling on them? Interesting. The central core is also not one uniform item stretching from the ground to the 110th floor. Do you think the individual items of that column was designed to have a 15 story building dropped on them? The floors didn't collapse simultaneously, the collapsed one by one.

    I'm aghast at what an educational system can produce.

    Yeah, me too. I am aghast that someone like you, quite apparently able to read and write, but who still believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and government special task force demolition crews with Invisibility Cloaks.

  360. NIST report explain news reports by toddhisattva · · Score: 1

    The NIST report does not explain news reports as that is not their job.

    And major network news reported it falling while it was still standing in plain sight behind them.

    Duh Media have an aversion to accuracy. Basing anything on what Duh Media reports is hazardous. It is unfortunately possible, even likely, that a reporter can stand in front of a fact and misreport that fact.

    But in this instance, they may have been correct. WTC 7 could very well have been falling down during their reports, with beams giving way bolts severing and whatnot, just not enough to be obvious in a news clip.

    In any case, you're basing far too much on hurried reportage. Duh Media are idiots and liars on their best days, and whether a day when 3000 Americans died was one of their good days is unfortunately still an open question.

  361. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    A building is 'pulled' down piece by piece when it is not feasible to get it down by any other safe means. A building like a tall office block is demolished, sometimes via explosives, by collapsing the floors in advance ahead of the advancing collapse itself, ensuring the collapse continues, ensuring little debris is spread outwards and a pancaking effect is minimised and ensuring the destruction of the building from the top to the ground floor.

    Interesting. And this is what happened at the WTC? So not only does the government have invisible demolition crews and invisible thermite ignition cables (no, can't be done over radio) but they also are able to selectively weaken the building infrastructure days and weeks in advance in a building where thousands of people are working, and they are able to do so without anyone noticing.

    Perhaps our school system failed you completely when they didn't lock you up in a mental institution before the age of 12.

  362. Re:BBC just fucked up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just like they did when they announced #7 had fallen twenty minutes before it actually fell

  363. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    I don't know. You tell me. I'm not claiming that the WTC buildings were demolished because I have no evidence for that. I just want a credible explanation for the collapses.

    Until an alternative theory comes along, there is only one, and there is no credible refutation of this theory. Hence, according to standard scientific practice, it is the assumed truth.

    I just want a credible explanation for the collapses.

    And you haven't even been interested enough to actually read the NIST report. You are just sad.

  364. Re:Really? by arminw · · Score: 1

    ...Each floor can and does fail progressively...

    Indeed correct, but that process is even slower than accelerating the whole lower structure as a unit. This reports of each floor have to break, then that floor and its contents has to be accelerated downward onto the already moving upper part of the building.

    According to the videos and seismic data for the time for the collapse of the buildings was just under 10 seconds. That is about the time a bowling ball would take to fall that same distance.

    --
    All theory is gray
  365. Holy Jesus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow wow wow wow wow.

    I honestly CANNOT believe all the pro-government-theory on here. Man I remember when Slashdot used to have intelligent discussion based on REAL facts. The amount of just brainless Bill ORiley-esque retardation I'm reading is just depressing. Utterly and totally depressing. Slashdot has been overrun by snippy, blog running, opinionated Digg users.

    Slashdot is dead.

  366. Re:best "fuckheads" argument? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but that exact argument was just used to "successfully" explain why "pull" didn't mean "pull"

    who are the real fuckheads here?

  367. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sections of structural steel were found that were "partly EVAPORATED".

    Sorry, even though 80% of the posters on this thread appear to be collaborating Zionist bury beetles - you're still busted:

    The whole world knows that Mossad dropped the towers and that they used thermite.

    Thanks for being on our show. We're warming up some industrial ovens in several Rust Belt steelmaking facilities in your honor. And an American ballistic missile submarine is moving onto station within range of Tel Aviv.

    Word's out, sorry to tell ya. You only THINK you got away with it.

    Been nice knowin' ya. Not.

  368. question by visible.frylock · · Score: 1

    Disclaimer: I don't believe the official story, but I'm not a "truther"

    You talk about the design of the buildings being such that the collapse in a predictable way.

    I have a CS degree, and I'm in EE right now, although I haven't gotten into any specifically engineering classes (just math/physics, etc.).

    To someone like me who is a relative layman, what would I need to study to get a better idea of this? One the things that always got me about the twin towers and especially 7 was the relative symmetry of their collapse. From my thinking, the only way this would be possible is for all or most of the structural columns to fail simultaneously. But apparently you're saying that's not true. Any links you can give me would be appreciated.

    --
    Billy Brown rides on. Yolanda Green bypasses Gary White.
  369. Re:Really? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    Sweetheart, you have never seen a building collapse in your life - not even a model.

    I've watched a number of them go down. All sorts of demolitions on TV and even a few in person. And since you seem to be stating such experience means something, let me tell you that with my experience, it fell as I had guessed it would. I expected it to collapse while watching, and it fell as I thought it was going to. That you are confused on such matters doesn't indicate a conspiracy. It indicates ignorance.

    The collapse loses energy, force and momentum as it goes, and it is slowed even more by the compacting of the debris.

    There is no compacting of the debris. It's not collapsing from the bottom up. They didn't explode the bottom floor and let the rest collapse on it. If that was the case, you would be a little more correct. Instead, they dropped massive amounts of material onto the 91st floor that was designed to hold the static weight of 4 floors, but the impact was sufficient to break the supports between the 90th and 91st floor. This repeated. There was no debris to compact and get in the way. Every floor below was empty except for supports that were crushed. This repeated. The result was the complete demolition as we saw. A demolition expert would never do it that way because they couldn't guarantee that in a fall that long that the supports on one side wouldn't give way more quickly than another, causing a tilt. Not to mention that the debris was not contained. The massive cloud of dust and debris was thrown far away from the site. Someone purposefully destroying it would have to take that into consideration. It isn't a consideration when the demolition was unplanned.

    The report is wrong,

    So, why do you think that so many trained experts got it wrong and you know the truth? What is the truth? Do you have anything to support that truth other than your opinion?

  370. Re:Really? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

    No demolition company has ever turned up on site and said "Oh, we'll burn five storeys in the top half of this fifty storey building and it will all go down". The entire building needs to be accounted for.

    Yes, because no demolition company has ever been asked to destroy a skyscraper in such a manner that numerous buildings around it would destroyed or damaged by falling debris. That is why controlled demolition is so difficult, and why if this was supposed to be a controlled demolition it was the worst one ever.

    You've offered no explanation as to how all the floors, most of which were completely untouched, below the few floors that were affected by fire became so structurally unsound that they were able to collapse in. Unless this happens, you simply don't have enough energy to precipitate a full collapse from the action of a few floors at the top of the building collapsing into those below. You will still get at least some of the building intact.

    It's called kinetic energy. The floors below don't need to be structurally unsound at all. Because at their full sky-scraper supporting strength, they are nowhere near strong enough to withstand the impact of a 15-20 story building being dropped on them from 10 feet. As soon as the core near the top was weakened enough by the fire that the floors above the impact point began to fall, that was it. The floor beneath could not possibly survive and would be driven down with the already falling mass, meaning the next floor is experiencing at minimum the energy of all the previous floors plus one accelerating for ten feet, but realistically the falling floors would not be greatly decelerated at all as they continued to pulverize floors beneath them, adding to the mass and energy being exerted on lower floors.

    It may intuitively seem like the steel structures of a skyscraper are extremely strong and it's unlikely they could be destroyed that easily. The fact is that they are extremely strong, they must be simply to do the job of countering the gravitational force on all the mass above it. But once part fails, and all that mass starts to accelerate, the forces that would have to be withstood to decelerate it would be orders of magnitude past what the structure was designed for in the worst case. Immediate and complete failure of each successive level is exactly what would be expected, and by the time that stack hit the ground it would have so much energy that much of it would in fact be pulverized.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  371. Re:Really? by AK+Marc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know. You tell me. I'm not claiming that the WTC buildings were demolished because I have no evidence for that. I just want a credible explanation for the collapses

    You believe the experts to be wrong. You are claiming that they did not collapse as per the official reports. You must have some reason to have that belief. An explanation was presented, and you state that you think it isn't credible. You give no standards as to credible. You are not listening to others and saying "thanks for the info, I'll consider that." You are saying "Sweetheart (in an obviously condescending tone), experts (unnamed ones that are apparently not the ones that wrote the reports) think that it is improbable that it would fall that way." That's not refuting anything. That's parroting a personal opinion like it's a relevant fact. The simple fact is that no one has ever destroyed a building that large. Extrapolation can be used to guess as to what might happen, but someone that takes an extrapolation over actual data must be insane. No really, not name calling, but a technical diagnosis. They must have a disconnect with reality in order to take what has been shown to happen and state it did not happen because it was called unlikely by some unnamed experts who have never done anything similar in their lives.

    I subscribe to the Sherlock Holmes school of thought. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth. I can agree that it is unlikely that the events would have unfolded exactly as they did. However, every other possible explanation has been found to be impossible. That leaves only one explanation. If you have another, let us know. If you don't, then you are supporting my Sherlock Holmes theory that the unlikely has happened.

  372. Re:best "fuckheads" argument? by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 1

    Oh my god, an English word has multiple meanings? Say it ain't so!

    --
    If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
  373. Re:Really? by metamatic · · Score: 1

    A demolition expert would never do it that way because they couldn't guarantee that in a fall that long that the supports on one side wouldn't give way more quickly than another, causing a tilt.

    And it doesn't seem odd to you that the incredibly unlikely event of all four sides giving way at exactly the same speed for the entire height of the building, actually happened? Twice?

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  374. Re:Really? by Fallen+Seraph · · Score: 1

    Actually it was 20 seconds. The video isn't useful because the dust and debris cloud obscures much of the lower floors' collapse.

    BTW, the ones who are saying it'd lose force seriously need to buy a newton's cradle... And whoever said that we should "try the experiment with Legos"... I just have no words for how completely stupid you are...

  375. Re:Jet fuel can't burn down steel frame skyscraper by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    Yes, it can. The steel will weaken from the heat, the stress of the crash and debris and floors above will cause a collapse.

  376. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Melting point is 660.32 C (1220.58 F) if it's a real aluminium foil hat, 231.9 C (449.42 F) if he's cheaped out and gone for tin. Buckling would happen at some lower temperature, but we'd need some experiments on setting fire to his head to find out.

  377. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    Until an alternative theory comes along, there is only one, and there is no credible refutation of this theory.

    Lovely. All we have is a lot of serious questions left as a result of this 'theory'. We've had a lot of towing an frowing on these threads about pancaking of floors being feasible, completely ignoring that floors themselves do not stand by themselves and there is a support structure in place for a building. That, in a nutshell, is the central tenet of the theory presented - finding some way, any way, that the pancaking of these floors would precipitate an entire collapse and that a collapse would have been initiated from the damage sustained. We just instantly jump to those 'known' states without explaining anything. I'm open to a reason for all that. I haven't seen one.

    Your logic is also totally flawed. You don't pull a theory out of thin air and say "Disprove that, and if you can't then you're wrong and it's all we have so it must be true". The theory itself has to have credible evidence as proof that it happened that way and I am afraid there is no such thing. Questions are asked and we continually get answers thrown back which were the reasons why the questions were asked in the first place! Rinse and repeat.

    And you haven't even been interested enough to actually read the NIST report. You are just sad.

    When you have something that actually supports what your saying as a result of that report, give us a call. Unfortunately, questions are met with the same 'known' facts pulled from the report without explaining first why they are true. A lot of assumptions are presented as known facts and we are all expected to go from there.

  378. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The thermal protection paint(for lack of a better term) that was going to be used to protect the internal structures of all the buildings in the WTC was not environmentally friendly. So, it was forced out of the construction plans after much lobbying and complaining. If anyone is desperate to point a finger, finding one of those crackpot treehuggers that lobbied against the fireproofing might satisfy your thirst for vengeance.

  379. Re:Really? by AshtangiMan · · Score: 1

    No, because what you're not getting is that the collapse on to the lower mass will lose energy, force and acceleration somewhat as it goes, which is what happens in a building collapse. As the debris and floors compact their tendency might then to be to go out over and elsewhere assuming that they can, losing even more energy and force at a pretty reasonable rate. It may or may not just keep on going depending on the conditions.

    You are speaking in absolutes, so I had to fix a couple of things for you. Are you really saying that this building could not have collapsed this way? (yes you are) The weakened structure of a few floors may allow enough momentum to build such that it could not cause a floor by floor pancake collapse? (yes it could, it is a question of how many floors and how weakened the structure) Are you suggesting that if it was possible then demolition companies would in fact do this? That claim alone suggests that you don't know what you're talking about.

  380. Re:Really? by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 1

    Honestly, that's why I tend to use Bushco rather than Bush to try and avoid the equivocation. "Bush" refers to just him; He's a braindead meat puppet for the neocon cabal. A psuedo-charming front to deflect criticism. "Bushco" refers to the neocons with IQs above room temperature (far above, most likely) who actually run the show.

    A risk of Godwinning: Hitler was a moron. He failed frickin art school. But Himmler, Gobbels, Eichmann - The psychopaths who actually ran the show? Most of them had IQs of 125 or more. I imagine they approached Hitler as Bush's handlers approach him: "How can I get the idiot child to say what I need?"

  381. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    You believe the experts to be wrong. You are claiming that they did not collapse as per the official reports. You must have some reason to have that belief.

    I do, and it is scattered around here. Also, calling them 'experts' won't make the questions go away.

    An explanation was presented, and you state that you think it isn't credible. You give no standards as to credible. You are not listening to others and saying "thanks for the info, I'll consider that."

    Unfortunately, that is flawed because you obviously haven't read anything around here and taken it in. What's happened is that questions are asked, reasons have been provided as to why a certain view of the collapse is wrong, and all we've had is parts of the report repeated parrot fashion and the very statements that have precipitated the questions in the first place repeated again as answers.

    The simple fact is that no one has ever destroyed a building that large. Extrapolation can be used to guess as to what might happen, but someone that takes an extrapolation over actual data must be insane.

    Again, flawed. There has been plenty of data from many building collapses since the days of yore, as well as the history of many building collapses themselves. You trying to present that as my personal opinion is very funny. There is plenty of differences between the data in the report versus data and experiences from plenty of past collapses to formulate some questions about that data. Many people just don't like those questions because they struggle to explain those differences.

    They must have a disconnect with reality in order to take what has been shown to happen and state it did not happen because it was called unlikely by some unnamed experts who have never done anything similar in their lives.

    We've been shown that something has happened that has never happened in any other building collapse, and that there is no historical data to support. Essentially, a theory revolves around the buildings in question being 'different'. Also, trying to discredit 'unnamed' experts having labelled the report writers 'experts' doesn't aid credibility.

    I can agree that it is unlikely that the events would have unfolded exactly as they did. However, every other possible explanation has been found to be impossible.

    Have they? I don't believe they have. Besides, I'm not interested in alternate explanations really. I'm interested in the report and the 'official' version of events being able to explain the questions flagged up by historical building collapses and things that are chosen to be painted over. They cannot provide those answers, and if there are questions left dangling I'm not too bothered. Obviously you feel the need for some sort of closure, which is why you throw your hands up in the air and say "Oh well, it must be true because it's all we have".

    That leaves only one explanation. If you have another, let us know. If you don't, then you are supporting my Sherlock Holmes theory that the unlikely has happened.

    As I said, I'm not bothered about alternate explanations, nor that questions are left dangling. The lack of an alternate explanation won't make them go away.

    Alas, you think you're boxing me into a corner here by getting me to come up with an alternate theory (hopefully really outlandish!) I don't have evidence for. Unfortunately, it won't make the questions regarding the version of events portrayed by the report and individuals around here go away. Holmes would laugh his head off at such Inspector Lestrade thinking.

  382. Explain one thing for me.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why were there explosions in the basements reported by multiple sources *prior* to any planes hitting any buildings?

    1. Re:Explain one thing for me.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Why were there explosions in the basements reported by multiple sources *prior* to any planes hitting any buildings?

      Source, please?

  383. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    Interesting. And this is what happened at the WTC? So not only does the government have invisible demolition crews and invisible thermite ignition cables......................

    Fucking hell. You tell me! It sounds like you're accepting a demolition theory, and then proceeding to tell us that it is so fantastical that the official version must therefore be true. You're off into the twilight zone now, and that really is a conspiracy theory.

    I have no evidence whatsoever for demolition crews at the WTC, nor does anyone who talks about demolitions at the WTC buildings. Even though people might be able to point out similarities, it's all conjecture really. The questions over 'accepted' explanations and the problems the present, however, remain.

    You're under the mistaken impression here that I am offering up some alternate theory or explanation (hopefully, really outlandish!), and I'm not. I have no need for closure, nor do I offer some explanation to tie up those loose ends. You'll just have to deal with them.

  384. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    All we have is a lot of serious questions left as a result of this 'theory'

    Please don't put quotes around the word theory until you know the difference between conjecture and theory. The NIST report is not a "theory", it is a theory. If you can fin a flaw in the NIST report, please come show us. Currently the only thing you have is your "feelings" about how it can not possibly be true. This despite the fact that you haven't even read it. The sad thing is that you don't even understand how insane that is.

    You don't pull a theory out of thin air

    I never said you did, and nobody ever did for the events of 9/11. In fact, the theory was based on solid scientific forensic work. It took years. Your "feelings" on the other hand is pulled straight out of your ass, fired up by insane preachers of "the truth". It is a religion. Not more, not less.

    The theory itself has to have credible evidence as proof that it happened that way and I am afraid there is no such thing.

    Then I suggest you stop emoting about this thing and show us where the NIST report is wrong. That would obviously require you read it, which I doubt you ever will since it will make your new found religion crumble. Religious nuts like you studiously avoid any knowledge that can undermine their cherished beliefs.

    When you have something that actually supports what your saying as a result of that report,

    Here is a simple question: What in the report is wrong, and what scientific evidence you base this on?

  385. Re:Really? by dave562 · · Score: 1
    There has been a lot of hate and vitrol in this thread, but this guy didn't deserve to be labelled Flamebait. When you consider how quickly the PATRIOT Act was introduced into Congress after 9/11, it's obvious that it was written up long before 9/11 happened. There were people in the government who had been waiting to introduce legislation like that. Those same people were looking for a reason to establish a huge military footprint in the Middle East (see Iraq). I don't think that those people paid people to make 9/11 happen. However they definitely saw a serious incident coming and were ready to leverage it to further their agenda. It's just like when the Reichstagg caught on fire. Hitler didn't set the place on the fire but he didn't hesitate to pin the blame on his opponents.

    I'm not sure why people waste so much energy on 9/11. 9/11 is way too vague and there are too many viable opinions on what happened. The War in Iraq is what people should be getting up in arms about if they're worried about an authoritarian government screwing them over. The evident is there in the news. There are quotes from Rumsfield, Bush, Cheney, Rice and the rest of the group talking about how Saddam was linked to al Qaeda, how Saddam had WMDs, how Saddam was building nukes, etc. etc. All of those claims proved to be false but none the less we're still wasting billions of dollars a month in Iraq while our economy is collapsing at home.

  386. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    It sounds like you're accepting a demolition theory

    You should familiarize your self with the "if ... then" concept. If the nuts are right about the demolition theory then a certain set of items follows. Items such as that there must have been a demolition crew, equipment etc. In rational debate, you can show how absurd an argument is by using such "if - then" constructs. That doesn't mean that you accept the premise in the "if" clause. The fact that you apparently never have heard about this astounds me. Given the fact that you are able to operate a keyboard and that you read /. would indicate that you at least have some education. Apparently not.

    I have no evidence whatsoever for demolition crews at the WTC

    Good, and since this debate has long since shown that there could not have been such crews anywhere near the WTC, then we can readily, easily and without hesitation, immediately ignore the demolition theory. Why are you not?

    You're under the mistaken impression here that I am offering up some alternate theory

    No, I am not. I am rightfully under the impression that you think there might be an alternate explanation. Despite the fact that nobody ever has come up with such an explanation. Given the thousands upon thousands of people, some with a lot of education, are interested in the matter, and that not a single alternate explanation ever has been presented. Don't you find that just a little odd?

    Evolution isn't a theory of how life came to be, it is the only theory. No other theory has been presented in a long time. Why do scientists assume Evolution is the answer to this question?

  387. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    Really? So the walls of the 95th floor would not have had any problem with a building 15 stories tall falling on them?

    Of course they would, but again, you're looking at an individual floor. Being able to collapse the 95th floor has no bearing on what effect that would have on the 40th floor apart. There would be an effect on the 95th, 94th, 93rd, 92nd floors and so on, probably resulting in their destruction, but the effect would be dramatically minimised the more floors down you go.

    You can't just collapse an individual floor and then move on to the next one as a separate entity. There is a structure in every building that binds those floors together into one strong and coherent whole (as well as all the other variables involved in a collapse on them). If they didn't then, you know, the building would be..............unsafe. Seriously unsafe.

    I am aghast that someone like you, quite apparently able to read and write, but who still believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and government special task force demolition crews with Invisibility Cloaks.

    Alas, trying to extrapolate some outlandish theory that I have never offered, and for which there is no evidence, from what I have written is not going to work. I'm just going to leave the loose ends dangling. It seems that you're already coming up with explanations to them yourself, so carry on!

  388. Convincing eyewitness testimony by Whoever · · Score: 0

    I am not sure what happened on 911. But if you look at some of the eyewitness testimony available on google video you will find it fascinating. There are many people that heard explosions right before the towers went down. There is video of a new york fire fighter with some of his buds saying they heard sequential explosions. I believe this clip was taken very shortly after the towers fell. Is this man lying? Concerning wtc7 there is also eyewitness testimony where people said they heard a thunderclap, then it fell. Here are two conspiracy videos you might want to check out. The first is an mit engineer talking about the collapse. The second deals with wtc7 collapse. I know most videos are from crackpot nuts but there can be some really good eyewitness testimony in them. Are these people just plain liars. What is the deal?

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1822764959599063248&hl=en/
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2073592843640256739&ei=nxKzSKOuNZOKrgP25tjADA&q=wtc&hl=en/

  389. But? by Shadyman · · Score: 1

    Building 7? I thought there were only 2?

  390. Re:Really? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    Evolution isn't a theory of how life came to be, it is the only theory. No other theory has been presented in a long time. Why do scientists assume Evolution is the answer to this question?

    Good point - 9/11 "Truth" is to NIST what "Intelligent Design" is to the theory of Evolution. In neither case is an alternate theory proposed - they're simply an attempt to tear down existing theories through ignorance and lies.

  391. You are so full of it. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    It is one thing to link to a story or article that is hard to find. It is quite another to insist on links to information you can find FOR YOURSELF in less than 10 seconds if you are a reasonable typist and have an internet connection. You have "won" nothing, except to look like a lazy ass.

    "Your example of a building that didn't collapse is a building that did collapse? Interesting. I think I'll let that example stand without any comment at all."

    No, you idiot. You asked for a building that burned for more than an hour without firefighters trying to put out the fire, but did not collapse. The fact is we were discussing one! WTC 7 burned for a number of hours, without active firefighting, and did not collapse until almost 5:30 that evening.

    We were already discussing an example of what you asked for, and I pointed that out, and you were STILL to stupid to recognize it. Well, I DID give you what you asked for. If you think it doesn't "count", then too bad. You don't get to change the rules after someone else has won the argument.

    "More to the point, slashdot isn't filled with traditional Truther morons. They understand that if you assert a web page exists, and I assert it doesn't, your job is to link to it. It is logically impossible for me to prove such a video doesn't exist. (Of course, logic? Not your strong suit.)"

    That is actually pretty funny. What makes you think I am a "Truther" at all? Just because I disagree with you on one single issue? Hmmmm... looks like I am not the one here who has problems with logic. In a number of ways.

    No, I am NOT obligated to provide links to you for everything I claim, when you can prove the claim to yourself with a few seconds' look at the evidence on the 'Net. YOU were the one who called "Bullshit". YOU are the one who is obligated to support your claim of "Bullshit". That is a tradition that goes a lot farther back than the Internet, not to mention Slashdot.

    And you haven't. You have yet to give me ONE counterexample to my claim. I have given you TWO examples of what YOU asked for. So... who is winning, you think? I don't care if you don't like my examples... they are still examples that bested your challenge. If you don't care for that, then think through your challenges better next time. But you don't get to change the rules after the fact.

  392. Re:yah, right by kidgenius · · Score: 1

    Din't you find it strange that they could identify the teorists as fast as they did, when identifying other victims took months.

    That because they already knew who to blame.

    No. They had passenger manifests. 4 planes, maybe 250 people per plane, that's 1000 people. You parse through that list and run it against your gigantic database that you have compiled for decades. Anyone that matches between the two will instantly stand out. That kind of comparison would take no time at all.

  393. Wrong again! Man, when will you give up? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    The Parque Central is still an example of a steel building that does not "have a concrete core". That's what you asked for. If you wanted something else, you should have asked for something else. But bitching about it afterward is nothing more than sour grapes. I win.

    You are also wrong about the Parque Central being a "more modern" building. Parque Central construction began 4 years BEFORE WTC 7. It's all right there on the 'Net, guy. Don't blame me if you are too lazy to do your own research.

    You can make excuses and try to change the rules of the game all you want, but the fact is that I have given you two counterexamples that met the criteria you asked for. You have not shown me even one that disproves my claim.

    1. Re:Wrong again! Man, when will you give up? by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Oh, yes, you've certainly out-clevered me.

      You know, I think anyone reading this knows the truth.

      I repeat: Steel buckles in normal fires. It doesn't take a physics degree to figure this out. Fires regularly burn at around 1000 C. Steel deforms at about 600 C, depending on how it's made. Hell, it melts at 1400 C, and there are substances in buildings that can burn that hot.

      Anyone who asserts this does not happen is a moron. It's not some magical physics idea that has just shown up.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  394. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    Of course they would, but again, you're looking at an individual floor.

    OK, so, lets say that the 95th floor collapses when a fifteen story building falls on it. What happens to 94th floor when a 16 story building falls on it a fraction of a second later?

    trying to extrapolate some outlandish theory that I have never offered

    So, what is your alternate theory? What other options are there? I have heard two options, a demolition scenario, which requires leaps of faith far greater than those required for Santa Claus, and the NIST explanation. What would be your explanation? Invisible nasty goblins?

  395. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    Exactly. And the 9/11 "truth" people are just as ignorant, dumb and annoying as the ID proponents. This is why I have stated that some dude here who claims to be an Atheist and who gives credence to the crackpots is in fact not an atheist. Not if you take a wider view of the matter.

  396. The director of NIST is a Presidential appointment by wudukes · · Score: 1

    Okay. So "crazy nut job" conspiracy theorists who do not accept authority as truth simply due to its authority, have alleged that elements within the current Bush administration staged terror attacks on 9-11 in order for a pre-text for war and expanded power. So.. The NIST is going to say "Yes, my boss is guilty of the biggest criminal act of this century?" THINK AGAIN Best 911 Movie to date: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YqET96OO0

  397. Not at all. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    I am not claiming it didn't happen. I am claiming that the odds are strongly against the idea that WTC 7 collapsed due to fire. Maybe it did... but the odds are against it.

    People have tried to say that this is an "extraordinary claim". But actually, it is the other way around.

    The "official" claim is: on 9/11, THREE buildings -- one of which had not been struck even by much debris, not to mention any airplanes -- fell down due to a cause that had never been observed before in the history of the world, or since!!

    If you ask me, THAT is the extraordinary claim. Not impossible, mind you... but rather extraordinary. I think -- based on some solid evidence -- that it is MORE LIKELY that it fell due to other reasons. That is all.

    1. Re:Not at all. by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 1

      You know what else had never been observed before in the history of the world, or since? Large, fully fueled airliners crashing into skyscrapers. Skyscrapers heavily damaged by falling debris and then left to burn for hours and hours with no firefighting effort.

      Big surprise: you try something new, and you get a new result.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    2. Re:Not at all. by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      I am claiming that the odds are strongly against the idea that WTC 7 collapsed due to fire.

      No, they are not. It did collapse due to fire, so the probability is 1. The probability argument is completely bogus. You are using it as a way to make people ignore the actual facts and go "hey, that sounds improbable, so we might as well ignore the facts".

      The "official" claim is: on 9/11, THREE buildings -- one of which had not been struck even by much debris, not to mention any airplanes -- fell down due to a cause that had never been observed before in the history of the world, or since!!

      The cause being huge airplanes filled to the brim with fuel smashing into the twin towers at great speed.

      A lot of things that have never been observed before in the history of the world happen all the time. For example, for a lame example, check out some of the documentaries about plane crashes. They discover new reasons every time. A series of "improbable" and unfortunate events that caused the crash. Had merely one part of the chain not happened, the crash would have been avoided. But it happened, and they learned from it, and ensured that the same chain of events, however unlikely, would not take place in planes in the future.

      "Improbable" chains of events happen all the time. "Improbable" is completely invalid as an argument when the facts speak for themselves.

  398. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow. Just wow! I've never seen someone so unable to understand simple physics before. Nothing, absolutely nothing, about physics says that a mass that is falling downward will ***absolutely*** "tip over" when it hits something on the way down and there are lots of examples of this in nature to which you, and many like you, will turn a blind eye to make sure your facts fit your arguement.

    For example you will argue that it was a controlled demolition but then argue that forces OTHER THAN explosions are completely incapable of doing the exact same thing because in your eyes something random could never duplicate something man made. I'm truly astounded by your ignorance.

  399. Re:Really? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    Nope. Happening twice doesn't mean a miracle. It means that's the failure mode. Perhaps the way both went down there was a material failure in the middle that dumped hundreds of tons on the floor beneath. That impact in the middle compromised the supports at the edges, and it came down cleanly. It isn't an issue about how it should come down, how it would "naturally" come down most of the time. With demolition, they will spend a lot of time and money making sure that the 1% chance of tipping doesn't happen. It's about probabilities, and if there's an 80% chance that it would come down the way it did, then it was most likely for it to happen the way it did, have it look exactly like a demolition, but have a demolition still not down the same building in the same way. I see nothing intellectually inconsistent with that. If you do, please point it out to me.

  400. Re:Really? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    I do, and it is scattered around here.

    I've seen some of your other posts, and you "scatter" doubt, but do not scatter information. The best you do is point to other people who have a similar opinion. More believers does not make something more true.

    Also, calling them 'experts' won't make the questions go away.

    When you claim to know things an expert doesn't, I have to presume you to be an Internet Crackpot until shown otherwise. I can look up the qualifications of those that worked on the report. You claim to know more than verified experts. I call your knowledge into question, and thus their being an expert does make the questions you raise less important. You are a non-expert with no theory presented as to what did happen if it didn't happen as the experts state. You give nothing to the discussion and act like it's important you speak.

    Unfortunately, that is flawed because you obviously haven't read anything around here and taken it in. What's happened is that questions are asked, reasons have been provided as to why a certain view of the collapse is wrong, and all we've had is parts of the report repeated parrot fashion and the very statements that have precipitated the questions in the first place repeated again as answers.

    A commission looked into it and gave an answer. That the answer doesn't fit your uneducated pre-conceptions does not make it a conspiracy. Oh, and on that, the fact that you imply conspiracy yet deny that's your implication makes you look like not only a nutjob, but a lying nutjob as well. You parrot all that the admitted conspiracy theorists cling to, yet try to distance yourself from them. Why?

    Again, flawed.

    No, it's not. And your undeducated opinion will not be taken over that of trained professionals. You either think that there's a conspiracy (which would directly contradict your previous staments, making you a liar) or you think your personal opinion formed with no direct access to the data is better than those of experts that had more time and money to examine the issue than you did. Either way, you are not worth listening to.

    There has been plenty of data from many building collapses since the days of yore, as well as the history of many building collapses themselves.

    The tallest steel building demolished up to that point was about 1/4th the size of the twin towers. It is known that demolishing a 1 storey bulding is significantly different than a 4 story and that is significantly different from a 16 storey building. As such, you would have to prove to me how the smaller demolitions directly contradict the collapse of the towers and *also* prove that the data is also applicable to a collapse many times its size.

    We've been shown that something has happened that has never happened in any other building collapse, and that there is no historical data to support.

    It's happened like that before. Every part. No other one has matched the whole exactly because it was so much larger than any other demolition in the history of the planet. But pancacking? It's happened. Failure of steel due to fire? It has happened. Nothing was new, just the combination, and that is because there has never been another building ever subjected to those conditions.

    Have they? I don't believe they have.

    You have refused to give any other explanations, so of course they can't be proven impossible. For a controlled demolition, there is no evidence that any group did any "maintenance" necessary to demolish it if it were a controlled demolition. That is proof because there were tens of thousands of survivers and not a single one saw any charges, wires, unusual people, or anything like that. Either the building was wired to explode when it was erected, or it is impossible that anyone managed to wire it to explode between construction completed and the collapse. If you want to argue that it was wired to explode when erected, I'll accept that

  401. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, and let me give you some numbers along with an example so you can have something that you have to refute with more than "nuh-uh, did not".

    The WTC 1 & 2 were 208 x 208 x 1360(+/- 8 feet for each building). About 15 floors above one of the the impacts fell onto the floor below it and that calculates to be about 185 vertical feet that fell. That means the section that fell was actually wider/deeper than it was tall by about 23 feet. Make yourself a box about 20 inches wide/deep and 19 inches tall and drop it from 14 inches(each inch equals 1 foot on the WTC) several times and tell me how many times it "tips over". Hell, make the box 12 x 12 x 19 and do the same, it's still not as likely to topple as you seem hell bent on ramming down everyone's throat. If you're too lazy to test it, I'll be happy to construct this and put it on youtube for all to see but I don't think you want good visual evidence that you're full of shit.

  402. That is an invalid argument. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    You give, as an example, a building that you, yourself, claim was of a completely different type of construction?

    That is not a valid argument. Look back at the original statement. It was about STEEL structured buildings. If you can come up with a valid counterexample to THAT, then I will admit I am wrong and go away. But the Windsor Building is not an example of that kind of construction. In fact, it is even likely that weaker steel was used because the structure relied on its concrete core. Or perhaps not... but the fact remains that this is not an example of what I asked for.

    1. Re:That is an invalid argument. by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      It was about STEEL structured buildings. If you can come up with a valid counterexample to THAT, then I will admit I am wrong and go away.

      The steel structure of the building collapsed where the fire was. That demonstrates that fire can, in fact, buckle steel to the point it no longer supports anything. Unless you've got some evidence that people went around with blowtorches taking it apart, you have have to admit that the steel frame did fall down solely due to fire. Ergo, steel buckles in a fire.

      That example is even more spectacular because it's not like the steel was holding that much up. It's entirely possible the steel actually melted to get it to do that.

      In fact, it is even likely that weaker steel was used because the structure relied on its concrete core.

      The amount of carbon used in carbon steel framing does slightly affect the plastic deformation point, but not to any useful extent. And it would make it weaker normally, so actually you're do it the other way around...put the stronger-normally but weaker-in-a-fire steel in the entirely steel building. It's entirely possible that the WTC's steel framework was weaker, when in a raging fire, than that building's was.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  403. Hrm, ahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bwa hahahahahahahahaha

  404. NO, I am NOT! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    You haven't been reading carefully... or you skipped over part of the conversation, or something.

    I am saying that it is UNLIKELY that it happened by accident, given all the other unlikely "accidents" that happened in the same direction.

    When you have a number of independent events, the probability that they would all happen together by accident is the product of their individual probabilities. So when the individual events are all extremely improbable, the probability of them all occurring together at about the same time is so low as to be pretty damned astounding.

    When things occur with probabilities that are THAT low, it should throw up a red flag. They do happen, of course... but one has to ask what is more likely. And there are a number of scenarios that are MORE LIKELY than all those accidents happening the way they did on that day.

    And no, they are NOT all "conspiracy theory"!

    1. Re:NO, I am NOT! by notrandomly · · Score: 1

      I am saying that it is UNLIKELY that it happened by accident, given all the other unlikely "accidents" that happened in the same direction.

      This is not an argument. Evolution was highly unlikely. Then it happened. Now the likelihood of Evolution occuring is 1.

      When you have a number of independent events, the probability that they would all happen together by accident is the product of their individual probabilities.

      You sound like a creationist talking about Evolution.

      When things occur with probabilities that are THAT low, it should throw up a red flag.

      What things?

      It was extremely improbable that you and I communicate with these specific words at this specific time. But it happened. Your argument is basically "it surely didn't happen because it sounds extremely improbable".

  405. CONTEXT! His statement was... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    "Repeat after me... YouTube is not a reliable source of information."

    THAT was the context in which I replied. He clearly implied that he felt the video could have been faked (else, how could it be "unreliable"?). And that was the implication I was rebutting. Your comment is out of context.

    My statement was that YouTube is irrelevant... the video was seen live by millions.

    That was all.

    As for the mistake, again people have been taking this out of context. Originally, I was trying to point out that this "mistake", WHEN PUT TOGETHER WITH ALL THE OTHER SUCH UNLIKELY MISTAKES THAT DAY, was highly improbable.

  406. Okay, so not the best example. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Perhaps my examples were not wonderful. But what I meant was people working independently, in different areas, who were not in contact. If there is no reasonable way to connect them, via proximity or shared communication (through a third party, for example), then those must be considered independent variables. You cannot consider them DEPENDENT variables unless you can show that they were connected in some way. I was referring to events that could not reasonably expected to be connected.

    Does that clear it up for you?

    Your bigfoot example is not even remotely relevant to the scenario I was trying to describe. Nor was it a good example even to illustrate what you were trying to say. That was simple sarcasm, and out of context. Please try to keep the discussion reasonable.

    1. Re:Okay, so not the best example. by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 1

      Have you considered that maybe something happened to prompt all of these different people to get the story wrong in the same way? Like perhaps somebody in charge of the situation said something that could have been easily misinterpreted, or something happened visually which could have been misunderstood?

      I'm not saying these did happen, but when a bunch of reporters all screw up in the same way the right response is to wonder what kind of common fuckup there was, not to suddenly conclude that there was a vast undiscovered conspiracy afoot.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
  407. Re:Mission Accomplished by dogeatery · · Score: 1

    Fire doesn't melt steel.

    To me, this is the most compelling argument that controlled demolition took place. Videos show molten metal pouring out of the windows of the towers.

    I have heard testimony that thermite/thermate was used to increase the heat. A white residue around the still-standing beams (which are angle-cut, btw) makes a strong case for this.

  408. Re:Mission Accomplished by growse · · Score: 1

    Aluminium plane + iron oxide on steel beams + lots of heat = aluminium oxide + molton iron.

    --
    There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
  409. Re:Just plain wrong. by sir+fer · · Score: 1

    Oh so YOU know all about it ay? I'm glad we sorted that out. Now we can bin all the unanswered questions along with all the answers that don't make sense.

    --
    Debian FTW ;o)
  410. Re:Just plain wrong. by sir+fer · · Score: 1

    And besides, it wasn't the government that did 9/11, it was the people that control the government.

    --
    Debian FTW ;o)
  411. Re: Just so I understand... by macinit · · Score: 1

    So, if your government is under suspicion of committing a false-flag type tragedy to manipulate their people, accept without question, said government's report on the event in question as objective and honest. Something's wrong with the system folks.

  412. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Video footage of the buildings after the airplane strikes show them oscillating at a rate consistent with an INTACT core.

    Also, two more words....pyroclastic flow

  413. Re:Really? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    No, because what you're not getting is that the collapse on to the lower mass will lose energy, force and acceleration dramatically as it goes, which is what happens in a building collapse.

    You'll have to show some calculations if you expect anyone to believe that. It's a preposterous conclusion which is totally unsupported by any simulations.

    You can't just put your hand on a model skyscraper and collapse it like an accordion, which is what you're trying to say here.

    That's because models don't scale properly. It's complicated, but basically, the bigger you make something the weaker it is.

    I'm not too sure why you insist on trying to point out this irrelevant factoid here.

    Because you're being an idiot, and I'm countering your foolish assertions.

    I can tell you quite categorically that it fucking is hard.

    I can tell you quite categorically that you're full of shit. You've obviously never even seen explosives in person, let alone used them, wheres I have worked with them on numerous occasion in the performance of my duties. So please, stop spewing bullshit.

    Unfortunately what you're doing here is coming up with a bunch of theories that don't actually fit the mechanics of what we're talking about rather than going out and doing some practical.

    lol

    Wow.

    Just ... wow.

  414. self destruct mechanisms ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are many plausible reasons why the building might have been wired with explosives. The building housed the CIA, SEC, and secret service. It is rational to suspect they had some kind of self destruct mechanism in place to be used in the event of a war or other event resulting in the loss of control of the building. But all that aside, there are plenty of well known videos on youtube that have capture the explosions. It is not a matter of eyewitness credibility.

  415. Re:Jet fuel can't burn down steel frame skyscraper by Myopic · · Score: 1

    No, you're wrong, foolio.

  416. Re:Seismic data shows huge shock preceeding collap by leftie · · Score: 1

    My, my, my. How you do hate real physical scientific evidence.

    That seismic evidence isn't going anywhere. Neither is this..."

    -The USGS Spectroscopy Lab produced images which showed dense thermal hot spots days and weeks after the attacks.

    -ABC News reported that, "the temperature at the core of "the pile," is near 2000 degrees (1000 degrees hotter than jet fuel burns) Fahrenheit, according to fire officials, who add that the fires are too deep for firefighters to get to."

  417. Top 10 Connections NIST and Nano-Thermite by leftie · · Score: 1

    The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and
    Nano-Thermites
    Kevin R. Ryan, 7-02-08

    http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/Ryan_NIST_and_Nano-1.pdf

    âoeWas the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues? ⦠NIST did not test for the
    residue of these compounds in the steel.â
    NIST Responses to FAQs, August 2006
    The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has had considerable
    difficulty determining a politically correct sequence of events for the unprecedented
    destruction of three World Trade Center (WTC) buildings on 9/11 (Douglas 2006, Ryan
    2006, Gourley 2007). But despite a number of variations in NISTâ(TM)s story, it never
    considered explosives or pyrotechnic materials in any of its hypotheses. This omission is
    at odds with several other striking facts; first, the requirement of the national standard for
    fire investigation (NFPA 921), which calls for testing related to thermite and other
    pyrotechnics, and second, the extensive experience NIST investigators have with
    explosive and thermite materials.
    One of the most intriguing aspects of NISTâ(TM)s diversionary posture has been their total
    lack of interest in explosive or pyrotechnic features in their explanations. Despite the
    substantial evidence for the use of explosives at the WTC (Jones 2006, Legge and
    Szamboti 2007), and the extensive expertise in explosives among NIST investigators
    (Ryan 2007), explosives were never considered in the NIST WTC investigation. Only
    after considerable criticism of this fact did NIST deign to add one small disclaimer to
    their final report on the towers, suggesting they found no evidence for explosives.
    The extensive evidence that explosives were used at the WTC includes witness testimony
    (MacQueen 2006), overwhelming physical evidence (Griffin 2005, Hoffman et al 2005,
    Jones and Legge et al 2008) and simple common sense (Legge 2007). There is also
    substantial evidence that aluminothermic (thermite) materials were present at the WTC
    (Jones 2007), and the presence of such materials can explain the existence of intense fire
    where it would not otherwise have existed. Additionally, despite agreement from all
    parties that the assumed availability of fuel allowed for the fires in any given location of
    each of the WTC buildings to last only twenty minutes (NIST 2007), the fires lasted
    much longer and produced extreme temperatures (Jones and Farrer et al 2008).
    These inexplicable fires are a reminder that the WTC buildings were not simply
    demolished, but were demolished in a deceptive way. That is, the buildings were brought
    down so as to make it look like the impact of the planes and the resulting fires might have
    caused their unprecedented, symmetrical destruction. Therefore, shaped charges and
    other typical explosive configurations were likely used, but there was more to it than that.
    Those committing the crimes needed to create fire where it would not have existed
    otherwise, and draw attention toward the part of the buildings where the planes impacted
    (or in the case of WTC 7, away from the building altogether).

    This was most probably accomplished through the use of nano-thermites, which are hightech
    energetic materials made by mixing ultra fine grain (UFG) aluminum and UFG
    metal oxides; usually iron oxide, molybdenum oxide or copper oxide, although other
    compounds can be used (Prakash 2005, Rai 2005). The mixing is accomplished by
    adding these reactants to a liquid solution where they form what are called âoesolsâ, and
    then adding a gelling agent that captures these tiny reactive combinations in their
    intimately mixed state (LLNL 2000). The resulting âoesol-gelâ is then dried to form a
    porous reactive material that can be ignited in a number of ways.
    The high surface area of the reactants within energetic sol-gels allows for the far

  418. Re:Jet fuel can't burn down steel frame skyscraper by leftie · · Score: 1

    Are you scientifically illiterate?

    I just posted in the above post the results of a study done in the UK that says it doesn't.

  419. Re:Top 10 Connections NIST and Nano-Thermite by opencity · · Score: 1

    As far as I can tell this is science fiction.

    > Despite the substantial evidence for the use of explosives at the WTC

    Wishing doesn't make it so.

    --
    Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
  420. Re:Seismic data shows huge shock preceeding collap by terjeber · · Score: 1

    My, my, my. How you do hate real physical scientific evidence.

    Honestly, when using difficult words like "evidence", you should try to find out what they mean first.

  421. Gravity is a myth. by SkimTony · · Score: 1

    The Earth just sucks.

  422. Re:Jet fuel can't burn down steel frame skyscraper by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    Are you scientifically illiterate?

    Not at all. Why are you?

    I just posted in the above post the results of a study done in the UK that says it doesn't.

    You posted about a student's thesis that indicates a structure in perfect condition suffers significant deflection under heat. Add in a little damage from a very large airplane smashing into it, plus the large confirmed deflection, and that sounds like a recipe for structural failure. My guess is that the terrorists expected instant collapse from a large plane slamming into the building. But it didn't happen. And if the sprinkler system were designed in a way that would allow continued operation, then it would have stood. However, there was massive damage at impact, including the sprinkler systems being destroyed, that also caused structural damage leading to the collapse. Your study was interesting, but only studies one point of the collapse, large deflection of steel buildings is confirmed. And that supports my statements, not refute them.

  423. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    And your undeducated opinion will not be taken over that of trained professionals.

    Rinse and repeat. There are an awful lot of trained professionals who seriously question the current explanation of what happened. Being unable to accept that opposing view and respond to it is the sign of a loony bin with a cause.

  424. Re:Really? by segedunum · · Score: 1

    OK, so, lets say that the 95th floor collapses when a fifteen story building falls on it. What happens to 94th floor when a 16 story building falls on it a fraction of a second later?

    Again. You're look at an individual floor. It isn't the 94th floor it falls on but the whole building as a structure.

  425. Re:Really? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    Being unable to accept that opposing view and respond to it is the sign of a loony bin with a cause.

    I'm unclear, are you talking about you? It sounds like you are calling yourself a loony bin with a cause. "That's unlikey" is not a retort. "This is what happened and why" is. You are only giving the former, and it's a useless rhetorical exercise to cause confusion and doubt, but it doesn't get at the truth at all. Asking questions and declaring that all answers that don't agree with your pre-conceived ones as wrong is not discourse, it's a monologue. You are speaking by yourself to yourself. Tell us what you think happened. Oh, you won't. You know it'll get you laughed at for being a looney bin. For all I know, you think it was a Martian plot. And from what I can tell, that's as likely as a plot by the CIA, US government, or whomever else the nutjobs think is behind the conspiracy.

    There are an awful lot of trained professionals who seriously question the current explanation of what happened.

    No, there aren't. There may be 100 loud wackos that doubt it. But for every one of those, there are 10 or more that find the official explanation the most plausable by far. Just because the nutcases are loud doesn't make them any more right. If you want loud and wrong, turn on the Sunday morning churches with those that demand money so you don't burn in hell. They make it sound nicer than that, but they are loud and they get millions to follow them. Doesn't mean that they are right, nor does it mean that most theologists agree with their intrepretation of the same item (the Bible). But they are loud, so the weak minded follow them.

  426. Re:Really? by terjeber · · Score: 1

    and again, what happens to the top floor of a 95 story building if a 15 story building falls on it, will it hold or will it collapse? Simple question.

  427. Re:Really? by pcolaman · · Score: 1

    Intact does not mean undamaged. All you need is enough stress to weaken the steel core, and then the fire (presumably near or at the stress impact) to burn long enough to cause enough damage to create a break. Then gravity and mass take over.

  428. Re:Really? by pcolaman · · Score: 1

    I was referring to the buildings that supposedly caught fire but did not collapse, not the other WTC buildings. And the main reason they did not collapse was that their core was concrete, not steel.

  429. Re:Really? by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

    The Madrid building fire was also faught for many hours. The WTC7 fire was not.

    Funny how you get so picky when your theories are being contradicted, yet fail to mention relevant details which contradict you.

    Such as the fact that the WTC7 fire was fought, until the firemen were evacuated and told people to get back because the building was going to collapse.

    Ah, people who tell me I ignora facts when they're the ignorants one, why don't you all just die already? Do the world a favor.

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  430. eat crow, evil doer! by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

    Yeah because we know that the impact of an airplane flying as fast as it was going had no effect on the structural integrity of the core.

    We know this because that is how it was engineered:

    February 27, 1993: WTC Engineer Says Building Would Survive Jumbo Jet Hitting It
    Edit event

    In the wake of the WTC bombing, the Seattle Times interviews John Skilling who was one of the two structural engineers responsible for designing the Trade Center. Skilling recounts his people having carried out an analysis which found the Twin Towers could withstand the impact of a Boeing 707. He says, âoeOur analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed.â But, he says, âoeThe building structure would still be there.â [Seattle Times, 2/27/1993] The analysis Skilling is referring to is likely one done in early 1964, during the design phase of the towers. A three-page white paper, dated February 3, 1964, described its findings: âoeThe buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707â"DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.â

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

    1. Re:eat crow, evil doer! by pcolaman · · Score: 1

      I guess he lost most of his credibility. Or do you still think that it was an inside job? I bet Elvis and JFK conspired to take down the twin towers, and they got logistical support from the aliens housed at Area 51. Oh yeah, and Jimmy Hoffa was there too for moral support.