Oh, lord, I would have been in the room too if I'd known the 9/11 "truthers" were doing a conference here in Madison.
This conference was organized by the Scholars for 9/11 Truth, or at least one version of them. The Madison event at the Radisson hotel was orchestrated by James Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer with a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science.Barrett was the voice of reason. Conspiracy conviviality -- that's what's needed.
Six months ago, Fetzer parted ways with Steven Jones, the man Fetzer asked to co-chair the organization, who accused Fetzer of allowing the group to wander into the realm of science fiction. Jones now maintains his own group, which vehemently denies any association with Fetzer's methods.
"I consider myself to be in the mold of Sherlock Holmes," Fetzer told the crowd. "When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, no matter now improbable, is the truth."
One of the participants trying to keep things calm was Kevin Barrett, whose inclusion of 9/11 in his curriculum on Islam in a course he taught at UW-Madison caused quite a controversy.
Barrett, who no longer teaches the course, took the stage to try and express his concerns about the public image of the movement.
"I think we need to focus on conviviality in this movement," he declared. "We 're not the miserable paranoids people think."
Saturday's lunch included a free sandwich bar...There's no such thing as a free sandwich.
Saturday focused on many of the more popular theories, beginning with inconsistencies at the site of the Pentagon crash and moving on to a controlled demolition of the towers. By Sunday the conference had covered weather control, weapons from space, and the idea that the planes that struck the towers never existed at all.Yes, yes, now go get your sandwich. Eat, drink, and be merry. Merry and paranoid.
Fetzer, in his closing remarks before lunch, declared the conference a sterling example of open scientific discourse. "I feel as though we 're right back at JFK," said Fetzer. "We're down the rabbit hole again."
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182 comments:
(of the government?)
...they'll hurt you...and desert you. They'll take your soul if you let them.
Yeah, yeah...but don't you let them
Yep, merrinoid.
I wonder, were there free tinfoil hats being given out as door prizes? Maybe at the end of the conference, there was a raffle to give the prize away that let's you spend a whole day with Art Bell.
If these guys held a convention to promote the denial of the Holocaust, they would be resoundingly spurned.
9/11 Truther and Madison, WI?
Nope, no such luck.
What a shame for you all.
“once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”
I prefer Douglas Adams' character Dirk Gently who respond to this Sherlock Holmes quote, saying he “rejects that entirely. For the impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, ‘Yes, but he or she simply wouldn’t do that.’"
"I feel as though we 're right back at JFK," said Fetzer. "We're down the rabbit hole again."
Just watch out for the Cheshire cat, the mushrooms, and, oh yeah, leave the catipllar's hooka alone from now on.
[Jones], who accused Fetzer of allowing the group to wander into the realm of science fiction
"I consider myself to be in the mold of Sherlock Holmes," Fetzer told the crowd.
So the defense strategy here can be best summed up as "its not science fiction, its detective fiction", then?
I've quoted this before, but it's still apt. Umberto Eco, from Foucault's Pendulum:
Not that the incredulous person doesn't believe in anything. It's just that he doesn't believe everything. Or he believes in one thing at a time. He believes a second thing only if it somehow follows from the first thing. He is nearsighted and methodical, avoiding wide horizons. If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity.
--And, then one time my parents accidentally walked in on us and saw everything. I was absolutely humiliated...
Ooops, off topic again.
There's always someone around to point out inconsistencies and coincidences in everything.
But these people never bear the burden of having an explanation for what happened instead. There is never even reasonable proof to back up their claims.
The Rosie O'Donnell's who give stupid, thoughtless opinions ("I believe that this is the first time that fire has melted steel") aren't just harmless - they have legions of young fans who will grow up to be policy makers and legislators and (gasp) executives who will make decisions over the lives of real people.
Like Oliver Stone's JFK, a younger generation gets not the truth, not even skepticism from authority figures - they get the opinions of doubters that don't have to prove or do anything but disagree.
They've seen too many movies, read too many novels, fantasized about too many . . .
I just don't want any of these people in positions of authority.
Here is the truth of 9/11. Homicidal maniacs flew planes loaded with innocent people into buildings filled with innocent people all in the name of a viral form of radical, militant Islam.
It is amazing that some people need to be reminded of that truth.
Did they mention anything at all abotu Saddam being behind it or is that idea even too looney for these guys?
Boy Madison attracts a lot of winners to speak, huh-our fabulous blogress excluded of course.
They were likely a bunch of homos who were speaking at this thing.
By the way the next blog I want to see just a topless Althouse jumping up and down.
That would be the type of performance art that I would be into.
"I consider myself to be in the mold of Sherlock Holmes," Fetzer told the crowd.
That would be Sherlock Holmes, the fictional character, yes? Alrighty then, there's a cornerstone for a good science foundation. Too bad World Weekly News has gone out of print. Mr. Fetzer will need to find a different scientific journal.
hdhouse, are you asserting that the 9/11 Truthers are all about Iraq?
Because if not, then you just had a really bad case of not-being-able-to-stay-on-topic. This can be a sign of attention deficit disorder, psychosis, or retardation. Or puberty.
They're Coming to Take Me Away! by Napoleon XIV
Remember when you ran away and
I got on my knees and begged you
Not to leave because I'd go berserk?
Well,You left me anyhow and then the
Days got worse and worse and now you
See I've gone completely out of my mind.
And,
They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa.
They're coming to take me away, ho ho, he he, ha ha,
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time
And I'll be happy to see those nice young
Men in their clean white coats and
They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!
You thought it was a joke and so you
Laughed, you laughed!
When I had said that
Losing you would make me flip my lid - right?
You know you laughed, I heard you laugh,
You laughed, you laughed and laughed, and then you
Left, but now you know I'm utterly mad.
And,
They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa.
They're coming to take me away, ho ho, he he , ha ha,
To the happy home with trees and flowers and chirping birds
And basket weavers who sit and smile
And twiddle their thumbs and toesAnd they're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!
I cooked your food, I cleaned your house
And this is how you pay me back
For all my kind, unselfish loving deeds? Huh?
Well, you just wait--they'll find you yet
And when they do they'll put you in the
RSPCA you mangy mutt!
And,
They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa.
They're coming to take me away, ho ho, he he, ha ha,
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time
And I'll be happy to see those nice young
Men in their clean white coats and
They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!
To the happy home with trees and flowers and chirping birds
And basket weavers who sit and smile
And twiddle their thumbs and toes
And they're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time
And I'll be happy to see those nice young
Men in their clean white coats and
They're coming to take me away!
""I consider myself to be in the mold of Sherlock Holmes," Fetzer told the crowd."
Fetzer couldn't hold Holmes' underwear. Conan Doyle's creation was knowledgeable on a multitude of scientific topics and knew how to reason deductively. Fezter works from core "principles" (in reality illusions, though he doesn't recognize them as such) and at best works inductively (and that's when his logic functions at all). At worst, he peddles stuff he must know is bulls*** because the truth that contradicts his ramblings is so easy to discover. No one can be oblivious to the truth to the degree he is by mistake.
On top of that, even considering his fictional status, Sherlock Holmes never made up evidence, misidentified details or phenomena, or violated the intrinsic logic of his narrative. Fezter is guilty of all 3.
There is no way I can have any respect for someone who's not only fails to identify truth, but who assiduously avoids locating it at all costs in the manner that Fetzer does. He's such an emblematic example of the "stupid-industrious" category that his legacy will be as an example of what not to do when constructing arguments.
It's all about Iraq, or about some aspect of Bush's badness. Or his evilness.
And neocons still believe Iraq had WMD's.
Please tell me how that is any different????
Whoops. Just realized something: I should explain the "stupid-industrious" remark.
I first found this categorization principle noted in David Hackworth's book About Face, and discovered it was uttered by German general Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. He said the following:
"I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous."
Not only are the stupid-industrious types too dumb to recognize when they err, but they're idiotically industrious in propogating their errors. Fezter is a prime example of stupid-industrious, just like the rest of the 9/11 Conspiracy "movement".
downtownlad said...
"And neocons still believe Iraq had WMD's. Please tell me how that is any different????"
Because that's a generalized strawman about an amorphous and ill-defined class of persons, a statement which may or may not accurately represent the views of some or any actual persons at this moment in time, whereas the 9/11 truth movement consists of the actual beliefs of specific (and in this case, named) individuals.
All I care about right now is the next vlog being topless and jumping up and down with lipstick painted nipples!!!!!
Dare to be daring!.
As recently as last year, half of Americans still believed Iraq had WMD's
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/08/07/half_of_us_still_believes_iraq_had_wmd/
That's not a strawman. Talk about conspiracy theories. That one is just as wacko as the 9/11 truthers.
Because there is FACT and there is FICTION.
And both those who are 9/11 truthers and those who believe Iraq has WMDs believe in FICTION.
I fail to see the difference between the two.
Can't we put some type of vote up here for a topless vlog and jumping up and down?
Scholars for 9/11 Truth...how Orwellian a title! They are neither scholars nor truthful.
Also remind me to never visit Madison. With the exception of Althouse is sounds like a bunch of crazy commies who copulate. No wonder Feingold was elected, excellent representation of that bizarre place.
Didn't they elect a dyke to congress too in Madison?
Ann,
I used to make fun of 9/11 truthers myself...and then, about six weeks ago, I became one.
In the six years since the towers came down I had given approximately zero time or credibility to other theories of what happened. I was vaguely aware that there was a "9/11 truth movement" and that it was growing, but I wrote it all off to the idea that conspiracy theories build around a lot of major catastrophes and never did any research of my own.
Then, in June, two people I consider credible told me independently (they don't know each other) on the same day to Google building 7 at the World Trade Center. I was intrigued by this coincidence and sat down to what I thought would be a 15-minute Google session.
Here I am six weeks later, and there is no doubt left in my mind -- not one iota -- that elements within the U.S. government planned and executed the 9/11 attacks. It has been quite a month and a half for my brain, let me tell you.
I thought I understood the world fairly well; I follow politics closely and have read and traveled pretty widely. Like many people I've learned far more over the Internet in the past 10 years about how the world really works than I ever did reading only MSM newspapers and magazines for the first few decades of my life.
What I've been learning recently is, I think, the key to understanding modern military conlficts and their causes: namely, the history of war profiteering, especially in Europe since about the late 1700s (Rothschilds) and the U.S. since the 1890s (Hearst, Rockefeller, Morgan et al).
Once I familiarized myself with the history of war profiteering, I was able to see 9/11 for what it was: an intricate but not-quite-perfect false flag operation carried out by a small but powerful and extremely ruthless faction in the U.S. government. You probably can guess some of their names. There have been many such operations in the past and you will be surprised in the coming years and months to learn what some of them were. But you will be surprised by a lot of what you learn in the coming years and months.
I'm guessing those who doubt here haven't taken the time to look at the evidence in detail. I've spent hundreds of hours on it now and taken the best arguments from both sides many times over. My conclusion is very grim, and, though I pride myself on both skepticism and open-mindedness, I do not see how an intelligent person could fail to be highly suspicious of the offical 9/11 story after critically reviewing the available evidence online.
So why did they do it? The main short-term goal was war profits; since the Cold War's end defense budgets had been slashed and were facing further cuts.
There are other moving parts -- forestalling the coming crash of the dollar, which has been doomed since Nixon cut our last link to the gold standard in '71; Israeli interests in the region; and simple theft of oil and natural gas in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when you get down to it, it was all for money and power, some of the oldest reasons in the book.
If you think there aren't people in our government who would murder 3,000 Americans just to make a lot of money, then two points: 1) it wasn't just those 3,000, it's the 3,000 + 3,700 more and counting in Iraq 2) The whole point of war profiteering is not to win wars, it's to fight them for as long as possible. Remember that next time you see Bill Kristol asking for another Friedman Unit of patience from the American people.
I think that one of my generation's great tasks will be to root out from government the small, amorphous clique of people who manipulate the world for their own ends. It wasn't possible before, but with revolutionary technology comes revolutionary politics, and the crisis point is approaching. The truth movement is getting louder, and those in charge know they're one Youtubed slip of the tongue, one guilty conscience away from 2,974 counts of murder against dozens of the most powerful people in the country.
Unfortunately, the elites who perpetrated 9/11 know they're close to getting caught, which means we have interesting times ahead. Cornered animals strike, and humans are animals, for better or worse. And the cornered people have alot of weapons to strike with.
And remember, they know how to false flag.
aquaculture - You are a moron. Really.
You do realize that New Yorkers knew 7 World Trade was unstable and likely to collapse before it actually fell, right?
That's why nobody cared when it did.
Tower 1 and Tower 2 collapsing were enough to start a war. And why would the government take down Tower 7????
And if Bush planned 9/11, don't you think he would have had a better response prepared than to stare blank-faced at a bunch of pre-schoolers for 10 minutes???
Get a life.
Aquaculture has made my day. Either because this poster is a brilliant, cunning satirist or because he or she (I'm guessing he) has come out of the woodwork to find a 9/11 "truth" post and write oodles about it.
I love these posts. Love them. I am so fascinated by them. It says something about me. I don't know what.
downtownlad said that "[a]s recently as last year, half of Americans still believed Iraq had WMD's" (emphasis added), but Simon's comment that he was replying to charged that DTL had created "a generalized strawman ... which may or may not accurately represent the views of some or any actual persons at this moment in time" (emphasis added). And surely, DTL is not going to defend his assertions about what neocons believe by adverting to the beliefs of "half of Americans," because surely DTL is not arguing that "half of [all] Americans" are neocons?
Aquaculture, with all due respect, when you say that "six weeks later, ... there is no doubt left in [your] mind ... that elements within the U.S. government planned and executed the 9/11 attacks," and that "[i]t has been quite a month and a half for my brain," one thinks that the process of starvation must be "quite a month." Faced with an entirely explainable event and no serious evidence to dispute the factual chain of events, you're forced to an incredible conclusion that no rational human being would reach. I'm sure that in due course you will look back with embarasment to this brief interlude from rational thought, but we won't hold it against you.
And another thing: hundreds of hours in six weeks? That's the part that makes me think brilliant satire. There are 168 hours in a week. 168 x 6 = 1008. The average human sleeps eight hours each day. We'll give Aqua the benefit of the doubt and say six. Since 6 x 7 x 6 = 252. That leaves us with 756 hours. YOu have to think that "hundreds of hours" is at least 300. We are left with 456 hours, or 76 hours each week to eat, socialize, work at your job, study, get from place to place, etc.
I don't think so.
Also, "the coming crash of the dollar"? Gosh, I wonder when that will happen. I rue the day when the dollar is at historic lows. I'm sure it will come at the same time as that housing crash we keep getting warned about. Scary stuff.
And neocons still believe Iraq had WMD's.
Like who? Bush finally admitted Saddam didn't have WMDs and since all of us 'neo-cons' take our marching orders directly from him (or Cheney when Bush is in the mothership) your statement is patently false.
But I am sure the truth will out. It has only been recently that after exhaustive research including several seances, I have uncovered that it was really FDR behind Pearl Harbor and that it was our planes disguised as Zeros which took out our mostly obsolete battle-wagons while our more modern and valuable aircraft carriers were conveniently out to sea. The attack was all the more effective since the radar operator who disregarded the incoming planes as B-17s was really FDR's illegitimate lovechild from his affair with Lucy Mercer.
After FDR got the nation into a fevered war pitch and began his racist war against the peace loving Japanese people, he then directed the massive military-industrial complex of the USA against the peace-loving people's of Germany, Italy, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria who did not attack us on 12/7 nor posed an imminent threat to the the US. His reasoning behind this was to conquer Western Europe, set up permanent bases so as to exert his brand of the 'New Deal' over the rest of the world.
Really. It's true, you just have to have a really really open mind. And Reynolds Wrap makes better hats for reception than the generic brands.
dtl,
You just surprised me.
Until the next time you wish for people to die because they don't share your views on gay marriage, I won't say a bad word about you again.
Name me one neocon who doesn't believe there are WMD's in Iraq? And show me where they admitted that. I'm still looking for the mea culpa.
Bush may have admitted there were no WMD's (I probably missed that), but what do you expect. He's the one who made up that lie in the first place. Of course he knew it wasn't true.
enigmaticcore - You misunderstand my policy. I don't wish for people to die just because they disagree with me on gay marriage. I just don't care when they actually do.
There is a difference.
There was a great article in National Review some years ago about conspiracy theory and how the perfect conspiracy is a surprise birthday party. The thing is, when everyone involved in the conspiracy is up front about their goals, it's not a conspiracy at all.
A left-liberal friend of mine used to bring PNAC as a conspiracy all the time. I would say, "Dude, go to their website. Their goals and the names of all the people involved are all right there."
Too many people want to call things conspiracies that are not conspiracies. The idea of attaching what the Bush administration has done since 9/11 to what happened on 9/11 is ludicrous. How can you possibly believe that the Republicans wanted a crappy, long war that cost them the Congress and made the president severely unpopular? Don't you think, if it truly was a conspiracy, things would have come down differently in Iraq?
Downtown -- As a proud neocon, I don't believe that there are WMDs in Iraq. I have hashed this out numerous times before in these comments.
Briefly: you are confusing the stated rationale for Iraq with the actual rationale for Iraq. The actual rationale was (1) get us out of Saudi Arabia, (2) keep us in the Middle East, (3) surround Iran, (4) be next to Syria, (5) take the fight to the Middle East where the Islamofascists are.
titus(2): I think I speak for most Madison residents when I say that your decision not to visit is really quite good news.
Name me one neocon who doesn't believe there are WMD's in Iraq?
You made the accusation sparky, you do the naming. Or do you make the allegation and let someone else do the fact checking?
Downtownlad,
I doubt that Ann wants her blog comments section to become a primer on 9/11 skepticism, so I'm just going to answer your points here and then excuse myself from the rest of the discussion. Let me just say as a general point that the truth is there if you're willing to find it, and that it's important that you find it because the danger is great. We're one act of nuclear terrorism from becoming uncomfortably close to a police state. If you don't believe me, do a Google news search for the past month on "presidential directive."
"You do realize that New Yorkers knew 7 World Trade was unstable and likely to collapse before it actually fell, right?"
The ones around building 7, including firefighters, knew it was coming down because they were told so. Building 7 is the most obvious point to begin 9/11 investigations because it was so clearly rigged with explosives days in advance. No plane even hit it, its fires were mild, and yet it fell on the afternoon of Sept. 11th like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD06SAf0p9A
"Tower 1 and Tower 2 collapsing were enough to start a war. And why would the government take down Tower 7????"
Tower 1 and 2 were also rigged with explosives. Consider that no steel structure had ever fallen from fire alone in architectural history, and that three fell in one day, in one building complex, at near free-fall speed that suggest controlled demolition.
There were lots of reasons to take down building 7, and I mean lots. But I'll let you discover them on your own. I know you will.
"And if Bush planned 9/11, don't you think he would have had a better response prepared than to stare blank-faced at a bunch of pre-schoolers for 10 minutes???"
Bush is, unsurprisingly, not at the center of the web, but you can probably guess the name of the man who is.
From your questions I can see you haven't done the research. Consider doing it. It's important.
OK - I didn't mean to defame all neocons.
Ok, ok, maybe I did.
But my point stands. People continue to believe a lot of stupid things that aren't true. They believe it, because they WANT it to be true.
But when the facts change, you need to adjust your thinking if you thought otherwise. I still here people on FOX news saying that Iraq has WMD's, and it's not disputed at all. That's either unethical or pure ignorance on their part, and I suspect the former.
Hoosier Daddy, drop me an email sometime - I'm going to be in Indianapolis later this month, I have no idea what the scheduling's like, but I might have some of the afternoon free if you fancy a late lunch?
downtownlad said...
"Name me one neocon who doesn't believe there are WMD's in Iraq?"
DTL, You're literally asking me to prove a negative. the burden of proof lies on you to name us (with citation) one who does - and you need to begin by defining the class that you're describing as "neocons" (that word used to have meaning, but in common political parlance, it has become as denatured as "strict constructionist"; are you using it in its proper sense - in which case, an answer to your question is Irving Kristol - or in the freshly-minted pejorative sense that regards Dick Cheney as the paradigmatic "neocon"?
downtownlad said...
"[M]y point stands. People continue to believe a lot of stupid things that aren't true. They believe it, because they WANT it to be true. But when the facts change, you need to adjust your thinking if you thought otherwise."
Well, that much we assuredly agree on, and I think everyone agrees on.
aquaculture - When the World Trade Center collapses and takes out a quarter of the supporting structure of a building - guess what - it's likely to fall.
Here's my suggestion for you. Do some research on websites that REFUTE the 9/11 conspiracy theories. There are lots of websites out there that explain in great detail how and why Tower 7 really fell. There's also a great documentary on NOVA that explains why the World Trade Center fell.
It's not rocket science, but it does involve a little knowledge of structural engineering.
And honestly, once you understand hwo they fell, it's actually a little boring.
But I prefer the truth.
Here's a starter, from that wild neocon magazine - Popular Mechanics.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
enigmaticcore - You're missing my point entirely.
I believed there were WMD's on 9/11. I believed so for some time afterward.
Until they didn't find them - then I changed my mind.
I'm blasting those who refuse to acknowledge the truth.
My comments about neocons are sarcasm.
Take two since I munged that.
I believe one time you expressed a hope that it would happen sooner.
Let's not spoil the moment.
Anyway, back to disagreeing.
"He's [Bush's] the one who made up that lie in the first place."
How did George W. Bush, then-Governor of Texas, ever convince Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor for President Clinton, to spread that lie all the way back in 1998?
""The lesson of the 20th century is, and we've learned through harsh experience, the only answer to aggression and outlaw behavior is firmness," Berger said.
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has 10 times since 1983," Berger said. "
I swear sometimes those of you who are Democrats (or, as I have been corrected, not Democrats but on the left) make it your goal to drive people like me away from you and into the arms of the conservatives and the Republicans. You have an easy win, just by saying "he screwed up the war, they still back him, throw them out." But, no. You have to overreach and go for the "he lied" shtick, which doesn't work because people actually can remember things that happened before Bush was President and we remember what Democrats were saying then. Our intelligence was wrong. Bush did not make that the case. It was that way before he took office. Maybe we should be thinking of ways to demand our politicians make our intelligence capabilities significantly better instead of trying to claim that the guy-- who acted on the intelligence (after we suffered an unrelated but incredibly significant attack) decided that leaving a threat out there was a bad idea-- lied?
I don't get it. You have the winning issue and seem possessed by the urge to overreach and throw it away. For what reason?
Seven said:Don't you think, if it truly was a conspiracy, things would have come down differently in Iraq?
Here is another one for the discussion. Assuming the dumbest man on the face of the earth was able to pull off 9/11 without a single individual involved leaking the whole thing (which leaves out the CIA, NSA, State Dept, Bureau of Motor Vehicles), does it not make you wonder why we simply didn't 'discover' some WMDs in Iraq?
Why put it past him? After all, Bush is torturing prisoners (I heard from anonymous sources he's using them as slave labor clearing scrub in Crawford), spying on you as we speak, using the Constitution as TP so why, why why, would he have not simply planted the WMDs after going through the whole UN charade?
But nope. Even though he planned 9/11, he lied about WMDs, led the nation to war and then admitted, that the intel wasn't that good and pretty much lame ducked his whole presidency.
If conspiracy theories tell anything about folks, it's that birth control is used by the wrong people.
dtl's comments and mine are out of order because of me.
"I believed there were WMD's on 9/11. I believed so for some time afterward."
Yes, but you said that Bush lied about them being there. You said he made up that lie. But I just showed that Sandy Berger was saying the same thing (with Albright and Cohen, for that matter) back in 1998.
Bush did not lie. He was wrong. So were they. Our intelligence sucked. Are you confident we have made it better? Isn't that really more important than trying to get one party or another in there?
I want the candidate I will trust most to fix that. Right now, my goal is to get each party to nominate their best in that regard. When they do I will decide between them. Hillary and Rudy.
Let's get one thing straight - I am not on the left. I just think Bush is incompetent on most issues.
I think Bush is an ideologue who decided prior to the Iraq War that Saddam had WMDs. And he refused to listen to any competing evidence.
And I do think he lied, when he presented a picture that they were dead certain Saddam had WMD's. Yes, Bush may have personally believed that. But he also knew there was evidence to the contrary. So the situation was murky at best. But he presented the facts to the American people as being a "slam-dunk", etc.
It wasn't.
All of that became obvious afterwards, and when it did, my opinion of Bush sank.
I don't expect politicians to be completely honest. But when they mislead the public on something so critical, they do so at their own risk. Had he undertaken an analysis of where our intelligence went wrong, as Tony Blair did, I would have had more respect for him on this particular item.
I particularly like the one about how Bush "manipulated the intelligence" ... to say exactly the same thing it said according to the Clinton Administration in 1998, when it was used as a basis for the Iraq Liberation Act.
I'd say "you can't make this stuff up" ... except that, clearly, someone can.
You are right, Aqua: it is important. It's important that people like you who spout fabulous fiction be countered. Therefore, you deserve a full-on Fisking:
Let me just say as a general point that the truth is there if you're willing to find it.
Where? On Google? Is Google a magical receptacle of truth but only in obscure, badly drawn places> This is very mysterious. You'd think we would be pointed to some of this truth.
the danger is great. We're one act of nuclear terrorism from becoming uncomfortably close to a police state.
Who questions this? Are you suggesting that the Bush administration will plant the bomb? Perhaps it will be Cheney himself. Recall that this administration can't even win a war against a ragtag bunch of terrorists. Would having a police state be a boon to -- what? -- oil? The Rothschilds? The economy? Look around you. Economies whither in police states. What good is having a ton of money with no place to spend it?
The ones around building 7, including firefighters, knew it was coming down because they were told so.
Possibly this building was coming down because there was a massive, huge, hot fire engulfing several city blocks which resulted from two fully-fueled aircraft hittimg the two tallest buildings in the world, which collapsed. Despite what you may have heard, fire does, in fact, melt steel. Particularly really hot fire.
Furthermore, how do buildings normally fall? Do they tip over? Do they explode outward? How is an uncontrolled demolition different than a controlled one?
Consider that no steel structure had ever fallen from fire alone in architectural history, and that three fell in one day, in one building complex, at near free-fall speed that suggest controlled demolition.
Consider that no steel structure had ever fallen from getting hit by a fully fueled jetliner before alone in architectural history. Have you considered that?
There were lots of reasons to take down building 7, and I mean lots.
Thought experiment: suppose that everything that happened on 9/11 happened exactly the same way except that your Critical Building 7 still stands. What would be different? Would Bush not have amassed the political capital to take us to war?
Bush is, unsurprisingly, not at the center of the web, but you can probably guess the name of the man who is.
Cheney. It's all about Cheney. Please. Enlighten us. How has Cheney gained? What money has he made? Haliburton? Sorry. He sold the stock. When Cheney dies -- and you have to think the man has only a few years left in him -- what will he have gained if all you say is true? Is he richer? Is he more powerful? Is he more popular? Is his family going to have a great fortune politically or economically?
From your questions I can see you haven't done the research.
From your posts I can see that you are an irretrievable, gullible moron.
As recently as last year, half of Americans still believed Iraq had WMD's
And they're neo-cons, are they? How odd that Bush's approval rating should be so low with 150 million neoconservatives in America.
Anyway, there are three possibilities with regard to Iraqi WMDs:
(1): Iraq never had the stockpiles it reported to the UN. The Iraqis decided to report that they were guilty of egregious violations of treaties, UN sanctions, and international law, and endure a decade of sanctions that wrecked their economy -- despite actually being innocent of WMD-related wrongdoing.
(2): Iraq did, indeed, have the stockpiles it reported -- but rather than destroy them under UN supervision, it opted to destroy them in secret, then destroy the evidence that they had BEEN destroyed, despite the fact that there was no way to end the aforementioned sanctions without providing that evidence.
(3): Iraq really did have WMDs, and somebody (or multiple somebodies) else has them now (much like Iran has the old Iraqi airforce).
Plenty of sane people believe (3), including quite a few of Hussein's former military and scientific officials. However, none of the three stories has any conclusive proof supporting it. The official finding with regard to Iraqi WMD is that Iraq did not have a serious WMD program, but may be possessed a limited supply of WMDs.
In any case, since a couple of chemical weapons shells have been found the people who think there were WMDs in Iraq are technically right. :)
Who said Clinton wasn't lying? He certainly had reason to distract the country from other items that may have been going on.
Let's face it. The French knew there were no WMD's. And we lambasted them for that.
But they were right. We owe them an apology.
Revenant - If it's #3, then Bush should be impeached for incompetence. Because he utterly failed to protect us from what we went there to achieve.
WMD is no longer an issue, Downtown. You are right. People who believed there was WMD were wrong. Either that, or Iraq moved or destroyed its WMD.
On principle, we should never apologize to the French. France is playing its own game of great power politics, like Russia, except that they aren't great powers.
Downtown -- We never went to Iraq to achieve finding WMD. Get over it. It was never the big issue.
Seven,
Fire does not melt steel. But that's irrelevant. Fire makes steel substantially weaker. 1800 degree fire makes steel 90% weaker. And that's enough to make a building collapse.
"But he presented the facts to the American people as being a "slam-dunk", etc."
That was the words used by Cohen, a holdover from the Clinton administration. So both were hearing the same things.
One acted, one did not.
The difference is that we were attacked in between. It made sense to give any doubts the higher precedence when we thought the risk of them falling into the hands of A-Q was negligible, not understanding what they were capable of doing. It did not afterwards.
I know there is more A-Q in Iraq than there was before we went in. But damn, doesn't it sure seem to you like they knew the area and had contacts all lined up? It does to me. But that's possibly some justification.
But I wonder how people would think we would be conducting the war in Afghanistan, without the bases we have in Iraq. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for us to be doing so on a long term basis. We had to rely on unreliable and reluctant allies to go into Afghanistan in the first place. Our ability to conduct operations there would be significantly hampered without our position in Iraq, even if we have a ton of troops bogged down or stuck (halp me Jon Karry) in Iraq.
It sucks. The war was right, and wrong. But we should be focusing in on what we do agree on. It was mishandled. Mismanaged.
"Fire does not melt steel."
What makes it liquid when they poured it from the old steel mills, then?
Fire does not melt plastic cups. Fire makes plastic cups substantially weaker and sort of liquidy. 1800 degree fire makes plastic cups 100% weaker. And that's enough to make a plastic collapse turn to a thin gruel.
But that's irrelevant.
Back when I was in 6th grade, I became entranced with "Chariots of the Gods" by Erich von Däniken, all about extraterrestrials that built the pyramids, etc. etc. Wrote a big report on it for science class.
My teacher, bless her heart, praised my effort, but gave me an article to read that wholly debunked the claims. I was initially embarrassed, then pissed off at von Däniken.
The 9/11-truthers seem to me stuck in that naive and credulous mentality, the willingness, the need to believe in (and devote excessive time to) conspiracies. I feel a mixture of pity and contempt for them, the adults, anyway.
Contempity?
And as little said about the Kennedy assassination conspiracy affair I had in 7th grade the better.
Steel melts at 2750 degrees. Even a jet fuel fire will not get that hot.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=4
"The French knew there were no WMD's"
France voted yes on UN resolution 1441, saying that Iraq had not complied with UN resolutions for disarming their stockpiles of chemical weapons (WMDs).
France got upset when it became clear we were going in, because they had their finger in Saddam's till.
There's a book out that I haven't read about how the Kennedy assassination made the liberal mind schizophrenic because it was, in fact, a communist who killed Kennedy. That could not be. Ergo, a generation of intellectually twisted behavior by our best and brightest and, as an aside, a cottage industry of conspiracy theory.
The same thing could be at work here. People can't believe the basic, obvious facts. So they go about looking for other answers, which are not there. That's why you 9/11 conspiracy nuts look so insane. You are.
"Even a jet fuel fire will not get that hot."
Now you are sounding like a truther. As you pointed out earlier, the steel did not have to melt for the buildings to come down.
However, you then said that fire won't melt steel (hi Rosie!) and I pointed out that something melts it, and asked what it was.
Fire melts steel. QED by Downtown.
Everyone knows Saddam didn't comply with the U.N. Resolutions. That's why we had sanctions.
Personally - I think we should have just made an alliance of convience with Saddam after 9/11 (as we subsequently did with Gaddaffi). And then we would have had an ally and a secular nation in the Middle East. Yeah - it would have been a brutal dictatorship, but so what. How is that different than Saudi Arabia?
Wahabbist Islam is the real problem, along with the subsidies that Saudi Arabia is giving throughout the world to madressas, etc. to proseltyze that faith.
The problem is not Iraq. The problem is not Iran.
We have lost our focus.
Read the popular mechanics article enigmaticcore.
The truthers are CORRECT when they say fire won't melt steel. So you have to know how to refute them. And that's with facts. You don't need fire to melt steel for a building to collapse. You just need fire to make steel weak enough so that the building is structurually unsound.
downtownlad said...
"I think Bush is an ideologue who decided prior to the Iraq War that Saddam had WMDs. And he refused to listen to any competing evidence."
why do you assume that Bush's motivations hinged on the WMD question? Because that's how they chose to sell it? Unpersuasive. I have no idea if Iraq ever had WMD. Don't care. Never did care. That wasn't wyy I supported the liberation, and I think it's needless oversimplification to assume Bush had but a single motivation.
downtownlad said...
"Steel melts at 2750 degrees. Even a jet fuel fire will not get that hot."
But as you acknowledged, to clarify the point, that's irrelevant. It's cmpletely unnecessary that the structural steel melt for the building to fail.
"And then we would have had an ally and a secular nation in the Middle East."
Boy, these folks sure found religion awfully quick after we removed Saddam.
It's almost as if rumors of his being a secular rule were not quite right. Funny.
That said, Henry Kissinger would have advocated that approach. It's a reason there were pictures of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam way back when. The region remained a festering boil, and we suffered for it on 9/11. I think it was right for us to try something new.
I think we fucked it up since then, but that's a whole other ball of wax.
Downtown -- Saudi Arabia is a messed up place. Part of the reason is one you blithely ignore, but which should be obvious: not everyone is on the same page there. Bin Laden wanted to set up a caliphate there and hated the government. The government itself is tribal and ruled by a huge clan of princes with no constitutional order (even in the basic sense of who rules when the ruler dies).
Compounding the problem is Mecca. We can't invade where Mecca is unless we want a world war pitting the Christian and post-Christian West against Islam.
Further compounding the problem was that we needed to get our military out of Saudi Arabia. In that sense, we absolutely capitulated to a demand of the Islamofascists. (We were to do this.) But we needed our army in the Middle East.
Iran is very much a problem.
Oil is very much an issue. Please remember how much our economy depends on Saudi oil when you drive your car to the hospital or to the next no-blood-for-oiillll rally. Or when you use any energy whatsoever or eat some food you didn't grow.
"The truthers are CORRECT when they say fire won't melt steel."
Fire as in a building fire, even one with jet fuel? Correct.
Fire 'in general' won't melt steel? I doubt that they had electric or induction furnaces back in the day that Carnegie was working his magic.
Another thing -- when did the suicide bombings in Israel stop? They stopped when Saddam died. Why did they stop then? They stopped then because he was bankrolling the substantial payments to the suicide bombers' families.
True skepticism requires critical thought, and the poster calling him/herself "aquaculture" displays none.
WTC was not rigged with explosives days in advance. No one has ever explained how explosives could have gotten in, nor has any evidence ever been presented that they were there to begin with. All truthers like Aqua have are low resolution videos where anomolies and artifacts are given more credence than they deserve.
View Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories and 9/11 Myths for the facts that Aqua is distorting to make his argument.
First example:
"No plane even hit it, its fires were mild, and yet it fell on the afternoon of Sept. 11th..."
Two misrepresentations here. 1. No plane hit WTC 7, but significant amounts of two 1300ft, 110+ story skyscrapers did. 2. That the fires were mild are an outright lie, but what's really important is not any qualitative description - what exactly constitute "mild" anyway? -, it's the fact that the fires were fed continuously by diesel lines intended for the emergency generators. And also that the fires were unfought: Firefighters were ordered to perform human rescue, not fight the fires, so when WTC7 was determined to be fully emptied, they left it alone and didn't touch the fires. Raging, extensive fires left unfought led to WTC 7's collapse, not any conspiracy or demolitions use.
Two sources where people can start research into this claim:
http://debunking911.com/pull.htm
http://911myths.com/html/wtc7_fire.html
Next,
"Tower 1 and 2 were also rigged with explosives. Consider that no steel structure had ever fallen from fire alone in architectural history, and that three fell in one day, in one building complex, at near free-fall speed that suggest controlled demolition. "
First lie: No explosives were used. There is absolutely no proof that any were.
http://911myths.com/html/wtc__demolition_.html
http://debunking911.com/overp.htm
Second: No steel structure as tall had ever been impacted by a 100,000+ airplane travelling at over 400 knots, nor had its integrity comprimised by a. The jetliner's impact, and b. The extensive fires touched off by several thousand pounds of jet fuel, and maintained by untold amounts of paper, wood, and other combustibles common to any office space, as well as the 100,000+ lb burning aluminum fuselage of the jets themselves.
http://debunking911.com/firsttime.htm
Third: The free fall fallacy - Just read the following:
http://911myths.com/html/freefall.html
http://debunking911.com/freefall.htm
Next,
"There were lots of reasons to take down building 7, and I mean lots. But I'll let you discover them on your own. I know you will."
I think this is a veiled allusion to the charge that WTC 7 was brought down because files relevant to the Enron investigation were stored there. That those Justice Department (or SEC... I forgot which) files were indeed in WTC 7 is established and admitted; what doesn't track is the fact that someone would've supposedly gone to the trouble of destroying a whole building to hide files that they could simply shred. And also, what doesn't track is the fact that plenty of other documents existed in other locations that doomed Lay and all the other Enron execs. At any rate, this is Aqua trying to be sly about a canard he has no evidence for.
"Bush is, unsurprisingly, not at the center of the web, but you can probably guess the name of the man who is. "
Of course, there's no evidence that this "man" planned any of 9/11 (actually, depending on the truther, there are two to choose from. Doesn't take much imagination to figure out who they are). But "he" has always been a convenient target for the paranoid, granting him much more intelligence and capabilities than warranted.
Aqua styles himself as a 9/11 Skeptic, but he displays no skeptical talents. His mental state lies much further towards credulity. If Aqua was truly interested in discovering the truth, he wouldn't have put forth canards that even the mainstream "Truth" movement has discarded (Free fall, "No steel structure", etc.). There is no original thinking in his points - I've seen every single one of them over a year ago already - and there is no attempt displayed to resolve the cognitive dissonance that invariably arise from study of the facts. For example: If demolitions were planted in WTC 7 "days ago", how did no one notice? And how did it get done in a "days" timeframe?
Not acknowledging the dissonance is intellectually dishonest. And Aqua is either lying about the extent of his research, or he's deliberately ignoring the truth.
I don't own a car Seven. Never have and never will. Although I wouldn't mind owning a jet.
We need to get out of the Middle East, get our troops home, and take an isolationist approach. Al Queada will whither and die if we leave the region. I really believe that.
At the same time, we should put STRONG pressure on the Saudis to stop funding the export of their religion.
I also believe in high gas taxes, conservation, increased fuel efficiency, etc. - anything to reduce our consumption of oil. That will reduce the price of gasoline, which means less money flowing to the Middle East, which means less money for terrorists.
And let's rely on undercover agents to hunt down and kill Osama, while we pretend we are no longer there.
aquaculture--"Bush is, unsurprisingly, not at the center of the web, but you can probably guess the name of the man who is."
Is it that guy who used to crush watermelons with a big hammer? Gallagher! I guess Gallagher!
I'm all for reducing our oil dependence.
I think the whole idea of isolationism in today's world is a poor one. I don't believe Indonesia has invaded anyone lately, and there are attacks there all the time. And, frankly, until such a time as we achieve complete oil independence, then we cannot put ourselves in a position where our oil supplies can be cut off. Too many lives depend on it.
They wouldn't get the attention they so crave if we didn't give it to them.
I tend to ignore people who deny 9/11 happened as I watched it happen, people who suggest that the Holocaust (also one of the most well-documented events in history) ever happened, or who suggest that an empty casket was buried at Elvis' funeral. When not ignoring them, I laugh them to scorn.
Unfortunately, it seems that people have one of two reactions-- either wanting to silence these types (which we should have learned by now that the best way to give credence to a bunch of crackpots is to force them underground and make them feel 'persecuted,') or going so far in protecting free speech as to suggest that therefore they have to be listened to and taken seriously.
I am a firm advocate of the Jay Leno way of thinking about these kinds of nuts--- let them say what they will, and then tell jokes about how ignorant they are. There has to be a happy medium between those who want to ban them and those who want to amplify them.
I don't own a car, either. But I am using a computer right now and a lamp, and I flush my toilet when necessary. And I shop at grocery stores. All of these wonderful things are brought to me. ultimately, by oil, the absolute lifeblood of the economy. How are they brought to you?
Our troops will never leave the Middle East until we find a viable alternative to oil. We won't find a viable alternative to oil until it becomes too expensive.
We do pressure Saudi Arabia to change. It's hard to do that when we don't have political and military options. Oil is a fungible product. Boycotting a country's oil doesn't work for the same basic reasons that OPEC is mostly ineffective. If we stop buying Saudi oil, they'll sell to someone else.
No one disputes that oil dependency is bad. If it was easy to change, it would change. It's still the cheapest thing. Artificially increasing the price of oil would wreak havoc on the economy and create an oil black market, which is likely to lead to much more terrorism, not less.
Relying on undercover "agents" to hunt down and kill Osama is something we are already doing, in spades. We are severely limited in our ability to drop people in other countries to kill people precisely for the same reason that other countries are hampered in their ability to do that in the USA.
Everything you said is either flatly wrong or pie-in-the-sky dreaming.
"Fire 'in general' won't melt steel? I doubt that they had electric or induction furnaces back in the day that Carnegie was working his magic. "
No, no, sir (sir?), that's not what the original myth is. Believe it or not, that "Rosie" view is a corruption, - really, it's a dumbing down! - of an original conspiracy theory that was stated much more specifically and intelligently. The "original" myth was that "jet fuel cannot burn hot enough to melt steel". And the genesis of this argument lies in the original observations of molten metal at Ground Zero, plus an obsessive overexamination of one element in one YouTube video (I believe it was "911 Mysteries"; I'll have to go check again sometime) showing molten metal clearly flowing from one of the main towers, along with a factually correct yet misleading comparison of kerosene's maximum burning-in-air temperature with the melting point of steel.
So as hard as this is to believe, there was indeed more intelligence in the original myth. And if you set a can of jet fuel alight, then stick a steel rod into it, it undeniably won't melt. But those who adhere to the "jet fuel can't melt steel" myth drastically oversimplify the actual event (and those who claim "fire can't melt steel" aren't even putting forth the intellectual effort to understand a painstakingly constructed lie; that sort of intellectual laziness is why I now hold Rosie in contempt, because she achieved the dual feat of dumbing down a conspiracy theory while ignoring human technological evolution. One more idiocy and she'd have a hat trick).
Ooops, rant digression... ending that... "Drastic oversimplification of the actual event"... It can be tackled in many ways:
1. Jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel, but no one besides the truthers say the steel melted during the collapse. NIST doesn't. No engineers do.
2. Jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel, but steel doesn't have to melt before the building's structural integrity is compromised. It only has to get to around 800 degrees - well within the open-air burning temp of jet fuel - to get steel to 50% of its' load bearing capacity.
3. Fire cannot melt steel... in open air. But in an insulative environment, such as what you'd find underneath the tall mounds of rubble at ground zero, in addition to a long time spent burning can indeed lead to metals being molten.
3a. Jet fuel fires cannot melt steel... in open air. But the jet fuel was no more than the initiator of the fires; NIST researchers acknowledge that the majority of the fuel burnt off within minutes. The fires that were left were the contents of the buildings themselves, not the jet fuel. And again, insulative environment, fire protection being stripped from the steel by the jet's impact, etc... you have an environment where building collapse is a given.
Anyway, sorry for the long digression, but not everyone understands where the myth comes from, and a little information - correct information, that it - can go a long way towards helping everyone understand both the actual event and the delusions of the paradoxically named "Truth Movement".
"I flush my toilet when necessary"
For this, we are truly blessed. Hopefully you never forget to wipe.
No one disputes that oil dependency is bad. If it was easy to change, it would change.
It's very easy to change it. Tax it. Tax it a lot. Europe has much higher taxes on oil than we do. And there consumption is much lower.
Even a minor reduction in demand for oil would have a huge impact on the price. And I'm certain that we could use leverage to have China increase their gas tax as well.
And there needn't be any impact on the economy. Just cut income taxes, so that the net tax increase is zero.
Pretty simple if you ask me.
You know, Enigmatic, toilet paper is an interesting case study in oil usage. The timber industry relies on it. The manufacturer relies on it. The trucking company. The toilet paper brokers and the grocery stores.
I wonder how much oil we consume each year by using toilet paper. Quite a bit, especially after large meals.
"and create an oil black market"
This is the reason I oppose stratospheric oil taxes. Plus the fact that the poor would be hardest hit.
I have significantly less objection to fuel efficiency standards for cars sold in America. Yes, it is not without cost. But not likely to make a significant black market to smuggle in cars with crap MPG.
Let's see. Joe American is out there and he gets a whopping $1000 increase in his gas tax and a $1000 decrease in his income tax.
And you think he is going to give up his SUV?
That's cosmically stupid. Joe's economic situation has not changed one iota. He will keep the SUV.
For a self-proclaimed libertarian, Downtown, you sure want the government micromanaging a lot. Worse, you don't seem to understand economics at all.
Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy.
Mary, Mary, stop being quite contrary.
(sorry)
Is this kicked-off Mary?
Seven,
I majored in economics at a top university. I am a small L Libertarian. And I understand that when you tax something, you have less of it. Tax capital gains and you will have less investment. Tax tabacco and you will have less smoking. Tax oil and you'll have people driving less. That's actually very rudimentary economics and the data backs it up.
I favor a gas tax for national security reasons. I favor fuel efficiency for national security reasons. I realize that there is an economic impact, but I can live with those costs, as I think the national security benefits would outweigh those costs.
"Back when I was in 6th grade, I became entranced with "Chariots of the Gods" by Erich von Däniken, all about extraterrestrials that built the pyramids, etc. etc. Wrote a big report on it for science class."
Hey, Pogo! von Däniken is what got me studying pseudoscience and scientific myth! Whaddaya know.
That, and Velikovsky. 20 years and untold hours of classes later, I still remember the critiques of his theories (example: Confusing "hydrocarbons" with "carbohydrates"). But, I have to give credit where credit is due, and Velikovsky lead me to discovering Sagan, and much later, James Randi and his Educational Foundation.
Anyway, studying von D's drastically wrong (and silly!) hypotheses wasn't a complete waste. It led me to the realization that 1. (as Sagan stated) Superstition is not a proper enlightenment or modern day value, and 2. Pseudoscience and modern conspiracy theory is the epitome of superstition.
Anyway, rant over. Looks like we have something in common: A tripping over von Däniken, with the exception that in my school's library, a debunking book was located right beside his "Chariots of the Gods" tome, and I managed to read that before taking anything in front of my teachers.
That wasn't meant as a criticism, BTW. Quite the opposite, it's sort of a "There But for the Grace of God go I" admission that I would've probably fallen for it had it not been for that mysterious misshelving.
"And I understand that when you tax something, you have less of it. Tax capital gains and you will have less investment."
You leave out the issue of black markets.
If there is anything I support taxes on more than cigarettes, I need to be reminded. Talk about your perfect storm of taxibility. Completely voluntary-- no one needs to pay it. Smokers add to the costs of our society. Smoking annoys the hell out of almost everyone. Smoking causes heartache and pain.
We have taxed it to where there is a black market emerging. Raise it more, that black market will grow.
And as was pointed out by someone else earlier, you tax oil up the wazoo, there would be oil and gas smuggling. You don't think Hugo Chavez would be above that?
And you don't think organized crime, including of the radical islamic sort, would be right in the middle of it, making some dough?
Hell, terrorism is the best argument for decriminalizing drugs-- to take away the black market that funds them.
Mary --
It was all about bringing freedomandlove to our friends in the MiddleEast.
Who has said this? I certainly did not say this, above, twice.
What kind of money would you like to bet that the United States will have a military presence in the Middle East until we come up with a viable energy alternative, or one of us dies? I trust that you understand that the Middle East includes Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Sauid Arabia, and a host of other countries. Seriously. Five dollars? $1000?
Mary seems unable to grasp the idea that it was for a whole bunch of reasons.
And part of the reason it was for a whole bunch of reasons was so that people could find a reason to back it. For Democracy? Get on board. Concerned that Iraq admitted to having WMD, agreed to disarm, but has refused to prove they disarmed per the treaties? Get on board. Tired of us getting ripped off with the UN oil-for-food? Get on board. Think Saddam is a bad man for gassing Kurds? Get on board.
A war of choice, which may not have been the best choice but was made for many good reasons, but has been fought terribly after the initial invasion, at least up until the recent change in strategy. If it continues to work, well, the track record ain't so good now is it.
But we got past the diversion of this thread from the truthers to Iraq about 50 comments ago, Mary. No need to go back. We are on a much better diversion from the truthers-- what to do about our oil dependence. You know, talking about real solutions for real people.
I think it is kicked-off Mary.
I offer a side-bet for how long you think you can remain before you:
(1) blow your top and go bat-shit insane and remove a bunch of posts;
(2) blow your top and go bat-shit insane and threaten somebody;
(3) blow your top and go bat-shit insane and insult Althouse's family.
What do you say? A week? A day? 45 minutes?
And why do media report on things like this? Simple. Question the theories of a bunch of crackpots and they won't shoot you for priting their names.
Not like the Mexican journalists, and even entire newspapers shut down for printing the names of leaders of the zetas, and also not Chancey Bailey.
Bailey, an award winning investigative journalist, who was also an outspoken advocate for the black community, both in the Bay area and nationally, was murdered last Thursday. It began a couple of years ago when a group of well dressed young men played a modern day Carrie Nation and vandalized liquor stores in Oakland. Bailey followed that up and discovered-- and published-- accounts of the violent nature of Oakland's black muslim community and how it is run by one man, Yusuf Bey, who often is behind the violence. He also uncovered how local officials were aware of the violent nature of the community but chose to do nothing-- apparently frozen in place by fear.
But Bailey was not frozen in place by fear-- he did the unthinkable and published the stories (for example, The sinister side of Yusuf Bey's empire.) And worse, he named names in the stories.
And for that, he was gunned down in what police called 'an assassination' last Thursday morning.
But don't expect journalists to write much about this.
The idea that journalists should take risks to get at the story died with,... well, maybe Don Bolles.
Covering 9/11 deniers entails a lot less risk.
Seven Machos: Just to correct a factual error, Saudi Arabia does now have formal rules of succession. See my blog entry from earlier this year.
The US is pressuring Saudi Arabia to clean up its act. It's just not doing it on the front page of the NYT most of the time. The recent offer of arms sales, though, is getting that coverage, as do the annual reports on things like religious freedom, trafficking in humans, and general freedom.
But then, the KSA is actually making some progress. Slow, haltingly, but still moving in the right direction.
Take a look at my blog Crossroads Arabiawhere I cover reform (and retrograde acts) in the country.
Latest progress has been to clip the wings of the religious police and having several of them stand trial for abusing their authority. That's big stuff in context.
dtl--
Without dragging out old bones, I understand that you say that hoping people who differ from you on gay marriage die is not your 'policy'. I swear I remember you saying one time that you hoped they did-- maybe it was a comment in anger, or maybe my memory is bad here. Either way, since then I have really had a bad opinion of you, and have picked fights with you.
You surprised me on this thread, and if this is how you are all the time, or most of the time, then I apologize for ever giving you grief. We obviously have disagreed on a lot in this thread, but it has been a good debate and I have enjoyed it. I am sorry if I misjudged you, and I am sorry for the bad things I have said to you on other threads. Most importantly, I am sorry about the way some of your family have treated you.
John -- Thank you for your thoughtful post and corrections and link.
Mary -- I guess this is the part where you become grossly unhinged. It will be fun to watch, until you are ushered away.
One more thing. Perhaps you ought to consider buying an indulgence. Althouse only needs $20 or so to eat the egg salad sandich.
mary,
Don't worry. I still won't respect you in the morning.
Good grief.
*looks for ignore button*
Mary, you got tossed and will get tossed again because you are an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
So long as you are here bloviating, though, what caused you to come back? Have you been lurking all these months? Did the mean people finally let you out of that facility?
downtownlad: We need to get out of the Middle East, get our troops home, and take an isolationist approach. Al Queada will whither and die if we leave the region. I really believe that.
Isolationist approach. Okay, who do you think will fill the power vacumm that our absence creates? Iran? China? The EU?
downtownlad: At the same time, we should put STRONG pressure on the Saudis to stop funding the export of their religion
How can we influence the Saudis if we go isolationist? Trade wars, sanctions, and diplomacy? After abandoning the projection of force?
Credo quiam absurdum est.
Can you believe we're still talking about melting steel?
As someone who worked in a steel mill for four hot, miserable summers in college, AND who is an AWS Certified Welder, I can tell you that fire does, indeed, melt steel.
It just depends on how hot the fire is. What do you think comes out of the tip of an oxy-acetylene torch? Will it melt steel? You betcha! Right through my shoes sometimes! There are other nifty torches around these days, but I'll spare you cubicle types the details.
Do you know what fuel was used in the old open-hearth furnaces to melt and make steel?
Fuel oil. You know, the stuff in that tank in the basement.
Big, giant oil flames, preheated with enough forced air get REAL hot. The secret of the open hearth was regenerative heating. The exhaust gasses passed through a giant brick heat exchanger, called the "checker." After the bricks were heated red hot, the flow was reversed, and the fuel and air mix passed back through to make a really, REALLY hot flame. (You don't want to ever have the job of cleaning out a "checker.")
Those suckers got steel to about the consistency of root beer. The scale of the open hearths was about that of a small two-story house. Just think lots of those little brick houses, supported by I-beams in a giant building spread between two floors. We used to rebuild open hearths after about 10 days of use. The bricks were some variant of silica firebricks, not too different from what's in your fireplace. The "bath" where the steel was melted was replaced much less often.
They haven't used open hearths for about 20 years. They were too slow and wasted too much...ahem...fuel oil.
The modern way is to take a giant bottle-shaped steel vessel, about 50-60 ft. high, dump in some steel scrap, pour in molton pig iron, lower a "lance" to inject oxygen under pressure, and you have an oxygen furnace, aka BOS. Those things get scary hot. But they don't use any fuel. All the heat is generated by burning impurities and carbon in the metal with the oxygen. The masonry lining the BOS furnaces consists of dead-heavy refractory bricks made with chromium ore. They were clad with steel, which acted as the "mortar." Those furnaces could do in half an hour what took 8 hours for an open hearth. I always loved the 130 foot flames in the night sky.
Ever been around when they tap a heat from an open hearth? I have. Just think 2900° root beer, only heavier but just as fizzy. BANG! There it goes! White hot and more fluid than water. Sure as hell hope that ladle doesn't have a crack in it like the one last week. Poor Roberto got "splashed" the other night on swing shift. The memorial service is on Tuesday. You going?
* * * * * *
I admit that the jet planes that crashed into the WTC could not have melted steel. Part of the point of my story is that it takes special circumstances to melt steel completely, but that focusing on the fuel is irrelevant. Any fuel, from charcoal, to coal and coal gas, to fuel oil, has done the trick over the centuries.
But it takes comparatively little heat to WEAKEN steel to the point that it's useless.
Try this at home: Go to Home Depot and buy a 3 ft, length of 5/16" diameter threaded rod. It's in the hardware dept., usually with other short lengths of angle iron, etc. If you don't have one, get a full-sized propane torch at the same time.
Hold one end of the rod wearing heavy leather gloves. Play the biggest flame possible of the lighted torch approximately in the middle of the rod. In a relatively few minutes, the rod will turn red in that area, and finally orange. As it goes from red to orange, the bar should droop of its own weight. It will have approximately the strength of chewed bubble gum. That's steel heated to about 1500-1600° F. At 1200°, it will be a dull, cherry red, and be weaker than lead. The point of this experiment is to get a feel for how steel behaves at different temperatures.
There is widespread agreement that the fire from the aircraft impact could have heated significant local portions of the steel structure to 900° F. Steel begins to really lose strength at that temperature, not to mention those parts that possibly got to 1200°. One area of the building fails from the heat, and the floors above pancake down, taking the entire structure with them. I watched with millions of others as the second Tower collapsed on live television. It was perfectly obvious what had happened.
People with uncalloused hands can look at something and not have a clue about what's going on. I've seen this over and over again in the manufacturing I do for a living.
Those of us with practical experience, and almost all the trained structural engineers and architects saw one thing happening, while those with PhD's in the Philosophy of Science saw quite another.
Revenant - If it's #3, then Bush should be impeached for incompetence. Because he utterly failed to protect us from what we went there to achieve.
Incompetence is illegal? Finally, an excuse to throw the whole Congressional leadership in jail.
Anyway, the "incompetence" in question consists of having waited too long to invade (since the stories told by Iraqi insiders have the transfer taking place before the shooting started). I just can't see the Democrats charging Bush with not "rushing to war" fast enough. Personally, though, I agree that it was a huge mistake for Bush to waste any time working with the United Nations.
"Subsumed" Mary "resumed" yet again, in an encore triumph for predictability over acuity.
EnigmatiCore said...
hdhouse, are you asserting that the 9/11 Truthers are all about Iraq?"
No you nitwit. Just wondering if Saddam came up in the conspiracy..our government thought so...many still do. He would have to be part of the conspiracy or someone is wrong. Don't 'cha think?
Great post from Theo Boehm. I'm guessing not too many "truthers" own a "full-sized propane torch" and on reflection that's probably a good thing.
Theo Boehm, I also have an oxy-acetylene torch. Used it yesterday, as a matter of fact. Cut through some angle iron 1/4 inch thick. Like a hot knife through butter.
Re: "Yes, yes, now go get your sandwich. Eat, drink, and be merry. Merry and paranoid."
Given the later posts above, I'd say more Mary and paranoid.
Paranoid she was a paranoid
Crazier than you and me
Paranoid she was a paranoid
And it determined what she could see
Paranoid she was a paranoid
One chromosome too many
Paranoid she was a paranoid
And it determined what she could see
P.S. Three Woot!s for Theo.
I'm beginning to think that for alot of kids who -for Ultimate Safety reasons- were never allowed to explore as kids and never held a menial job, there is a serious disconnect from how the physical world actually works. Not only can't they fix anything at all in their homes, they are starting to act like prescientific folks in generating myths about reality, from monsters to ESP to great conspiracies.
Who would have thought that not letting junior play with tools a little would cause a whole lot of hurt later on?
Plus this:
The I35 bridge collapse last week in Minneapolis ought to at least make the truthers wonder: how does a steel structure fail even when there was no fire, no explosion, no demolition at all?
Adding to the mystery, George Bush showed up at the bridge site just two days later. Too much coincidence in my book.
Isolationist approach. Okay, who do you think will fill the power vacumm that our absence creates? Iran? China? The EU?
You know in a way, I do like DTL’s concept of isolationism if for no other reason than to put the onus of maintaining order on someone else. Since the end of WW2 we have had the mantle of world’s policeman, leader of the free world etc and it seems all we have gotten for it is spite. Granted we have not done the best job but considering how the former great powers (France, Britain, Russia) ran the show, I’d say we did no worse.
What irks me and probably DTL is that the US is lambasted for being in the Saudi pocket while our friends in the EU benefit from a secure source of oil. Same goes for Japan and the ROK who demand we remove our troops but at the same time, fear the NORKS and China. It reminds me too much of the teen who tells mom and dad they’re fu**ed yet demands their allowance, room, board and the car for the weekend. For all its faults, there was a Pax Romana and I think history shows that life was hardly peaches and cream for centuries after Rome fell.
Theo said Ever been around when they tap a heat from an open hearth? I have. Just think 2900° root beer, only heavier but just as fizzy. BANG! There it goes! White hot and more fluid than water. Sure as hell hope that ladle doesn't have a crack in it like the one last week. Poor Roberto got "splashed" the other night on swing shift. The memorial service is on Tuesday. You going?
I worked for at USX Works in Gary for about 5 years doing furnace maintenance when I got out of college. Mainly our job was to maintain the furnace lining by using a ‘shooter’ to spray (gun) refractory material on the brick lining to lengthen the life of the furnace. This wondeful task was completed right after they tapped the furnace. The challenge was maintaing the proper water/material mixture to keep the gunning lance which was 80 gauge steel from...you guessed it...melting. I still remember the one day when they were tapping D furnace and the furnace operator and myself were watching the tap. I was mainly looking at the lining to see where the low spots were for gunning when all I remember was hearing this screeching sound and then being dragged by the seat of my pants away from the furnace. Evidently the furnace brakes failed and the furnace simply slid downward and out flew about 175 tons of molten steel right where I was standing. That was 17 years ago and to this day still have nightmares.
Theo Boehm said...
The "bath" where the steel was melted was replaced much less often.
What is the bath made of? Why doesn't it melt? I've always wondered.
By the way, great post.
Damn--I find myself in considerable agreement with DTLs policy proposals. I am simply not clear why the US needs to be in the mid east to secure everyone else's source of oil. Only 20 percent of our oil comes from the mid east. In addition, it might even be in our interest to let the price of crude continue to rise to make our oil shales and sands profitable.
Considering the major part of our oil comes from Canada and Mexico, it really argues from a policy position, of securing this hemisphere and letting the rest of the world duke it out over mid east oil. Kill that market, and KSA and the emirates go back to the dark ages.
Justin: The "bath" in an open-hearth furnace was lined with refractory material sprayed in place something like Hoosier Daddy describes. I believe the material was magnesia-based, as the process was the "basic open hearth." "Basic" refers here to the chemistry, not the simplicity. I also made a mistake above when I mentioned silica bricks. The bricks we used for constructing the outer shell of an open-hearth furnace would have had to have been "basic" in their chemistry, so were probably dolomite and/or magnesia based. Silica bricks are acidic. I always enjoyed the silica bricks that were used to line soaking pits, etc., because they were MUCH lighter in weight.
Hoosier Daddy is describing a more modern furnace (electric?) than the old open-hearths I worked around. Those were elaborate masonry constructions that had no moving parts other than doors.
But Hoosier Daddy's hair-raising story reenforces the point that working around molten steel is DANGEROUS. Even with every modern safety device and procedure, there is no margin of error. During the four years when I worked for Kaiser Steel, four guys were killed, two of whom I knew. Two of them did really stupid things, and in the other cases, other people did really stupid things.
For all that, I'm glad Hoosier Daddy made it through his years at USX, and is still with us!
Roger,
"Kill that market"
Oh, great! Not only do you want to create a giant power vacuum, but you want to jump-start it with an economic contraction that will make the Great Depression look like a picnic.
As Roger said, Damn. I agree with DTL for once -- at least on taxing oil.
Seven, your Joe American scenario is much further from economic reality than DTL's proposal. You seem to be arguing, along with supporters of CAFE standards and other government micromanagement, that oil demand has no elasticity. This is a highly debated point, but evidence suggests that oil is not the most elastic good (the toilet paper corollary), but it's not totally inelastic either.
Even if Joe American keeps his SUV he can pocket his income tax savings and drive fewer miles a year. In the long term, when Joe purchases a second car, he will take gas mileage into account. When he purchases a new furnace for his house, he will consider natural gas. Meanwhile the toilet paper company will insulate the roof of its factory and upgrade its fleet of trucks.
Of course, to draw down our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, what is needed is not a gas tax (which affects foreign and domestic producers) but really high oil prices. High oil prices make domestic oil exploration more competitive. So our first order of business is to use up Middle Eastern oil as fast as possible.
People dying every day: for what results?
This has been going on for far too long. It shouldn't happen. What a lousy universe we live in.
Theo's right all around. Whenever I see anyone jabber "jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel" - or the dumber "fire doesn't melt steel" Rosiefied version - my teeth start grinding. Who was it, dental engineer Judy Wood who said "you don't see your grill melt when you barbeque"? Again, oversimplification: The WTC fires weren't like charcoal in a Weber! But try telling that to a truther; anyone see the guy named "Spooky" on (I think) the Democratic Underground forum who built a wireframe "model" of the WTC, then lit a can of kerosene and put it at the bottom of the structure? I kid you not; that was his experiment "proving" the WTC collapse couldn't happen.
Jesus...
If you provide enough oxygen and fuel in an environment where heat can be retained, it doesn't matter what the open air burning temp of any combustible material is, it only matters how many joules total are being released in what volume of space. You get enough of any fuel to burn long enough to put enough energy out and keep that energy from escaping into air, then you can melt steel. What matters is heat retention. And that's the case in the WTC collapse. That fire 1. Wasn't mostly jet fuel - again, the fuel burnt off in a matter of minutes (12 is the longest estimate I've read, 4 is the low end), and 2. Was in an enclosed environment where, as any firefighter will testify, can get exceptionally hot. 1200 degrees is the highest I've read, with some areas being as low as 800. Add that to the physical impact damage - again, 100,000 pound airplane travelling at over 400 knots (over 460 MPH) - and again, you have a situation where collapse is inevitable.
Anyway, again, my post above was just partially outlining the genesis of the "fire can't melt steel" myth that truthers push around. It's a great example of how they isolate and separate individual facts from the context of their occurance to bolster their claims.
By the way, where did Aqua go? Is he afraid to raise his points in an informed forum? I always see these guys come to non-9/11 blogs and boards, pretend as he did to be someone that "used to make fun of 9/11 truthers myself" before he became one, then innocently "ask questions" ("Hey, did you know fire can't melt steel?" Blah blah "free fall", blah blah "explosives"...). They then turn tail and run when someone posts the truth and exposes the falsity of their claims. It's cowardly behavior, and to me suggests that they don't actually have confidence in the veracity of their myths outside the truther echo chamber. That's intellectual dishonesty.
I reject the argument that the US is dependent on Middle East oil given that only 19-20 percent of our imports come from the mid east-The rest of the world is dependent on mid east oil far more than we are. Kirk does raise some plausible consequences of an isolationist/libertarian US foreign policy, but I trust in markets enough to find solutions when the price of crude gets high enough. The US maintains a real competitive advantage.
Why do we stay in the Mideast if it supplies less than a quarter of our oil? I suspect it's to help maintain vigorous economies in countries that get a larger portion of their oil from the mideast. Countries with frazzled economies because of vagaries in the oil supply do not make good trading partners.
MM: I think you are absolutely right: we are participating in the free rider problem just as we do in NATO--another relatively worthless organization. We are the Romana and the Britannia in the 21 century version of those peaces. The foreign policy debate never even moves to that level. Until we finally address that question that, our policies are not likely to change.
China's financial power over US: quite real.
Only under the mistaken belief that the economy is a zero-sum game. Both China and the US become wealthier by trading with each ohter, neither lording over the other.
And she wore a hat
And she had a job
And she brought home the bacon
So that no one knew
MadisonMan...
We stay in the mid-east because they can supply 1/4 of our oil nearly forever and that percentage will only grow as our resources dwindle.
We can drill til the cows come home here and we won't keep up with replacement for our reserves...anwar not withstanding.
We actually "export" about a million barrels a day (do the math: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.htm)
but our reserves are dwindling and our percentage of mid-east oil will rise...particularly if Iraq ever gets itself straight. That is the real reason why we are there by the way in case there is any doubt.
HD: You are overlooking the oil sands reserves of Western Canada which are projected to be greater than those of Saudi Arabia. Canada is much more stable trading partner. My point is that our staying in the Mid East to secure oil reserves is a foolish policy, IMO.
Here is a short and incomplete list of neocons who believed Saddam had WMDs before, on and immediately after 9/11
Bill Clinton
Al Gore
Hillary Clinton
John Edwards
Mohamed El-Baredi
Kofi Annan
Gerhard Shroeder
Jacques Chirac
Saddam Hussein
How much longer can you guys keep banging on that same old drum that Bush Lied!!!! Try Googling the words "lie" and "mistake", review the history of Saddam's actions from 1997 through 2001 which led all reasonable people to conclude he was trying to keep the UN from discovering his WMDs, and report back.
And by the way, Saddam did have a very active program of developing WMDs, which even the most high flying moonbat must concede.
Have a nice day.
Roger....good point and I agree with you. Canada is now our leading supplier (import from) of oil and can increase.
If I say anything about SUVs here the right wing will go nuts but we subsidized SUVs to the extent they are so dominant with tax breaks galore...talk about shaping consumer interest!...can't we do the same with energy of all sorts? I put solar in my home in Oklahoma 25 years ago because there were tax incentives. It was an amazing savings and a complete win/win.
But the subject at hand is the conspiracy guys and 9-11.
I repeat my earlier question:
did attendees and presenters at this little conference include Saddam as being involved in the 9-11 conspiracy or not? if not, why not as the our government beat the drum to put him in as a "cause"...or does the 9/11 conspiracy toss out Saddam to further their own version of events. I'm just curious and I'm not getting many answers here.
I am simply not clear why the US needs to be in the mid east to secure everyone else's source of oil. Only 20 percent of our oil comes from the mid east.
Stable oil markets. If the price of oil flucuates wildly, the economies of Europe and Asia will spiral out of conrtol into a Depression. At the very least, that will send the US into a Recession. And the resulting depravation in Europe & Asia will lead to anarchy and then global war.
Its the only reason we put up with the House of Saud bs. They use their reserves to keep the market stable. Without them, no global economy.
The trick is to not only invent new sources of energy in the US, but to export that tech into Asia and Europe so it can be reproduced cheaply. Because even if the US stopped getting its oil in the ME, the Sauds would still have us over a barrel.
hdhouse: did attendees and presenters at this little conference include Saddam as being involved in the 9-11 conspiracy or not? if not, why not as the our government beat the drum to put him in as a "cause"... I'm just curious and I'm not getting many answers here.
Another strawman hdhouse. No one on the right has said that Saddam was involved in 9-11. There were valid reasons to believe he was immediately after 9-11, but the intel did not support that belief.
The "Saddam was involved in 9-11" meme is a Leftist Myth, its a strawman argument solely employed by the Left because they refuse to understand the actual reasons we deposed Saddam.
America isn't the dominant world superpower anymore, that's what you're not getting."
Hmm. Who is then?
I could almost buy into the tax on gas if it was offset by reductions in income and property tax, but what are the chances of that happening? I am sure the government would look at a gas tax as a exciting new form of revenue. What about all the other costs? Trucking goods across the country? Everything increases in price. Would the reduction in other taxes balance that out? What about the people who just dont pay taxes? How do we handle offsetting what they pay for gas? I ride a motorcycle 10 months out of the year, and pay about 10/week for gas. You could triple the cost at the pump and it really wouldn't effect me all that much. But the costs of everything else would have to rise a great deal. I only took one econ class so I don't pretend to be an expert on this, but it seems to be a bit more complicated than just raising a gal tax. As the price of oil rises, doesn't that put into play a lot of alternatives that we don't currently use due to price? What is the tipping point where gas becomes the more expensive fuel? As oil runs out, resulting in higher and higher fuel costs, wouldn't the currently more expensive fuels then become our standard?
Mary - You should have paid attention the first time. On 9/12/02 GWB went to the UN and gave a speech calling on Saddam Hussein to comply with all UN resolutions, which included allowing WMD inspectors but also many other obligations (including respecting human rights). On 11/8/02, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for Saddam to honor all previous resolutions or face "serious consequences." The reason the Left has such a hard time with this is they apparently have difficulty keeping more than one idea in their head at a time (and that idea is BusHitler lied!!!). There were in fact a series of inter-related reasons, all tied to Iraq's failure to live up to obligations it agreed to as part of a cease-fire in the earlier Gulf War. And consider those words "cease fire" for a moment - the West left Saddam in power only if he agreed to do certain things. If he doesn't keep up his end of the bargain, we are well within our rights not to respect the cease fire and begin hostilities again. That doesn't mean we should, but we've got nothing to apologize for if we do.
And again, if you would have paid attention the first time, you would have noticed that George Bush did in fact tie the Gulf War, and the war on terrorism more generally, to the need to develop democratic institutions throughout the Middle East and in terror-sponsoring countries. The rationale was laid out in a series of speeches between 9/11/01 and the UN speech on 9/12/02 (most importantly the graduation address to West Point graduates in 2002). This may be considered naive, but it's not ludicrous on its face - and of course, US efforts have indisputably led to a fledgling democracy in Iraq.
"Just wait until they start lording it over you. "
And that article link you posted was supposed to be meaningful exactly how?
Really, Mary, the best you can do is call people losers over and over. it's a boring old game of yours. This ADS of yours? Let it go.
Fen: I understand the stability argument re oil prices; however, I would suggest that the rest of the world could step into the gap were the US to withdraw. The US has extensive oil shales and the technological advantage to move into other fuels when the price of crude gets high enough.
All I am suggesting is that our foreign policy is locked into a rather narrow perspective and is failing to consider the advantages that might/could result from letting the rest of the world get more involved. (did I mention I trend libertarian?)
Who is this Mary person? Is it a sock puppet of LOS? Apparently it has some previous history here.
/mary disqualifies herself for reasonable discussion... again
Roger: I understand the stability argument re oil prices ... advantages that might/could result from letting the rest of the world get more involved. (did I mention I trend libertarian
I agree with you in principle Roger. I just think the rest of the world has developed a "welfare mentality" re US projection of force. I think what would actually happen is 1) a bunch of talk and resolutions from Europe while 2) China/Iran moved in to secure resources/territory and 3) a new crop of despots spring up in all the "gap" countries.
I'd like to be wrong though - we're killing ourselves protecting civilization, and we're hated for the sacrifice. Part of me would like the world to experience a reality where America is isolationist and doesn't rescue them from their stupidity. Let them pay for their own way and see how they like it.
Mary is a banned commenter. I delete all her posts unread. I recommend skipping them if they are not yet deleted.
Wow. That's quite the strategy.
Turns out you were wrong about this invasion all along, and you don't want to hear from those of us calling you ludicrous "hawks" who predicted from the beginning you can't spread democracy at gunpoint.
The only thing worse that a loser, is a dumb loser too stubborn to listen to others who called the shots correctly from the start.
Enjoy the egg sandwich on your face, Ann!
I'd like to be wrong though - we're killing ourselves protecting civilization, and we're hated for the sacrifice. Part of me would like the world to experience a reality where America is isolationist and doesn't rescue them from their stupidity. Let them pay for their own way and see how they like it.
Oh my God.
You know what comes next?
He pats himself on the back for protecting the Iraqi women and children and giving them such a better quality of life under this fledging democracy.
This is not how civilized nations advance.
"I'd like to be wrong though - we're killing ourselves protecting civilization, and we're hated for the sacrifice. Part of me would like the world to experience a reality where America is isolationist and doesn't rescue them from their stupidity. Let them pay for their own way and see how they like it."
Yeah, but that's nothing new. While not disliked to the point of today I think the English resented having to have the US help defend the homeland during WW2 and in the days since we converted Germany and Japan to democracy at the point of the gun, things have just gotten worse. Yes, everyone gets a free ride under America's military umbrella and yes, other countries need to step up and protect themselves, but there are two worlds we can live in. The world as we pretend it is, or the world as it actually is.
I am simply not clear why the US needs to be in the mid east to secure everyone else's source of oil.
Because the US economy depends on the rest of the world's economy, which in turn depends on that oil.
"what to do about our oil dependence.
Here is my plan -- Stop over subsidizing certain sectors of the energy economy (oil and corn ethanol) and let the market figure out what to do. With oil at historic highs, there is plenty of incentive. But money that would go into other more promising methods ends up going to corn based ethanol (other types of ethanol are better) and oil.
Hoosier Daddy is describing a more modern furnace (electric?) than the old open-hearths I worked around. Those were elaborate masonry constructions that had no moving parts other than doors.
I worked in the No. 1 BOP Shop aka the basic oxygen plant. There was another one called the QBOP which I spent some time at occasionally and was similar to #1 BOP. The furnaces themselves were called them BOFs for basic oxygen furnace. They were basically shaped like a big coffee cup where scrap metal and hot metal (molten iron) were poured in and then a long water cooled steel lance was lowered in the furnace and it blew pure oxygen to attain the high temps needed to make steel.
Over time, slag builds up and then falls off, kind of like scab and if not maintained will take the brick lining with it. Too much lost brick would lead to a 'burn through' which is the ultimate nightmare in a BOF. The lining between the brick and the outer shell is water cooled and if the hot metal or molten steel hits that water jacket, you don't want to be within 1/2 mile of that furnace.
Needless to say that my worst day in the office now is better than my best day working the furnace. I'm betting Theo would concur.
Welcome!
My ex-girlfriend had Ann for a professor when she was in law school and I've been reading this blog for some time.
Kudos to aquaculture for looking at the evidence regarding WTC 7 which was indeed an obvious controlled demolition.
Controlled demolitions and WTC 7 have the following scientific characteristis, organized below from the site Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth:
"As your own eyes witness — WTC Building #7 (a 47 story high-rise not hit by an airplane) exhibits all the characteristics of a classic controlled demolition with explosives:
1. Rapid onset of “collapse”
2. Sounds of explosions at ground floor - a full second prior to collapse (heard by hundreds of firemen and media reporters)
3. Symmetrical “collapse” – through the path of greatest resistance – at free-fall speed — the columns gave no resistance
4. Squibs, or “mistimed” explosions, at the upper 7 floors seen in the network videos
5. “Collapses” into its own footprint – with the steel skeleton broken up for shipment
6. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic dust clouds
7. Tons of molten Metal found by CDI (Demolition Contractor) in basement (no other possible source than an incendiary cutting charge such as Thermate)
8. Chemical signature of Thermate (high tech incendiary) found in slag, solidified molten metal, and dust samples by Physics professor Steven Jones, PhD.
9. FEMA finds rapid oxidation and intergranular melting on structural steel samples
10. Expert corroboration from the top European Controlled Demolition professional
11. Fore-knowledge of “collapse” by media, NYPD, FDNY
And exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire, i.e.
1. Slow onset with large visible deformations
2. Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, to the side most damaged by the fires)
3. Evidence of fire temperatures capable of softening steel
4. High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer lasting fires have never “collapsed”.
http://www.ae911truth.org/
Most of these characteristics are ignored by ALL of the debunkers, including the JREF forums, Fox News, Screw Loose Change blog, Popular Mechanics, NIST, the 9/11 Commission, the debunking sites mentioned above, and this site as well. When a characteristic is taken on, the debunking consists of mostly word nit-picking.
Another good site for facts about WTC 7 is www.WTC7.net
Other evidence regarding WTC 7 not widely known includes:
* The fire alarm system was turned off in WTC 7 at 6:47 a.m. on the morning of 9/11.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/a647alarmnoton
* The Deputy Director of the Emergency Services Department for the New York City Housing Authority reported a huge explosion in WTC 7 around 9 or 9:30 a.m. on the morning of 9/11.
(You can listen to his own words from the day of 9/11 as well as his recent interview)
http://noonehastodie.blogspot.com/2007/06/jason-bermas-reveals-his-own-wtc-7.html
Of course, WTC 7 is just the tip of the iceberg regarding 9/11, but you have to start somewhere.
Revenant: Because the US economy depends on the rest of the world's economy, which in turn depends on that oil.
I really hate it when people are more concise than me.
...back to the writing lab [sigh]
Of course, WTC 7 is just the tip of the iceberg regarding 9/11, but you have to start somewhere.
I start at the Pentagon, where I witnessed the airliner crash with my own eyes. But thanks for playing.
fen;
Great, Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, what does that have to do with WTC 7?
You should feel good that the best 9/11 site on the Internet agrees with you:
www.911research.com
Eli, Christopher Hitchens wrote about it on Monday on Slate... and they talked about it on The Daily Gut, a site associated with Red Eye on the Fox News Channel.
Needless to say that my worst day in the office now is better than my best day working the furnace. I'm betting Theo would concur.
Hoosier Daddy: Yep! Although I work in a manufacturing environment, this place is much easier on the ol' bod than the steel mill. And, as a manager, I can retreat to a nice office and do computer work *ahem* as needed.
I kind of thought you might be describing an oxygen furnace, or "BOSF" as it was called at Kaiser. Basic Oxygen Steelmaking Furnace. I worked re-lining quite a few of those ladles/furnaces. What a job! The damn chrome bricks (the first layer next to the water jacket you describe) weighed a ton, and there were several different shapes/sizes to keep track of. The one advantage was that it was often cool inside, especially toward the end of the job, and you could also avoid the prying eyes of the foreman. I never worked much around the BOSP proper, because maintenance there was much less than the open hearths. I got to see a lot of open hearth operations, though, as masonry had at least three crews there 24/7.
Tibore: Thanks for nicely making the general point to be drawn from my slightly disjointed Rememberances of Hot Metal Past. "Enclosed" is the magic word. The history of metal smelting and working can be summed up by that concept. More and more sophisticated enclosures for heating metals were developed through history. But an enclosure doesn't have to be sophisticated or intentional to trap deadly, flash-fire-inducing, steel-weakening heat.
Every fireman knows that.
Did you ever notice that the skull-fucked 9/11 conspiracy people always speak of their "conversion" in strictly religious terms? The day they saw the light, like St Paul struck from his horse, and the thermite fell from their eyes and they saw. They saw the truth...
"Galileo", your namesake must be spinning in his grave. Almost 500 years later and a superstitious and sinister force worse and stupider than any he could have ever known has swiped his name. You've memorized the liturgy of your sad little cult chapter and verse. But don't stop there, little one! There are worlds within worlds: the Illuminati, the moon landing, Kennedy, Vince Foster, Bilderburg, Israel, Area 51. Did you ever think that maybe even Kevin Barrett and Steven Jones and James Fetzer might be in on the secret plot? EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG!
WE'RE WATCHING YOU! AND YOUR GIRLFRIEND! THAT SHIRT DOESN'T MATCH YOUR SOCKS VERY WELL.
11. Fore-knowledge of “collapse” by media, NYPD, FDNY
WOW! The NYT is in on it, too?
Where's Sipp when you need him? Guess I'll have to do it:
It's the THERMITE!
Original Mike said;
"WOW! The NYT is in on it, too?"
Galileo says;
In on what?
The foreknowledge is evidence of a controlled demolition, not that the entities mentioned were in on a plot.
I never even said there was a plot, only that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition.
In fact, I don't think 9/11 was a conspiracy.
The BBC, for example, announced the collapse of WTC 7 about 23 minutes before it actually collapsed, and no one is arguing they are in on the "conspiracy".
Foreknowledge of WTC 7's Collapse
Premature Announcements on Television Broadcasts
http://www.wtc7.net/foreknowledge.html
Please try to avoid making unnecessary assuptions.
Galileo: Great, Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, what does that have to do with WTC 7?
Do I really need to explain the logic linking the 9-11 attack on the Pentagon with the 9-11 attack on the WTC?
Galileo:
I really do not like getting into arguments with truthers, because, frankly, it is a no win game. I do not admit to having all knowledge.
In any event, regarding the supposed "foreknowledge" -- yes, news reports that day were confused. They were fife with rumors and wrong information, breathlessly reported as fact.
There were reports of bombs going off in other places (a friend in DC that morning e-mailed to say car bombs went off in Foggy Bottom), of 2 or 4 or 8 other planes unaccounted for, of explosions here and there. I discount anything said that morning on the news. The BBC reported the fall of WTC 7 23 minutes early? That is the first I heard of it, but frankly am not surprised. Given how all hell was breaking loose, I am surprised someone did not report that Manhattan sank.
In any event, the trhuthers usually rely on a few comments taken out of context (such as the news reporter who said that the plane that hit the Pentagon was flying like a cruise missile, which the truthers turned into him saying it WAS a cruise missile.
What is so difficult to understand? 2 very large planes hit the Towers, ejecting materials and starting huge fires, causing buildings to fall. Why is that so difficult to understand?
Fen: "Do I really need to explain the logic linking the 9-11 attack on the Pentagon with the 9-11 attack on the WTC?"
Galileo says:
There was no attack on WTC 7, but please, go ahead, explain to me how Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon has anything to do with scientific characteristics of controlled demolition exhibited by the collapse of WTC 7.
ATTENTION!
Just heard a hot rumor.
I heard that Ann has been invited to be a guest on the Kevin Barrett radio show!
I know Kevin, and he is like a cuddly little Teddy Bear.
Please encourage Ann to take advantage of this great opportunity.
Since the Barrett show is broadcast worldwide, Ann's fanclub can listen in.
Anthony: "What is so difficult to understand? 2 very large planes hit the Towers, ejecting materials and starting huge fires, causing buildings to fall. Why is that so difficult to understand?"
Galileo says;
Go quickly to NIST with this information, Anthony. The NIST scientists have spent 6 years trying to figure out why WTC 7 fell on 9/11 and haven't got very far. Your explanation is so simple and they need your help.
And please tell all the people with WTC 7 collapse foreknowledge to contact NIST ASAP as well. They had information that WTC 7 was going to collapse, right?
They need to get that info to NIST.
There was no attack on WTC 7, but please, go ahead, explain to me how Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon has anything to do with scientific characteristics of controlled demolition exhibited by the collapse of WTC 7.
First, are you claiming that the WTC and Pentagon were NOT attacked by Al Queda on 9-11? You need to clarify that before we continue.
Theo,
No prob; you're welcome. I think you know better than anyone, myself included, about how steel really reacts to heat.
Gallileo,
Here's how you're completely wrong.
Regarding the false charge of demolitions use:
http://911myths.com/html/wtc__demolition_.html
http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm
Regarding "sounds of explosions":
http://www.debunking911.com/explosions.htm
Free fall was already addressed. Regarding symmetrical collapse/fell into it's own footprints: No. Untrue. Many buildings outside the whole complex's area - let alone those right next to the tower's "footprints" - were hit by debris from the main towers falling. The Verizon Building and 30 West Broadway to the North, the Banker's Trust building to the south, among others, were notable ones sustaining much damage. And all of those buildings are well outside the WTC plaza; 30 West Broadway, in fact, is 2 blocks away.
Regarding "squibs" - which BTW is *not* a demolitions industry term, but a Hollywood one:
http://www.debunking911.com/overp.htm
Regarding the molten metal and thermite use charge:
http://911myths.com/html/wtc_molten_steel.html
http://911myths.com/html/traces_of_thermate_at_the_wtc.html
http://www.debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm
http://www.debunking911.com/explosions.htm
Regarding "intergranular melting" - no direct link. This is yet another attempt to bolster the theory of thermite use by implying that only one explanation exists for certain high-temperature phenomena such as this. JREF forums discuss thermite use in general. I'll provide more info when I gather it myself.
Regarding "Expert corroboration from the top European Controlled Demolition professional"
Actually, there were two: Danny Jowenko, and a professor from one of the Nordic countries (I will look that person up in a bit). Neither have examined any debris from the WTC, neither have run any tests nor have they referred to any tests run on debris by US labs. In Jowenko's case, he made his determination after watching the collapse on video; that was the sole extent of his study. And, what truthers fail to mention is that Jowenko only believes demolitions were used on WTC 7, not the main towers.
Also of note: Those "experts" refuse to answer any further questions about their beliefs.
"Fore-knowledge of collapse by media, NYPD, FDNY:
http://911myths.com/html/foreknowledge.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/part_of_the_conspiracy.html
Also, most other "examples" of forewarnings have been unsubstantiated.
Regarding the towers not displaying "Slow onset with large visible deformations".
False: Measureable inward bowing and buckling occurred.
http://911stories.googlepages.com/accountsoftowerstructuralinstabilityande.
Also, refer to NIST findings, locatable on their website.
Regarding the towers not showing " Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, to the side most damaged by the fires)"
False. Restatement of footprint/symmetric collapse fallacy dealt with above. See above links, plus Brent Blanchard's "Implosion World" article ("A Critical Analysis Of The Collapse Of WTC Towers 1, 2 & 7 From An Explosives and Conventional Demolition Industry Viewpoint").
Regarding the towers not showing "Evidence of fire temperatures capable of softening steel":
Misrepresentation. That error comes from a cherry-picked reading of one element of one NIST report where max temp tests were run on the paint left on some of the supporting columns. Truthers ignore the point that this report was an analysis of how the concrete and fire resistant chemicals did manage to protect some parts of the steel portions of the structure. It was never meant to be an analysis of the absolute maximum temperatures anywhere in the towers, let alone those in the hottest parts of the fire. Whatever steel debris was left from those sections had no paint left to examine; it was completely burnt off.
Also: The NIST FAQ and NCSTAR reports discusses maximum temperatures of 1000 degrees Centigrade (1,800 F).
Further reading:
Firefighter at JREF forum discusses Basic Principles of Fire Behavior.
NIST FAQ
Index of NIST Final Reports on Fire Investigation of WTC
Regarding "4. High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer lasting fires have never “collapsed”."
High-rise buildings with similar or larger fires have never also been compromised by a 100,000 lb aircraft impacting at 400+ knots airspeed destroying a good portion of the load bearing structure.
Regarding the charge that "Most of these characteristics are ignored by ALL of the debunkers, including the JREF forums, Fox News, Screw Loose Change blog, Popular Mechanics, NIST, the 9/11 Commission, the debunking sites mentioned above, and this site as well. When a characteristic is taken on, the debunking consists of mostly word nit-picking.
I do not know of any Fox News debunking attempts :) , but I leave it to you to read the other sites for yourselves and determining who's "word nit-picking". I've demonstrated already that Galileo here has misrepresented what actually has occurred. And none of it is "word nit-picking".
Regarding the "Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth": JREF discussion on the ease of registering oneself as an engineer without proof. Other "members" discussed included "Heywood J. Blomey, Engineer", "Barney Rubble, Structural Engineer (location "Bedrock, Tx.")", and Hubert J. Farnsworth, Professor (Google for the cartoon "Futurama" if you don't get that one). To presume that the AE911Truth organization is composed of ASCE registered Engineers and/or whatever the architectural version of ASCE is is to make a fatally wrong assumption.
Real sites to get your 9/11 education include:
Debunking 911 Conspiracy Theories
911 Myths... Reading between the lies
JREF forum poster Gravy's Links for 9/11 Research"
Journal of Debunking 9/11
The Internet Detectives debunking of the truther movie "Loose Change"
The NIST reports on the WTC collapse (linked above)
For Italian speakers: Italian 9/11 debunking blog "undicisettembre".
The James Randi Educational Foundation's Conspiracy Theories forum
Oh dear Lord, he posted more??
I'll debunk him later tonight after dinner. I'm hungry. For anyone else: Gallileo has been simply repeating charges which have been disproven - not "word nit-picked", but shown to be utterly false - long ago. Simply refer to the links I provided above, and you can do your own research into his misrepresentations.
*Why* are you arguing with "Galileo"?
Just post links to one of the numerous sites that provides the scientific explanation for the collapse, then ignore him. There is no reason to refute him point by point, because it is a given that a new spurious objection or lie will spring up to replace each one you shoot down. You're fighting a tar baby; give it up.
Fen: "First, are you claiming that the WTC and Pentagon were NOT attacked by Al Queda on 9-11? You need to clarify that before we continue."
I am claiming that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, Flight 11 hit the North Tower, Flight 175 hit the South Tower, and no plane hit WTC 7.
I am also claiming WTC 7 was a controlled demoplition.
As a famous scientist, I only get into scientific questions and don't follow the news much.
tibore:
You posted a lot of information. I have reading debunking websites for a year now and maybe you could point me in the right direction.
Which debunker addresses the issue of free-fall (or nearly free-fall) speed of WTC 7?
WTC fell in about 6.6 seconds as it's usually reported, with 6 seconds being free fall in a vacuum, according to Galileo's Law.
Which debunker explains how a 47 story steel building with a fire in it somewhere, can fall in such a short time, if the fall is not a controlled demolition.
Bear in mind that nearly free fall speed means the steel framing of the building provided almost no resistance to the fall.
If you can find a debunker who explains this, please point me in the right direction.
My initial post explained that debunkers avoid these types of questions as I've yet seen an answer to it.
Fen: "First, are you claiming that the WTC and Pentagon were NOT attacked by Al Queda on 9-11? You need to clarify that before we continue."
Galileo: I am claiming that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, Flight 11 hit the North Tower, Flight 175 hit the South Tower, and no plane hit WTC 7. I am also claiming WTC 7 was a controlled demolition.
Non-responsive. For me to take you seriously, you need to answer my question, not play word games. Again:
Are you claiming that the WTC and Pentagon were NOT attacked by Al Queda on 9-11? You need to clarify that before we continue.
Whoops. Sonuvagun, I did forget to link the free fall debunkings.
http://debunking911.com/freefall.htm
http://911myths.com/html/freefall.html
Now, most other people would be able to figure that out by going to the other links I provided and realizing that there are further links yet to follow, but what the hell. I feel generous tonight. You all can go see for yourselves how debunkers do not avoid the charges, but in reality confront them head on and show the fallacies behind the canards people such as Gallileo push forth.
That's the last favor, though. I provided the links; it's up to those reading them to comprehend the info there.
Revenant,
The point by point refutation is for the benefit of others who may read this and not know where to find the real information. I fully understand that a truther like Galileo will refuse to acknowledge the falsity of his claims; note how he simply restates a well-debunked myth as if it's truth. But others may find the info useful. Point-by-point refutations is how I came to understand the events of that day; I'm simply paying the favor forward for someone else who realizes the BS of the truther movement but doesn't know yet where to find info.
Besides, at worst, what I'm doing is merely roughly as futile than the fight with Mary earlier, and I'd say it's less so. Most folks already know the topic everyone else was discussing there, but not everyone knows the specific details of the truth about the collapses.
Fen: "Are you claiming that the WTC and Pentagon were NOT attacked by Al Queda on 9-11? You need to clarify that before we continue."
As I mentioned earlier, I'm trying to answer a scientific question about why WTC 7 fell. I don't know what your demand has to do with that.
If you want an answer, then it is I don't know.
I don't pay much attention to the news, and am more into science, sports, women, mixed drinks, and rock N roll music.
From the impression I get from casual news on FM radio, it seems like Saddam Hussein and his terrorist network was involved.
I don't know much about Al Queda, but I heard they hate the freedom we have here in America. They are a large organization and now that you brought it to my attention, I'd like to learn more about them.
Please post their website so I can read about them.
Do they have a blog?
Hope this answers your question so we can proceed.
Galileo: then it is I don't know
You don't know if AQ attacked the WTC and Pentagon on 9-11. Check.
No further discussion is necessary.
Tibore said...
"Whoops. Sonuvagun, I did forget to link the free fall debunkings.
http://debunking911.com/freefall.htm
http://911myths.com/html/freefall.html"
Galileo says:
Neither of these articles addresses the near fre-fall speed of the collapse of WTC 7.
They are about the Twin Towers.
Nice try.
That's right! Forget about those twin towers! It was WTC 7 that we meant to destroy all along! WTC 7 was the boat that helped us cross the Rubicon! He's found out the TRUTH!
We're still watching you, Galileo! You probably shouldn't be wearing your girlfriend's panties while she's at work. And brush your hair.
Fen: "You don't know if AQ attacked the WTC and Pentagon on 9-11. Check.
No further discussion is necessary."
I don't live in the united states, so I don't get the news you do. We don't have Fox news over here.
I do know that terrorists attacked the WTC and Pentagon, and Flight 93 was headed for WTC 7, but got stuck in the runway 40 minutes.
"I do know that terrorists attacked the WTC and Pentagon, and Flight 93 was headed for WTC 7, but got stuck in the runway 40 minutes."
Huh?
Flight 93 was heading in the general direction of Washington.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/911_commission_UA93_path.png/200px-911_commission_UA93_path.png
Anthony, Anthony! Don't you know anything? Remember: Up is down, right is left, east is north, west is south, fire doesn't melt steel, there is no such thing as Islam, Soylent Green is people. And so on.
I'll only say it once more, EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG!
"Flight 93 was heading in the general direction of Washington."
If you look at your chart, the plane had turned directly towards New York City only a few minutes before the last jerking of the plane sent it down.
Oh. WTC 7. My fault. Yes, I should've read that closer.
In spite of that: What, you can't figure out the truth of the argument for yourself? You cannot critically examine the data on WTC 7 yourself? Regarding WTC 7's supposed free fall collapse:
The only sources for such a short collapse time as Galileo claims is from other truthers. You all can watch the videos yourselves; even taking into account any margin of error, it's a stretch to say 6.5 seconds for collapse. Measure the total collapse: 16 seconds. Far from 6.5.
http://www.debunk911myths.org/?p=26
Note that Galileo not only doesn't attempt to provide any other evidence, he ignores contradictory facts. Such as the fact that the collapse started from the top, contrary to how building demolitions-by-explosives are done. And the fact that somehow, large amounts of explosives (or thermite - which, BTW isn't an explosive) per floor were emplaced without anyone noticing. So the collapse doesn't display any characteristics for building demolitions, in fact did not fall "faster than" "as fast" or "near" freefall speeds, and wasn't empty enough for long enough to emplace any explosives (or thermite, depending on the truther you speak to). Yet, like Galileo here, truthers still believe WTC 7 was brought down deliberately. That is belief by faith, not belief through evidence.
----------
Notice, too, how Galileo dodges all the other points he posted and others debunked at the links I provided:
Demolitions use: False.
Sounds of explosions: Misrepresented, conclusions drawn from "sounds" false.
Squibs: False
Molten metal and thermite: Both false.
"Expert collaboration": Laughable, no real research, no real examinations of evidence. Conclusions drawn from them: false.
"Fore-knowledge"/forwarnings: False.
Towers not displaying visible distortions: False.
Symmetrical collapse: False
No evidence of high enough temps: False
No other building has ever collapsed: False representation due to selectively leaving out part of the event
AE911Truth: Not representative of real architects or engineers.
And from other posts:
"The foreknowledge is evidence of a controlled demolition, not that the entities mentioned were in on a plot."
False. Unsupported argument, plus the supposed "foreknowledge" is debunked in the link in my previous post above.
"I never even said there was a plot, only that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition."
Irrelevant. You have no proof whatsoever that WTC 7 was brought down by explosives. No truther does. Any observations are dealt with at the links above (click through and see for yourselves; the Debunking 9/11 and 9/11 Myths links have WTC 7 specific information).
"The BBC, for example, announced the collapse of WTC 7 about 23 minutes before it actually collapsed, and no one is arguing they are in on the "conspiracy"."
False. See my links in the post above.
"... but please, go ahead, explain to me how Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon has anything to do with scientific characteristics of controlled demolition exhibited by the collapse of WTC 7."
You haven't presented any "scientific characteristics of controlled demolition" regarding WTC 7. You've only presented debunked and unsupported arguments.
"The NIST scientists have spent 6 years trying to figure out why WTC 7 fell on 9/11 and haven't got very far"
From NIST:
"14. Why is the NIST investigation of the collapse of WTC 7 (the 47-story office building that collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, hours after the towers) taking so long to complete? Is a controlled demolition hypothesis being considered to explain the collapse?
When NIST initiated the WTC investigation, it made a decision not to hire new staff to support the investigation. After the June 2004 progress report on the WTC investigation was issued, the NIST investigation team stopped working on WTC 7 and was assigned full-time through the fall of 2005 to complete the investigation of the WTC towers. With the release and dissemination of the report on the WTC towers in October 2005, the investigation of the WTC 7 collapse resumed. Considerable progress has been made since that time, including the review of nearly 80 boxes of new documents related to WTC 7, the development of detailed technical approaches for modeling and analyzing various collapse hypotheses, and the selection of a contractor to assist NIST staff in carrying out the analyses. It is anticipated that a draft report will be released by early 2007."
They haven't met that "early 2007" release date, true, but it hardly means they're stymied or ignoring their duty. The investigation is ongoing; why are you setting an arbitrary timeframe for when they should finish? Would you rather they do a superficial analysis, like the Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Steven Jones, or the AE911Truth bunch?
Galileo can provide all the unsupported arguments, misrepresentations, and out-and-out falsehoods he wants, but his arguments will continue to fall flat. Again, folks, refer to the links in my previous post. That's where the truth lies. Not in the sites Galileo parrots without critical analysis, not in the lies he peddles without serious thought, and not in the fantasy he describes that has no basis in reality. It lies in truth. And what he puts forth is simply not truth.
"The only sources for such a short collapse time as Galileo claims is from other truthers. You all can watch the videos yourselves; even taking into account any margin of error, it's a stretch to say 6.5 seconds for collapse. Measure the total collapse: 16 seconds. Far from 6.5.
http://www.debunk911myths.org/?p=26"
This is an example of what I referred to earlier as 'word nit-picking'.
The east penthouse on the top of WTC 7 collapsed about 8 seconds before WTC 7 collapsed. If you add that 8 seconds to the 6.6 seconds collapse time of the building to the collapse time of the east penthouse you get about 16 seconds.
But the fact remains....
From the time the roof starts to move on WTC 7, until the roof is out of view, THAT PORTION of the fall is at free-fall speed.
The only scientific explanation for this is controlled demolition.
You need to set your political and religious views aside and focus on science.
Politics/religion & science don't mix.
Just ask Galileo.
Oh Lord.
1. I don't think Galileo is serious about this.
2. It takes several days to wire up a building for implosion.
3. many holes are drilled in the walls and there is det cord everywhere.
4. it takes a crew to do this, not one guy working after the late shift goes home.
There are some people who believe this stuff, they generally watch a lot of tv and also think murders are solved in 48 minutes, the security camera at the 7-11 can be zoomed down to read a car license tag in the rear view mirror of a car 6 blocks away, and that Chuck Norris is a real Texas ranger. Best just to nod, smile and slowly back away.
"Politics/religion & science don't mix.
Just ask Galileo."
Yes, you're living proof of that.
Chuck Norris isn't a real Texas Ranger?
Ok, but who's gonna tell Chuck?
"The only scientific explanation for this is controlled demolition."
1. That's not a scientific explanation. There's nothing deductive about Galileo's argument, nor is there evidence supporting it. He's committing inductive reasoning based on a false premise.
2. Individual parts of the building cannot be separated out just for convenience. The collapse of the mechanical penthouse along with the eastern fascia is part of the overall collapse. The overall collapse took 16 seconds.
3. Also regarding the eastern section: The collapse began there. That is evidence that the collapse wasn't even remotely symmetric, one of the points Galileo tried to make in a post above.
On top of that: What's significant about 6.6 seconds, the supposed "near free fall" rate of collapse? Given the possible distances the roof supposedly traveled in the truther scenarios - 138 to 167 meters, depending on the size of the rubble pile - and the known acceleration provided by gravity - 9.8 meters per second squared - you can determine that if the collapse did proceed as folks like Galileo assert, the true free fall times are from 5.3 to 5.8 seconds, not 6.0. And yes, those fractions of a second matter; a tenth of a second can translate into nearly 3 to 6 meters of distance traveled, nearly one to two full stories of height. So claiming 6.6 seconds is already claiming a slower collapse than what would happen if explosives were used to cut the supporting structure of the tower. How exactly is that figure a "scientific explanation" of explosives use? Galileo doesn't say. There's no explanation of why an arbitrary figure that's demonstrably slower than a free-fall figure would be is proof of his assertion; given that it indicates a slower collapse than free-fall, it in fact argues the opposite.
And then controlled demolition becomes even more improbable when you consider the actual event, not the tortuously manipulated picture that the truthers build. The collapse did not start at the bottom where controlled demolitions should start. It also was not symmetric; the eastern face started collapsing before the rest of the structure. And it did not land in a neat little pile, but instead scattered debris onto other buildings, also indicative of an uncontrolled collapse, not a controlled demolition. But, the collapse did initiate where a fire was known to be raging, unfought, fed by the diesel lines installed for the 5th floor emergency generators. That is a fact the truthers avoid acknowledging, instead concentrating on the hand-waving involved in timing collapses.
This is how truthers work: They divorce aspects of the event from the overall context, plant false notions that the event they select to dissect should not have happened in the manner that it did without establishing how they think it should have, and try to pull people into "word nit picking", or worse yet, measurement haggling to hand-wave you past the fact that their own arguments do not even stand the test of internal consistency, let alone reflect the actual event. And they easily abandon disproven arguments to pull folks into trivial aspects; note the 10-odd assertions Galileo made in posts above that he hasn't even tried to defend, or the ones Aqua made before disappearing. Galileo and Aqua are very typical cases of how truther behave, displaying many of the tactics and rhetorical tricks used elsewhere. But both work from flawed premises.
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