I can answer all those questions, and im not david copperfield.
#1: The section of the pentagon that was hit had just recently been renovated to be bomb resistant. It had new bomb proof windows and kevlar panels around the whole outside of the building. The original design even had the outside walls made of reinforced concrete Additionally, the pentagon is the largest office building in the world. Each side of the pentagon is 921 feet long, making the ring thickness ~100 feet for each concentric ring. The concrete, kevlar, blast resistant windows and all the interior walls served to block most of the debris and shrapnel. Look at the world trade center: How much of the plane came out the other side, and how fast was it moving? Not much and not very (comparatively) The next interior ring is not collapsed, but that does not mean that it was not damaged in the attack, merely that it was not damaged significantly enough to cause it to collapse.
#2: Both eywitnesses on the ground and those on board the aircraft reported the plane descending as it was apporaching the pentagon. Clearly the "pilots" were not skilled in flying aircraft, and the plane was aimed too low to cause maximum damage. Since the pane was descending, a component of its velocity would be directed downward, and inertia would carry debris from the plane down and into the pentagon, towards the far corner of the basement. However, it is clear from subsequent pictures that the point of impact was at about the ceiling of the first floor.
#3: One would not expect to see debris on the lawn in front of the pentagon, if it were a plane moving at high velocity that struck the building. Inertia carries the debris along the path of theoriginal object, in this case the plane. If the plane is moving towards the pentagon, and the first point of impact is on the wall of the pentagon, then all subsequent debirs shoudl be found inside the building and some in the courtyard. If it were a truck bomb or some other sort of stationary bomb, shrapnel would be expected all over the lawn (see pics of the oklahoma city bombing) The very fact that there is no shrapnel or debris on the lawn indicates that whatever hit the building was moving at extremely high speeds.
#4: Because this picture was clearly taken over a month after the attack, when reconstruction was starting. Look in the background and you can see cranes working to remove building debris from the site. Clearly, if the lawn was not damaged in the attack, the defense secretay would not want to damage it further. It is standard practice on construction projects to put down sand and gravel over a lawn so that large trucks and equipment can move to the site. If the gravel isnt put down the lawn will be significantly damaged, and during rainstorms trucks and equipment can get stuck in the mud that forms.
#5: Think about momentum. Objects with larger momentum do more damage. What is going to do more damage? The large heavy fuselage? Or the light wingtips? Look closely at the second picture with the red airplane. Look at the wall right in front of the wingtips: You can see deep scarring on the walls. The most damage to the building is where the main part of the aircraft would have hit. Again think of the scale of the building and think how deep those scars where the wingtips hit would have to be in this picture.
#6:Take a glass vase and slam it against a wall: does it remain in one large chunk or does it shatter into a million peices? The airplane has clearly broken into millions of peices, as described by the fire chief. Just as with the vase, there is no more plane, just chunks. Additionally, aluminum will burn at a low temperature compared to burning of jet fuel. Try putting an aluminum can in a camp fire and see what happens to it, now imagine a fire 1000 degrees hotter than the hottest part of your campfire. It is entirely plausible that most of the aluminum from the plane simply
Let me preface this by saying that I dont like George Bush, and i dont like his policies. But to say that he would intentionally kill several thousand americans so that he could invade afganistan as a pretense to invade iraq as a pretense to get the iraqi oil is absurd. It would only take one person in the administration cracking and becoming a deep throat to take down bush and anyone near him. It would literally start a revolution in america if it were bush behind sept 11, and bush's head would be on the chopping block. Every senator would vote for immidiate impeachment if the angry mobs didnt tear down the white house first. Look at it this way: Nixon couldnt keep breaking into the watergate a secret, and that was alot less massive than this. Clinton couldnt keep monica a secret, and thats a million times less than this. Hell even Regan couldnt keep iran-contra a secret, and that really was a conspiracy. Which is more plausible: That Osama bin laden et al hate america so much that they would be willing to kill thousands of americans, or that Bush loves oil so much (and hates america) that he would be willing to kill thousands of americans? Regardless of "proof in court" the Osama scenario is simply more plausible. Show me your proof that the CIA was behind it, something that would hold up in the international criminal court that you mention, and not just a rumor started in the arab world, and ill buy your story.
The Lord of the rings (abridged) Frodo gets a ring from his foster father Bilbo. Frodo finds out the ring is evil. Frodo and some friends go to rivendell to ask elrond what to do with the ring. Along the way they meet strider and are chased by ringwraiths. At rivendell frodo is given the quest to destroy the ring in the cracks of dom. Frodo and several companions set out to do so. Gandalf, one of the companions, is killed in the dwarven mines of moria. The remaining companions pass thorugh the forest of lorien and split up at the falls of rauros. Frodo and same go to mount doom, followed by gollum. The rest of the companions fight some orcs and two of them are abducted. Strider, an elf and a dwarf follow the kidnapped companions. They have some adventures and eventually find them with the ents in orthanc. Gandalf apperently didnt die in moria, and is actually alive. Frodo and gollum team up and eventually make it to mount doom. Strider and the rest of the companions go to the white city and have a big battle. Frodo throws the ring into mount doom and strider is made the king. Everyone then goes back home. The End
Now you dont need to read it, cause thats the same thing, right?;-)
I'm just saying that if you step back (way back) and look at the big picture (the really really big picture) if a couple of million (hell even a couple of billion) people were to drop dead tomorrow then life would go on.
Yes, but that in and of itself is short sighted. Im saying that large percentages of the human population dying would cause a dark age of indetermanite length (probably ~1000 years) If the price of avoiding a thousand years of human misery is thinking up new ways to protect the environment or cure aids or SARS or Ebola while allowing population to increase, than thats what weve got to do.
And even if every human on earth died would that really be so bad?
There are way too damned many people as it is anyway...
this amy be true, but reducing the number of people will cause more problems than it solves. Look at what happened during the 14th century in europe: Plague killed off ~20 % of the population. People starved to death because they were too sick to plow the field, and there werent enough well people to make up the difference. Entire towns died, the economy collapsed etc, etc. Similar thing is beginning to happen in africa today with aids. People are too sick to work, too sick to farm, and so they are literally starving to death because they cant do anything to get food. Even given all that, declining populations cant support growing ecconomies without miraculous increases in productivity, and increases in productivity arent as likely because there are simply less people to be innovative and come up with new ideas. What if thomas edison had died in a riot at age 10? What if newton had been killed by the plague? Yes there are risks of having a large and growing population, overuse of land, overuse of resources, etc but ultimately, if somone is running out of something,, this gives a large incentive to come up with a way to either xtend the resource or find a new resource to do the same thing. We dont use beavers for coats and hats anymore, we dont use whale oil for lamps anymore etc. Neccesity is the mother of invention.
Catbert(to Mordac): You made my personal printer a shared device! catbert attacks Dilbert: Two wrongs made a right today at work Dogbert: Tell somone who cares
Why do people sail around the world? Theyre just going back to the point they started from. Why do people have sailboats at all? Why does civil aviation exist? why do people go for sunday drives? Have you ever seen the earth from space, or even seen pictures of the earth from space? We happen to be sitting on the biggest tourist attraction for light years in every direction. Earth has it all, oceans, deserts,auroras, volcanos, hurricanes, and the best way to see them all is from a couple of hundred miles up. Yes youre going around in circles, but the view kicks ass!
I agree, I bought an 800 mhz flat panel iMac. within 6 months, I start getting continuous kernal panics when i boot, and at random times. I bring it in to my nearest apple store. They diagnose that its the mainboard gone haywire, and replace it (an $800 value) free of charge. 2 weeks later, that board goes south too, again they replace it free of charge. So really,apple got maybe $400 in revenue from the computer, less if you include the labor (its a beast to get those things open and get the mainboard out) Yes it was a hassle, but apple suffered more than i did, they basically got nothing from me because they let one slip through QC.
You know what would be funny, if your white protestant teen neighbor on the other sie of you thought it would be funny to get the new black people in town in trouble by defacing your car.
and how would the larger egyptian navy from the middle kingdom fare against one of our aircraft carrier "boats"? The egyptians fought mostly by ramming the other ship, then hand to hand boarding parties. How would ramming 18" of steel with a wooden boat work? how would the egyptians board a "boat" that was 9 stories tall? your military power is not made only of numbers. Otherwise the iraquis would have won, they had the numerical advantage over the americans. It was our 3 divisions vs their 18. Who came out on top in that battle?
well youre being faecetous, but my dad did something similar (although not by intent, and not by killing off people) He works for a defense contractor. Many times they have offered to promote him to management, every time he has declined, since that would bring him away from doing actual engineering. When it comes time to lay off people, managers get the axe first, so that has led to job security. Additionally, all the younger people get promoted to management and axed eventually. So not only does he keep his job, he is now the only person at the company that knows how to do the R&D that the company does (he actually wrote most of the software that is used) Right now, the only way they could fire him would be if they axed the whole R& D division entirely, which while not unlikely, certainly would hurt the company in the long term.
No, all that would happen is that the prosecutor (in this case the state) would be legally obligated to make up the difference between the prosecutions spending and the defenses spending, through a loan which gets paid back only if the prosecutor wins. If Westerfield wants to spend $0 thats his right, and it would probably make the prosecution happy, since they dont have to pony up any real money for the defense. The offer just has to be there.
I think the gist of it was "if you spend more than the other guy, you have to loan them the difference, which you dont get back if you lose" So if the murderer says he wants to spend $1.50, the state is liable to loan him whatever money above and beyond what he actually spends on his case (if its 1.50 or whatever) The case will still be tried. Today, if somone cant afford to defend themselves, they get a public defender. Legally you dont have to spend anything, just whatever the state allocates for your defense. This ould level the playing field, saying that the prosecution and defense would get the same amount. This is actually what it shoudl be right now with public defenders. Public defenders get funded the same as the DA does. Unfortunately in the real world, this rarely if ever happens. After all, if you were a good lawyer, youd be getting paid alot more than a PD does.
Right, but its to Apples advantage to "sign" (really allow on their service) independant labels and independant artists, because that way apple gets a bigger cut. If the RIAA gets $.65 per song now, and the artist gets maybe like $.05, apple can offer new artists $.25-.50 / song and increase their own profits. It doesnt matter to apple where the music is coming from, as long as theres lots of what people want (because that means more money for apple)
No one can use a nuclear bomb to blackmail america. Heres why: If they do, we will hunt them out until they are all dead. If they arent bluffing and use the bomb, we will hunt them until they are all dead. Either way we dont give into their demands. The only reason they would use such a device would be if they have no demands, other than the deaths of as many americans as possible. Think of the movie independance day, where the president asks what they aliens want, and the alien says "for you to die". Thats the mindset of people who would use a nuclear weapon.
And for putting saddam hussein in power back in the 60's. How are iraqis going to like us when they find out we were funding him during the iran-iraq war?
Slashdot Mirror
#1: The section of the pentagon that was hit had just recently been renovated to be bomb resistant. It had new bomb proof windows and kevlar panels around the whole outside of the building. The original design even had the outside walls made of reinforced concrete Additionally, the pentagon is the largest office building in the world. Each side of the pentagon is 921 feet long, making the ring thickness ~100 feet for each concentric ring. The concrete, kevlar, blast resistant windows and all the interior walls served to block most of the debris and shrapnel. Look at the world trade center: How much of the plane came out the other side, and how fast was it moving? Not much and not very (comparatively) The next interior ring is not collapsed, but that does not mean that it was not damaged in the attack, merely that it was not damaged significantly enough to cause it to collapse.
#2: Both eywitnesses on the ground and those on board the aircraft reported the plane descending as it was apporaching the pentagon. Clearly the "pilots" were not skilled in flying aircraft, and the plane was aimed too low to cause maximum damage. Since the pane was descending, a component of its velocity would be directed downward, and inertia would carry debris from the plane down and into the pentagon, towards the far corner of the basement. However, it is clear from subsequent pictures that the point of impact was at about the ceiling of the first floor.
#3: One would not expect to see debris on the lawn in front of the pentagon, if it were a plane moving at high velocity that struck the building. Inertia carries the debris along the path of theoriginal object, in this case the plane. If the plane is moving towards the pentagon, and the first point of impact is on the wall of the pentagon, then all subsequent debirs shoudl be found inside the building and some in the courtyard. If it were a truck bomb or some other sort of stationary bomb, shrapnel would be expected all over the lawn (see pics of the oklahoma city bombing) The very fact that there is no shrapnel or debris on the lawn indicates that whatever hit the building was moving at extremely high speeds.
#4: Because this picture was clearly taken over a month after the attack, when reconstruction was starting. Look in the background and you can see cranes working to remove building debris from the site. Clearly, if the lawn was not damaged in the attack, the defense secretay would not want to damage it further. It is standard practice on construction projects to put down sand and gravel over a lawn so that large trucks and equipment can move to the site. If the gravel isnt put down the lawn will be significantly damaged, and during rainstorms trucks and equipment can get stuck in the mud that forms.
#5: Think about momentum. Objects with larger momentum do more damage. What is going to do more damage? The large heavy fuselage? Or the light wingtips? Look closely at the second picture with the red airplane. Look at the wall right in front of the wingtips: You can see deep scarring on the walls. The most damage to the building is where the main part of the aircraft would have hit. Again think of the scale of the building and think how deep those scars where the wingtips hit would have to be in this picture.
#6:Take a glass vase and slam it against a wall: does it remain in one large chunk or does it shatter into a million peices? The airplane has clearly broken into millions of peices, as described by the fire chief. Just as with the vase, there is no more plane, just chunks. Additionally, aluminum will burn at a low temperature compared to burning of jet fuel. Try putting an aluminum can in a camp fire and see what happens to it, now imagine a fire 1000 degrees hotter than the hottest part of your campfire. It is entirely plausible that most of the aluminum from the plane simply
Let me preface this by saying that I dont like George Bush, and i dont like his policies. But to say that he would intentionally kill several thousand americans so that he could invade afganistan as a pretense to invade iraq as a pretense to get the iraqi oil is absurd. It would only take one person in the administration cracking and becoming a deep throat to take down bush and anyone near him. It would literally start a revolution in america if it were bush behind sept 11, and bush's head would be on the chopping block. Every senator would vote for immidiate impeachment if the angry mobs didnt tear down the white house first. Look at it this way: Nixon couldnt keep breaking into the watergate a secret, and that was alot less massive than this. Clinton couldnt keep monica a secret, and thats a million times less than this. Hell even Regan couldnt keep iran-contra a secret, and that really was a conspiracy. Which is more plausible: That Osama bin laden et al hate america so much that they would be willing to kill thousands of americans, or that Bush loves oil so much (and hates america) that he would be willing to kill thousands of americans? Regardless of "proof in court" the Osama scenario is simply more plausible. Show me your proof that the CIA was behind it, something that would hold up in the international criminal court that you mention, and not just a rumor started in the arab world, and ill buy your story.
Frodo gets a ring from his foster father Bilbo. Frodo finds out the ring is evil. Frodo and some friends go to rivendell to ask elrond what to do with the ring. Along the way they meet strider and are chased by ringwraiths. At rivendell frodo is given the quest to destroy the ring in the cracks of dom. Frodo and several companions set out to do so. Gandalf, one of the companions, is killed in the dwarven mines of moria. The remaining companions pass thorugh the forest of lorien and split up at the falls of rauros. Frodo and same go to mount doom, followed by gollum. The rest of the companions fight some orcs and two of them are abducted. Strider, an elf and a dwarf follow the kidnapped companions. They have some adventures and eventually find them with the ents in orthanc. Gandalf apperently didnt die in moria, and is actually alive. Frodo and gollum team up and eventually make it to mount doom. Strider and the rest of the companions go to the white city and have a big battle. Frodo throws the ring into mount doom and strider is made the king. Everyone then goes back home. The End
Now you dont need to read it, cause thats the same thing, right?
For $4.95 a month you can call in and have your e-mails read aloud to you by a computerized voice named Jenni.
nothing like having "go to www.porn.com for naked pictures of anna kournikova" read you you by a throaty computerized female voice.
.2 seconds is just too slow for a search to complete, why I almost had to wait for one the other day.
Except for large stretches of the west, hands across america is a large success ;-)
Yes, but that in and of itself is short sighted. Im saying that large percentages of the human population dying would cause a dark age of indetermanite length (probably ~1000 years) If the price of avoiding a thousand years of human misery is thinking up new ways to protect the environment or cure aids or SARS or Ebola while allowing population to increase, than thats what weve got to do.
And even if every human on earth died would that really be so bad?
You go first. ;-)
Like the bible ;-)
this amy be true, but reducing the number of people will cause more problems than it solves. Look at what happened during the 14th century in europe: Plague killed off ~20 % of the population. People starved to death because they were too sick to plow the field, and there werent enough well people to make up the difference. Entire towns died, the economy collapsed etc, etc. Similar thing is beginning to happen in africa today with aids. People are too sick to work, too sick to farm, and so they are literally starving to death because they cant do anything to get food. Even given all that, declining populations cant support growing ecconomies without miraculous increases in productivity, and increases in productivity arent as likely because there are simply less people to be innovative and come up with new ideas. What if thomas edison had died in a riot at age 10? What if newton had been killed by the plague? Yes there are risks of having a large and growing population, overuse of land, overuse of resources, etc but ultimately, if somone is running out of something,, this gives a large incentive to come up with a way to either xtend the resource or find a new resource to do the same thing. We dont use beavers for coats and hats anymore, we dont use whale oil for lamps anymore etc. Neccesity is the mother of invention.
I thought god was 31337
Catbert(to Mordac): You made my personal printer a shared device!
catbert attacks
Dilbert: Two wrongs made a right today at work
Dogbert: Tell somone who cares
Why do people sail around the world? Theyre just going back to the point they started from. Why do people have sailboats at all? Why does civil aviation exist? why do people go for sunday drives? Have you ever seen the earth from space, or even seen pictures of the earth from space? We happen to be sitting on the biggest tourist attraction for light years in every direction. Earth has it all, oceans, deserts,auroras, volcanos, hurricanes, and the best way to see them all is from a couple of hundred miles up. Yes youre going around in circles, but the view kicks ass!
I agree, I bought an 800 mhz flat panel iMac. within 6 months, I start getting continuous kernal panics when i boot, and at random times. I bring it in to my nearest apple store. They diagnose that its the mainboard gone haywire, and replace it (an $800 value) free of charge. 2 weeks later, that board goes south too, again they replace it free of charge. So really,apple got maybe $400 in revenue from the computer, less if you include the labor (its a beast to get those things open and get the mainboard out) Yes it was a hassle, but apple suffered more than i did, they basically got nothing from me because they let one slip through QC.
Exactly, I seem to recall that alot of cameras were watching the second aircraft plow into the WTC. That didnt seem to stop anything
You know what would be funny, if your white protestant teen neighbor on the other sie of you thought it would be funny to get the new black people in town in trouble by defacing your car.
and how would the larger egyptian navy from the middle kingdom fare against one of our aircraft carrier "boats"? The egyptians fought mostly by ramming the other ship, then hand to hand boarding parties. How would ramming 18" of steel with a wooden boat work? how would the egyptians board a "boat" that was 9 stories tall? your military power is not made only of numbers. Otherwise the iraquis would have won, they had the numerical advantage over the americans. It was our 3 divisions vs their 18. Who came out on top in that battle?
lead is too soft, and tends to melt in fire, try nickel
somone whos mind was actually changed by reading slashdot? You must be new here ... ;-)
well youre being faecetous, but my dad did something similar (although not by intent, and not by killing off people) He works for a defense contractor. Many times they have offered to promote him to management, every time he has declined, since that would bring him away from doing actual engineering. When it comes time to lay off people, managers get the axe first, so that has led to job security. Additionally, all the younger people get promoted to management and axed eventually. So not only does he keep his job, he is now the only person at the company that knows how to do the R&D that the company does (he actually wrote most of the software that is used) Right now, the only way they could fire him would be if they axed the whole R& D division entirely, which while not unlikely, certainly would hurt the company in the long term.
No, all that would happen is that the prosecutor (in this case the state) would be legally obligated to make up the difference between the prosecutions spending and the defenses spending, through a loan which gets paid back only if the prosecutor wins. If Westerfield wants to spend $0 thats his right, and it would probably make the prosecution happy, since they dont have to pony up any real money for the defense. The offer just has to be there.
I think the gist of it was "if you spend more than the other guy, you have to loan them the difference, which you dont get back if you lose" So if the murderer says he wants to spend $1.50, the state is liable to loan him whatever money above and beyond what he actually spends on his case (if its 1.50 or whatever) The case will still be tried. Today, if somone cant afford to defend themselves, they get a public defender. Legally you dont have to spend anything, just whatever the state allocates for your defense. This ould level the playing field, saying that the prosecution and defense would get the same amount. This is actually what it shoudl be right now with public defenders. Public defenders get funded the same as the DA does. Unfortunately in the real world, this rarely if ever happens. After all, if you were a good lawyer, youd be getting paid alot more than a PD does.
Right, but its to Apples advantage to "sign" (really allow on their service) independant labels and independant artists, because that way apple gets a bigger cut. If the RIAA gets $.65 per song now, and the artist gets maybe like $.05, apple can offer new artists $.25-.50 / song and increase their own profits. It doesnt matter to apple where the music is coming from, as long as theres lots of what people want (because that means more money for apple)
No one can use a nuclear bomb to blackmail america. Heres why: If they do, we will hunt them out until they are all dead. If they arent bluffing and use the bomb, we will hunt them until they are all dead. Either way we dont give into their demands. The only reason they would use such a device would be if they have no demands, other than the deaths of as many americans as possible. Think of the movie independance day, where the president asks what they aliens want, and the alien says "for you to die". Thats the mindset of people who would use a nuclear weapon.
And for putting saddam hussein in power back in the 60's. How are iraqis going to like us when they find out we were funding him during the iran-iraq war?
Is he going to put them in a lockbox? Cause that would be an original idea.