Having complained of people posting off topic, it seems a reasonable solution to give an opportunity for people to discuss the topics I am banning from other threads – of which 9/11 seems the most popular.
I do not believe that the US government, or any of its agencies, were responsible for 9/11. It would just need too many people to be involved. Someone would have objected. There are some strange and dangerous people in America, but not in sufficient concentration for this one. They couldn’t even keep Watergate quiet, and that was a small group. Any group I can think of – even Blackwater – would contain operatives with scruples about blowing up New York. They may be sadly ready to kill people in poor countries, but Americans en masse? Somebody would say it wasn’t a good idea.
I asked a friend in the construction industry what it would take to demolish the twin towers. He replied nine months, 80 men, and 12 miles of cabling. The notion that a small team at night could plant sufficient explosives embedded at key points, is laughable.
The forces of the aircraft impacts must have been amazingly high. I have no difficulty imagining they would bring down the building. As for WTC 7, again the kinetic energy of the collapse of the twin towers must be immense.
I admit to a private speculation about WTC7. Unfortunately in construction it is extremely common for contractors not to fix or install properly all the expensive girders, ties and rebar that are supposed to be enclosed in the concrete. Supervising contractors and municipal inspectors can be corrupt. I recall vividly that in London some years ago a tragedy occurred when a simple gas oven explosion brought down the whole side of a tower block.
The inquiry found that the building contractor had simply omitted the ties that bound the girders at the corners, all encased in concrete. If a gas oven had not blown up, nobody would have found out. Buildings I strongly suspect are very often not as strong as they are supposed to be, with contractors skimping on apparently redundant protection. The sort of sordid thing you might not want too deeply investigated in the event of a national tragedy.
Precisely what happened at the Pentagon I am less sure. There is not the conclusive film and photographic evidence that there is for New York. I am particularly puzzled by the much more skilled feat of flying that would be required to hit a building virtually at ground level, in an urban area, after a lamppost clipping route – very hard to see how a non-professional pilot did that. But I can think of a number of possible scenarios where the official explanation is not quite the whole truth on the Pentagon, but which do not necessitate a belief that the US government or Dick Cheney was behind the attack.
In my view the real scandal of 9/11 was that it was blowback – the product of a malignant terrorist agency whose origins lay in CIA funding and provision. Also blowback in a more general sense that it was spawned in the nasty theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia which is so close to the US and to the Bush dynasty in particular. As with almost all terrorist activity, I do not rule out any point on the whole spectrum of surveillance, penetration and agent provocateur activity by any number of possible actors.
But was 9/11 false flag and controlled demolition? No, I think not.
(Now I have given full opportunity to discuss 9/11 here, any further references on other threads will be instantly deleted).
Hi glenn, Hi Vronsky,
Sorry for butting in. Put it down to Irish impetuosity.
V,
Care to hang your ego out to dry with a wager on that?
Both theoretical explanation and visible proof that you’re wrong can be provided, of course.
C’mon, V. Let’s see who is, what was that word again …
… oh yeah, “barely literate”.
Tom
Aren’t you supposed to be ignoring me? I’m fine with that. It’s your inclination to ignore Isaac Newton (Google him) that’s amusing. Imagine an engineer who doesn’t understand high school physics! American education ain’t what it used to be.
A falling body on earth will accelerate at g m/s/s in a vacuum. ‘Falling’ means that the only force acting upon it is the gravitational attraction of the earth. If it’s accelerating downwards *faster* than that, then by definition it isn’t falling – some force additional to gravity must be acting upon it. A body cannot ‘fall’ with acceleration greater than g – you’re suggestion that it can is – uh – highly original.
You really haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, but when did that ever cost a JREFer sleep?
V,
Vronsky: “Aren’t you supposed to be ignoring me?”
tom: I was sitting here, minding my own business, waiting for glenn to reply.
Meanwhile, a pompous little peckerwood walked up, kicked sand in my face, called me “a liar”, and then started blabbering amateurish misunderstandings about my field.
Congratulation, V. You got my attention.
So, while I wait for glenn, I decided that it would do you a world of good to get your ears publicly boxed a little bit. Might teach you a little humility.
Ergo, a simple wager:
You say that an object that is dropped can not fall with an acceleration greater than “g”.
I’m telling you that you’re wrong about that. No tricks. No wind. No magnets. No nothing. An object is simply put on a support, the support is removed and the object allowed to fall.
And it falls at an acceleration that is provably greater than g.
I’m telling you that I can explain exactly why this can happen. And I say that I can provide you – or anyone reading this – unequivocal proof that I’m right.
Further, I’m saying that this demonstrates just one of about a half dozen ways in which the north wall of WTC7 could have fallen at, or even greater, than “g”. Under just the influence of gravity.
So, I’ll steal back a quote that you pilfered from another American:
“You feeling lucky, punk?”
I am willing to put my credibility on the line with this wager.
Are you willing to do the same? Will you come down & climb into the ring? Or are you gonna just sit up in the cheap seats & run your mouth?
tom
Quick shout out to dreoilin before replying to Tom: Great to see you again! How is life treating you? Hope you’re well! I just got told off for questioning religion, albeit a bit bluntly, so I’ll give it a rest there for a bit too.
Take care, my fellow Celt.
Hello Tomk, good of you to write.
I thought we were discussing the subjects raised here, not a preferred question which might commonly be asked, but since you brought it up, let’s talk about the fact that we have had numerous steel framed buildings that have burned fiercely for many, many hours without sprinklers and without showing the slightest inclination to collapse more or less into their own footprint (which itself is highly unusual for an uncontrolled demolition).
For WTC 1 & 2 we have a dirty flame for a comparatively short period. The heat was not so intense that people were incinerated in there – indeed, they were observed looking out of the damaged sections right up until the collapse. So the idea that a large number (if not the majority) of supports uniformly heated to at least 400 degrees C is ludicrous. Steel is a rather good conductor of heat, and that enormous structure would have carried heat away unless it was very quickly and intensively applied (which as you no doubt know, is exactly the principle of which demolition thermal cutting charges are based).
So which would you have us believe – that the heat around all the columns was very intense, but contained itself very well so as not to char the people in the same sections, or that the metal accumulated all the thermal energy in a most localised fashion and refused to conduct it away?
Another question is what would have caused molten metal to pour from the WTC damaged section – a 400 degree fire?
——
[Tom on my observation of a flash at the initial collapse]:
Tom: Not surprising at all. The flash was the fires inside the building being blown outwards by the forced out air. I observed there was a flash, and it was extremely intense. The fires had pretty much burned themselves out by that point anyway – most of the fuel (particularly for the second plane crash) was burned out in the first few seconds after impact.
To say an intense flash like that was just fires being puffed out through broken windows all round is rather dismissive, but in line with “knowing” what happened (which is just as the Official Story said from day, if not hour #1).
Look at the start of the collapse in this video, for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIZp6aOibiM
Just in the first few seconds. Notice the extremely large chunks of building which is supposed to be heavily interlocked steel structure, flying well free of the tower.
Was such a quantity of building just puffed out by air, as the initial damaged floors gave way? Seriously?
NIST didn’t go to great pains to explain in detail why it collapsed, it began most of its supposed analysis (with a pre-determined conclusion, of course) that happened after collapse had began. And would you ever, in 1000 years, expect NIST to do anything but toe the official line, whatever that might be? Your efforts might be sincere, but they strike me more as ‘explaining away’ instead of explaining, if the phrase carries well.
*
You claim this is “absolutely typical of most prompt progressive failures”. Assuming for the moment the terms ‘prompt’ and ‘progressive’ don’t trip themselves up too much, how many other examples of such total collapses have we seen? Why was such an event not entirely obvious to every fireman and ‘first responder’, that surely an order would have been given to halt their mass entry to what should have been clearly doomed buildings?
Why did we not have – as standing orders – that if a steel framed building is damaged by explosions and/or fire, collapse must be imminent, and immediate evacuation is therefore required, and nobody should go in. These buildings were the subject of attempted demolition by explosion in the past, after all, so explosions were not unexpected. Are these now the understood codes for all steel framed buildings?
How have architects incorporated these events into their design practices, or is it assumed that some random damage and a fire will cause them all to behave like that?
And surely all this malarkey of cutting charges, expertise of high order and so on for demolitions must now be laid bare as a con game – all you need is some random damage and a few fires started, and down comes the building _just_ like the supposed ‘demolition experts’ charge a lot of money to undertake! This sort of collapse is “absolutely typical”, after all, unless I misread you.
*
By sudden, is it not clear that one or more entire floors completely gave way all at once? The flash you acknowledge occurred all the way around simultaneously, and we see the North Tower peeled apart. We don’t see that when buildings collapse very often, but we certainly do see it in controlled demolitions. We do not see a uniform and total collapse when buildings spontaneously fall down, and earthquakes, terrorist bombs, gas explosions etc. have made for plenty of examples of partially and irregularly collapsed buildings. Nothing irregular about the WTC collapses – they could have been following the direction of a master Russian ballet choreographer.
*
I’m familiar with your point about the Challenger etc., thank you for that all the same. But the idea that one tiny little crack spontaneously initiated this collapse is stretching it – would you hazzard a guess at which corner or side it occurred? You’ll notice that the damage was very much confined to one corner in the South Tower. Listen to the commentary at about 3:00 on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6f9Jpfz1Vo
A: “The entire building has just collapsed, as if a demolition team had set off… like when you see the old demolitions of these old buildings. If folded down on itself and… it’s not there anymore.”
B: “The whole side has collapsed?”
A: “The whole _building_ has collapsed!”
B: “The whole building has collapsed?” (incredulous)
—
Of course, you want to say anyone saying that just doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and anyone questioning you is not qualified to do so. And if someone does have the necessary qualifications, they can say goodbye to their career if they do speak up. Because – by definition – anyone who dares question the Official Story is a lunatic.
These things are obvious, totally expected, one would have to be silly to think otherwise. And after all – it’s now an Official Truth – and who’d be daft enough to question a highly convenient one of those? Who is going to be qualified, employed and want to retain their credibility, and yet raise questions that have got people fired, for simply calling for a proper investigation?
Thanks for writing, Tom. It’s good to talk with someone who’s willing to talk, instead of just assert, and then get angry because their authority is not meekly accepted. I don’t get around here every day, but I would appreciate continued correspondence. You might convince me, but I fear that you probably have too much invested to even contemplate allowing any questioning in public of your own. You might care to think about the chilling effect on proper debate that this has. But strictly in private, of course.
@dreolin
Yes, it is good to see you back. Don’t go away again! Since you’ve resurrected I’ll celebrate with a recap of the most substantive evidence of 9/11 as a false-flag.
* The most accessible account of why the Twin towers should not have collapsed is David Chandler’s (tinyurl.com/ykundj3). I apologise if I’m teaching my granny to suck eggs, but if you want a translation into plain English I’ll attempt it, although the first paragraph of Chandler’s paper just about gets it.
* There are two papers from Cornell University. For WTC7 they conclude ‘the building was destroyed in a highly controlled fashion’ and for the twin towers that ‘the buildings did not perish because of combined mechanical and heat damage to their primary zones, but because of yet another catastrophic event: a wave of massive destruction (WMD) that destroyed the CCs, following which the buildings collapsed to the ground’ (tinyurl.com/2w9ho7n and tinyurl.com/2v6oxjw).
* There is a comment on NIST’s own site by engineers from Melbourne University, casting considerable doubt on NIST’s report on the WTC7 collapse (tinyurl.com/yg69ec7).
If you have trouble with the enormity of the allegation made by the Truthers (and that would be entirely natural) then read the open letter by David Ray Griffin (tinyurl.com/3ahy9uc). Among other things, you might contrast the calm lucidity of his writing with the guttural grunts of the debunkers.
@tomk
Try this: tinyurl.com/3yhcoru
Thanks, Vronsky.
I’ll go and do some more reading. My biggest stumbling block about a false flag operation is something Craig mentioned — how to keep so many people from talking afterwards. But if (as has been suggested in some quarters) it was an Israeli job, then maybe the numbers required to keep schtum would be smaller? … I’m not qualified in maths/physics/engineering so I can’t argue the toss on those. But I recognise oddities when I see them and there are plenty of those – from small holes in the Pentagon to magic passports found in rubble.
Hi Glenn,
I’m fine thanks. Was reading you and the Bible-quoter on the top thread a day or so ago, and was having great fun. I must go up there and say hello. 🙂
“how to keep so many people from talking afterwards”
Remember that the official theory claims that only 19 people were actively involved, with infrastructure and finance supplied remotely. The official theory also claims that these 19 had such a small intelligence footprint that they proceeded to successful completion of their goal undetected. If this is true then it must be *generally* true: any 19 people with an adequate financial and administrative infrastructure could have done it.
Whatever critique you apply to my conspiracy theory you must in all fairness apply to the official version, and whatever slack you cut them, you must also cut me. If it’s possible to do it with 19 Moslems and keep it secret from the biggest intelligence agencies on the planet, then it must be possible to do it with 19 Americans and keep it secret – unless you want to posit some desperate racial inferiority in Americans, which I’m sure you don’t. Attend to the symmetry, dreoilin.
Hi dreoilin: It’s a fair question, how would you keep such a false-flag operation secret. For an answer, maybe we should consider that most people aren’t willing to cough to mass murder and treason, and that’s assuming they don’t believe they’re doing The Right Thing for whatever reason. You also don’t work with people you don’t trust… not sure if you’ve been rock-climbing, but you certainly would not like to undertake such a venture with someone you don’t know or even suspect of being the least bit unreliable.
Take a look at Operation Northwoods – I’m not sure any would-be operators of that false-flag job have come forward to say, “Yes – I was planning on bombing downtown NYC!” – even though that’s just what they would have done.
Of course, Vronsky’s point is perhaps the best of all – how can we claim the very notion of a group of insider operatives impossible to believe, while it’s quite understandable that a rag-tag bunch of non-practicing Muslims just nailed the entire operation first time perfectly.
When will Wikileaks publish anything that backs up your nutjob conspiracy theories?
Is Wikileaks part of the conspiracy?
Also, why won’t Obama and his chief of staff pursue this, in order to destroy the Republican Party?
“Take a look at Operation Northwoods”
Why? A proposed operation in the 1960s that wasn’t taken seriously.
“If this is true then it must be *generally* true: any 19 people with an adequate financial and administrative infrastructure could have done it.”
Hold on, hold on, Vronsky, I’m more on your side than the other! And if we’re agreed that WTC 1 and 2 couldn’t have fallen at near freefall speed into their own footprints, without assistance, that implies a lot more people surely. If nano-thermite was involved, who set it? When? What were they posing as? What did they think they were doing?
“then it must be possible to do it with 19 Americans and keep it secret – unless you want to posit some desperate racial inferiority in Americans, which I’m sure you don’t”
No, but are you suggesting that they were American suicide pilots?
I shouldn’t say any more – I’ll go and read your links first.
Glenn,
The fact that ONE rag-tag non-practicing Muslim who was a trainee pilot is supposed to have flown a plane that size, at that low height, into the side of the Pantagon — something an ‘ace’ pilot would have found near-impossible — is enough to cast doubt on the whole of 9/11, as far as I’m concerned.
dreoilin – That’s something that bothered me even when I basically accepted the Official Story, that this ace novice had performed such a stunt with a jumbo that promptly disappeared! And all the cameras with which one would expect the Pentagon to be festooned didn’t record anything in the least bit convincing. Nor did cameras from nearby, because government agents quickly went around and confiscated them.
The Towers collapsed because the planes did so much damage to them, we are told, but the Pentagon was damaged very little because the jumbo was so flimsy it basically vapourised on contact. Of course.
Not to speak for Vronsky, but he does not have to offer any alternative story – it’s sufficient for now to realise that the Official Story is utter nonsense. Apologists for the Official Story, whether stooges or True Believers, will just about beg you for an alternative, because they’d far rather stand around snickering, head shaking and eye-rolling at your hypothesis, than do the much harder (nay, impossible!) job of defending their own.
@dreolin
Sorry, yes, I understand you have an open mind on this. Your questions are quite valid. Hoewever glenn is right: it isn’t necessary to have a detailed alternative hypothesis, and for the reasons he gave it’s tactically inadvisable to attempt one. The primary aim of the truth movement is to press for another enquiry in order to answer questions like yours, among many others. With this aim in mind it is obviously only necessary to show that the official account is impossible, and Newton’s Laws do this rather nicely.
As to who did it, and how, I have no idea, but US government complicity to some degree beyond mere criminal negligence seems inescapable. If they had nothing to do with the controlled demolitions, why conceal them?
dreoilin: “No, but are you suggesting that they were American suicide pilots?”
It’s HILARIOUS when crazy people argue about the details of their fantasies.
Urghh… what’s wafted in here? Oh, it must be that ugly troll that got banned, was made officially unwelcome by the blog host, but has the shockingly bad grace to show up again all the same. Some people clearly just cannot understand or operate in polite society. Like an unwelcome guest at a party, I suppose we should just ignore the dreadful person until someone throws them out.
Glenn, why doesn’t Obama blow the lid on 911? Why doesn’t Wikileaks blow the lid on 911?
7 WTC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvQDFV1HINw
Given time ordinary folk will ‘blow the lid’ on this apocryphal.
“Sorry, yes, I understand you have an open mind on this.”–Vronsky
Well, I had, at one stage! I’ve been involved in this thread from day one and having read (and been involved with) much of it, I’m now more of a “truther” than I was at the start.
“Hoewever glenn is right: it isn’t necessary to have a detailed alternative hypothesis, and for the reasons he gave it’s tactically inadvisable to attempt one.”
Absolutely. My remark about American suicide pilots was simply a direct follow-on from what you had said at July 27, 2010 2:18 PM (… attend to the symmetry). I think it’s quite enough to tear big holes in the official version, something that has been done very well, IMO.
Forgive me, certain issues have become urgent (work + personal) and I can’t apply my mind to this for a day or two, although I find it a fascinating subject.
tomk didn’t come back?
“tomk didn’t come back?”
It’s hard to pass yourself off as a graduate engineer when you don’t understand high school physics.
Why doesn’t Obama blow the lid on 911? Why doesn’t Wikileaks blow the lid on 911?
“Everybody is somebody’s Jew. And today the Palestinians are the Jews of the Israelis.” Primo Levi.
Found on the Jref forum.
Tomk,
please tell me how falling objects can accelerate faster than g. I’ve looked around the ‘net a bit, and can only find whiplash effects on bungee jumpers.
Oh, don’t encourage him. If the acceleration is greater than g, then by definition it isn’t ‘falling’ – some force greater than gravity must be operating. The exact value of g varies (very slightly) locally, but whatever it is locally it cannot be exceeded by a body in free fall.
Besides, have a look at the Chandler analysis, and note that *any* sustained positive value of downward acceleration, not even necessarily as high as g, implies prior removal of the structure beneath the collapse front.
Conservation of momentum requires a *negative* downward acceleration, i.e. a slowing of the collapse as resistance is enountered. Run into a wall and you will tend to slow down. Try it for yourself if you don’t believe me.
Tom asked me to pass this on for him.
___
Vronsky: “… guttural grunts of the debunkers.”
@tomk
Try this: tinyurl.com/3yhcoru [Physics For Dummies]
tomk: So, V. Snark is all you have to offer, eh. Figures.
Now, here is your mistake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow
It ain’t physics. It’s engineering.
The WTC towers were not balls falling in a vacuum.
WTC7’s north wall is not a spherical cow.
It’s more complicated than that.
And your understanding of the principles is too rudimentary.
As for objects falling faster than G…
First, the proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfZk6o88nSU
The glass on the end of the yardstick is “an object”. It had to fall faster than the ball in order for the ball to end up in the glass.
Here’s a better view of the same effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFJPQLhWPvA
The free end of this yardstick is “a thing”. That is falling faster than the washers which are falling at “g”.
Next, the theory.
Your first error: The Center of Gravity falls at “g”. Not every part of a falling object.
Your second error: “Falling at g” applies to objects that are isolated from being acted upon by all other forces.
The north wall of WTC7 was NOT an object “isolated from being acted upon by all other forces”. It was attached at 1000 different points (on the side that neither your eyes nor your imagination allow you to see) to the collapsing structure behind it.
And therefore “limited to falling at less than g” does not apply to the north wall.
It ain’t a ball falling in a vacuum.
It ain’t a spherical cow.
It ain’t physics.
Or math.
It’s engineering.
___
And you guys would do well to stop circlejerkin’ each other into thinking that you’re all that. You ain’t dumb. You ain’t particularly bright. You ARE pontificating outside of your field.
And, predictably, coming up with utter garbage.
But since the moderators have decided to not permit any more of tom’s posting, in which, Glenn, he explained several of your questions, you’re welcome to live on in blissful ignorance.
If this post gets thru, tom will pass on just the ones that he’s already written. And then you guys are on your own.
(Hey, mods, it was “a metaphor”. Its a shame that you’ve decided to reduce your posters only the milque-toast bland variety. And the ignorant. But that’s your option.)
Sayonara.
Hi Angry,
Fascinating demonstrations, thank you (and I mean that). A comment on the second YouTube explains the apparent paradox (note that it calls falling faster than g a ‘paradox’). It isn’t free fall – there is another component of force due to friction. It can’t be otherwise.
P=ma
If you observe a>g then P>weight of object. Inescapable mathematics, I’m afraid. Or are you going to tell me that m>m? A relativistic effect? That would be fun.
But you seem to be arguing against yourself (I’ve always suspected your heart wasn’t really in this). The Truther’s case is that the buildings fell at g, meaning no resisting structure beneath the falling mass. You and tomk seem to be saying ‘Hey, us shills are *way* more stupid than that – we think those buildings fell even faster than g!’
And I don’t think you should be pointing out that the normally quoted value of g is for falling objects in a vacuum – that is, objects with utterly nothing beneath them. 90 stories of steel and concrete is readily distinguishable from nothing. Speak to your supervisor and see if they can’t find some technical support for you, someone who has maybe a Scottish Standard Grade in physics.
And, if you don’t mind me saying so, don’t let your intemperate side do so much of the talking. Plays badly with the jury, y’know.
I doubt that the July 29, 2010 12:24 PM and 12:26 PM posts were from Angrysoba. Amongst other things, Angrysoba knows the moderation policy of this blog. Angrysoba, they weren’t from you, were they?
Tomk,
what is the matter? I asked a polite question. What’s all this about asking someone to post on your behalf, apparently under a false name? If you’re having trouble posting, you’re probably trying to include more than two URLs. Just leave off the http etc.
Still, I’m disappointed. I will check youtube when I have more time, but I knew it was the center of mass that fell at g, I was hoping for something more juicy.