No. Guns are designed to stop people. That makes them excellent tools for self-defense, as the object of self-defense is to stop someone who is attacking you.
Unfortunately, since human beings can be tough animals, no one has yet invented the phaser we can set to "stun", it takes a level of force that can be potentially lethal to quickly and reliably stop someone.
(No, pepper spray does not reliably stop someone. Nor do electric stunguns - and electric stunguns are also potentially lethal. And make excellent torture devices as well.)
Knives are designed for cutting things. Those things may be human flesh, or may be carrots or cardboard. A knife can be a decent tool for self-defense, but requires you to let the attacker get close - a definite disadvantage as compared to a gun.
In terms of modern warfare it doesn't make sense to not have a standing military. You can't teach someone to operate a tank, fly a jet, or deal with any of the communications technology in a fast enough timeframe to be able to respond to a threat.
A "well-regulated" militia is one capable of using these weapons and technologies. We have National Guardsmen who operate tanks and jets (though see below).
In fact, this is why I loathe the Bush Administrations takeover power of the National Guard units. This is a gross violation of the Constitution. The National Guard units are owned and operated by the state for a reason.
But that happened long before either Bush. The National Guard really became part of the reserves in a process starting with the National Defense Act of 1916 and ending with the "Total Force Policy" established in the 70's; it's not truly a militia, and shouldn't be confused with one. (IMHO, if you can send it overseas to invade other countries, it's a reserve, not a militia.)
In fact, you adding the words I forgot strengthens my point. How do you expect to use the blood of a tyrant without a patriot soldier?
How do you expect a tyrant to rule without a standing army?
Meanwhile, our "patriot" might be a civilian or a militia fighter.
The military is a tool to be used by civilian leaders and is not meant to make its own decisions.
No one has stated otherwise. I don't know why you're railing against people "blaming the military for things going wrong"; no one has done that here.
But when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
And when all you have is a military-industrial complex, every problem looks like a call to bomb somebody or invade someone. This is part of the reason why standing armies are dangerous.
It amuses me to no end to watch people like you go on about how christian fundamentalists are attacking (group they hate of the week) unprovoked, yet maintain that islamic fundamentalists were provoked. Not that I think or foreign policy in that part of the world has helped one bit, but seriously, that is some bullshit stink of an argument.
Well, I didn't say a damn thing about Christian fundamentalist, did I? It amuses me to no end to watch people like you use phrase like "people like you" about people they don't know at all..
If there was a foreign military force occupying the homeland of some group of Christian fundamentalists, I'd call that a provocation. However, such is not the case for Christian fundamentalists in the U.S.
And again, I point out that a provocation is not necessarily a justification.
There was a tremendous amount of debate over the risks of having a standing military weighed against the risk of not having one.
And it ended up with a Constitution that doesn't provide for one (" To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years"), and that relies on a "well regulated militia" as the primary line of defense for the nation.
Ultimately (and rightfully so) the decision was made that not having a standing army with proper training and organization was more of a threat to the Union than having a standing army.
The decision was made that a standing army was useful to steal land from the Natives, and later to conduct invasions of other nations.
"The tree of liberty must be watered by the blood of patriots."
The "the media loved Obama and gives him special treatment" meme is just another incarnation of the "liberal media" myth that has served the GOP so well since the Atwater days.
I also worry about his simplistic view of raising taxes on the rich as though that would have no cascading effect on those of us who aren't.
Raising taxes on the wealthy back to what they were during the Reagan years is not going to have some "cascading effect" that will ruin the rest of us. Rolling back the Bush II tax cuts doesn't take us into unexplored territory, it returns policy back to what it was in a sounder era. (Of course, generating fiscal policy by rolling polyhedral dice would result in more sound policy than what we have now...)
Had we really trimmed it, we would probably have reduced the number of troops overseas. Including those in the Middle East. Like in Saudi Arabia. You know, the troops whose presence so provoked bin Laden.
If we'd really "gutted" the military, i.e. reduced it to its rightful role of defending the nation, and exerted forgein influence by economic and diplomatic means rather than by military bullying, odds are very good that no one would have been motived to hijack planes and fly them into American buildings.
This is not to say that terrorism against the U.S. was or is justified. But like any crime, it does have a motivation.
(Let me point out that if we followed the Founder's plan, we wouldn't even have a standing army. And yet, someone, serving in an institution whose very existence was opposed by the Founding Fathers, has someone come to be seen as "patriotic". Remarkable.)
Wonder who gets the blame for the intelligence failures of 2000 - 2004?
imagine how you would feel if a similar group performed the same action on Barack Obama (or a political leader in your own country)
If a similiar group engaged in sousveillance ("watchful vigilance from underneath") demonstrated that a government officials I admired (hah!) was engaging in illegal activities, such as using personal communication accounts to conduct official business to avoid the mandated official records, I'd be happy that they brought out the truth. I'd rather be corrected about someone I wrongfully admired, then persist in my error.
Government officials have no privacy rights when conducting their business. Palin was using this account to conduct official business, and that's the real issue here. When she started doing that, this account became rightfully open to the public. The sooner everyone understands she's crooked, the sooner McCain can dump her and get a better running mate - or the sooner McCain will be exposed as someone who doesn't care whether his running mate is crooked or not.
It's a win for the people either way. Fsck her and the moose she rode in on.
Holy shit. How you believe we originated really matters on whether you should have control of nuclear codes?
Damn straight. In a sane society, to be trusted with the capability to kill millions of people, one must demonstrate a strong ability to engage in disciplined critical reasoning.
Creationists have demonstrated that they lack this ability.
Allison DuBois is not a fraud. She is a fictional character in the TV series "Medium".
According to the wik, she's real, and "Her life is the basis of the TV show Medium".
She's got a book out, which is a nice trick for a fictional character.
Admittedly (dons skeptic hat) the Wikipedia article and the book could be part of some prank or bizarre publicity campaign for the show. But at first glance, evidence suggests she is a real human being.
I stand corrected. In the short run, dishonesty and deceit pays.
Exactly. And capitalism - or at least capitalism-as-we-know-it, based around large publicly-traded corporations - selects for the short run; it's all about how the stock price will do next quarter.
Is some sort of capitalism with a long-term outlook possible? Perhaps, in theory. Of course, in theory, Marxism works pretty good too.
How about this: if you sue somebody and lose (or back out, etc.) then you pay the defendants lawyer's fees as well as your own.
A horrific idea. If I get screwed over by Amalgamated Profits, Inc., and try to file suit, not only do I have to face their high-powered lawyers, if I lose by even a hair I now have to pay for their high-powered lawyers - a small expense to them, a bankrupting one to me. Faced with that risk, I'm likely to just let them get away with it.
I'm all for anti-SLAPP and anti-barratry laws which allow cases to be evaluated individually for abuse; but loser-always-pays makes it just about impossible for the little guy to use the courts to seek justice against the rich and powerful.
The article actually says humans basically excreet all of the material resulting in extremely low (near undetectable) levels of biphenol A or its metabolite.
A curious statement, since BPA was found at detectable levels in the urine of 92.6% of the population in a CDC study.
Bisphenol a is an anti-oxidant used in ppm levels in the plastic to keep it from yellowing over time.
Bisphenol A is everywhere - it's the building block of polycarbonate. It's used in dental resins and in the lining of food cans.
The truth is that for the last 50 years or so, the "profession" of "economist" has attracted what you would call "liberals" (or what I would call "statists") who believe in increased government control of or interference in economic affairs.
Hey, I'm a liberal and I'm opposed to government control of or interference in economic affairs. Let's start by tearing up all government-issued corporate charters, then curtailing government-issued land and resource deeds, copyrights, and patents. We can also get rid of the government-created reserve banking system. And let's remove the government-created inheritance laws that let people get wealthy without any work or merit. Then, let's get our money back from every government bail-out of investors. And let's revoke every law, treaty, rule, or policy meant to benefit the investment class.
But, if those in power insist on to building a big state-capitalist economic engine which sucks wealth away from working people into the pockets of investors, then I insist that this engine it be fitted with some governors, in the form of regulation, social welfare programs, and progressive taxation.
I'd rather shrink the engine to a smaller size that makes such governors less nesscessary. But those who rely on all the government intervention that makes capitalism possible, should not pretend they're fundamentally against government having a role in the economy.
It's time to play the what-is-the-causation game again.
Do you think that ingesting a synthetic estrogen might, just, possibly, have some health effects?
Polycarbonate is made up of strings of Bisphenol A; BPA has been known since the 1930s to be estrogenic. As polycarbonate - which is everywhere - ages, wears, or is exposed to heat, acids, or bases, BPA leaches out.
BPA has been linked to breast cancer, insulin resistance, miscarriage, obesity, prostate enlargement, early onset of sexual maturation, hyperactivity, and increased aggressiveness.
Also speeding doesn't mean you're more dangerous, witness Germany's autobahns.
You can't speed on a highway with no speed limit.
Also, Germany actual requires their drivers to be trained; in the U.S. driver's education is usually only required for teens, and is a joke in any event.
You were sitting in the left-hand lane and (obviously) not passing. You were not obeying the law.
Don't know where the original poster was, but the law on that varies by state.
And one can be in the left lane, gradually overtaking a slower vehicle (or group thereof) in the right lane, and still have some asshole come zooming up behind you, ride your ass, and blind you with his highbeams because, dammit, you made him slow down from his 90mph fsck-you-all tear along the highway.
and there were no passenger liner pieces in those holes they videoed.
As I have already explained to you, videos taken immediately after the event were from a distance and obscured by smoke. Most of the plane was reduced to tiny scraps. Of course nothing would have been visible.
also, governments, interest groups, political factions have been mounting millions of unbelievable plots since the dawn of time.
If you choose to believe in vast conspiracies, no amount of evidence will sway you, since any piece of data can be dismissed as part of the conspiracy. Nothing and no one can be trusted.
A million dollars is not worth that kind of publicity
Why is it that every American wants nothing more than to be famous, except for these "psychics"?
Second, Randi's tests are usually slanted to the point where the burden of proof becomes unreasonable. Telekinetics, most of whom have never tried anything bigger or heavier than a pinwheel, are required to levitate multiple pieces of furniture? Tough call.
Stuff and nonsense. This applicant, for example, was merely asked to move a key on a string with her "telekinetic" powers, which she claimed she could do. But it turns out she did it by bumping the table.
I challenge you to cite a case where a claimant who claimed a small "telekinetic" power was challenged by the JREF to demonstrate it by levitating multiple pieces of furniture.
if you were an Alison DuBois or similar, would you agree to meet James Randi's challenge, "neutral ground" or no?
If I were a fraud like DuBois? Of course not.
If I actually had "psychic" powers? Hell, yeah! Not for the money, though that would be a nice bonus, but to firmly advance human understanding about the universe. To be involved in experiments that definitively proved such a monumental fact - and meeting the JREF's challenge would, I'm sure, be such proof - would be a fantastic honor.
as psychic ability really is quite 100% unprovable
If it's unprovable, then on what basis do you assert (upthread) that it exists?
You know there is a reason those muslims you know live in the west.
Some do. They came here for the same reason Catholics from Mexico or Buddhists from China did: economic opportunity.
Some of the Muslims I know are from South Africa and still live there; my karate school has several branches there. Islam in South Africa is rapidly growing; it is seen as an alternative to Christian churches that supported apartheid. (Does that mean that all Christians supported apartheid? Of course not.)
Why don't you seek out the truth ?
Why don't you? I'm sure it saves on mental exertion to assume all Muslims think and feel the same way, but bigotry is no way to get to know the world.
Google "asma bint marwan" for an introduction, but she's hardly alone.
quran 5:51 any muslim who is friends with any infidel is himself an infidel, unless this is for deception...this rule implies that "true" friendship between a muslim and any non-muslim carries the death penalty in islam
Exodus 22:18: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Does this mean all Christians and Jews want to kill Wiccans? Thankfully, no.
Name a religion, and you can find incidents of violence in it. That does not mean that all followers of that religion support those teachings; to think otherwise is nothing more than bigotry.
Or you could ignore the permits as no one will ever know anyway. It's not really any of their business to begin with. American cities are epicenters of totalitarianism when it comes to wanting to charge you to install door frames or repaint your kitchen!
Hmm. I've never heard of any place where you needed a permit to repaint your kitchen. Where would that be?
It depends on what sort of work and what sort of building. If it won't burn down the house, make it collapse, or flood the neighborhood if you mess up, ok.
Screwed-up electrical or gas work can not just burn down or blow up your place, but could start a fire that spreads to other house - or could lie in wait and kill the next owner of your house. And water from a burst pipe - or sewer line - doesn't respect property lines.
and we dont see any passenger liner in pentagon yard in those videos.
I have already explained to you that most of the debris ended up inside the Pentagon. When someone is shot with a hollow-point, do you look for the bullet to be on the ground in front of the victim?
The debris ended up inside the building. The videos you refer to were shot from a distance and obscured by smoke; absolutely nothing can be determined from them.
this government has tried to manufacture many 'evidence' to justify a war with iran.
The mendacity of the government is not the subject of our disagreement. But it only takes a handful of people to slant, or even outright manufacture, intelligence reports about a foreign government; batshit crazy 9/11 conspiracy theories require the cooperation of thousands of people.
Slashdot Mirror
No. Guns are designed to stop people. That makes them excellent tools for self-defense, as the object of self-defense is to stop someone who is attacking you.
Unfortunately, since human beings can be tough animals, no one has yet invented the phaser we can set to "stun", it takes a level of force that can be potentially lethal to quickly and reliably stop someone.
(No, pepper spray does not reliably stop someone. Nor do electric stunguns - and electric stunguns are also potentially lethal. And make excellent torture devices as well.)
Knives are designed for cutting things. Those things may be human flesh, or may be carrots or cardboard. A knife can be a decent tool for self-defense, but requires you to let the attacker get close - a definite disadvantage as compared to a gun.
Switzerland.
A "well-regulated" militia is one capable of using these weapons and technologies. We have National Guardsmen who operate tanks and jets (though see below).
But that happened long before either Bush. The National Guard really became part of the reserves in a process starting with the National Defense Act of 1916 and ending with the "Total Force Policy" established in the 70's; it's not truly a militia, and shouldn't be confused with one. (IMHO, if you can send it overseas to invade other countries, it's a reserve, not a militia.)
How do you expect a tyrant to rule without a standing army?
Meanwhile, our "patriot" might be a civilian or a militia fighter.
No one has stated otherwise. I don't know why you're railing against people "blaming the military for things going wrong"; no one has done that here.
But when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
And when all you have is a military-industrial complex, every problem looks like a call to bomb somebody or invade someone. This is part of the reason why standing armies are dangerous.
Well, I didn't say a damn thing about Christian fundamentalist, did I? It amuses me to no end to watch people like you use phrase like "people like you" about people they don't know at all..
If there was a foreign military force occupying the homeland of some group of Christian fundamentalists, I'd call that a provocation. However, such is not the case for Christian fundamentalists in the U.S.
And again, I point out that a provocation is not necessarily a justification.
And it ended up with a Constitution that doesn't provide for one (" To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years"), and that relies on a "well regulated militia" as the primary line of defense for the nation.
The decision was made that a standing army was useful to steal land from the Natives, and later to conduct invasions of other nations.
Curious how you abridged that: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787 [emphasis added -tms]
Are you talking about McCain, or Obama? Have you seen the tape of McCain talking - or rather, not talking - about health insurance and birth control?
Are you talking about McCain, or Obama? You know McCain used the "lipstick on a pig" cliche about a Hillary Clinton proposal, right?
Are you talking about McCain, or Obama? The media's loved McCain since the 2000 campaign. Do you think that if any other candidate had used a racial slur ("I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.") it wouldn't have dominated the news cycle for weeks to the point where the candidate had to retire in shame? When McCain recently made a major gaffe by saying our economy is fundamentally strong, ABC news failed to mention it. As MSNBC's Chris Matthews put it, "The press loves McCain. We're his base."
The "the media loved Obama and gives him special treatment" meme is just another incarnation of the "liberal media" myth that has served the GOP so well since the Atwater days.
Raising taxes on the wealthy back to what they were during the Reagan years is not going to have some "cascading effect" that will ruin the rest of us. Rolling back the Bush II tax cuts doesn't take us into unexplored territory, it returns policy back to what it was in a sounder era. (Of course, generating fiscal policy by rolling polyhedral dice would result in more sound policy than what we have now...)
"Gutting" the military? During the Clinton years we still spent far and away more on "defense" than any other nation; the "defense" budget remained bloated. During the Clinton years, American military spending made up a larger percentage of the world's total military spending than it did in the Regan years.
Had we really trimmed it, we would probably have reduced the number of troops overseas. Including those in the Middle East. Like in Saudi Arabia. You know, the troops whose presence so provoked bin Laden.
If we'd really "gutted" the military, i.e. reduced it to its rightful role of defending the nation, and exerted forgein influence by economic and diplomatic means rather than by military bullying, odds are very good that no one would have been motived to hijack planes and fly them into American buildings.
This is not to say that terrorism against the U.S. was or is justified. But like any crime, it does have a motivation.
(Let me point out that if we followed the Founder's plan, we wouldn't even have a standing army. And yet, someone, serving in an institution whose very existence was opposed by the Founding Fathers, has someone come to be seen as "patriotic". Remarkable.)
Rightfully, the guys who were at the top, who chose to ignore the completely adequate data and clear warnings they were given by the intelligence community, bear the blame.
If a similiar group engaged in sousveillance ("watchful vigilance from underneath") demonstrated that a government officials I admired (hah!) was engaging in illegal activities, such as using personal communication accounts to conduct official business to avoid the mandated official records, I'd be happy that they brought out the truth. I'd rather be corrected about someone I wrongfully admired, then persist in my error.
Government officials have no privacy rights when conducting their business. Palin was using this account to conduct official business, and that's the real issue here. When she started doing that, this account became rightfully open to the public. The sooner everyone understands she's crooked, the sooner McCain can dump her and get a better running mate - or the sooner McCain will be exposed as someone who doesn't care whether his running mate is crooked or not.
It's a win for the people either way. Fsck her and the moose she rode in on.
Damn straight. In a sane society, to be trusted with the capability to kill millions of people, one must demonstrate a strong ability to engage in disciplined critical reasoning.
Creationists have demonstrated that they lack this ability.
In the contempory United States? Ha ha har dee har har.
Trying to debate your opponent on issues gets you nowhere. You have to dig up - or make up - dirt about them. That's the way to victory.
According to the wik, she's real, and "Her life is the basis of the TV show Medium".
She's got a book out, which is a nice trick for a fictional character.
Admittedly (dons skeptic hat) the Wikipedia article and the book could be part of some prank or bizarre publicity campaign for the show. But at first glance, evidence suggests she is a real human being.
Exactly. And capitalism - or at least capitalism-as-we-know-it, based around large publicly-traded corporations - selects for the short run; it's all about how the stock price will do next quarter.
Is some sort of capitalism with a long-term outlook possible? Perhaps, in theory. Of course, in theory, Marxism works pretty good too.
A horrific idea. If I get screwed over by Amalgamated Profits, Inc., and try to file suit, not only do I have to face their high-powered lawyers, if I lose by even a hair I now have to pay for their high-powered lawyers - a small expense to them, a bankrupting one to me. Faced with that risk, I'm likely to just let them get away with it.
I'm all for anti-SLAPP and anti-barratry laws which allow cases to be evaluated individually for abuse; but loser-always-pays makes it just about impossible for the little guy to use the courts to seek justice against the rich and powerful.
A curious statement, since BPA was found at detectable levels in the urine of 92.6% of the population in a CDC study.
Bisphenol A is everywhere - it's the building block of polycarbonate. It's used in dental resins and in the lining of food cans.
Hey, I'm a liberal and I'm opposed to government control of or interference in economic affairs. Let's start by tearing up all government-issued corporate charters, then curtailing government-issued land and resource deeds, copyrights, and patents. We can also get rid of the government-created reserve banking system. And let's remove the government-created inheritance laws that let people get wealthy without any work or merit. Then, let's get our money back from every government bail-out of investors. And let's revoke every law, treaty, rule, or policy meant to benefit the investment class.
But, if those in power insist on to building a big state-capitalist economic engine which sucks wealth away from working people into the pockets of investors, then I insist that this engine it be fitted with some governors, in the form of regulation, social welfare programs, and progressive taxation.
I'd rather shrink the engine to a smaller size that makes such governors less nesscessary. But those who rely on all the government intervention that makes capitalism possible, should not pretend they're fundamentally against government having a role in the economy.
Do you think that ingesting a synthetic estrogen might, just, possibly, have some health effects?
Polycarbonate is made up of strings of Bisphenol A; BPA has been known since the 1930s to be estrogenic. As polycarbonate - which is everywhere - ages, wears, or is exposed to heat, acids, or bases, BPA leaches out.
BPA has been linked to breast cancer, insulin resistance, miscarriage, obesity, prostate enlargement, early onset of sexual maturation, hyperactivity, and increased aggressiveness.
You can't speed on a highway with no speed limit.
Also, Germany actual requires their drivers to be trained; in the U.S. driver's education is usually only required for teens, and is a joke in any event.
Don't know where the original poster was, but the law on that varies by state.
And one can be in the left lane, gradually overtaking a slower vehicle (or group thereof) in the right lane, and still have some asshole come zooming up behind you, ride your ass, and blind you with his highbeams because, dammit, you made him slow down from his 90mph fsck-you-all tear along the highway.
I have already linked to pages explaining that the "entrance wound" hole in the exterior wall was just about the size of the fuselage of the plane -the hole was was 16 to 20 feet wide; a 757's body is about 13 feet in diameter. It's a very good fit.
As I have already explained to you, videos taken immediately after the event were from a distance and obscured by smoke. Most of the plane was reduced to tiny scraps. Of course nothing would have been visible.
If you choose to believe in vast conspiracies, no amount of evidence will sway you, since any piece of data can be dismissed as part of the conspiracy. Nothing and no one can be trusted.
In common parlance, we call that "batshit crazy".
I hope someday your mental health improves.
This ends my comments on the subject.
How quickly they forget...
It was widely reported at the time that bin Laden initially denied involvement. This is not news to anyone who's been paying attention.
Whether his initial denial, or later claims of responsibility, should be believied, is left as an exercise for the reader.
They did.
But that's not "psychic" power.
Why is it that every American wants nothing more than to be famous, except for these "psychics"?
Stuff and nonsense. This applicant, for example, was merely asked to move a key on a string with her "telekinetic" powers, which she claimed she could do. But it turns out she did it by bumping the table.
I challenge you to cite a case where a claimant who claimed a small "telekinetic" power was challenged by the JREF to demonstrate it by levitating multiple pieces of furniture.
If I were a fraud like DuBois? Of course not.
If I actually had "psychic" powers? Hell, yeah! Not for the money, though that would be a nice bonus, but to firmly advance human understanding about the universe. To be involved in experiments that definitively proved such a monumental fact - and meeting the JREF's challenge would, I'm sure, be such proof - would be a fantastic honor.
If it's unprovable, then on what basis do you assert (upthread) that it exists?
Some do. They came here for the same reason Catholics from Mexico or Buddhists from China did: economic opportunity.
Some of the Muslims I know are from South Africa and still live there; my karate school has several branches there. Islam in South Africa is rapidly growing; it is seen as an alternative to Christian churches that supported apartheid. (Does that mean that all Christians supported apartheid? Of course not.)
Why don't you? I'm sure it saves on mental exertion to assume all Muslims think and feel the same way, but bigotry is no way to get to know the world.
Whether true or false - at least some contemporary Muslims say the story is an outright fabrication - the story is utterly uninformative of the attitudes of any given contemporary Muslim.
I suggest you go read some Rumi and relax.
Exodus 22:18: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Does this mean all Christians and Jews want to kill Wiccans? Thankfully, no.
Some Hindu use "cow protection" as an excuse to murder non-Hindus who eat beef, and Hindu fundamentalists have managed to get "anti-conversion" laws passed.
During WWII, Japanese Zen monasteries raised money to build fighter planes.
Name a religion, and you can find incidents of violence in it. That does not mean that all followers of that religion support those teachings; to think otherwise is nothing more than bigotry.
Hmm. I've never heard of any place where you needed a permit to repaint your kitchen. Where would that be?
It depends on what sort of work and what sort of building. If it won't burn down the house, make it collapse, or flood the neighborhood if you mess up, ok.
But in a city or rowhouses, if you fsck up structural work, you can take out your neighbors' houses too. Been a lot of that in Baltimore lately.
Screwed-up electrical or gas work can not just burn down or blow up your place, but could start a fire that spreads to other house - or could lie in wait and kill the next owner of your house. And water from a burst pipe - or sewer line - doesn't respect property lines.
I have already explained to you that most of the debris ended up inside the Pentagon. When someone is shot with a hollow-point, do you look for the bullet to be on the ground in front of the victim?
The debris ended up inside the building. The videos you refer to were shot from a distance and obscured by smoke; absolutely nothing can be determined from them.
The mendacity of the government is not the subject of our disagreement. But it only takes a handful of people to slant, or even outright manufacture, intelligence reports about a foreign government; batshit crazy 9/11 conspiracy theories require the cooperation of thousands of people.