Saturday Salon – The Truth is Out There! edition
September 12th, 2009 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Miscellaneous | 1980 Comments
An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
September 12th, 2009 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Miscellaneous | 1980 Comments
An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
This post was written by mark bahnisch, who has written 1595 posts for Larvatus Prodeo.
Is saying “First” now passé?
Fielding – a dickhead in a wheelchair is still a dickhead.
Raelene Boyle on Caster Semenya on ABC news last night. “She not a woman” … “This woma… this person…” Nice.
MH@3
Indeed. Raelene Boyle is a disgrace. Caster Semenya, in her view, allegedly committed the crime of having androgen insensitivity syndrome and innocent athletes have to be protected.
I have a longstanding objection to elite sport, and this matter simply underscores what is wrong with the concept. This is where it logically leads.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/loneliness-of-the-university-liberal-20090911-fkqc.html
Some of the hard left quoted in the article are quite… vicious. Unfortunate, really.
Yes, Raelene Boyle was ugly last night. A LOL moment on the ABC report on their website though.
“That opinion is not shared by Australian track legend Raelene Boyle.
The Olympian insists the international sporting fraternity has an obligation to provide competitors with a level playing field.
“The IOC has to protect the rest of us; protecting those of us that are doing the right thing,” he said.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/11/2683807.htm
And Rationalist@5 isn’t Paul Sheehan so even handed and non-partisan?
Methinks Fairfax moves further to the right with every day.
Will someone please explain Dan Brown? Innocuous name, unoriginal plots, crap prose and they are printing 6.5 million copies of his next book. I used to think that popular fiction had some redeeming features but with the arrival of Brown I’m not so sure.
MH@3
OK, if the IOC is to provide a level playing field the obvious thing to do is to strip Semenya of her-his medal and institute a third category for people with androgen insensitivity syndrome. Caster Semenya would then stand a good chance of replacing the medal she had lost and scooping the pool for gold medals from then on.
I am unable to Google LP. When I do I get a message that tells me the website has shut down. I got onto this post by going through Face-book. Help!
Another nail in the coffin of the Wingnut Myth about the fall of the Soviet Empire.
Fran, I think I recall reading about your distaste for elite sport before. I have a question I would like to ask though. Without elite sport, how would you go about increasing a nation’s morale?
David H, the answer is easy. The media laps it up. They lap it up for the same reason they lap up the hysteria over Harry Potter. In both cases, there are a lot better books out there on the same subject or subject-oriented matter but they get no publicity.
One of the young libs quoted in the article linked to by Rationalist in comment 5:
”I think one of the dangers facing upcoming generations, including my own, is that we are developing an attitude of ‘what will the government do about it?’ I think the Rudd Government is sending the wrong message to Australians that we can’t function without the Government’s help in each area of our lives and I feel that this is fundamentally wrong.”
Just remind me again, which was the government that championed middle class welfare and nearly sent the country broke doing it? Couldn’t have been Howard, by any chance, could it? Not the great believer in “individual responsibility”?
Absolutely Katz. Thatcher didnt want to see the end of Communism, as it would mess with Britain’s far longer-term interest in a disunited Europe.
The other news for today: Sarkozy institute a Carbon tax from next year. Vive la France! http://www.theage.com.au/environment/sarkozy-to-the-rescue-20090911-fkt8.html
I see The Oz has started a saturation advertising campaign on SBS in preparation, for the paywall
I had the same problem yesterday, Paul @ 10, for quite some time using Alta Vista, Google and Bing. Even through linked articles in Crikey. I was told every time “there is nothing at this website address” It began when I was actually writing a comment at this site and when I clicked “submit” I was told the website address did not exist!
Patricia WA,
I had the problem yesterday too, but I was busy writing most of the day, so I thought I’d wait until this morning to see if it had cleared up. But it hadn’t. Still connecting via Facebook.
Does anybody know why its happening or is it just that my computer’s stuffed?
Senex@12
Here are some questions for you to consider before I offer a substantive answer:
1. Is a nation’s morale something that can be measured with the degree of precision to allow utility-based evaluation of resource allocation? If it’s more than a The Castle-style ‘it’s the vibe’ thing, what measures do you have in mind for longterm effectiveness-of-program auditing?
2. Is it possible that negative utilities,
a) for the nation as a whole
b) for parts of the nation
c) for other nations or parts of them
might be authored by resort to elite sport as a national morale-incrementing program. Regardless of the effect on the morale of Germans, would it have been better on the whole, if, for example, in 1936 at Berlin, the German track and field athletes had bested Jesse Owens? How would this have affected German or Eastern European Jews or Slavs?
Again, how would one go about accounting these negative utilities?
3. Opportunity Cost: What effects on other programs or public goods objectives does elite sport have?
a) How does elite sport affect housing costs, or skew/constrain transport and infrastructure policy?
4. Carbon (and other pollution) footprint: What do you see as the environmental footprint of elite sport? Consider the environmental cost of moving millions of people about and the cost of all the merchandise, not to speak of the costs of moving all the necessary equipment, the support staff, the cost of huge stadia, race tracks and swimming pools, the clearing of land for golf courses, the access roads and so forth.
5. Human rights: What are the civil and human rights implications of the security measures that needs must protect any elite sporting event associated with affirming the morale of nations?
Perhaps if you try answering these questions, you will approach a grasp of my attitude to elite sport.
In order to unravel the mystery of why Google won’t link to LP, mild-mannered historian Paul Burns undertakes research that leads him to the heart of a hidden deadly conspiracy which threatens the very foundations of Western civilization. Now, with Google nerds, Catholic bishops and mysterious Swiss assassins tracking his every move, his only hope is to team up with a beautiful young archaeologist and search for the key to the mystery in the Maldives, Istanbul, Zurich, Mayfair and Minorca, an exotic island where a mysterious Swiss Catholic Google assassin holds a secret to perhaps the greatest mystery of all…
Somebody wanted an explanation for Dan Brown? One word: airports.
A double dose of Paul Sheehan and Miranda every week. Way to go SMH!
Dear Fran,Er maybe people like elite sport,they watch it on TV and at sports grounds.
You may not like it but lots do.
I thought the Young Libs sounded just like the people Sheehan was criticizing,blinkered and suffering from convenient memory about Howard, Middle Class welfare,Lies,and trying to rewrite history.
Well,thew mysterious Swiss catholic assassin has just wiped my newsfeed from Facebook, and now I had to link here through Mark’s Facebook page.
(There was a pest sending me computer games that I deleted a couple of hours ago. Seems to have altered the whole look of my home-page, way back there. I guess I give up. But, when you haven’t ever read a Dan Brown book, I guess it gets hard to understand. (He has I believe gone from trying to upset Catholics to trying to upset Freemasons. Does that make him eclectic?
My morale increases when my team wins in a sports competition.
But not when it loses.
And whilst I enjoy my sports watching [my active days are sadly over and have left their legacy on various bits of my body] its a very very small part of how I get my morale boosting.
Hmm.
Let me count list just a very few of those things that, if going well, can boost my morale, or the converse.
Music. Arts in general. Movies/TV/theatre/ dance and similar stuff. Books.
Family is a biggy, particularly the grandkids.
Related to that are all the things that hopefully will go to enabling them to have a full and happy life. Good schools and health would be pretty high on the list of things important in that regard.
Hopefully they can have a choice of having a satisfying and rewarding career in the field[s] that they want. So laws and practices regarding work would seem to be relevant. I know I met a lot of people with very low morale and high anxiety about 2 years ago in the period before 24 November. That seems to have diminished slightly since.
The environment is important to everybody to a greater or leser degree, my grandkids were really disappointed when they saw the dead patch of our land that was once a vibrant wetland. The asked me what happened.
How do I answer that?
They worry, dinkum they really do and only a bit of it is down to me and family.
They cried when their mum cried on Sorry Day, again they asked why and she explained later when coherent, that boosted everyone’s morale although its gone down a bit in that regard since.
Blimey I could go on and on about how a society can boost its morale in dozens, hundreds of ways.
And very few of them have anything to do with sport.
Maybe that’s way some want to concentrate on the sports aspect?
So Dan Brown has nothing to do with elite sport? If I read more Dan Brown will my nationalistic sentiment decline in proportion to an increase in my general cynicism? Can we have a National Institute of Bookery next to the National Institute of Sport? So many questions, maybe Google has the answer…I’ll pray.
It’s been a better year for aussie films than it has for aussie sports.
My morale was boosted on the occasion of the apology to indigenous people, I thought it was a great first step in addressing what I think really ails this country and plays no small part in why we distract ourselves with sporting pursuits. I think sports provide an opportunity for us to can kid ourselves that there is an even playing field in this country. but a morale boost? not so much.
By reading through the comments so far I have gathered Dan Brown is an elite sport snob who was an unfortunately violent left wing uni student and has androgen insensitivity syndrome. I may have missed a few key points.
Paul, definitely not our computers! Mine is brand new and the problem seems to have entirely disappeared today, even at 5pm yesterday.
However, glad to find that you have the same sort of anxiety that sometimes strikes me about the internet, mobile phones and technology at large – i.e. any time it fails it must be me, or my equipment! I have overcome this by accepting with gratitude that 99.9% of the time it doesn’t fail and continues to offer an astonishing range of spectacle, wisdom and information for my delectation.
The internet delights and surprises me every day. Without needing to understand the technical intricacies which I guess could be explained to me if I took the time I still find it a miracle that people the world over are somehow cooperating to reveal themselves and the myriad details of their vibrant lives and stunning environments to each other. With so much order and seeming ease! If we do this together why can’t we live together without war?
The internet itself answers me. Because in revealing humanity to itself in all its magnificent complexity it also shows the darkness; the greed, the violence and the vice. Yet surely that underbelly is only a small component of the vast range of experiences we now share so easily of histories, ecologies, wisdom, creativity, and much much more…..but, most important of all, our common aspirations for a better world.
Time for a walk.
Of course, yesterday (still today over in the US) was the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist atrocity.
All the alternative internet Internet forum sites appear to have avoided any mention of 9/11.
Only the corporate and government newsmedia seem willing to raise 9/11 in order to once again drum into us the message that we must continue with our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the removal of our guarantees of democratic freedoms, human rights and free speech in order to ensure that the 9/11 attacks are never repeated.
How is it that 9/11 seems so off-limits on alternative Internet sites?
Could it be that they fear the views of people who disagree agree with the Official account of 9/11 being expressed?
Patricia WA,
Mine has only just started working. (To whoever the boffins were at LP that presumbly fixed it, much thanks. Waves of technological paranoia have just gently subsided.
Patricia, the Internet is indeed a wondrous beast. I stay away from the nasty stuff if I can, though I do occasionally get e-mailed by some RWDB or porno-freak who has picked up my address. Mostly I find it absolutely bloody marvellous – access to books on line and buyable, primary sources of all varieties, (eg American Memory at the Library of Congress – history-heads check it out some time -) blogs, like LP, which comprises much of my social political life now that I’ve dropped out of SA, Armchair General, which is brilliant place to chew over history with people from all round the world, etc, etc.
And now to enter the sports as a force of national cohesion etc., debate. I hate sport. I never watch it. I make a cup of coffee when it comes on TV. I hardly ever comment on sport posts. But I do recognise other people enjoy it immewnsely, and why not? But me? Give me a good book, a good movie or DVD, that rare bird decent television, or a good classical concert or a poetry reading, or piece of well-directed, well-acted live theatre any day.
re: “Loneliness of the University Liberal”.
I think that will all change in the not too distant future. Faster please.
And so it begins. What a nut job. People are trully going to regret voting for this guy.
Five reasons the Da Vinci Code is a bucket of arse.
Feeble and insincere apologies for linking to my own blog, there. But considering how many are called to the holy tabernacle of Dan Brown hatred, suurprisingly few are chosen.
oh, and as far as sport is concerned, not a great deal can be expected from a pastime or whatever it is that was basically invented by the Nazis, in its modern spectacular incarnation. Raelene Boyle is only enunciating the fascist principles that underly the whole concept. Senex, a thoroughly demoralised nation is a healthy nation, in my book.
Peter @ 31: Nothing new there.
“Governments around the world have suggested the United States talks tough against protectionism only when its own industries are not threatened.”
Look at how our own so-called Free Trade Agreement tiptoes around sensitive aspects of US agriculture.
Politics is nothing if not the art of compromise.
Re the Da Vinci Code:
At the time it was a huge deal, I had a bit of a look at it to see what the fuss was about. As far as I could tell, there seemed to be an inverse relationship between those who REALLY LIKED IT and everyone else who reads books. The neophyte readers thus don’t realise what a crap book it is. While reading it, these people are riveted by the different ideas and paradigms it explores. The Celestine Prophecy was a similar case.
Give me Kitty the Werewolf or Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books any day!
I’ve just had a look at the article Rationalist posted @5. I found myself floundering about, as usual, because none of the positions were defined. Hard left? Centre Left? Liberal? Right? Far Right? Labor has never struck me as being left wing at all, and suddenly it’s acquired a “leftist” identity.
Left and Right is clearly no longer about on what side of the King one sits. Both Marxist Socialist States and Neo Rationalist economic structures haven’t worked out terribly well. In the article there seemed to be an underlying assumption that “left” = “more State intervention”. “Right” = “less State intervention”.
All I’m sure about is that the continuum isn’t about how deeply one loathes John Howard. Howard Hating seems to cross all political boundaries, I always thought.
Always brilliant. Dorothy Parker at “Loon Pond”
http://loonpond.blogspot.com/
In praise of Raelene Boyle!Are you sure what she has said actually implies a criticism of the athlete,or a criticism of those behind the athlete!? When I was young Raelene was not only a pleasing personality,but a dasher of a runner,and if health meets beauty she wasn’t that far removed.As it turned out she suffered badly from certain countries cheating and putting in heaps of effort against impossible odds.The sickoes here are ready to shit on a good Australian, Raelene probably is mostly in line with their thinking.Sometimes the Elite of a country trying to set a standard that others can follow suffer more from the reckless of their own country.Raelene was universally liked.Can you say the same about yourselves dears!?
Catallaxy has been hacked by “Mahmoud SQL”, apparently a Euro-Muslim hacker or hacking team. If anyone wants to have a look, beware, I have no idea whether the site is safe to view from a Windows system.
IRONY ALERT
From the Paul Sheehan article:
“Being a Liberal at university can be politically very lonely. Courtney Dunn, 19, has never knowingly met another Liberal at the two University of Western Sydney campuses where she studies for a combined arts and law degree. ”The most visible political students on campus are the hard left, who the average student doesn’t relate to, which is further reason why voluntary student unionism is such a positive thing.”
”I think one of the dangers facing upcoming generations, including my own, is that we are developing an attitude of ‘what will the government do about it?’
Yet this is the same person demanding government do something, complaining about the number of trains services that service areas with limited population (and the horror, the horror – having to change trains)
MARIE FICARRA: – To add insult to injury the Labor Government recently cut peak hour rail services to the extent that no direct service from the Southern Highlands to the central business district arrives during the morning peak hour. Courtney Dunn, an 18-year-old Picton resident, recently contacted me. Courtney started working in the central business district after finishing high school at the end of last year. Like many residents of Picton and the Wollondilly shire, Courtney relies on public transport to get to and from work each day and, along with many people from Sydney’s outskirts, she spends a considerable amount of time commuting. Since beginning her job in January, Courtney became frustrated by the state of the rail service when, in a little over a month of working in the central business district, the evening rail service that she catches from Campbelltown to Picton was cancelled on six different occasions.
Unlike some people who are willing to put up with a poor rail service that has been compounded by many years of neglect, Courtney is a young woman who is ready to fight for her local community and has set out on a campaign to get a better deal for Southern Highlands commuters. Within a day of deciding to do something about the rail service, Courtney got over 50 people to sign a petition for better train services and had contacted the local newspaper, the Wollondilly Advertiser, to voice her concerns. The Wollondilly Advertiser has since run a number of stories about the poor train services to the Southern Highlands and is getting behind the campaign for improvements, and more local residents are signing Courtney’s petition by the day. My colleague in the other place, the member for Goulburn, Pru Goward, has been working for a better deal for Southern Highlands rail commuters and I know that she has encouraged Courtney in her efforts.
One thing that particularly frustrates Courtney and many other Southern Highlands commuters is the lack of services in the morning peak hour. There are currently only two services for the morning peak hour and both these services terminate at Campbelltown, meaning commuters are forced to change trains. During her campaign, Courtney has found that many residents have just given up on the Southern Highlands line and are either driving to work or driving to Campbelltown station. With poor services like this it is no wonder that so many commuters feel this way and it adds to the stress on their local roads in peak hour.
Nathan Bracken: get a bloody haircut and lose that bloody hair band.
Philistine!
What a scary ting!
http://blogs.smh.com.au/sport/Bracken.jpg
@42: Hold onto your hat here: I don’t drink VB either.
Noticed a quote in the piece ‘Loneliness of a young Liberal’ complaining about a group that stood for nothing except hatred of John Howard.
Let’s see. A group that stands for nothing but hatred of John, err, Kevin Rudd.
That’d be the Liberals.
Nonsense Rx,
Most libs just think Rudd’s a dud. Nothing like the venom spewed at Howard on this and other forums. Same goes for Obama vs Bush. No comparison.
Peter, I think you are blind on both counts, though, particularly the latter.
Obama is loathed. You hear those good ol’ boys splutter with rage at his very name. A lot of the time just because of his colour.
Kevin, you can tell, gets up those Liberal noses because they just do not take kindly to losing the privilege and power. You see, because they never learned to share, they are now very angry and incompetant with it.
Daggett #28 on 911
Pepe Escobar in Asia Times asks 50 questions about 911. I was wondering, is asking questions a less risky way to avoid defamation suits than making statements?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI11Ak02.html
Laura @ 33
Not true. They invented gas chambers. They developed huge public rallies (a la Nuremberg) before the ’36 Olympics but they most certainly did not invent elite sport. Int’l cricket (Ashes etc) – not due to the Nazis. They persecuted Slavs and Jews and Gypsies and Communists and the mentally infirm, but they didn’t invent elite sport.
Raelene Boyle is not a fascist. She may be harsh, restrictive, misquoted and several other things but she is not a fascist.
Let’s invent a Godwin’s Olympics competition. Event 1: think of something you can blame the Nazis for. Give it no further thought.
Event 2: find someone you can call a “FASCIST”.
Event 3: Have a bit of a lie down after the strenuous effort of competing inEvents 1 and 2.
(Cross-posted to Weekend Reflections on johnquiggin.com)
On Correspondents Report just now (podcast seems unavailable at this moment) an ABC reporter said that a CIA agent told her that ‘Al Qaeda’ was planning an even bigger terrorist attack upon the US than 9/11. I didn’t get all of the words, but she said roughly:
Given the gross, unbelievable incompetence of the US Government in its failure to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks (that is if we accept the Official September 11 Conspiracy Theory and not the alternative Conspiracy Theory) and given that not one single figure in the Administration of President George W Bush was even reprimanded, let alone sacked for that incompetence, would anyone here put their trust in the US Government to prevent the next attack?
If the attack were to succeed (or even if it were not to, but were to be thwarted at the last minute) does anyone not see how this could be used as an excuse to completely remove our democratic freedoms, civil liberties and human rights?
Obama is loathed. You hear those good ol’ boys splutter with rage at his very name. A lot of the time just because of his colour.
Listen to what the man says, Peter. Those 9/12 folk are full-on crazy.
I’ve always hated this turn of phrase for its arrant absurdity. As improbable as it may sound however, I was able to buttonhole the latest offender her on the street just yesterday and the impromptu interview with Mr Empty
FB: Mr Empty, you don’t mind if I call you that do you …?
Mr Empty: Not at all. My friends call me that …
FB: You say that you are not ruling it out and you’re not ruling it in…
Mr Empty: That’s right …
FB: It’s impossibly paradoxical, surely?
Mr Empty: How so?
FB: You say you’re statements are logically consistent, do you not, Mr Empty?
Mr Empty: I sure do
FB: You would agree that ruling something out and ruling it in covers the full gamut of policy options, would you not?
Mr Empty: Well yes …
FB: So the conclusion is compelled, if you are consistent, that not ruling something out and not ruling something in are to some extent at least, coextensive.
Mr Empty: Yes I suppose …
FB: So in your view, the words out and in are not mutually exclusive
Mr Empty: Well err … look, all I’m saying is that I don’t want to commit to a policy on this right now.
FB: Oh I think I get that, but that means that you are going to commit to a policy in the future, does it not?
Mr Empty:Well yes …
FB: So before that time you will seek data about the feasibility of the existing workplace relations regime, consider proposals for individual contracts being discussed within the party room with an open mind, correct?
Mr Empty: Well yes …
FB: Can you do that if you rule it out? If you rule it out, you’re saying that such discussion would be pointless and counterproductive, surely?
Mr Empty: Well yes …
FB: So not ruling it out, entails ruling it in, not just in theory, but in practice. You are seeking a discussion of the matter.
Mr Empty: Can we talk about how Mr Rudd is like some Communist Party General Secretary?
FB: If you like … you said it was extraordinary
Mr Empty: That’s right
FB: Yet you also said he was the Bradman of Boredom
Mr Empty: That’s right. I could have added the Baudrillard of Boredom but that would have cost me two points in the polls for knowing a post-structuralist and reading LP.
FB: Indeed. So you are saying that the extraordinary is boring?
Mr Empty: Err yes …
FB: Was Stalin a post-structuralist?
Mr Empty: Oh no … definitely a structuralist … hang on … oh there goes two points …
FB: Out is in, the boring is extraordinary … you’re having a problem with consistency aren’t you Mr Empty?
Mr Empty: Maybe if I could be a post-structuralist, it would be easier …
FB: There goes another two points …
||||
Well one can dream …
Ambigulous – if you’d read my comment properly you’d see i said the Nazis basically invented elite sport in its modern spectacular incarnation, and that Boyle is enunciating the facist principles that underlie sport – not that Nazis invented elite sport per se – nor that Boyle is a fascist herself.
I was interested to observe that the Greens rep who interjected in the parliament and mocked Senator Fielding’s disability wasn’t named by the press. It was Sarah Hansen-Young.
I’m fairly sure the Nazis didn’t invent the gas chamber, though – they only Fordised it.
Laura, I think that claim is rather a stretch.
Professional cricket and baseball dates extends well back to the nineteenth century, and the VFL – which broke away from the VFA to permit professionalism – formed in 1896.
Is your claim that the Nazis invented sport as a vehicle for nationalism? Yes, they may have taken it to new and ugly heights in 1936, but invented it? Hardly.
Adam Tucker @ 54.
I’m disabled in various ways. So, re Steve Fielding’s disability, speaking as a disabled person to non-disabled people – you can be disabled like Fielding – though calling a learning difficulty a disability is a bit of a stretch, I think – and, like Fielding, still be an utter, complete fuckwit.
The Nazis were on about racial and physical purity. Part of the story comes from Germanic culture (and Simon Schama in his book Landscape and Memory articulates how far back that goes). There was a whole set of traditions in both the 19th and 20th centuries in the west that latched onto physical purity and referenced that back to the Greeks vis a vis the re-establishment of Olympism. (And it was no accident Rudolf Steiner built his philosophies, with a deep emphasis on purity, from a Germanic heritage)
What Hitler did was to take this myth within the Germanic context and place it as propaganda into the the mass media, for example through the work of Leni Riefenstahl. Those methods were clearly a development that resonates today, but it was the photography (i.e., tracking shots of athletes), that was the invention. All else can be traced to existing developments with deep historical roots.
“if you’d read my comment properly you’d see i said the Nazis basically invented elite sport in its modern spectacular incarnation,”
I think that’s highly questionable as well, Laura. The 1936 Summer Olympics have strong associations with the Nazis, obviously, given that they took place in Berlin but they were conducted by the IOC on the same lines as previous events. The Nazis certainly didn’t invent the fire, stadium and marching teams spectacular.
Leni Riefenstahl did however make a movie about the Games (called ‘Olympia”) which was arguably the prototype for modern sports filming technique.
Interestingly, there was a gender controversy at the ’36 games (two female medallists later had FtoM gender reassignment surgery) which led to the much later introduction of gender verification by the IOC.
Rather surprised to see what’s a fairly widely held view so strongly rejected, to be honest. I did state it in a sloppy hyperbolic Saturday Salon style, sure, but the notion that the 1936 Olympics initiated our current culture’s special delight in racial, imperial, gendered and nationalist rituals of domination, expressed via hi-tech representations of fake antique / Classical body imagery, all served within the mediatised stadium spectacular where the crowd becomes part of the spectacle, has been around in sociology & history at least since th e1970s – see for instance Richard Mandell’s _The Nazi Olympics_ – and going back further, it was recognised & described by cultural theorists who were there at the time, eg Benjamin, Lacan.
I’m not specially down with the late 90s melange postmodernism informing this essay, but it cites some of the key work on the links between the modern technologised sporting spectacle and fascism, eg Buck-Morss. http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fir998/AMfr4e.htm For another view see _The Nazi Olympics: sport, politics and appeasement in the 1930s_ ed Krüger, or the essays in special issue on the modern olympics, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 67 (June 1996). A jargon-free introduction to the issues can be found in this review of the recent exhibition at the Holocaust Museum http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.la84foundation.org%2FSportsLibrary%2FOlympika%2FOlympika_1996%2Folympika0501h.pdf&ei=1GqsSvCELI7e7AOFm6jUBw&usg=AFQjCNFg_fP3dfVPx-bzHLFUwkTz8TAABA&sig2=XXCLD5y2LEtj9VLzQAmDig . For an exploration of the ways aspects of the 1936 Olympics, including the decisions of other countries to participate, established multiple remarkably persistent patterns informing the conduct of elite sport at the international level, see _The Unlevel Playing Field: a documentary history of the African American experience in sport_, eds. Wiggins and Miller.
“The Nazis certainly didn’t invent the fire, stadium and marching teams spectacular. ”
Geoff, by ‘fire’ do you mean the torch relay? Actually, the Nazis did invent that. It was a lovely touch thought up by the propaganda ministry.
Laura, associating a pastime that I and many other LP readers enjoy with “fascist principles” is pretty inflammatory, and was guaranteed to generate just a bit of resistance.
You know, I just knew the Nazis weren’t all bad.
Some might giiggle. But it seems Catallaxy has been invaded by a hacker. So it might do to be on guard. He’s a real n’ah n’ah n’ah jerk this guy.
Actually, the Nazis did invent that.
.
Yeah they thought they were demonstrating their inheritance. They thought they were the New Wave of Ancient Greece. Fascists alway do seem to corner the market on unintentional irony.
I’ve got to agree strongly with Laura on this one (except to point out that the Olympic Flame dates from 1928; the Nazis only innovation was to make it a cross-country event). Remember that the people who created the modern corporate Olympic games of the post-war were often Fascists too; Juan-Antonio Samaranch for instance was one of Franco’s cronies and a proud son of the Falange into old age.
To be fair, though, I tend to prefer the egalitarian-nationalist ideal of the Olympics and FIFA World Cup over it’s worse alternatives: Baron de Coubertin’s original reincarnation of amateur private gentlemen’s honourable athletism without women or proletarians on one hand, and the kinds of nationalist sporting movements that created bizarre and pathetic late-nineteenth century chauvinist sports like Pankration, and the Gaelic Games that were part of the Gaelic Revival, on the other.
I recall a radio interview with Asa Briggs in about 2002 who said not entirely tongue-in-cheek that modern Europe had displaced the urge to kill one’s neighbours with the urge to watch one’s neighbours beaten in UEFA Cup football. That’s got to be a good thing.
I’m surprised at you, RM.
You’re generally the most uncompromisingly scientistic of the posters here, the most willing on general principle to bend inclination and enthusiasm when faced with proveable fact. The Olympics have radical, nationalist, right-wing roots, with stacks of evidence in their favour, and historically it’s pretty uncontroversial to say make the link. To not follow an argument because of where it might politically lead is something you’d expect of right-wing Laborite hypocrites like me, or the other bourgeois leftists around here [cough], not empiricists like yourself.
ONE OF US, ONE OF US, etc.
The Olympics have radical, nationalist, right-wing roots,
.
So do Combi Vans and look how they ended up.
when even the Greens sold out on it. what hope did the mary river ever have. we need a third political party that is centre-left and opposed to prvatisation of asstes and this dam.
“Geoff, by ‘fire’ do you mean the torch relay? Actually, the Nazis did invent that. It was a lovely touch thought up by the propaganda ministry.”
i was thinking of the Olympic flame that burns in the main stadium.
Liam, actually you’re the one I’m surprised at. “Nationalistic” isn’t “fascist” isn’t identical with “Nazi.” If I understand Laura correctly, the contention was that the 1936 Nazi All-Black-and-Reds were responsible for an original, new set of tropes (which became ours today, is that a fair summation?), viz. we should credit the ’36 Nazis specifically, not the general historic flow of increasing nationalism.
Depends what you mean, I guess. Babe Ruth’s famous “called shot” happened in Chicago in 1932, four years before the Nazilympics, for instance. Hype? Check. Triumphalism? Check. Huge crowds? Check. Ginormous stadium for the “masses”? Check. Nationalism? Check, sorta (the national anthem was sung before the game). And all this stuff was well-established in sports culture well before that (and I bet in other sports too — anyone care to comment on cricket?).
I think the new ingredients the Nazis added to all this were a profound humorlessness about it, and grim Teutonic precision and determination. Babe Ruth was part of a rowdy squad that played for a rowdy, fun-loving crowd, he liked his beer and had a tremendous paunch for an athlete — presumably he wouldn’t pass muster in a Germanic cult of bodily purity (despite being a German): but we don’t see such a cult in the Anglosphere sporting world today, do we? At least not in a consistent way. Or would one say that we do? (with bodies sculpted by steroids etc.?) Though I will concede that NBA basketball is filmed in a crypto-fascist style full of dominance obsession and body glorification and insane “mighty warrior” posturing. (Good grief, you’re a bunch of grown men throwing around a rubber ball, get over yourselves.)
As for the “gendering” of sport, doesn’t it go back at least as far as the funeral games in the Iliad?
btw, for a hilarious take on gender in sports, look up on Youtube “Babe Ruth in Fancy Curves,” a lame one-reel erstwhile comedy where he coaches an all-girls team. All your gender tropes in one spot — even a scene of Babe Ruth transvestism! (true.)
Sheen Challenges 9/11 Truth Debunkers to Larry King Live Debate
AUSTIN, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire/ — Appearing on The Alex Jones Show today to
discuss his video address to Barack Obama, Charlie Sheen has challenged those
who have publicly attacked him for speaking out on 9/11, particularly Meghan
McCain, Rush Limbaugh Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, to debate him on CNN’s
Larry King Live.
Following the publication of Sheen’s “20 Minutes With The President,” a
fictionalized account of a meeting with Barack Obama in which Sheen implores
the President to reopen the investigation of 9/11 in light of the majority of
the 9/11 Commission members publicly denouncing the official story as a
deception, McCain attacked Sheen on ABC’s top rated show The View, comparing
people who question 9/11 with holocaust deniers.
…
A familiar theme arising out of such hit pieces is an effort to imply that
Sheen’s questioning of the official 9/11 story is somehow an “outrage” and
hurtful to the family members of the victims, despite the fact that the
majority of victims’ family members share the same questions.
Furthermore, claiming that people who doubt the government story are on par
with holocaust deniers completely ignores the fact that six of the ten 9/11
Commission members, along with scores of other highly credible former and
current government officials, intelligence professionals, military officials,
scientists, structural engineers and architects, and legal scholars have all
publicly questioned the official version of events behind September 11.
Fox News talking heads Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, as well as popular
radio host Rush Limbaugh, have also attempted to attack Sheen’s credibility
while failing to discuss any of the subjects he actually raised.
In response, Sheen told The Alex Jones Show that he is challenging any one or
all of McCain, Hannity, Limbaugh or O’Reilly to a debate about 9/11 on CNN’s
Larry King Live or any other television show in Los Angeles, adding that the
show must be broadcast live to prevent bias editing. …
“To be fair, though, I tend to prefer the egalitarian-nationalist ideal of the Olympics and FIFA World Cup over it’s worse alternatives:”
I completely agree with the principle of this although the actuality of each Olympics continues to fill me with rage and disgust. And while I personally can’t get interested in any pasttime like NRL which celebrates a distorted version of masculinity as violent dominance, I do agree there are certainly less bad sports, as the great-granddaughter of a Test captain I think cricket is one of them; it doesn’t apparently involve group masturbation or rape, although it is extremely racist still.
Personally I think competitive, win-focused sport which depends on segregations of various types is inhumane, stupid and pathetic. Raelene Boyle believes the IOC has a duty to “protect the rest of us”, maybe by starting a separate Olympics “for these people with not the normal physical make-up or chromosomal or scientific make-up that we have”. Either make it that you can only have races between people who are exactly the same in every possible way, or let everyone race, including animals. Then we’ll find out once and for all whether there will ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark.
Jane Austen was a sport fascist. She forced Mr Darcy to carry a torch for Elizabeth Bennet.
Letting humans and animals compete in the same arena has been tried before — think Coliseum, Christians, beasts of the Imperial Menagerie, etc etc.
Result: needs improvement. The chariot races in the Hippodrome were a better ticket, but the fans could get a little, um, unruly.
” Either make it that you can only have races between people who are exactly the same in every possible way, or let everyone race, including animals. Then we’ll find out once and for all whether there will ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark.”
I don’t think it is reasonable to assume animals want to race others be they other animals or humans.
Do you envisage the presence of a group of people who specialise in training various animals for sports events? Let’s put it this way – if you can get your cow to my place I’ll get one of mine to race your’s in the river out front. 200m individual medley OK?
Just thought I’d also say surfing is a non competitve past-time . You can arrange to judge each other but that is a small minority much wedded to advertising and corporate sponsorship.
The rest of us are engaged in a quite useless and non productive activity which makes you feel happy when you get out of the water.
Laura @ 53
I don’t think I failed to read your 33 “properly”. But I could be wrong.
The 1956 Olympics in Melbourne were homely, provincial, international, friendly and liberal (under the clouds of the Cold War). Fascist they were not. Fascistic? not that either. Ask someone who was there.
You’re welcome to your views of sport, sporting compoetition, etc. Hitler has little to do with it. Was there any area of life and culture he didn’t attempt to warp and poison? Should we conemn documentary film because Riefenstahl served Nazi aims? I think not.
Bread and circuses were invented long before 1936.
Seeing goose-stepping PLA troops, or massed North Korean persons, or Red Square military parades (in Soviet times) reminds me more of Hitler’s regime and its panoply of regimented, choreographed spectacle than any international sporting meeting.
There’s clearly more to say here, but I would acknowledge the long and dishonorable history of the Olympics.
That said, elite sport and the Olympics are not one and the same thing.
Indeed they are not, Robert.
Some elite sport is mostly conducted within ONE nation with scarcely any international competition. Example: Aussie Rules football. Go Saints!!
By the way, comment 55 is one of the most profoundly callous I’ve read on LP. I think the word “only” sets it apart.
May the innocent victims of Hitler’s regime rest in peace.
Ambigulous, re #55, you’re protesting too much. Let me assure you I am not in the least callous about the holocaust. When I finally finish my marking and get it written, if you give me an email address, I will send you the article I’m working on about what it was like interviewing visitors to the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam last month. Actually, I wish I’d developed a few more protective psychological calluses before leaping into that particular abyss.
Doesn’t it bother you even a tiny bit that women aren’t allowed to play AFL or NRL, or compete against men in almost any sports? They could you know. It would be a simple matter of lifting or adjusting the drug ban, which in some ways is more a mechanism for creating an uneven playing field than for levelling one.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/gameon/2008/08/citius-altius-f.html
Hoges, by prophylactic supply statistics, at least 100,000 roots in the last 2 Olympics but surely the lefties didn’t miss out?
(Could there have been some “blowback” on right wing Christian virginity pledges to validate your assertion of the political flavour of this activity?)
:-)
Jam Master JPZ, I certainly wouldn’t ever argue that Nazism is equal to Fascism is equal to nationalism; any more than you’d contend that funk was equal to soul was equal to rock ‘n’ roll. Still—four-four time is four-four time, and a team in coloured shirts is a team in coloured shirts, whether on a football pitch or out in the street, and they share supporters, and they share familiar aims. (Which I say, note, as a supporter of Real Madrid).
Sport history’s full of elite spectacle, as others have noted, going back in organised media-marketed fashion to the circuses of the Romans, and pre-planned games-and-ritual are a universal part of humanity. And just because it can be oppressive and awful doesn’t mean it can’t also be amazing and beautiful; as the celebrated post-Fascist Enoch Powell observed, football’s nothing more or less than working-class ballet.
Excuse me: Alf Garnett, not Enoch Powell.
(So similar but so different)
Thanks Laura,
Did I misread 55 too? I’m distressed to hear of your project in Amsterdam. I had a brief visit to that city and chose Rembrandt paintings on a Saturday afternoon instead. I couldn’t face the Anne Frank Museum.
Instead, Vermeer won me over, in the Rijksmuseum. And a small statue in Leyden: a sad young girl, with the years of the WW2 occupation inscribed. No words. Exquisite anguish, strong remembrance.
Women in sport? What did Anne Frank write about that?
For all the conspiracy theorists out there. And this gem.
Laura, I don’t think merely making performance-enhancing drugs available to adult women would go anywhere close to evening up the score in the AFL.
The average AFL player is 185 centimetres tall. According to ABS figures (from 1995 and across the population, so not quite representative of young adults, but close enough to be indicative) 24.5% of men are over 180 centimetres in height; only 0.1% of women are.
Given that, unless you’re going to give HGH to girls on the basis that a tiny fraction of them might be further chemically assisted to play AFL footy, the odds are that very few women would be competitive AFL players even with chemical assistance.
Furthermore, while AFL players are endurance athletes, they also require a great deal of strength. So while you could give a woman AFL player EPO to assist with their endurance (which is actually an area where the differences between women and men are comparatively small), to be able to compete in strength terms the drugs of choice are steroids of one form or another. And if you want to know the long-term side effects of administering steroids to female athletes, go ask an East German.
On top of that, there’s also the little issue of anterior cruciate ligaments. Female athletes are, apparently, about eight times more likely to suffer this rather nasty injury than male athletes. Given ACL injuries are amongst the most common season-ending injuries in the AFL, it would seem likely that a large fraction of women who chemically enhanced their muscular strength and power to the point where they would be competitive AFL players would suffer an ACL injury sooner or later.
There are sports where your argument is plausible – endurance sports, particularly cycling because some disciplines within it favour small athletes – but AFL and NRL aren’t among them.
Women’s exclusion from much elite sport – and the marginalization of many women’s competitions in sports where they do participate – are important issues to think about in our sports-mad culture. But the idea that chemical assistance is a way out of it doesn’t really stack up.
When I was studying a gender studies course as part of my Honours coursework I had a private joke along the lines that all debates within feminism ultimately boiled down to the question of whether football should be played by both genders or banned for both genders.
I read on the weekend that the West Atlas Oil Spill now covers nearly 6000Km2. The company, PTTEP Australasia says it should have the spill under control within four weeks.
This is very disappointing. Where’s the idea of turning a crisis into an opportunity. Since the spill can be seen from space, why not use ships and booms to fashion it into a shape like the COMPANY LOGO. They could have the world’s biggest ad …
Big signs can be in the ocean as well as the skies — a little dye and you can get out the the good oil …
Fran
Despite my avowed distaste for sport, I do occasionally delve into sport history.And, in response to the query about nationalism showing its ugly face in cricket, from an Australian and British viewpoint may I offer the following: November 1932, the Bodyline matches at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where the English,threw balls at the bodies of Australian batsman, notably one Don Bradman, (who I’ve never really had much affection for). Jardine was so hated by the mob on the Hill, that when he brushed at the summer flies some-one yelled outr, “Leave our flies alone, Jardine.” According to the TV series Bodyline, Aussies burnt the Union Jack. On one interpretation, the Bodyline matches plunged Australian/British relationships into crisis. (Which just shows how dangerous nationalism can be.)
Most of you probably realise by now, that despite being a socialist (genuine, not what the Americans call socialist) I have a soft spot for the US. Nevertheless, they did poisdon Phar Lap, which, along with the Smoot-Hawley tariff wars provoked a fair bit of Aussie nationalism against the Yanks here in the 1930s.
And I’m not even going to comment on the racist fascism of the Howard inspired Cronulla Riots when Ratty was PM.
Paul, I was also going to mention Bodyline as an example of sporting nationalism.
Not entirely coincidental that the examples we’re all thinking of are from the 1930s, I suspect.
There was also the notoriously bloody water polo match between the Russians and the Hungarians at the 56 Olympics.
Here’s some light reading for anyone interested in the idea of lifting the drug ban, which I understand is rather fictive anyway in that it doesn’t prevent untestable drugs from being used. http://eprints.vu.edu.au/259/ Or this one, without a specifically feminist agenda but saying much the same thing: why we should allow performance enhancing drugs in sport
Not that there aren’t later examples of course. Think Melbourne 1956, the water polo game between the USSR and Hungary …the Black Power salute at Mexico 1968 and the what happened to the Aussie at that event … the use of 1980′s Olympics as a vehicle for boycott by the US/Australia and the tit-for-tat by the USSR at LA 1984 (and the USA’s response). Could anyone have missed the nationalism at Beijing, 2008? Doubtful.
The famous ‘football war’ between El Salvador maybe germane here. It wasn’t caused by soccer or the World Cup, but it did provide the trigger.
A shooting war followed.
Paul Burns,
the legend is that “the Yanks poisoned Phar Lap”. I vaguely recall that recent work points the finger towards a tonic administered by Phar Lap’s Aussie trainer, but not sure of the details.
Robert M: I found Laura’s suggestion that there should be open slather on performance enhancing drugs, just to attempt to get women players into AFL teams, quite remarkably strange. Isn’t there evidence of long-term harm to athletes, who take these (anabolic steroids and others)?
And the largest-scale officially sanctioned drug use program for sports competitors was by the DDR athletes, in a society having (arguably) more similarities to Hitler’s Germany [State control, secret police, heavy indoctrination, etc.] than most other societies across the globe at that time.
Women’s cricket, women’s golf, women’s tennis, women’s swimming, women’s athletics are all thriving. Netball is fantastic: at the elite and suburban/country levels. Some women play Aussie Rules in their own competition.
Don’t aim so low Laura: don’t urge women to copy Fevola, Cousins, Carey and the rabble!!
A most interesting discussion on sport. Fran might be surprised to know that I agree with much of what she said @ 18. In particular I’ll be surprised if 30 years down the track sporting teams are flitting around the world with such gay abandon.
Nevertheless I personally enjoy watching most forms of sport. A large part of it has to do with an appreciation of human skill, speed, endurance and/or power. I enjoyed a performance of Circus Oz last week. There were some aspects of how roles were portrayed that could be criticised, but especially memorable was the strong woman, where half the troupe climbed on her back and the obvious affection between her and the dwarf woman who was about half her height. Also the incredible skill and control in the hula hoop performance by one of the women and much more.
I don’t know a lot about sport history and found the information from Laura and others fascinating. I suspect, though, if we were able to excise the Berlin Olympics from history, elite sport and the Olympics would not be noticeably different now.
I’m surprised that Laura sees cricket as less bad. I seems to be designed for 11 people to humiliate and mentally destroy the opposing team one at a time, and has the converse opportunity for individuals to humiliate the whole of the other team.
I appreciate NRL for the combination of skill, speed, power, endurance, teamwork and tactics. Although wingers are commonly 100 kg these days there is a role for little men, such as Preston Campbell, Brett Kimmorely and others, although they have to be very tough and strong and prepared to tackle head on a 115kg prop forward going like a runaway train. There have been some excellent matches this year now that the tackling/play-the-ball area has been cleaned up.
Apart from State of Origin and always wanting to beat New Zealand, South Africa and the Poms at anything, I don’t much mind who wins. If you follow enough sports some of “my” teams are always winning. The Lions went down in AFL, but the Broncos prevailed in one of the best matches of the year. The Aussie Diamonds beat the Silver Ferns at netball, Federer kept on winning and Clijsters sorted out Serena Williams. And we creamed the Poms at cricket (a magnificent spell of bowling by Brett Lee a highlight).
I see lots of aspects that I don’t approve of all the time. I like to think that the fact that I don’t get angry or upset is because I’ve learnt the futility and destructiveness of those emotions. Probably, though, it has more to do with my system producing less testosterone, or something.
Finally, I think the damaging consequences of an over-emphasis on winning and competitiveness is a greater problem in junior sport, rather than in the elite arena.
Ambigulous #92, there are some quite high-profile examples (mainly from the US) of individuals who are known or strongly suspected to have died an early death due to taking performance-enhancing drugs. One notable case some years ago involved a gridiron player who died a lingering and miserable death from illnesses brought on by steroid use.
Brian @93
I also like some elite sport, including as you know, the cricket.
I wouldn’t favour banning elite sport — bans are only for the most intractable and pernicious of activities IMO, but I don’t think it should be directly or indirectly facilitated by the state or by subsidies. It should have to pay its way, and if this meant there was less of it, so be it.
I’d be a tad disappointed if there were less cricket, but then again, one can argue that we have something of a surfeit — do we really need seven ODIs in England? Doubtful. Either way, it would be a price worth paying on grounds of general utility.
Ambigulous @ 92,
I cheerfully stand corrected on Phar Lap. As I understand it, a couple of years before the nmost recent research, which I think was last year, traces of arsenic were found in Phar Lap’s hair. The latest evidence, coming from the trainer’s diary or medicine book I think, showed the poisoning was accidental.Your comment jogged my memory.
[Whips oneself for perpetrating historical inaccurracy/howler.)
Advocates for allowing performance enhancing drugs suggest there should be a shift of focus from testing for substances to testing for health. Nobody recommends anabolic steroid use for this reason.
There are plenty of practices athletes engage in that are potentially harmful besides taking drugs, and plenty of drugs that are not harmful to health if used properly.
Paul B, please do not WHIP yourself on our account. Or at least have it televised as a reality TV show and make squillions. :-)
Thanks Paul N, I couldn’t recall the details.
Laura, I don’t doubt that there are other potentially harmful pracices: but you raised drug use as a possible “way to go”. It’s not sufficient, to say “look over there, some OTHER harmful practices!”
I hope your marking’s going well. (Some use coffee, others use Jaffas or other chocolate I’m told.)
Fran @ 95, I think that for every ODI we play in this country we are obliged to go and play one in the touring country in return. This has been overloading the schedule for our guys. I think it’s partly behind the recent reduction of our summer commitments in this regard.
Brian@99
Personally, I wouldn’t shed many tears over the demise of L50 cricket. It’s a pretty stale and tame format these days. L20 gives most of those that L50 was pitched at all of what they want.
I know it’s not fashionable, but I like L50 cricket. I find L20 a bit too much hit and run although it can get exciting. I like the more drawn out form, especially when you can really put the brakes on the other team with some good bowling and see the run rate blow out over 6 an over or watch a thrilling chase. I would like to see it stay, but I’m in the minority I think.
I think the thing is Mindy that with an L20 the whole thing is over in an evening after work, so it is more marketable. Potentially you can have a doubleheader and even if there is a little rain you can probably still get through the whole fixture without a D/L result.
Far more people have three hours to spare than have six and it’s a better fit with work patterns too.
I’m not a fan of Twenty/20. It’s just a slogathon and I believe it will morph into a different game altogether.
Nana Levu @49.
Thanks for your interest in my post on 9/11 and thanks for that link to that most helpful article.
I think there are two reasons why 9/11 Truth activists often tend to ask questions. One is, as you say to avoid the risk of defamation suits (although defation laws in this country are not as bad as they once were (which is one of the very few good things brough about by the Howard Govenment, or, more accurately, Philip Ruddock).
The other is that we don’t know many of the answers.
The only people who do are those who planned and executed the 9/11 terrorist atrocity.
That is why there needs to be a proper investigation so that people like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Rudi Giuliani, George Bush et al can properly account for their bizarre behaviour on that day. It lokks as if that will occur. It looks as if New York City residents will be allowed to vote on whether to set up an enquiry at the November general elections.
Pepe Escobar in Asia Times asks 50 questions about 911. I was wondering, is asking questions a less risky way to avoid defamation suits than making statements?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI11Ak02.html
Sheesh Daggett, cutting and pasting your own comments on the one thread.
Watchit mate – self-parody’s a mug’s game in the end.
Who’s to say that Daggett didn’t author both comments? Why are you denying the only outlet for people who want to question the Official Comment Timeline? What agendas are you serving FDB?
I’VE BEEN SILENCED ALL MY LIFE
Of greater importance here is what certain members of the BAHNISCH FAMILY other LP ILLUMINATI were up to at the time of the thread-comment-temporal-anomaly-and/or-failure-to-attribute attack. Flight records show them on the last two chartered DC-10s out of Brisbane, bound for Nauru – and the official “explanation”? Bah! Missy Higgins isn’t scheduled to play the Yaren Tavern and Grill until next Thursday.
There is also a petition signed by 4,300 electronic engineers and IT specialists which questions the official explanation.
just for the LULZ
BTW This thread is a great read.
Probably because I read a Google News item about season 2 of Mad Men that confused me – has Series 2 started on one or other of the SBS’s last weekend and did I miss it because it was at 11pm at night – or have I missed promos because I didn’t want to be bored out of my mind by cricket? Am keen to know.
Well I for one left the public service 10 years to the day before 9/11, so obviously I had something to do with it! Nobody has ever asked me to date.
pssst, Mark…
Sept 11th is my little sister’s birthday!!!
FDB, that was really me. I came in and had left my computer on. It had logged off and when it does the dumb thing thinks I’m Mark!
Actually, and seriously, I’ll come clean and declare that I’m firmly in the camp of historians who have read enough evidence to convince them there was a clear US-Government supported conspiracy to remove human rights and freedom of speech and association on 11 September.
1973.
Recently I watched Hitchcock’s “The Birds” again which I hadn’t seen in maybe 15 years.
Fun coincidence factoids:
– the movie has performances by a young Veronica Cartwright (as Lydia’s daughter) and also by comedian Doodles Weaver (as a fisherman.) Doodles was of course the uncle of Sigourney Weaver, and both Veronica and Sigourney would go on to star in another horror classic, “Alien”.
Also was struck (never noticed it before) by how The Birds foreshadows Night of the Living Dead, with a) no one ever knows or finds out why it’s happening, and b) Must. Barricade. Farmhouse. Against. Massive. Onslaught. also, c) accidental catastrophe at gas station.
Fortunately nobody suggests they retreat to the basement. We ALL know how that play ends up.
Also, didn’t know Rod Taylor was Australian! And ya gotta love the lady ornithologist.
…. but some of those birdies looked so dashed artificial
not Hitch’s best work, IMO
When the film was first released in Australia, the press made quite a fuss of Rod Taylor’s aussieness
Liam
just curious: are any of the important sources only in espanol?
It seems to me possible that the basic mistake Mr Allende made was grandiose rhetoric: at the first, winning Presidential election he scored about 34%, si? Why then proclaim the “Chilean Revolution”? Nowhere near majority electoral support.
I’m aware there were millions of desperately poor Chileans his Govt wanted to lift out of poverty and despair…. Would a slower pace have had any chance of success? (Yes, RM Nixon hovered in the background…..)
Or does the Chilean political style abhor gradualism, preferring drama, even unto noble death?
The people,
United,
Are frequently
Defeated.
These are lolz to counter the LULZ
This is some sad news for poetry lovers… vale Jim Carroll, dead at 60. Just learned of it.
Despite the notoriety he gained from The Basketball Diaries and “People Who Died,” IMO his standout work was his first little volume of poems, “Living At The Movies,” written by age 19 or so, which beautifully captures a certain something about cosmic teenage pains and pleasures, in a delicately surrealistic idiom. I loved it when I was 17 or so myself, and though there are many far greater poets of his time, I’ve always had a little birdhouse in my soul for that work.
From “Blue Poles” which opens the book (from memory)…
Blue poles (well?) on the beach
In a snowless winter and
I’m too cold to ask you
Why we’re here, but, “we are”…
I love the little joke of the ‘well?’. This is from the last poem in the book, “An Apple At Dawn”…
…They’re “cold and enduring.”
Look out Manhattan
your prince’s sorrow
might be back
again
tomorrow.
From those points A to B is nearly a whole life right there. So long Jim. Tonight “there is a stadium beside my window, filled with winter.”
I had a private joke along the lines that all debates within feminism ultimately boiled down to the question of whether football should be played by both genders or banned for both genders.
.
Well I’d make a snide remark to the effect of that joke underlying the relevance or lack thereof of feminist theory as we now know it. But I won’t. :)
.
What I want to know is where are the drugs that will make me a world class ballet diva or gymnist.
Jim Carroll RIP. One of the few contemporary poets I dig.
David H @ 24, As you are well aware, I was commenting on two separate questions. What you are after is the National Library of Australia.
Fran @ 18, This is the first chance I have had to revisit this thread. I will endeavour to answer your questions.
I don’t believe anything can, that’s what we have economists for and not even they are sure. No matter what we do in this life, it is a best guess scenario. Even if its not for the nation, what about an individual? I surely don’t think elite sports “stars” should be paid anymore than the median wage at best. That’s never going to happen though, I’m a realist. We cannot always measure things by KPIs – sometimes we have to make value judgements.
I do not know what the term negative utilities (in what context are you using the word utility here? Utility to me means multiple functions depending on the situation thus utility is always useful) means so I can not answer the question. As for the Olympics, itself, although considered an elite sport, is a waste of everyone’s time. You only hear of those people every four years and nothing out of them in between. It’s mainly the other sports I’m thinking of, the major football codes, basketball, netball, hockey, etc.
As for the 1936 Olympics itself, you can only examine things in the context of their times and I wasn’t around then and I imagine you probably weren’t either, I am not aware of the zeitgeist of that era and cannot make a point thus rendering the vast majority of that question moot.
As for Carbon Pollution, stop the fireworks at all the sports events, stop private vehicles going into city CBDs make cycling and public transport the only options – problem fixed. I haven’t done any actual measurements but I think it would go a long way. Overall I’m not too concerned about Carbon Pollution one way or the other.
What effects on public goods does elite sport have? It can prevent and alleviate mental illness and psychological disorders. I rationalise that by when your life is total and utter crap and your sports team is going crap, there is absolutely nothing that will pick you up – not even a good book, but if your team is going brilliantly, you’ll be on a high that will balance out some of your depressed modes. Endorphins work for fans just as well as anyone else doing a physical activity. We are all different.
I’ve just noticed I’ve mainly addressed psychological difficulties there and not mental illness ones, so I’ll just add that it may help to give the mentally ill focus, dependent on their condition (Again depends on context)
Ooh I missed this one: How does elite sport affect housing costs, or skew/constrain transport and infrastructure policy?
The events only ever occur in a major city, so on housing costs, its a boon for those that own their own homes and rent them out. As for housing costs in general, they’re overpriced in the CBD. I understand that their are market rates for location, location, location but when they’re asking for $1000 000 000 for a house that only cost say $200 000 to build (I plucked this figure out of the air), its too much. Especially when it only costs about $11k per 9m2 (These are figures supplied by a Sydney based builder a year or two ago) to build.
You would have to be more specific on what you consider to be infrastructure. I have all ready addressed the transport question.
On Human Rights, it depends on what you consider to be one? For eg. If you are referring to the UN version of Human Rights and use their recent complaint about the indigenous intervention. I think their report is too harsh and that the UN is not aware of the full context.
Overall I am a very context specific person and when I look at your view (not that I’m criticising, critiquing maybe) I think of the nth degree and if all the elite sports disappeared overnight the outrage that would cause.
The lack of inspiration children will have. Some get into physical exercise of what they see others do. It could be a football star, it could be a track runner or it could just what they see at a local sports day.
That’s not to take away from other inspirations people will have in Science, etymology and the like.
Your questions cover quite a range across the spectrum of policy and are difficult to answer in one sitting but I have done it now in somewhat of a rambling fashion (off the top of my head).
I have attempted to answer your questions. So how would you phase out elite sport without causing a major uproar (lowering morale) and what would you replace it with and how Fran?
Bye the Bye,
I didn’t like The Castle but I welcome the adages from it to Australian pop culture.
Senex@121
Definition: utility — an evaluation of net public good — realised or prospective benefits less realised and prospective costs and unrealised risks — obviously can be positive or negative. Broadly, a balance sheet of some particular thing …
You concede that the nation’s ‘morale’ cannot be measured with the degree of precision to allow utility-based evaluation of resource allocation. If this is so then your implication that this objective that deserves public support collapses, at least of public policy is to be evidence-based and an exercise in rational approach of commonly agreed goals. One might consider your claim refuted right here, whatever one thought of the value of morale.
As to the pay of sports stars, as you concede, having them on an average wage is unfeasible. Personally, I see no particular value in promoters getting rich at the expense of athletes, even if one could engineer it.
Your proposals on carbon pollution at elite events would make very little difference to the really big international events and only a marginal difference to the local ones. The moving of all those goods not just on the day but in the lead up are very costly in CO2 terms.
My reference on human rights refers to the necessity to turn the city (and sometimes the country) where the event is into a temporary police state. We had a taste of that in Sydney in 2007 not with a sporting event, but with APEC, and later with World Pope Week. It will happen in London 2012.
On housing, elite events force up housing costs and since it’s wealthy people who own most of the housing, it is inequitable. These also skew infrastructure policy as the state tries to extract use out of the white elephant left by the event — such as the Olympics.
I don’t believe the handful of kids inspired to aim for elite success can justify the multi-billion dollar expenditure each year on elite sport.
As to the phase out, I’d withdraw all state support, direct and indirect for elite sport and instead direct adequate funds into non-elite or community sport. Some of the budget would go into structured sport-relevant fitness and skills programs and into early intervention for families who had putatively unfit children. We’d fund before and after school care for high school kids in state schools, with good meal programs, homework supervision and so forth.
I daresay that would raise morale a lot more, and we could measure it in improvements in primary health statistics, lowered youth contact with the justice system, declines in the scale and demand for DOCs interventions and improved educational outcomes.
You say you are happier when your team wins, but that surely means that you and all others like you are to that extent unhappier when it loses. Since most teams lose, most of the time, the net public happiness — the net utility of elite sport if you will, must be negative. Why should the public fund the decreased happiness of most people and encourage a handful to hang their happiness on the vicarious pleasure associated with events over which they have virtually no control and depend on/foster significant inequity?
apropos an ealier thread re hydrogen power and whether it was realistic or not
http://gas2.org/2009/09/14/germany-to-launch-nationwide-hydrogen-fuel-network-by-2015/
FDB (@ 106) wrote,
FDB, it was a mistake (see 105, 48).
If you look at my posts you will find I often quote at length from other posts. That was what I initially intended to do this time. I changed my mind, but neglected to delete it from the text buffer.
FDB (@ 108) wrote:
Have you ever, in the eight years since it occurred given 9/11 any serious thought?
If you had you would have understood that there were at least two Conspiracy Theories offered as explanations of what occurred on that day, both of which would have seemed implausible to most, including me, before 11 September 2001.
It seems to me that if you reject one you must necessarily embrace the other.
So which of the two do you embrace, FDB?
Perchance, it wouldn’t happen to be the one peddled by the likes of President W, Dick Cheney, John Howard, Bill O’Reilly, Phillip Adams, Rupert Murdoch and now Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama?
Here’s Rupert Murdoch peddling that Conspiracy Theory through his Brisbane mouthpiece the Courier Mail on 17 August:
Does it strike you as odd that our forces have been fighting in a country where 9/11, the Bali bombings and “three-quarters of terrorist plots against Britain” were hatched and yet not one person with a proven link to 9/11 or any other of those events has been captured?
The editorial continues:
So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with link to 9/11 will be captured?
There is not necessarily any shame in having swallowed codswallop such as that written above in the past. I did myself and even initially welcomed the invasion of Afghanistan. It was not until two years ago that I gave a proper hearing to people who rejected the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory and it was not until a year ago that I seriously studied the question.
However, today the truth of 9/11 is readily available to anyone with a critical and open minded, so there is no longer any reason for anyone to be fooled, that is unless they wish to be.
“So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with link to 9/11 will be captured?”
.
In a similar line of questioning -”How much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with a link to the vast co-ordinated conspiracy will come out and explain their role in the controlled demolition?”
Just taking a punt on the date I’d say 1 March 2003:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed#September_11.2C_2001.2C_attacks
Fran, are you perchance related to Humpty Dumpty? You seem to share his penchant for making up definitions of words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty#In_Through_the_Looking_Glass
The rest of us understand utility as meaning usefulness. It need have nothing to do with net public good.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/utility
GregM
Here is where I remind you of the concept of context. The meaning of words is determined in part by how they are deployed. The word sanction for example, can mean nearly opposite things, depending on how it is used. My entire response to Senex drew upon the conceptual ground offered by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham and so the question of utility needed to be understood in this context.
I’m willing to accept that you are unfamiliar with this ground, but such unfamiliarity ill-recommends you to pronounce on the adequacy of my usage here.
You must be related to Humpty Dumpty. The definition you have linked to isn’t the same as the one you made up.
GregM@131
You are either being disingenuous or you are incapable of apprehending simple English. This is not the first time reading your posts has urged a choice between these inferences.
I suspect you are simply trolling. Certainly, your ‘commentary’ if that is not too flattering a descriptor of your text, contributes nothing to any matter of substance, which is unfortunate.
Good News, hot off the press!
Brumby has finally dumped Steve Newnham as ALP State Secretary in Victoria. He is to be replaced by Nick Reece.
This may result in a cleaner next election as, many will know, Steve had form particularly towards the greens. Les Twentyman was subjected to some pretty nasty tactics, as well.
“Since most teams lose, most of the time, the net public happiness — the net utility of elite sport if you will, must be negative.”
- Fran barlow
WTF?
How does that work? How can most teams lose most of the time?
Given that in every match one team will lose and one will win, (cept in a draw), then most teams will lose half the time and win half the time, and all teams will lose and win slightly less than half the time.
And it doesn’t take into account the morale boosting effect of non partisan elite sport. Watching the 2002 (?) AFL grand final between 2 sides I had no emotional involvement with. What a great game, and a fascinating contest.
Net result improvement in my morale.
I agree about the funding shift from elite to local level sport tho.
Somewhere online there is a study that shows underdogs succeed at a higher rate than would be expected and their success is determined by how well they attack weak points in structures. That favoritism is determined by a consensus analysis of what is required to succeed and that using these strengths as weaknesses.
Elite sport provides an excellent environment to study this. Anyway I can’t find the link. Thought it might be at John Robb’s site but it isn’t.
Here is an article connected to the concept, but I don’t think this is what I was originally thinking about.
here
Pretty much covers the same thing.
Daggett, was my sister part of the conspiracy? She was downtown in Manhattan working for Time mag on 9/11, and was plugged, real-time, into the evidence-gathering and cross-referencing systems that largely established the “official version” that gradually emerged to explain the attack. Information that fits the official explanation was flooding in from tens of thousands of sources, collated and sifted for useful info by thousands of hardworking people trying to find answers, communicating with each other in good faith and stricken with grief.
Where were you, buddy?
You do their efforts a grave injustice.
Jules@134
Any division in a sport where at the end of the regular season, the points are not all even is one in which at least half the teams have lost more often than they have won.
In a typical distribution, where there are about 8-10 teams in a junior competition, at the end of the season the top team and a principal challenger win between 65% and 90% of their matches and perhaps draw some of the rest and the remaining wins are scattered amongst the also rans. Typically two teams may go through the entire season with at most one win. Even the fourth placed team may well have a negative win-loss ratio.
Sidenot: A cousin of mine played in a soccer team during the 1970s in which the team won one match and drew another in the course of three seasons. During his time the bottom four of the 11 teams typically won 3-4 times per season — always when they were playing each other.
Over time of course, the better/more enthusiastic players are attracted to the better performed teams skewing the results still further.
When I’ve coached teams (cricket, inline hockey), this is the message I’ve always given them — that they must find a way fo enjoying their sport and regardless of the result, because if it is significantly bound up with winning, then their prospects of happiness are statistically unlikely and that in any event, they can be happy only at the expense of others. I pointed out that their prospects of earning a living in the sport were less than winning the lottery, and each week I’d pull out a scrath lottery ticket at the beginning of training, scratch two lots of $10,000 or $50,000 and then smile as no others turned up.
As perverse as it may seem, this insight lifted morale amongst the kids I was coaching, and we got down to focusing on the things we could control — our own skills, team cohesion and the enjoyment of each other’s company. In my first season of inline hockey, despite working with the “discards”, and suffering some truly awful scores, by the last half of the season we were competitive, though still unable to stay with the top team deep into the second half of the matches.
That said, we laughed amongst ourselves at the end of each match and even got a couple of “star” recruits from the number 2 team following season and finished third out of seven with a 50-50 win/loss and a couple of them that we were a touch unlucky to lose.
Daggett 9/11 is a brand now – nothing else. It has been since around 2005 when the last of 9/11 truth disappeared up its own arse and joined the consensus level of identification to it.
People use it to reinforce their cultural identity.
Anti authoritarian types who want to seem edgy but don’t really challenge authority like it to reinforce their views of themselves without actually doing anything practical to address real injustice in the world. (IE We’re fighting for the truth, and once we win then the Patriot Act, the Afghan and Iraq wars and all the other evil in the world will magically disappear.)
Racists use it to reinforce their particular bigotry – ie “the Jews done it” or “the Muslims done it”.
Rationalists use it to reinforce their cultural superiority, and their preference for putting things in boxes and leaving them there, free of further examination. (IE You challenge our dominant paradigm then you are racist, or crazy or both, and worse – you damned cultural heretic.)
You probably should read the lolz link.
Some of you cereal rationalists could do with a look at the LULZ too.
Mind you its probably only worth it for the historical significance.
Murph the serf (@ 127) wrote:
I can’t say.
If that were to happen, it would require that the person concerned would have reflected upon his/her actions and have changed from being a cold-blooded killer into a person capable of feeling remorse.
Furthermore, blowing the whistle on the controlled demolition of the three WTC towers would obviously entail enormous personal risk. If anyone who were to come forward to blow the whistle, they would need immediate round-the-clock protection, or his/her life expectancy would be very short.
And even then, what guarantee would there be that the Newsmedia which has already covered up so much news contrary to the Official Conspiracy Theory would even report it?
Who is to say that someone may not have already attempted to step forward but been silenced?
It should be worth noting that Barry Jennings, a former New York Housing Authority Emergency Coordinator, who worked in the ‘collapsed’ World Trade Center Building 7 including on 11 September 2001 and who was outspoken with testimony against the Official account of the collapse of Building 7, died mysteriously in August 2008. Before he died he told of how his job had been threatened and he feared for his life. Some of his testimony can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQY-ksiuwKU
The Testimony of Scott Forbes a computer technician employed in the South Tower and who witnessed power downs and many other mysterious events, including visits by large numbers of technicians with toolboxes up to the weekend prior to 9/11 during these power downs, can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brSXmZVVCMI
There is also an enormous amount of corroborating evidence from 9/11 hero William Rodriguez of mysterious happenings in the WTC buildings before and during the 9/11 attacks.
In short there is a mountain of evidence in support of the hypothesis that charges were placed in the WTC buildings prior to 9/11. None of that evidence was considered by the 9/11 Commission.
So, I think it would be wrong to reject the alternative to the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory simply because none of the 9/11 Conspirators themselves have, so far, stepped forward to confess their role in the 9/11 attack.
GregM (@ 128),
Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was tortured and his confessions have not been tested in a proper open trial, so I think, given that no proof that any of the hundreds of other tortured Guantanamo Bay detainees have have been shown to have participated in 9/11 and that not one other person with a proven link to the 9/11 attack has been captured in 8 years of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we are more than a little entitled to be skeptical about the claim that the 9/11 attacks originated in Afghanistan.
I therefore think we are entitled, after all this time, to see a new inquiry in which all the large numbers of unanswered question, which were not asked by the 9/11 Commission, are properly pursued, just to be absolutely certain that the wrong people have not been blamed for 9/11, don’t you think?.
—
Apologies for the errors in my previous post.
“So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with link to 9/11 will be captured?”
… should have been:
So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with a proven link to 9/11 will be captured?
… and:
“a critical and open minded”
… should have been:
“a critical and open mind”
Fran, I do accept what you are saying re the stats, I just don’t think thats all there is too it.
I have coached juniors as well (and hopefully will again), Aussie Rules in Northern NSW, and the AFL needs a serious kick up the backside wrt its funding policies in this part of the world. I have coached sides that had one win in a season and one that went through the season undefeated with an average winning margin of 20 goals. We won the flag too. What a relief. (Definition of pressure – undefeated side in the hours leading up to a grand final.)
I totally agree with the focus. On having fun and for me on developing character traits I think are important. Most kids seem to want to develop those traits anyway so thats actually easy. Your scrathcie trick is excellent btw, I will steal it. (Tho some of the kids I have coached have gone on to make money from sport and have a chance at building a career out of it. Lots of talent in this part of the world.)
And to be even more boring I agree with pretty much everything you said in that post. I actually still play seniour Aust rules and my side hasn’t won a game since 2005 (tho we folded for a year that year and coming back has been a huge strugle.)
Tho as far as my comments above go, well i’ll be the example again.
I started playing again in a struggling country side in my 30s, half way through the season (mid life crisis I think). The side I played for hadn’t won a game all year. That year we won one game. But made the finals (4 team league that year), and lost our semi by 8 points. Our average losing margin was about 12 goals all year.
The next year we made the Grand Final only to lose after not losing a game in the second half of the season. (If half the side hadn’t been at a doof off their heads the night before we would have won, bastards. Things went downhill after that.)
My point about morale is that any analysis of stats is irrelevent. Its about the next game, the future, and thats why the chances of winning are always 50% (or just under) whatever the actual stats say. Thats what drove my teams success.
That applies to elite sport as well. Its in the nature of supporting a side.
But also the professionalism of it levels the playing field.
11 Sides have won the last 19 AFl premierships, thats approximately two thirds of the teams in the competition, and there is a 50% chance that will be twelve after this years GF. (IE St Kilda or the Bulldogs have to make the final and they have not won a GF since 1990).
So as far as morale goes you could argue that over two thirds (and 75% if St Kilda or the Bulldogs win this year) of AFL fans have had their morale improved due to the AFL over the course of a year. During the last 20 AFL seasons. A Grand Final win trumps everything else in terms of supporting elite Australian Rules Teams. Therefore a Premiership has a huge morale value compared to everything else in the game.
That one example doesn’t prove my point. But it strongly supports it, especially given the cultural power of Australian Rules football and the AFL in Australia. (BTW non aussie rules people, AFL is the name of a league, Australian Rules is the name of a game, calling the game by the name of the league contributes to the power of the league to define the game on its terms. Please don’t do it.)
I haven’t done any serious analysis of this on any level tho, discussed it with other footy fans sure, and those discussions are a big part of what made me go WTF in repsonse to your comment.
I don’t know whether a similar analysis of other popular elite team sports would provide the same impression/result.
There is another aspect to the morale building effects of elite sport. You don’t have to be a Jamaican to celebrate the performances of Ussain Bolt last month, things like that inspire everyone who is a fan, cos they constantly remind us that as humans we are always capable of surpassing our limits and extending the possibilities that life offers us. (OK it may be hard to that from a flat in gaza, or a village in the Congo but …)
“Every time a scientist, philosopher, artist or athlete pushes our thresholds to new ground the whole race evolves.”
That other aspect of morale applies to the AFL (for example) as well. If your side isn’t playing you can get enormous satisfaction from a great game because you have no stake in who wins or loses. You can be inspired (improve morale) by the performances of both sides. And of individuals on both sides.
There’s even the joy of seeing a team you don’t like suffering a loss. (There’s a dark side to everything.)
BTW I think your insight re the scatchies makes perfect sense. It isn’t perverse at all. People play sport primarily for the fun of it, and winning is far less satisfying if there is no fun involved. Somnetimes the pressure of being required to win, and to want to win interferes with peoples (eps juniors) enjoyment of the game. The scratchie trick is a great idea and a brilliant way to legitimise enjoyment in sport. Well done.
Also if you coach underdog sides that article is definitely worth checking out.
Daggett id right re KSM.
Anything that connects him to 9/11 via his capture, questioning and trial is compromised. There is no way it can be considered a fair trial and so any connection to the attacks that cannot be considered reliable, KSM was placed under extreme duress. Somewhere there are claims by people that his children were abused to get him to co operate in Pakistan, and the people making the claim are prepared to swear affidavids to that effect.
I dunno how true that claim is and aren’t interested in finding out myself but you might want to check it out Daggett.
Tho how you or anyone can claim the uncontrolled collapse of the 2 WTC towers looks anything like a controlled demolition is beyond me. Building 7 might, but its collapse looks nothing like the twin towers anyway.
Calling the collapse of the twin towers a controlled demolition is the sort of abuse of language that makes anyone with a brain look at “truthers” through very narrow eyes.
Jules (@ 141),
Firstly, thank your supporting my point re Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.
In regard to the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers, even on the day at least one news commentator commented on how the ‘collapse’ reminded him of a controlled demolotion.
Obviously they would have been of different kind of controlled demolition to the standard bottom-up demolition designed to use the force of the collapsing building to minimise the need for explosives. Nevertheless, there is no ironclad rule that says the buildings must be demolished from the bottom up.
Clearly, if the twin towers had been programmed to be destroyed from the bottom up the claim that the planes caused the collapse would have been immediately seen through.
In regard to WTC Building 7, its collapse was indistinguishable from traditional controlled demolitions as another news commentator also commented on that day. If you agree with me that that is the only possible way that what we observed can be explained, then surely we have to ask: Why wasn’t that hypothesis even considered by the NIST which was charged with explaining what would have surely otherwise been an unprecedented engineering disaster with far-reaching implications for building construction?
That they did not investigate this hypothesis and chose to lie about the collapse demonstrates to me that the ‘investigation’ was, in fact, a cover-up.
For more information, please vist Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth at ae911truth.org.
“If you agree with me that that is the only possible way that what we observed can be explained”
Now why on earth would I do that?
You: a country bored of prosperity and consumerism, longing for war, sacrifice, oil and profit.
Me: a rampaging monster war-criminal of your nightmares, with all the cover-ups already turned down low, and the bed of nails for our ravenous future conflicts all prepared. Let’s make freaky conspiracies with no particular strategy, except to challenge in difficulty every heretofore executed cunning plan. With scented candles.
You’ve got questions, I’ve got innuendo.
Guffaw.
Aw c’mon al-Sarcasti
it’s EASY to hijack two planes and fly them into tall skyscrapers where mysterious men carrying TOOLKITS (oh heavens!) have laid explosives timed to mimic the collapse of skyscrapers after the two planes laden with aviation fuel have hit the buildings.
The HARD part is convincing a sceptical world that you achieved such a fiendishly clever plan….
But none of this is as difficult as giving (home) birth in a fiery bus flying above the massed ranks of burning motorbikes in the Boys’ Own Extreme Home Birthing Comp (semi-finals)
I’d buy that for a steamed prawn dumpling. I always knew you were freakay, Haiku.
Its all a GOP Plot!. Using superior American technology Bush and Company organised for a hollywood horror spectacular to be screened simultaneously on every TV in the world. Even those people who’d never heard of America, believed 9/11 happened so he could declare war on Iraq so he could purloin Iraqi oil. But, in fact, like the moon landing it was just one gigantic hoax. And Ratty was in on it.
How long do you think it’ll take that one to fly around the intertubes? Or has somebody else already thought of it? :)
Please don’t take me seriously.
White soul and chuck dee-rision in full effect, oh lizard overlord.
Old news, Paul, old news.
(ahem) As a former commo-sewer of conspiracy theories, I think I had something like your suggestion whipped up within minutes. Discounted almost immediately, of course, because a) none of those people are bright enough to dream something like that up and b) even if they were, someone would’ve Deep Throated it within days.
OMFG, you nearly shook my faith – if not my campari – in Duran Duran there, Hoges.
Personally, I’ve alway thought that if you want to see dark conspiracies busted wide open by blokes in the know, you cannot go past Sir Digby.
Jules, legally torture would only invalidate his confession and exclude it from evidence. It would not exclude a trial where evidence independent of the impugned confession was available and sufficient to prove guilt.
Also re the allegations of abuse of his children, however repulsive if true, would only be evidence supporting the impugning of any confession he made. The abuse of his children (or even a threat to abuse his children) would of course be criminal acts in themselves and if there is sufficient evidence of them the perpetrators should be tried for it. However I would not get to excited about the fact that people are prepared to swear affidavits about it. There are people prepared to swear affidavits about all sorts of things.
I understand that KSM wants to be tried before a court or tribunal and plead guilty with open admissions. If that were to take place then whether he had made an impugned confession would be legally irrelevant, although to 9/11 Truthers even that would be insufficient to establish his guilt. They will believe what they want to believe come what may.
If you haven’t yet, listen *right* to the end of that Duran Duran clip for the call-and-response. Who’s that… but I won’t ruin it.
GregM, well said.
Gotcha Liam.
But seriously, WTF???
Greg a legal system that justifies torture is (imo) invalid by definition, so whatever other evidence it comes up with is irrelevent too. Its got no business making judgements and won’t have till it pulls its head in.
Thats just me tho.
Personally I think there are a lot of questions that need answering about sept 11. The most obvious being why weren’t Bush and Cheney impeached or hung from a lamppost for gross negligence the next day?
If there’s a similar attack tomorrow Obama will be.
They were responsible and they failed in their duty of care to the American people. Whether that was deliberate or cos they are incompetent … I don’t really care. The fact they immediately got everything they wanted raises some other questions about whether Americans are mature enough to actually handle democracy.
However I don’t think any of those serious questions about the event or its surroundings relate to CD, no matter how flawed the NIST report was.
I’m not American and even if I was there are countless more important things. Like I said 9/11 is a brand.
People define themselves by it and the idea that any serious investigation of the myriad failures that preceeded it or the stunning corruption in the US that helped enable it is never gonna happen. Its one of those identity things, and it’ll be stuck in the realm of the mythological forever.
Which is a pity cos our (Western culture’s) reaction to it has been appalling, on nearly every level.
But the way so called right thinking people dismiss any questioning of it as loony “conspiracy theory” (a thought killer of a term if ever there was one) is functionally identical to Creationists rejection of evolution.
At least in my opinion.
Maybe part of my scepticism stems from the fact that someone was reporting finding a hijackers passport in the rubble by 10.30 wednesday our time.
Perhaps part comes from the simple fact that within hours of the event people (ie US FEd officials) were naming Al CIA..duh ;) as the main suspects.
That didn’t happen with OKC bombing despite the fact that McVeigh was in custody within hours, and its pretty damn rare with any police investigation.
Osama made a statement within days strenuously denying any connection with the event, which seems odd given the way Al Quaeda (HTF do you spell it anyway?) operates and that also seems sus, well it does if it was them.
I have no idea if the hijackers acted alone or not, but I suspect they didn’t.
Even if they did the consequences of the event for our democracies and for muslims all over the world suggest it should have been investigated more and many questions surounding the event itself, what lead up to it and what we have done since should probably be answered.
I’d rather talk about the footy tho, Fran….
Thanks for your comments Jules. As should be clear though, my observations were focused on elite sport rather than grass roots stuff, which I think is very commendable when well run.
I did look at the article and it did make sense, though I’m not a basket ball afficionado. As a teacher though, I have always approached sport from a management of outcomes/individual learning needs point of view and that’s what I took into my coaching. That’s probably why, given that I always got the teams nobody wanted to coach, it worked so well. I’m very big on the whole group morale work-as-a-team thing — given my politics that makes sense. Seeing sporting contests as a series of strategic exercises made sense for me.
We had some tremendous fun in our cricket matches.
“As should be clear though, my observations were focused on elite sport rather than grass roots stuff, which I think is very commendable when well run.”
Er… you do know why grass has roots, right?
To get nutrients to the heads?
Paul, or some other Green present
.
There’s a thread on Bob Brown’s critique of the stimulus package at Catallaxy. I know you’re reluctant to face the abuse, they do like to bash Bob, but I’d appreciate some comment viz the rationale for it.
Bingo!!!
That’s mighty fine near-ground rainbows you found, Professor Griff.
Old Isaac Newton, if they’d a had lawn sprinklers in his day, he’d a been onto that quicker than a flash.
Ain’t no mystery. Don’t need no contaminated water.
Hell, we saw dat in suburbs o’ Melbourne (Awstralia) when we wuz kids. Eisenhower wuz Prez. Menzies wuz PM. Conspiracy was Japs bombing Pearl Harbour, or Pig Iron Bob pullin’ Vladimir outa the hat for an election.
We wuz simple folks but heppy. Hell we wuz heppy.
“If that were to happen, it would require that the person concerned would have reflected upon his/her actions and have changed from being a cold-blooded killer into a person capable of feeling remorse.”
Get real – what person who goes off to work on this massive project doesn’t mention this work to anyone? Just accidentally , one night when doing what we humans do so well and let loose sometimes?
What about the supplier of the plan the secret agents need so they know where to place the explosives?
Oh that’s right – it is all done by government agents and we all know how secure anything confidental or secret is within a government.
.
“Furthermore, blowing the whistle on the controlled demolition of the three WTC towers would obviously entail enormous personal risk. If anyone who were to come forward to blow the whistle, they would need immediate round-the-clock protection, or his/her life expectancy would be very short.”
So what does this mean? You live in a darkened cupboard and eat food passed through a small door after the taster has sampled it?
.
“And even then, what guarantee would there be that the Newsmedia which has already covered up so much news contrary to the Official Conspiracy Theory would even report it?
Who is to say that someone may not have already attempted to step forward but been silenced?”
Primarily the fact that thousands of people who believe they have been probed by extraterrestials seem sane compared to those who believe in the World Tower Conspiracy and yet all other readers of media get exposed to these ravings
constantly.
Oh plus the fact that when you just scratch the surface of these sites or “organisations” gross antisemitism oozes out is just repulsive.
ELITE SPORTS UPDATE
The Australian aussie rules football team has been announced. First fixture is a five-match series vs. England.
Called “The Bashes”. Tremendous sponsor support. Australia expected to win the first series 5-nil, as England will not field a side.
Home grown metaphors …thats the thing isn’t it Fran, and FDB.
Elite sports and grass roots are mutually dependant, neither can really exist without the other.
And in Australia sport is a part of culture and identity, hence the value of both. But the imbalance needs addressing. Elite sport generates huge amounts of cash and it returns very little of it to the grass roots IMO. That needs to be addressed. imo its fundamental to the health(mental, physical, emotional and spiritual) of our society.
The underdog strategies are great learning tools btw. The world constantly pushes us into situations where we are “underdogs” and we need to react to a greater level of force, energy delivered, power or skill. Its important to be able to understand the dynamics of those relationships.
I look at some of our fire fighting tactics in the RFS in that way. A fire thats serious (tho not catastrophic) delivers greater energy than the people dealing with it can withstand. Classic underdog situation.
But an understanding of how fire works (ie the fire triangle, heat, O2 and fuel) gives us tools for dealing with the fire. Remove the fuel for example and the fire collapses. thats how we fight fire with fire (aka backburning).
The 9/11 attacks were also a classic underdog strike.
John Robb’s Global Guerillas site is good for that sort of analysis, open source warfare (and everything else) and decentralised networks, and their use in systems disruption is where its at.
Oh, Jules. You’re not a member of the school of Humpty Dumpty definitions as well are you? That you make up definitions as you go along, and everyone has to agree with you? If you reflect upon it, it’s not a very intelligent way of thinking, is it?
If so ,and I hope it is not true of you, it just makes you opinionated but smug and ignorant in your opinions.
Legal systems don’t justify torture. They reject it. They exclude “evidence” – for it is false evidence and illegally gained- obtained from it. That does not mean that they do not go about determining breaches of the law proved on other evidence obtained and submitted to the exclusion of that false evidence. This is the intelligent way of behaving and that is the way the law operates.
They also punish of those who seek and submit to them such false evidence, while according to them the same legal rights as those who were falsely accused.
That is the intelligent approach, even if it does not satisfy the smug and unintelligent who think that their uninformed opinions should be accepted, by their own definitions, as law.
Greg, can’t you read?
here we go try again:
Greg a legal system that justifies torture is (imo) invalid by definition, so whatever other evidence it comes up with is irrelevent too. Its got no business making judgements and won’t have till it pulls its head in.
Thats just me tho.
Sure I make up definitions as I go along, but no one has to agree with me. We are commenting on a blog FFS not writing the Gospels.
Why don’t we agree on a consistant definition of a legal system, torture and then we can see if there is one that justifies torture, accepts evidence gained under extreme duress and uses it.
“Legal systems don’t justify torture. They reject it.”
What all legal systems, ever? Ok then…
I still think KSMs trial was far from fair. For a start he didn’t seem fit to be tried.
But again thats just me, based on my opinion, having NOT ACTUALLY BEEN THERE.
By whom? the US government, as daggett, whose opinions you seem to think we should give credence, proposes.
or do you have some other nutcase theory that you want to expose to the world?
Also, just a point of due diligence here,(for there was a previous commenter here called jules who was one of jinmaro’s many manifestations) are you the latest manifestation of LP’s hydra (and psychologically struggling interlocutor) in one of her infinite forms?
If so best wishes to you. I’m glad I don’t have the cross you have to bear.
And if it is so I will respect your privacy and comment no more on your posts.
Umm. He hasn’t been tried yet. So to what trial are you referring? Please provide a link.
I see your allusion, FDB@157 …
So what you are saying, metaphorically speaking, is that the role of the grass roots is to feed athletic flowering heads – which will explain why so many are dopes.
Once the heads have flowered, h. rumensis grazes the sports pages ‘consuming’ the athlete and belching out massive amounts of gas in order to breakdown the hemi-cellulose athletic sheath and convert its worth to a kind of morale boosting protein. And even the feacl matter can culture new athletes in our suburban parks.
Fascinating.
A favourite Monty Python skit comes to mind:
We’re talking about Khalid Sheik Muhammad right?
OK perhaps some confusion arises from the fact that the trial that started in 2008 at Guantanamo hasn’t finished as yet to the best of my knowledge, and is awaiting a plea (which strangely, you know about) thats been delayed due to hearings to determine how nuts his co accused might be. But still, far from fair, and his comments … he sounds a bit like he has lost the plot.
Anyway you have been smugly condescending and can’even be bothered to read what I type, let alone answer my questions. You can find a link yourself, I’m not your waiter.
I’m sure someone will tell you how to use wikipedia.
GregM ‘smugly condescending’? You must have the wrong GregM.
I wrote (@ 142):
FDB (@143) wrote:
FDB, my comment was addressed to Jules who had acknowledged that the collapse of Building 7 might have been a controlled demolition.
If anyone has any doubt that the collapse of WTC 7 was not a controlled demolition, please check out these videos by US Physics teacher David Chandler.
“WTC7 in Freefall”
“‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie”
“WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part II)”
“WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III)”
Each is at the very most 10 minutes. The presentation style is quite lively. The videos of NIST people finally admitting to what David Chandler had maintained all along, but they had previously adamantly denied, that is, that for over two seconds WTC 7 collapsed at accelarations indistinquishable from free-fall, is not to be missed.
Jules (@155) wrote:
Please think more carfully about this. The NIST was, very belatedly, after the 9/11 Commission tried to pretend that WTC 7 had not even ‘collapsed’, charged with establishing how WTC 7 had ‘collapsed’. They have clearly failed to provide an explanation that makes sense and they have failed to consider any of the overwhelming video evidence and eyewitness testimony in support of the controlled demolition hypothesis.
Do you think that that is good enough? Why aren’t the US taxpayers and, more importantly, the construction engineering profession, given a clear picture of what happened that is, unless the ‘inquiry’ was intended to cover up a crime.
As I have pointed out, large numbers of US citizens are demanding a new and proper inquiry into 9/11 including into the ‘collapses’ of WTC 7 as well as the Twin Towers, so that we can discover the truth of what happened on that day one way or the other.
So, why shouldn’t a proper inquiry be set up as the 9/11 Truth Movement demands?
Jules (@ 164) wrote:
How does it help an underdog to judge him/her guilty of a crime he/she did not commit?
I thank you for your many helpful contributions to this debate, but they are somewhat marred by statements such as that above.
GregM (@ 152) wrote,
Of course, I would be most interested to see Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) openly admit to having helped mastermind 9/11 in a court room. I would also be most interested to learn where and how he and his alleged co-conspirators plotted 9/11 and I would be most interested to see that evidence corroborated by other witnesses and other evidence.
In the meantime, until that happens, I think I have every right to remain extremely skeptical given the total lack of any other creidble evidence after eight years and given the vastly stronger body of evidence which implicates senior figures within the US Government.
In fact, 9/11 appears, to some extent, to have been carried out by patsies who genuinely believed that what they were doing was going to strike a mortal blow against the infidel West. It may well turn out that some of those patsies did operate from Afhanistan and KSM may have even been one of them, but we have yet to see any solid evidence that they did, as even you acknowledge.
GregM (@ 152) continued,
Judging from the comments I have read on this forum thus far, this charge seems more applicable to 9/11 Truth Deniers.
I wonder if it is time to comment on the Dennis Ferguson case. It is particularly pertinent for me, since he is staying five-seven minutes by car from where I grew up and I still have primary-school-aged family members in the area.
Now DF is not one of nature’s gentleman, and I can’t say that I’d befriend him or even giver him the time of day if the occasion arose, but I do accept that he has a right to live, which clearly implies a right to live somewhere, and provided he is getting an appropriate level of ‘support’ it might as well be in Ryde as anywhere. It’s hard to imagine that he could in practice be a threat to anyone, and the protests are, it seems to me, an exercise in pure animus, which reflects poorly on those involved.
I heard one of the protesters complaining that he keeps moving from place to place, which probably qualifies as one of the more ironic claims in the public discourse I have heard. I’d have loved to ask the woman why she thought that was and what could be done about it.
Re Dennis Ferguson. i suspect he’s too old to be a threat to anyone. I agree that now he has served his time he has the right to live peaceably and quietly at a reasonable distance away from schools, playgrounds and other places where children gather.
The thing that bothers me about the way he’s being treated by a lot of understandably terrified parents, is that, according to a forensic psychologist I saw on TV last night or this morning, if he is harrassed in this way and not allowed to live a normal life (eg grow red flowers in pot plants) there is a grave danger he might re-offend, because the community does not allow him to adapt back into society.
For all we know he might be “cured” -though I wonder if that is possible. But he has got himself engaged in some peculiar jobs that might bring him in contact with children. I can’t help being suspicious. But then again such news comes from the Murdoch stable, so it might be a lie.
btw, isn’t wonderful the way these Saturday Salons are turning into real gab-fests? I like it, anyway.
I doubt he is cured but that’s not the same as claiming that he is an ongoing threat.
In any event, the crime for which Ferguson was convicted involved systematic grooming. He didn’t snatch a child at random from the streets but befriended a woman whose husband Ferguson knew to be serving time for sexually abusing the very children in question. Then, in concert with another man, persuaded the mother to allow him to take these vulnerable and very young children on holidays. That’s his MO.
He’s one of Australia’s best known hate figures, so how likely is that in the current context? Zero. One may assume that all the people with children in the area have cautioned their children, so really, apart from an extreme version of not wanting unpleasant neighbours in the street, I don’t see the problem.
If you’re not going to have a death penalty or a life without parole for single low level sex offences (and on the evidence by the crown in 1987, he was interrupted in the nick of time) then you have to allow even very undesirable characters to live somewhere.
In Florida this is what has resulted from the hysteria.
The most pathetic comment that I heard regarding the unfortunate Dennis Ferguson is that he should be in an area away from young families, of which there are apparently a preponderance in the Ryde area. Unlike most other areas of Sydney? WTF? I live (sadly out of place) in the ultra trendy inner west area, and even here it’s full of young families infesting the footpaths and cafes with their four wheel drive prams and ordering skinny babychinnos for their delightful offspring.
So where the hell is he supposed to live? The only place I can think of that doesn’t have young families nearby is jail.
Daggett, you have every right to remain skeptical, if by skeptical you mean the process of reserving judgement about something and keeping an open mind. But that’s not what you’re doing is it?
What’s your suggestion? What’s your theory about what happened? What could possibly satisfy you that there was not a massive conspiracy to whip Americans into war-frenzy? Is there any evidence that could be presented to you that would change your mind about the invalidity of your so-called Official Narrative? Unless there is it’s on you to suggest a reason why your Senior Government conspirators would have done it, and innuendo just doesn’t cut it. You’ll just keep reaching for ever more tenuous “facts” to support your paranoid fantasies.
The September 11 attacks had no secret agenda. They were just tragic, senseless violence, and should be remembered as such.
Yours is not a search for “truth”, it’s an obscurantist, occultist search for hidden gnostic pearls, rejecting all fairness with primary sources, and it’s the opposite of history. I will not watch your videos. I will not read your Questions. I will not debate you on the differences between detonation and deflagration and the finer points of aluminium thermite’s utility in demolitions. I utterly reject the idea that your argument can be dealt with fairly or reasonably. Your “movement” should be engaged with only with derision, mocking and contempt.
So in that here’s some fucken’ youtube of a bloke wheelieing his bike on a skyscraper. Enjoy.
I think that the word your searching for is “mockery”, Sheik, of which your rant is a fine example.
I think the word you’re searching for is “you’re”, GARU.
That’s why it’s gratuitous, FDB.
I think you’re right FDB. Your attention to detail is commendable, unlike mine.
Shit, there goes the white beret and scarf. Might get a haircut too.
Sorry, just can never resist the holy grail of the pedant – correcting another pedant.
I’m sure you understand.
Oh and daggett, if you don’t care to be dissed be me, you could try out being dissed by Taibbi (stousher’s stousher).
I understand the temptation. Perhaps you and the sheik would prefer a beret of a rather fetching green, with red and gold highlights.
Thanks, Liam for your post @ 177.
It should be framed.
I can see 9/11 Truthers collapsing in uncontrollable fits of laughter for years to come when they read that.
Sorry, I will try the link again:
Thanks, Liam for your post @ 177. …
GregM I am not whoever you think I am. (I missed you question last nite or i would have answered it then.)
My take on 9/11 is a lot more complicated than most people on either side of that pointless debate would have.
I think its stupid to assume their were no hijackers involved, but equally stupid to assume there was no dodgy bullshit going on at the time. Dodgy bullshit the hijackers might not have been aware of.
I have known people in the “truth” movement for years. Most of them are pretty upset that the focus is on how the buildings collapsed rather than the drugs, arms people smuggling networks that intersect intel agencies and terrorist groups worldwide.
The only theory I have is that you can’t trust unaccountable power.
if thats a nutcase theory fine.
oh I hve another one.
Any discussion of 9/11 feeds the egregore.
Daggett – all that stuff about building 7 may be true. I don’t know and I don’t really care.
At a guess 15, 000 kids have died from poverty and disease since I last posted on this thread.
Who gives a fuck about 3000 dead yuppies nearly 10 years ago?
no one believes me :-(
That comment was way too harsh and unreasonable and an insult to the firemen, cops and other people who died trying to help save lives. ASnd the ordinary working people who went to work that day expecting to go home to their families friends and lives. Its also completely bogus to call the janitors, cops and firemen and whoever else was there “yuppies” when odds are they weren’t.
I apologise to the families of the people who died there for letting my frustration drive me to make such a tasteless comment.
Like most people who hacve paid attention to the events of 9/11 I rather doubt the full account has come out. Certainly anyone who read that book on the 9/11 Commission would have cause to believe that there is more to come out.
On the other hand, I think it utterly implausible to imagine that anything that could be described as a high-level government conspiracy took place to either facilitate the attacks or engineer events to look like same (as some “truthers” claim). To carry such a thing off would have entailed far more organisationasl coherence than the Bush Administration was capable of and implied literally thousands of people keeping stum for years after the events when there was a huge incentive to spill the beans and practically no incentive not to.
It might well be said that the Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel, and it is perverse that on the morning of the attacks the SAC was running a simulation of the attacks in question and it is bizarre that the towers collpased as neatly as they did and much of the steel reinforcement material that would have been evidentiary was apparently removed, but much as I would like good answers on these things, filling these curiosities with outlandish and often contradictory conspiracy accounts serves no good purpose.
I can’t believe i am gonna type more pointless stuff about 9/11.
But here goes:
“In fact, if there were any conspiracy here, I’d be far more inclined to believe that this whole movement was cooked up by Karl Rove as a kind of mass cyber-provocation, along the lines of Gordon Liddy hiring hippie peace protesters to piss in the lobbies of hotels where campaign reporters were staying.”
Thats about the only intelligent thing in the article. Its probably true, too, cos all we hear in the media is CD this and holograms that coming from those troofer nuts.
And it obviously worked cos Taibbi didn’t even mention Indira Singh or Sibel Edmonds.
Now I’m gonna ask a question thats been drowned out by the banging on about buildings that collapsed into a huge mess at significantly less than free fall speeds outside their own footprint. (Don’t believe me daggert, analyse the collapse for yourself. I have.) So far outside that footprint that a huge chunk of them slammed into building 7 as is clearly visible on any video of the event.
That question.
What orders were Dick Cheney referring to when he said “The orders still stand” (as quoted by Norman Mieta in his testimony to the 9/11 commission) at approximately 9.30 am on 11 sept 2001. Truthers claim Cheney issued stand down orders that morning, which is another misinterpretation (at least) of the evidence.
Is Cheney referring to the revocation of the shoot down orders that were in place pre July 01 wrt hijackings in the US. (IE shoot down orders were revoked in July, not the morning of the attack as some nutjob conspiratainment superstars like Alex Jones claim.)
Orders that came suspiciously close to the numerous reported briefing of potential Al Qaeda attacks that could well involve hijacking of planes to use as weapons. (Briefing to, if I remeber rightly, Rice, Addington, Ashcroft and numerous dept heads in the FBI, CIA and other alphabet agencies that sem to infest the US and the rest of the world.)
I believe theres even a record of Mossad trying to make these warnings clear to US somewhere (apparantly they did this on more than one occasion in the months leading up to 9/11), something the wanna be Nazis that hijacked the troof movement to further their own vile agenda never acknowledge.
This may all be innocent, and it may simply be a case that Cheney couldn’t bring himself to order the deaths of hundreds of hijacking victims. I can certainly relate to that. (Tho I seriously doubt it.)
Either way it has to be investigated properly. here we have testimony that clearly states Cheney was in the bunker at 9.25 am, while the commission itself claims he didn’t enter until 9.58 am. This sort of inconsistency deserves to be investigated.
Conspiracy or incompetent negligence who cares.
The fact that bush and cheney weren’t locked up, shot or hung from the white house chandeliers for such a massive failure in their duty of care to the US, but instead got everything they wanted as they proceded to dismantle centuries old legal protections and disappear people into a worldwide network of bases uses for detention and torture of anyone unfortunate enough to get in caught up in the mess, while at the same time they acted against the very constitution they were sposed to be bound by, and procdeed to start an illegal war with no rel;ation to the attack itself… (takes a deep breath)
That is something that really needs answering.
Anyway i’m off to give myself an exorcism.
Sorry for all the typos and poor grammer but really I’ve sunk enough energy into this black hole already.
Here’s an article by Paul Craig Roberts just published on Information Clearing House and not to be missed.
Why Propaganda Trumps Truth
Here are some excerpts:
Change of topic please!
Is anyone getting so sick of the ABC that they would advocate that the government sell off most, if not all of it. To put it another way, what is the point of a public broadcaster that:
-Is relentlessly partisan to one side of politics, and does little more than repeat coalition/News Ltd talking points ad nauseum.
-Is dumbing down most of its news/current affairs content (particularly on-line) to the extent that it is virtually indistinguishable from commercial networks.
- Produces little local content of any significance apart from the odd quiz show and embarrassingly bad ‘dramas’ that attempt to mimick their most recent success, Seachange (and that was 10 years ago).
- Whose only programs that are of any quality are usually imported from overseas, and could be sourced through other means if the ABC didn’t exist.
Please, someone tell me why we need the ABC in its current form?????
Rage, although the programming on that has been a bit suss lately too. In a three hour period all the good songs were by women, and all but two of the songs by men were sung by Australian Idol contestants. Also, Backstreet Boys now that you are in your 40′s (or very late 30′s at least) don’t try and cash in on the Vampire phenomenon and take yourselves seriously at the same time. You have to take the piss or retire.
It’s here. Go on I dare you.
Selling the ABC would only compound rather than mitigate a serious problem.
Part of the problem with the ABC is that has become infiltrated with employees of News Limited. Three names which come to mind are Madonna King, Sally Neighbour and Phillip Adams. The fact that they selected Rupert Murdoch to deliver the 2008 Boyer lectures is a symptom of that problem. stopmurdoch.blogspot.com has a lot to say about this.
In Queensland we have largely the ABC to thank for the fact that Anna Bligh got into office without her being required to inform the Queensland public her privatisation intentions. For more information, please see “Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties”
If it was sold to News Ltd, then at least it would have to abandon the pretence of independence, and maybe we could use the money to fund something useful and worthwhile. The ABC is neither of these at the moment.
Anyone who posts article which includes the eye-opening sentence:
Is just asking for some arsehole to come along and link to Mein Kampf to draw your analogy out, daggett, and I hope yu’re happy. Omitted from the Roberts quote you linked to is the rather essential sentence in my italics:
Hitler argued that Jews were behind the Big Lie of German leaders’ responsibility for the defeat in 1918. At least the Fascists were honest in having a positive target to conspiratorial paranoia. When you look through the Big Lie you claim is there around 9/11 what do you see?
And while we are doing controversial stuff … isn’t it time the ISAF forces left Afghanistan?
It appears that opposition in the US is now over 50% and it seems unlikely, with Mike Mullen describing the situation as serious and deteriorating, that it will become more popular any time soon. The recent elections underscored the difficulties involved. The exchange with Lindsay Graham “how many tanks have the Taliban got?” was devastating.
Obama would lose face leaving, as he (unwisely in my opinion) pledged support but in the longer run, as they say, all politics is local. He only needs to find a face saving way to leave — perhaps retreating to a watching brief in neighbouring states and he can say they are ready to send in troops if anything of national security concern develops. That would radically cut the cost of the intervention in money and bodies and many of the people the West doesn’t like could shoulder the business of killing each other.
The project was always unworkable. There is no significant group of persons upon which one could found a viable inclusive state, even with armed support from the outside. Accordingly, Afghanistan has never been a nation in any meaningful sense. What we have there is a largely 8th century patriarchal tribal culture equipped with the rudiments of late 20th century technology — an ugly mix.
Admit you got it wrong, and get the hell out of there I say.
PS … can anyone recall when the last time someone in power claimed that apprehending OBL or Mullah Omar was seen as a goal of the occupation? I think Obama mentioned it before becoming President in relation to Pakistan.
Great Taibbi piece Liam.
Daggett, did you read it? I like the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld planning session especially, and also this:
“the “conspiracy” they’re describing is impossible everywhere outside a Zucker brothers movie — unbelievably stupid in its conception, pointlessly baroque and excessive in its particulars, but flawless in its execution, with no concrete evidence left behind and tens of thousands keeping their roles a secret forever.”
BTW, I note you haven’t responded to my #136
On the ABC. Part of the reason they no longer do a lot of local drama is a) Howard and his cronies forced them to outsource it -ten years ago.
b) Their budget was cut to the bone by the Howard Government. i know Rudd sort of restored it, but it takes a while to get good drama series up.
Eventually Rudd will get sick of the Murdoch propagandists and put a broom through the place.
And. NO! IT SHOULD NOT BE PRIVATISED – EVER!
FDB @200 – IRL it would probably be more like a Coen brothers movie
Adrian the abc is more than the tv.
And Mindy is right.
We would all be fucked without Rage.
If that goes then the turrists have really won.
And Good Game is actually one of the best shows on TV. (Which is a damning indictment in itself.)
My wife hates video games and never plays them, but she never misses that show. They must be doing something right.
That’s very true, Paul Burns. The commercial broadcasters have local content quotas they have to meet, but strangely enough nether ABC nor SBS has had to do that. That’s a good thing because after they were cut to the bone by the Libs, they didn’t have enough money to make sufficient programming to fulfill a quota. That’s one reason why you see so many cheap and cheerful panel shows – they’re dirt cheap to produce.
The Labor Party promised that both that the ABC would have to meet local content quotas in the future and increased the funding, specifically for drama production, in the last budget. So, we should be seeing the fruits of that in 2010. Bear in mind that drama production costs $500,000 – $800,000 per hour to produce, whereas it only costs about $50,000 per hour to buy in a top rating British or US series.
Jules, if you like Good Game, you really should check out Yahtzee. Do yourself a flava, etc. That goes double for you, Liamerick.
I’d love someone to explain to me what the point of the ABC is in its current form. OK we may get some decent drama in 2010 or whatever, but maybe the ABC isn’t the best vehicle to deliver this drama, given its track record.
Yes, I know it’s more than TV – the radio news and current affairs content is even worse than the TV counterpart. Anyone remember when AM and PM used to be genuine current afairs programs?
If it doesn’t really have any point, why not use the money for a worthwhile media initiative?
I think that it’s the old boiling frog routine. We have gradually come to accept less and less from the ABC and react against any calls for its sale more from some imagined ideal of the past rather than present day reality.
And I keep saying you fly boys crack me up.
“L’argent prevaricateur”? The money/silver (the metal) prevaricator? Hmmm
Prevaricateur? Get crackin’, FDB.
Monsieur L’Agent, Yahtzee is forbidden by my work’s access policies. Unlike Adolf Hitler’s major work—make of that what conspiracies you please.
Well, grammatically a nonsense, but in the struggle to use our moniker to segue from something daft someone else has just said to our own youtube clip, we work with what we’re given eh?
In this case, 2 years of high school French and a lazy afternoon bottle of Cooper’s Sparkling in the sun.
Fuck me dead.
Okey dokes, that’s going in the bookmarks list for the next youtube Vjaying on acid night.
Must be just around the corner, too.
I was able to listen to local Victorian ABC radio from Northern NSW on Feb 7 this year.
Its performance that day wasn’t pointless.
*lifts jaw off the floor*
Simply outstanding, Haiku. I never knew Kath Day-Knight was an intersexually-challenged hermaphroditic dancing machine. Seems obvious, in retrospect.
Wow L’Ergot that was fucken awesome.
isn’t it time the ISAF forces left Afghanistan?
.
They can’t. If they do it will be percieved as a defeat and those people who’d side with the Taliban and Al Qaeda would flock there in droves to train for other 9/11s. Eventually another war would obtain.
.
Of course that’ll probably happen anyway. We should never’ve gone to war in Afghanistan in the first place.
On the fearsome Dennis Fergusson I want to grab these rabid mothers and raging fathers and force them to acknowledge that the responsibility for keeping their children safe is entirely theirs. Stranger danger certainly can’t be an issue in this case, parents can surely warn their kids of his “oddness” without unduly alarming or distressing them.
As well they need to be reminded that most child abuse occurs within the family, whether immediate or wider, or is perpetrated by someone known to and often trusted by the family in church, school or the neighbourhood at large. And of course most of the outrageously real statistics about child sexual abuse shows it to have been perpetrated in institutions into which children were taken for so called “care”.
Child abuse was not bruited about in my long ago infancy and primary school days,
but I can tell you it was real. I vividly recall the 1947 suicide in his about-to-be consecrated newly re-built church of a popular, married Anglican priest. Adults were totally astonished and postulated ideas about over-work (he had done so much to raise funds for that restoration) and money worries (he was already the father of five with another on the way). The children at his youth club knew differently. He had for some time been “playing with” some of the girls and inevitably they whispered their sad little stories to each other. Some of the boys heard about it and being particularly straight thinking they went as a group and told him he had to stop it! They could never have foreseen the tragic outcome. The true story never surfaced publicly.
In those days most children were left to their own devices for hours and days on end, some because their parents worked or many out of “benign neglect” and the belief that children needed to develop self reliance. There was little thought of sexual exploitation.
I am not sure that today’s full awareness of the extent of sexual predation makes children any safer. Parents still leave their children too much to their own devices without giving them the information and guidance which would protect them against abuse. Why are youngsters still left unsupervised in playgrounds and swimming pools? Why do we need internet censorship when parental supervision and monitoring of cyber-contact is so easily done? Because parents are lazy and expect someone else out there to do it all for them. Those making the loudest protests are often the least ready to take personal responsibility for what happens to their kids.
On the fearsome Dennis Fergusson I want to grab these rabid mothers and raging fathers and force them to acknowledge that the responsibility for keeping their children safe is entirely theirs.
Why do we need internet censorship when parental supervision and monitoring of cyber-contact is so easily done? Because parents are lazy and expect someone else out there to do it all for them. Those making the loudest protests are often the least ready to take personal responsibility for what happens to their kids.
Well said, Patricia WA. Ditto bans on junk food advertising. Get off your arse and parent your kids for Goddsakes, it’s not the TV’s fault their stuffing their face with McDonalds.
Adrien@215
It makes no difference either way. If people are determined to create new 9/11s then whether western troops are bleeding in Afghanistan is neither here nor there.
Right now the war is bleeding the west and making it look ineffectual. There is a victory for the other side of this asymmetric war right there. Whether the west admits defeat or not, everyone know it is defeated — it’s just here, nobody in power wants to say it out loud, and even worse, admit the death and injury toll has been for nothing.
To keep going though — for ten years which is what they are saying, throws good resources after irrecoverable resources for ends that are utterly improbable. The separation of church and state, the creation of a distinct civil sphere, or modernity took hundreds of years in the west and it wasn’t peaceable either. Afghanistan isn’t getting anything like that inside 50 years and certainly not at gun- and drone-point.
Well said PatriciaWA
and Michael Sutcliffe who agrees with her.
Except for one thing: from Fran Barlow @175
I take it that what Fran has written is true.
If it is true then that is nothing, short of stifling their child, a parent can protect them from such a calculating predator.
In such cases society should, through its instrument, the Parliament, pass laws to protect children from predators who do those things and in the face of such predation continue those laws through the life of the predator.
Fran’s conclusion (that we, as a society, should do nothing) from the facts she has laid out are, of course, nonsense. If she took the time to research the literature she would find that for pedophiles it is the impulse and the opportunity, not the MO, which drives the criminal behaviour.
Afghanistan is a classic example of why asymetric warfare tends to favour the underdog or “weaker” party. For a start the definition of weaker is problematic. The language used is not appropriate to the situation. Greater access to tech, more advanced tech, and greater access to resources on a scale bigger than the place where the conflict is taking place doesn’t translate into greater access to resources and tech in the actual theatre of battle.
A fair bit has to do with the nature of combatants. Greater access ot resources means greater centralisation and anyone familiar with how fire fighting in Victoria works will be aware of the problems with that.
Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires for good reason. Its a logistical nightmare. Empires (and the US is an imperial force these days) get their advantages from greater access to resources, and without the logistical networks to supply these resources the empires are immediately disadvantaged. This is Afghanistan all over.
Of course there is more to it than just that, but its a start.
As usual GregM, you are mistaken on anumber of matters.
At no point do I claim/imply that “we, as a society, should do nothing” about sexual predators. I merely point out that as long as we don’t have life sentences or death, then they have to live somewhere. As a matter of practice, it’s probably unrealistic to house them in the suburbs — as the events in Ryde suggest. Rational or not, this is the reality, so maybe a next best solution is some sort of gated community designed to house them at some distance from regular folk.
I disagree though that parents have no role to play. Handing your already-abused kids over to some person for a “holiday” who has suddenly befriended you sounds like pretty poor judgement to me. If no alarms go off in your head at the suggestion, you probably aren’t up to the job of parenting.
Even as children you knew the parts of the neighbourhood with dangerous dogs and you took that into account when making your way home. This is no different in principle.
Finally we are not talking of Ferguson’s impulses but the threat he poses. These are quite separate.
Afghanistan isn’t just asymetric warfare, its 4th generation warfare, its a classic example of it, and the Taliban are using 4th gen tactics to great advantage. They have succeeded in delegitimising the state, tho its wasn’t that legit to begin with, and increasingly they are delegitimising the occupation forces, tho they, well we, have done a fair job of that themselves.
* The difference between 4th gen war and traditional insurgency is not always apparant, not always existant even, 4th gen warfare is jargon, but its useful jargon.
The only legitimacy left is basically with tribal groups and traditional elders. This is hardly great for “demcracy” and probably not real good for the future of human rights in there.
But it does provide an opportunity for the US to strike back. And they apear to be about to take it. (Tho whether they will, time will tell.)
Open source is where its at apparantly. And the US has decided to repeat its (successful it seems) experiment in open source counter insurgency.
You might remember the serge in Iraq? Along with the increased troop numbers the US poured a fair amount of resources and effort into arming, training and protecting Sunni militia. The also gave them a fair amount of autonomy to act, in the understanding that the militia would direct its own efforts against other insurgents that the US had been fighting and losing to.
With this tactic it effectively co opted the insurgency and used it to further the US’ own ends. This was a radical departure from previous Counter Insurgency policy which was based on maintaining and extending the legitimacy and sovreignty of the state.
Not quite sure why, Michael, @ 217, but I disagree with you about the McDonalds and other junk food ads. I think it’s because drawing the same analogy as yourself from my comment would mean I thought it OK for pedophiles to be trawling the internet and openly offering abusive sexual experience to any takers.
Junk foods are determinedly and openly targeted at children during their prime time viewing. Advertising by manufacturers and retailers in supermarkets is carefully designed to achieve maximum effect i.e. to push their products at parents through their kids. The ban on advertising for smoking seems to have had a healthy impact on the population at large over the years so I don’t see why some control of junk food advertising targeting kids shouldn’t work too. And that’s not just good for the particular kids who might grow up into healthier adults, but it’s good for the national budget too.
And yes, I do think parents should be mindful of what their kids are watching on TV. Unless, however, you can be like my daughter and other like-minded parents, and don’t have TV on for kids at all, then we should be able to look for some social controls on what is beamed into our homes. By the way, initially I was sceptical that the TV ban next door was practical, but it has been and the pay-off in happy, active and creative kids is huge. But as a one time working parent who relied on Skippy, Gilligan’s Island and Hogan’s Heroes to entertain my kids while I made tea and unwound from the job I can sympathise with the vast majority of Mums and Dads out there struggling with what their kids are exposed to.
So how is that different from my feeling that parents are directly responsible for their children’s moral and physical welfare with particular reference to sexual abuse? I’m thinking hard about it and I’d be glad of help on this!! After watching the 7.30 Report just now I was really glad there are people out there at least threatening arrest to these predators. However I still think general censorship like the clean feed will just make parents more complacent and feel less directly responsible for giving these sick individuals the opportunity to satisfy their impulses (thanks GregM) with children who clearly feel alone in their world.
So anyway I’ll get to the point.
There are signs the coalition is about to adopt the same tactics in Afghanistan. Following on from Pakistans recent move toward open source CoIn, Sherard Cowper-Coles the British foreign secretary’s special representative for Afghanistan siad this lately: “… the solution lay in devolving political power back to tribal elders who have traditionally held sway in Afghanistan, and funneling money for development through them.”
This flies in the face of what Mullins is reorted to have said today. But it appears Mullins wants a surge in AfPak. He reaffirmed his committment to tradition CoIn, but obviously thats not compatible with a surge strategy. Of course expecting a military leader to come out with his actual tactics in the news media is dumb as so when they do it you have to wonder they actually plan to do.
There’s not alot of difference between using militias and open source CoIn, but the major diffrerence, and its fundamental I reckon, is the shift from maintaining and extending the state’s sovreignty.
Anyway hopefully this shift to Open source CoIn might create a situation that enables a quicker withdrawal.
Cos “We should never’ve gone to war in Afghanistan in the first place.”
Thats fucking well right Adrien.
underdog or “weaker” party. For a start the definition of weaker is problematic. The language used is not appropriate to the situation
Are we to take it, jules, that you are arguing in favour of symmetric warfare, (posited as its contrast- and I have used the word posited here only to excite the interest of Fran who uses big words she doesn’t understand, and I think it is only charitable that I indulge her in that) where the combatants bring every resource at their disposal to bear, so as to prevail over their enemy (essentially the story of WW2)?
And on that basis the stronger party, which is overabundantly armed with nuclear weapons should just nuke every last place held by its enemy so as tc end the war?
That’s what symmetric warfare is.
Note that I haven’t expressed my views on the topic, Ive just asked for yours.
GragMan it really seems as if you have comprehension problems. Then again that was a pretty long winded up meself way of saying: “expect the coalition in Afghanistan to move away from supporting Khazai and pump more resources into tribal groups.”
It was annoying enough to write so I can’t blame anyone for finding it hard to follow and incoherent.
The only real significance of that is the shift away from traditional US counter insurgency. The implications of that shift are interesting and will be far reaching.
I’d never argue in favour of any warfare, unless I’m/we’re under a direct threat, its a waste of energy and resources.
Anyway wrt the quote you used, if weaker parties are actually weaker why are tho so successful in those situations referred to as asymetric warfare?
Sure in a symetric conflict the weaker party would get flogged, but asymetric warfare isn’t symetric wherefor, obviously. So using the same sort of language and the same sort of values to judge and define asymetric conflict is dumb. You’re already ata disadvantage cos the language you use interferes with your ability to accurately describe and therefore to accurately understand whats going on.
Its interesting tho, cos the nation state is on the way out and this conflict is a great way to see how the nation state in its most powerful incarnation (the US) copes with that, and what tactics it employs to slow the process.
Jules (@192) wrote:
What do you mean “significantly less than free fall speeds”? I don’t have the precise total collapse time at the tip of my fingers, but it was not much less than free-fall speed.
How could a building with so much redundant strength in its supporting structural steel collapse at anywhere near that speed through the path of greatest resistance?
One thing that is totally inexplicable if we accept the explanation that the collapse was due to gravity alone was that during one measured interval the speed of the front of the wave of building collapse on the North Tower actually exceeded free fall speed. See for yourself in US Physics teacher David Chandler’s video “Race With Gravity”.
Something other than gravity must have driven that collapse.
Jules (@192) continued
So, what point are you trying to make?
As I have already acknowedged the Twin Tower ‘collapses’ were obviously different from standard bottom-up controlled demolitions. Surely I don’t need to point out again that if the Twin Towers had been demolished in the conventional way there is no way they could have passed the collapses off as having been caused by the impact of the aircraft.
Although I am not an engineer, far less a demolition engineer, one would expect that it would be much harder to make the building collapse completely into its own footprint if the detonation sequence was top down.
The fact that so much building material was ejected such great distances would be due to the fact that those who set up the demolition would have erred on the side of using too much explosives to be more certain that no incriminating evidence would be subsequently found.
The critical point with the Twin Towers is not how well what we saw conforms with traditional controlled demolitions, rather it is whether the sudden total loss of structural strength can be fully explained by the impact of Flight 11 and the fire.
If not, then we have to ask what else could have so suddenly removed that strength. The only explanation offered is that it was removed by planted explosives detonated in a rapid sequence from the top down.
The term I choose to use for this and whaht news reporters used on the day is ‘controlled demolition’. If you want to use a different term, than that is fine by me.
A proper investigation that was seriously intended to explain how the towers collapsed would have investigated this hypothesis and taken account of the recorded evidence and numerous eyewitness accounts in support of that hypothesis, but it did not.
—
Liam (@198),
Thank you for pointing out that when Hitler enunciated the principle of the Big Lie, he was meaning to accuse Jews of employing the technique. At least that explains to me why Hitler would have included that in Mein Kampf. It would hardly have helped his cause if he had announced to his own followers that he intended to use the same propaganda technique that he accused jews of using.
Regardless, the passage acccurately explains how that technique works and so it seems appropriate that Paul Craig Roberts chose to use that quote in his article.
Liam at #177 “Yours is not a search for “truth”, it’s an obscurantist, occultist search for hidden gnostic pearls, rejecting all fairness with primary sources, and it’s the opposite of history.”
Did someone say Dan Brown?
Daggett I am not having the same argument with you that I have had countless times with countless others.
Just consider for a moment.
You are asking people to accept that something can fall faster than free fall. Both in the case of the towers and building 7.
The towers obviously didn’t fall at free fall speed – debris from them clearly does, thats why it is falling ahead of the collapse. IE when you see a photo and there is a huge chunk of wall falling beside the building, ahead of the collapse wave or whatever you call it, then clearly that debris is falling at free fall speed. When the building takes 50% longer to fall than an object in free fall would its obviously wrong to say it fell at free fall or near free fall speeds. I accept the NIST report also makes ridiculous claims about the speed of the fall etc etc trying to fit some pre concieves norion of what happened thats no reason to imitate them.
also if ….
Arggggh fuck I can’t believe I’m typing this.
Sucked in again…
Did you (everyone besides Daggett, he should already know this,) know Mohammed Atta went out with Amanda Keller.
No shit, google it.
Not the Amanda Keller, of course.
Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case?
I know. That’s why I showed it to you.
People who look through Big Lies usually see something on the other side, daggett. Apart from fluff and bluster and pre-emptive Chewbacca defence, what’ve you got? A secret Cabal blew up buildings to hide the fact that planes wouldn’t destroy them? I mean, why bother with the planes at all? Why are we arguing about freefall “speed” when it’s really on you to answer WHY THE HELL THIS SUPPOSED CONSIPRACY MAKES ANY SENSE?
Heh. Convenient.
PatriciaWA, I think you are a bit out of touch re. these “benignly neglectful” parents of today. The prevailing culture at the moment is not to let the children out enough , to drive them most places and not let the poor things have an unsupervised moment. This brings with it its own different risks – a naive and sheltered teenager or 20something is also at risk of sexual assault and other harms. The pendulum needs to swing back more towards the benign neglect, IMO (and that of others – there have been a few discussions of this topic on the blogs lately). My twelve year old is allowed to walk around the neighbourhood and visit his friends and vice versa. If Ferguson moved in next door, we’d simply tell them not to have anything to do with him.
Actually, Liam, what nobody ever seems to mention is that the WTC towers were in fact made completely out of explosives. It’s really sort of amazing that they didn’t blow up long ago. Why they chose to build them that way is something that nobody in NY ever really understood.
I remember when we were kids, we used to take the trolley over to lower Manhattan during the summer, and chip off little bits of the WTC to bring home and use as fireworks at Fourth of July picnics.
True story. Although these days I can be “disappeared” for relating it.
Eminently reasonable, Helen … well said.
Jules (@ 229) wrote:
Please contemplate the fact that a monstrous crime was committed on 11 September 2001 and millions of people around the world who have looked at the evidence believe that people innocent of having committed that crime have been blamed for that crime. As a result hundreds of billions have been spend on wars, well over one million have died, many more have been maimed or displaced.
So, some of us believe this is important. Some of those people happen to have had loved ones killed on that day. They include Jean Canavan, Manny Badillo and Bob McIlvaine. Please take all of 50 seconds to hear them appeal for your support for a new and proper inquiry into 9/11 in a youtube broadcast embedded at nyccan.org. They include the Jersey Girls who fought heroically against the Bush amdministration to even have the 9/11 Commission held as rigged as that was.
You rightly apologised for having written the words “Who gives a fuck about 3000 dead yuppies nearly 10 years ago?” If you were sincere in that apology and, even more so, sincere in your professed concern for people in third world countries who have died because they were wrongly blamed for the murder of those 3,000 people, then you would also retract those words.
Incidentally would it have been acceptable to you if those who had known Lindy Chamberlain to have been innocent of the crime murdering baby Azaria to have remained silent and left her behind bars?
I don’t know where you get the figure that “the building takes 50% longer to fall than an object in free fall”.
The 9/11 Commission (obviously erroneously) accepts that it was 10 seconds. Another figure is between 14 and 16 seconds. As the height of the taller tower is 417 metres, then my calculation of the time taken for free-fall speed is 16.7 seconds, so even that figure seems not to be right (that is unless my calculation time = sqrt(2*1368/9.8) is wrong).
Whatever, the speeds of the collapses seem to have been significantly less than “50% longer” than free-fall and vastly faster than what the time should have been given the enormous amount of strength in the structural steel that had to be overcome.
Do you seriously maintain that the strength of all of that steel could have been so suddenly lost without the use of exploseives?
If you want to stop wasting time, then why not at least accept my simple point that a new inquiry into the ‘collapses’ should be held so that we can find out why the Twin Towers and WTC 7 did collapse?
—
sublime cow girl, FDB and Lando Calrissian now that we have reached over 233 comments, we desperately need many more such comments which help so greatly to clarify the question we are discussing.
sublime cow girl, I have never read one Dan Brown novel, nor watched the movies, nor even watched The Simpsons parody of the first of those movies. I think you will find that as Tom Hanks, the main actor in the movie,s wants to make a movie that is intended to disprove any suspicion that JFK was murdered by elements within the US state, that he would be on your side on the question of 9/11.
—
Liam demands yet again that I explain “WHY THE HELL THIS SUPPOSED CONSPIRACY MAKES ANY SENSE”.
It makes sense because it enabled the Project for a New American Century cabal that gained control of the White House in 2001 to achieve their domestic and international geopilitical goals. They said themselves in their document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” on page 51:
Perhaps Liam should ponder the question, “what sense did it make for Muslims to launch 9/11?” How did the consequent invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan help them achieve their political goals?
Liam’s sole argument in defence of the Official Conspiracy Theory is that in order to stage 9/11 thousands would have had to have been involved in the conspiracy and it would not have been possible for so many people to have been kept quite. Another estimate that I read is that around 500, from my recollection, needed direct knowledge of the plot in order for it to carried out.
In any case, how many were involved in the Manhattan Project? Or in the Bletchley Park project to break the Enigma code?
This single argument hardly amounts to a reason to ignore the mountains of other evidence that flatly contradicts the Official Conspiracy Theory that Liam is evasively attempting to peddle. It hardly amounts to a reason not to demand a new inquiry which seeks answers to the 70% of questions asked by the Jersey Girls that were ignored by the 9/11 Commission.
Jules, please look again at the broadcast “Race With Gravity” that I referred to above. No-one is arguing that any physical part of the Twin Towers actually fell faster than free-fall speed, but at one point the wave of collapse clearly moved faster than an object falling that was falling at free fall speed.
Such a wave of collapse could not conceivably have been driven just by the weight of the building falling from above.
The only way that could have been possible that I can come up with is if explosives had been used.
Fran – If people are determined to create new 9/11s then whether western troops are bleeding in Afghanistan is neither here nor there.
.
Americans like their wars fought in other peoples’ countries. I do suspect you’re right however. You go to Afghanistan everyone dies. If they pull out it will be a mistake tho’ the way Clinton snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the Battle of Magadishu was.
.
And if they stay it will probably also be a mistake. I do imagine that they’re be deploying less troops and more robots however. And that may make a difference. And as always ordinary innocent people are the ones that will pay. But Mr Bush’s bonehead plays are going to cost us all.
.
Even more.
All WordPress bloggers please note.
I haven’t upgraded since Media2 started in 2004! And I share the domain with Barista, so you can imagine the internet odium that would descend on me if I started trying do this with cheery abandon and deleted possibly Australia’s best loved blog… Going to have to do something about it, anyway!
If your blog is hosted on WordPress.com you don’t have to worry.
Daggett – you are a poo-face.
Now, why don’t you go and prove to me that your face is not made of poo, following the same rules of evidence (sorry, EVIDENCE!!!) that would satisfy you that you are wrong about 9/11.
GO!!!
dagget and the rest,
There are plenty of well qualified structural engineers that have opined that the strike of a heavier aircraft that existed when the buildings were designed and built, carrying more fuel than had been believed possible at that stage was more than sufficient to cause the collapse of the towers in the manner in which they collapsed.
Further – getting sufficient explosives into the building would have taken weeks, lots of preparation and many people.
There is no evidence that this happened. None at all – other than a lot of unqualified people speculating.
FDB – You should be at the Cat proving Bob Brown is right.
Sgr daggett,
there is a point of error in your missive numbered 236, on the matter of how long it takes for an object to fall freely.
You have used the right method to calculate this
sqrt(2*H/g)
for a height H, and acceleration g.
The time is the square root of twice the height, divided by the acceleration.
But you said the height was 417 metres, and g is 9.8 metres per second squared, so the time is 9.23 seconds.
I believe you used the conversion factor 3.280 (feet in a metre) and converted 417 metres to 1368 feet. But then you used the acceleration in METRE units (9.8), rather than 32.2 feet per second squared.
As to the rest, you remind me of my acquaintance Simplicio.
ciao!
Beelzebush has some tinfoil set aside for me
Has it occurred to anyone that the only cabal ruthless and singleminded enough to pull off the destruction of a large chunk of downtown Manhattan would be New York Property developers.
Another flakey theory it’s true but on the other hand, who wouldn’t wanna see Donald Trump perp walked and then executed by lethal hair transplant?
Just as the WTC projected itself into the NYC skyline (lot harder for a visitor to navigate around downtown without the towers as a reference point I can tell you), its absence allows anyone to project anything into the space left behind.
And really, if the powers that shouldn’t be but are were smart enough to pull off such a conspiracy off without a leak, then how did they then fuck up the US’s current Totally Bogus Central Asian Adventure?
There’s probably a plausible case to be made for LIHOP but in that case, I doubt “they” had the sheer balls to go for it – never mind the competence to so believably accidentally fuck up in response.
Sometimes a black swan is just a black swan.
Galileo Galilei (@243),
Thanks for spotting my error. I did say, after all, that my figure did not seem right.
What had happened is that I pointed my spreadsheet formula to the cell containing the height of the first tower in feet and not in metres.
So, it turns out that on one question, Jules was right, after all. My apologies, Jules.
It seems that the towers did indeed take “50% longer (14-16 seconds) to fall than an object in free fall (9.2 seconds) would [have taken].”
Nevertheless, that remains a phenomenally short time for all that massive structural strength in all that steel to have been overcome. Furthermore as David Chandler showed on the YouTube broadcast “Race With Gravity” that I referred to above, at one short interval the wave of collapse actually moved faster than a falling object.
The only possible explanation for all of this that I can come up with is that explosives had to have been used. Given that that is exactly what it looks like happened and given that that is what numerous eyewitnesses attested to having witnessed, then I would suggest that that the evidence that explosives were used is conlcusive.
—
Andrew Reynolds (@ 241),
I am not aware of any credible document by any structural engineer that shows how either of the Twin Towers could have collapsed the way they did as a consequence of the impacts from the 767′s. Please show me any you know of. The Towers were designed to take a head on impact from a 707 a plane of comparable size to a 767. The 767′s did not hit front on and computer analysis shows that sufficient intact or partially damaged columns should have been left to easily allow the full weight of the building above to be supported.
Also, there is plenty of eyewitness testimony of strange happenings in the twin towers in the weeks before 9/11. Please refer to my post @ 139.
—
Did I miss some subtle and clever humour in FDB’s post @ 240 or is it what it appears to be?
Why is this person still allowed to contribute to this forum?
“Why is this person still allowed to contribute to this forum?”
Yep Daggett, that’s the way to encourage free ranging and vigorous debate about bringing the truth to the surface.
Speaking of which, can you prove you’re not an agent provocateur muddying the waters with waffling minutia in order to deflect attention from the real conspiracy?
“The Towers were designed to take a head on impact from a 707 a plane of comparable size to a 767.”k
Si Sgr daggett
you did say your figure seemed wrong. It is good to be humble.
ciao
Aha!
So you admit your face is made of poo!
I just knew you’d slip up sooner or later.
Galileo Galilei (@ 247),
I wasn’t aware that FDB was engaged in a debate with me. Which of his posts do you think have helped shed light on the 9/11 controversy?
Galileo Galilei (@ 249) wrote,
Perhaps you would prefer that I contributed the same amount of facts and ideas to this discussion as FDB has.
It’s far easier to avoid making mistakes if you say nothing and do nothing.
In any case, as I have shown, even the 9/11 commission mistakenly stated that the Twin Towers fell to the ground in 10 seconds, perhaps amongst the least of the almost innumerable glaring mistakes they made.
So, Galileo Galilei, did you mean to imply by making that link to a YouTube broadcast of a part of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” that you dispute that the Twin Towers were designed to withstand a head-on impact from a 707?
“Although I am not an engineer, far less a demolition engineer …”
Me either thats why I am in no position to actually evaluate any of the claims wrt the collapse from any side, and thats why anything i say about it will be functionally meaningless. And anything I think about it has to be filtered through the “I don’t actually know wtf I’m talking about” filter.
Unless I sit down and follow all the specific maths that specific people (steve jones for example, or NIST,) use, then learn what they mean, and the maths they use that I don’t understand then i’m not in any posisition to make any kind of comment beyond the ones I have already made.
“As a result hundreds of billions have been spend on wars, well over one million have died, many more have been maimed or displaced.”
10 times as many children died that day as people who died in the attacks, and every day since as a result in the inequities in the world that are directly caused by our culture being dominant and controlling access to resources. That doesn’t include the countless children and adults killed in minor conflicts over resources and access to them in places like the Phillipines, West papua south America central and east Africa etc etc etc.
Whether the attacks occurred or not the US would have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq anyway. they would have found some pretext cos ultimately they need to be able to guarantee their access to resources.
The Patriot act and the Invasion of Iraq, or our anti terror laws are all a direct result of 9/11 yet these things can be challenged on their merits and should be, without the need for reference to the possible involvement of certian corrupt US govt officials. The fact that people who should have helped engage those issues on their own were distracted by trying to find some holy grail truth about the 11 sept attacks were too busy with something else that still hasn’t produced any results makes me wonder if the whole movement wasn’t a distraction in the first place.
“Sometimes a black swan is just a black swan.”
Yeah true.
BBut Bush and Cheney are responsible for it.
Whether it was MIHOP, LIHOP or sheer incompetence, they are still responsible, and should have been pitchforked immediately, Cheney probably should have faced impeachment, or ewhatever version VPs face for his actions in taking control in the bunker despite the fact that its not constitutionally allowed, but I guess the US constitution didn’t mean much to that admin.
They are responsible cos it happened on their watch, and afterward when asked for an explanation the only excuse they actually had was their incompetence and the failures of the departments they are ultimately responsible for.
This should be basic, obvious, look at what some people are saying about the leadership of the CFA in Victoria after the fires.
And honestly they deserve a lot more “slack” for what happened than the US govt did years ago. Then again communication and decisions making pathways in emergency responses in Victoria are a bit of a basket case.
There are serious doubts about the legitimacy of the Bush 00 admin to begin with, then their first serious test comes along and they say:
“Oh sorry, we weren’t up to it. Tell you what, here’s the patriot act, that’ll fix it.”
We live in democracies, and idiots rule.
Well I think that just about covers it jules.
“Not the Amanda Keller, of course.”
No of course not. But it is one of the many rabbit holes that lead to information that makes me go WTF? How does that reconcile with what we accept as the consesus view of the event.
But what I actually find far more interesting is the way that event was predicted by so many little referneces in art and pop culture.
What about the end of fight club? The proposed album cover by The Coup, a radical hip out outfit from the US:
The Coup’s proposed cover for Party Music
(In no way does linking to that image indicate my endorsement of anything Lew Rockwell has ever said. At the least he’s a Rothbardian wanker. It was the biggest image on the first row of the first page of a google image search.)
I know plenty of people who dreamt about the event, I did many times, over 10 years before it happened (tho at the time I put it down to anxiety about growing up under the threat of nuclear war between the US and USSR). Or dreamt about planes in the days leading up to it, and although that on its own might seem like nothing, the context is that it was unusual for them, unusual enough that they would bring it up.
There are countless comic book images and images in art from the last 40 years that show similar images/concepts. maybe not countless ones, but enough.
There’s the Global Consciousness Research Project at princeton, though after a fair bit of examination that looks less and less credible.
I once saw someone have a psychotic episode (in 1999) and in the middle of it they just happened to describe the events that took place two and a half years later.
The event obviously had a huge effect on the people who use electronic media to structure their world (and a huge effect on people in Iraq and Afghanistan afterward, tho a completely different one.)
Thats whats really interesting about it.
Of course most people would probably consider that even less rational than the stuff troofers go on about, but rationality is over rated anyway.
And most people don’t even understand their own minds or motivations so … its not like they have anything other than noise to offer.
“Well I think that just about covers it jules.”
Yeah can we talk about something else now, (unless someone’s up for a discussion on what is consciousness)?
Jules (@ 252) wrote,
Then how do you suppose the jury trial system works in cases where forensic evidence is disputed?
The fact is that in order to see that much of the Official explanation of the Tower Collapses cannot be true, one only needs a year 10 level understanding of physics. Sometimes not even that is necessary.
Quite a few other people I know who were sceptical about the claims of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, or even hostile to them, have easily grasped their case once shown their video presentation. So, I don’t see why you shouldn’t also be able to.
Jules wrote,
Nonsense!
In any case, you almost immediately contradict yourself when you write:
Do you believe that the US Congress could have passed that motion supporting the bombing of North Vietnam if it had not been for the staged “Gulf of Tonkin” incident in 1964?
They got away with their crimes against Vietnam as long as they did because not enough people were able to see through that lie.
The same is true of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and there is no way that they would have had congress pass the Patriot Act if not for 9/11. The Project for a New American Century understood that as I have shown above.
Why can’t you?
Jules continued:
Why can’t you see that a good many people out there believe that the argument, that the people who committed the 9/11 and other terrorist atrocities did so from the sanctuaries of Afghanistan and continue to do so to this very day, has ‘merit’?
Precisely that argument was put in the Courier Mail editorial that I quoted above. That is only one of many I could have quoted. That is also how Rudd, Obama and Brown repeatedly justify the war in Afghanistan and, now, Pakistan.
If that lie is not challenged, then I believe it will be impossible to stop them launching yet more wars and taking away yet more of our democratic freedoms.
If you think I am wrong, just recall how, in early 2003, what seemed to be a rock solid majority of public opinion opposed the invasion of Iraq. At the time I was euphoric. I could not conceive of John Howard daring to procede with the war in those circumstances.
Yet he did so brazenly and the solid majority, instead of become an even larger and more outraged majority, somehow changed into a minority to my enormous dismay.
Not only that, but John Howard actually was re-elected in 2004 and gained complete control of the Senate.
It took many more years and almost incalculable harm to Australia and the rest of the world caused by a re-elected Howard Government for that minority to become a clear majority again.
The best explanantion I can come up with to explain that is that the anti-war movement failed to challenge the Big Lie of 9/11. In spite of all the warm and fuzzy arguments against the invasion, and in spite of the tenuous basis of the claims for links between Saddam Hussein and ‘Al Qaeda’ people still felt threatened as Hermann Goering would have put it, and so they decided then to support the war (even if only by a small majority).
You rightly state that figures in the Bush administration should have been jailed for what could at the very best describes as their glaring failure in their duty of care to the American public.
Yet this has not happened.
These people, that every informed person agrees had to be, at the very best, grossly incompetent, were allowed to overtly wield the reins of US Government for 7 more years causing incalculable harm to the world in that time.
The 9/11 Truth Movement believes that that is just not good enough and are doing their utmost to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
The best way to ensure that that does not happen again is for those responsible for 9/11 and the other false flag terrorist atrocities of recent years to be unmasked and held to account for what they have done in criminal trials.
So why won’t you support them?
If the 9/11 Truth fails in this then we are doomed to go on fighting costly and bloody wars at least until either the exhaustion of our non-renewable natural resources or ecological calamity make it no longer possible.
I did not link to a youtube, Sgr daggett.
That was someone called 39 Steps.
I don’t even know what a “youtube” is.
Me, I’ve got enough troubles.
I’m under house arrest. They want to silence me. I want to write about mountains on the Moon, and little stars orbiting Jupiter, and why Copernicus should be taken seriously.
Speaking of tubes though, I made an optical tube that you can use to look at the Moon, or examine ships far off. Care to see it?
ciao
I think the Patriot Act passed partly cos someone got anthrax in the mail, but in a hypothetical world where 9/11 never happened the Bush admin would have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan anyway IMO.
“Then how do you suppose the jury trial system works in cases where forensic evidence is disputed?”
Honestly I don’t know. I’d hope the jurors make the effort and take the time to understand as much as they can about the processes that generates the forensic evidence and then employ critical thinking in their examination of the evidence itself. I would hope that juries have the time and resources available to make those decisions then act on them.
Thats how it would work in an ideal world.
If I was on a jury judging 9/11 building related evidence then I assume I would be given the time and resources to satisfy myself that I understand enough about whats going on to make a valid judgement.
I’m not in that position and have more important things to consider.
PNAC’s got nothing to do with it. If populations were genuine about controlling their governments then none of the things you refer to (vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) above would have happened. End of story.
“…the anti-war movement failed to challenge the Big Lie of 9/11.”
True, but the big lie of 9/11 isn’t dependant on why the towers collapsed, and that event had such an impression on people, it was on the level of imprinting, not conditioning. Its dependant on what allowed the planes to hit in the first place.
And that isn’t dependant on whether it was incompetence, complicity or worse. The best that can be said about why 9/11 happened is incompetence – that should be enough to challenge the wars and dismantling of human rights and democratic protections that followed. Do you really think exposing 9/11 would make any difference on top of that.
people are imprinted with the idea of the official story.
It doesn’t matter how many time you bang on about CD or what you actually prove. You won’t change those minds.
Shit, I don’t believe the official story, on its own. There’s enough doubt about the relationship between al qaeda and elements of the US lolitical and intelligence infrastructure to mean the official story can’t be taken on face value.
Yet you are berating me for not dogmatically accpeting the official “troofer” story, I don’t agree with the whole CD cult so I blindly accept what the govt says.
You are as bad as the people who insist considering any “conspiracy theory” about 9/11 is a sign you are incompetent as a human being.
Its like being caught in an argument between Catholics and Protestants or Christians and Muslims about whose God is real.
The 9/11 troof movement doesn’t believe in bringing Bush to justice for his failings on 9/11. they don’t even recognise they might be failures.
the 9/11 troof movement is concerned about validating its dogma and defining the world in religious terms even tho it can’t see this for itself.
Okay everybody. Time for this useful information, to clarify matters…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7t7cGwN7_0
As that famous and justly revered statesman once warned us all, “Don’t be blind to the big surprise, swimming round and round like the deadly hand of a RADIUM CLOCK! At the BOTTOM! of the pooool….”
The rest, as they say, is history.
Oh, and, uh…
Watch out for signs that say, “HIDDEN DRIVEWAYS”!
Interesting. Daggett is making a claim about 9/11 that as far as I’m aware no-one been able to refute. Everytime I ask the free fall question I get treated like a loony but no-one can tell me how it works.
.
They’ll link to some complex document that has a lot of equations and fancy theories that explains how such a freak occurence is possible and there’s nothing untoward about it happening three times on one morning in one place. There’s citations of various experts who’ve written debunking articles but those I’ve read can’t explain it either.
.
Can you? Can you understand? Because this is what Noam Chomsky refers to when he talks about the manufacturing of consent. The issue is inherently outré . This is how Foucault describes our power structure as a demarker of normality, morality, sanity and those that fall outside.
.
And it’s interesting that people who’ve read books by both men somehow play the game they’re describing. By all means ban Dagget. S/he’s obviously crazy.
Chomsky is not a particularly clear thinker on either foreign policy or media. (There, I’ve said it.)
Beneath the thicket of his citations and the appearance of scholarly work is sloppiness, the brute force of very partisan cheerleader polemic (propaganda), and deep ignorance.
His sly criticism of Ponchaud’s book on Cambodia under the KR is a clear case in point. Ponchaud was right about the KR long before Chomsky; Ponchaud had lived in Cambodia and was immersed in the culture; Chomsky was always an outsider and dilettante; yet Chomsky claimed Ponnchaud’s book was flawed because the refugee eyewitnesses he quoted couldn’t really be trusted. Chomsky ignored the fact that Ponchaud quoted KR Radio extensively.
KR Radio lied; Ponchaud realised this. Many admirers (at that time) of the KR were less sceptical of KR Radio.
Take any particular country or regime: read some knowledgeable authors, then read Chomsky.
Then consider carefully what it is “to be an intellectual”. You may wonder, as I do, why folk still call him an intellectual. And why he seems revered.
Then again, you may admire his writings. Feel free.
Irrespective of what anyone may think of Chomsky or even 9/11, the general point that Missy makes is a very good one.
Maybe you should channel Missy more often, Adrien.
“Interesting. Daggett is making a claim about 9/11 that as far as I’m aware no-one been able to refute. Everytime I ask the free fall question I get treated like a loony but no-one can tell me how it works.” – Missy H
“It seems that the towers did indeed take “50% longer (14-16 seconds) to fall than an object in free fall (9.2 seconds) would [have taken].”
Nevertheless, that remains a phenomenally short time for all that massive structural strength in all that steel to have been overcome.” – Daggett
Does it? Says who? Some guy in a video? Given there was at least 10 or 15 stories of the core still standing in at least one tower (possibly more) then the idea that then entire core just crumpled to the ground has to be shown for the simplication it is. The collapse started below the top of the building, at around the 80 and 90 floor marks which means lower free fall time for the actual cos the distance is actually shorter, and there was a mass of concrete and steel being accelerated by gravity, so the collapsing mass had momentum. (It also took up space, which could explain why it pushed some of the dust that was released during the collapse outward in pyroclastic looking clouds.)
Missy i think thats why the idea of the towers in free fall should be taken with a few grains of salt. They didn’t fall at free fall speed and the behaved exactly the way I’d expect them to behave if the building collapsed of it own accord. they also behaved in a way that strongly suggests they were aided in their collapse. I’m not denying its a possibility, but its functionally meaningless. I’m not talking about Building 7 either. Just the towers.
Consider tho that if the collapse was aided then the sort of sloppy thinking I’ve outlined above wrt the actual mechanics of the collapse will forever be a thorn in the side of proving it. It doesn’t matter if NIST were as sloppy, if you are trying to provide the extraordinary proof that sort of claim demands then the onus is on you to get your facts right at the start.
“Because this is what Noam Chomsky refers to when he talks about the manufacturing of consent. The issue is inherently outré . This is how Foucault describes our power structure as a demarker of normality, morality, sanity and those that fall outside.” – Missy H
Thats one of the more intelligent comments I have read re 9/11.
I completely agree. Tho I see the same thing happening on both sides of the argument.
Implicit in the 9/11 Truther argument is the assertion that the persons who allegedly smuggled demolition explosives into the buildings were associated in some way with persons who incited Atta et al. to fly their planes into those same buildings.
Now it is an admitted fact that among the more than 100 attempts on Fidel Castro, at least one involved the construction of a very large explosive conch shell. One can only conclude that weirdness and the US Security State are on much more than nodding acquaintance.
However, on the other hand, the CIA of the early 1960s had privileged access to the purest LSD on the planet, a fact which may explain some of their more bizarre exploits of the time.
Alas, nowadays agencies of the US Security State are much more bureaucratic and rule-bound than they were in the great days of the 1960s.
To be blunt, ingestion of psychotropic drugs is now a sackable offence.
Without access to a goodly supply if hallucinogens it would be nigh impossible for any agency of the US Security State to come up with a plot of the utmost baroqueness involving BOTH the setting of “nanothermite” AND incitement of almost two dozen Muslim chappies with their gazes fixed on jihad and a plentiful supply of compliant virgins in the hereafter.
The world is a poorer place without government-sanctioned acid.
I wrote (@ 256):
Then Jules wrote (@ 263):
Yes it does. Here’s why:
If we take the longest estimate of 16 seconds, then the average accelaration would have been:
Where a = average acceleration of ‘collapse’, h = the height of 415 metres of WTC2 (the slightly shorter of the two), and t = longest estimated time of collapse.
The figure of 3.24 metres per second per second is 0.331 or 33.1% of free fall acceleration. Put differently, the tower accelerated at an average rate 66.9% slower than it would have if it had accelerated at free fall. This means that as the tower fell the structural steel underneath exerted 33.1% of the force that gravity would have exerted on the building above. (If it had fallen at free fall speed it would have been exactly zero. If it had not fallen at all the force exerted would have had to have been 100% or more.)
If the World Trade Center Twin Towers had been built with just enough strength to support their own wieght, this would mean that we would have to explain how structural strength equivalent to 33.1% of gravity had suddenly been removed. (In the case of WTC 7 which did fall at free-fall speed for the first 2.5 seconds, as I seem to recollect, we would have to explain how structural strength equal to 100% of gravity had suddenly been removed).
However, the Twin Towers (and WTC 7) had hugely redundant structural strength. I think the figure I read for the Twin Towers was they had structural strength capable of supporting 10 times their own weight, but let’s just, for argument’s sake assume it is 5 times.
Based on that assumption, structural strength of (5 – 0.669) or 4.331 times the force of gravity on the second tower would have had to have been removed throughout the whole building within that 16 second interval.
That is why I regard even 16 seconds total collapse time as still phenomenally fast for such a building. Whatever possible way was there for all that structural strength to have been removed within that interval, but explosives?
And, again, as I pointed out, at one point the collapse front, if not the whole falling building, moved even faster than free-fall which further confirms that explosives had to have been used.
There are enough other interesting points raised above to keep me writing for a week. I will have to return later.
Of course, I thank Missy Higgins (@ 260) her incisive and helpful observations.
To be fair, Adrien, this happens even when you don’t ask the free-fall question.
As to Chomsky, Daggett will explain to you that Chomsky is a phony, because he accepts the “official conspiracy theory”. http://candobetter.org/node/1286
That is convincing proof of just how vast and pernicious the cover-up is, wouldn’t you say?
I want to quote some things Jules wrote earlier:
“I know plenty of people who dreamt about the event, I did many times, over 10 years before it happened (tho at the time I put it down to anxiety about growing up under the threat of nuclear war between the US and USSR). Or dreamt about planes in the days leading up to it, and although that on its own might seem like nothing, the context is that it was unusual for them, unusual enough that they would bring it up.
[...]
The event obviously had a huge effect on the people who use electronic media to structure their world [...]”
One of my oldest and dearest friends literally could not sleep at night for months beforehand. When the news came through (to me) at five in the morning, I called him straight away. We spoke for two or three hours.
It was one of the most mysterious events I’ve encountered in my lifetime.
If you know anything about the basics of paranoia, you know about the basics of herd instinct.
To deny instinct over reason…
(Australian conservative-columnist type “instinct”, which it tries to umpire, and constantly stab about looking and feeling for – that ain’t it)
Firstly, my apologies for my mal-formed link (@ 265) back to Jules’ post (@ 263).
Jules, of course I geatly appreciate the fact that you are willing (to a point) to discuss my arguments and that you have not resorted to personal attacks. And I appreciate the fact that you supported my argument that it was ridiculous to accept that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was one of the masterminds of 9/11 when the only basis for that is confesssions extracted under torture. Nevertheless, much of what else you write, including what you write in regard to the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers, is illogical and would undermine the most powerful and conclusive evidence (that is with the arguable exception of the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7) that the 9/11 Truth Movement has if I were to let that stand unchallenged.
GregM (@ 266), why do you think it is that people are treated like loonies whenever they question 9/11?
Why is the Australian far-left seemingly unanimous in its resolve (as Paul Craig Roberts pointed out above) to defend ground which accepts that terrorists, from the region in which our armies are now fighting wars that they say they oppose, did launch 9/11, 7/7 the Madrid bombings, Bali, etc, but refuse to even contemplate examining evidence that would enable them to shift to ground which I would have thought would be much easier to defend, that is, the ground on which it is maintained that the US government itself committed the crimes which it has knowingly and falsely blamed on so-called Muslim extremists. (Words self-plagiarised from earlier discussion on Online Opinion about the movie “Balibo”.) Why, instead of calmly asssessing the evidence to determine whether it just might be true, do so many on the supposed left of Australian politics, instead, spill bucketloads of electronic ink personally attacking 9/11 Truthers?
Noam Chomsky
Of course, part of the reason, but only part, must lie with the influence of Noam Chomsky, who is regarded as an unquestionable guru by many in Australia. In spite of the fact that Noam Chomsky has written some good ideas as Missy Higgins pointed out, I am, nevertheless, convinced that he is a fraud.
In fact, Noam Chomsky, himself, has acted contrary to many of his own good ideas.
Very shortly after the 9/11 attacks, he produced an article which essentially accepted the Official US Government 9/11 Conspiracy and has spent much of his energy since then attacking the 9/11 Truth Movement.
This, together with Chomsky’s absurd insistence that there was nothing suspicious about the murders, in the 1960′s, of all four of America’s most charismatic and effective political leaders who were prepared to stand up to America’s oligarchy — JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK — has resulted in some, including an erstwhile protege, Canadian Barrie Zwicker to question Chomsky’s true motives.
I have written some of this in the brief article “Noam Chomsky, phony American Dissident” that GregM mentioned. I urge people to read that article and to follow the links to other articles and YouTube Broadcasts. The Short Youtube Broadcast “The Shame of Noam Chomsky & left gatekeepers” by Barrie Zwicker linked to from there is well worth looking at.
I would be most interested to know if GregM concurs with Chomsky’s view:
I consider Chomsky’s ludicrous position on Cambodia, which he inexplicably held on to even as late as early this century to be a component of his overall disinformation effort.
Sometime earlier this decade I heard an interview of Chomsky by fellow left gatekeeper Phillip Adams. In that interview he accused the media of being hypocritical for focusing on Cambodia in the late 1970′s instead of on East Timor. It may well be that for a while some of the media was hypocritical, but his point seemed ludicrous. If anything, the Cambodian genocide was an even greater crime than Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor.
Sadly, some on the left had an emotional need to deny that those who had ‘liberated’ Cambodia in 1975 were not gencocidal killers, but surely years after the Khmer Rouge had been used as a tool by the West against the Vietnamese who removed that genocidal regime, that emotional need should have long disappeared.
However, the greatest harm that is done when Chomsky effectively apologises for Khmer Rouge crimes, is not to himself, but to others who oppose US foreign policy, who the broader public assumes to share his views.
Daggett you ask:
Then you are good enough to provide the answer yourself:
There we have it.
You would have the vast conspiracy extending to agents of the US Government not merely bring down the twin towers but blowing up the Sari nightclub, the Madrid metro, the London underground and, I guess from your “etc” the Australian embassy in Jakarta, two hotels there (one twice), the US embassy in Nairobi, and even one of their own warships, the USS Cole, not to mention the recent attack on Mumbai, always covering their tracks so well that they get away with it every time, leaving no trace of their involvement but always a trail of false evidence to implicate innocent others and deceive investigators.
This even when the perpetrators of the atrocities make open admissions, at times boasts, of committing the acts.
Looney? Yes. Barking mad too.
Daggett I’m not arguing that there was no assistance to the collapse of the twin towers, just that its outside my ability to comment, and I am criticising some aspects of the way the case for it is presented, including the analysis you just gave of the reasons why the collapse was indeed too fast.
The WTC was not a uniform structure, it was a network of places that held the weight. If certain nodes fail then the assumption there is suffieicient redundancy in the system to deal with that is flawed IMO cos we honestly don’t know. As I said there is enough photo evidence to show the entire core didn’t collpase to the ground and that changes everything about the forces acting on it, and on the floors (ie structure) that were joined to the core. I don’t see CD proponents taking that into account, and thats just one example.
Also, many people claim there is no actual evidence the hijackers were on the plane… often while explaining the very things you have explained.
Now the hijackers and their connections and all the dodginess that surrounds them are vital to understanding the actual political situation on the planet right now, imo. Thats what I’d rather focus on. I tend to agree with your assessment of Chomsky tho. He’s overrated. Despite some astute structural observations he makes about western culture, esp American culture.
I kind of agree with him about Kennedy too, he wasn’t the Messiah of truth and kjustice some claim him to be. I don’t buy the camelot myth. But kennedy did challenge the power of the CIA, they have a reputation for killing people and then nothing comes of it. And he did inspire the name of one the best bands evah.
Daggett do you remember the Dateline interview from 2005 with former indonesian PM Wahid? Thats more important info than any discussion on the actual explosions in Bali imo. I feel the same way about the 9/11 attacks, and wonder why you haven’t yet mentioned Sibel Edmonds (or Wolfgang Bohringer).
GregM,
As I wrote close to the commencement of this discussion, there are two Conspiracy Theories (and possibly a third being a combination of the two) which can be used explain 9/11 and the other spectacular attacks of recent years. If you reject one, you must necessarily embrace the other.
Why should the Conspiracy Theory that you embrace be automatically held to be reasonable and not paranoid?
There are mountains of evidence in support of the Conspiracy Theory I support and have provided only some of it here.
The supporters of the Conspiracy Theory that you embrace have supplied no evidence whatsoever on this forum.
BTW, which “perpetrators of the atrocities” have made “open admissions” and “at times boast[ed], of committing the acts?”
Please supply the evidence.
I am most interested.
—
The statement that no-one involved in the 9/11 Conspiracy has spilled about seems to untrue. It seems that Nicholas Rockefeller had indeed confided in Aaron Russo, the film-maker who produced “Trading Places” details of the 9/11 attack before it occurred. Aaron Russo died in August 2007. Here are Aaron Russo’s words in an interview with Alex Jones:
The YouTube interview is here. I quoted these words on the Online Opinion forum “Scrutinising our counter-terrorism laws” of 6 Nov 2008.
I doubt that you are in the slightest bit interested but here it is for 9/11:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/binladen_message041029.html
For the Bali bombing:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/stories/s726286.htm
GregM,
All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes. I will come back to that later.
Even the FBI doesn’t consider them sufficient evidence to justify charging Osama bin Laden for the crime of September 11 and have said so. Why not check for yourself his FBI ‘wanted’ poster?
As Jules has alluded to, FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has defied a gag order to reveal that Osama bin Laden worked for the US at least up until 11 September 2001. See “Bombshell: Bin Laden Worked for US Till 9/11″.
Yes, patsies who truly believed that they were striking blows against the infidel West played roles in both the 9/11 attacks and the Bali bombings, but they were clearly tools of intelligence agencies without whom their attacks could not have hoped to succeed on the scale that they did.
In regard to Bali, the convicted terrorists could not possibly have planted the second bomb which blew up the Sari club.
As Jules has also alluded to Indonesia’s former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, when asked who planted the second bomb, said in an interview on SBS’s Dateline:
I also briefly mentioned this in my own submission to the National Human Rights Consultation on “Terrorism and National Security”.
I dunno about “shown to be fakes” but they certainly have some inconsistancies about them that make some people wonder.
Especially that particular tape, coming as it did less than 2 weeks before the 2004 elections.
And while weare on the subject that was the first time Bin laden claimed responsibility for the attacks despite the fact that in the years before that tape he was considered a hero by the Islamic world cos of his claimed involvement in sept 11.
And what the first time he claims responsibility is just before Bushes re-election. It sure smells funny to me. Then 3 years later he releases a tape praising Noam Chomsky, panicking about global warming and claiming that converting to Islam is the way to go cos the tax rates are lower….
Somebodies taking the piss.
I’d also like to point out that individuals in a govt may not have their primary loralty to said govt, it is probably to their own personal advantage. Therefore to assume that (for example) Cheney was acting on behalf of furthering US interests may not be true. He may have been acting on behalf of his own personal interest. (I dunno if there is actually any evidence to suggest Bush 2 was involved either. I’ve seen footage of him that day, especially in the school and he looks genuinely scared and confused at times.)
“…leaving no trace of their involvement but always a trail of false evidence to implicate innocent others and deceive investigators.”
I’m not speculating about anything (other than 9/11 and wondering about Wahids comments re bali), but there’s plenty of evidence to implicate US intelligence services in the 9/11 attacks. Get to know the history of Muhammed Atta, or even Ramsi Yousef. Or is that the false evidence you are speculating about.
What about the Venice flight school he trained at? Check out its intel and drug connections if you are interested. manufactured consent and the psychological cost of abandoning your most preciously held beliefs (ie that ultimately we are the “good guys” in some global morality tale: that people are all actually loyal to the stuff they say they are loyal too, especially people in power,) have more to do with the failure to examine these convulted but verifiable connections between terrorists, intel agencies, drug, arms and people smuggling and various other trans national nastiness than any form of so called sanity.
I find it amazing that in a country where the only actual terrorist attack in the last 40 years was in all likelihood a state sponsered event that went pear shaped, people are considered insane if they wonder whether a government was involved in a terrorist event, then tried to cover it up and shift the blame away from themselves. That could never happen could it?
Nah, not on Earth.
Every one of them? Can you provide a link? For every one of them.
But Daggett, according to your theory the FBI are at the heart of a vast Government conspiracy, beginning at first with Clinton then Bush and now Obama. Why would you want me to rely on anything they say? With their record of deceit and subterfuge (according to you) anything they said would have to be unreliable and probably done for the purposes of deception.
You cite Abdurrahman Wahid as your authority on this (although he says they planted the first bomb)? What particular knowledge or expertise does he have about what happened in Bali that puts his comment above anything more than speculation? Of course he would have no love for the Indonesian Army- nasty lot that they are- which facilitated his removal from office for mental incompetence, so he’d hardly be a neutral commentator. You’ll have to do better than that.
What other evidence do you have?
“What about the Venice flight school he trained at? Check out its intel and drug connections if you are interested.”
Do you happen to know who Kevin Bacon is, and why many people find him to be of continuing interest?
I am curious to learn what the truthers think about the 1993 WTC bombing. Was that a preliminary, far-sighted, ground-laying false-flag attack, designed to set up a long-term anti-alibi for the greater project they were planning much, much later? And if these nefarious demons planned so carefully to assume Total Control Over America, why did they then give it all up to Obama just a few years later? Even Doctor Faustus got a whole twenty years in exchange for his soul. Is the dollar really that worthless nowadays?
Also, have you ever noticed that the game “pinochle” sounds an awful lot like “PNAC’ll”?
“Do you happen to know who Kevin Bacon is, and why many people find him to be of continuing interest?”
Yeah, and maybe you have a point. Check it out for yourself and make up your own mind.
Or don’t.
Really, I honestly don’t give a fuck. There are more important things.
Seriously.
Cos even if you thought all troofers were nuts, and something I said, or even something Dagett said, well typed on this thread convinced that there was something in it.
And you get over taken by a surge of activist zeal and feel the need to get all activist.
pick something else
seriously
Do something useful.
If “they” are the enemy move on.
They have. This was 8 fucking years ago.
30, 000 kids a day. (at least)
8 years.
The very least you could do would be to contribute to your community. By which I mean your neighbours, and those people who might need help in your part of the world. And you could work to make your community more resiliant, and something you could be proud of. Cos then you don’t need to shout about your beliefs or values, they will be respected cos of your actions.
Arguing on the internet won’t do it. You are dealing with people, not a screen. (cept the trollbots of course… so why bother with them?)
And lets face it. It they are the enemy ask themselves what it profits you to look into the past constantly while “they” look into the future and plan….
Think about it.
Even if there’s no “they” there are still some serious problems facing humanity right here and right now.
Of course if you think that, obviously, people who question 911 are on a par with holocaust deniers and baby raping cannibals or just nuts fine. Think what you want. I doubt you re still reading this thread anyway.
There are still some serious problems facing humanity.
Tho I lack faith in people without the ability to question a media generated taboo to actually deal with those problems.
Especially one generated by a primarily neo con media in the middle of that neo con circle jerk that was the first 8 years of the 21st century.
But you know.
Its a free country and all that.
“pick something else
seriously
Do something useful.”
Well me oh my. How bloody condescending is that. Pray tell, are you con-descending at, um, free fall rate, or only 60% thereof?
What makes you think I can’t ‘contribute’ to ‘my’ ‘community’ in a ‘meaningful’ ‘way,’ and yet also think (that’s “think”!, not “feel”!) that troofers have driven over the cliff… both at the same time?!?
Wow, it’s almost like a regular Dan Brown novel, or sumfin.
O ye of little faith. Never heard of multi-tasking, I guiss.
Without that capability, how on earth do you blog-comment and stay saddled on a hobby-horse, both at the same time?
GregM (@ 276),
One page that demonstrates that the video-taped confessions are fake is here.
GregM (@ 276) wrote:
If you want to regain any credibility in this forum, you should stop wasting peoples’ time with such obviously ridiculous arguments.
The legal basis for the invasion of Afghanistan and its ongoing occupution is the US Government’s claims that Osama bin Laden is guilty for 9/11, yet the US Government’s own leading national law enforcement agency that wants to charge Osama bin Laden with other acts of terrorism against the US has inexplicably omitted 9/11 from the crimes he is to be charged with.
I note that you are silent on the revelations of FBI whistle blower Sibel Edmonds’ revelations that Osama bin Laden worked for the US Government up until at least 11 September 2001.
That probably provides a very good clue as to why Osama bin Laden is not wanted for 9/11 and the whole justification for the “War on Terror” is every bit as fraudulent as Aaron Russo said it was. The FBI knew damn well that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset up until 11 September.
Other evidence that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset right up to 11 Sep 2001 include:
“Bush Administration knew the Whereabouts of Osama” and “Hospital Worker: I Saw Osama”
GregM (@ 276) wrote:
If a former head of the Indonesian state says he beleives that the Indonesian secret police played a role in the Bali bombings then I think that that allegation should be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.
GregM (@ 276) continued:
In spite of his age and his near blindeness, he was clearly an admirable, strong-willed and principled leader. He stood up to the Indonesian military in order to end the reign of terror in East Timor and to allow it to gain independence — obviously the kind of leader of whicn neither you nor the Indonesian secret police would approve.
I also recollect his successor President Megawati Sukarnoputri making a similar allegation although I can’t find the source righ now.
GregM (@ 276) wrote:
There is a massive amount of evidence of the Indonesian secret police deliberately nurturing Islamist terrorist organisations in order to stage false flag terrorist attacks since the days of Suharto, in order to further their own goals. Check out also “Exclusive Interview Inside Indonesia’s War on Terror” of 2 Oct 05.
One convicted terrorist Umar Abduh stated:
Corroborating evidence for the involvement of Indonesian secret police in planting the second bomb can be found in an interview with convicted Bali bomber in the Times Online interview “We killed too many, say Bali bombers” of 2 Mar 08:
Before you demand yet further evidence from me, GregM, how about you either.
1. Refute this and the other evidence I have provided; or
2. Accept that evidence and the conclusions I have drawn from them
?
Jules,
I had been meaning to address the many points you raised.
The essential point of 9/11 is that either humandkind takes control of its own destiny out of the hands of those responsible for 9/11, the Bali bombings, the London Tube bombings, the assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, RFK, the Vietnam War, the Chilean coup, etc., or it doesn’t.
If it does, we stand some chance of solving all the serious problems confronting humankind, some of which you alluded to.
If it does not, we stand no chance.
As I pointed out, thanks largely to people like Noam Chomsky we lost the chance we had in the 1960′s to bring the murderers of JFK to justice.
Had that happened the whole course of history since then might have been different and so much death, destruction and ecological and economic mayhem that we have endured since then could have been avoided.
Let’s not lose the chance that the evidence of their complicity in the crime of 9/11 has given us today to rectify the problem.
The strongest evidence the 9/11 Truth movement has is that the collapses were controlled demolitions. The evidence bears this out. If you think the case is weak anywhere please provide links.
My guess is that at some time in the past you were thrown by technological gobbldegook from a supposed expert abusing his professional authority as I was, for a while on this forum.
I think if you look again, you will find that the case is rock solid.
The towers were brought down by controlled demolitions.
If elements in the US government did not do it themselves, they had the resources to find out who did, but chose not to.
So, by denying that the towers were brought down by controlled demolitions, and not even considering that possibility, they have covered up a crime.
However, a mountain of other evidence points to the conclusion that people high up in the US administration of former President George Bush did commit that crime.
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga says CIA and Mossad ran 9-11
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies.…
Daggett, you ask:
Let’s look at the quality of your evidence;
You say @273 that:
I asked you to produce evidence that, as you assert, all the videotapes are fakes. You provide a link that claims that one of them (Tape E)is fake but does so on the basis that another tape (Tape C, released by Al Jazeera in December 2001) is authentic. The problem is that on Tape C Bin Laden states that the WTC towers were brought down by the aeroplane attacks and claims responsibility for it for his group.
You should read the material upon which you rely to bolster your conspiracy theories more closely. They do have a tendency to turn around and bite you on the bum, much to my amusement.
Another instance of this is your statement that:
But the very same link you provided regarding the tapes provides the reason (at least according to them) for this:
Note that this is the evidence you produce and want me to accept. OK, I accept it. It makes sense to me. Of course it contradicts the conclusions that you draw and want me to accept but then the evidence you produce does have a tendency to turn around and bite you on the bum, as I have pointed out.
I don’t know much at all about Sibel Edmonds. As much as I have found out about her is that she was employed by the FBI as a translator in September 2001 and fired in March 2002, a career of all of six months. She is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani, though not, it seems, Arabic or Pashtun, languages that are likely to be relevant to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. I would have to wonder how much truly highly classified information a translator would be given access to in her first six months of employment. Nevertheless the central thrust of her claims, that there was a genuine plan by Bin Laden and his cohorts to attack the US with planes, of which the FBI had evidence but which it ignored or failed to act upon, contradicts yours that the destruction of the WTC towers (and presumably the damage sustained by the Pentagon) was caused by demolition explosives.
I do not think it is controversial that there were major intelligence failures leading up to the 9/11 attacks, which had they not occured, may have averted those attacks. Edmonds’ claims seem to be of a piece with that. However that is evidence of incompetence (which would not surprise me at all), not conspiracy.
Let’s look now at the link you provide: “Bush Administration Knew Whereabouts of Bin Laden” which claims that Bin Laden was in hospital in Pakistan, on 11 September 2001, having kidney dialysis -they even provide a pretty picture of the clinic he was in. One problem with the article is that it doesn’t say that, even if Bin Laden was there, the US knew about it. The other is that it doesn’t make the claim at all but speculates on a CBS investigative report led by Dan Rather, a person of absolutely no credibility as an investigator (remember Bush’s military record upon which Rather relied on military records generated from a computer typeface that did not exist at the time of their alleged creation?).
Yet again your evidence turns around to bite you on the bum. Do you ever read the material that you rely on to construct your conspiracy theories? Do you ever conduct the slightest analysis to test its credibility and internal consistency before you adopt it as part of the proof for your conspiracy theories?
Do you not see why this means that to sensible people you have no credibility?
Maybe it was …. something from outer space? :)
[Runs and hides.]
Dagget – in the article you linked too at least the antisemitism isn’t denied or hidden away.
Why keep harping on about what is basically a distraction ?
You want Israel and the jews destroyed but don’t seem to be able to say so.
Why not?
GregM (@ 283)
Perhaps I should claim that I deliberately stated, “All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes,” in order to set a trap to see if those, who had refused to acknowledge the strong evidence about much more central aspects of the 9/11 controversy would, as a result, go over this claim about a secondary aspect with a fine toothcomb.
Perhaps it was rash to state “All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes,” and perhaps there are weaknesses with the document I linked to.
In science it is always difficult to prove such absolute statements. A more accurate statement would have been “the authenticity of none of the tapes has been proven and there is strong evidence that suggests that are all faked.”
That is the conclusion of another document, far more meticulously researched and sourced. That document is “Osama bin Laden Dead or Alive?” (2009) by David Ray Griffin.
In that book a number of credible witnesses, including former CIA operative Robert Baer who beleive that Osama bin Laden died in December 2001.
If that is true then all the tapes and audio recordings, with the excecption of the first “Smoking Gun” were indisputably faked.
The book provides overwhelming evidence and arguments to doubt the authenticity of all the Osama bin Laden ‘confessions’.
Furthermore, it shows how those ‘confessions’ and their timing served the political ends of George Bush and the cabal behind him.
The most authentic looking (which neverthless featured an inexplicably more youthful Osama bin Laden) appeared shortly before the 2004 Presidential elections.
Of that video, Karl Rove, Bush’s media said, “This has the feel of something that’s not gonna hurt us at all.” (Griffin, p84)
Funny that Osama bin Laden would be so obliging to such a mortal enemy of Islam, don’t you think?
Robert Baer has said that it is technically feasible to produce fake audio tapes and videos that cannot be detected as such by forensic science.
GregM demanded:
Yes I do, and, if you look back at this thread you will see evidence that I have read far more extensively and more carefully on this than you or any other Truth Denier appear to have.
As to that extensive quote, I chose not to read it in full, because it’s essential point was encapsulated in the heading “Justice Department Not Seeking 911 Charges Against Bin Laden!”.
Of course, it is possible that a lot of the content will contradict the rest of what is on that page. (Unlike the US Government and their 9/11 truth denying shills, including quite a few on this forum, 9/11 Truthers are not frightened of confronting the arguments of their detractors.)
The document states excuses for the FBI not formally seeking to charge Osama bin Laden with the crime of 9/11 and you would have us accept those excuses.
You seem to forget that the legal basis for the invasion of Afghanistan was the US Government’s claims to have proof that Osama bin Laden launched the 9/11 attacks from the sanctuary of Afghanistan.
So are you saying that it is acceptable for the US to invade another country without being required to provide any evidence of that country’s alleged transgressions against the US?
Presumably it would have also been acceptable to you if the US Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff’s planned Operation Northwoods had proceeded (instead of being over-ruled by the subsequently murdered President Kennendy) and the resultant terrorist acts against US citizens perpetrated by the US military and falsely blamed on Cuba had been used as the legal justification for the invasion of Cuba.
Now how about telling us why you believe any of the bin Laden ‘confessions’ to be authentic and why you believe he lived beyond December 2001?
—
As for your attempts to downgrade the siginificance of Sibel Edmonds allegations, a good many other former Intelligence professionals also dispute the fiction of 9/11. Have you checked patriotsquestion911.com? If there is no substance to Sibel Edmonds’ allegations, then why are they so desperate to gag her? Why shouldn’t all such allegations be investigated by a proper inquiry into 9/11?
I think you should try to properly understand the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
The 9/11 Truth Movement also doesn’t preclude the possibility that Al Qaeda, which, after all, was a creation of the CIA, may have played a role in 9/11, including the recritment and training of patsies.
The crtical component of the terrorist attacks were not the hijackings and the crashing of flights 11 and 175 into the twin towers, which would have left around 2-300 dead at most. It was the controlled demolitions of the Twin Towers and Building 7, which the impacts were only designed to make appear to have been the causes of.
There is no way that Al Qaeda could have done that.
Murph the Surf (@ 258) wrote:
Where is the ‘hidden’ anti-Semetism in anything I have written above or anything I have referred to?
In regard to that that article concerning Francesco Cossiga, I concede there may be a problem and I have had second thoughts.
To some the statement:
… may seem anti-Semetic, so I would need to seek further clarification as to exactly what he means.
However, even if some supporters of the 9/11 Truth Movement can be accused of anti-Semetism, that charge, to me, seems tame in comparison with the charge of condoning the lie the Muslims perpetrated the 9/11 and effectively allowing that lie to be used to justify wars that have killed well over a million Muslims and have displaced millions more.
Even if that statement by Francesco Cossiga was not intended to be anti-Semetic, I still have a problem with the all-too-common viewpoint that places Israel and Zionism at the centre of nearly everything that is wrong with the world today as the statement seems to imply.
It seems to me that Mossad did play a role in 9/11 and had an interest in getting the US and European nations go to war against Afghanistan and Iraq, but I am not conviced that Israel and Mossad were the principle instigators of 9/11 as Cossiga seems to be saying.
I also note that Francesco Cossiga is not listed in the Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth web site at pl911truth.com.
If some people who support the 9/11 Truth Movement seem questionable (and I have yet to arrive at a firm view in regard to Francesco Cossiga), they should not be used to judge the whole 9/11 Truth Movement. Again I urge people to look at sites patriotsquestion911.com to get some idea of calibre of the people who have given their support to the movement.
—
To the person who changed the title of this forum to “Saturday Salon – The Truth is Out There! edition”:
I thank him/her for giving this thread a title which will differentiate it from other Saturday Salons and give people a rough idea of what the predominant controversy is, but I should point out that, just as I have never read a Dan Brown novel, I am not a fan of “The X files” and whilst I have watched it on a few occasions when I was a guest of friends, I have never once viewed that program at my own initiative.
The truth is not to be fooound “out there”. It is to be found in hundreds of documents and videos to befound readily on the Internet and in books. Few of the Truth Deniers on this forum have demonstrated any ability to comprehend those documents.
Daggett
It’s a bit hard to respond to your post @286.
Your post @ 280 demanded:
<blockquoteBefore you demand yet further evidence from me, GregM, how about you either.
I met this demand by refuting part of your evidence (the fake tapes) on the bsais of the very link you provided and accepted other of it (the FBI reasons for not charging Bin Laden for 9/11) on the basis of the very same link you provided.
Now you state, in a garbled form over several sentences, that you were not sincere in what you said about “all” tapes and your comments about the FBI rebuttal are simply unintelligible.
I have tried to entertain and respond to your 9/11 Truther claims by looking at the “evidence” you present for them sincerely and you respond with that garbage.
I’m not going to waste any more time on your pathetic nutcase delusions. I just recommend you seek help and if you are on medication, which you should be, go back to your medical provider and discuss increasing the dose.
Murph the surf has cut to the chase about your motivations. I am not going to soil myself any further with your sickening filth.
GregM (@ 288) wrote,
“I met this demand by refuting part of your evidence (the fake tapes) on the bsais of the very link you provided and accepted other of it (the FBI reasons for not charging Bin Laden for 9/11) on the basis of the very same link you provided.”
No you didn’t.
Firstly you only ‘refuted’ a small fraction of that post and ignored the rest and have not even attempted to address the considerable amount before that.
On top of that your ‘refutation’ was an exercise in splitting hairs rather than dealing with the key issue, that is, what is the evidence of Osama bin Laden’s guilt. To claim that if I can’t prove that all four tapes are faked then he must be guilty is absurd.
Again, surely if any one contained a confession and could be authenticated then the FBI would be grossly negligent in not using that confession as a basis for charging Osama bin Laden.
Your claim was:
The basis upon which. Tape E the main “smoking gun” tape of 9 November is shown to be fake is much more than just a comparison with Tape C.
As one of many examples the “Osama bin Laden” tape in Tape is wearing a ring which is forbiddne by Islam.
You don’t attempt to defend the main “smoking gun” video but instead make the claim that Osama bin Laden confessed in Tape C. I haven’t seen the transcript of that video tape, so why not provide it?
In any case, why would Osama bin Laden issue numerous denials of his involvement in 9/11 only to confess on tape?
Here are his denials:
12 Sep: bin Laden “thanked Almighty Allah and bowed before him when he heard this news,” but said he had “had no information or knowledge about the attack.”
16 Sep: Osama bin Laden told Al Jazeera: “I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation.”
17 Sep: Osama bin Laden sent the Afghan Islamic Press a statement saying: “I am residing in Afghanistan. I have taken an oath of allegiance to [Mullah Omar] which does not allow me to do such things from Afghanistan. We have been blamed in the past, but we were not involved.”
28 Sep: “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle. … [W]e are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.”
3 Nov: In a videotape broadcast bin Laden’s only reference to 9/11 was this statement: “[N]o evidence links what happened in the United States to the people of Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan have nothing to do with this matter.”
The closest to a ‘confession’ was on 7 Oct, in a video, just after the first US strikes on Afghanistan, bin Laden praised the “vanguards of Islam … [who] destroyed America,” but he did not himself claim responsibility for the attacks.
In regard to your ‘refutation’ of the story “Bush Administration knew the Whereabouts of Osama”, the critical point is:
Dan Rather and Barry Petersen fail to draw the implications of their January 2002 report. They fail to beg the question: where was Osama on 9/11? If they are to stand by their report, the conclusion is obvious: The administration is lying regarding the whereabouts of Osama.
Inpatient dialysis treatment tends to be longer than 24 hours in most American hospitals, which suggests that Osama would have been discharged from the Hospital on or “after” September 11.
If the CBS report is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, courtesy of America’s ally, he was in all likelihood still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, when the attacks occurred. In all probability, his whereabouts were known to US officials on the morning of September 12, when Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations with Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden
This hinges on Dan Rather’s reporting even if he did not draw the obvious conclusions. If he was wrong about Oasama bin Laden entering the military hospital on 10 September, then don’t you think someone would have attempted to refute that story?
Getting one story wrong three years later doesn’t mean that we have to completely ingnore evey report Dan Rather made.
I note you have ignored the other inconvenient fact contained in that story, that fact being that in July 2001, when Osama bin Laden was wanted by the FBI for numerous pre-9/11 terrorist charges, he was met by the Dubai CIA station chief when he underwent kidney dialysis in that hospital.
Gregm wrote:
I don’t care that much whether you continue to ‘argue’ with me or not, but I think it will be obvious to anyone who carefully reads through all this that you have acknowledged very few of my arguments amd not refuted any, except, just possibly, in the narrowest, pedantic, nit-picking sense in one instance.
GregM, I enjoyed and learned some things from your post @ 283, and I’m glad you took the time to respond and write it, but @ 288:
“I’m not going to waste any more time on your pathetic nutcase delusions. I just recommend you seek help and if you are on medication, which you should be, go back to your medical provider and discuss increasing the dose.”
Was unfunny, laboured sarcarsm, and:
“Murph the surf has cut to the chase about your motivations. I am not going to soil myself any further with your sickening filth.”
Was, along with Murph the surf @ 285, uncalled for, and way out of line.
To imply someone’s suspicision of accounts of 9/11, whether evidenced to your standards or not, necessarily equates to *wanting Israel and the jews destroyed*, was nothing but gross logical (absurdly rhetorical) stupidity.
Or, at best, a simplistic alignment to a right-wing consensus-column.
Thanks, Nick (@ 290) for taking the stand that you did against personal abuse in this discussion.
That said, I think have still been overly generous in your evaluation of GregM’s post (@ 288) even if it is, by far, the most substantive of contributions from the Official Conspiracy 9/11 Theorists participating in this discussion. How has my subsequent post (@ 289) not answered his arguments?
—
My apologies for that large block of boldfaced text in my previous post. I had intended to use <blockquote></blockquote> tags.
—
I wrote (@ 227):
Liam (@ 232) wrote:
So, Liam would have us believe that the people who demolished the three buildings removed the evidence of their crime for the 9/11 Truth Movement’s convenience and not for theirs?
Liam, are you trying to imply that if, instead of obliterating all of the three towers and immediately shipping away all the material to be melted down in China before investigators could examine it, and, instead, leaving substantial sections of the three towers standing as could have happened if they had used substantially less quantities of explosives that their innocence of the crime could have been proven?
Apologies for the grammatical error and awkwrd expression in the last paragraph and the bad link in 291. (I don’t have a fully working ‘preview’ capability on my browser.) Here’s the last part of that post again:
I wrote (@ >a href=#comment-825698″>227):
Liam (@ 232) wrote:
So, Liam would have us believe that the people who demolished the three buildings removed the evidence of their crime for the 9/11 Truth Movement’s convenience and not for theirs?
Liam, are you trying to imply that if, instead of obliterating all of the three towers and immediately shipping away all the material to be melted down in China, they had, instead, left substantial sections of the three towers standing for investigators to examine as could have happened if they had used substantially less quantities of explosives, that their innocence of the crime could have been proven?
“I don’t know much at all about Sibel Edmonds. As much as I have found out about her is that she was employed by the FBI as a translator in September 2001 and fired in March 2002, a career of all of six months. She is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani, though not, it seems, Arabic or Pashtun, languages that are likely to be relevant to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. I would have to wonder how much truly highly classified information a translator would be given access to in her first six months of employment. Nevertheless the central thrust of her claims, that there was a genuine plan by Bin Laden and his cohorts to attack the US with planes, of which the FBI had evidence but which it ignored or failed to act upon, contradicts yours that the destruction of the WTC towers (and presumably the damage sustained by the Pentagon) was caused by demolition explosives.” – GregM
I don’t think the claims of demolition and prior knowledge of an attack are mtually exclusive claims. Not that it really matters…
Have a look at the other claims she makes that aren’t really related to 9/11 though, cept maybe through one degree of seperation. They are pretty full on claims, and they haven’t gone away in years.
She names names, documents evidence and launched actions in the US court system that were ended, not cause they were shown to be false, but cos they potentially threatened state security. She was sacked because she made valid complaints against people in her dept, and it was found she was sacked as much for the info she had as for the fact that she made complaints against her dept.
“However that is evidence of incompetence (which would not surprise me at all), not conspiracy.”
How do you know its one and not the other when the events have never been investigated properly, and ultimately does it matter? Incompetence is no excuse, especially when you cynically exploit your own incompetence to gain humungous amounts of advantage.
GregM wrote (@ 283):
It’s strange how apologists for political leaders like Bush and Howard will claim them to be incompetent at the time they are under the public spotlight for their misdeeds, but later, will try to have us forget that incompetence.
Years later we read nonsense that tries to tell as that the greatness of such leaders was not sufficintly acknowledged by aficle and ungrateful public at the time.
Here’s a list of the warnings that we know that the Bush Government received prior to 9/11, but ignored — almost as many warnings as Alexander Downer recieved about the AWB scandal, it would seem.
I would be curious to know whether or not GregM also believes that John Howard were not aware at the time that AU$296million was being paid in bribe money to the regime of Saddam Hussein, the same regime that they were to tell us in 2003 were such a mortal threat to humankind that we were left with no choice but to invade.
If the newsmedia truly believed that they were that incompetent then why didn’t they immediately demand their resignation?
How could Howard then have stood any chance whatsoever of being re-lected in 2007?
And how could they have allowed Bus to be re-elected in 2004?
The reality is that the media, unlike what GregM would have us think he believes, understand perfectly well that they could not possibly be that incompetent.
Daggett, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
I have a 9/11 theory too!
Iraq was behind all the big attacks, from 1993 forwards, and the White House always knew it, but tried to deal with it secretly – and this is standard operating procedure for dealing with state-sponsored terrorism when it’s inconvenient to mention the culprit. “Deal with it secretly” means that you construct an alternative public narrative for both the attacks and for anything you do in response.
Of course it wasn’t supposed to drag on as it did. The mid-1993 bombing of Iraqi intelligence headquarters was supposed to deter all further such attacks. But it didn’t; Iraq’s WMD programs became the safe public rationale for everything; and what happened under Bush – 9/11, followed by the occupation of Iraq – was simply the amplification and logical conclusion of the process begun under Clinton.
Excellent. A truther stoush. Now for all you people out there who don’t know. You know you’re getting close to the truth when these dudes start installing cable TV for all your neighbours.
Welcome back, Liam (@ 295),
Were you intending to respond to my posts @ 236 and 271?
Liam wrote,
I never claimed the fact that the evidence was removed was, in and of itself, proof that the buildings were demolished. Nevertheless, removal of evidence from the scene of a crime is, itself, a crime under US law.
Those who removed the evidence should have been treated as suspects in the far more serious crime of the 9/11 attacks and thoroughly investigated both by the police and, subsequently, by the 9/11 Commission and by NIST.
But this didn’t happen.
Why?
Anyhow, let’s take a few steps back.
I offered a possible explanation for Jules’ point:
My explanation or theory, again, was:
You challenged that with the quip
Then I responded:
—
My apologies for mistyping:
‘a fickle’ had accidentally been typed as ‘aficle’.
At the risk of actually engaging with you daggett, something that I set out my refusal to do at #177;
I’m saying you’re basing your Search For Truth on something which conveniently will defy proof, no matter how strongly investigated. Building demolished? Must have been blown up by persons unknown. Building doesn’t appear to have been demolished by explosives? Must have used so much explosive as to defy investigation (awesome, BTW). No explosives found? Must have been a special thermite explosive. No thermite marks? Must have been secret military thermite. No such thing as military thermite? Must be a requirement for more investigation, and anyone who denies it is a PNAC stooge.
It’s head-stuck-in-sand solipsistic fantasy, based on confirmation bias and speculation, flat-earth anti-investigation at it’s worst, and it’s turtles all the way down.
“It’s head-stuck-in-sand solipsistic fantasy, based on confirmation bias and speculation, flat-earth anti-investigation at it’s worst, and it’s turtles all the way down.”
Nice.
You think?
It’s more like standard smart-arse LP putdown, complete with punctuation error to me, but who am I to judge?
Liam, like any good blog commentator, obviously knows his audience.
Adrian, I certainly do know my audience and my co-smartarses. Let’s have a quick review of some of your contributions to this thread:
At least daggett’s got some interesting stoush in him, even if he is fixated on the Deus Ex PNAC to provide the answer to all of life’s little engineering questions. When you make a contribution to any thread that’s more than the stock-standard nyah-nyah rah-rah please let me know, and I’ll give you a golf clap for the effort.
But seriously folks, it pisses me off when someone like daggett comes along, putting forward a controverial and non-mainstream view and gets personal abuse for his troubles, from the snide putdowns to the full on questioning of his sanity. Yet he doesn’t respond in kind, but continues with his patient explanation of his case, which most of his critics think it is beneath them to respond seriously to.
Nick said it best @290, and also jules elsewhere, but where is the tolerance for views that are outside the conventional?
Paul Burns #284, your perspicacity is commendable.
adrian: tolerance goes as far as allowing him to publish here, is my guess.
But “tolerance” doesn’t entail his readers must AGREE with him, and aren’t permitted to point out flaws in his case, or say the whole shebang is silly.
daggett writes on a topic that is seared into our memories and has had enormous quantities of newsprint, forensic investigation, TV doco time, etc. Most of us formed a view, and applied our customary levels of scepticism and inquiry to the matter. Gosh, some of us even read books and/or web sources about it.
Along comes daggett. He cannot expect some sort of tabula rasa here on which to inscribe his screeds….
Hellfire and bloody damnation! It was Lord Foul and his Ravers that dunit!
Just a note to say “hi”.
It’s nice to read that I haven’t been forgotten.
Ambigulous @ 305 – Fair enough, but it’s the level of hostility to views outside the mainstream that I was getting at.
Liam @ 302 – Try reading for meaning or whatever.
Liam(@ 299) and FDB (@ 300),
It’s your right not to debate views which you hold to be too preposterous to even discuss, but simply stating that those views are preposterous over and over and over again is surely a waste of your time and everyone else’s time.
Liam wrote:
Liam (@ 177) wrote:
It seems that you are totally satisfied that 9/11, Bali, London 7/7, Madrid etc was the result of a vast global conspiracy, yet you have not provided any evidence for that belief.
This conspiracy is supposed to consist of a network of terrorist cells all over the world including in Australia. This terrorist network is supposedly controlled and sustained by people operating from sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan, The fact that not one person with a proven link to those attacks has been catured in spite of over 7 and a half years of military occupation of Afghanistan and numerous incursions into Pakistan appears not to have shaken your belief.
What just might satisfy me that “there was not a massive conspiracy to whip Americans into war-frenzy” would be a proper investigation into 9/11 as the 9/11 Truth Movement has been demanding for years. The 9/11 Truth Movement has amply demonstrated that the previous investigations were shams which appeared to be intended to be cover-ups.
It is conceivably possible that a proper investigation would come up with an explanation other than a conspiracy be senior figures within the Bush Administration, but, at the moment, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that explanation would be. If you could either suggest another explanation or provide evidence for the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory that you support I would be most interested.
The reason that past investigations were shams were:
A. A large number of questions, including questions of those who lost loved ones on 11 September 2001, were not even asked, let alone answered. One question which was not asked was, as I asked before: Why was so much of the evidence so quickly and systematically removed from the scene of the crime? Other questions not asked, which are further elaborated on the 9/11 Truth Statment are:
1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
3. Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
4. Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
5. Why haven’t authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?
6. How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by the FAA’s radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?
7. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants and flight schools they were known to frequent?
8. What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government by 14 foreign intelligence agencies or heads of state?
9. Why did the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency was in Washington the week of 9/11 and reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader of the hijackers?
10. Why did the 911 Commission fail to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims, in addition to almost all of the questions posed here?
11. Why was Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive Director of the ostensibly independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice?
B. A vast body of evidence which conflicted with the official explanation of 9/11 was ignored.
C. The hypothesis that the ‘collapses’ of the three towers were controlled demolitions was not even considered by NIST in spite of a vast body of eyewitness testimony including even from news reporters on the day, video footage and other physical evidence that they were.
Thank you, Adrian @ 303.
Ambigulous (@ 305),
Of course I greatly appreciate anyone going to the trouble and expense to provide a platform, such as Larvatus Prodeo on which people can post views which may differ from their own, but I would have, nevertheless thought that people taking the considerable time and effort to post views that are substantiated and carefully argued as I believe I have done, should be welcomed rather than just ‘tolerat[ed]‘.
As it happens, I also help to provide a platform on which others can post views which I may not agree with. It is candobetter.org. You will certainly find there views opposed to the goals of that site.
Anyone here is welcome to post comments relating to material contained on that site, although, in the interests of other site users, I have close to zero tolerance of personal attacks and will either remove posts containing personal attacks or remove the personal attacks from those posts. I would certainly not allow any site visitors to be subject to posts such as FDB’s to 240 and 250. I think the moderators of LP should also consider enforcing some minimal standards of decency and civility
Ambigulous wrote,
Firstly, where did I or anyone else say that my readers must agree with me?
Secondly, please show me even one post in this whole forum which points out the flaws in my case.
Ambigulous wrote,
If you had comprehended the arguments I have put here, you would know that there has been no proper ‘forensic investigation’ into 9/11, except by those who dispute the official account of 9/11. Please provide even one example of proper ‘forensic investigation’ by any US Government agency.
Let’s say, daggett, that I do hold the position that all of the terrorist attacks you mentioned were perpetrated by a central, organised, conspiratorial group.*
If I then pointed out the lack of evidence to back up the theory that all of the terrorist attacks were the product of an organised conspiracy, and then used that lack of evidence to argue in favour of the theory, what would you think of that? Or if, to whatever objection anyone put in front of my faith in my theory of a Terrorist Conspiracy, I simply retreated behind a further statement that a more powerful group had hidden the required evidence?
*For the record: I don’t. I’m perfectly happy with the conventional consensus that all of those terrorist attacks were perpetrated by loosely-aligned and opportunistically-organised extremist groups operating in a foaming seething clusterfuck of competing national, subnational, ethnic and religious grievances, encouraged by political parties, tribal groups, churches, sects and official Intelligence services, fed by easy anonymous money and drugs and arms deals, and massively empowered by globalisation. I read John Robb and I vote.
It is doubtless that al Qaeda, which was little more than a shelf company that outsourced its work to sub-contractors and other organisations, leaked like a sieve in the months, weeks and days leading up to 9/11.
US and other counterintelligence organisations were picking up loads of chatter. These snippets can be likened to pieces of a jigsaw whose pattern became clear after the event only.
Moreover, it would take little expertise to profit from shorting relevant stocks and financial instruments so long as the time frame for the attacks was known.
Even fringe figures like our own Mandouh Habib and ASIS knew that something was cooking:
This buzz swept through the entire intelligence community. Failure to act on it is entirely characteristic of the fatal weakness of large, bureaucratic organisations when confronted with a nimble enemy.
On Afghanistan again:
Jim Molen on ABC this morning asserted that 180,000 or so troops to the mission, but this can scarcely be reconciled with the US Army’s Counter-Insurgency Field Manual which, authored in part by Petraeus, insists on a ratio of 20 counter insurgency trained troops for every 1000 civilians. On a population of 33 million in Afghanistan, that works out not to 180,000 troops but … 660,000 troops. Remember also that these can’t be any old troops but specially trained counter-insurgency troops.
How much would these cost to keep in the field? Figures are hard to come by but we can hazard a ballpark guess. During the whole period of the US occupation of Afghanistan, during most of which time the US had far fewer troops than now, the average annual cost of the war was $US38 billion, yet as late as April this year the US only had 34,000 troops. Simple maths tells us that this is nearly 1.2 million per year per troop in the field, even at this rather larger number. Costs for the war this fiscal year are up to $US55 billion with 64,000 troops for most of the year, so that’s a little cheaper at $860,000 troops each. The Canadians 2300 troops present between November 2001 and March of 2006 cost a little over $CAN600,000 each (about $US552,000 on today’s conversion) for each year.
Again simple maths tells us that even if we accept this low figure — improbable since we are now not merely fighting and holding but doing capacity building — that amounts to $US3.643 trillion dollars annually. IOW, for each of the ten years optimists think it will take to win, the world would spend about 5% of GDP on Afghan counter-insurgency, in addition to what has already been spent. Even at Jim Molen’s super optimistic 180,000 estimate for a landlocked country with very porous borders its near enough to $US 1trillion per year. It is worth noting that no nation in history has ever gone from feudalist/tribalism to modern governance in ten years, or anything like it. No nation has ever done this at gunpoint.
It’s deceitful special pleading to say that if we don’t increase resources we won’t win when even increasing resources to unsustainable levels can’t confidently predict such an outcome, and indeed predicts nothing more than throwing good resources after bad.
Currently of course there are about 100,000 troops in the field. A whole bunch of the non-US troops are looking for an early exit — Berlusconi has been explicit. The Dutch aren’t renewing and its likely the Germans will also pull out shortly. So even on the most optimistic of estimates Obama is going to have to find and maintain most of 120,000 extra troops in addition to the 64,000 he already has there. Since many of these have to be redeployed from Iraq and redeploymnet is also more expensive than coming home, we have another expense. If you want to allow the troops 4 weeks annual R&R you can add an extra 1/12 of however many they have there. Allow for 2% casualty rate (dead and indefinitely incapacitated each year) and there’s another 3600 for 180,000 that you have to allow. And this is all very optimistic, because if Petraeus is right (and if he’s that far wrong, what is he doing in charge?) they are going to need most of 600,000 extra US troops — for ten years.
The whole thing is mad on an epic scale.
I think a South Park song is in order about now, don’t you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyrlcoKRjn0
Liam (@ 311),
On the one hand you adamantly refuse to consider and discuss any of the evidence I have presented:
Then ont the other hand you imply that you or others have demolished the arguments I have put:
How can you have put any ‘objection’ in front of my ‘faith’ if you adamantly refuse to discuss the substantive content of my posts?
I see now that you are now attempting to distance yourself from the ludicrous Official Conspiracy Theory that is used by Rudd and our corporate newsmedia to justify the war in Afghanistanistan.
Perhaps that’s a start. Nevertheless, I would still be interested to see the evidence for your claim that:
I would like to know how you think it was possible for a “loosely-aligned and opportunistically-organised extremist group” to have carried out the terrorist attack of September 11 and what your evidence is.
As you now seem to concede that all of this is “encouraged by … official Intelligence services” (which, of course, I consider a gross understatement) I would be most interested to know want has led you to that conclusion.
Katz wrote (@ 312) :
Clearly, Katz has not read the list of warnings that I linked to above. Here are the specific warnings tath attacks would be launched from the air grouped by the nations from which those warnings originated:
1. In 1999, British intelligence gave a secret report to the US embassy. The report stated that al-Qaeda had plans to use “commercial aircraft” in “unconventional ways,”“possibly as flying bombs.” [Sunday Times, 6/9/02] On July 16, 2001, British intelligence passed a message to the US that al-Qaeda was in “the final stages” of preparing a terrorist attack in Western countries. [London Times, 6/14/02] In early August, the British gave another warning, telling the US to expect multiple airline hijackings from al-Qaeda. This warning was included in Bush’s briefing on August 6, 2001. [Sunday Herald, 5/19/02]
2. In June 2001, German intelligence warned the US, Britain, and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols which stand out.” Within the American intelligence community, “the warnings were taken seriously and surveillance intensified” but “there was disagreement on how such terrorist attacks could be prevented.” This warning came from Echelon, a spy satellite network that is partly based in Germany. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9/11/01, Washington Post, 9/14/01]
3. In late July 2001, Egyptian intelligence received a report from an undercover agent in Afghanistan that “20 al-Qaeda members had slipped into the US and four of them had received flight training on Cessnas.” To the Egyptians, pilots of small planes didn’t sound terribly alarming, but they passed on the message to the CIA anyway, fully expecting Washington to request information. “The request never came.” [CBS, 10/9/02] Given that there were 19 hijackers and four pilots (who trained on Cessnas) in the 9/11 plot, one might think this would now be a big news item. But in fact, the information has only appeared as an aside in a CBS “60 Minutes” show about a different topic.
4. In late summer 2001, Jordan intelligence intercepted a message stating that a major attack was being planned inside the US and that aircraft would be used. The code name of the operation was Big Wedding, which did in fact turn out to be the codename of the 9/11 plot. The message was passed to US intelligence through several channels. [International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02]
5. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the US in the summer of 2001 that suicide pilots were training for attacks on US targets. [Fox News, 5/17/02] The head of Russian intelligence also stated, “We had clearly warned them” on several occasions, but they “did not pay the necessary attention.” [Agence France-Presse, 9/16/01] The Russian newspaper Izvestia claimed that Russian intelligence agents knew the participants in the attacks, and: “More than that, Moscow warned Washington about preparation for these actions a couple of weeks before they happened.” [Izvestia, 9/12/02]
6. Five days before 9/11, the priest Jean-Marie Benjamin was told by a Muslim at an Italian wedding of a plot to attack the US and Britain using hijacked airplanes as weapons. He wasn’t told time or place specifics. He immediately passed what he knew on to a judge and several politicians in Italy. Presumably this Muslim confided in him because Benjamin has done considerable charity work in Muslim countries and is considered “one of the West’s most knowledgeable experts on the Muslim world.” [Zenit, 9/16/01] Benjamin has not revealed who told him this information, but it could have come from a member of the al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy. This cell supplied forged documents for other al-Qaeda operations, and wiretaps show members of the cell were aware of the 9/11 plot. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02, Guardian, 5/30/02, Boston Globe, 8/4/02] For instance, in August 2000, one terrorist in Milan was recorded saying to another: “I’m studying airplanes. I hope, God willing, that I can bring you a window or a piece of an airplane the next time we see each other.” The comment was followed by laughter [Washington Post, 5/31/02]. In another case in January 2001, a terrorist asked if certain forged documents were for “the brothers going to the United States,” and was angrily rebuked by another who told him not to talk about that “very, very secret” plan. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02] In March 2001, the Italian government gave the US a warning based on these wiretaps. [Fox News, 5/17/02]
well, daggett
those little snippets point to aircraft hijacked by islamist terrorists, not super-secret thermite demolition crews.
but that’s only my opinion.
Clearly Daggett doesn’t understand the difference between non-specific chatter and “specific warnings”.
None of Daggett’s list specifies time, place or personnel. This chatter is constant and much of it is either deliberate disinformation or pub talk. Intelligence services are notoriously incapable of detecting the difference and also are overwhelmed by the pressure of following up the myriad of false leads. Welcome to the wacky world of counterintelligence.
Incompetence, overwork, and being fooled are regrettable enough. But Daggett would have us believe that in addition to these failings there existed elements of US intelligence services that deliberately ignored firm and specific leads.
And worse, that these elements actively conspired with the terrorists for their own fell purposes.
And still more unbelievably that those elements of the US security state that were not involved in this alleged conspiracy have decided not to blow the whistle on their treasonous colleagues!
That last claim is, of course, the height of absurdity.
Katz wrote:
Oy vey.
There is in England a sect which maintains that the English are the lost ten tribes; there is a stricter sect, which maintains that they are only the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Whenever I encounter a member of either of these sects, I profess myself an adherent of the other, and much pleasant argumentation results.
What possible excuse?
Try these:
1. Which day?
2. Which airport(s)?
3. Which target(s)?
4. How reliable have the Russians been in the past?
5. How sincere have the Russians been in the past?
6. How do we prioritise the alleged Russian heads-up in relation to the dozens of other warnings and rumours circulating at the same time.
7. On the basis of the alleged Russian heads-up what level of response is appropriate? For example do we ground all civilian flights? Do we take all Muslims into custody?
daggett,
I certainly do not “need” to make myself more familiar…. your own postings have been quite sufficient. Given that the chatter involved Cessnas (going to bomb a hay barn?) and vague hints, only seemingly relevant in hindsight, how was it that the demolition crews just happened to choose for demolition two of the very buildings the airliners flew into?
There is a gaping hole in your scenario.
There are others. Katz and Liam have indicated several.
Just because some relatively amateur blokes pulled off an extremely destructive attack, doesn’t necessarily imply they had assistance from the militarily mighty USA or any other State.
Sometimes really horrible things happen without the CIA pulling the strings, daggy.
I see that Katz has already forgotten that intellignece agecies from five other nations other than Russia gave the US very detailed warnings.
And Katz has ignored my point that people in the US who were trying to prevent the 9/11 attacks were obstructed.
At least Ambigulous and Katz have demostrated to the rest of us that they have no aptitude whatsoever for intelligence analysis or crime investigation.
It appears that if they had been in command of the US air defences on that day they would have waited until the flights that the hijackers had intended to hijack had been given to them and their intended targets had been provided before acting to prevent them.
If Ambigulous claims that he understands the case of the 9/11 Truth movement then isn’t it about time she/he demonstrated some comprehension of that case on this forum?
Hmmm. Let’s see.
Daggett suggests that the US should have taken notice of the British, the Egyptians, the Germans, the Russians and the Jordanians.
With the exception of the Germans (who played host to the plotters of 9/11) every other nation he mentioned has suffered at least one serious terrorist outrage since 9/11.
Following Daggett’s logic it is possible that the intelligence authorities of these nations were also in cahoots with the terrorists for their own fell purposes, just like US intelligence.
That being the case, why should US intelligence take any notice at all of those warnings that possibly emanated from corrupted sources that conspired with Islamic fanatics?
Yes, that is a reductio ad absurdum argument. But at least I didn’t start it.
“There is a gaping hole in your scenario.” @323.
We also need to consider the long term decoy plan pulled off in 1993 – the forerunner of the second attack on the WTC buildings. From Wiki -
“The attack was planned by a group of conspirators including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmad Ajaj. They received financing from Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef’s uncle. In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and interstate transportation of explosives. In November 1997, two more were convicted: Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb.”
You have to congratulate the conspirators who did all this just to mask who really did the attack 18 years later- those wily neoliberals!
If that doesn’t make sense it must be aliens- yes , some people blame shape shifting reptile aliens who are in control of all the governments of the world.
.
Welcome to the thoughts of David Icke.
“Icke cites the Holocaust,[22] the Oklahoma City bombing,[22] and the 11 September 2001 attacks[23] as examples of events financed and organised by the Global Elite. British journalist Simon Jones writes that, according to Icke, “Ordinary people are being massively duped into believing that the ordinary course of world events are the consequence of known political forces and random, uncontrollable events. However, the course of humanity is being manipulated at every level. These individuals arrange for incidents to occur around the world, which then elicit a response from the public (‘something must be done’), and in turn allows those in power to do whatever they had planned to do in the first place.”[22]”
.
Or this gem-”In 1999, Icke wrote and published The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World, in which he identified the extraterrestrial prison warders as reptilians from the constellation Draco.[25] They walk erect and appear to be human, living not only on the planets they come from, but also in caverns and tunnels under the earth. They have cross-bred with humans, which has created “hybrids” who are “possessed” by the full-blooded reptilians.[26] The reptiles’ hybrid reptilian-human DNA allows them to change from reptilian to human form if they consume human blood. Icke has drawn parallels with the 1980s science-fiction series V, in which the earth is taken over by reptiloid aliens disguised as humans”
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke
Weirdly enough others would have us believe the same rubbish.
daggett
I believe you do not have expertise or skills in ‘intelligence analysis’ or ‘crime investigation’. Several posters here have picked you up on crucial errors of logic.
It’s interesting that their clear thinking was sufficient. As far as I can see they didn’t need specialist training for that.
What is your point, murph the surf (@ 326)?
And what is yours, Katz (@ 325)?
Ambigulous (@ 327) wrote:
As far as I am aware, I have responded to all aguments put to me. What do you claim are my “errors of logic”?
Katz, one law enforcement officer who seriously tried to prevent 9/11 was John O’Neill, who was head of the FBI’s counterterrorism branch in Washington.
He died because he was given a new job as the security director for the World Trade Center on 10 September 2001. His office was on the 34th floor of the North Tower.
Well, there’s an error of logic right there. Right in front of your nose, daggett. Can you see it?
You claim that this O’Neill guy was harassed into resigning from the FBI, presumably because he was getting too close to the ‘truth’ about Bin Laden.
Now, this could easily be explained as normal bureaucratic politics. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there was a more sinister explanation — that the shadowy powers behind the upcoming Twin Towers operation feared he might expose them.
Well, in that case, the very last thing in the world they would have done is allow him to have that security director job. As a competent ex-investigator with, presumably, complete access to the WTC, what if he had noticed some aspect of the preparations? Hey, why is there nano-thermite attached to that there girder?
Imagine if ex-Special Forces operatives, with links to the White House, were arrested by the NYPD as they were rigging up the buildings. It’d make Watergate look small beer. I’d love to see Dick Cheney try to explain that away.
Naah, if there really were a conspiracy, O’Neill would have been posted off to Alaska or somewhere, and then had a little car accident.
Logic. Look it up in the dictionary. It’s under ‘L’.
Oh, and your dates are wrong. O’Neill started as WTC security director on 23 August 2001, according to Wikipedia — giving him almost 3 weeks to notice any preparations for the ‘demolition’.
“I’d love to see Dick Cheney try to explain that away.”
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. And there are the things that were known to us and that we didn’t tell you, that we knew, and that we have no plan now of letting you know, we knew. You know.
Having trouble keeping up Daggett?
David Icke has outed you – I think you are one of the alien hybrids who are confusing us mere mortals with your outlandish tales so we can’t focus on where the real problem is.
And there isn’t anything anyone says or writes that will convince me otherwise . Any such so called evidence is only a smoke screen , a put up job , a lie peddled to stop true comprehension. The more you deny this the more we will all know that you are guilty.
We are onto you Daggett.
Paulus (@ 239)
There’s no error of logic, because I only stated the facts of John O’Neill’s death. I concede that did mistakenly assume that he started his job as the security director for the World Trade Center on the day that he moved into his office on the 34th floof of the North Tower. The facts are:
August 23, 2001: Former FBI Al-Qaeda Expert Begins Job as Head of Security at the WTC
Of course, the fact that they took the risk that O’Neill might have discovered what was going on occurred to me, but do you really think that it would have been inordinately difficult to steer him away from where he would have learnt what was really going on for that period of time?
As one example, there were numerous additional telephone bomb threats in late August. See “Late August-September 10, 2001: WTC Security Raised, Then Scaled Back, in Weeks Before 9/11 Attack” on the History Commons Complete 9/11 Timeline.
It should also be pointed out that the 34th floor was below where flight 11 struck between the 93rd and 99th floors of the North Tower, so he theoretically could have easily survived the day. On the other hand, I expect he could have easily been persuaded as security director to stay in the building in order to personally investigate the crash. As experienced firefighters such as Oreo Palmer who reached the crash scene in the South Tower (and subsequently died) had no reason to expect each of the towers to collapse to dust in less that 16 seconds, then why should he?
Other relevant facts are:
Mid-July 2001: John O’Neill Rails Against White House and Saudi Obstructionism
December 2003: FBI Agent Says Officers in CIA’s Bin Laden Unit ‘Have Blood on Their Hands’ over 9/11
Paulus wrote:
The fact remains that mysterious people in overalls with tollboxes were observed going into the Twin Towers during poere downs in the weeks prior to 9/11.
If you had been following 9/11 you would understand there is already a vast amount that has been revealed that would “make Watergate look small beer” but which the newsmedia refuses to report. What about Sibel Edmonds’ explosive revelations of corruption in the FBI translation unit that concealed knowledge of the the 9/11 atacks and the sale of nuclear secrets to Turkey as just one of dozens of possible examples?
you have outdone yourself, daggsy
And you were up against some fairly fierce competition: there’s this poster “daggett”, who’s …..
GregM (@ 283) wrote:
Then Jules (@ 293) wrote:
Good point, Jules.
Jules continued:
Yes it does.
If their failure to protect America on 11 September 2001 was truly incompetence then the sacking of all those found to be principly responsible may have been sufficient redress.
However, if it were to have been found to have been the result malicious intent, then those responsible should be put on trial and put behihd bars, possibly in a prison similar to Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib for at least the rest of their natural lives.
Would anyone here find it acceptable if someone they beleive had murdered their husband or wife were not even investigated by the police, let alone charged, tried and imprisoned?
Yet, many who lost loved ones on the 11 September believe that they were deliberately murdered by senior members of the Bush administration.
Yet, in spite of a vast amount of evidence implicating them in that crime, no proper investigation has been conducted.
—
In any case, when have any group of political leaders who were as grossly incompetent as members of the Bush Administration must have been to have unintentionally allowed the September 11 attacks to succeed, then been able to cover their arses so well that not a single one was sacked, demoted or even reprimanded? Indeed may of those responsible were subsequently promoted and nearly all profited immensely from the ensuing wars and the imposition of disaster capitalism on the United States.
The competition is hotting up.
911! From those wonderful folks who brought you the Bay of Pigs, Watergate, Operation Eagle Claw, Contragate, Carry On Up The Khyber (the 2002 Remix), the Mesopotamia Caper and much much more.
When it comes to a choice between the US shadow military-security-industrial complex and a cell of highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more, I’d know which stocks I’d short and which I would go long on.
However there’s probably a case to be made for Osama not quite being the omnipotent mastermind behind it all.
“They did what!!? That was just a feasibility study! No survivors you say? OK, let’s get in front of it. I’ll just jot down some bullet points here. Where’s the mike?”
They have blood on their hands. They have three thousand deaths on their hands
.
Well, assuming the truth of this assertion, they have a lot more than 3000 deaths on their hands don’t they?
Nabakov (@ 337) wrote:
When it comes to a choice between the US shadow military-security-industrial complex and a cell of highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more, I’d know which stocks I’d short and which I would go long on.
If Nabakov, believes that 19 “highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more” had vastly more capacity to pull off 9/11 than did the “US shadow military-security-industrial complex” with all its hundreds of billions of funds, equipment and potentially thousands of highly trained personnel it could call upon, then perhaps he/she should ponder why other many “highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more” were so demonstrably unsuccessful in defeating the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Perhaps, also, Nabakov would care to offer his/her own explanation to the unanswered question posed by the 9/11 Truth Movement:
For my own part, I reject the view that the US military and US spy agencies are bottomless wells of incompetence as Nabakov is attempting to imply. They have on many occasions proven themselves very capable of inflicting violence in order to further the goals of those they serve. Of course, they make mistakes and, of course, they sometimes fail to achieve their goals. The reasons they fail often have a lot to do with the courage and sacrifice of those resisting them as occurred at the Bay of Pigs and in the Vietnam War. (It should also be noted that another reason for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion was that President Kennedy refused to back the invasion with US air power as requested. For that and many other principled and decent stances he took, he was murdered in 1963.)
I think should we should start to become wary of people who on the one hand profess to oppose the wars in which the US is now engaged, but on the other hand seize upon any feeble argument to perpetuate the principle excuse used to justify those wars.
Here’s yet another editorial from the Australian in support of the Afghan War:
I would be most interested to know how all those ostensibly progressive anti-war types, who, nevertheless, have attacked me on this forum, would respond to that editorial or to the earlier editorial mentioned above.
—
Adrien (@ 338),
Its hard to know whether or not that FBI agent’s expressed outrage at the needless loss of almost 3,000 American lives would have extended to the (soon to become) many more victims of the the US military outside the US, but, at least, he has grasped the fact that much of the culpability for those deaths lies with figures within the US administration, and was prepared to say so.
“7. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants and flight schools they were known to frequent?”
Once again, Dagster, I answered that back at #136.
crikey Paul Norton, I could have done without trotting off to visit that site…. I feel soiled.
I wrote (@ 339):
Then FDB wrote (@ 340)
At 136, FDB wrote:
How does that answer the question, FDB?
According to the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory, US intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, the whole US airport security system and the whole air defence system were caught copmpletely off guard. Yet within hours, the FBI and CIA were able to work out precisely who all the hijackers were and a good more, besides.
I would suggest that that was staggeringly brilliant detective work, that is, unless they already knew who the hijackers were.
In answer to your question, as someone put in another forum discussion:
If your sister worked for Time magazine, then it seems highly likely to me that she was part of the media cover-up, if not the conspiracy itself.[1] There were obvious glaring holes in the Official Story from the outset, some of which I have described above. and any critical minded investigative journalist should have been able to spot them. Whether she would have witheld the truth willingly or did so only to avoid adverse repercussions is beside the point.
Footnotes
1. One journalist who was clearly part of the conspiracy, by the way was the BBC’s Jane Standley, who reported the ‘collapse’ of World Trade Center Building 7 23 minutes before it occrred with the World Trade Center still standing in the background. See video here. Clearly she had been given a script, but the actual demolition had been delayed. There’s a hilarious discussion about this on James Randi’s web site. As James Randi along with fellow ‘sceptic’, Michael Shermer are Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists, I would have thought that Jane Standley would have qualified for James Randi’s $1million prize offered to anyone who can prove that they have psychic abilities.
Sorry. The video of Jane Standley reporting that WTC 7 had ‘collapsed’ 23 minutes before it actually did, is here.
Apologies for yet another useless internal page link to Nabakov’s post (@ 337) above. (I made it mistakenly <a href=”/#comment-826851″>337</a> instead of <a href=”#comment-826851″>337</a>. Clicking on the former will cause your browser to try to retrieve LP’s home page instead of just going to the reference on the current page.)
Oh noes! Daggett’s logic has been blown up by nanothermite!
Proof positive of TEH conspiracy!
Katz (@ 344),
Firstly, I still haven’t learn what the point of your post at 325 is.
Katz, are you trying to tell me that you share FDB’s unlimited faith in Time magazine and the rest of the commercial media to tell us the truth and to fearlessly hold our political leaders to account, as they did over the Iraq WMD allegations and FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds‘ allegations of Senior US politicians selling nuclear secrets to Turkey, etc, etc?
FDB (@ 136),
I would be most interested to learn how your sister and the other Time journalists satisfied themselves of the veracity of the official explanation of 9/11. Would yo car to show me where they put to the US government those questions that I mentioned above that the 9/11 Truth Movement is trying to get answers for.
For more illuminatimg Time magazine reporting on 9/11, please see the article “9/11 Cover-Up” amongst a collection of articles “Conspiracy Theories” of July 2009.
It tells us all that anyone needs to know about the 9/11 controversy in all of 203 words.
And in a manner, with which those following this forum would not be altogether unfamiliar, by now, Time Magazine demonstrates conclusively how, because some people out there believe that the world is ruled by a Reptillian elite, that the Apollo moon landings were faked or take what is written in the da Vinci Code about Jesus and Mary Magdalene is literally true, that it necessarily follows that we can dismiss out of hand any notion that the US government has been less than forthright in its account of 9/11 or about the JFK asassination.
I won’t speak for FDB.
“Unlimited faith”?
Oh dear Daggett. I’m beginning to suspect that nuance isn’t your long suit.
It may come as a surprise to you therefore that there exists a very large grey area between fearless truth-telling and acting as a complicit mouthpiece of government power.
I was living in the US when that non-entity John Hinckley tried to shoot Reagan. I was amazed by the speed with which, in those pre-internet days, the major networks were able to piece together the outlines of Hinkley’s biography.
The mass media are very good at doing that sort of thing even without the help of the government.
Katz (@ 346),
Firstly, as with the point you made at 325 above, I don’t understand what bearing your point about the rporting of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan has on 9/11 or the discussion of the media’s role in 9/11.
—
In spite of my occasional resort to the use of hyperbole and other debating devices, I have shown that I take this topic very seriously.
So, why won’t you?
Why won’t you either demonstrate to others that the arguments that I have put in support of the 9/11 Truth Movement are wrong, or, else, at least stop making contributions which appear to be designed to cloud the issue?
We have long ago established that the case in support of the Vietnam War was a lie.
Since then we have similarly established that the case put at the time overtly in support of the invasion of Iraq War, that is WMD’s, was a lie on more than one level (regardless of whether or not the implicit 9/11 argument that we now are arguing about has been shown up as such).
Furthermore, the commercial and government newsmedia peddled that lie, even though anyone, with critical capabilities and access to the facts that any journalist had at the time, should have been able to see it as such.
That is one of many examples that just about veryone here would agree about of the the commercial media, including Time magazine, and most current affairs journalists on its payroll, acting against the public interest.
For my part, if no-one here is prepared to deal with any of the substantive arguments I have put, I would dearly love to be able, as we have been able with the Iraq War WMD argument, to move beyond having to deal with the silly ‘black is white’ arguments, the non-sequiturs and straw-men demolition exercises, that are being employed here, and arrive at a consensus on 9/11.
—
Apologies for the grammatic and spelling errors above.
“… yo car …” should have been “… you care …” and “take what is written in the da Vinci Code about Jesus and Mary Magdalene is literally true” should have been “take what is written in The da Vinci Code about Jesus and Mary Magdalene to be literally true.”
This was posted just now onto a mailing list in which the article “Who’s Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?” is being discussed.
I would be curious to learn whether any of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists on this forum dispute the existence of the the military industry complex that US President Eisenhower warned against and that it poses a threat to democracy and to world peace. (Personally, I don’t think it is too late, but I don’t think we have that much time, either.)
—
Apologies for having misspelt ‘everyone’ as ‘veryone’
I see no-one bothered to take on my #296. If I call that Scenario One (“Iraq did it, Clinton/Bush hid it”), orthodoxy Scenario Two (al Qaeda acted alone), and trutherdom Scenario Three (9/11 an inside job), I lean towards One, consider Two possible, but place Three out there with faked moon landings and Holocaust denial.
I agree with the clear majority view here that a lot of what daggett says is apriori absurd (e.g. suicide hijackings and a BBC conspiracy tool uniting to hide the fact that the WTC buildings were mined with explosives). Common sense has to be overwhelmed by some other factor in order to even consider such contorted scenarios. It all resembles the fundamentalist paranoia according to which angels and demons are messing with us at every step of our lives. Liam’s #311 is more like it.
Nonetheless I perceive the similarity between my situation and that of the Truthers. Like daggett, I can go on at great length with my “evidence”. (Old sample here. Yes, it’s a wingnut site. But for a long time it had the best discussions of the anthrax letters.) Like daggett, I suppose some secret management of public perception, which raises the problem of why word of the long-running conspiracy hasn’t leaked out. Like daggett, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I am rather attached to a particular heterodoxy. Only in my case it’s the idea that intelligence agencies sometimes cover up *enemy action*, and that the invasion of Iraq under manufactured pretexts was the disastrous culmination of one such policy.
I would be a lot happier if the “9/11 truth movement” had time for *that* sort of perspective; but it doesn’t fit their dominant narrative, which is that the enemy is within. So instead I’ll ask the other diehards still reading this thread: would you regard *this* idea – the paternalistic coverup of enemy action by the intelligence services, compounding with time into an epic fiasco – to be apriori absurd as well?
Unlimited faith indeed.
I was merely telling you that someone dear and close to me was on the ground in Manhattan at the very time of the attacks, and along with everyone else in the whole city (and nation) she tried her arse off to coordinate and disseminate the best available information.
It was intended as a little vignette to offset your own, nearly a decade later, obsessive and furtive scrabbling through the remains to prove that your own favoured bogey men must have been responsible.
Frankly I share your concerns about these bogey-people and bogey-organisations, broadly speaking. They are doing way bogus stuff.
But you are wrong and foolish.
FDB (@ 350),
Are you trying to tell us that Time is not principally a magazine to dispense pro-US-government propaganda?
You have not responded to my specific questions, and you haven’t given us any other reason to believe that your sister acted any different from all the other Time journalists in their reporting of 9/11 and other events.
Mitchell Porter (@ 249),
The reason that I did not respond to your suggestion that Iraq may have been behind 9/11 is because:
1. It defies common sense to suggest that the US would not have seized on any evidence of Iraq sponsoring a terrorist attack on the US as a justification for invasion, and, instead, have covered it up. Have you forgotten the immense and ultimately unsuccessful effort that the US conducted to win support of the United Nations security Council and world public opinion for the invasion, based on the phony WMD allegations? Why wouldn’t they have, instead, presented to the UN factual evidence of Iraq having sponsored a terrorist attack on the US, if they had it?
2. You provided no evidence.
Mitchell Porter wrote:
Perhaps you think we should dispense with discussion and simply conduct polls on contentious issues?
Simply stating that my views are absurd does not make them thus. Don’t forget, we are discussing extraordinary events. Any explanation for these events requires that a large number people would have had to act out of the public view in manners that go way beyond what is commonplace.
I believe I have shown that the explanation I have offered for 9/11 accounts for the available evidence far better than does the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory that others are defending. No-one in this discussion has seriously attempted to demonstrate that the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory accounts for the known facts better than the conspiracy theory I am defending.
#351 (!): “It defies common sense to suggest…”
Oh, so now we’re on to common sense. Well, I guess that’s always a game-changer.
Please, somebody, say something to keep him going. Like that guy in the makeup said to that guy in the cape, “You’re just too much fun!”
I guess it’s just us, daggett!
@351: “It defies common sense to suggest that the US would not have seized on any evidence of Iraq sponsoring a terrorist attack on the US as a justification for invasion, and, instead, have covered it up… Why wouldn’t they have, instead, presented to the UN factual evidence of Iraq having sponsored a terrorist attack on the US, if they had it?”
You don’t understand my scenario yet. The sequence of events is as follows (hypothesized part in bold):
1991, Bush Sr’s coalition drives Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. 1992, Clinton defeats Bush to become US president. February 1993, one month after the new president’s inauguration, and two years (almost to the day) after the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait, jihadis in New York assisted by Iraqi intelligence truck-bomb the basement of the WTC in an attempt to bring it down. The Clinton administration sets out to discover the ultimate perpetrators. Mid-1993, the Clinton administration bombs Iraqi intelligence HQ in Baghdad in an attempt to deter further such acts. They fail.
–followed by eight years of escalating semi-secret warfare, culminating in 9/11 and the invasion, which saw increasingly egregious deception of the public, e.g. spinning the destruction of Flight TWA800 as mechanical failure.
Having actively prevented the public from discovering the truth on previous occasions, they were no longer free to turn around and present the evidence, lest eight previous years of deception be exposed.
Bear in mind that George W. Bush’s head of CIA was George Tenet, retained from Clinton. Clinton’s original CIA head was James Woolsey, who quit just days after Operation Bojinka, the successor to the 1993 WTC bombing, was exposed in the Philippines, and who went on in subsequent years to publicly promote the idea that maybe Iraq was working through al Qaeda. Tenet started out on Clinton’s national security staff, and through a series of promotions made it to the top of the CIA by mid-1997, and he stayed there until Bush Jr’s second term. That spans the period from 1998′s Operation Desert Fox, a US-UK attack on Iraq which was supposed to be about degrading WMD capabilities (but at the time Stratfor.com speculated that a coup within Iraq was also attempted), through to the 2003 invasion; Tenet is alleged to have said it was a “slam dunk” that some form of WMD would show up. So it’s the same policies, the same approach, the same people: use WMDs as the safe justification for any attack on Iraq, but don’t link specific terrorist attacks to Iraq. (Woolsey, meanwhile, joined the other camp, the Wolfowitz group, who were willing to talk about an Iraq connection with terrorism.)
I could write a book about this stuff, and maybe I’ll have to, if I truly do want to see this class of hypothesis enter into the public discourse. There are many ambiguities, many possibilities, but not only can you make the case that Iraq sponsored al Qaeda terrorism, you can make the case that this connection has been deliberately obfuscated by US federal agencies. And they – or rather, their political masters, assuming that it’s the politicians and not the spy chiefs who were the motive force here – have had multiple reasons to do so.
I am glad to have learnt that j_p_z (@ 352) finds this discussion about the murder of 3,000 Americans and probably well over a million from the Middle East and Central Asia that died as a result so entertaining.
Perhaps he should also put that to those Americans who lost loved ones on 9/11 and who are fighting to force New York City to hold a proper inquiry.
mitchell Porter (@ 353),
So, why didn’t those who went to so much trouble to destroy Clinton’s Presidency with the Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater affairs, get a whiff of this?
Until you produce some credible evidence for this, I see no reason to dismiss the mountains of evidence which implicates figures in the Bush administration in the crime of 9/11.
“I am glad… so entertaining.”
Well, think about it for a minute. Just because it is indeed all very serious business, doesn’t entail that anybody has got to include you as part of the set of grave and serious factors.
If we were having a discussion about the state of the modern novel, we wouldn’t be required to include (nor would we be majorly amiss if we somehow failed to take note of) “The Case of the Barking Clock” and “The Skull of the Waltzing Clown” by Harry Stephen Keeler.
Nevertheless I will happily admit that a history of literature that includes such masterpieces is perforce a much more ‘entertaining’ one. Being as I am also a fan of Kit Smart, maybe you and I have got more in common than we realize!
Daggett,
I hope my earlier comment did not give the impression that I was hostile to the points you were making about 9/11. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I have a particular theory about which I would appreciate your opinion.
Back at about a million comments earlier, ‘Nana Levu’ linked to an interesting set of questions, including this one:
Why indeed?
Daggett, you realise that the 9/11 demolition, and all the related operations involving aircraft and air defences, would have taken a great deal of time to prepare? Surely longer than the 9 months Bush had been in office.
You also realise that a new US administration doesn’t instantly dispense with all of the senior officials who belonged to the old administration. It takes years to completely change over. Many of the senior national security bureaucrats in office on 9/11 would have been appointed by President Clinton.
So it seems undeniable that Bill was involved in this up to his eyeballs. Hillary too, obviously. (In fact, I bet she was the real mastermind.)
And you may wonder why has Obama not launched a genuine investigation into 9/11? Truthers have a vast amount of evidence at their fingertips. If Obama has deliberately chosen not to blow the conspiracy right open, it can only mean one thing, can’t it? Mmm-hmm.
Some people point to Bush’s adventures as the point of 9/11. But really, consider how meager these were to justify such a grand black operation. A pissant gas pipeline in Afghanistan (which still hasn’t been built). Toppling a tinpot dictator in Iraq (who was always more than willing to sell oil to the US if only the sanctions were lifted).
NO! The real purpose of 9/11, I put it to you, was to give Bush the opportunity to conduct his wars — which were always intended to fail. These failed Republican wars would then guarantee the election of Barack Obama in 2008. And that was the true purpose of 9/11.
Because, you see, Obama had to become President at this juncture. Rather than me going on any further, check out this explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDB5BFoSQLs
I report, you decide.
Thank you, Paulus. All is now clear. Surely, there is nothing more to be said.
OK, j_p_z (@ 355),
Where have you even once attempted to seriously discuss 9/11?
Have you?
I mean, apart from responding to counter-suggestion with innuendo and accusation that people like FDB’s sister must have been in on it? That’s a classically paranoid reaction to having a delusion challenged, daggett, and you should recognise it as such.
…
Paulus, masterwork as always. Though I hesitate to suggest a further elaboration: President Eisenhower, who warned the American electorate about the military-industrial complex just as he was leaving office, was in the perfect position as a retired, well-connected General to put into place such a system of economic dominance and control. How would he have been so articulate about something so otherwise abstract if he hadn’t planned it all along?
Liam (@ 359) wrote:
Why not let others see for themselves?
My posts on 9/11 in this forum are at: 28, 50, 72, 105, 126, 139, 142, 172, 186, 187, 193, 196, 227, 236, 237, 246, 251, 256, 265, 268, 271, 273, 280, 281, 282, 286, 287, 289, 291, 292, 294, 298, 309, 310, 315, 316, 319, 324, 328, 333, 335, 339, 342, 343, 345, 347, 348, 351, 354 and 358.
Anyone wishing to check the quality of Liam’s contributions can go to: 114, 144, 149, 153, 177, 180, 184, 198, 209, 232, 295, 299, 302, 311 and 359.
And j_p_z’s are at 119, 234, 259, 352 and 355.
I don’t think anyone can doubt though, that it must go back to FDR. And/or Keynes himself.
Liam,
Your mention of Eisenhower is making me nostalgic for the old days. The era when an Iowa farm boy working for The Company, armed with nothing more than quick wits, a can-do attitude, and a briefcase of gold sovereigns, could stage a brilliantly successful covert operation. Guatemala. Iran. Indonesia (well, they came close).
These days, it’s all so complicated and convoluted. Nano-thermite, remote-controlled airplanes, Men in Black. To make sense of a modern conspiracy, you have to be a combination civil engineer, quantum physicist, and forensic investigator. Daggett is all of that, but how can us simple folk hope to make head or tail of it?
Sigh. I pine for the 60s, in so many ways.
Indeed Generalfeldmarschall. It’s time the CIA and other American security agencies left alone the idea of orchestrating gigantic engineers’ conspiracies and got back to their core competency: dropping suitcases full of money out of the doors of small planes, and hoping that a bad guy somewhere below gets squashed under the weight.
Daggett, collecting large numbers of “facts” and repeating them does not make an argument. That goes for your comment #360 too.
Awesome song ref Paulus.
But not the only good song on that album.
Agreed.
Liam @ 363, you forgot to mention the use of Air America to deal in massive quantities of opiates to the list of CIA corps competencies.
Nice thread, btw – this could go on to challenge the Missy Higgins effort given enough time.
Get
A
Room
Thanks, Dept.
You know, the fate of Warren really cut me up. In his early 50s, still with so much potential and life ahead of him, the silly bugger gets cancer but refuses to see a doctor until there’s no hope.
I’m sure you’ve all seen this many times before, but it’s always worthy of another spin …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhRRWwH3Fro
dagget’s link to the James Randi site’s forum on the BBC blopper about the WTC7 has a final comment ( on page 28!)which reveals more reptile alien news.
They are from Zogarth.
.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=def0ba26fb8636eae32af9ed0897bf96&t=75768&page=28
Liam wrote (@ 363):
I would have thought that that made a lot more of an argument than not presenting any facts at all.
Also, Liam if you mean to say that any claims I have made are not factual, then you should do so by referring to them directly, rather than attempting to imply that they are not by such sneaky and underhanded means as putting quote symbols around the word ‘facts’.
Liam continued:
Do you need to be reminded of the reason I listed both my comments?
At 359 you asked:
So, I felt it only fair that others be given the opportunity to look at my posts and be allowed to see for themselves.
I should have written “Do you need to be reminded of the reason I listed my comments?” in my previous post. The word ‘both’ was left in the sentence by mistake.
—
It seems as if even the majority of the 9/11 Commission now rejects its own report, because they were lied to by the Government. See “The 9/11 Commission Rejects own Report as Based on Government Lies” by Gordon Duff on Salem-News.com of 11 Sep 09.
The article is about the book “The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11.” It quotes the 9/11 Commission head, Thomas Kean, was the Republican governor of New Jersey:
Gordon Duff asks:
Graeme Bird is getting amongst it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WNrx2jq184
Good on you Daggett, how about everyone who disagrees that the three highrises that completely collapsed on 9/11 were controled demolitions take the time to have another, more critical, look at all three collapses.
There is plenty of archival footage on youtube.
The absolute proof that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition is the officially recognised 2.25s of freefall early in the collapse, freefall requires the instantanious removal of all the structural elements and this can only be achieved through precision use of explosives.
Have a look at asia’s tallest controlled demolition for those of you that don’t think that the Towers look like a CD, all tall buildings have to have an upper block created in order to eliminate the risk of toppling…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq4dWT-9DhE
Thanks for that, andrew (@ 375). It’s nice to finally, once again, see a link to a You Tube broadcast that actually adds to our knowledge of the topic at hand.
I have encountered the argument, that the twin towers ‘collapses’ could not possibly have been a controlled demolition because it was sequenced from the top down instead of bottom up a number of times. Even here that argument appears to have thrown one person somewhat off the track.
The example that you have provided should prove to be the last nail in the coffin of that particular ‘argument’.
—
The Hard Evidence tour featuring Richard Gage and Dr Steven Jones
I have neglected to mention, before now, the Hard Evidence Tour featuring Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and Physicist Dr Steven Jones.
Dr Steven Jones produced the paper “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe” which conclusively shows that all three World Trade Center building ‘collapses’ were controllled demolitions.
Recently, Richard Gage addressed a sell-out audience in the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and was very well received.
You can see both of them at the following venues and dates:
Sydney
Date: Saturday, 14 November.
Venue:Tom Mann Theatre136 Chalmers St,
Surry Hills, Sydney NSW(Walking distance from Central Railway station)
Seating Capacity: 292
Melbourne
Date/Time: Tuesday, 17th of November, 7pm till 10pm (Please be a little early).
Venue:Victorian Trades Hall (New Council Chamber)
Brisbane
Date/Time: Thursday, 19th of November, 7pm till 10pm (Please be a little early).
Venue:Clayfield Bowling Club
For further information, please visit thehardevidence.com.
The organisers would particularly welcome the attendance and participation in the discussion of people who are prepared to defend the Official US Government explanation of the World Trade Center ‘collapses’.
Unfortunately, we don’t have much footage of buildings collapsing after being hit by planes.
What footage we do have though looks exactly like itself. That much I can say with certainty.
Firstly, it seems most interesting that none of those named by Graeme Bird have since attempted to defend their conduct, thus far, on this forum.
—
FDB (@ 377),
Obviously, in trying to understand what happened on 11 September 2001, we face enormous difficulties. The removal of almost all the evidence from the crime scene immediately afterwards, as discussed above, was the most obvious.
Just because no large passenger aircraft has before or since crashed into any large building doesn’t mean that we cant apply our knowledge of the laws of physics and structural engineering in order to work out what should have happened on that day after two aircraft each crashed into one of the two out of the three buildings that eventually ‘collapsed’.
That is what the 9/11 Commission and NIST should have done but failed to do.
And that is what groups like Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth have since made an impressive attempt at achieving even given their lack of resources, obstruction, the removal of evidence, etc.
andrew’s post and my posts before then were to rebut of the nonsense argument that the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers could not have been conrolled demolitions because all controlled demolitions occur from the ground up.
The example that andrew gave, as helpful as it was in disproving that claim, was, in fact, redudant, because we only need common sense to understand that if the structaral strength of a building is suddenly removed by explosives, the building will not remain suspeneded indefinitely in mid-air.
Whether the sequence of explosions that would have removed the strength was top-down, bottom up, middle-outwards or whatever, is irrelevant.
“Firstly, it seems most interesting that none of those named by Graeme Bird have since attempted to defend their conduct, thus far, on this forum.”
Daggett, sometimes people getting bored and wandering off is a sign of nothing more than that. Another possibility is that in any argument, being on the side that’s antagonistic to G Montgomery Bird is widely considered as an absolutely iron-clad guarantee that you are correct.
Another possibility can be deduced from reading this thread.
You’re not kidding FDB and Norto. You know who needs to head the investigation? Rumpole With A Gun.
You still around, daggett? I’m waiting for you to respond to my assertion that the Clintons were into 9/11 up to their eyeballs.
OK, maybe my detour into Obama being the anti-Christ was a little over the top. But still, how can you blame 9/11 solely on the Bush administration, when you haven’t answered the important question:
Paulus, whether or not Clinton was in any way complicit in 9/11 is somewhat beside the point.
The available evidence points overwhelmingly to complicity of figures in the administration of President George W Bush.
I asked earlier whether or not you or other Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists accepted the existence of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against.
If you do, then surely it is not inconceivable, given the lack of accountability and transparency within the US military and intelligence agencies for preparations for 9/11 to have begun while Clinton was still President without his knowledge.
However, even, if, for arguments’s sake, Clinton did know, why shouldn’t there be a proper inquiry into 9/11, all the same, where these sorts of issues can be sorted out as the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) is demanding?
Someone has very kindly posted to 911blogger.com a succinct outline of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory , which I am posting below. Please tell me, FDB, Katz, Liam, murph the surf, mitchell porter, j_p_Z et al if it makes as much sense to you as it does to me.
Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah…
Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes…
And hangover or not, they manage to give the world’s most sophisticated air defense system the slip…
Unphased by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely…
Our masterminds even manage to overpower the odd law of physics or two… and the world watches in awe as steel-framed buildings fall symmetrically – through their own mass – at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.
Despite all their dastardly cunning, they stupidly give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the fireball undamaged and fall to the ground… only to be discovered by the incredible crime-fighting sleuths at the FBI…
…Meanwhile down in Washington…
Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked 2-man Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a Boeing…
Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little…
Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the world’s most heavily defended building…
…all without a single shot being fired…. or ruining the nicely mowed lawn… and all at a speed just too fast to capture on video…
…Later, in the skies above Pennsylvania…
So desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that otherwise would not be possible until several years later…
And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, it crashes into a Shankesville field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants… except for the standard issue Muslim terrorists bandana…
…Further south in Florida…
President Bush, our brave Commander-in-Chief continues to read “My Pet Goat” to a class full of primary school children… shrugging off the obvious possibility that his life could be in imminent danger…
…In New York…
World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously…
While back in Washington, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz shake their heads in disbelief at their own luck in getting the ‘New Pearl Harbor’ catalyzing event they so desired to pursue their agenda of world domination…
And finally, not to be disturbed too much by reports of their own deaths, at least seven of our nineteen suicide hijackers turn up alive and kicking in mainstream media reports…
I know you can’t see it Daggett, but by Zappa’s Ghost I swear that your deliberate effort to present a ridiculous sounding “official” account sounds WAY more likely than your best effort to plausibly describe an alternative explanation.
Honestly, hand on my heart.
Wow this thread is still going… every tiume my mithriltinfoil alloy hat wears out I have to go get another one made, and take some time off the internet.
“I read John Robb and I vote.”
Thats great Liam, I’m gonna steal that line. He loves his jargon and is good at self promotion, but he is well worth reading. Thats as far as I have got in catching up so far and I have to go out, but …
And a link to free republic here.
Holy motherfucking warrior jeezuz
BTW katz when Hinkley tried to shoot ronnie, wasn’t his old man or brother or something having dinner with the Bushes?
(I can’t remember the details, and don’t really care about conspiracies that don’t effect me when there are ones that do, like how the world rally championships ended up in my part of the world… ;) )
Still can’t understand how a passport could survive that inferno intact.
Anyone who supports the official version of events care to explain that?
From what I’ve seen here though, most of them do not appear to think that they have any explaining to do, having well known purveyors of truth and justice such as George W Bush and Dick Cheney on their side.
“Still can’t understand how a passport could survive that inferno intact.
Anyone who supports the official version of events care to explain that?”
The major logical problem in the conspiracist mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported. Build enough of them up in a higgledy piggledy pile and it becomes easy to convince oneself it’s a fort.
But it’s fucking string and blankets all the way.
Daggert for what its worth, if you look carefully at the footage of the pentagon crash that was released you will see an outline of what appears to be a dark tailplane approximating the size of the plane that hit the pentagon.
(BTW There is no ultimate turtle, its turtles all the way down, for infinity. We are not living in XXXX.)
Jules, why can’t you see that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here? Can’t you see how they resulted in all the supposedly ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation and strengthened the NSW police state and made possible the invasion of your region in September by riot police to suppress anti-Rally protestors?
Can’t you see how the deception over 9/11 was essentially the same in principle the acknowldedged lie that anti-Rally protestors through rocks at cars to discredit the protestors?
—
FDB, what I have posted is what happened on 11 September 2001, according to the 9/11 Commission, of course, not in so many words, but that is essentially what you will find in their report.
If you don’t agree that that is what happened (as I had thought I had made abundantly clear that I don’t), then, perhaps tell us what you think did happen.
Try re-reading my comment Daggett.
I do not believe I have a ‘conspracist mindset’, I just believe that there are some unanswered questions. What is it with people who can’t appreciate nuance for FFS. Just because I can’t believe that a passport could survive an inferno that destroyed a skyscraper, I’ve got a ‘conspiracist mindset’. I could just as easily claim, with as much justification that you’ve got a gullible mindset.
So your statement could read as follows:
The major logical problem in the conspiracist gullible mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported. Build enough of them up in a higgledy piggledy pile and it becomes easy to convince oneself it’s a fort, particularly when it’s approved by officialdom.
Firstly, also, thanks Adrian. It’s nice to see that someone here is actually reading my posts.
—
Apologies for the grammatical error and the spelling error. I should have written:
—
Also, FDB as you have failed to demonstrate any comprehension of the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement, I am hardly surprised to learn that the explanation provided by the 9/11 Commission makes more sense to you.
When you do gain some grasp of our case, could you tell us what laws of Physics it violates and why you see its theories as less probable than those of the 9/11 Commission?
Gotta admit that was fancy flying. That Hanjour dude was a big game performer.
“The major logical problem in the conspiracist mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported. Build enough of them up in a higgledy piggledy pile and it becomes easy to convince oneself it’s a fort.” – FDB
That may be true.
Anyone on either side care to explain the pasport story, and why it even exists…
I mean seriously. I heard that one Wednesday morning. It was one of the first things I heard about 9/11 and it is just ridiculous.
The only thing that particular question is really evidence of is a complete lack of critical thinking by anyone who reported it. (IE how the fuck did it get there and what person in their right mind could possibly think it got there via planes that hit a building then exploded.)
And wtf is a “conspiracist mindset” while we are on the subject?
Some form of mental illness maybe. Probably one thats a threat to national security, and the wholesomeness of society…
The problem with a huge pile of unanswered questions is that they are a huge pile of unanswered questions. The the huge pile of unanswered questions surrounding 9/11 should make people wonder. I don’t think the CD thesis of 911 answers many of those questions. In fact I think it distracts from them.
When the unanswered questions refer to an event that has been so powerful in directing the dominant narrative of our culture in the 21st century they really should be answered. Basing so much of our action in the world as western nations on an event with that many unanswered questions … I’d be a lot more comfortable with our actions (as Australians and as westerners) if those questions had been answered years ago.
As of now they still haven’t been.
“Jules, why can’t you see that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here? Can’t you see how they resulted in all the supposedly ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation and strengthened the NSW police state and made possible the invasion of your region in September by riot police to suppress anti-Rally protestors?” – Daggett
They were not that surpressed. One of the riot cops even asked me to stop intimidating him. That was nice. The protests happened, most of the coppers were ok. The dickheads on the road were a pain tho. If the riot coppers had been replaced with traffic cops then NSW would not be broke right now. We always get the riot squad round here, its part of that other war on humans.
One day the people here will really get jack of the bullshit. Then the army won’t be enough to contain the unrest.
Yes I know all about false flag attacks and how the subvert democracy. My former bushfire brigade captian reckons he shared a cell with Tim Anderson actually. Anderson taught him how to meditate. While we are on the subject of “”false flags”.
I can see how the 9/11 report and the lies about rock throwing are similar. Obviously. (And yes they were lies. No one through rocks at rally cars as part of any protst. Tho some people did put some boulders on the rally course the night before.)
What I don’t see is how acknowledging “… that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here?” is dependant on accepting controlled demolition.
If there is anyone on the planet who thinks the 9/11 attacks weren’t used to subvert democracy they are a complete moron.
But they would have used to subvert democracy whether it was LIHOP, MIHOP or noHOP. And democracy is subverted in other ways all the time anyway.
I do see what you are saying, but it isn’t dependant on MIHOP. (God I hate that term, oh for those of you that don’t know MIHOP = Made it happen on purpose, LIHOP = let it happen…., and noHOP, well I just made it up but obviously it means no Happened on Purpose.)
How many more posts till we cath the Missy Higgins thread?
Just to reiterate…
If there is anyone on the planet who thinks the 9/11 attacks weren’t used to subvert democracy they are a complete moron.
Apparently an ATM card from one of the passengers on the planes that hit the WTC was recovered intact from the crash. I mean, what are the odds that an the inferno, the ATM card from this particular passenger survived? Something sinister was afoot.
Above, we have Daggett (speaking to Paulus) equating Daggettself with those Daggett disagrees with, as if Daggett really doesn’t understand what a conspiracy theorist is.
“I asked earlier whether or not you or other Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists…blah blah”
A conspiracy theorist is someone who theorises (stay with me…) that there is a conspiracy of some kind in operation.
Now, there was clearly a conspiracy to bring down the towers, and plenty of available evidence points to it being the work of Islamic extremists. I have not, and nor has Paulus, and nor has anyone but Truthers as far as I can remember, advanced any theories beyond what the evidence thus indicates.
You have.
This makes you, and not me, a conspiracy theorist.
Do you get it now?
[Adrian, I don't think you are one, but the snippetty shred of frankly non-argument you presented above happened to fit my rhetorical bill nicely - do you disagree?]
“If there is anyone on the planet who thinks the 9/11 attacks weren’t used to subvert democracy they are a complete moron.”
You need firstly to define your terms, and I expect even then you’ll need to go on and explain what their combination means in this case. I’ll happily respond in good faith when I know what you’re talking about.
“How many more posts till we catch the Missy Higgins thread?”
If it ever happens (and a rearguard action could be expected to prevent it) then the only possible explanation is… well… y’know…
No argument, FDB, just a question.
I would have thought that those who totally accept the official version would be able to explain such apparently unbelievable events, as the only reasonable explanation seems to be that the passport(s) were placed at the scene for some reason.
It’s just that you all seem so happy to deride the ‘alternative’ version of events without feeling the need to justify the anomalies that exist in the official version.
Maybe someone lipsnigered the passports there. Or you know, perhaps it’s quite common for paper and fabric based material to survive aircraft disasters.
I don’t think you really understand what ‘anomaly’ means.
Did the official version suggest some sequence of events to explain the survival of the passport, which was inconsistent with something else they said?
Or did they simply report finding a passport?
The “anomaly”, to labour the point way beyond what should be necessary, is no such thing. It’s merely a discrepancy between “a report of evidence gathered” on the one hand, and “what some people think must happen in the event of an aeroplane crashing into a building” on the other.
To once more labour a point already abundantly made, perhaps this event tells us more about what happens when a fully fuelled jet crashes into a building than we have ever been able to learn before. We have one (1) data point.
Why would anyone expect a coherent and comprehensively understood account from one data point?
Madness that way lies.
Yeah we all know what a conspiracy theory is, we all know what a conspiracy theorist is and we all know how that label is used in discourse to frame discussion on a topic.
I want to know what a “conspiracist mindset” is, cos at the moment that phrase has a signal to noise ratio of one less than infinty:zero
“…and plenty of available evidence points to it being the work of Islamic extremists.” – FDB
Just out of interest tho, what evidence is there that the hijackers actually were on the planes?
Anyone care to provide links?
(No I don’t actually think there were no hijackers on the plane, I’m just wondering how the people on either side of this argument come to their conclusions about what happened.)
FDB, are you suggesting that anti terror laws don’t subvert democracy?
Seriously how can you not understand that statement above.
I’ll try again. (moran will be a deliberate typo btw, its an imeme like pwned.)
Regardless of the cause, regardless of the involement or non involvement of US officials and people connected to the Bush admin and intel services of the US and other countries, such as Pakistan, 9/11 happened.
In response the Australian, US and UK governments used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to subvert democracy. (Other countries did as well, I’m familiar with the 3 nations I mentioned.)
They did this by passing legislation under the banner of “protecting people”. That legislation actively subverts what we in Australia consider to be democracy, ie a state that practises democratic principles. The legislation didn’t subvert the state itself (cept in that it subverts its legitimacy) it did subvert the democratic principles that a state needs to remain democratic.
If you disagree with this you are a moran.
Was that any clearer? (It certainly wasn’t to me.)
FDB, FYI, I understand what anomaly means, but apparently you don’t. For your information, from Wikipedia:
“An anomaly is any occurrence or object that is strange, unusual, or unique. It can also mean a discrepancy or deviation from an established rule or trend.”
If you don’t think that finding an undamaged passport in the ruins at 9/11 is ‘strange or unusual’ I have a used bridge to sell you.
OK, on the passport:
Hijacker probably in the cockpit as the plane hits the Tower. Footage shows windows (and other impact debris) shooting out of the floor(s) the plane hit. Plane flying close to horizontally as it hits the Tower. Enormous (forward, horizontal) momentum as it hits.
I would not be surprised if many kgs of material from inside the plane’s cockpit (and including the shattered cockpit window) went shooting out into the air on the far side of the Tower, during the fraction of a second the impact took.
The inferno may have begun less than a tenth of a second after impact. It matters not. Some debris could shoot out before the main fire began. [Analogy: driver's upper torso breaks through windscreen of motor vehicle that crashes at 100 km/hr, if the driver is not blocked completely by a seatbelt or the steering column.]
Yes it was an “inferno”. But if the passport wasn’t in the building any longer, as the inferno took hold, why should it burn?
The hypothesis above seems consistent with physics (momentum, energy, strength of materials) and chemistry (ignition, combustion).
**************
Skilful pilots? A friend who’s a pilot told me the footage of the second impact on a Tower shows the wings flexing tremendously, suggesting the plane was doing a late, sharp turn in order to hit the target. What if the pilot had missed? Would the plane have continued on, then turned around to return for a second attempt?
**************
Was that wise Liam?
Megrahi, as you well know, was framed!
(Dicuss till @500.)
There is a host of things the “official” series of events doesn’t explain.
No surprise when you consider how flawed the investigation was.
“Why would anyone expect a coherent and comprehensively understood account from one data point?
Madness that way lies.” – FDB
Thats a fair point, tho madness is cool fun. Its a big part of my scepticism regarding controlled demolition (or any sort, barring “by plane”).
But really trying to account for the presence of that passport in the wreckage by basically saying “sometimes shit happens that we can’t explain” in the context of this discussion…
And I quote:
“anomalies that exist in the official version”
To me, this implies “within the official version”. Sorry for the misunderstanding. You have correctly identified that the only conflict (whether of the anomalous kind or not) is as I have said. That is, between collected material evidence and “what some folks reckon must happen in a situation like this as-yet-unique one”.
Well, that’s quite an anomaly. Got me scratching my head.
FDB,
Where have you provided a shred of evidence on this forum that supports the Official 9/11 Conspiray Theory that you are peddling?
Do you recall how there was also “plenty of available evidence point[ing]” to Lindy Chamberlain’s guilt of having murdered her baby Azaria?
However, when knowledgeable and critical-minded people began to subject that ‘evidence’ to critical scrutiny, it very quickly unravelled.
Exactly the same has occurred with all the ‘evidence’ in support of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory.
I have yet to see any evidence in support of the Official explanation of 9/11 that has not already been shot down in flames every bit as much as the whole prosecution case against Lindy Chamberlain.
When do you intend to prove me wrong by posting such evidence to this forum?
joe2 I guess we’ll never know now, seeing as he doesn’t have to go through the appeal. (Better start that rearguard action people.)
waftt Possibly…
Provided the stuff in the cockpit didn’t hit the steel core in the middle of the building after it left the cockpit, and something else managed to momentum its way through all the walls, partitions, desks, people, banks of of computer eqipment and whatever other stuff happened to be between the front of the plane and the far wall/window of the building, in front of the passport, enabling it to travel through the building and out the other side and all the way to the ground somewhere it wouldn’t be completely buried by dust and debris.
So why,assume the passport was even in the cockpit?
daggett
Lindy Chamberlain wasn’t actually freed cos people challenged the evidence.
Her conviction was unsafe, but an appeal against that conviction failed.
It was only new evidence that led to her aquittal.
In fact the Lindy Chamberlain case is quite instructive in light of this discussion we are having.
The original “official’ verdict in that case was based on a completely flawed interpretation of the available evidence, yet all sorts of biases were at play and these created huge resistance to an accurate reading of the events.
Tho I doubt anyone commenting on this thread would allow their bias to interfere in their assessment of what happened on 11/9/2001.
The dingo ate the Twin Towers?
“I have yet to see any evidence in support of the Official explanation of 9/11 that has not already been shot down in flames every bit as much as the whole prosecution case against Lindy Chamberlain”
So all the video footage of the twin towers and pentagon taken by many different people at various locations is all false and a fabrication?
Is this claim not a wee bit overextending concerns that odd discrepancies might prompt?
“The dingo ate the Twin Towers?”
Bingo.
More likely the passport would have been in the carry-on luggage stowed in the overhead lockers.
It is unlikely that a hijacker bent on taking control of a plane wielding his box cutter would also be carrying his carry on luggage.
Unless he was claiming there was a bomb in it, and using that to ensure compliance in the other passengers.
Or perhaps he had it in a special fireproof container to ensure that the passport would be found after his death, in order to provide evidence about Saudi complicity with the CIA so that a war against an Iraqi dictator could be justified. Wait
Many folks carry their passport on their person and NEVER put it in an overhead locker or in their luggage. Likely they showed it at the check-in desk.
jules @ 2.08 pm, you seem to be assuming most of those physical objects you list were between the (damaged, disintegrating) cockpit and the nearest windows. I don’t assume that. I reckon a whole lot of things & people inside that floor (or floors) were swept aside as an extremely heavy high-speed mass (the plane, its passengers, its fuel and luggage) swept into the building. Less than a second to sweep in, sweep stuff aside, crumple, eject any ejecta, and cause debris to go shooring out the other side of the Tower.
You’ve seen the footage. Possibly hundreds of kilos sprayed out. That would include Tower window glass, wood, metal, wall materials, bits of smashed furniture?… ?? who knows? some of it looks like timber to me; even if 95% of that debris was in the Tower before the collision, not inside the plane, it’s still not beyond the realms of possibility that stuff from inside the cockpit fell out of the building too.
NOT many folks intend to crash the plane on which they are travelling into a tall building.
The security of their travel documents would not be uppermost in their thoughts.
Yeah but …
Like I said possibly.
But I honestly can’t see the passport going through the steel core and out the other side, and both planes seemed to hit close enough to the centre of the building that I’d assumed they carried through and hit the core. Its just an assumption tho.
I’d also assume thats why the buildings seemed to topple as a block from the impact points when they finally fell too.
Given all that tho, the coincidence factor regarding finding that passport is just too high in my book. I heard about it on TV at about 10 am that morning after the attack, and my immediate gut response was “Bullshit!! No way. Dont believe you. I’ve seen all sorts of crazy flukey shit in my life and I still don’t believe you.”
But I do take your point, and to a fair degree agree with FDB about the unique nature of the event, and thats why I find it hard to find meaning in any statements about the collapse.
The story of the head of Pakistan’s ISI transferring $100,000 to Atta tho, thats interesting. It may all stem from Indian intel sources tho which may refute it, those sources having no cred on matters to do with terrorism. (For example Which high ranking Indian law enforcement official died during the Mumbai rampage in sus circumstances after exposing a connection between extreme right wing Hindus with govt connections and bombings that were originally attributed to Muslim terrorists?)
See its a complicated pointless web.
The revolutionary feature of the WTC buildings is that they didn’t have a core in the sense of a structure that bore the weight of the building.
Rather, the perimeter walls bore the weight of the building.
There was therefore nothing remarkably solid for the planes to hit in the centre of the buildings.
There was a steel core. It wasn’t the same as other structures but it was there.
“But I do take your point, and to a fair degree agree with FDB about the unique nature of the event, and thats why I find it hard to find meaning in any statements about the collapse.”
But you can at least admit the meaning in the following statement:
“What appeared to occur on 11/09/2001 was that two airplanes with near-full fuel tanks flew into two large buildings in New York, USA. Shortly afterwards, both buildings collapsed.”
Now, apply Occam’s Razor and PRESTO!!! Who’d a thunkit? The answer is…
THE FUCKING PLANES DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!
To elaborate, although the towers were built as Katz describes, they did have a steel and concrete core, and imo it was solid enough to stop a passport, even if it wasn’t designed to support the weight of the wtc.
I think you’ll also find it was strong enough to stop a plane.
The core provided stability to the structure (didn’t it?) even if it didn’t support the weight. That stability loss probably does have a lot to do with the collapse, but I don’t really know.
FDB, I’ve read a Corrolary to Occam’s Razor, which is, “Never ascribe to malevolence what can be explained by stupidity.”
That’s why I don’t take conspiracy theories seriously any more.
““What appeared to occur on 11/09/2001 was that two airplanes with near-full fuel tanks flew into two large buildings in New York, USA. Shortly afterwards, both buildings collapsed.”
Now, apply Occam’s Razor and PRESTO!!! Who’d a thunkit? The answer is…
THE FUCKING PLANES DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!” – FDB
If you read through this thread you won’t find me claiming the towers were demolished by anything other than planes. I might admit its a possibility but I’m agnostic about it.
My opinion is that the planes had help getting to the point where they could slam into the towers. Who from, how much help and why … I have no real idea, but plenty of suspicions. Ultimately there are more important things in the world BUT seeing as we are talking about it …
The passport … it sure seems sus. How did it survive, and then how come it was found so quick, and on top of all that – how come people thought it was credible in the first place?
The response by western govternments has effectively subverted democracy, and by democracy I mean the systems of government we use in English speaking nations but also in many many other nations. They involve things like free and fair elections, respect for and adherence to the rule of law, the seperation of powers, judicial principles of fairness and justice etc etc
Certainly its not the only subversion of democracy in the last 8 years, but none the less the overall response to 9/11 is the most significant attack on what we understand to be democracy and freedom.
And whats a conspiracist mindset?
“The response by western govternments has effectively subverted democracy.”
Indeed, Jules, and the question you must then ask is: cui bono?
And the answer is: he’s the lead singer of U2.
No, no, actually the answer is, the individual who has benefited the most by the shenanigans of the part 8 years is Mr Nobel Fucking Peace Laureate. Or, to call him by the title that his infernal minions use, His Satanic Majesty Barry I.
Ask yourself, have you ever heard President Obama, at a press conference or other public gathering, specifically deny that he is the Anti-Christ? You haven’t, have you? Think about it.
‘Obama-nation’, that’s what the US is these days. It sounds just like ‘abomination’, doesn’t it? Do you seriously think that’s just a coincidence?
Daggett seemed dismissive of my theory. If he wants to believe the official version, like a trusting sheep, that’s his choice. But I challenge him, or any of the other government dupes on this thread, to provide one piece of positive evidence that Obama is not the Great Beast of the Book of Revelation. I’ll bet they can’t.
Be careful Paulus. Be careful who you impersonate.
I’d love to know how you do that Devil Drink.
The answer to how is contained in the answer to who, Casey. As it is with all proper conspiracies.
Yes, yes. You’ve said that before. all powerful fallen angel blah blah blah. If no one believes in God on this site, you reckon you stand a chance?
But it is rather spectacular I must say, the way you do it. Like that time your we conjured you by mentioning your name three times in a no. of languages and you appeared. I’d say respect, but, you know, like, no.
Say, you didn’t have to happen to have anything to do with little satanic altar in Canberra did you? Naughty naughty…now look what you’ve done. One million Catch on Fire christians are descending. Holy Crap I wouldn’t want to be in Canberra right now.
Yes, yes. You’ve said that before. all powerful fallen angel blah blah blah. If no one believes in God on this site, you reckon you stand a chance?
But it is rather spectacular I must say, the way you do it. Like that time your we conjured you by mentioning your name three times in a no. of languages and you appeared. I’d say respect, but, you know, like, no.
Say, you didn’t have to happen to have anything to do with little satanic altar in Canberra did you? Naughty naughty…now look what you’ve done. One million Catch on Fire christians are descending. Holy Crap I wouldn’t want to be in Canberra right now.
I’m glad someone finally realised bono is the antichrist.
Ahh, the devilish magic of RSS.
Really Satanic Stuff
How do you do that, Casey?
You’ve summoned yourSELF up twice. Do you carry a passport on that nifty
broomstick? Anyone noticed that ‘piracy’ is part of ‘consPIRACY’?
Thed Long John Silver, ‘e be behind thut nasty business.
Pieces of six, pieces of six squawked the damn parrot. Ghostly thread veers from the piratical to the parrotical as the sea mists sweep in.
Yeah Katz, I know, but he is so method. How long has he been in character now? He is the
Brando of LP.
Jules @ 401,
“I want to know what a “conspiracist mindset” is, cos at the moment that phrase has a signal to noise ratio of one less than infinty:zero”
I thought FDB nailed that @ 388 (and 391, of course):
“The major logical problem in the conspiracist mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported.[...]”
Which defines the conspiracist mindset by the most common problem it has in expressing itself and its theories.
Daggett went on to write @ 390:
“Jules, why can’t you see that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here? Can’t you see how they resulted in all the supposedly ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation and strengthened the NSW police state and made possible the invasion of your region in September by riot police to suppress anti-Rally protestors?”
Daggett, I have no problem with any of the above. Except, “and similar ‘false flag’ attacks”.
You can suspect this (questions), but you can’t prove it (answers). Yet, you chose right there to state it as rhetorically conclusive. As something you’ve concluded. You’re simultaneously trying to convince people to ‘keep an open mind’ or what have you, but you’ve already shot yourself below the shin.
Just worth being aware of in your discussions, maybe.
Good points Nick.
Especially wrt language. In all probability ASIO planted the bomb outside the Hilton in Sydney 31 years ago. I think the conspiracy theory that they meant to find the bomb and justify their existance is probably right. Calling it a false flag, or similar to 9/11 is a poor use of language. Thats a problem with “9/11 Truth”, poor use of language, especially since 2004, but probably always.
Anyway ASIO was probably responsible for the Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney, maybe not, either way it wasn’t technically a false flag attack. But do we have a term for that sort of event?
I didn’t know the term “conspiracist mindset” was actually defined by its major problems.
Are there other problems?
Do they also define the mindset?
I mean treating as yet unanswered questions as evidence for something unsupported is one thing.
There’s a dynamic at play tho. People often ask the questions, repeatedly, without a satisfactory answer. After a while those questions and other anomolies, rightly or wrongly, begin to look like proof cos no one answers them to their satisfaction.
Thats how confirmation bias begins. Sometimes. And everyone here has confirmation bias. (cept me, obviously.)
On their own unanswered questions are just that, in the context of 9/11 many are strongly suggestive of something. What that is, who can say, without them being answered properly.
As I have said before, the best that can be said about the Bush admin wrt 9/11 is that they were incompetent and negligent. Yet it happened and everyone promtly forgot that the day before Donald Rumsfeld had come out and said that over 3 TRILLION dollars had gone missing from the Pentagon budget in two years.
And proceded to give the Bush admin carte blanche to waste even more money. Who knows how much went to their cronies via billions wasted on private contractors in various pointless wars. Not to mention the torture, renditions etc etc, tho really thats nothing new.
Anyway thats not evidence either, cept of human stupidity. I’d love to know how they got away with it tho.
I do have my suspicions.
(That probably isn’t safe for kids or the squeamish btw.)
And we’ve seen it before but it’s worth re-posting.
the Hilton Hotel bomb was placed in a rubbish bin on the footpath outside the hotel. Victims? Rubbish men emptying the bin, not politicians. A callous and murderous act, presumably with political motives.
“On their own unanswered questions are just that, in the context of 9/11 many are strongly suggestive of something. What that is, who can say, without them being answered properly.”
Well said, jules. That just about sums it up for me, but surely we can get to 500.
On 11 September 2001 the crime of the murder of almost 3,000 US citizens was committed.
As noted @ 308 within hours, the FBI had claimed to have completely solved that crime even though we were expected to believe that they, the US military, all the US intelligence agencies, the US aviatian authorities and the US government had claimed to have been taken completely by surprise by the terrorists.
As I have pointed out, to accept that the 19 hijackers directed by people from sanctuaries within Afghanistan were responsible for the crimes one has to accept the bizarre account of events provided by the 9/11 Commission, a summary of which that I have posted @ 308.
Clearly the US Government, the Australian Government and the newsmedia wholely accept that story (although they avoid presenting in its totality as I have done, evidently fearing that merely to do so, would make its absurdity too obvious to deny).
It seems as if most of those arguing against me would have us accept that version of events, although they have avoided saying so openly.
Others appear to have rejected that version, but seem happy to let the crime remain unsolved.
It’s as if, having concluded that Andrew Pennington was not guilty of the murders of Linnet Doyle and Salome Otterbourne, that Inspector Poirot allowed those crimes to remain unsolved.
What has happened since 2001 is as if Andrew Pennington has been pronounced guilty of those crimes.
Some here would evidently be happy to let Andrew Pennington go to the gallows for a crime he did not commit, whilst allowing Simon Doyle and Jacqueline de Bellefort to profit from their crime.
Those, who are so hysterically attacking me for pointing to the overwhelming evidence implicating senior figures within the Bush administration in the crime of 9/11 seem not to be troubled by the fact that the prevalance of the views, they, our politicians and our newsmedia are pushing, has allowed the US Government to get away with murdering hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Pakistanis and Iraqis for a crime that figures, within the US Government, themselves almost certainly committed.
I note how this thread has been filled with even more irrelevant fluff, such as discussion of the “[unofficial] conspiracist mindset”[1].
What the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists (as well as those who would have us believe that they think that the crime of 9/11 should remain unsolved) have done by filling this thread with so much more irrelevant fluff[1] is avoided responding to my many simple and direct points.
One point is why shouldn’t there be a proper inquiry into 9/11?
Why, in a democracy, where Governments are supposed to serve and protect the people shouldn’t the victims of 9/11 be allowed to have those, whose gross negligence, if not complicity in the 9/11 attacks, casused the deaths of spouses, siblings, parents, sons and daughters, held to account?
FDB wrote,
Either FDB is completely stupid or he is deliberately wasting the time of those who are genuinely trying to understand this very important issue.
A theory should not only be simple, but it should also account for all the observations. If nothing else, FDB should have at least understand by now, that a third building, WTC 7,that wasn’t even hit by any plane ‘collapsed’ completely into dust exactly in the manner of a controlled demolition.
As I already wrote, the Twin Towers were built with such enormous redundant strength as to easily withstand a direct head on impact from a Boeing 707. One of the orignal engineers said they should have been able to with repeared impacts from 707′s.
If the buildings failed to perform as their designers intended, then Building Engineeers are entitled to know why. This is what the NIST inquiries failed to do for even one of the three buildings.
Even if they were to have somehow failed, they should not have collapsed so quickly. Therefore the theory has to also explain how all that enormous structural strength, many times what was necessary to support the weight of the towers failed in as little as 12 second, barely more than free-fall speed or 16 seconds at the very most.
The only theory offered so far that makes any sense to any engineer is the controlled demolition theory, yet that was not even considered by NIST.
Clearly NIST, the US Government, the Australian Government, the newsmedia, and, it would seem, quite a few who who are participating in this forum desperately want to prevent that fact from becoming more widely known.
Footnotes
1. Such as pontification about the “[unofficial] conspiracist mindset”. What is not explained is that if I have such a mindset why I also (most unfortunately) did not even begin to seriously question the US Government version of events until around 2 years ago, that is 6 years after 9/11.
Rinse, repeat.
I need a haircut.
Well, if we are going for 500…
Anyone seen this sort of thing?
The 9/11 stargate mega ritual. (I kid you not, thats what he calls it.)
This article will connect Kubrick’s Monolith with the events of 9/11. To do so we will look at a certain actor, one Dan O’Herlihy, and his roles in the movies, Fail Safe, Robocop, and The Big Cube.
Yeah …. ok.
I can’t see any hysteria in the arguments mounted against you Mr daggett. I can see patient attempts to point out SOME of the flaws in your extensive writings. Not every point has received a response. There are only 24 hours in each day, and sadsly there are only 7 days in each week.
jules, that characteristic of the ‘conspiracist mindset’ is not a definition. It is an observable characteristic that appears very often in the writings of those whose mindset is conspiracist.
Just as you would find citation of experimental results in the writings of a research chemist; or appeals to logical principles in the writings of a mathematician or logician or a research chemist; or citation of laws and court rulings in the writings of a barrister or judge.
The Enlightenment attempted to bring more reason into public discourse, and reduce superstition. The project continues…..
“What is not explained is that if I have such a mindset why I also (most unfortunately) did not even begin to seriously question the US Government version of events until around 2 years ago, that is 6 years after 9/11.”
A lot of troofers, sorry truthers say that sort of thing. What took you so long to wake up? And why do you expect other people to suddenly share your revelation? (Not trying to be offensive, but you know bolting horses and shutting gates… especially stargates.)
Years ago i wrote an essay for a uni course about conspiracy theory as a process of self initiation that is usually incomplete. that was in the 90s, but it might be worth a revisit in light of 9/11.
The basic idea was that something akin to religious conversion happens when someone suddenly “sees the truth” about a conspiracy. Usually the people involved have a previous belief system which is overturned by the revelation. Thus the incompleteness. Replacing one BS with another isn’t really much of a leap.
Usually a series of initiations replaces on false truth with another till the initiate gets jack of the bullshit and starts thinking for themselves. Since this probably takes several lifetimes, and most people seem to have only one…. anyway…
The Pentagon was obviously a huge version of one of Solomons Jars. The US military captured the Cuthulu spawned servant of the Ogdru Jahad that was working with Nazis in germany. (Mike Mignola was wrong when he wrote hellboy, the Anung Un Rama is not a dude with a cool haircut but it has a red right hand. (Cos of all the blood.) )
Jack Parsons and L Ron Hubbard performed the babalon working in march 46, and as a result the cleft in spacetime allowed something through. This critter was born to that well known hellspawn Barbara Bush on July 6 1946, and rose to power in the US through the 90s. Not being fully human it only needed a gestation period of about 4 months.
This creature had come to earth with a mission, to free the servant of Ogdru Jahad that was trapped in the pentagon. hence 9/11. The towers were just a distraction, and a conveinient source of blood and pain for the servant, which is either Negral or Irra Jahad most probably.
I really thought all this was obvious.
Ah, but what was NASA really doing when allegedly it set off explosions on the moon that we couldn’t actually see when it was supposed to happen? Something sinister no doubt as the planning began in the GWB years. But why did Obama go along with it? What are they not telling us?
Guess I better add this, just in case ASIO and the CIA take me seriously – :) :)
They didn’t consider the possibility of Gojira-attack, either. Probably because they thought it dashed unlikely.
Daggy, have you even read the NIST reports? They make it very clear that fires (started by the aircraft impacts) caused the structural failure resulting in all three (1, 2 and 7) collapses.
Personally, I think you’re both stupid AND wasting everyone’s time. However, if it’s in the cause of Thread-Doom, I say: shine on, you crazy nano-diamond.
“The Enlightenment attempted to bring more reason into public discourse, and reduce superstition.” – My socks and undies (where angels really do fear to tread.)
well it utterly failed.
Then again it was hardly Enlightenment.
Enlightenment occurs after a successful integration of the experience of identifying your consciousness with the totality of existence, (instead of the meat bag we usually associate it with), madness usually follows a failed attempt at integration.
A fundamental part of Enlightenment is the realisation of compassion for all life, all of reality in fact. Its based in empathy. Another fundamental part is that it doesn’t actually change anything except the way you view the world. Once you understand the nature of existance compassion is the only logical response.
Perhaps if “teh enlightenment” had understood the nature of compassion it might not have failed. perhaps it will, one day, suck seed. and eggs.
“The Red Triangle is the descending tongue of grace;
the Blue Triangle is the ascending tongue of prayer”
Has anyone ever read the NIST reports?
I mean every bit of all of them?
“The purple tongue should not eat inkweed berries.”
“where angels fear to tread” wrote:
Like “THE FUCKING PLANES DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!”?
Or FDB’s other inspired contributions @ 240 and 250.
To point out the ‘flaws’ in my arguments, you have to at least acknowledge those arguments.
All I have seen so far are your own ludicrous attempts to explain away how that passport was so conveniently and miraculously found the very next day in the rubble of the Twin Towers.
Where else have my arguments been acknowledged, let alone rebutted?
Please just provide links to the the posts or the numbers.
All I have seen are personal attacks, endless attempts to riducule me, straw man demolitions, the dragging of red herrings across the trail and other debaters’ tricks.
I haven’t even got one of my detractors to explicitly defend the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory, a summary of which I posted above.
And if they reject that version of events, I am still waiting to know whether they think that the crime of 9/11 should be properly investigated or whether it should remain unsolved.
I have yet, after 444 posts, to find out from my detractors whether or not they believe that those who allowed almost 3,000 US citizens to be murdered on 11 September 2001 (whether by omission or commission) be held to account.
—
No, FDB, it’s not ‘rinse, repeat’.
You advanced “Occam’s Razor” as a reason why we should unquestioningly accept that two planes were able to cause three buildings to collapse.
For the first time in this thread I have rebutted that spurious argument and, I believe, have demonstrated that you don’t understand basic scientific principles or that you are intentionally misleading this discussion.
What? You mean you haven’t? Personally, I thought Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of the World Trade Center Towers, NCSTAR 1-6 for short, was very racy bed-time reading, though the bisexual gypsy twins were a bit much at times.
I thought everyone commenting here had read the reports?
OK, people: everyone here who HASN’T read the NIST reports please raise your paw.
NCSTAR 1-6 has some pretty interesting issues tho. No doubt you are aware of them.
The gypsy twins were a nice distraction tho, especially that think they did with the somersault and … er I’ll shut up now.
Sorry about the incorrect link to FDB’s memorable, helpful and informative post:
The third last paragraph in my previous post should have ended, “shouldbe held to account.”
—
Sideshow Bob asks if I have read the NIST reports. In fact US Physics Teacher David Chandler has and caught the authors out lying about the critical detail of over 2 seconds of collapse at free-fall speed that their original reports attempted to conceal. His confrontation with the authors of that report on YouTube is well worth watching.
Jules asks:
At least three reasons:
1. Because I trusted the word of precisely the kind of people that are working overtime her on this thread to conceal the truth about 9/11, that is, people who would have us believe that they are left-wing, against the wealthy elites and on the side of the poor and oppressed. If I had not placed such undeserved trust in such people I would have have woken up long before I did.
2. I avoided studying the question properly because it seemed to me that it would be enormously difficult and time consuming for me to sort through the claims and counter-claims surrounding the 9/11 controversy. Giving that (wrong) impression to others who are attempting to learn the truth is clearly one of the intentions of those who are adding so much clutter to this this discussion. (I still have to find the time to work out what I think of controversies such as that surrounding the swine flu, and the Port Arthur massacre, BTW)
3. I had other concerns: the Howard Government, privatisation, the environment, overpopulation, work, life, etc.
Look I don’t want to judge you or tell you how to live your life Daggett, and I have a soft spot for Truthers, cos I’m a bit of one myself, or would be if it wasn’t for fucking controlled demolition, which I think is an energy sink. For people with activist zeal.
“Because I trusted the word of precisely the kind of people that are working overtime her on this thread to conceal the truth about 9/11″
I don’t they are working, let alone putting in overtime. Nor do I think their goal is to conceal the truth about 9/11. They may well be useful idiots, but can you (or me) honestly say with any confidence that we are not? (I’d like to think I could but thats the point of being a useful idiot isn’t it, you don’t know you are one.)
See since 9/11 happened (and I was sus on it from day one) the 9/11 truth movement has attracted quite a few nuts who scream loudly about all sorts of garbage, from “evil Zionazis Jews for Obama done it”to “holograms and HAARP not planes”. Yet the consistant questions about connectons and corruption have never gone away, just disappeared under the weight of increasing amounts of noise. The signal to noise ratio of the 9/11 truth movement increased significantly especially since garbage like loose change and in plane sight came out.
And in that entire time nothing the truth movement has done has actually undone the damage Bush, Cheney and the other bloodthirsty warmongers in the last US admin unleashed on the world. No truther has helped overturn the Patriot act, they were far less concerned about FISA than about nano thermate or thermite or whatever the fuck Steve Jones calls it, and none of them (to my knowledge) are actively pressuring Obama to reinstate habeas Corpus (which he should have done on day one, just another of the long list of failures Obama will end up being remembered for.)
Yet whenever I mention this to them they say “When we prove they did 9/11 all that stuff will have to go, by definition.” Or words to that effect. There is no stated mechanism for this, just some blind faith. And in case you missed it, proving 9/11 as defined by Dylan Avery style truthers will result in what exactly? Nothing unless its accompanied by an overthrow of the current US admin, cos there are plenty of officials in that who would have to be compromised if the truthers are right. Not to mention Congress, etc etc
So we are looking at the overthrow of the last, and some of the current US government. And their public trial and execution. It has to be that way cos much of what caused 9/11 according to truthers is structural, and the individuals are effectively interchangeable.
Personally I think my theory with Hubbard and parsons invoking something dodgy that settled in barbara Bushes womb and caused the attacks to release a force that was held in the pentagon makes more sense (on a mythological level) than any other theory that tries to explain the event in physical terms, and I was actually half joking about it, maybe completely joking, I’m not sure. But I would say that wouldn’t I.
On reflection I think it needs modification. Parsons and Hubbard were trying to invoke something beautiful into the world and its just a perverse twist of fate that it ended up in Barbs womb. That experience warped it so much that it came out looking for revenge. It also extended the life of the universe by several trillion years cos thats how much therapy the poor critter will need to recover from the experience.
Sorry for wandering off into the absurd, but I kind of have to.
Otherwise I end up shouting and banging my head against a brick wall.
“I had other concerns: the Howard Government, privatisation, the environment, overpopulation, work, life, etc.”
“I still have to find the time to work out what I think of controversies …”
How much time have you used on 911 truth that could have served you and your community in a more effective way, especially in regard to those other concerns you listed, after the Howard Government. Do you still find the time to be as effective in those other areas and have a good (ie meaningful and worthwhile) life?
You don’t have to answer me on this thread. Those questions are for you to think about over time.
In other news, it looks like the Higgs boson is actually c’thulu.
Well, I had my haircut.
Sorry, gravatar no longer accurate.
I won’t let it stop me working overtime here on this thread to conceal the truth about 9/11 though.
No siree B.O.B.
This is well on target to become LP’s fourth 500 comment thread.
‘Well, I had my haircut.’
Yeah it’s always about you FDB. Here’s 50c – tell someone who cares, or maybe build a bridge and get over it. (sorry it’s been a while since I’ve actually talked to a 13 year old so the lingo might be just a little bit out of date.)
This’ll get to 500 yet.
It will if I have anything to do with it.
Mr daggett,
you say my explanation of a possible way for the passport to descend from the Tower to the ground is “ludicrous”.
I disagree.
I believe my hypothesis is consistent with physics and chemistry. I prefer hypotheses and explanations that are consistent with the physical sciences (and with arithmetic, causality, etc.) There was a poster who picked you up on a simple error (feet vs metres) in your “free fall” calculations.
I don’t have the time to follow you down large numbers of rabbit holes.
You seem to assume that those who don’t reply to you have not “thought about” the events in question and their antecednts. I suggest to you they have thought long anbd hard about those events, and disagree with your “world view”; they have “acknowledged” your writings (I hesitate to call them “arguments”) by responding to some, but are not duty bound to accept the vailidity of your assertions or your reasoning.
Neither are they obliged to answer every point you raise.
For the record the others are Missy Higgins: Lipsniger?, The Trotskyist Meta-Ethics of the Atom Bomb, and Chicks With Guns.
What if Al-Queda tried to blow up the moon?
Comment in spaminator, to precede this one:
…and another that should have made it but didn’t was Tim and Jeremy’s Sylvia Plathitude.
Well, I asked…and you didn’t answer.
Oh yeah! YouTube! The source of all knowledge! Yairs, let’s play Duelling YouTube.
In fact, high-school teacher David Chandler does no such thing.
“Where angels fear to tread”,
It’s almost inconceivable that the passport not attached to a part of the hijacker’s body or clothing would have flown out of either of the Twin Towers at the time of the crash.
And if it had, it would have most likely been found on the day by somebody in the streets below. If it had not, I can’t imagine it being found the very next day under so much rubble.
And if the passport had remained inside the tower, the chances of it being found at all, let alone found the next day, would be practically nil.
Common sense would surely tell us that it is almost infinitely more likely that the passport found so coveniently for the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory the next day would have been planted.
I’ve e-mailed Torchwood but they really aren’t much use because they can NEVER find The Doctor. Maybe The Doctor put the Paspor… Oh … Would have have to have been a Dalek or a Cyberman …
Now that is ridiculous Paul.
Doctor is allergic to Passports. And Torchwood … we all know who they really work for.
NCSTAR 1-6 somewhere round page 300 if anyone’s really interested.
jules @ 437,
I did think of one more observable characteristic, courtesy WAFTT @ 444, though I’ll venture that observable characteristics might be the only way by which you could arrive at a definition of a particular mindset?
Conspiracists actively seek to proselytise.
Base structural errors in language, and proselytising = predicatoriness?
Its a bit of a born again thing isn’t it Nick. Well it certainly seems that way to me.
Its one thing to say, “This sure looks sus.”
Its another to say that you know what happened. Then expect other people to react like you have just saved their life.
Dogma is dogma and it always sucks.
Dogma, dogmatist, dogmatic, DogMan
doggone, ain’t that the truth, jules…..
I dunno.
What is truth?
” ‘What is truth?’ said Pontius Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.”
– Francis Bacon
This guy knows
Didn’t he write shakespeare?
Think a seagull once told me the truth is ‘in here’.
But that don’t seem right either.
I wasn’t one of those giant seaguls with the big teeth was it?
Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, Bacon wrote Bacon.
Simple really: do try to keep up, jules.
It wasn’t …
I had no idea you were a seagull, Jules!
Oops, bit late…I also had no idea what tgc was referring to.
That looks interesting. Cheers.
Of course criticising something you haven’t read is always fun so i’ll have a go.
Typical of western imperialist academics to try and frame truth in their own way, everyone else does, but claiming that primative societies rely on emotional truth, which is non sensory and non rational is utter garbage. So called primative societies are wholly dependant on sensory truth for survival, on deductive truth for survival and he would know that if he ever actually tried to get himself a meal from scratch.
And he possibly doesn’t understand BC Chinese philosophy, but then who does.
I looked him up on lazipedia too, apparantly he got beat up by coppers for jaywalking.
Thats a bit rough.
Some truths are not meant to be known.
Just for the record:
I think it is silly to add contrived posts just for the purpose of making this forum reach 500 posts (although I guess it is no worse than adding contrived posts to make it harder for others to understand the 9/11 controversy).
—
Sideshow Bob (@ 462),
To answer your question: No, I have not. David Chandler has and has shown those reports not to be worth the paper they are printed on. Have you read them?
Sideshow Bob wrote, “let’s play Duelling YouTube.”
If we must, Sideshow Bob, at least provide links to videos which are in response to the videos I have linked to.
The Youtube video you linked to does not even address the content of the one I linked to, “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie”, (which I also linked to earlier @ 172 BTW). If you had bothered to look at that video, you would know that.
In fact, it is a response to an earlier video “WTC7 in Freefall” by David Chandler.
The video “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie” shows Dr. Shyam Sunder and Dr. John Gross (the same guy who insisted that there was no molten steel under the ground on which the WTC towers previously stood and that no eyewitnesses had seen any, BTW) waffling on incoherently in response to questions put to them by David Chandler and Dr. Steven Jones.
It would appear that as a result of their embarassment, NIST published a new report which conceded what they had previously attempted to deny, that is, that WTC 7 fell at free fall acceleration for approximately 2.5 seconds after the ‘collapse’ initiated, thereby also making utter nonsense of the video you linked me to.
Not much you can do about spurious, vapid or entirely lighthearted posts, daggett.
David Chandler has not proven what you claim, he has asserted several things. Big difference.
Given the sensationalising character of the press and TV, do you really think someone like Mr Chandler would not get a worldwide splash, if reasonable journalists thought there was ANYTHING substantial to his claims? They’d be all over him like a rash. Before you could say “flight school!!”
Speaking of truth, since when has the media been concerned with substance when it comes anything of a ‘sensationalising’ nature?
And you may have noticed that they keep their ‘sensationalising’ within very narrow boundaries these days. Anything that threatens the status quo is clearly off limits.
Not that I’m suggesting that this is part of a conspiracy or anything…
Are you fucking kidding me? You haven’t read the official accounts and yet you believe some twonk on YouTube has disproved them? That’s utterly ridiculous.
Yes, and I’m utterly shocked and awed that you don’t even pretend to have read them, yet presume to lecture others on this alleged conspiracy of yours. I salute your chutzpah, sir.
Rubbish. At #453 you linked to “WTC7 in Freefall –No Longer Controversial”. Don’t attempt to deny it – the link is right there for anyone to check. Not that it makes any difference, as the link I provided at #462 shows exactly where Chandler went wrong with his pathetic “gotcha”. It’s a classic case of cherrypicked data by a delusional nitwit.
Again, rubbish. I’m curious, though: HOW do you know NIST “conceded” anything given you admit you haven’t even read the report?
Here’s a bit of homework for you: prove it.
P.S. you mention Dr. Steven Jones. Isn’t he that mormon bloke ditched by Brigham Young University, you know, the one who also believes that Jesus Christ visited Ancient Mesoamerica centuries before Columbus? Do you believe Christ visited the Mayans, Daggy? If not, why not?
If an admission by NIST itself that WTC 7 fell at free fall speed on top of the clear physical evidence that has been on YouTube for the whole world to see for years, is not sufficient proof for “where angels tread lightly”, then it is impossible for me to imagine what would be.
Unlike “where angels tread lightly”, millions of people around the world who have carefully studied the evidence know that there is a great deal that is both ‘substantial’ and ‘sensational’ about the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7 and the cover-up by NIST.
The fact that the major newsmedia has chosen not to report this and, as well as a good many other equally substantial and equally sensational aspects of the 9/11 story should serve as a clear warning that it would be most unwise to place any trust in it.
Let’s also pray that “where angels tread lightly” is never selected as a juror on a major criminal trial.
Given the “admission” you link to is actually your comment, Daggy, I imagine “sufficient proof” would be a statement from NIST stating what you think they stated.
Argggh
I hate that. I just stoopidly wiped 3 paragraphs on jesus’ alleged visit to Australia, pre European invasion. (No shit – at least according to one fella I know.)
Plus it was actually very funny.
Anyway daggett, what do you think of the claims made by Indira Singh re Ptech?
Okay, daggett.
The following is a serious comment. by their very nature conspiracy theories cannot be proved to be either true or false. The whole point of a successful conspiracy is that it leaves no evidence behind, so it cannot be proven either way. Consequently all unproven conspiracies should be considered fabrications. 9/11 is one such conspiracy. And I do hope we reach 500.
“by their very nature conspiracy theories cannot be proved to be either true or false.” – Paul Burns
Was watergate a conspiracy theory before some knob published an article about it? If you said in early 1986 that the US had supplied missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages you would have been accused of being a conspiracy theorist. Should those claims have been considered fabrications?
Are Terry Griffiths questions regarding the Hilton bombing in ’78 fabrications? What about Wahid’s claims on sbs years ago about Indonesian police or military involvement with the Bali bombings and the islamic terror in that part of the world? He’s not just any schmuck, he was Indonesian president.
Everything he said was a fabrication?
Come on.
Jesus, PB, have you had an aneurysm?
Sideshow Bob wrote:
It does nothing of the sort as you should well know.
All it did was restate what Chandler had already rebutted. What it restated was NIST’s basis for claiming that the initial acceleration of WTC 7 was less than free-fall. It did so by repeating NIST’s fraudulent claim that the collapse was initiated when some of the inside of WTC 7 was observed collapsing as the outside structure remained stationary.
After the outside structure as a whole commenced to collapse as a whole, it did collapse at free-fall speed as David Chandler demonstrated. The video doesn’t even attempt to address this key point.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
Why don’t you look at the report that you claim to have read?
The following is stated on the displayed page of the report 9 minutes 36 seconds into “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie”:
Sideshow Bob wrote:
Why don’t you pull the other one, Sideshow Bob?
Sideshow Bob continued:
There are are only 24 hours in the day, Sideshow Bob. I trust the judgement of people like David Chandler and Steven Jones, as even NIST has now been forced to.
I think it is fair to say that I have just demonstrated that, even though you claim to have read through all of NIST’s fraudulent tomes and I have not, I am able to convey more accurate information about their content than you.
Actually, daggett and Rodeo Sideshow, the NIST did investigate the possibility of controlled demolition and rejected it. See section 3.3, page 26, and the appendices referenced. Anyone who claims that NIST did not investigate the idea that the collapse of WTC7 was deliberately caused by explosives is simply lying.
Italics mine. Further retreat behind questions and innuendo… over to the comments field.
Maybe it’s the shock of Phillip Ruddock rising from the dead.
Jules,
I’m afraid, having looked at the link, I still don’t know what ‘Ptech’ is. Could you enlighten me?
As for Steven Jones’ views that Christ may have visited Meso-America, I can’t comment. Plenty of people can be right on one issue and wrong on others. I am not personally a Mormon, nor even a Christian, nor even ‘spiritual’.
On 9/11 no-one has proven Jones to be wrong and, certainly, Sideshow Bob has not proven him wrong on this forum.
Comment above @ 493 relates to comment #490 questioning PB’s health.
Just thought that needed clarification under the circumstances.
Na. Once the evidence surfaces conspiracy theories become reality, rather than fabrications. There is a difference between a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy for which there is irrefutable evidence.
Liam @ 492
Easily refuted. Obviously NIST did not consider the correct scenarios.
“I’m afraid, having looked at the link, I still don’t know what ‘Ptech’ is. Could you enlighten me?”
see thats the trouble with all the noise a controlled demolition makes…
I’ll try and chase up an good accounting of Ptech for you but it may take a while. The quick summary is that Ptech was a company involved in software development and had supplied software to among other groups the US air Force. Indira Singh was asked to investigate Ptech while working for Chase or JP Morgan I think, basically it was a business investigation. She made a connection between their software and the software Cheney was using the morning of the attacks to run C&C during the attacks. Ptech is known to have been financed by and started by people suspected of funding Al Quada.
Whislteblowers apparantly contacted the FBI re an investigation, but the investigation was blocked by Michael Chertoff (I think, don’t quote me yet) who went on to head Homeland security and IIRC help fuck up the response to hurricane Katrina.
Thats a quick summary, and it may not be entirely accurate but I think the gist of it is enough for now. I honestly don’t know about the veracity of all this either. Its just another in a long series of unanswered questions.
Meanwhile enjoy:
Yet another “9/11 was an inside job” song
No, it directly rebuts Chandler’s assertions. Also, Chandler’s own, flawed, work shows that initial acceleration was less than free-fall. Take another look at his dodgy graph if you don’t believe me.
It does not. The starting point for tracking collapse was observation of the outside structure. Chandler deliberately chose to focus on the top of the building that moved last. Why? Cherrypicking.
WTC 7 did NOT collapse at free-fall speed. The video demonstrates that the tracked floors of WTC 7 took 5.4 seconds to collapse, much longer than free-fall would require, at 3.9 seconds, AS NIST STATED.
I have, Daggy, I have. You haven’t, remember?
FFS, that’s your source? The same discredited YouTube video? Why not take your own advice and read the actual report? Oh, that’s right, you’re too busy to get your facts straight. Let me quote the whole of the relevant text from page 45:
Cherrypicking, yet again. The building did NOT collapse at free fall speed. Your bloke and his credulists fail yet again.
What you’ve demonstrated, Daggy, is naive credulity and an inability – whether due to laziness or stupidity – to get your facts straight. Yet again, you’ve shown a willingness to waste your time and others’ propagating lies, but no willingness to actually get to grips with the actual facts yourself.
You keep saying you trust the judgement of Chandler and Jones, and yet you won’t back Jones’ judgement on Jesus and the Mayans. Why not?
I’m having trouble following your logic Paul. (No doubt that comes as no surprise to many here.)
A conspiracy theory is by definition unprovable?
That means that while events like … I dunno the Roswell bullshit are a conspiracy theory, but say JFKs assassination isn’t a conspiracy theory is a reality? (I honestly don’t know or care about JFKs assassination, really Camelot was a crock of shit.)
How does something go from being a fabrication to being a reality just on the arrival of actual evidence?
Wooo Hooo on to 1000
really successful conspiracies are not found out.
even a conspiracy that achieves its aim is unsuccesful, if after the event they get caught. Get it?
What Sideshow Bob is attempting to do, with his spurious allegations of ‘cherry picking’, personal attacks and other red herrings, is explain away 2.5 seconds of free-fall acceleration practically uniformly across the whole of the observed north face that the NIST has been forced to concede occured. The only known way that a building can fall uniformly through 8 stories at free fall speed is for all the strength of the supporting structure to have suddenly been removed uniformly, floor by floor, by explosives all within those 2.5 seconds.
Nothing like that has ever occurred before or since by fire alone as NIST itelf admits.
What we have observed is wholely consistent with any clasic bottom-up demolition, many examples of which are to be found on YouTube, yet NIST insists that it is a bizarre one-off occurrence, whilst refusing to seriously investigate the most obvious explanation, and that would appear to be all perfectly fine by Sideshow Bob.
—
Liam, if you had read through Appendix D, you would see that it has not even considered the evidence or any of the many arguments in support of the Controlled Demolition hypothesis that has long been made known by the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of which I posted to this page. It would have at least acknowledged that the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7, including the observed initial 2.5 seconds of free-fall was wholely consistent with almost countless other demolitions that have occured before and since.
If it was serious about considering about investigating this hypothesis, it would have for a start asked Larry Sliverstein, what he meant when he said in an interview:
Also, it would have interviewed the late Barry Jennings, who gaive detailed accounts of explosions occurring insided WTC 7 beginning hours before the collapse, it would have interviewed BBC reporter Jane Standley to ask why she reported the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ 23 minutes before it actually did ‘collapse’, and it would have set out to find out from other former employess who workde in WTC 7 wheterh or not they had noticed anything suspicious in the weeks prior to Spetember 11, 2001.
Instead, it attempts to dismiss the cast body of evidence, in support of controlled demolition, by asserting that preparations could not have been made without anyone noticing. (The ‘pdf’ document is, in fact, a stupid JPEG image, so I can’t easily copy and paste from it.) Yet no attempt was maded my NIST to interview former employees who worked in WTC 7 to see whether or not suspicious acitivity was noticed. No consideration was given to the fact that much of the preparations could easily have been made after hours and out of sight of most vistors and employees.
But PB, an unsuccessful conspiracy is still a conspiracy.
Ok daggett, I’ve got to admire your persistence, along with jules of course.
But please answer me the following questions(I have neither the time nor inclination to go through the ‘evidence’).
1. What was the point of a ‘controlled demolition’ since the planes were going to destroy the buildings anyway?
2. How could the explosives etc. be placed in the building without anyone noticing? The fact that the NIST didn’t interview anyone about this is hardly proof that it could have happened.
Apart from admiring your persistence, I also admire the touching faith that others have in the official version of events, eminating as it did from an administration choc full of liars, cheats and scoundrels.
PB #502,
Wouldn’t you say the Bolshevik insurrection in 1917 was an example of a successful conspiracy by Trotsky, Lenin and their associates?
And the Zinoviev Letter, though eventually exposed as a fraud concocted by a conspiracy, was wildly successful in achieving its immediate objectives.
With a ouija board, I presume.
To add to adrian;
3. How could the explosives sufficient to cause the collapse, that you claim to have been placed there, have exploded without being heard?
Oh, I see, you’ve answered that one as Shaun at #497 predicted you would. Silent explosive. That was in a Get Smart episode you know.
Yeah I do get that, but where does that leave talking (or typing) about alleged conspiracies that havn’t been brought to justice.
If conspiracy theory = fabrication by definition then every time someone uses the term conspiracy theory in the media to refer to an allegation they are accusing the person making the allegation of fabrication.
Then when someone like me says “Yeah but what about this…” does that mean what i say should be ignored cos obviously a conspiracy theory or any allegation resembling one is a fabrication. Not that I really care in the context of this thread … but …
What about this then, I claim that someone I worked for was involved in importing heroin into Australia. I know this cos while I was working for them I walked in on them discussing their operations with a bunch of judges, lawyers, cops and pollies or businessmen over a game of cards. Thats a conspiracy theory, but its not a fabrication. And no I’m not gonna name names on that one, and especially not here where you guys could cop the legal shit for it. I’m not even going into any more detail than that cos I don’t want any chance of IDing them.
I am a member of a conspiracy website, (bet that was a surprise) well its more than that but “conspiracies” always come up.
One of the members of the same site just managed to get someone charged with the murder of her father, after 30 years.
Here’s her site.
Her story is tied to the Inslaw affair and the death of Danny Casolaro, which is a well known “conspiracy theory”. At what point did her journey morph from fabrication to reality? The other day when the guy she was hunting got busted?
Is the damn cat(pavlov’s) dead or alive? to quote some recently dead smartarse/genius.
Do you see what i’m saying?
BTW wrt to Rachel Begley, she has one very sus character (at least) helping her out on this case so i wouldn’t be surprised to see it all end in tears. If Hughes doesn’t end up convicted of the triple murder does that mean her entire story returns to fabrication?
There’s a fair level of uncertainty with all this sort of thing, and that is never addressed with statements like “conspiracy theories are fabrications.”
Mind you given the zeal, and fundamentalist fervour of some advocates of many conspiracy theories I can understand your caution. And I accept there are downright lies designed to provoke a response in people with no critical thinking skills. (Did you know Obama was born in kenya and is an evil muslim terrorist who works for the elders of Zion, and George Soros, and Satan? And he wants to take away your guns.)
I wish he’d take away our Gunns.
I would agree the Bolshevik Revolution was a successful conspiracy and the Zinoviev letter was a successful conspiratorial fraud. But they were real conspiracies not conspiracy theories that left no hard evidence.
My allegations of cherrypicking aren’t spurious, they’re evidently substantiated. The personal attacks I’ll cop to, but they’re likewise substantiated by your conduct on this thread. As for red herrings, where?
I don’t have to “explain away” any observed acceleration in the fall of WTC 7, as NIST has already done so in its explanation. And they weren’t “forced” to “concede” anything, as you’ve failed to produce any evidence of said “concession”.
For starters, it didn’t fall uniformly. For another, the building was ALREADY FALLING before those 2.5s that concern you so much. And, finally: says who? Cranks on YouTube. LOL.
No, Daggy, the obvious and most logical conclusion is the one that emerged: planes > fires > collapse. Your alternative theory is unsubstantiated fiction.
Daggy, why won’t you comment on Jesus and the Mayans? Why is Jones credible on structural engineering and not “Archaeometry”? He only claims one of the two as an area of personal expertise – can you guess which one?
Conspiracy theorists claimed that the Zinoviev Letter was a conspiracy for decades until the definitive evidence turned up.
These theorists were dismissed as cranks or deliberate liars until the evidence proved their suspicions to be correct.
Every piece of historical research begins with questions that can be said to refer to a theory until that theory is either confirmed or disconfirmed.
Your archetypal conspiracy theorist is the person who doggedly clings to relatively unconvincing evidence or who claims that the lack of evidence is itself proof of a conspiracy.
(I’m not thinking about any person with a rodentine gravatar here, despite appearances.)
Adrian,
Demolition was necessary precisely because the impact of a plane alone and consequent fires could not have brought down either of the Twin Towers. As I wrote they were built to withstand a head-on impact from a 707.
Without a controlled demolition, the psychological impact would not have been anywhere near as great. Around a few dozen from the towers themselves would have died in addition to those on the flights, totalling around 200 in all, instead of almost 3,000, and there would have been ugly scars in each of the twin towers. Investigators would have been able to search through the wreckage and establish whether or not, handfuls of hijackers had indeed been able to subdue the whole crew and passengers of each of the two aircraft with only box cutter knives.
If, for example, firearms had been found, then this could have led to embarassing questions being asked of those in control of airport security.
In fact suspicious activity was observed in the weeks prior to 9/11 as I mentioned above. As I wrote above:
Don’t forget that George Bush’s youger brother, Marvin, from 1993 until 2000 was on the board of directors of Securacom which was resposible for the securirty in the World Trade Center as well as Washington Dulles International Airport from which flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagonm left.
This fact was initially concealed by the White House and Marvin Bush has repeatedly refused to answer reporters’ questions about this.
“Without a controlled demolition, the psychological impact would not have been anywhere near as great.”
Maybe, maybe not.
The primary focus of the event was the collapse of the towers, which is a momentus spectacle with a imprinting power on a par with DMT or Salvinorum.
Once the buildings collapsed the event became a one off. No one is ever gonna hijack a plane and crash it into the twin towers again…
However if they were still standing the focus of the event is the hijacking and crashing of the planes into buildings.
Thats essentially a repeatable event.
So everyone that gets onto a plane and has seen those images of the other planes crashing into the twin towers will wonder if that could be them on this flight. Maybe.
Katz @ 512,
Yeah, but thats a hypothesis that has to be proved or disproved, not a conspiracy theory. Nevertheless I accept your point. Though i don’t think an historical hypothesis or an historical assumption are the same as a full blown conspiracy theory, which is what, I think has been implicit in my comments.
Sideshow Bob, you are clearly and dishonestly attempting to conflate two clearly separate aspects of the WTC 7 collapse and imply they are one:
1. the demoloution of some of the supporting structures holding up the inside of WTC; and
2. the demolition of the visible outside of WTC 7;
As we can observe from the collapse of the penthouse, the first began a few seconds before the collpase of the outer wall. At no point during all that did any of the outer wall move.
During those additional seconds, until the point at which the collapse of the outer structure was observed the whole weight of the outer wall was fully supported. (BTW, I take back what I said about some of the outer wall at the eastern end moving slighlty before the western end. I had mistaken my memory of movement in the Penthouse for that. I couldn’t detect any movement at the east face until the west face upon which Chandler made his measurements began to collapse.)
So, of course it is appropriate to ‘cherry pick’, as Sideshow Bob puts it.
Clearly what was happening on the inside had no effect on the outside wall. To pretend that it did is to attempt to confuse the issue and conceal the fact that for the initial 2.5 seconds of the collapse of the outer wall it fell at free fall speed (possibly barring a tiny fraction of a second at the very outset).
Sideshow Bob, stated
“For starters, it didn’t fall uniformly. …”
The fact remains the ‘collapse’ was, to all practical intents and purposes, uniform. If not, then show me any other controlled demolition that satisfies your own requirement of ‘uniformity’, presumably, to a precision of at least 6 decimal places.
And while you are at it, show me any other ‘collapse’ that is even remotely similar to the WTC 7 collapse, caused by fire alone.
The collapse of the WTC 7, as we have observed, simply could not have occurred unless:
1. all the structural strength in at least 8 of the floors had been destroyed by explosives within those initial 2.5 seconds after the first movement of the outer wall was observed;
2. the timing of the detonations had been such that the structural strength of holding up each floor would have to have been totally removed before it could have in any way slowed the fall of any part of the building falling from above.
If the first condition had not been met, then it would have taken longer than 2.5 seconds to fall through those eight floors. If the second had not been met then a good deal less uniformity would have been observed and a good deal more of the debris would have ended up outside the footprint of WTC 7.
—
Sideshow Bob said, “… the obvious and most logical conclusion is the one that emerged: planes > fires > collapse. …”
Sure, Bob. Two planes knock down three buildings.
Very logical and very obvious.
There is no conflation. Refer back to my original link at #462. The VISIBLE OUTSIDE of the building falls from the North East top FIRST. Chandler selectively – and misleadingly – times the collapse from the LATER collapse of the North-West corner. Why he does this is obvious: he’s cherrypicking to bolster his non-existent case.
No, it isn’t.
WTF? A building collapses and you argue “the inside had no effect on the outside wall”?
Oh, FFS. It did not fall at free fall speed at the outset. Go back to YOUR video link at #453. Do you remember that one? It’s the one you subsequently lied about at #481. Look at Chandler’s graph at 1:52. Notice that for the first second acceleration is well beneath gravity. Even your own, debunked, source disagrees with your assertion.
As I’ve noted above, the North East top of the building VISIBLY started to collapse before the North-West corner. Moreover, the building did not fall at a uniform speed or acceleration, as shown in the NIST report I quoted at #499 above. The collapse was NOT uniform.
Why? Oh, yeah, that’s right: buildings don’t collapse due to fire. But, of course, I have to concede that we’ve only had one 9/11, so that does make your over-specified sample a little tricky to replicate.
These are unsubstantiated assertions from non-authoritative sources, based on premises that have been discredited. Garbage.
Did two planes fly into two of the buildings? Yes.
Did they cause extensive fires, in both of those buildings and WTC 7? Yes.
Did the fires cause the collapse of the buildings? Yes.
Yes, Daggy: logical and obvious.
Your theory? Illogical, unsubstantiated and delusional tosh.
Is very much to liking of your posting Matvei. You got the physics, the mathematics, morever best of all you got logicals too.
daggett, in addition to the video Fyodor linked to @ 462, which I don’t think states its case clearly enough, and his comments above, please watch:
Internet Archive: WTC7 collapse
Produced by the same person.
The point is that Chandler used *one single* video, shot from *one single* perspective (square to the North Face of WTC 7) to construct his theory.
The video he used was *not* the video NIST used.
(I’ll repeat that for emphasis.)
The video he used was *not* the video NIST used.
His theory is that NIST chose an arbitrary point in time to begin their 5.4 second countdown, to fit with their computer modelling. Chandler says:
“Since their model predicted 5.4 seconds for the 18 story collapse, they dutifully conjured up a 5.4 second measurement to match. They had to stretch themselves to do it, but they did it. They found the disappearance time, then they went out of their way to pick an artificially early start time, exactly 5.4 seconds earlier. This they compared with freefall time.”
Wrong! Chandler clearly knows nothing about computer modelling. The way to construct the most accurate computer model you can, naturally enough, is by feeding *known data* into it. They had *already* calculated the 5.4 seconds from the video evidence. This was *subsequently* used in their computer modelling, not the other way around. He is way wrong here. (Or, I’m wrong – go prove that.)
His reasoning (explained here from 1:45 onwards), is that when he steps frame by frame through *his* video, he/you cannot see any visual change to the outward shape of WTC 7 at the point NIST ‘chose’ to begin their 5.4 second countdown.
This is not surprising as the North face of the building in *his* video is completely underexposed/obscured by shadow. You don’t see the North East corner drop (as he puts it, “there’s no measurable difference in the height of the roofline”), because there was, quite simply, more building completely underexposed/obscured by shadow, behind it.
Did Chandler even consider attempting to correct the contrast before proceeding with this?
However, I’ll add that I can see movement in Chandler’s video at the point NIST determined was the start of the collapse (in fact, I see it begin a few frames earlier, and that’s because it was Chandler who chose an “arbitrary” start point, not NIST), even if he couldn’t. As the original video Fyodor linked to @ 462 correctly points out (far from it being complete nonsense, as you claim), to step through frame by frame is incredibly deceptive – because it renders minute visual changes unnoticeable.
Scrub back and forth, and it’s a different story.
View the video NIST used, and it’s a whole different book that we’re reading from.
Nevertheless, Chandler decided his “conclusions” worthy enough to *rhetorically accuse*, and announce to the world, that a criminal coverup *must have* taken place at NIST.
I’m open to being convinced differently, as always, but Chandler’s flimsiness simply didn’t cut it.
And, BTW, I’m interested to learn how your ‘bottom up’ theory accounts for the windows below the East penthouse breaking progressively downwards after it collapsed?
Sideshow Bob wrote:
I see a few partial collapse but no total collapses in that (pdf) survey.
Again I ask:
Sideshow Bob wrote:
No, why he does this is because it is the best place to make the measurements. Any measurements taken from the North-East corner with all that smoke could not have been as accurate.
If the person who made the ‘debunking’ video had attached such importance to the differences between the North-East Corners and North West corners then he should have made his own measurements.
In any case, Chandler used around 20 data points, whilst the ‘debunking’ video only used two, one being an artificially designated starting point at a time he claimed to have first observed ‘compression’ of the outer wall at the North Eastern Corner. This allowed him to arrive at the same single average acceleration figure that NIST has already calculated and that David Chandler had already shown to be meaningless.
Sideshow Bob further wrote:
This is splitting hairs.
If it had been possible to take measurements, accurate enough to be useful, at the North Eastern corner I expect that, as a result of the initial ‘compression’, differences would have been:
1. A slightly shorter period of free-fall;
2. Acceleration only slightly less than the free fall acceleration at the North Western end; or
3. A combination of (1) and (2).
The practical implications of such a difference would be insigificant. Even to achieve such a supposedly non-uniform collapse — and again, I ask Sideshow Bob to show me any other controlled demolition which meets his requirement of ‘uniformity’ — all the structural strength would have to be removed in a period very close to 2.5 seconds right along the whole length of the North face and, within that 2.5 seconds, the strength wouuld have had to have been removed floor by floor and timed so as to prevent any resistance to the fall of the building above.
I wrote:
Then Sideshow Bob responded:
Well, I would have thought that that was a reasonable explanation of how acontrolled demolition works as well as the only way I can conceive of how the outer wall ‘collapsed’ in the way it did.
Why don’t you provide a better explanation?
Yet again you have proved to be too lazy even to read the report, short as it was. Let me quote from it for you, from page 7, Table 1:
- Apartment block in St Petersburg, Russia, 2002: TOTAL COLLAPSE
- Nightclub in Lanarkshire, UK, 2001: TOTAL COLLAPSE
- Textile Factory in Alexandria, Egypt, 2000: TOTAL COLLAPSE
Ha! Absolute rubbish. There’s no problem with smoke in identifying the beginning of the collapse – it’s clearly visible. That’s a pathetic argument. You should also take note of Nick’s arguments above.
Wow, you really are getting desperate. The number of additional “data points” is irrelevant. The starting point was not “artificially designated” – it’s the moment that collapse begins, and it’s not just the debunker’s observation; it’s also the observation of the experts who reviewed all the footage, and not just the footage used by Chandler, in his cack-handed bunk.
Ha! You’d know, with your eagle-eye for detail.
If, Daggy? It was possible, Daggy. It was done Daggy.
You expect, Daggy? Why don’t you know? Oh, that’s right: you haven’t a fucking clue on the subject.
Your hypothetical musings are pointless and irrelevant.
Says who, Daggy? YOU are the one who first raised “uniformity”, at #506. Do me the courtesy, at least, of getting your own story straight. As the building was ALREADY COLLAPSING before this 2.5 second period you’re obsessed about, i.e. the “structural strength” had already been compromised, that last sentence is irrelevant and illogical speculation from a self-confessed ignoramus.
But you say you want to see an “other controlled demolition”? Okeydokes, knock yourself out. Make sure you stay for 1:26.
You would have thought, Daggy? It’s the only way you can conceive of how WTC 7 collapsed? And who the fuck are you, Daggy? Are you a structural engineer? Are you a demolitions expert? Did you have access to the evidence or the technical details of the collapse? Have you even read the official accounts?
Why should we care what you would have thought? Spare us your uninformed and illogical opinions and stick to facts and logic.
Already have. Read it and get a clue.
I would hesitate to blame fire alone for the collapse of wtc 7 simply because there is video showing it being hammered by debris from one of the collapses.
We don’t know the extent of that damage, but daggett can you state with certainty that it didn’t cause the sort of damage you attribute to explosives, and can you state with certainty that it couldn’t account for what seems like an anomolous collapse to you?
Well, WTC 7′s south side did take substantial damage. That alone was likely bad enough.
Oh don’t be such a spoilsport Shaun!!! Mr/Ms daggett knows what happened, he/she knows the how and the why.
He/she has no reason to concern himself/herself with such inconsequential data as
* eyewitness accounts from firefighters well-experienced in assessing whether it’s safe to enter a damaged (or partly burning) building
* eyewitness accounts from persons who had a much closer-up view of WTC7 at the relevant time, than provided by the videos, including those who were close enough to hear “creaking” noises before it fell
* clear photos of a damaged facade, taken at various times and taken from so close that a wealth of detail (of damage, of smoke, etc) is clearly depicted.
None of this interests daggett because daggett has a theory and in the hands of such a champion debater, a theory is the only thing he/she requires.
QED
Shaun (@ 527),
Interesting photo of the North Tower ‘collapsing’ on the second of the two links you provided. Does anyone else here, that is, other than Sideshow Bob, have trouble envisioning that vast cloud of debris having been caused just by the gravitational energy within the North Tower?
How all that gravitational energy got transformed into what we can see in that photo, without massive amounts of explosives having been planted, would surely be most interesting to know. Unfortunately, as I have rrpeatedly pointed out, NIST has not even attempted to explain that.
If what we see in that photo was not the result of massive quantities of explosives, then we had have to conclude that the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.
Clearly some damage was suffered at one corner, but if that damage were to have in any way contributed to the subsequent ‘collapse’, intuition would surely tell us to expect WTC 7 to have collapsed outwards at that point, instead of straight down. Where is that explained in the report, Sideshow Bob?
Also, other buildings closer to the Twin Towers — WTC 3, WTC 4, WTC 5 and WTC 6 — all suffered far greater damage as a result of the collapses, and extensive fires, but none underwent total collapse as did WTC 7.
Care to explain, Sideshow Bob?
—p>
Sideshow Bob (@ 525) wrote:
I have got a fair idea what is contained in the NIST report, Sideshow Bob. As you say you have read the report, why don’t you explain to others here how WTC 7 collapsed exactly in the manner we would expect from a controlled demolotion through fire alone (or, according to Shaun, one damaged corner as well) and see how much sense it makes to anybody else but you?
Let’s see how much more sense it makes than the explanation I have offered.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
No, it’s you who has been lazy, as well as evasive for not putting that information on this page and expecting others to wade through that report looking for the examples I asked for that clearly aren’t there.
Obviously, I meant to ask for examples steel framed buildings that had undergone total collapse as result of fire alone — and you should have well understood that that is what I meant to say — and the only such examples in that list, as I have said all along are the Twin Towers and WTC 7.
The examples you gave are not steel framed. In any case, I did glance at the photo of the burnt and collapsed six story high reinforced concrete textile factory that lacked a sprinkler system, BTW, and noticed some siginficant differences to the ‘collapsed’ WTC 7:
1. A part of the building is, in fact still standing; and
2. the debris is far less neat and tidy than the debris from WTC 7.
This confirms my point, even conceded by NIST that what occurred on 11 September 2001 was unique, that is, if we are to accept their ‘explanation’.
More relevant to this discussion are six other “Examples of Skyscraper Fires” where steel framed buildings have endured longer and more extensive fires. In spite of this, most suffered no structural failure and only two suffered even partial collapse.
The Windsor Building, which suffered partial collapse was, in fact, a Steel-Reinforced Concrete building and not a steel framed building like the three ‘collapsed’ WTC towers.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
No, you did, by clutching at the earlier slight ‘compression’ of the outer wall at North Eastern end as somehow refuting David Chandler’s observation that the visible Northern wall as a whole ‘collapsed’ uniformly at free fall speed for 2.5 seconds.
That example you gave was also not of a perfectly uniform collapse. The tower did tip over towards the end of the demolition. Perhaps, at the start it may have appeared more uniform, but, given that the building was square, smaller, and, hence, more rigid than the more elongated WTC 7, that should be no surprise.
Surely, after all this time, you cannot be unfamiliar with the Video “WTC7 controlled demolition, side-by-side video”. That shows second demolition side by side with WTC 7. Although the second demolished building is smaller and less elongated, and, hence likely to be more rigid, the corner on the right appears to drop before the rest at the outset.
Hence, to conclude from the earlier slight movement of the North Eastern end, that we are not witnessing 2.5 seconds of effectively uniform free fall, which can only be explained by the controlled demolition hypothesis, would be wrong.
And, of course, it provides yet more striking visual confirmation that WTC 7, to all intents and purposes, collapsed exactly as a classic bottom-up controlled demolition.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
And who the fuck are you, Daggy? Are you a structural engineer? Are you a demolitions expert?
I am simply someone who is applying his knowledge to understand the 9/11 controversy, including the ‘collapses’ and explain my knowledge as best I can to others. I will leave it to others to decide who, out of you and me, is contributing more honestly and helpfully to this discussion.
(I am afraid I may not be able to find the time to deconstruct every other piece of nonsense that Sideshow Bob has posted to this forum. Others may have to do it for themselves.)
“How all that gravitational energy got transformed into what we can see in that photo, without massive amounts of explosives having been planted, would surely be most interesting to know.” – Daggett
So how much potential energy did the top 10 and 20 stories of the two towers have before the plane hit?
How much momentum did that generate, how much needed to be transferred for the results you see in that photo?
An answer to this requires actual, accurate numbers btw.
daggett, I infer your non-response to be a complete concession to all arguments I put forward @ 522.
Summarily:
- Chandler did not use the video NIST used.
- Chandler does not understand computer modelling.
- Chandler relied on his own eyesight, and his own compressed video footage shot from hundred of metres further away, to “prove” NIST had bent over backwards to “choose” an arbitrary starting point of the collapse, that would result in a 5.4 second timeframe for WTC 7 to drop to the initial height of the 29th floor.
- The *actual* starting point of the collapse, which then resulted in the recorded 5.4 second timeframe, is easily determined from the actual footage NIST used.
- Chandler nevertheless deemed this sufficient “proof” to categorically accuse NIST of fraudulent behaviour to the world.
- Chandler has misled you and many others into believing as he does.
Do you? Why?
Why would that be interesting to know, Daggy, given we know explosives weren’t used?
Why do we have to conclude that, Daggy?
Why would “intuition…surely tell us to expect WTC 7 to have collapsed outwards”?
Different buildings, different circumstances. Not all buildings that catch fire collapse, you know. Or don’t you?
How? You’ve admitted that you haven’t read it.
As it didn’t collapse in the manner of a controlled demolition, your request is nonsensical. We know why it collapsed: the answers are in the report you refuse to read.
Huh? It’s a 10 page report in a link – what’s to wade through? Do you have trouble reading, Daggy? Or is it clicking a mouse button that exhausts your thirst for the truth?
Yairs, Daggy, it’s a conspiracy that other people can’t read your mind. Save your faux indignation – you can’t fault me for following your lead, misguided as you admit to have been.
Hang on. Back up a second here. Are you saying that 9/11 was “unique”? Wow, Daggy, that’s quite a revelation. You mean there haven’t been other airliner crashes into skyscrapers? Why not? Is it *sideways glances* [whispers] a conspiracy?
I’m sorry, I’m not following you here: in which comment did I bring up the issue of “uniformity”, before you at #506? Name the comment.
Non-sequitur.
No, it doesn’t.
Very generous of you, Daggy. There’s plenty of evidence here on the extent of your knowledge, your honesty and helpfulness. Well done.
C’mon, dude! Don’t sell yourself short! You’ve been posting on this thread for, what, more than a month now on this issue. Of course you can find the time. There’s no rush, BTW. I’m very patient and I take thread-count very seriously – just ask my tailor.
P.S. why so formal? You can just call me “Bob” if you like. I hate to think of you wasting your precious time typing out “Sideshow” every time you want to quote me. Please understand that you don’t need to do it for my sake. I won’t be offended. Promise.
Since we are talking conspiracies here.
If there was nefarious action on the part of members of the US admin or anyone else outside the set of socially acceptable culprits, then obviously it would be in their best interests to badjacket the idea that anyone outside the set of socially acceptable culprits had anything to do with 9/11.
One really effective way to do this would be to saturate the discourse with poorly reasoned and obviously incorrect arguments about how the non set actors accomplished their nefarious actions.
Not that it would ever happen of course ….
Indeed, Mr. Terwilliger. Skyscraper disasters sound very distinctive indeed.
I note that Sideshow Bob has failed to respond to to my question:
I asked as much for others’ benefit as my own.
I know that it that was the view I held I would have made the effort to explain it to others.
Evidently Bob wants this knowledge to remain a secret to everyone who has not find the time and energy to read the NIST report.
Could anyone imagine why?
Could it be that Bob realises that if he spelt it out in black and white, people would see it to be every bit as silly as the overall Official 9/11 Conspiracy that I posted above which neither Bob nor any other Official Conspiracy Theorist on this forum has attempted to defend?
Anyway, here is my understanding:
The fire somehow caused a single supporting beam to fail simultaneously across the whole length of the Northern face. It didn’t just fail in one or two spots initially and progressively fail across the whole length. It failed everywhere simultaneously.
Let me know if I am wrong, Bob.
Even if that could possibly happen, I still fail to see how that could have, within the next 2.5 seconds caused the strength in at least 7 other floors to have been completely removed in time to prevent it in any part of any one of those floors impeding the uniform collapse of the (observed) northern face above.
Bob would have us believe that that is all explained in the NIST report.
I will believe it when I see it.
If you can tell me on what pages it is to be found, then I will check it out, Bob.
—
As for the rest of Bob’s most recent effort at obfuscation, as I said above, I am afraid others trying to understand the truth will, for the time being, have to deconstruct it for themselves.
“As for the rest of Bob’s most recent effort at obfuscation, as I said above, I am afraid others trying to understand the truth will, for the time being, have to deconstruct it for themselves.”
Actually, it reads as a pretty well constructed rebuttal of everything you’ve said Daggett. A “controlled demolition”, if you will.
He goes through and discusses a bunch of things you’ve said point by point in a manner that leaves numerous convenient jumping-off points helpfully provided for you (in the form of “questions”) to assist you in making a counter-rebuttal.
But you’re ignoring them, aren’t you?
Daggett, you’ve read more of Terwilliger’s words here on this thread than are contained in the entire NIST report.
I’m not sure why you insist on not reading it. Are you afraid of catching something?
A clue perhaps?
This thread could reach 1000 at this rate. A new LP record! (haha)
I particularly liked jules’ reverse conspiracy with 3 and a quarter turn, degree of difficult 8.5.
I’ve already provided the link, Daggy. I have to agree with Efdeebee here: what’s the big deal about reading a report?
C-O-N-S-P-I-R-A-C-Y! Well, I like the “piracy” bit, but “con”? Not so much.
Erm…no, that’s not it.
You’re wrong, Daggy.
If you don’t believe me, read it. Oh, hang on…
Okayeee…what’s stopping you?
Well, Dean, I’m glad you asked: pages xxxvi and xxxvii have the summary. Why don’t you start there with some baby steps towards enlightenment?
Can one deconstruct obfuscation? Seriously, I want to know.
I find it a little hard to believe, daggett, but (via some speedy regex-ing) you’ve personally contributed (written/pasted) 18,369 words to this thread so far.
Won’t work on the final report for some reason, but, if my PDF software’s word count function is correct, the NIST WTC 7 draft report comes in at 36,860.
The WTC7 building seems to have most of one of its bottom corners missing before it falls. Surely that must be a relevant factor? Why does a tall building “creak”? Thanks again Shaun: those photos are much more helpful than grainy videos.
I might start on moon conspiracy theories soon. (just for paul.)
They might not be what you expect.
It does so exist, jules!
daggett, a little more than just a hole in one side. The evidence suggests a lot more damage to the south side.
Oh that.
Nick I never thought they’d get to you too. Oh noez….
(I was just gonna hang shit on a Korean cult leader who’ll hopefully be dead soon.)
Seriously tho I’d love to have a discussion about 9/11 that specifically didn’t involve conspiracies, but had a slight tolerence for them if they contained a high signal density, didn’t talk about the specific politics but about the whole thing as a cultural phenomonen how we responded. Are we a culture in ptsd from a television event? Were we?
Does anyone remember the Micheal Franti song “Oh my God”, it was out in the first first half of 2001 (ie before 9/11)?
The potency of the image, the effect of the spectacle all that crap, and a fair degree of tolerence for weirdness. Or “pseudoscience”. Cos there are a few weird things about it.
I just cut a huge chunk of weirdness about 9/11 I want to talk about.
I’ll might mention it depending on the reaction to this.
Cos I want criticism of some odd ideas that comes from people not wedded to my way of seeing people. Seeing as this thread has got to this point…
“I just cut a huge chunk of weirdness about 9/11 I want to talk about.
I’ll might mention it depending on the reaction to this.
Cos I want criticism of some odd ideas that comes from people not wedded to my way of seeing people. Seeing as this thread has got to this point…”
GOOD LORD MAN!!!!
SPILL YOUR GUTS POST HASTE!!!
Enquiring minds wanna show themselves to be more enquiring than other ones.
This is struggling to get through so I’ll try again, its what I cut from above after a wee edit:
I know three or four who had distinctly odd dreams to do with planes depending on whether I count myself. The three others had dreams that had something to do with planes and were significantly out of their normal experience or them to notice and then wonder about it. I have spoken to ten people who I trust enough in real life to treat the idea fairly but critically and examine their own memories.
There’s no in between ground yet. people are either positively yes that happened or no. Online theres a few people, more than ten, dunno them well enough to make honest assessments tho. My own experience … well it was different. I hit puberty in the very early 80s and grew up seriously wondering if I was gonna see 50 or 20 or the world was gonna be a pile of smoking nuclear waste next week.
I used to have nigtmares about nuclear war. These don’t seem uncommon in my anecdotal experience. 75% of people, may two thirds of people i’ve talked to about it have had them. Over the years thats probably about … well at least 50 people. They (the nightmares) stopped once I started getting laid regularly.
One that stood out was on reflection, well it was exactly as if I was there when the building collapsed, and took shelter when the dustcloud/shockwave spewed down the street. I was on the street or in a kerbside cafe when a plane hit the building but I didn’t see it. At the time I thought it was the usual end of the world fare. If I had that dream last night my reaction would be “I had an uncannily realistic dream about 9/11 last night.” I wouldn’t have thought WW3 had broken out in my dream and attributed it to fear of what seemed a likely fate.
There is one other experience I’d like to relate that is on the same level. I had a friend who asked me if they come to my place to get clean of heroin. I said OK. I obviously wouldn’t do this for just anyone.
This was over ten years ago. That episode could make a movie, and possibly a hooror thriller if she wan’t completely nuts.
She went crazy. Full blown psychotic episode. We did what we could as she went downhill, but it got to a point where we couldn’t cope. Lots of stuff happened .. very complex situation, compounded by her growing insanity.
In hard to tell this story without going into unecessary detail and I don’t want to do that. Its a wild tale tho.
She has an identical twin. Her Twin was in New York, in the full bohemian dream art world of uber cool, seriously 30 years earlier she’d be hanging with Warhol. I’m not into art so I don’t give a fuck and don’t remember the nmames of the people she was having brunch with while she wrote the postcards she sent us.
First time these two had been that far apart for that long. It was a close but volatile relationship with identity issues. But really clever and on to it sisters, two of the smartest people i’ve ever met.
In the midst one of her attacks she started going on about contacting her sister, to make sure she was ok, after the attacks. After assuring her no attacks were happening in NY she s then became obsessed with warning her about them, – the attacks – about planes flying into buildings, building fallings and ww3 starting.
I know this is slightly out there for a forum like this but you know … this thread is not bounded by sanity and I’d appreciate some feedback on what I have just gone on about. You can be snarky if you want.
It still spins me out cos its uncanny. Thk day had many levels of shock value.
I’m not making this up, an it isn’t part of some ARG or juvenille channite mindfuck.
I don’t mind critical feedback on my far out ideas. Especially from people who wouldn’t normally touch them with a bargepole.
Oh fuck thats the incoherent version… duh.
Its a bit late and i should be in bed.
It coveys the general idea, but its sloppy.
I want to talk about some outlandish ideas in relation to all this, and I also want to talk about.
I also missed a minor error.
There is one eception to the unequivocal nature of peoples reaction. My wife’s (typically) she has trouble seperating the event from some of its cultural precursors, like the final scene in Fight Club or (particularly for her) songs like Ma Laeo by a Sydney band Scary Mother (from Tao Laeo 1994).
One of these days I’ll try and track down whoever wrote that song and ask them …
It very evocaticve.
And that whole record is actually. We drove through Kinglake to visit a friend in april and that record was the only one that seemed appropriate. It seemed to have been made to fit that moment. Music can be good like that. It was more fitting even than silence.
My wife and I have always wondered about that particular song and the way it seems to suggest 9/11, after the event of course. I know art is one of those things … I can see the potential for confirmation bias there.
I still think the idea is worth fleshing out, if only to seperate the total crap from the useless crap. (The idea being the potential for that event to resonate through our culture … I know “magical thinking” and all that crap, thats just a cop out.)
This was (lets hope) a one off event. Its become a pretty full on marker tho, cultural landmark or something. Its a kind of singularity with a gravity that has changed the way we as a culture view the world or to kind of stick with the metaphor, that changed the direction we travelled as a culture.
I wrote:
Then Jules asked:
No, it doesn’t, Jules, I was asking for people’s gut feeling about that extraordinary image. Are you trying to tell me that nothing about that image strikes you as odd? Since when does gravity allow such emormous volumes of material to travel so far upwards and so far outwards?
Then Sideshow Bob asked:
If your own eyes don’t tell you that that image is improbable, Sideshow Bob, I don’t see how I can hope to persuade you otherwise with words.
Sideshow Bob, then asks how I conclude that if explosives, weren’t use, the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.
I guess, what Sideshow Bob is telling us is that, to him, that image looks nothing like an explosion.
Well, to me, it does.
Then sideshow Bob asks:
Once again, Sideshow Bob is pretending to be stupid so that he can demand that I spoon feed him. As it turns out, Sideshow Bob, page xxxvii of the report states (take note >Shaun(@ 527, 544) and “angels almost invisible” (@ 542)):
It’s intuitive to me, Sideshow Bob, because we expect collapses to take the path of least resistance. If the end of the building had fallen straight down, but remained laterally attached to the uncollapsed rest of the building the fall would have been arrested by what was underneath. The only way it could have fallen furhter woudl be if its sideways connections to the rest of the building had broken causing it to fall outwards.
I note Sideshow Bob and a number of hypocrites, who have, themselves, neither read the NIST report, nor properly read my posts, are demanding that I read the NIST report before they give serious consideration to any of my arguments.
Sideshow Bob asks:
There’s no big deal, Sideshow Bob, except that I think it would be a waste of my time. Reading pages xxxvi and xxxvii has only further confirmed that impression. If you can demonstrate here, by showing where it addresses my questions, I might reconsider.
FDB wrote:
FDB, I don’t see where you have responded to my demolition of your nonsense “Occam’s Razor” argument.
It’s an unfortunate feature of discussions such as these, that they often become filled with posts of people, with no capacity to argue the issue at hand, sniping, from behind the skirts of others, that they see as having that capacity, at those they want to attack.
Rumbling. Gaseous. But that might just be last night’s dinner.
Since, I don’t know, the effect of heat from fires? Explaining convection currents sounds like a job for… a high school physics teacher.
Ask Dorian. He most likely wrote the music. Though Andrew who may have wrote the lyrics, was the most ethereal one.
I welcome your stream of consciousness meanderings on the issue of premonition. Cause god knows Dagget has been given way too much space and so, this has become the most boring thread of doom I have ever encountered. It promised to get interesting when it turned the corner towards Jesus and the Mayans and chocolate, but that failed. The peanut gallery is over the minutae of shooting flames that don’t shoot out right and walls which don’t collapse good. Though I liked Paul Burns’ comment that 9/11, itself, is a conspiracy. Well done Paul.
Your premonitory experiences both in dreamscape and in psychotic utterance are a welcome diversion to the engineering discussions. Yes of course. People predict stuff all the time. Not Mystic Medusa people, but people, anonymous ones who don’t make a living out of it – all the time. Not just Australia, but everywhere! And people take substances and utter premonitions in hallucinatory states all the time too. In the Amazon jungle for instance. Indigenous Americans have a long history of it. Your experiences would not at all be surprising to most of the most of the people in the world. It is part of many cosmologies. Excluding, of course, that portion of the planet’s inhabitants – mostly in first world places – that has rejected such epistemologies and now chooses to proselytise, yet again, on what to believe to the rest of the world – because it’s all primitive. Christopher Hitchens, the Paris Hilton of Athiesm, is case in point. Apparently he smokes in the shower did you know? This proselytization conducts itself in an unconscious manner, as if it exists in a rarified space beyond politics. But what to believe and what not to believe is a political issue in case you all haven’t noticed and its platform is most often a racial one. It’s something you all need to think about when you speak of the oppressiveness of western religious discourse. You cannot negate Christianity without negating every other religious belief system. And because of colonisation, those other religious belief systems have also incorporated the aspects of Christianity you discredit. Nobel prize winning author Toni Morrison believes this:
http://exagminations.tripod.com/id34.html
Think about it next time you bang on about fairytales.
daggett, I do concede to NIST that the debris impact on the building did not cause the collapse. But of course, the debris started the fires that lead to the collapse so a minor point.
Well yes, as an atheist I’m cool with that.
jules, I still like your quote from way back:
“The event obviously had a huge effect on the people who use electronic media to structure their world [...]”
And don’t see why this effect would necessarily only be felt post-9/11.
Terrorism and War were in the air a long time before the event took place.
I am sorry that Casey is disappointed in me for not going off on a tangent to discuss Dr Steven Lewis’s theory about Christ visiting Meso-America (which I concede, I think, seems unlikley) and, instead, focussed, instead on something as mundane as the principle justification for our ongoing war in Afghanistan and the removal of many of our guarantees of human rights an democratic freedoms.
If Casey wants to understand some of the reason for the length of this discusion, I suggest she read on. (BTW, I don’t mind at all if the discussion were to continue elsewhere. Personally I have no emotional need to see this thread reach the 1,000 mark, and I am happy to see this discussion end as soon as what I consider are attempts to misinform have been conclusively dealt with.)
—
I wrote:
Then Sideshow Bob wrote:
I would have thought the meaning of my words were perfectly clear, but evidently Sideshow Bob’s concentration span did not even last long enough to comprehend the meaning of the qualifying clause> at the end of the sentence.
Of course, I am not saying that the collapse of WTC 7 was “unique”. I have been arguing all along that it was a controlled demolition and, therefore, obviously, not unique.
The reason for Sideshow Bob’s and Nick‘s long-winded meanderings is to justify NIST’s original, but long since abandoned, attempt to crudely arrive at an overall meaningless acceleration figure for the initiation of the ‘collapse’ that is substantially less than the acceleration of gravity.
If anything, the slight complexity in the nature of the collapse, because of the observed initial compression at the North Eastern end would have justified taking further set of measurements at that end.
To say that the Northern face collapsed as a whole at the point from which David Chandler took measurements is a simplification, but far less a simplification than what Nick and Sideshow Bob are attempting to depict it as.
Yes, Nick, looking closely at that second, more detailed film of the ‘collapse’, taken from that difficult angle, it appears that the demolition charges destroying the inside of the building somehow also caused a slight early fall at the North Eastern end.
It should also be pointed out that that video only begins just before the point that that Nick and Sideshow Bob would have us believe is the start of the ‘collapse’ of the Northern wall. The film footage showing the earlier initial collapse of the penthouse, at the far eastern end, has been omitted. I suspect that if it had been included, then even earlier movement in the outer wall would also have been detected. If so, that would have destroyed the rationale for picking the point in time that Nick maintains is the start of the collapse.
Whatever, the facts remain:
1. The North Western end remained perfectly stationary right up to the point that David Chandler (correctly, in my view) maintains the total collapse commenced; and
2. The whole of the Northern face remained intact up to that point, even if parts of it were coming under strain as the broken windows demonstrate.
So, even, in spite of the early initial movement,the observed Northern face could only have ‘collapsed’ in the way it did, if the conditions I described above had been met:
1. all the structural strength in at least 8 of the floors had been destroyed by explosives within those initial 2.5 seconds after the first movement of the outer wall was observed;
2. the timing of the detonations had been such that the structural strength of holding up each floor would have to have been totally removed before it could have in any way slowed the fall of any part of the building falling from above.
I have no problem with that Shaun. But my point was about the hegemonic mode some proponents of atheism adopt to impose their beliefs upon others as quite simply – the rational as opposed to the irrational. And to present that as somehow apolitical. In doing so, they ironically fall straight back into that discourse of primitivism that colonising nations used to impose Christianity upon the colonised. And how weird it is, that this this return to high modernism appears in place of what what was deconstructed. Not that this grand narrative appeals to everyone – hence a turn, in the Australian context, to other cosmologies and the revisioning of Indigenous cosmology. This being the Australian landscape itself as the new post colonial sacred in Australia (see Gelder and Jacobs for that and Bill Ashcroft I think). As the Morrison quote suggests, it’s just another epistemology and it is political, and racialised.
And, in as much as you are prepared to discount all other epistemologies apart from your own, not many on this site would be prepared to publicly deride Indigenous cosmology in the way they do, say, Christian cosmology, for instance. It’s just not the Leftist way.
Nor are they prepared to look at how the postcolonial world has incorporated aspects of Christianity into their own cosmologies and how christianity, that tool of oppression used by colonisers, became for some oppressed peoples a site of resistance, a place of consolidation and consolation. When African American slaves gathered beneath their masters noses to sing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”, they were not talking about heavenly reward for suffering, they were talking about the coming retribution to be meted out to white people who oppressed them. From those beliefs sprung the civil rights platform of Martin Luther King. There are other examples. Liberation theology in Latin America.
But I guess all that would take some kind of nuance, like Anna said on the other thread recently. To see religion as something that has been at times both good and bad, both oppressive and liberating, or to see religion (whichever one) and atheism as just different epistemologies in a deconstructed world.
Dagget I have read it, I promise. And I can’t deconstruct obfuscation. I tried. But I can’t.
Thank you, Nick for conceding that point.
I think it would help this discussion to move along more quickly if this were to occur more often.
No, I don’t think it is a minor point.
What we had immediately after the collapse was a steel framed building fully supported by its structural support.
NIST would have us believe that that changed in the 14 seconds at the very most by fire alone. Whether the fire was initiated by the initial structural damage, arsonists, lightning or whatever, is beside the point.
The fact that this has never occurred befor and never since makes NIST’s explanation extremely unlikely.
The fact that NIST refused to consider the far more likely controlled demolition hypothesis, in order to either prove it or disprove it, confirms, as David Chandler and hundreds of quaified architects and engineering provessionals have alleged, that NIST did not conduct a scientific investigation, rather a politically motivated pretence at investigating in order to conceal a crime.
Oh great, I get accused of long-winded meanderings.
Got to run, but just quickly, daggett:
“[..] it appears that the demolition charges destroying the inside of the building somehow also caused a slight early fall at the North Eastern end.”
Thankyou, so Chandler was dead wrong in this video.
“taken from that difficult angle”
Why is it a difficult angle?
October 24 is the 350.org International Day of Climate Action.
More immediately, today is Blog Action Day!
Ive done a post over at BmL.
Sorry, I meant Shaun and not Nick, but the link was still correct.
—
Nick wrote:
No, not unless you are trying to say that scientists are not permitted to ever make any simplifying assumptions in order to study a scientific phenomenum.
As I have shown, Chandler’s simplifying assumptions made to demonstrate 2.5 seconds of free-fall are vastly less than those made by NIST (initially), you and Sideshow Bob in order to conceal that period of free-fall.
I, and possibly others, aren’t always able to view YouTube. I can’t from the computer I am now using. So, assuming that anything in the video ”
WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part II)” is essentially different from anything else David Chandler has said in the other videos, then how about telling us what it is, some time?
That’s right, Jules: in conspiracy-land, “gut feeling” counts as evidence – all that quantifiable measurement stuff is for dissemblers and other brain-washed slaves of The Man. I’ll tell you what, though, Daggy, that image sure looks odd, all right. You know what makes it odd? It looks like a ruddy great building collapsing in the middle of Manhattan! How odd is that?!
Not only, but also: in your last sentence there you seem to be suggesting – please correct me if I’m wrong – that gravity prevents material from travelling “upwards” and “outwards”. Is that right? Have you told NASA about this? I mean, it’s pretty important stuff for them to know, and someone should tell them before they attempt to put satellites and stuff in orbit.
Maybe you could beam the image into my brain telepathically, so I can see what you see, because I don’t see why the image is improbable and you haven’t explained WHY, either. “Because I said so”, isn’t an acceptable argument, BTW.
Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Doesn’t make you right, though, does it?
Come now, Daggy. It’s not “spoon feeding” if I ask you to explain your statement. And, no, “we” don’t “expect” any such thing. “If the end of the building had fallen straight down…”? What are we talking about here? It’s not WTC 7. Yet again you’ve floated another hypothetical and attached your ignorant and illogical opinions to it. Yet again I have to remind you to deal with the FACTS and argue LOGICALLY. Your hypothetical pontifications on the subject of structural engineering are worthless garbage.
I’m sorry, Daggy. I think there’s been a miscommunication here. I’m not giving serious consideration to any of your arguments because they’re ignorant, misinformed, illogical bunk. Whether you read the NIST report or not won’t change those comments. What WILL change is that you may start to know what you’re talking about.
You see, Daggy, it’s not hypocritical to expect an interlocutor to take the trouble to inform themselves on the subject being discussed. What IS hypocritical, Daggy, is proclaiming oneself to be interested in The Truth and slandering others for lacking zeal in the same pursuit WITHOUT DOING SOME BASIC FUCKING HOMEWORK. As I suggested earlier: get a clue.
You really don’t see the irony here, do you? But we’ll come back to this.
Awww, YSTLIABT. It’s called an audience, Daggy. Do you remember, back at #529 when you said you’d let others decide who was “contributing more honestly and helpfully to this discussion”? And now you’re telling off the audience? Tssk, tssk.
*It’s back to formality, is it? OK, if you insist, but you should address me as Mr. Terwilliger if you’re going to stand on ceremony.
**See? Now, was that so hard?
For context, the RCIIF. This one’s rollinger.
“the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.”
There’s a lot to like here, but what I like best is that this matches the joke from j_p_z who claimed that the buildings were entirely constructed of thermite.
greetings, funsters all !!
As we’ve seen several times already, Daggy, you’re not clear at the best of times – you don’t express yourself well and have a tendency to change your meaning retrospectively. All that aside, of course 9/11 was unique: terrorists flew aeroplanes into NY skyscrapers, causing their destruction. When has that happened before or since, Daggy? Please provide a couple of examples for us to ponder.
Blimey, that’s rich. You’re accusing others of “long-winded meanderings”?! I’m beginning to think you really have no idea of the meaning of “hypocrisy”.
As for the substantive point you are trying to make, you’re dead wrong again.
Would they? Why?
What demolition charges, Daggy? There’s no evidence of any demolition charges.
Interesting to note that you concede the North Eastern end had a “slight early fall”. Did that COLLAPSE occur before or after Chandler started his clock, Daggy?
Jaysus. No, Daggy. The conclusion from that video is that Chandler used the wrong video AND started his clock way too LATE. His work is consequently garbage.
No, not “whatever”. The facts are that:
1. the building began to collapse before Chandler started his clock;
2. he consequently measured the falling speed of the building incorrectly;
3. his argument is consequently bunk.
Your first assertion is both factually and logically wrong – the building was already collapsing BEFORE those “initial 2.5 seconds” that obviously weren’t “initial” – and represents the opinion of an unqualified speculator on a subject in which he has no expertise. Likewise, the second assertion is more clueless speculation from the ignorant.
[I hope you’ll forgive me for combining comments here – I want to avoid imitating your “long-winded meandering”]
Heh. There’s that irony again.
No, I think what we had after the collapse was a pile of rubble.
Really? Who says? Given the very small sample of similar events, i.e. “one”, you’re not in a position – and this is leaving your lack of expertise and poor grasp of the facts to the side for the moment – to determine likelihood. Yet again, you’re floating your dopey opinion as authoritative. It’s not.
We’ve been over this. Liam demonstrated at #495 that they had. Please do keep up. The rest of your comment there is, consequently, irrelevant tripe.
Heh, Liam. Do you think he’ll heed the apposite comment?
Sideshow Bob, when you stop referring to me as “Daggy”, I will refer to you in whatever way you want — “Lord Terwiliger”, “Sir Robert Terwilliger OBE”, “Bob”, “Mr. Terwilliger” or whatever.
—
Sideshow Bob wrote:
I think you have already made abundantly clear by now that that is what you think.
How many times need that be re-stated?
If you have nothing else to add to the discussion, then why not stand back and allow others, who are prepared to discuss the evidence proceed (whatever you personally think of the quality of that evidence that you adamantly refuse to discuss)?
Sideshow Bob continued:
Anyone who reads back through this forum will know that I have read a good deal more about 9/11 than just anyone, including you.
I consider what I have read to be far more useful than such fraudulent propaganda as the NIST reports and the 9/11 Commission Report. In fact, if you had observed you will have noticed that I had even read parts of those documents, but I am not going to sit down and read them from end to end because you demand that I do.
“Whatever way” I want, Daggy? Stop and think very carefully about what you’re offering here, Daggy, as I think your weakness with detail is leading you into a deal you may regret.
Why, Daggy, just dealing with that instance – as many times as you mischaracterise my views, which, at a rough estimate based on your recent form, will be somewhere between “lotsa” and “a whole bunch”.
But-but-but…Daggy! I have so much to give!
Also, where is it that I have “adamantly refused” to discuss the evidence? Name the offending comments or retract your lie.
Sorry to burst your bubble, Daggy, but that’s not at all evident. What you’ve demonstrated is a willingness to watch, credulously, naively, some very dodgy dudes and their dodgy theories on YouTube. IMNSHO, anyone who reads back through this forum is not going to think you well-read. IMNSHO they’re going to think you’re a sucker for loopy shit on teh interwebs – loopy shit that’s easily debunked – who should probably do more homework before claiming any sort of knowledge on 9/11.
Oh, I’m not suggesting you read them because I demand you do. I suggest you read them because you’ll look like less of a wilfully ignorant twit. Your call.
If you have made it this far then you’ll appreciate the turn of conversation at around 1:40.
I suspect we will shortly witness a dummy-spit of epic proportions, with a certain robot dog flouncing away into the aether, never to be heard of again. (Insofar as robot dogs can flounce.)
“Robot dog?” you ask. To quote from IMDB, concerning the original Battlestar Galactica, “Boxey’s robot dagget (dog) Muffy was realized by having a trained chimp inside the dagget costume.”
However, our Daggett clearly cannot be described as “trained”.
Before this thread expires, I just wanted to say: massive props to Fyodor. Wrestling with the greased pig in the mud is enormously entertaining to spectators, but few of us want to actually jump into the mudpit ourselves with a conspiracy theorist, as Mr Terwilliger has done.
Perhaps the piece de resistance of Fyodor’s controlled demolition was to force Daggett to acknowledge that he hadn’t read, and wasn’t interested in reading, the full reports by the 9/11 Commission and by NIST (an organisation of thousands of engineers and scientists, including 3 Nobel laureates in physics). Because obviously NIST is a far less reliable source than some high school science teacher with a Youtube video.
Han shot frist.
Can someone fish my comment out of the filter?
In case the LP staff are all having a wild Friday night office party, with Mark B and three of his young female interns enjoying the corporate jacuzzi, a four-word summary of my comment is: massive props to Fyodor.
The [ahem] “corporate jacuzzi” is in point of fact a monsastically bare site of learning; only the erudite enter, the interns are selected for intellect and creativity, the Party is a distant memory.
That Fyodor of whom you speak, is he not a wonder? Detailed, analytic, witty, painstaking; stamina and memory of a mighty beast. If he’s not already a successful barrister, he could be. Nay, QC I say. Go Fyo!
Yes, indeed, Fyodor could very well be the next Malcolm Turnbull. The way that Turnbull dispatched the Brits in the Spycatcher trial is redolent of the way Fyodor is dispatching Daggett.
Wait … maybe Fyodor is Malcolm Turnbull! Would it not give him such sly glee to appear on a lefty blog under an assumed name, the poor fools never realising that the leader of the Liberal Party was amongst them?
I think I’m on to something here.
Bob, It seems to me that you have taken up an awful lot of space to simply argue:
1. That the correct time to begin measuring the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7 was at that point in time prior to the point that David Chandler began to measure it.
2. From (1), it logically follows that the accelertion of the collapse of the Northern Wall can only be averaged from that point for the next 5.4 seconds onwards and it is impermissible to consider, in isolation, any period within that 5.4 seconds, for example the 2.5 seconds at which the North Western edge was observed by David Chandler to have fallen at free fall speed.
3. Nothing else about the ‘collapse’ need be explained here, as all answers are to be found in the abovementioned NIST report.
Have I missed something, Bob?
Bob wrote:
But didn’t I respond to Liam @ 506?
Bob already stated:
And, clearly, Bob has not.
And I don’t see why that should not cut both ways.
Whilst Bob’s posts have clearly impressed one or two others on this forum, who, appear, to me, not to have gained any comprehension whatsoever of the topic at hand, I fail to see anything in them that warrants any further response on my part.
To anyone here still interested in understanding the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ and 9/11 in general, I ask them to read my previous posts, in particular, 555. Also, please check 172 for links to David Chandler’s YouTube Broadcasts. I found them informative, clever and quite funny in parts.
By all means also check out the ‘debunking’ videos linked to by Nick and Bob. (Can’t find them right now, sorry. Perhaps, Nick and Bob should consider putting the titles of, else, some other descriptive text within the links so that others can find them more easily.)
hey casey thanks for taking the time totake the next step re my stream of uncounsciousness rantings, and for the link … unrool. Thats why i love the internet. Cheers.
I was a little drunk the other night and edted wht I’d posted, then promptly dumbed the edit and c&ped the incoherent versions.
I was hpoing to bang on about psychedelics/entheogens at some point, cos they add a whole nother level of bullshit to the topic (bullshit as in crazy but not necessarily inaccurate/untrue stuff.) I dunno how that’d go down here but … I’ll say in advance now that I’m sceptical about everything. Especially (most especially) my own interpretation of reality.
ANyway I’m contacting Dorian West right now. Hope he doesn’t spin out too much when that email lands in his inbox.
Theres another tack I want to take with this discussion too if the noise of the collapse doesn’t drown it out.
Thats to do with the notion of Taboo and 9/11.
For example … was it just me that found the whole thing a little liberating? Not the deaths of course, they were appalling, but no more appalling than the 30, 000 kids a day and the billion humans with not enough to eat right now, as a result of the system we all benefit from and that those buildings represented.
But you know, the narrative of global capital chokes everything else, and demands that it be considered the only acceptable and unquestioned reason for its (our culture’s) existance. Fuck it, but if its so vulnerable that les than 20 committed people with stationary can do it so much damage its certainly less of an all powerful ogre.
For the record in 2002/3 I used to go on about how much the WTC collapses looked like a CD. So much so that I convinced a few people. Last year a couple of them rocked up here out of the blue, after teaching kids on some community somewhere, maybe near Boroloola (spelling?) for the last 5 or so years. They were stunned to my backflip on CD as by that time they’d come round to the same conclusions Daggett has here. Mostly thanks to me. I told the that in truth I now thought it ws a distraction, cos its entered the realm of the unprovable, at least in terms of practical results in a court of law. And I wasn’t so sure it was even true, appearances and initial readings of a situation can be wrong. (I pride myself on how well I sum up situations so its hard to admit how easily you can misinterpret things.)
“(Can’t find them right now, sorry. Perhaps, Nick and Bob should consider putting the titles of, else, some other “descriptive text within the links so that others can find them more easily.)”
@ 522: Internet Archive: WTC7 collapse
The title of the video and the website hosting it weren’t clear enough for you?
“But didn’t I respond to Liam @ 506?”
No, Liam referred to the absence of the sound of explosion, which you’ve repeatedly avoided responding to and acknowledging. If you’d read the report, you’d know that was one of its central arguments against controlled demolition.
daggett @ 442,
“A theory should not only be simple, but it should also account for all the observations.”
Could you maybe make an attempt here and now to account for this observation?
And not with the subjectiveness of eyewitness testimony. For every person you show me who heard a ‘boom boom’, I’ll show you someone standing nearby who didn’t.
Please link to even one piece of video footage on the internet that recorded the sound of an explosion.
NIST NCSTAR 1A
Page 28:
The calculations showed that all the hypothetical blast scenarios and charge sizes would have broadcast significant sound levels from all of the building faces. For instance, if propagation were unobstructed by other buildings, the sound level emanating from the WTC 7 perimeter openings would have been approximately 130 dB to 140 dB at a distance of 1 km (0.6 mile) from WTC 7. This sound level is consistent with standing next to a jet plane engine and more than 10 times louder than being in front of the speakers at a rock concert. The sound from such a blast in an urban setting would have been reflected and channeled down streets with minimum attenuation. The hard building exteriors would have acted as nearly perfect reflectors, with little to no absorption. The sound would have been attenuated behind buildings, but this would also have generated multiple echoes. These echoes could have extended the time period over which the sound could have been detected and could possibly have had an additive effect if multiple in-phase reflections met. However, soundtracks from videos being recorded at the time of the collapse did not contain any sound as intense as would have accompanied such a blast (NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Chapter 5). Therefore, the Investigation Team concluded that there was no demolition-type blast that would have been intense enough to lead to the collapse of WTC 7 on September 11, 2001.
No, you squibbed it—squibbed like a wet bunger in front of hundreds of disappointed children on Cracker Night in Canberra. Explosives are noisy; you’re prepared to overlook the positive evidence of absence (as I referred to at #295). They speak English in what?
I’ve always seen Turnbull as a too-smart-by-half slightly malignant clown. I think you’re onto something Generalfeldmarschall.
Well, if so then Mal’s much better at hiding his love of 90s hip-hop than I’d have credited.
I have rung up Torchwood. I’m reliably informed they’re on the case. In fact, they’re even bringing in Martha Jones to make sure we really get to the bottom of which alien force was really behind 9/11. (After all its abundantly clear whoever it was they did take over George W. Bush on or about that date. (The aliens, I meant, not Torchwood. Torchwood can get taken over, but, so far as I know they don’t actually take over.)
Why do
My computer informs me this page is or was suffering from a low memory condition. Seriously!
Anyway psychedelics and 9/11 …
One point that I think definitely stands on its own. Timewave Zero didn’t predict 9/11.
I don’t have the software anymore, but I am sure it doesn’t, cos I remember checking.
I think it had already been debunked at least as far as the specific claims Terrence McKenna made about it. I think that got a life of its own (2012 and all that). McKenna never claimed it was a definite thing, he always said time would tell, thats always a point in his favour too. Before his death he’d also accepted the criticism of it that others had made. He never makes dogmatic statements of fact regarding his mad speculations. In some ways timewave zero is more art than anything else, but its trippy art.
9/11 should be significant in the context of timewave zero, cos its all about novelty, and tho events, and their consequences have been banal in their evilness ( unless you are actually suffering the consequences, then they are far from it.) But banal in the sense that the event itself and the response by govts around the world has just been more of the same pointless shit.
In terms of the non physical response to it tho, the actual reaction of humans and its effect on their culture and their lives when they aren’t directly connected to the events is weird, its novel cos it seems to have caused a cultural PTSD. That should appear if TWZ is going to have any predictive power as a model.
It might have other values but it doesn’t seem to work as a map of novelty ingressing into time.
I’m not arguing againg the predictive powers of psychedelics, or even if its the pyschedelic experience itself, just trying to discount TMZ now in case someone brings it up. I’ve done the odd psychedelic drug, not for years tho, it is easy to see why people lose it after having a full on trip. I think its easier to predict stuff if you are familiar with psychedelics, or have had some similar experience that forces you to deal with how you interpret whats going on around you.
Its easier to identify certain trends, almost by the pattern they leave. But there is more to it than that. I know another few people who have associated 9/11 with psychedelic experiences. Not in a meaningful way tho, that could have enabled them to predict what was gonna happen. And Obviously the inage is familiar to me from tripping as well, (on salvia divinorum before it was outlawed.) But again not in a meaningful way.
Well, meaningful in that if you sat outside time and looked at history, it’d be similar to looking a painting or this screen you are reading. Its looking at two dimensional representation from an environment where you navigate through more than two dimensions.
People did the same thing, functionally when they predicted the economic rise of China. You might visualise the details with psychedelics, or even dreams but what use are they if you can’t translate them to a usable context? Thats one thing you can say about the people who predicted the rise of China – they were right.
Ultimatly that is why scientific mathod and rational thought work so well – their functionality. If there is a way to find functionality in predictive systems that appear irrational events like 9/11 are gonna show it. And similar events, similar powerful black swans if you like.
One last thought about psychedelics tho.
David Icke … some people might think he is cynical and knows he is full of shit, or using code, lizards = Jews or something (as some vast subtle anti semetic right wing conspiracy I spose). There may be something in that too. I dunno if you know that before he embarked on his campaign against the lizards he went to the Amazon and took Ayahuasca. Anyone familiar with the imagery from it or its component drugs would recognise the way reptile imagery can be powerful and freaky.
Thats a lesson in caution kids. Don’t take drugs cos you might end up like David Icke. (In his favour – early November 2000 he had the banner headline “Another Cocaine Snorting Liar in the Whitehouse.” and left it up for a while. )
“Ayahuasca. Anyone familiar with the imagery from it or its component drugs would recognise the way reptile imagery can be powerful and freaky.”
Not reptiles for me, but I take the point. Although my experience is with other sources of DMT – certainly the duration is different, and maybe plenty else. But yes, the hallucinations can be very, I dunno… coherent, and there’s a definite sense of something very different to me trying to communicate with me.
It’s fun, and scary in a not-so-fun way sometimes, but I wouldn’t read too much into it.
You should have stopped at #1, Daggy, and I haven’t “taken up an awful lot of space” to argue it. It took one post (#464), one link and a couple of words to win that point. What’s taken up an awful lot of space since has been your public humiliation – a process in which you have been a thoroughly willing, if unwitting, collaborator, for which I thank you.
No. Nick’s noted this, too: you have failed, catastrophically, to address the substantive points of NIST’s refutation of the CD hypothesis.
No, I have not. How does this prove I have “adamantly refused” to discuss the evidence? Believe it or not, but your feeble “arguments” aren’t evidence. I repeat my request: prove it or admit you lied.
That’d be because you haven’t “gained any comprehension whatsoever of the topic at hand”.
Yairs, it appears that you’re easily impressed, or impressionable. However, repeating the same discredited garbage doesn’t make it any more convincing.
* Heh, Daggy. You can learn!
This is getting a bit like one of those fights in the movies where you’re praying the ref’s going to step in and stop it, so one sided has it become.
I note that Bob @ 581 has not responded to my question @ 572.
So, until Bob tells me what else of substance about the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7 is to be found amongst all his voluminous bluster, I believe that those attempting to understand Bob’s ‘case’ would save themselves a lot of time and trouble by reading my summary, which I will include again below:
—
The auditory evidence of demolition is contradictory. The fact that much film footage appears to lack the sound of explosions may be because of those films having been doctored.
There are ample eyewitness accounts of explosions. Some can be found in this PDF compilation of statements from Fire Department of New York (FDNY) members.
Nick wrote:
To argue that all eyewitness testimony of explosions should be discounted because others claim their was none is ridiculous.
The job of the 9/11 Commission should have been to evaluate all the evidence and arrive at an explanation that best accounts for all of it. Instead it ignored all evidence of eyewitness accounts of ecploasions.
Liam‘s comment @ 495, which I was accused of not responding to (when I did @ 506) says nothing about the claimed lack of auditory evidence.
—
If people want to make a big deal out of one or two arguments I have not got around to replying to, a considerably greater number of my own have been ignored. As one example, I am still waiting for Liam, or, indeed, anyone, to state whether or not he accepts the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory, a summary of which I posted to this forum.
I am also waiting to find out from Liam whether he thinks it is fair to attempt to imply that what I have posted is not factual by putting quote marks around the word ‘facts’, when he has failed to acknowledge any of them, let alone rebut them.
—
No, thanks, adrian.
I don’t particularly want this discussion to end until such time as the dishonesty of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists has been conclusively demonstrated to anyone willing to read the discussion with an open mind (although I expect we have come very close to that point, all the same.)
Of course I would prefer not to have to confront so many all at once, and it is a strain havinf to download all the ballast deliberately added to this discussion. However, in my experience, even large numbers of people determined to mislead can’t prevent the truth being made known by one person, given a chance to argue his case.
Casey @556,
There is a great beauty and poetry in Indigenous cosmology (as many other religious narratives). I feel no need to deride and feel it is an important part of Australia’s cultural heritage. And can be quite useful.
As an atheist I’m more concerned with bringing down the power structures that privilege religion and that is political of course. But I do not want to eradicate religion. Freedom from religion is the same as freedom of religion.
And yes, they are wonderful examples of those oppressed use Christianity to turn on the oppressors. This is a reason as to why, though I find Hitchens thought-provoking and entertaining, his overall message fall short. Also reinforces my belief that the Atheist v Christianity is too much influenced by the extremes experienced in the US.
Well put Shaun. I agree with you completely. Thanks for responding.
Upon re-reading Bob’s post, I can see that it appears to be even more ridiculous than I at first realised. My apologies for any confusion I have unintentionally caused.
Apparently, all that Bob believes needs to be explained here for us to accept the NIST explanation in its entirety, is:
As point 2, apparently, does not form part of his ‘case’, then, presumably, it is permissible, after all, within the 5.4 second period for David Chandler to have measured that smaller 2.5 second period of free fall.
Presumably, then, Bob would concede that at the North Western end, as far as it is possible to accurately measure, fell at free-fall speed (as NIST has conceded) and the North Eastern end, given that it had only ‘compressed’ slightly before the start of the 2.5 second interval and that none of the Norhtern wall had visibly broken along the top at any point, would have fallen very close to free-fall speed for that 2.5 second interval.
Do you agree or not, Bob? Nick?
So, as I have said, before, within that 2.5 second interval, something must have suddenly caused all the structural strength to have been lost on 8 floors, most likely the first 8 floors, that are out of our view.
Do you agree or don’t you, Bob? Nick?
And the timing of the removal of that structural strength on each successive floor, must have been totally removed across the whole length of that floor in a fraction of that time (on averge, roughly 0.4 seconds per floor), as I put @ 506.
Do you agree or don’t you, Bob? Nick?
Assuming that Bob agrees with the above, then we need an explanation, exactly what other than demolition charges, set to be detonated, floor-by-floor in very rapid succession, could have caused all of that structural strength to have been lost in that 2.5 second interval.
Bob and Nick are insisting that all this is divulged within the NIST report, but neither of them have, so far, brought themselves to provide that explanation here.
So, as no-one, else here, as far as I can tell, has attempted to digest the ‘explanation’ in the report, they are presumably expected to take Bob’s and Nick’s word for it that it explains everything.
Having read bits of the NIST report over the past months, and viewed its ludicrous diagrams and, elsewhere, its silly computer simulation (that only ‘simulates’ up to the initiation of the ‘collapse’, BTW, and not the whole ‘collapse’), I can confidently state that it does not explain the 2.5 seconds of free-fall, nor a good deal else, besides.
I would suggest that it is up to either Bob or Nick to prove me wrong.
They could start by providing us with their understanding of the NIST ‘explanation’, as I have already repeatedly asked Bob to do.
Well, yes, Daggy, there’s a great deal that you’ve missed, but I thought it irrelevant to the argument. Were you proposing to catalogue all of the weaknesses I found in your position? If so, please have another lash and I’ll correct your further mistakes.
You know, Daggy, it’s a bit hypocritical of you to decry my allegedly “voluminous bluster” just before repeating – verbatim, it seems – your own “voluminous bluster”. As for your attempt to summarise my position, I’ve already noted that #2 and #3 are inaccurate and, furthermore, I don’t need someone of your limited articulation to express my thoughts. Anyone who wants to can read them above.
Proof, please. Produce footage that has the sounds of explosions characteristic of controlled demolition or admit you have nothing. Simply claiming, on no basis whatsoever, that the footage was “doctored” is not a substitute.
I’m sure people thought they heard lots of things. That doesn’t mean they heard a controlled demolition. The other problem, of course, is selective quotation [yes, Daggy: cherrypicking again] by those of questionable intellectual integrity. Selective quotation is great, for example, if you want to imply that the railroad industry was behind 9/11.
That’s not Nick’s argument. Nick is arguing that the eyewitness accounts are subjective, often contradictory and thus not always reliable.
Did it? How do you know that?
But the link he produced as evidence DOES. As he noted, anyone who denies this is lying. Did you lie, Daggy?
Your summary is not an “argument”, Daggy, and nor is it the official analysis of the events.
Good luck with that. Personally, given I’ve already caught you out in so many lies I think Haiku was too generous with you.
Just the answer I hoped for. Go, Daggy, go!
Damn straight. Except that word, “truth”, does not mean what you think it means.
OK, now I’m confused.
Non-sequitur.
No. We’ve been through this already.
No. We’ve been through this already.
No, why “must” it have been?
As I haven’t agreed with the above, what you think “we” need is irrelevant.
Did you want me to copy and paste the whole report, Daggy? That doesn’t seem particularly bright to me.
Or they could, you know, read the report and make up their own mind.
Oh, so you HAVE read it? Why did you state before that you hadn’t?
Also, your ability to state arguments confidently is overmatched by your ability to fuck them up.
I already have, Daggy. Continually asserting that “black” is “white” is not an effective rhetorical strategy, BTW.
Regarding “fact” and “factual”. A “fact” is not something you assert is not there, hoping that it is. For instance, all the following arguments are fallacious: The fairies “must” have misplaced my keys this afternoon when I locked myself out of my house. I’ve got a gut feeling it was them. Nobody’s able to prove that it wasn’t my own stupidity, and I can just go on claiming that the fairies took my keys from my pocket and left them on the coffee table in such a way as to hide all the evidence.
…
You know, if Dick Cheney tomorrow went on TV and said—”I did it, I had a bunch of accomplices who I’ll name, I’ve got the minutes of the meetings and the financial accounts of the operation, I enjoyed it, I made a stack of money out of it in the following proveable ways, I’m glad I did it, and fuck you America”, people like Daggett would wonder what conspiracy he was covering up.
You mean Dick Cheney didn’t do that? Oh.
But is Missy Higgins a lesbian?
daggett, I’ve got a conundrum for you:
What if debris from WTC 1 hadn’t flown 110m south and set fire to WTC 7?
Would our conspirators have simply blown it up regardless, if it weren’t on fire?
That’s a tough one to think through ;)
‘Scuse my grammar.
Bob wrote:
No, you haven’t. Providing a link to a document somewhere else is not the same thing.
Bob wrote:
Of course, not. Just provide the parts that explain how how the Northern Wall fell at free fall speed for a length of 8 floors in 2.5 seconds, or do so in your own words, as I have done with my explanation.
Anyway, I don’t mind that much if you don’t. I have provided mine, but it’s not my job to provide this forum with the theory you are defending.
To help others, I will again post the questions I put in my previous post, then Bob’s answers and then my further comments:
My question:Presumably, then, Bob would concede that at the North Western end, as far as it is possible to accurately measure, fell at free-fall speed (as NIST has conceded) and the North Eastern end, given that it had only ‘compressed’ slightly before the start of the 2.5 second interval and that none of the Northern wall had visibly broken along the top at any point, would have fallen very close to free-fall speed for that 2.5 second interval.
Do you agree or not, Bob? Nick?
Bob’s answer: No. We’ve been through this already.
My comment: I am not sure where in the above haystacks I am expected to find the needle where we have ‘been through this already’. As NIST agrees that the North Western Corner collapsed at free-fall speed for a 2.5 second interval, ‘no’ can only mean that Bob is saying that there could have somehow been a significant differences in the rates of fall at the North Eastern end to the rates of fall Western end, without the whole wall having visibly broken up.
My question: So, as I have said, before, within that 2.5 second interval, something must have suddenly caused all the structural strength to have been lost on 8 floors, most likely the first 8 floors, that are out of our view.
Do you agree or not, Bob? Nick?
Bob’s answer: No. We’ve been through this already.
My comment: Bob appears to be arguing that some of those floors could have retained some of their structural strength during that 2.5 second interval, without their slowing down the rate of fall of the observed Northern wall. That contradicts Newton’s Second Law of Motion.
My question: And the timing of the removal of that structural strength on each successive floor, must have been totally removed across the whole length of that floor in a fraction of that time (on averge, roughly 0.4 seconds per floor), as I put @ 506.
Do you agree or not, Bob? Nick?
Bob’s answer: No, why “must” it have been?
My comment: (Yet, again, Bob, requires spoon feeding.) Because, Bob, if that had not happened in that way the remaining structural support in any one part of any one of the floors would have obstructed the fall in all or part of the Northern wall would have slowed visibly. Of course there are other theoretical possibilities. It is theoretically possible that removal of the stengths of the floors could have been grouped so as to happen to more than one floor similtaneously, but that seems unlikely, particularly when we remember how neat the pile of debris was. Anyway, Bob has answered ‘no’ here, too. So, again, it appears that he rejects Newton’s Second Law of Motion.
My question: Assuming that Bob agrees with the above, then we need an explanation, exactly what other than demolition charges, set to be detonated, floor-by-floor in very rapid succession, could have caused all of that structural strength to have been lost in that 2.5 second interval.
Do you agree or not, Bob? Nick?
Bob’s answer: As I haven’t agreed with the above, what you think “we” need is irrelevant.
My comment: I will take that as a ‘no’. As Bob has rejected Newton’s Second Law of motion, then I just may be able to understand why he would think that no further explanation is required. Nevertheless, I wonder if he has pondered the implications of the rejection of Newton’s Second Law for structural engineering, or, indeed every aspect of the physical world we live in.
—
Bob wrote:
Isn’t it, Bob? Well, it sure seems like it to me. But, of course, I know now not to expect of you to explain what is the position you defend, so I won’t ask you to explain what you understand “the official analysis of the events” to be.
—
I can see Bob would also have me go down a number of other rabit holes, when I can’t even get him to go down one.
Sorry, Bob I am not going to run all over the internet, at this point in time, to prove to your satisfaction, my point about the audio recordings, etc., etc.
—
Nick,
It’s debatable that the debris from the North Tower caused all those fires. My belief was that they were lit and maintained in order to make it appear that that is what had happened. I can’t know what would have happened without fires. Yes, I suspect that they would have still blown it up, regardless. As it appears that WTC 7 was used as the command center to control the demolition of the Twin Towers, there would have been far too much incriminating evidence left behind if it had not been demolished.
It’s clear that an awful lot did not go right for the conspirators on 11 Spetember 2001. Clearly, WTC 7 was meant to have been blown up before it did. Otherwise, we could not have witnessed Jayne Standley of the BBC reporting that WTC 7 had ‘collapsed’ 23 minutes before it actually did, with WTC 7 standing behind her in the background behind.
We can also assume that their plans involved Flight 93 crashing into the Capitol Building, most likely killing a number of US legislators.
If that had happened, I think we would have seen the complete suspension of the US constitution that day, in effect a coup. So, all the holes that we see here in this forum would have been much more easily covered up.
I think those that are parroting the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory here, because of peer group pressure, and not because they are Government shills, should contemplate just what sort of world we would be living in today if Flight 93 had got to the Capitol Building.
Whether people realise it or not, one reason why it has not happened again, is that a lot of people, particularly in the 9/11 Truth Movement, are watching very closely the people responsible for 9/11 and they realise that, if they try it again, it will be much harder to fool as many people in the way they did in the immediate wake of 9/11.
—
Liam,
I think I understand what a fact is. Now please explain why it was not dishonest for you to imply that what I had written was not factual by putting quote marks around the word ‘facts’, when you were not prepared to challenge those facts.
Bob wrote,
Actually, it seems to me that there wasn’t. I think that people are entitled to conclude from the fact that you have not taken the opportunity to expand on my own understanding of your ‘case’ that there is no further substance to it.
Nick,
that’s interesting. How many other nearby buildings had demolition charges pre-set in them? When and why were the explosives removed? It surely would have been difficult, with all the TV crews, reporters, NYPD, rescue teams etc. around?
It’s most likely a Norse Raiding Party came ashore near the ferry building, after concealing themselves in the torch on the Liberty Statue. This of course planned many decades in advance by the Opus Dei faction of the French Govt. It’s all been explained by Miss Aimee Smersh, a 17-year-old history student, who plans to post her findings on Youtube after the psychedelics have receded.
‘Scuse my
grammarsense of direction!AKA: because you didn’t expand further on why you think I’m wrong, I get to maintain that I’m right.
AKA: beat me more, master.
Really? Since when has your judgement been reliable?
You can think whatever nonsense you like, and evidently do. However, there’s no logical connection between embellishing your cack-handed summary and the substance of my position. Yet again you have presented another non-sequitur that proves nothing but your incompetence with logic.
Liam wrote:
No, Liam. What you read is what I meant to write.
There is no more substance in that Bob has written on the WTC 7 “collapse” since 464 than what I have stated in my own understanding of his ‘case’.
Of course I think I am right and that Bob is wrong, but I am not asking anyone to just take my word for it. I am just asking them to contemplate that fact that there is almost no substance in his many long verbose contributions to this discussion.
In fact, Bob, himself, has already said as much when he wrote:
and:
Bob wrote:
I wasn’t asking to accept my judgement. I was asking you to prove me wrong.
Of course there isn’t. So, why not tell everyone what it is?
It looks like I had somehow typed <a> instead of <p> at the start of the 4th and 10th paragraphs, above. (<p> tags are redundant on LP, BTW.) I als typed ‘that’ instead of ‘than’ at one point. My apologies.
Here’s the first part again:
Liam wrote:
No, Liam. What you read is what I meant to write.
There is no more substance in what Bob has written on the WTC 7 “collapse” since 464 than what I have stated in my own understanding of his ‘case’.
Of course I think I am right and that Bob is wrong, but I am not asking anyone to just take my word for it. I am just asking them to contemplate that fact that there is almost no substance in his many long verbose contributions to this discussion.
In fact, Bob, himself, has already said as much when he wrote:
and:
Correction: you think blahdi blah.
Also, what’s with the scare quotes on collapse? Are you implying that WTC 7 didn’t collapse, Daggy?
“That fact”, Daggy? Puhlease. If you should have learned anything from this sorry exercise, Daggy, it should be that you shouldn’t consider opinions facts just because you want them to be true. It’s an habitual failing of yours, Daggy: you’re just too gullible.
Let me get this straight: you’re not asking anyone to take your “word for it”, but you ARE asking them to take your word for it that my contributions are insubstantial and simultaneously verbose? Characteristically illogical and desperate pleading, Daggy, and there’s that verbose hypocrisy of yours, too.
Again, in fact, I, me, myself, said nothing of the kind, as pointing out the crapness of your arguments and the humiliation you’ve endured has no bearing whatsoever on the substance of my arguments.
Wrong again, Daggy. This was the sequence of comments:
Now, you’ve clearly lied about asking me to prove you wrong. There’s no demand for proof there. When you say that it “seems” to you there wasn’t a great deal missing from your statement you are making a judgement, on which I rightly called you out. I’ve told you this before and you just don’t listen: get your story straight.
As you admit that there’s no logical connection, why?
The sentence above:
and not:
The original sentence was not completely wrong, but obviously clumsy. Again, my apologies.
—
The video “Jowenko WTC7 Demolition Interviews, 1 of 3″ (and parts 2 and 3) shows an interview with leading Dutch demolition engineer Danny Jowenko where he views for the first time the video of the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7, unaware that that is what he is looking at.
His reaction is that, of course, it was a controlled demolition. I somehow doubt if he would have been dissuaded from that view by the feeble argument that Bob, Nick, Liam, FDB et al insist is so convincing.
Most interestingly Danny Jowenko’s views exactly coincide with the impression formed by the reported who commented live on the WTC 7 ‘collapse’. These are the words spoken by a news reporter upon having observed the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7:
You can hear them for yourself at the end of David Chandler’s abovementioned video “WTC7 in Freefall–No Longer Controversial”.
Of course, neither Danny Jowenko’s professional judgement nor the professional judgements of any other of the several hundred (943 as of now) members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth were even acknowedged by NIST.
Instead of the most obvious and logical explanation of the WTC 7 ‘collapse’, Bob expects us to unquestioningly accept a convoluted, half-baked, far-from-complete ‘explanation’ that he is evidently incapable of articulating to the rest of us on this forum.
“Of course, neither Danny Jowenko’s professional judgement nor the professional judgements of any other of the several hundred (943 as of now) members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth were even acknowedged by NIST.”
Amazingly, you don’t seem to see a problem with this sentence. Why on Earth would you care what NIST does or doesn’t acknowledge – your opinion of their competence, honesty and complicity has been made abundantly clear. And how do you know what they did or didn’t acknowledge anyway? You refuse to read the report you bang on and on and on about, and are relying on gossip from websites.
Of course, you’re probably right, for once. NIST probably don’t acknowledge the opinions of the 9 hundred and something architects, engineers and the Dutch demolition expert you mention. I’d say the reason is that they were not a part of the investigative team, haven’t had anything at all to go on but second-hand information and a couple of videos which they wilfully misinterpret, and because they are crackpots who have no compuction about imputing NIST themselves with the most horrible motives imaginable.
Instead of engaging with the substance of my arguments, Bob persists with his attempts to turn this discussion into the equivalent of:
daggett: ‘Tis too.
Bob: ‘Tis not.
daggett: ‘Tis too.
Bob: ‘Tis not.
etc., etc.
… and pedantically hides behind the literal meaning of words:
I didn’t literally use the words ‘prove me wrong’ ergo I did not ask him to prove him to.
Well, I am asking you, now, Bob: prove me wrong.
Or do you intend to persist with “not giving serious consideration to any of [my] arguments”?
Bob wrote:
I think Bob needs someone to explain to him concepts such as ‘sarcasm’ and ‘irony’.
Bob continued:
Somehow, I doubt if I can help you, Bob. If no-one else steps forward, you’re going to have to work that out for yourself.
I will repeat the exchange:
Bob wrote:
I wrote:
Once, again, my “cack-handed summary”, which is my own best understanding of the totality of Bob’s ‘case’ which ‘disproves’ that the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7 was a controlled demolition is to be found here.
Anyone here is welcome to add to that anything I may have missed.
“I think Bob needs someone to explain to him concepts such as ’sarcasm’ and ‘irony’.”
Now that’s irony.
Why don’t you give it a try though?
Should be fun.
Why should they have been? What Efdeebee said: NIST had a large array of its own experts, with access to all the evidence, and not just opinionated busybodies [including the “professional judgement” of a reporter, Daggy?!] watching YouTube.
As for Danny Jowenko, have you seen the FULL interview, Daggy? Are you aware that he doesn’t believe that WTC 1 and WTC 2 were controlled demolitions? Makes him somewhat unreliable as an expert for the conspiracy case, doesn’t it?
More illogic. If I haven’t articulated it, how do you know it’s “convoluted”, “half-baked” and “far-from-complete”?
Also, the most obvious and logical explanation of the WTC 7 collapse [again with the scare quotes – are you seriously denying the building collapsed?] is the one presented in the NIST report, which I and others have linked to many times. While the report is large, it’s anything but “half-baked” or “far-from-complete”. What’s evidently half-baked bunk is your delusional theory, which you have been unable to substantiate.
Your arguments have already been destroyed, Daggy. I’m just quoting back WHAT YOU WROTE and pointing out your lies. There’s no hiding there, just the truth. Remember the Truth, Daggy?
You didn’t ask me for proof literally, figuratively or in any sense other than in your imagination. Ergo, you lied.
I already have, Daggy. Several times over.
You seem to be confused here. I haven’t had to give your arguments much consideration at all to disprove them. The want of serious consideration reflects their weakness, not my unwillingness to disprove them.
Sorry, Bob, I wasn’t you aware you possessed a sense of humour and, to be perfectly honest, I’m still not sure you do. Leaving that aside, it doesn’t change the fact that your connection is illogical and your consequent request irrelevant.
Yes, I doubt that, too.
Unfortunately, your “best understanding” isn’t good enough, Daggy. That’s been the problem all along.
FDB asks “Why on Earth would you care what NIST does or doesn’t acknowledge …”
Because we arguing over whether or not NIST properly investigated the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7. If what had to be amongst the greatest engineering disasters has not been adequately explained, a new investigation is needed.
I am arguing that if a lot of evidence has not been considered then it was not a proper investigation.
FDB wrote, “And how do you know what they did or didn’t acknowledge anyway?”
I read the summary in which the controlled demolition hypothesis is dismissed. To my knowledge no NIST apologist has claimed that they have considered that evidence. If you insist that they have considered that evidence, then why not show where it have?
FDB wrote, “I’d say the reason is that they … haven’t had anything at all to go on but second-hand information and a couple of videos …”
Clearly FDB has not been paying attention. Any other crime with this much incriminating evidence would have been solved in nano-seconds.
FDB continiued, “… which they wilfully misinterpret, …”
It’s a shame that FDB has kept to himself the reasons why he maintains the evidence has been misinterpreted.
FDB continued, “… and because they are crackpots …”
Of course, because they don’t agree with FDB?
FDB continued, “… who have no compuction about imputing NIST themselves with the most horrible motives imaginable.”
Once again: NIST has helped cover up the crime of the mass murder of almost 3,000 US citizens, which was falsely blamed on people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This crime was the pretext for wars that have caused the deaths and maiming of many hundreds of thousands, the displacement of millions, whilst, amazingly, after 8 years, have not resulted in the capture of a single person with a proven link to that crime.
The people who conducted the NIST ‘investigation’ belong behind bars.
—
I see one unsubstantiated assertion concerning Danny Jowenko in Bob’s latest ‘contribution’ to this discussion, which, in any case, seems to be beside the point.
And I am informed that when a building is demolished with explosives it also collapses, presumably, instead of remaining indefinitely suspended. Thanks, Bob for that vital insight.
If I have missed anything new, can someone let me know?
I note Bob still refuses to expand upon or correct my best understanding of his ‘case’ that the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7
(continued from above) … was not a controlled demolition.
Aw, dammit Daggett. I thought you were going to explain irony for us.
“NIST has helped cover up the crime of the mass murder of almost 3,000 US citizens, which was falsely blamed on people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This crime was the pretext for wars that have caused the deaths and maiming of many hundreds of thousands, the displacement of millions, whilst, amazingly, after 8 years, have not resulted in the capture of a single person with a proven link to that crime.”
This would be a reasonable conclusion to come to at the end of an argument that treated fairly and rationally with all the evidence, showed its working, and in the final analysis admitted no other reasonable interpretation.
The problem here Dagster, is that you’re using it as a premise, failing to contruct anything to bolster it beyond opinion and hearsay, then simply re-stating it as your conclusion. I’d say it was lazy, but you’re obviously going to some considerable effort.
Daggy, your opinion as to what constitutes a proper investigation is worth precisely zero. What’s more, you should be ashamed of yourself for slandering the professionals who worked on the investigation, only to have delusional dropkicks on teh interwebs accuse them of criminal incompetence, based on no evidence whatsoever.
The fuller interview with Jowenko is visible here (“The Conspiracy of September 11th”) in Dutch but with English subtitles, produced by the Dutch documentary-maker Zembla. There’s an Italian-subtitled version on YouTube, but I’m guessing you’re monolingual so I’ve made it easy for you. The money quotes start from 34:17. The crap you’ve seen on YouTube omits the discussion on WTC 1 and WTC 2 and focuses just on WTC 7, from 46:30 onwards. Danny Jowenko had NEVER HEARD of the WTC 7 collapse before the interview – look at his surprise when he’s told WTC 7 fell on the same day as WTC 1 & 2. The documentary also aired in 2006, before the release of the final NIST report on WTC 7 (in November, 2008).
Further, it is not “beside the point”. If you claim someone is an expert and consider their opinion authoritative on WTC 7 then you must accord them the same authority on WTC 1 and WTC 2. As you don’t, you’re cherrypicking, AGAIN.
Don’t thank me, Daggy – I didn’t provide that insight. It should have been obvious, but you insisted on attaching scare quotes to “collapse” for your own dopey reasons.
Noted. I note that you’ve yet to provide a reason why I should. Why haven’t you, Daggy? What are you hiding?
I note Bob has failed to directly quote whatever it was that Danny Jowenko said of the ‘collapes’ of the Twin Towers. If all he said was that the ‘collapses’ did not conform to standard bottom-up type demolition then I am sure I would agree with him.
As with other 9/11 Truthers I put the word ‘collapse’ in quotes to indicate that I reject the explanation that they were ‘collapses’ unassisted by explosives and that that I consider that if explosives explosives had not been used the buildings would have remained standing.
Of course, Bob is entitled to take exception to that, but I would have thought that is hardly critical to the discussion one way or the other. But I guess if Bob has so little substance to his ‘case’, then he would need to clutch at every conceivable straw he could, wouldn’t he?
Clearly Bob is not going to explain here any more the totality of his ‘case’ than I have attempted to provide. Those who think that there is more to it than this will have to find it for themselves somewhere within Bob’s vast outpourings.
daggett @ 611:
“he would need to clutch at every conceivable straw he could, wouldn’t he?”
daggett @ 584
“The fact that much film footage appears to lack the sound of explosions may be because of those films having been doctored.”
Too lazy to watch it yourself, huh? No surprise there. OK, from Zembla’s translation:
But don’t take MY word for it, Daggy! Do your own homework, look at it yourself. Unless, that is, you’re too fucking lazy, yet again, to put in any real effort at discovering the truth.
I’ll echo FDB’s comment above: you seem willing to put in a ridiculous amount of effort to produce arguments that look like the work of lazy incompetents. Hats off, Daggy: what you’re doing is tantamount to performance art. What it isn’t, of course, is convincing.
Ah, so it’s one of those Truther “Architect” secret handshake thingies? You should have mentioned that your cult required you to suspend your (limited) grasp of logic.
Or I might just enjoy taking the piss out of your many and varied gaffes.
“Hypocrisy check in aisle three!”
I no longer care if this does beat the Missy thread.
Comedy gold.
Nick,
That’s changing the subject. In any case, anyone who looks at what I wrote in its full context will see that I wasn’t clutching at straws.
—
Note how Bob has suddenly become so obliging and made available on this forum the text of the interview with Danny Jowenko instead of insisting that we all go off and look at it for ourselves.
(BTW, Bob, that video is not YouTube and I am unable to view it on my computer. So, for now, I will have to accept your word for it.)
And will FDB now change his tune about Danny Jowenko now that Bob has apparently managed to construe Danny Jowenko’s position as being in support of the Official explanation of the Twin Tower collapses?
Bob wrote:
(Bob doesn’t get it, or is pretending not to get it.) Bob, that’s precisely the point. A demolition expert looks at the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7 not knowing what it is and recognises it as a controlled demolition. Are you saying that Danny Jowenko doesn’t know a controlled demolition when he sees one?
Also, if you had been paying attention, you would have known of the mysterious silence on the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ by the 9/11 commision. That silence, no doubt, would have largely been the reason for Danny Jowenko’s ignorance about it, and is one of many reasons why that ‘investigation’ is considered a cover-up.
Bob continued:
Then why don’t you think that that should cut both ways, Bob?
Bob continued:
And, you’re not?
Bob, I never claimed that my whole case concerning WTC 7 stood or fell depending upon Jowenko’s word. The evidence in support of the controlled demolition hypothesis was already vast as I have shown above (even if you pretend not to see it).
Because I think he is correct on WTC 7 doesn’t mean I have to unquestioningly accept his verdict, at that time, on the ‘collapses’ of the twin towers.
The fact that he didn’t know that WTC 7 had ‘collapsed’ on the same day would be a clue that his knowledge of the twin tower ‘collapses’ may have been limited. Quite possibly his views had been influenced by the official explanation of the twin tower collapses, rather than his thorough understanding of that issue.
Whatever the reason, the controlled demolition hypothesis is the only possible way to explain so much other physical evidence and eyewitness testimony as discuissed above.
Other Architectural and engineering professionals believe it was possible for explosives to have been planted and wired in the time available, so, of course this issue needs to be explored further in the course of a proper investigation.
Bob ranted:
As I already wrote:
It is hardly a secret. The 9/11 Truth movement has been quite open about our putting quote marks around the word ‘collapse’ for some time now.
Can you read, daggett? Seriously, do you have literacy problems?
It’s been pointed out to you again and again and again that the NIST commission did examine and dismiss all ideas of planned demolition for a number of reasons, none of which you have even attempted to recognise. Your total inability to read, process and come to terms with the facts shows you up for the shill for self-serving, ignorant innuendo that you are. People arguing in bad faith usually at least have the self-respect to know the first thing about their own “hypotheses”—you don’t appear to even have that.
Taggett: Wow 616 posts in this thread, and still going! Are you guys trying for a record?
In my insomnia, I tried to read them all but gave up at around 350. But it still did not put me to sleep.
What were the interests of the building owners in a conspiracy involving a controlled implosions? How have they gained?
Liam wrote:
Can you?
Seriously, I mean, how about writing in response to my arguments, instead of writing what seems to be an attempt at a cliched script for a B-grade American movie?
The 9/11 Commission is not NIST, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. The 9/11 Commission report made no mention whatsoever of the WTC 7 ‘collapse’, as I pointed out above.
But then again, Liam you did write:
… didn’t you?
Just as Bob wrote:
And as you have abundantly demonstrated just now, Liam, you have not.
What you, Bob, FDB and others are engaged in, as you practically admit, is the metaphorical equivalent of children blocking their ears and shouting insults and abuse.
Liam continued:
Don’t pretend I haven’t responded in turn and that my responses were not ignored. The NIST ‘examin[ation]‘ was a total sham and you have not posted anything to this forum that has demonstrated otherwise.
—
FDB wrote:
Could someone devise a way to restrict participation in this forum to people above the age of 18, or, perhaps 16?
“What you, Bob, FDB and others are engaged in, as you practically admit, is the metaphorical equivalent of children blocking their ears and shouting insults and abuse.”
No Daggett, no.
Really… no.
We’re just having a larf at your expense, that’s all. If you want it to end, stop stumbling around blindfolded in a yard full of rakes. You are a figure of fun, nothing more or less, and it’s your own doing.
By the way… 18? You silver tongued devil you.
SCENE: The undisclosed location of Dr. Cheneystein, professional mad scientist. Doctor C and Ydubya, his hunch-backed assistant, contemplate their evil plan over brandy and cigars.
CHENEY: Soon my plans shall reach fruition. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center are a universally-known symbol of American hegemony. By destroying them, I shall create the New Pearl Harbor that I need, to justify my master plan of expensively blowing up a lot of worthless rocks in Afghanistan. Furthermore, my precisely-calibrated demolition plan can then be used to justify a poorly-thought-out disastrous expedition in Iraq, proving to the world that I’m sort of an all-around kind of villain who likes to try a little bit of everything.
BUSH: Explain to me your plan, Master.
CHENEY: First, I shall stealthily fill enormous, busy skyscrapers with massive amounts of high-tech explosives, which nobody will notice… enough to cause a controlled demolition. Then, to cover up the explosives, I’ve arranged for two planes to smash into the skyscrapers, providing a convenient “excuse” for why they have completely collapsed, and also providing some marvelous visuals to imprint the disaster in the public’s mind.
BUSH: But, Master… wouldn’t the wreckage caused by the two planes be more than enough to create the image of a New Pearl Harbor?
CHENEY: Er, quiet. Here is the plan: first, the North Tower shall be hit with a plane, followed by the South Tower. Then… the South Tower shall collapse, followed by the North Tower.
BUSH: Um, Master? If you want to make it look like the planes caused the collapse, and you’re controlling the demolition, shouldn’t you make the first tower to be hit, be the one to collapse first as well? Just thinking out loud, here.
CHENEY: Yes, well, stop it. Who thought of this plan, you or me? Then, finally, as the piece de resistance: many hours after the famous Twin Towers collapse in a horrifying spectacle, I shall then cause the collapse of… 7 WORLD TRADE CENTER !
BUSH: Come again?
CHENEY: 7 World Trade Center, you idiot. It’s a smaller building , behind the towers, that people don’t really pay much attention to.
BUSH: Never heard of it.
CHENEY: Well, nobody has. Anyway…
BUSH: Then why demolish it? How does it trump the spectacle of the Towers collapsing?
CHENEY: Well it doesn’t, really. That’s not the point. You see—
BUSH: So, when does the plane hit the third tower… what’s it called again?
CHENEY: 7 World Trade Center, you ninny. And there won’t be any plane hitting that tower.
BUSH: Then why collapse it in an obviously controlled demolition? Won’t that look very suspicious, if no plane hits it first? Besides, why blow it up, anyway? No one’s ever heard of it, it’s not a symbol of anything. How does it help the plan?
CHENEY: Well, too late to change now. My plan is vast, and involves hundreds and hundreds of conspirators. That’s why we’ll never get caught.
BUSH: Nixon got caught. The Iran-Contra guys got caught. My dad just barely wiggled out of that one. The press hates us, they’ll nail us if they possibly can. Hell, Clinton couldn’t even get a bj on the sly without getting caught. Enemies have a way of digging up dirt, and we’ve got tons of enemies.
CHENEY: Well I’m smarter than they are. And soon… we shall be RICH!
BUSH: We’re already rich.
CHENEY: Yes, so we’ll be even richer.
BUSH: But… we’re already getting richer off my whole tax-cuts thingy. It’s a lot less risky way to make a few bucks, than all this business.
CHENEY: Umm…look, just shut up, nobody asked you. Do what you’re told.
BUSH: Yes, Master.
“The Iran-Contra guys got caught.”
Did they?
What all of them?
Wow I must have imagined that one of them went on to be the next president of the US.
Or more to the point, if you wiggle out of getting busted for some pretty successful shenanigans then go on to be the next president of the US, then you would haveto say that from your POV the conspiracy to pull off those shenanigans was successful.
Its obviously wrong to conclude that the Iran Contra guys got caught, when the highest ranked Rethug on the investigation committee (the big Dickhead himself) says shit like:
“I went through the Iran-contra hearings and watched the way administration officials ran for cover and left the little guys out to dry.”
Here
Little guys who got hung out to dry included the like of McFarlane, Poindexter and Caspar Weinberger. Pretty obvious which administration officials ran for cover then isn’t it.
Cheney’s next line after that quote is eye opening in itself.
Iran-Contra: one of them was the serving President, which made the spectacle even more wierd.
Nana Levu, why go spoiling an etheral thread with the classic question cui bono?. In Latin, “who benefits?” and the Romans knew a thing or two about benefits….
By the way, Caesar organised for a couple of chariots full of flaming oil to collide with a prominent public building and blamed it on the Gauls and the Angles.
But Daggettus Honorificus was onto him in a flash, and the rest is Speculation.
**************
Back on topic:
daggett surmises that some posters are like children blocking their ears and shouting; yet daggett is the one who metaphorically blocks his own eyes by refusing to read a report.
“Nowt strange as folks”.
“Cheney’s next line after that quote is eye opening in itself.”
Yeah, and the lines after that one are more eye-opening still. Except that they’re a kind of reverse eye-opener to the sort of thing you have in mind. Here’s what he says:
“…but I think he [Tenet] was of the same view and that’s why we had all of these requests coming through for policy guidance and for legal opinions. And this time around I’ll do my damndest to defend anybody out there–be they in the agency carrying out the orders or the lawyers who wrote the opinions.”
So he’s talking here about the established, on-the-record policies of his administration, subject to public criticism and review, not to secret kooky conspiracies.
Back to the cherry farm with you: your entire crop is rotting in the orchard, whilst you dilly-dally over here, picking a random cherry now and again, to no good purpose.
Liam wrote,
I thought you said essentially just said that in your post immediately prior to that one.
How many more times do you think people here need be reminded that you consider the murder of 3,000 American citizens more a subject for comedy than a subject for serious discussion?
To help people like Nana Levu who are actually here to gain an understanding of the 9/11 controversy, when you, and, perhaps, Liam and Bob, decide to add have something new, could you please add something like:
… at the start of such posts?
—
No Nana Levu, I am not going for a record. For my part, I don’t believe in bloating forums just to satisfy my own ego, and have already made my objection to this known, here, more than once. I think you will find that all my posts either contain new material or are warranted responses to what has been written by others.
I actually prefer discussions on 9/11 to be short. As Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists usually intuitively understand that they don’t have a leg to stand on, discussions I participate in are usually concluded fairly rapidly. See for example “Scaling back in Afghanistan would jeopardise security of the US”. If any of my detractors want to make a similar spectacle of themselves on that forum, as well, please be my guest.
In a way, even that helps, indirectly, as more people can see for themselves the true nature of phony left-wing fake intellectuals who willingly help the corporate newsmedia cover up the crime of 9/11.
It is no longer any source of wonder to me that an intellectual midget like John Howard was able to politically dominate this country for 11 years when I bear witness to the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of many of his ostensible political opponents such as has been displayed on this forum.
At least in countries like France 9/11 is seriously discussed. There will soon be a major televised debate.
O rly? Well, let’s quote your comment from #584:
You WERE clutching at straws, Daggy. You’ve yet to produce ANY footage of the event with the sound of explosions characteristic to a controlled demolition.
I’m an obliging bloke, Daggy – knoblesse oblige and all that. And there’s nothing peculiar about it.
In my first comment on Jowenko, at #606, I asked you if you had seen the full interview and heard his opinion on WTC 1 & 2.
At #607 you then claimed this was an unsubstantiated assertion.
At #610 I provided the link to the full report, with – for your convenience – the relevant sections highlighted.
At #611, you demonstrated yet again that you are too fucking lazy to do the minimum amount of homework and stated that I had “failed to directly quote” Jowenko.
At #613 I quoted the relevant text.
At #615 you have a little whinge because I’ve been obliging!
Can I expect a “thank you” any time soon, you ungrateful swine?
Huh? If you can access YouTube, I don’t see why you can’t access the following website:
http://zembla.vara.nl/About_Zembla_English.2828.0.html
Shouldn’t that be ‘collapses’, Daggy? And, no, I haven’t construed anything of the sort, which begs the question: why should FDB change his “tune”?
I honestly don’t know if he does or does not, Daggy – it’s not my field of expertise, and he’s not my expert. It’s not yours either, for that matter. And it is YOU who doesn’t get the point: Jowenko had no background knowledge of the event, was given some heavily edited footage of the collapse and a little bit of data and asked to make a call on the spot. Personally, I wouldn’t trust any professional opinion given without full consideration of available evidence, but clearly you’re more gullible than me.
“Mysterious silence”, Daggy? You really are shameless. There were several large government reports on WTC 7 alone, after a lengthy investigation. The fact that this job was tasked to NIST does not constitute “mysterious silence” or a “cover-up” from the government. Your assertion is ridiculous.
The fact that a Dutch demolitions dude didn’t know WTC 7 had collapsed on 9/11 says nothing about this alleged “silence”, but does say a lot about how many people really don’t give a fuck about WTC 7. The fact that you do says a lot about you, however.
Ah, but Daggy, I do. The difference is that I don’t consider Jowenko’s opinion authoritative and nor is he my expert. He’s yours, remember?
And, no.
That’s good, because you’d have no case and look like a gullible twit right now if you had. Oh, wait…
I saw the garbage you produced and it was neither vast nor convincing. Next?
So you think he’s correct when he agrees with you, but not when he disagrees with you? How do you know when he’s correct? Are you more of an expert on controlled demolition than him?
What we’ve got here, Daggy, apart from a failure to communicate, is what’s called an unreliable expert witness. The correct response is not to rely upon his opinions at all, NOT TO CHERRYPICK FROM HIS OPINIONS.
REALLY?!! Djareckon? And yet you still reckon this poor bloke, who hasn’t been fully informed on the situation, should be relied upon for his professional opinion…but only when it agrees with you?
Again: ridiculous.
“Whatever the reason”? It’s always “whatever” with you, isn’t it? Your belief is obviously theological, not rational. The controlled demolition hypothesis has been thoroughly discredited on this thread, and your continued bleating about it being the “only possible” explanation smacks of religious zealotry.
Lots of people believe lots of dopey shite. One of the blokes you quoted earlier believes that Jesus visited the Mayans. Does that issue need to be explored further? Casey reckons it does. Maybe we should all demand the US government spend shitloads of money doing a proper investigation on that issue. What do you think, Daggy?
OK, so your cult demands it of you – it’s a religious thing, I understand. I’m curious, though: what happens if you don’t use the scary quotes? Do you have to sit in the corner at Temple? Take a hot buttered crumpet between the cheeks?
Also, it’s not “clutching at straws”; it’s “taking the piss” in an ironic fashion. You know what “irony” is, don’t you?
You could have at least left his next line in too.
“And I was bound and determined that wasn’t going to happen this time.”
Whats he referring to?
FISA of course, and his admin’s disregard for it, the first of the impeachable offences that the Bush govt got away with (so far, well the most obvious), and one that no doubt Cheney feels justified in defending given his fetish for unfettered executive power.
“So he’s talking here about the established, on-the-record policies of his administration, subject to public criticism and review, not to secret kooky conspiracies.”
Well duh, (tho they weren’t really subject to that much public criticism, and bugger all actual review.) Don’t assume I was talking about any conspiracy regarding 9/11 when I made that comment about how eye opening Cheney’s words were.
Its more eye opening wrt to his attitude to power. Tho to his credit, I’d interpret that bit you posted about Tenet etc etc as saying that he would be prepared to stand by his actions in court, unlike the Reagan Bush admin… I mean, we are actually talking about the on the record policies of his admin that some people maintain are illegal. I am well aware of that.
Not some speculation about what happened before the admin he was part of enacted and acted on those policies.
And its actually eye opening cos with an attitude like that he is possibly a psychopath. He’s not only got no regard for the limits placed on power in a democracy, he is prepared to stand up in court and say they are not valid limits….
What part of limiting power, which is the actual function of democracy, doesn’t he get?
In and of itself (and obviously to no good purpose) thats why its an eye opening comment.
And given I had to explain all that I may as well answer my own rhetorical question … he obviously doesn’t get the entire part about limiting power, all of it, every single little bit of it.
- late nomination -
by analogy with the word “doggerel”, a new word nominated in the field of *debate* rather than poesy:
‘daggerel’
The editor is as yet unconvinced, and will not accept YouTube videos, however funny, as supporting evidence.
Dunno – why don’t you ask someone who’s said that? People are laughing at YOU, Daggy, not 9/11.
No – it looks silly. How about you add something like:
…at the start of your posts?
Ha! All evidence to the contrary! And the link to OLO? WTF? Who gives a fuck about that?
Boo-hoo, Daggy. What aberrant tosh from a self-important twerp. Get off the high-horse.
Also, I’ll have you know that I’m a phony RIGHT-wing intellectual, if you don’t fucking mind.
BFD. If you’d seen French television you’d know it’s so awful they’d televise philosophy professors debating their navel lint.
Well this experiment has finally convinced me that 911 was a set up! The only criticism is that he should have flown a model aircraft into the setup to make it a realistic experiment.
Here is suitable model 767 but not the right livery. Though you could engage in a revenge fantasy at the same time if you desire.
Bob wrote:
Sarcasm alert: Of course it has, Bob, as you never fail to remind us.
But don’t you think people are going to need your help in finding out precisely where in your on this forum (and not on documents somehwere else) this has happened?
As I keep pointing out, unless you do this either people may be forced to rely on my own (sarcasm alert:) inadequate attempt to explain your case, or they are going to have to invest quite a few months of their time trying to find somewhere in your own vast outpourings, your own immeasurably better and more complete articulation of your own case.
Those wishing to find my own (sarcasm alert:) thoroughly discredited demolition hypothesis to compare with my attempt to articulate Bob’s own inspired, but elusive, rebuttal of my case, can find it here.
In whose interest?
I see no-one addressed this aspect of my question at #617
So I asked google: who gave me a compelling argument 9/11 and the Greenberg Familia By Jerry Mazza
http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1261.shtml
In any case, this is patently the confluence of the military/industrial complex with a healthy dose of Wall Street, earning millions if not billions in put and call options on companies involved with the catastrophe, including airlines on the down (put) side and military suppliers on the up (call) side. In addition, there is the missing gold from the basement of Tower 4, $200 million of which was retrieved, and an untold amount stolen.
The real bottom line was that the Towers were two financial white elephants. And both Silverstein and Greenberg had to know that. The tenancy was dropping. They were out of date. And most dangerously, they were asbestos bombs, loaded with the dangerous building material when they were completed in 1972-73.
By law the buildings could not be taken down by internal demolition. And since it would cost a billion dollars or more to take the towers down beam by beam, it would be at great loss to the Port of Authority or its leaseholder. Thus the reasons are obvious to take WTC down in act of terror also a false-flag operation. Remember, the concept for the WTC Towers originated with the Nelson and David Rockefeller, members of the Council on Foreign Relations and among the world’s elites. A “New Pearl Harbor” would serve those interests well.
That’s pretty funny sarcasm there, Daggler.
Now try irony.
daggett, I know you haven’t shown much desire to discover anything about structural engineering or the design of skyscrapers in general, in your quest for the Truth Inc. preferring to exclusively digest non-expert’s misinterpretations of video fragments posted on youtube, but this little book is a classic in the genre, which at some time in the future, you may choose to find a copy and read in respect of structural engineering generally, not just 9/11.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Buildings-Fall-Down-Structures/dp/039331152X
Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail by Matthys Levy & Mario Salvadori
First published in 1996, it has been updated to include chapters in respect of the failure of the Twin Towers:
Structural engineers Levy and Salvadori have written a well-paced, highly informative, nontechnical work describing failures in a variety of structures such as buildings, bridges, and dams. Salvadori wrote Why Buildings Stand Up (Norton, 1990), so this is a natural complement. The subject, somewhat grisly in nature, is presented here with respect for the tragedies involved, and yet with a lighthearted pursuit of the truth as to the cause of the failure. Analysis of the failure is discussed and recommendations for improvement are offered, but without the usual condescension hindsight allows. Profuse illustrations by Kevin Woest, well labeled and explained, and several appendixes aid access. An index (not seen) is provided, but no glossary. This fascinating book is easily accessible to laypersons. Highly recommended.
And for FTR: besides the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) the other fringe organisations providing experts involved in the collation of the official reports were the Structural Engineering Institute; American Society of Civil Engineers, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, National Fire Protection Association, American Institute of Steel Construction, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, and the Structural Engineers Association of New York and a number of universities in the US and the UK.
The official reports are now so old that the outcomes and recommendations in respect of the design & engineering failures of the Twin Towers have for nearly a decade formed part of the ‘new standards’ in respect of “increased structural integrity, enhanced fire endurance of buildings, new methods for fire resistant design of structures, enhanced active fire protection” etc. Because unlike Truthers, the experts went straight back to work designing, engineering and building other ridiculously tall buildings around the globe.
Designing buildings that could withstand all terrorist attacks would of course result in many variations of a concrete bunker.
Anyway, 9/11 is so passé….did anyone see the recently screened doco on the 7/7 Truther movement in Britain…. which…….wait for it…………proposes that ……ding ding…….the British Govt planted the bombs on 7/7 and framed those poor Asian kiddies. Total copycats.
Some of the 7/7 Truther’s “evidence” is that “a couple of passengers thought that the explosions had come from under the floor of the carriage” …….As we all know train commuters are totally familiar with being inside in a packed commuter train carriage when a small explosion is detonated without warning, and bits of fellow passenger’s bodies are flung all over them…..And of course only one or two passengers state this, but whatever, ‘their truth’ negates not only other passengers, but the forensic reports from explosive experts who demonstrate exactly how the backpacks exploded on the floor within the carriages, and also how and why these type of explosion can even ‘look like they are coming from apparently below the carriage.’ Nowhere near good enough but.
Any opinion on 7/7 Daggett? and while we are at it……did the Australian Govt plant the bombs in Kuta in 2002? Because there are plenty of Javanese jihad jockeys aligned with Jemaah Islamiyah who could give any 9/11 Truther a run for his/her rupiah.
Is Wahid a Javanese Jihad Jockey?
Cos if he isn’t then perhaps his comments on dateline several years ago are worth thinking about.
I actually saw that interview at the time. Its certainly worth considering wrt the war on terror.
Joe Vaills .. vials of crack maybe. Then again yet another nutjob conspiracy theory connected to something that might actually deserve some investigation. And IIRC what Whaid referred to on that edition of Dateline was closer to ordinary corruption and poor decision making than any masonic plot to usher in a NWO. Hmm, am I seeing a pattern here. :D
Much more interestingly…. did anyone see the doco on Daniel Libeskind the other night on the Teev…He won the competition to design the masterplan to re-build the World Trade Centre site and although according to the doco, is being over-ruled on significant design issues, but not according to him…anyway, there is an interesting Melbourne connection to Libeskind…as he was the international judge for the competition to design Federation Square in 1997.
(It could have been someone else, if he’d picked up his… but that’s another story)…The winning design for Fed Square, as it happened was won by a group of architects; one of the principals having worked for and been a student of Libeskind. According to most in the know, their’s was the outstanding design, so it wasn’t in anyway undeserved.. Libeskind had only stopped being an academic in the early 90′s, having won the competition to design the Jewish Museum in Berlin, but had no significant buildings completed….but is now one of the biggest names in architecture and the Jewish Museum in Berlin is apparently an incredibly meaningful structure. With Melbourne having been home to one of the largest populations of holocaust survivors, in hindsight…it seemed all the more meaningful and fortutious having this reflection and connection.
But anyway, best file under: How cities are built.
That show was great jo. That Berlin building seemed so tripped out…
I really appreciated what that show had to say about how he designed that building. His vision is pretty interesting. It seems like he really nailed the whole art as architecture thing, and as the architecture for a memorial museum, I dunno … the building seems to comment about how history happens too, not just about the specific history itself. (EG The lack of right angles and straight line linearity to actually see the past and the future…)
I was never that into architecture but that show was great.
I did see that doco Jo, and very interesting it was too.
sorry jules, but shitting in your own nest and blowing up the golden Hindu calf never appealed. The article isn’t available on first go and would be interesting to re-read his reasonings……but cutting off direct sources of substantial amounts of hard currency isn’t something one usually factors in when contemplating the logic that drives state actors like the Indonesian military etc. Like ever.
otoh, oppressing minorities, a bit of ethnic & religious cleansing, putting down separatist incursions on a number of islands – Maluku, Papua, Aceh etc…spying on the opposition, bit of assassination of opposition leaders, infiltrating student groups, awarding state contracts to family and mates, generalised corruption, yadda, yadda… any of above.
I was wandering around Federation Square with a visiting couple from Hungary when one of them remarked that Federation Square looked a lot like the Jewish Museum Berlin. Sure enough, the similarities between Libeskind’s building and Federation Square are pretty hard to deny (although I’ve only ever seen the Jewish Museum Berlin via digital images).
Here are some images of the Jewish Museum Berlin:
* Exterior
* Interior
* Glass courtyard
For those who haven’t seen it yet, here are some images of Federation Square:
* Gallery 1
* Gallery 2
* Gallery 3
I love Federation Square – and the architecture in Melbourne generally. It’s a dark, elegant city.
That link goes to some video from a show where Wahid claimed that the motivation for support of JI was actually to encourage the flow of hard currency, from the US to combat terrorism. The show was actually Dateline, on SBS. I saw it. He actually said that stuff. He made the claim that the motivation was money, specifically anti terror funding. I think there might be a link or the url to the actual transcript somewhere on the link i posted above. For some reason the transcript wasn’t available at the SBS website. Tho it might be now.
Maybe I’m naive to think that when a former Indonesian President makes those claims he is not making it all up for his own reasons. The whole point is that I don’t know, and its yet another unanswered question wrt the legitimacy of the war on terror. Especially if the people involved actually thought they would profit more from that course of action. I guess we’ll never know.
“otoh, oppressing minorities, a bit of ethnic & religious cleansing, putting down separatist incursions on a number of islands – Maluku, Papua, Aceh etc…spying on the opposition, bit of assassination of opposition leaders, infiltrating student groups, awarding state contracts to family and mates, generalised corruption, yadda, yadda… any of above.”
The two ideas aren’t actually mutually exclusive imo.
jules, I don’t have the time tonight, but just quickly….wasn’t Walid an Islamist with quite strong views on many subjects..no?
Anyway, it just doesn’t make any business sense to almost destroy one of the country’s biggest foreign revenue earners (and one that probably sees a lot of cash into a lot of private bank accounts in Jakarta) all to gain some more military contracts, when getting more US military contracts has never been a problem.
Heh. Dutton (aka ‘the Dickson douchebag’) signs own electoral death warrant in spectacular and avoidable public cock-up.
“I’m sure that the voters of Dickson will show the same loyalty to Peter Dutton that he has shown to them,” Albanese said.
Wahid has copped criticim for actually recognising Israel and he seemed to be not as bad as some Indonesian leaders. He was a lot less of a prick than Suharto.
He’s a muslim, but I wouldn’t call him an islamist, and I can’t associate his concilliatory attitude toward Israel with someone who would support JI, or try to cover for them.
Dunno what the actual cost of the bali Bombings was to the Indonesian economy, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to evaluate the potential gain for the individuals he refers to (but doesn’t name) in the SBS interview. Thats why I think an investigation into his claims might be a good idea.
Interesting interlude, folks, but let’s get back to the topic of this thread, being, erm…miscellaneous…
No. Should I?
Mmh, it seems you don’t think much of the audience, Daggy. You know, the fact that you have problems with comprehension and motivation doesn’t imply that others do. Whoever’s interested can go back, read what they wish and draw their own conclusions. Evidently, many already have.
What was is it you were saying about new material and not bloating the thread?
Er, Fyodor, I’m afraid daggett has used the magic power of Sarcasm upon you, no less than thrice in one comment.
So you’ve got no option but to surrender, I’m afraid.
It’s a shame. You were doing so well up till then.
Too right, young Atreides. The worst part is that now he’s mastered sarcasm he’ll be laying literary smackdown faster than you can say alliterative allegory.
So Dagget can I ask, at the risk of sounding dim, do you believe that the towers were brought down by a controlled explosions? I ask this because a that a rational person must treat your conclusions as ones of based on faith rather than fact given that there is a total absence of any direct evidence of the explosion or direct evidence of a conspiracy or parties to a conspiracy to arrange for such an explosion? In effect you present no direct evidence whatsoever to support your case.
On the other hand there is a wealth of direct evidence showing two large aeroplanes colliding at high speed with the towers, not long after which a fires ensue and the towers collapse. Not only that there are also eyewitnesses and evidence gathered through a forensic examination of the aftermath.
That last post by me was very poorly edited, the person responsible has been sacked.
Firstly, it seems like a lengthy post I made and Saturday (@ 594) which, for reasons unknown to me, was placed in the moderation queue, has finally been approved. In that post I believe that I have demonstrated that Bob’s answers (@ 588) to my earlier questions (@ 587) can only mean that he rejects Newton’s Second Law of Motion and other absurdities. If anything there requires further explanation, please let me know.
There’s also a response to Nick’s post (@ 592) and a response to Liam’s post (@ 589)
—
Bob (@ 627) sees nothing odd about there was no mention whatsoever of the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7 in the 9/11 Commission.
Yes, Bob an ‘investigation’ into the collapse of WTC 7 was eventually ‘tasked’, as you put it, to NIST after a public outcry. It wasn’t ‘tasked’ by the 9/11 Commission. Instead, it attempted to sweep the whole question under the carpet.
Having said that, as far as I am concerned, Bob, you have shown that your motives for participation in this discussion are not genuine. I see no reason why I should feel obligated to respond further to any of your forum spam, other than, perhaps, to suggest that people re-read whatever post it is that you purport to be debunking and decide for themselves which makes more sense.
On the other hand, if anyone else, happens to spot anything in any of Bob’s posts that I may have missed, that they think is worthy of a response on my part, please let me know.
–
PatrickB (@ 650),
Firstly, I have presented a lot of direct evidence in support of the controlled demolition hypothesis as an explanation for the collapses of the twin towers. See 139, 142, 193, 227, 236, 237, 246, 265, 291. Also, see Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
I think your understanding of the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement is fairly simplistic. It doesn’t dispute that planes flew into the Tiwn Towers (although some fringe elements, some suspected to have been planted by the US Government to discredit the 9/11 Truth Movement, absurdly argue that they were holograms), nor does it rule out that Arabs hijacked the planes.
What it argues is firstly the twin towers should have remained standing as there was plenty of redundant structural strength remaining after the impacts and secondly, even if the towers collapsed they should not have collapsed as fast as they didand in the way that they did.
The only explanation for what we witnessed was that explosives had to have been planted. Why not check out that image of the South Tower ‘collapsing’ at the top left hand of the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth web site and try to tell me, with a straight face, that is not the result of the detonation of massive quantities of explosives?
I would be most most interested to know what eyewitness testimony and physical evidence confirms the official account of the Twin Tower ‘collapses’.
If I haven’t already done so above, I can guarantee that I can show you very quickly and with the minimum of fuss, if you are interested, that the evidence that the Twin Tower ‘collapses’ were controlled demolitions is conclusive.
—
Jo wrote (@ 650):
I don’t think need to have an in-depth grasp of structural engineering principles in order to be able to see that the official account of the ‘collapses’ is utter garbage. Please see my posts concerning the Twin Towers referred to above in this post and my post concerning the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ (@ 519) and tell me where I am wrong.
I appreciate that “Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail” may be a worthwhile book in most regards, but if it defends the Official explanation of the Twin Tower and WTC 7 ‘collapses’, then, frankly, that part of the book has to be garbage, just as, from what I have seen of the NIST report, I can see that it is garbage.
Please, by all means, try to prove me wrong by citing on this forum the relevant parts of either of those books which address my arguments put on this forum.
I have read of the London Tube (7/7) bombings and am convinced that it was a false flag terrorist operation staged by British Spy agencies. I don’t have all the facts at hand at this moment, but the floors of the trains were blown upwards, which is impossible if the bombs had been in haversacks detonated inside the carriages. Also, there has never been an inquiry into 7/7 so the Government’s ‘case’ has not been properly tested.
Sacking is too good for them. They should be forced to precis daggett’s posts.
You’re a cruel bastard Ambigulous.
Seriously though, how come everybody’s ignored Nana Levu’s post @ 633? Some interesting questions I would have thought, if a trifle circumstantial…
Like, um, you know, I’m a big fan of Vanessa Amorosi, and, um, you know, I really think her career would really take off if she recorded some decent material, so, like, um, you know, I think Vanessa should record this as her next single.
Not interesting at all, it’s the same old tinfoil hat stuff.
Just bizarre. Love it. The Rockefellers suggested the idea of the WTC (David suggested it, Nelson pushed it through as governor, but otherwise had nothing to do with it), therefore its destruction was clearly served the interests of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission and water flouridators.
But was 9/11 orchestrated because the New York Port Authority wanted to save a billion dollars, or because the Council on Foreign Relations wanted the US to get bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq? Make your mind up please.
We are almost at 666. No don’t look at me, I’m rather inept at thread collapsing. I’m sticking to man flaying. But one would think that at least Dagget might stick around, given his sheer bloody mindedness has made me read this far. It seems he is done for I’m afraid. Almost 24 hours have passed since we have seen him. The Red finally put him to bed. What a shame. Dagget don’t give up! He’s only a sociopathic b grade tv sidekick on the Simpsons with a passion for flashin’ .Baby come back!
Okay its only been less than 12 hours, but still, a record. Don’t give up Dagget!
You are a naughty, naughty boy, Molly.
daggett @ 651:
“If I haven’t already done so above, I can guarantee that I can show you very quickly and with the minimum of fuss, if you are interested, that the evidence that the Twin Tower ‘collapses’ were controlled demolitions is conclusive.”
Molly,
maaaate
Welcome to the thread, Molly; it’s going to be massive, like when you were hobbing or nobbing with those star rockers; like just fantastic. But here’s a question, and you’re the bloke to give us the goss.: Is Missy Higgins Greek?
Thanks for having asked, Nick (@659), As I wrote on the Online Opininion 9/11 Truth Forum on 16 January 2009:
The NIST hypothesis, which purports to explain the structural failure of the 92 floors on the South Tower below the floors damaged by the impact of Flight 175, requires that the top 12 undamaged floors must have fallen as a rigid block and, therefore, there must have been an impact with the lower 92 floors, which should have been recorded on the video evidence of the collapse.
However, the (PDF) paper ["The Missing Jolt"] amoeba referred to shows that, from video evidence, there was no such sudden impact. The top 12 floors continued to fall smoothly beyond the point where they should have impacted.
Therefore the lower 92 floors were no longer a rigid body at the point where the top 12 floors should have impacted and must have already started to give way (whether we agree that it would have occurred after it fell only 1 floor or 6 floors or anywhere in between).
The only explanation put forward that could possibly explain this is if the strength at the top of the lower 92 floors had already been removed. That could only have been done by explosives.
In the words of the conclusion to http://journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/TheMissingJolt.pdf :
Daggett is referring to the MIT paper by professors of civil engineering, which modelled the plane-fire-collapse failure of the twin towers on 13/11/09, two days after the attack. Truthers often refer to the mathematics within as “mumbo-jumbo”.
jules….Islamist..wasn’t what I was looking for, but it had to do, cause I couldn’t frigging remember.. getting old , but now that I’ve refreshed the banks thank you intertubes….what I should have said was that he was all-over-the-shop and became increasingly more so towards the end of his presidency and esp. in the aftermath of his impeachment, and as you posted some good policies, some crazybrave and some right out there etc…..and that is not to say the Indonesia he inherited wasn’t wasn’t exactly like him, all over the place with the TNI and Golkar having had fingers in nearly every pie and then seemingly in every pie…… and if they agents working with groups in some places at many stages, it doesn’t always necessarily follow that JI wasn’t able to organise and carry out the Bali bombings without help from any internal security agency.
As it just happens I was in Bali a week or so and many view the island as still “recovering” from the bombings with tourist numbers slowly-slowly coming back, although there are many other SE Asian destinations in competition with Bali for tourist dollars these days….The Governor of Bali at the opening of International Writers & readers Festival in Ubud, which I gatecrashed only because I was staying at the palace where the opening was held….gave a heartfelt speech about the bombing and also about the devastation of the island’s economy in the aftermath and of the many lives ruined through long term unemployment, it was quite moving. The festival btw. was created by an Australian ex-pat as a direct response to the bombings specifically to bring people back to Bali. In terms of the economic consequences, I can’t find exact numbers online right now, but I believe it was huge.
There is also something slightly racist in the view that Al Qaeda were just too dim to have carried out 9/11, although they helped beat off the evil empire in Afghanistan etc.… And so many terrorists groups including the old IRA, don’t still and didn’t seen to have much trouble detonating bombs or hijacking planes for years, but somehow 9/11 and 7/7 and Bali are all suddenly beyond the capability of the groups & individuals charged with these acts, just because they targeted western cities and/ or westerners., altho 9/11 was an order of magnitude above the usual MO…… but there I would look to nice Jewish boys in Hollywood & spy thriller writers….Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance etc..and Independence Day which when I saw it on big screen, I thought to myself, hhm, that was some significant moment when the White House was spectacularly blown to kingdom come just like any other building…some sort of psychological barrier crossed…ok…just heading off into my own weird speculations.
Although having posted all of the above. I don’t 110% exclude the involvement of operatives in terms of Bali, however, there were some 500 Australian police from a number of different police services involved in an exhaustive forensic investigation in situ including following money trails, so it seems a wee bit unlikely for them have missed big chunks of the picture. Walid says in the interview that the small bomb was planted by the JI but the bigger bomb was planted by ‘others’….surely this would have been discovered by someone.
Of course the Hilton Hotel Bombing..and the possible involvement of the NSW Special Branch is a salient homegrown lesson about internal security agencies albeit from a different era, but, otoh, there had been other bombs exploded in Sydney during those days which were just acts by different groups and individuals … Croats bombed the Yugoslav consulate in Double Bay in the late 60′s, Armenians shot the Turkish Consul-General in the 80′s and then bombed the consulate in Melbourne a few years later. The Israeli embassy got a blast in Sydney at some stage. And Family Court judges had some family members blown to bits as well.
And didn’t some loner blow up the Byron Bay Social Security Office in the 80′s….. or was this an urban legend?
13/09/01
Daggett, you do understand the concept of providing evidence FOR something, right?
That was what you specifically said you could provide, and in a conclusive fashion too.
A question which some people find puzzling, and an answer they have made up for themselves is NOT EVIDENCE FOR ANYTHING AT ALL.
Do you get it?
It might be counted as evidence against a particular explanatory account, but that does not mean that it’s okay for someone to invent their own version for which they cannot provide any positive evidence.
Please do me the favour of showing me that you have understood the above. Note that I have not mentioned 9/11 – can you just address it in the abstract and demonstrate that when we use the phrase “evidence for x” we are talking about the same thing?
jo
did you visit the Puri Lukisan Museum (art) in Ubud too? A very fine collection.
Sing it back to teacher.
The NIST hypothesis “requires” this? Where?
Ah, yes: the paper by the PhD in Buddhist Studies and the “design engineer” [N.B. not structural engineer] with the bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, based on eyeballing – you guessed it – dodgy video footage. None of the assertions above are based upon expert opinion on what should, or should not, have happened. They’re garbage.
Totes awse clip Liam. Thank you.
The apogee of the quality of Yūgen (幽玄) in Noh Theatre
Doh, meant to say the paper by Zdenek Bazant and Yong Zhou, which was being dissed by…..refer 667.
The most devastating refutation of this still referenced paper on a main Truther’s site – was that “they must be super-geniuses to have come up with that only two days after the attack”…Dunning Kruger Effect on a planetary scale.
That was special Liam @666.
You deserve a rolled gold monster classic from the Year …Nineteen Seventy One:
Double U, O, O, O.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnG3h66Patw
“Dunning Kruger Effect on a planetary scale”
Word up, well put.
To such a global problem, I can only propose the Venutian Solution.
jo thanks for a very interesting reply. Most of which I agree with most of the time.
I’m not that into speculating who or what was involved in the bali Bombing, the real reason I brought Wahid’s interview up was to contrast it with the common perception that any suggestion of anyone other than JI being involved brings up questionable characters like Joe viles, and his, er … unusual claims.
Instead of the more obvious, (and more deserving of consideration, whatever the outcome of that consideration,) claims of Wahid re his own security forces potential involvement. There is no proof of those claims, but … I dunno, given Wahid’s time in office he may have become paranoid, or he could have an agenda.
And who knows, maybe some Australian investigators came across information they decided was not worth publicising given the politcal climate. That doesn’t imply any nefarious intent either… so I’m not claiming anything, just wondering.
Its interesting the way crazy bat brained theories get attatched to some questionable events. Same with the racist freaks. Its bollocks to claim that the hijackers weren’t capable of doing what they did, (tho they did pull off some fancy flying in some cases. Dunno if its as facy as people think, but its impressive.) And who the fuck knows, maybe the real target was the capitol building or the white house and he fucked up and hit what he could… thats the point, we’ll never know and it doesn’t actually matter any more.
Your own weird specultions are far more interesting. I meant to go on about the weird speculations over the weekend a few hundred posts ago, but was busy and didn’t get online … by the time I got back it was more of the same ….
I have never heard about the byon bay bombing tho, all the others yes … thats one I’ll have to sus out, I know a few people who lived in byron during the 80s. they never mentioned it.
The Byron Bay one did happen. Who could forgetr an attempt to blow up the SS. (I think it had something to do with child support issues, but it was a long time ago.)
Note how Jo, FDB and Bob have not even attempted to refute the “Missing Jolt” argument.
—
FDB wrote:
Not ‘might’. It shows conclusively that the NIST explanation of the South Tower ‘collapse’ is garbage.
FDB continued:
And if it’s garbage, then NIST has to be told to come up with a proper explanation, or else, get out of the way and allow people who are competent to do so, to find a proper explanation.
As I have said, the only other explanation that anyone has offered for how the lower part of the tower could have lost its strength fast enough to prevent a jolt from the upper block being observed is that it was a controlled demolition.
The physical evidence and eyewitness testimony in support of the controlled demolition hypothesis is vast. As just one of many I could give, why not just take a look at the image here? Can anyone here seriously maintain that they cannot see, with there own eyes, powerful and violent explosions as the top of the South Tower begins to topple over?
And don’t forget the nano-thermite found in the dust samples from the World Trade Center.
—
Bob demanded:
Translation: I am too lazy to check the document for myself, so it cannot be true.
Bob, if you had read “The Missing Jolt” to which I provided a link, you would have found this in the footnotes:
14. The following four points commit NIST to impact and jolt:
(a) NIST speaks of the core of the building as consisting of three sections, which correspond closely to the sections we have spoken of when discussing the building as a whole:
“At this point, the core of WTC 1 could be imagined to be in three sections. There was a bottom section below the impact floors that could be thought of as a strong, rigid box, structurally undamaged and at almost normal temperatures. There was a top section above the impact and fire floors that was also a heavy, rigid box. In the middle was the third section, partially damaged by the aircraft and weakened by heat from the fires.” (NIST NCSTAR 1, p. 79)
(b) The section of the building above the damage zone NIST calls a “rigid block.” This rigid block first manifests its independent movement when it tilts to the south. (“The section of the building above the impact zone (near the 98th floor), acting as a rigid block, tilted…” NIST NCSTAR 1, p. 201.) NIST also refers to this rigid block with terms such as “upper section,” “building section above the impact zone,” “building mass,” “upper building section” and “structural block.” See NIST NCSTAR 1, pp. 83, 195, 196, 201
(c) NIST acknowledges that this rigid block then falls. NIST says that “the building section began to fall downward,” “the building section began to fall vertically.” Indeed, we are told that this falling rigid block goes through all or part of the damaged area “essentially in free fall.”
(“Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos.”) See NIST NCSTAR 1-6, pp. 416, 238; NIST NCSTAR 1, p. 196.
(d) After falling through all or part of the damaged area of the tower, the rigid block or falling building mass encounters “intact structure.” (“The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that through energy of deformation.”) See NIST NCSTAR 1, p. 196. This “intact structure,” has, of course, already been referred to as including the core of the building, described as “a strong, rigid box, structurally undamaged and at almost normal temperatures.”
—
Also, Bob, let us know if you have had any second thoughts about rejecting Newton’s Second Law of Motion.
“It shows conclusively that the NIST explanation of the South Tower ‘collapse’ is garbage.”
No it doesn’t, daggett.
It highlights the simplifications that were acknowledged within Bazant and Zhou’s initial paper, and that NIST followed through with.
It has its own simplifications too, you know.
Can you spot them?
(The version you linked to has glaring errors, since corrected which is to Szamboti’s credit. He’s no Chandler in that regard. You might want to try tracking down the latest revision.)
Nick,
The argument, put in the article “The Missing Jolt,” is perfectly simple. (The latest version, BTW, is at http://journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/TheMissingJolt7.pdf downloadable from the front page of that web site.)
‘Simplifications’ or not, you still haven’t explained where Graeme MacQueen’s and Tony Szamboti’s arguments or measurements are wrong.
So, how about sharing with everyone here the ‘glaring errors’ you claim to have found?
Nick wrote,
Yeah, right, Nick.
I have responded to Bob’s claims of the supposed shortcomings in David Chandler’s work here (@ 529) and neither you nor Bob has acknowledged that argument. Anyone who views the videos I linked to, particularly “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ … The Movie” can watch for themselves US High School Physics teacher David Chandler running rings around the supposedly vastly more qualified and accomplished engineers, Dr. Shyam Sunder and Dr. John Gross.
His exchange with them in the above linked video, to be found in the earlier above-linked video (and article) “WTC7 in Freefall” bears repeating:
You can call me a ‘Chandler’ any day, but don’t ever dare call me a ‘Sunder’ or a ‘Gross’.
Your utter failure to respond in the abstract to my comment on the nature of positive evidence is illuminating, Daggett.
It shows that your understanding of logic is subordinate to your opinions about 9/11.
Which kind of undermines you.
Dagget,
I had a scan through your post at 139 and I can’t find any direct evidence. I think you’d need to support your case with some actual proof that the buildings had been wired with explosives. By actual proof some eye witness accounts from people who saw the explosives being attached, or perhaps some service staff who stumbled across the explosives after they had been attached would suffice. Can you point us to any testimony that confirms that an explosion brought down any of the buildings?
I think you’re right that my understanding is rather simplistic, but on the other hand yours is way to complex.
I think you have what is called a circumstantial case and more often than not these are very difficult cases to prove, particularly when there is a great deal of physical evidence to rebut the case.
“I would be most most interested to know what eyewitness testimony and physical evidence confirms the official account of the Twin Tower ‘collapses’.”
I’ll put my hand up for that.
Some towers Fell down. I saw it happen on TV.
My sister saw it happen in person and worked on it for US media, liaising with the officials conducting the cleanup and investigation in the immediate aftermath, and helping coordinate the gathering of information.
Oh but that’s right, she’s part of the official conspiracy.
Anyone at all is credible if they’re a truther, and nobody else.
Sure, daggett, though I didn’t write that they were ‘glaring errors’ – I wrote that they were ‘simplifications’.
1) Why did Szamboti choose 1 in every 5 frames to sample? Why ignore the rest of the data? (You can quote from the paper on this one if you like.) What reason to choose that set of 1 in every 5 frames, rather than the other 4 available?
2) In Figures 5 and 6, why are the ‘abrupt negative slopes’ so abrupt and consume 100% of their energy (31g and 6g)? What does this imply occurred in real life to the two bodies which collided?
3) In Figures 5 and 6, why are the hypothetical ‘velocity recovery’ slopes identical to the actual/sampled linear regression? What does this imply occurred?
Chandler has been legitimately brought up many, many times on the shortcomings of his work and the limitations of his understanding of mechanics and physics, and responded with little more than obscenity, accusations, bile and slander. He’s running a popularity contest, in case you haven’t noticed, daggett.
I gave Szamboti credit for mostly having responded to his critics, corrected his mistakes, and argued his case for CT, in a vastly more mature, professional and scientific fashion, and for not bothering to follow Chandler down his rabbit holes of unscientific nonsense speculation.
I’m not calling you anything.
I certainly did, at #667 – the “Missing Jolt” argument, as you put it, is uninformed opinion from two blokes who aren’t competent to discuss the issues at hand.
Says who? Your retired expert in Buddhism and “design engineer” don’t address NIST’s explanation; they address a strawman of their own fabrication. Their conclusions are garbage.
*puts hand up*
I can’t. Could be an explosion, could be a building collapsing – I honestly don’t know. You don’t know either.
First off, Daggy, you’ve been unable to prove that the NIST report does not explain the collapses of the relevant towers.
Second, your alternative explanation, the “controlled demolition” hypothesis, has no supporting physical evidence or RELIABLE eyewitness testimony. As noted above, sure, plenty of people thought they saw and heard lots of things – that doesn’t mean their impressions were correct. Far from being vast, as we’ve seen the evidence for your preferred theory is non-existent.
Third, the “controlled demolition” hypothesis isn’t the “only other” explanation that has been offered. Some of your fellow lunatics argue that a directed energy weapon destroyed the WTC towers. Of course, that theory is crap, too, but don’t kid yourself into believing that your dopey theory is the only one out there.
What nano-thermite, Daggy?
Not true. First, those are questions, not demands.
Second, I’ve read the document. You haven’t, remember?
Third, I asked the question because, having read the document, I couldn’t find the text supporting your assertions.
FFS, Daggy. If I ask you for references to the NIST report I expect you to quote FROM THE NIST REPORT. What is so difficult about that?
All you’ve done, you lazy twit, is copy and paste from your discredited report. Not only is that report patently unreliable (the page number references for the NIST report are incorrect, for one thing, which demonstrates the sloppy handling of detail), it cherrypicks and takes quotations out of context, attacks a strawman concoction, not the NIST hypothesis, and confirms NEITHER of your assertions that: 1) “the top 12 undamaged floors must have fallen as a rigid block”; and 2) “there must have been an impact with the lower 92 floors, which should have been recorded on the video evidence of the collapse”.
Absolutely cack-handed garbage, Daggy.
You wha’? Where am I supposed to have done that? Oh, I see, you’ve had a comment in moderation. Oh well, better late than never: allow me to trash it now, in a separate comment.
[comment in moderation]
For starters: you’re being sloppy with detail again as you’ve misquoted me. At #588 I wrote,
And, yes, Daggy, providing a link to the actual NIST report, that lays out in detail the NIST explanation, is, strangely enough, providing the NIST explanation. The fact that you’re too lazy to read it is not my problem.
Again, I’ve ALREADY DONE THAT, TOO, at #502 I quoted the relevant text from the NIST report describing the collapse.
No, it’s not, but that didn’t stop you from wasting everyone’s time by attempting it with your dopey summaries.
Refer to my comment #502, where we went through this before, or the NIST report itself if you prefer. The building did not fall at free fall speed and it was already collapsing before the 2.5s period that concerns you so much. Furthermore, the top of the building had already collapsed before your high-school teacher started his clock.
I’ve said nothing of the sort, and I challenge you to prove it. As noted ALREADY, at #502, the NIST report makes it very clear that the building was ALREADY COLLAPSING before this 2.5 second interval you keep wittering about. Furthermore, your opinion on what “must” have happened is worthless. Your reference to Newton’s Second Law of Motion is witless irrelevance.
Rubbish. Sorry if this bursts your bubble, Daggy, but your opinion on the structural engineering of WTC 7 is neither Newton’s Second Law of Motion or relevant.
You are in no position to assess whether this hypothetical “remaining structural support” would, or would not, have obstructed the fall. You simply DON’T KNOW. As I’ve warned you before, floating your incompetent opinions on hypothetical situations does not constitute evidence or proof of any kind.
As I haven’t rejected Newton’s Second Law of Motion, no, I haven’t pondered that.
Heh. That needed a comment, did it?
Hahaha. I haven’t asked you to go down any rabbit holes, Daggy. I’ve asked you to prove your assertions with evidence. That you choose not to is your problem – clearly your delusional beliefs about 9/11 don’t require proof. As I’ve noted before, your beliefs on this subject are theological, not rational.
“My sister saw it happen in person”
So did my brother, he’s lived in NYC for about 14 years. Also a guy I’m working with here in Perth was in NYC at the time and saw it happen. There Dagget, at least three people who were there saw the planes hit the twin towers, the towers burn and then collapse.
Bob, your fortitude is astounding.
dagsterman
suggest you read “The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America” by Hugh Wilford. the thing is, the real power/control conspiracies, unearthed through actual professional historical research..are really really boring and because of that, even in front of our faces, never noticed and very very effective. ..
yours, nice and adventurous as it is, is far too exciting to be anywhere near true…. governments/corporations don’t need to get up to these really interesting , silly (lets face it) and complex covert actions running secret cables and pretending to be airplanes flying into buildings dag…they bore us into submission over decades…..anyway it all makes great u tube fodder, the reader’s digest of teh interwebs….but it’s all bollocks dag…put your undoubted energies into something real…properly study some real politics of power and control maybe?..find out how mundane it all actually is….
I’m onto you “Eric Sykes”.
Your handle’s an anagram of “Rick’s eyes”.
And who’s Rick, I hear you ask?
Busted. You were in on it from the get go.
I bet you thought by dying, and having your eyes transplanted you’d escape justice. But you should know that the Truth will eventually out.
It was a long long time ago that I said a similar thing but really, comment 687 (this time) just about sums up this entire thread.
And please, there’s no need to get to 1000. No prizes of any worth you understand and the glory will be but fleeting..
All glory is but fleeting adrian…
Unless someone keeps on polishing the halo.
Bob wrote:
No, you didn’t, Bob. All you did was engage in an ad hominem attack.
I think that that start is a good indication of the quality of the rest of Bob’s two posts. Others are welcome to check for themselves, that is, if they have the rest of the day to spare.
I might return to this to discuss how you have further confirmed his poor grasp of Newton’s Second Law of Motion, but not now.
Of course, the last sentence should have read:
I might return to this to discuss how you have further confirmed your poor grasp of Newton’s Second Law of Motion, but not now.
That’s all I had to do, Daggy. Argumentum ad hominem was entirely appropriate given you introduced the opinions of a Buddhist theologian and “design engineer” on the structural engineering of the WTC towers. Their opinions are not reliable due to their lack of expertise in the subject, and pointing this out is a valid ad hominem argument.
You don’t have any schooling at all in logic or rhetoric, do you, Daggy?
Wow, you must be a really slow reader. When you read, Daggy, to you have to mouth the words? I think that comment from you is a squib.
I’m still waiting for you to demonstrate where I’m supposed by you to have rejected it. In the meantime, I’ll consider you a shameless liar.
Devotees of this thread will be thrilled to learn that the Sunshine Coast Hinterland’s Hinterland Voice is now online with a complete archive of back issues.
Contrary to Adrian at @689, anyone who makes it to a 1000 will win an internet of their choice. Or a badge of some kind that they can proudly wear to show their participation in the campaign.
Well in that case…
Who cares about glory that is but fleeting, give me the internet.
That’s the spirit. Onwards to a 1000!
Dja hear that, Missy?! We’re comin’ to gitcha!
It’s gunna be tough from here on up….
Ok, daggett, let’s assume that the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers did take place….god help us….and secondly because the operatives involved in this conspiracy numbering into the hundreds were so freaking good that for the first time in history, that they did not leave behind any shred of evidence in the planning stages. Evidence such as of any of the following:
1) The tens of thousands of metres of cabling, hundreds of fuses, ignition mechanisms, detonators and the hundreds of kilos of explosives; where they manufactured, how where the materials procured and transported, copies of production notes, shipping records, phone records, emails, faxes, receipts and so on
2) No paper trail in respect of the hundreds of thousands of dollars this controlled demolition of two of the largest building on the planet would have cost besides the tripling or quadrupling of costs needed to keep it “black”.
3) No evidence as to the mechanism of detonation, no leases of nearby buildings, no evidence of the transport used, petrol brought, tools used, no evidence in respect of the dates and times of when the explosives were planted. And nothing on the fake uniforms or fake security passes used to get by security.
4) And it goes without saying…, no sworn testimony of any persons involved in this controlled demolition… be they the manufacturers or distributors of the materials, likewise the people who planned & carried out the demolition, nor any of the operative working inside the Port Authority and all the other Govt agencies involved……and not one single person has rolled over, even though they murdered thousands of their fellow countrymen and destroyed a part of one of their country’s major cities…
Ok, so assuming that you have many hundreds of people who have acted with all the internal logic of Bond villain henchmen….it should not be hard on the other hand to provide lots and lots of evidence from all the WTC building occupants…remembering that the overwhelming vast majority of building occupants ‘survived the attacks’, or weren’t at work…on the controlled demolition.
Please link to any sworn testimony or evidence in respect of the laying of all the cabling, detonators, fuses, cutting through steel beams etc. etc in the weeks or months leading up to 9/11 in any of these three buildings.
Come on, this should be an absolute doddle!!… Tens of thousands of people and exactly how many building occupants and visitors have provided sworn testimony or provided emails or faxes or phone messages mentioning or referring to this extensive operation being undertaken in their workplace, going on for many weeks prior?
For instance:
“There are some blokes working in the stairwell every single night when I leave the office…I’ve asked Head Office but they don’t know anything…etc…
“Jeez, I tripped over a cable being laid in my corner office this afternoon for some building upgrade, I’ll see you soon for drinks/dinner/putting the kids to bed”
“I’m so sick of the noise the contractors are making on the floor above, it sounds like they are cutting through steel beams!!”
Where is the evidence of, and the witnesses to, this outrageous Govt plot which destroyed part of their city, blew their workplace to pieces and killed their friends?.. You only have possibly fifty thousand people who worked, visited and maintained these building every week.
Why are they all keeping shtum, daggett?
And why didn’t hundreds if not thousands of them, recall in the aftermath, having seen ‘contractors’ working in the building in the lead up to, even if not one had noted anything at the time…..and so on?
Ur, durr….because.. it didn’t happen daggett.
That’s why all the people directly affected by the attack with absolutely nothing to gain either way, just ordinary folk; secretaries, waitresses, accounts clerks, IT workers, car park attendants, cleaners..thousands and thousands of them, have not come forward to support the controlled demolition theory, because they know it didn’t happen and they were there.
So just for a moment, forget your doctored youtube videos and “reports” from people who have no standing whatsoever in the civil or structural engineering community…..and just focus on the the tens of thousand of innocent ordinary building occupants…not the Govt-CIA-Pentagon goons of your imagination…just the tens of thousands of innocent workers whom you are, by promoting this theory, deeming to be all idiots, dupes & fools.
Now, we all know why you may not have any faith in the Govt etc, but why do you have absolutely no regard whatsoever for all the ordinary men and women caught up in these events?
Please daggett, I would be interested in your reponses to jo above without any worthless you tube links or references to previous posts by you or anyone else.
I think that there is really only one answer, and I’d like to know why you won’t consider it.
“Now, we all know why you may not have any faith in the Govt etc, but why do you have absolutely no regard whatsoever for all the ordinary men and women caught up in these events?”
One of whom, as I keep saying, is my sister. One of the loveliest, brightest people and most rigorous journalists you could hope to meet. If you keep slandering her by implication Daggett, I’ve a good mind to sool her on you.
I mean, I did say she’s lovely, but to accuse her and her New York friends (some dead) of complicity might just bring out her other side.
Then you’ll long for the good old days of banal sarcasm and youtube links, believe me.
adrian and jo,
I have deliberately avoided bringing, into this discussion, vast amounts of other material about 9/11, also damning of the US Government’s ‘case’, because my intention was to conclude arguing about some fairly open and shut aspects of 9/11, that is the ‘collapses’ of WTC 7 and the Twin Towers.
Jo, before you demand answers to questions regarding all manner other aspects of 9/11, I think you should properly deal with the arguments. I don’t accept that ad hominem arguments that Graeme MaxQueen Tony Szamboti aren’t qualified write a paper about the ‘collapse’ is an acceptable substitute for actually rebutting their argument.
At least Nick has attempted to address some aspects of that argument, for which I thank him, even if they seem somewhat peripheral to me.
Nick wrote:
Possibly to reduce the amount of work necessary and to reduce the size of their paper. Personally, I would have prepared to see a greater rate of sampling, but I see no reason to assume that more sampling would have fundamentally altered anything. I expect that if it could have, we would certainly have heard about that from the ‘debunkers’ by now.
Nick wrote:
I would suggest to simplify the diagram. The essential point remains. The observed descent was smoooth. No-where was the jolt that would be necessary to cause the part of the building below, undamaged by fire at that point, to suddenly lose all of its structural strength so quickly as Barzant argued must have happened.
This can only mean that the structural strength has already been removed before the top section could have hit. (Of course, even that idea seems preposterous to me, because it is impossible to imagine how mere fire could have so suddenly removed the strength in the floors between the rigid top section and the rigid bottom section, to allow the intial descent to occur in the way it was observed, but that is what Barzant is arguing and not what I am arguing.) There is no other way I know of that could possibly have happened, except with the use of explosives. Given that the photos and much eyewitness testimony says that that is what did I happen, I would suggest that this is the most likely explanation.
Nick continued:
It would imply that after the jolt, downwards acceleration would have continued at roughly the same rate as the impacted building below gave way. Don’t forget, they are only depicting what should have happened accourding to Barzant’s theory, not according to their own.
Nick continued:
Where has David Chandler engaged in “obscenity, accusations, bile and slander”? Please provide examples.
I think to accuse someone of “running a popularity contest” is both beside the point and subjective. As far as I am concerned he has a very clear way of explaining things, far more so than Dr. John Gross and Dr. Shyam Sunder as I showed above and, for that, he should be acknowledged.
Nick continued:
And you have not proven him wrong. How about either proving him wrong or acknowledging that he is right?
Nick continued:
I see nothing ‘immature’ in what Chandler has said. Dr. John Gross and Dr. Shyam Sunder showed themselves to be either incompetent or preocccupied with covering up the lies in their investigation and Chandler had evry right to draw that to our attention.
Awesome.
Maybe just answer Jo’s questions Daggett. They’re much more fundamental to the whole topic than the minutiae of which expert said what about what and when they said it.
Oh, and still silent on your implied slander of my sister?
Gee daggett, if that’s the best you can come up with we’ll never make 1000.
You have not replied to jo.
Her questions are reasonable. They are NOT on “other” aspects. jo’s questions are on the very guts of your hypothesis.
They are on a key feature of any controlled demolition: it has to be organised beforehand and physical preparations of the most elaborate and technical nature have to be carried out.
It’s much more complicated in its intricate planning than (say) blowing up a vehicle down in the basement, or (say) flying a huge plane into the side of a building.
It seems to me that jo is correct in surmising the preparations would have taken many weeks, involved hundreds of technicians, and been observed by hundreds if not thousands of workers and visitors.
A friend of mine frequently visited offices in one of the Twin Towers, on work visits. He was lucky not to have been there that morning. He hadn’t seen any preparations.
“It seems to me that jo is correct in surmising the preparations would have taken many weeks, involved hundreds of technicians, and been observed by hundreds if not thousands of workers and visitors.”
Let’s not forget daggett’s fair-weather demolition expert, Jowenko, estimated it would have taken an entire year.
That’s to prepare and hook up just one of the three buildings.
Der dichter spricht.
What? All that crap you dumped here was you avoiding dumping even more conspiracy crap here?! Further, as we’ve seen the stuff you’ve brought WAS fairly “open and shut”, but not in your favour.
Why?
Of course you don’t. You haven’t accepted any refutation of your dopey theories. Time and again the material you’ve presented has been debunked and your response? You simply ignore those refutations and move on to introducing more crap.
What? How would using more data reduce the amount of work necessary or reduce the size of their paper? It’s a trivial number of observations, so the incremental work involved in data collection would have been likewise trivial. And reducing the size of their paper? You’ve never done any data analysis, have you? That should have been an irrelevant concern, and their paper would, IMO, have been rejected by any reputable journal.
No, much more likely is that visually counting pixels frame by frame, at only 0.033 seconds per frame, would have introduced too great a margin of error. “Did the pixel move that time – how much?”. Not that 20 observations over only 3.5 seconds fills me with any confidence in the data.
“Simplify the diagram”? Are you fucking kidding? I shouldn’t have to ask this question, again, but…Daggy…have you actually read the paper?
The answer is: M&S argue, based upon their extensive knowledge of structural engineering, and their assumption that the top floors of the building fell as one rigid block, that this rigid block must have decelerated in velocity from 22.81ft/s to 5.43ft/s. It’s this deceleration that constitutes the “missing jolt” and represents the “dog that didn’t bark”, at least in their (and Daggy’s) view.
However, aside from their evident lack of qualifications in assessing the structural engineering behind their assumptions, M&S’ analysis is flawed even before they get to their calculations, as neither Bazant et al nor NIST state that the top floors fell as a rigid block. As NIST point out in their report, the top of the building tilted (i.e. one side was already collapsing) before global collapse began in a progressive fashion. That is, there was no one large “jolt”, but many progressive failures. M&S’ own data shows that at no point in the video footage did the top floors fall at free-fall speed – there was resistance.
And nor was the descent particularly “smooth”. What you need to remember when looking at Figures 5 and 6 is that they report velocity for each 5-frame interval, which involves inherent averaging (“smoothing”) in itself, BUT they calculate the velocity over 10-frame intervals. The formula’s at the top of page 8. This was the revision that they introduced after they were blasted for incorrectly reporting average velocity (which, in itself, would smooth out the “jolt” they claimed to be searching for), not instantaneous velocity, but it ALSO smoothes out velocity. As an experiment, calculate instantaneous velocity with their data, but using sequential data points [i.e. (n+1)-(n), and not (n+1)-(n-1)] and then see how “smooth” the graph looks.
As I noted earlier, the report is an irrelevant attack on a strawman, and in no way refutes the NIST explanation or supports the “controlled demolition” hypothesis.
First, it does not mean that “the structural strength has already been removed before the top section could have hit.” That’s just clueless and unfounded speculation on your part.
Second, your uninformed opinion on what is preposterous in the context of structural engineering is worthless.
Third, the fact that you don’t “know” any “other way” it could have happened is meaningless, as you are have expertise in neither structural engineering or demolition AND you are clearly biased.
Fourth, you’re in no position to know what is “likely” or not.
Fifth, the photo you link to is, as we have seen, not proof of any explosion. Rather ironically, however, it does show rather nicely the extent to which the top floors tilted (showing progressive collapse) and did not fall as a single block.
Sixth, the eyewitness testimony you refer is likewise unreliable.
It wasn’t Bazant et al’s theory; it was M&S’ concocted strawman.
Your commentary about Doctors Gross and Sunder is biased and slanderous garbage. We already know Chandler’s cack-handed work has been comprehensively refuted.
Dagget,
Still waiting … personally I think the Daggster is a tag team effort.
Wow…9/11 another cool intereting topic.
If anyone is interested in finding out more about 9/11 check out a video called zeitgeist. it is not just some conspiracy vid, but actually features speakers that are qualified.
It can be downloaded for free…just google it.
Also, here is a little know FACT.
There was a conglomerate of commpanies, led by the US which were attempting to build an oil/gas pipeline from turkmenistan down to the Arabian to be shipped away for export. Obviously they needed to pass through afghanistan to reach the arabian sea. So, they approached the taliban to ask permission to build this poil pipeline through their country. the taliban, who were probably not thrilled about the US and other corporate giants virtually stealing oil and wealth from the tiny nation of turkmenistan refused permission. the companies persistedand tried a series of negotiations, offering the taliban anything and everything they could. the taliban refused. Months later, the US began a bombing campaign on afghanistan. this is long before 9/11. they then thought up that the best way to get their objective would be to run campaign against afghanistan/taliban to make them look asbad as possible. so the us ran the campaighn highlighting womens rights and attrocities in afganhistan, which they never seemed too worried about before. Now, i’m not suggesting the taliban are good people, especially towards women. Although they did save their country from the russions. Again this well before 9/11.This is all undisputable fact too.
At around this point bin laden comes inot the picture and warns the US that if they don’t stop attacking other countries the US will suffer their own tragedies. shortly after al quaeda blew up a ship, then 9/11.
the US now has a reaon for full scale war against the taliban in afghanistan. The pipeline has now been built and US companies have made billions of dollars from the war.
Ah, hang on, Saddam must have been involved in 9/11 too. Lets get them too, so we can profit…oops i mean save the world and do good. Oh wait, the people aren’t that dumb …or r they???hmmm we should tell em that he has heaps of weapons and wants to kill every single person in the whole world. Good they beleioved us. Next war please. So, the US governemnt basically made up the fact that IRaq had weapons of mass destruction, then goes in and kills the leader of the country, then you want us to trust what this governemnt taells us. Are you freaking kidding??!?!?!
Tony Szamboti, himself, only very recently, responded to precisely the same arguments put here by Sideshow ‘Bot and Nick in the forum “When literature PhDs attack!” of 9 Oct 09 on the Young Australian Skeptics forum site by ‘debunker’ Richard Hughes. (Judging by the moderator’s intervention in the discussion (see below) it would seem to be a genuine Sceptics’ web site, unlike that of phony US ‘sceptic’ and Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist Michael Shermer).
It is a most satisfying discussion. On 18 Oct ‘debunker’ Richard Hughes wrote:
… and he hasn’t been heard from since.
The moderator, very aptly, wrote on 19 Oct 09 after Hughes’ voluntary announced departure:
(I think the LP moderators should take note.)
After Hughes’ departure, a few others joined in, making Hughes’ humiliation complete.
Of course, Bob is welcome to take up the baton on Hughes’ behalf, however, I, somehow, think the moderator will take a very dim view should Bob simply attempt to overwhelm that forum with spam as he has attempted to do here. If Bob, nevertheless, does decide to join in, he should also put to Tony Szamboti, what he said of him here.
I will now include a few of Szamboti’s posts which, I believe, more than adequately address what little substance there is in Bob’s latest ‘contribution’:
The following much more succinctly and comprehensively states what I was attempting to say my own response to Nick’s argument:
Jaysus, Daggy. You’re linking to other threads on the paper now? Don’t have confidence in your own ability to argue the case?
Well, you obviously paid no attention to the substance of Richard Hughes’ critique, because they weren’t “precisely the same arguments”, Daggy. Specifically, Hughes’ issues were:
1. Szamboti misused the conservation of momentum equation, particularly in his assumptions about the structural engineering of the building beneath the point of initial collapse;
2. The inadequate number of data points and use of only a single piece of footage;
3. The complete absence of any kind of error analysis; and
4. The unprofessional presentation of the paper.
He’s correct in all of these, and Szamboti does not present effective responses.
Not only that, but these are NOT “precisely the same arguments” presented by Nick or me.
The key argument NOT addressed is the assumptions of M&S that the NIST explanation requires that the top stories fell as one rigid block onto another rigid block, without tilting and progressive collapse. This is M&S’ strawman and the logical fallacy around which the whole paper is constructed.
I note Bob, has, predictably, employed his tactic, familiar to all by now, of repeating his argument as if it has not been rebutted and with no acknowledgement of the rebutting arguments other than to make assertion such as that they “[do] not present effective responses.”
For those without unlimited time on their hands there appears to be no defence against a determined troll/spammer other than to ask others to read again the arguments that the troll/spammer purports to be rebutting.
—
Earlier, I wrote:
Then, Bob wrote:
Yes, Bob, I must be a slow reader. (Or, maybe, I forgot to add a ‘sarcasm alert’ (or, should I say, ‘hyperbole alert’) to that post.
A lesson to be drawn from this forum is that none of sarcasm, irony or tongue-in-cheek hyperbole has any impact on completely irrational people (or people pretending to be).
Daggy, repeating my argument for me without rebutting it is not, bizarre as it may seem to one such as you, rebutting it.
You say you rebutted my argument. Kindly show where. You could call it a “rebuttal alert”, if that would provide you with sufficient incentive.
You know, Daggy, for once I agree entirely. Never a truer word, u.s.w.
Gordon @ 711,
Not little known. Much of the info was in one of the earliets bios of ben laden.
So Dagget hive mind, have you found any direct evidence for us yet?
I think the twin towers still stand, the empty space you see in NYC is just a very sophisticated hologram.
PatrickB asks if I have direct evidence, presumably of people having discovered explosives and cables in the Twin Towers.
No, I don’t know of anyone still alive who has attested to having made such a discovery.
However, if you had read my post concerning Scott Forbes’ testimony of power-downs and suspicious activities in the weeks and days immediately prior to 9/11 and also bear in mind that Securacom, which managed the security of the WTC, was linked to the Bush family, it should not be too hard to imagine how such preparations in parts of the Twin Towers away from where normal employees and members of the public are likely to go, could have been concealed.
So, whilst the lack of direct testimony of discovery of explosives and cables in the Twin Towers may satisfy you that everything we need to know about 9/11 has already been revealed by the 9/11 Commission and NIST, it does not satisfy me.
I won’t be satisfied until I see an investigation which explains all the physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, including the abovementioned testimony by Scott Forbes, that was ignored by these two supposed investigating bodies. A proper investigation would also interview all those who worked for Securacom at the WTC prior to 9/11.
I would be interested to know who[1] on this forum is prepared to also dimiss the following testimony of New York City firefighters as ‘unreliable’:
People can view that testimony on YouTube video “9/11 NYC Firefighters Controlled Demolition” This is only one of many dozens of examples of testimony, ignored by the 9/11 Commission and NIST, I could give.
Footnotes
1. That is, other than Bob, of course, who has made it clear that he sees nothing suspicious in the omission of any mention of the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ in the 9/11 Commission Report and, in the images here and here, nothing more than typical everyday run-of-the-mill building collapses driven only by gravity and fire and nothing that even remotely reminds him of clouds formed by massive quantities of explosives.
“So, whilst the lack of direct testimony of discovery of explosives and cables in the Twin Towers may satisfy you that everything we need to know about 9/11 has already been revealed by the 9/11 Commission and NIST, it does not satisfy me.”
I didn’t say I was satisfied. I asked for direct evidence of a plan to destroy the towers by controlled demolition and you have admitted you don’t have any. In the light of that I don’t know why I should accept you explanation over others. Indeed given you limited resources and lack of access to any of the material recovered from the site or formal interviews of eyewitnesses I’d say yours is a theory that is backed by very little in the way of supporting evidence.
That being the case it is probably prudent for me to to believe the explanation arrived at by those with the most resources and access to the material recovered from the site and eyewitnesses, that is if I choose to believe any theory.
I dare say as time passes more information may come to light, IIRC estimates of the death toll decreased markedly as the day progressed.
There’s no evidence or corroborating testimony of the “power-down” alleged by Scott Forbes. Not only that, the “power-down” he alleges took place only affected ONE of the three buildings that collapsed. He’s an unreliable witness.
Securacom did not manage the security of the WTC, the Port Authority Police Department did.
And, no, you have no fucking idea how much work and preparation would have been required to go UNNOTICED in order to demolish the building. There’s simply no credible evidence of any thing like the work required to demolish the buildings with explosives. Didn’t happen.
Satisfy you, Daggy? you continue to believe in refuted theories, unreliable witnesses and non-existent evidence. It’s quite clear that your standard of proof is totally divorced from reality.
As for the firefighters and their non-expert opinions, so what? We’ve been through this before: lots of people believe they saw and heard lots of different things – it’s unreliable.
As for the dust and debris billowing out of the towers, so what? Believing what you want to believe, you see an explosion; others see airborne debris being ejected as successive floors collapse, squeezing out the air between each level. BFD.
hell, I’m all for blaming G W Bush for 9/11. Go, daggett!
PatrickB began protesting that he never said he was satisfied with the 9/11 Commission and NIST ‘explanations’ and then ends up saying that he is prepared to accept their explanation after all, and not call for a new inquiry even though there are gaping holes, glaring self-contradictions and a huge number of questions about 9/11 have not even been asked by these bodies, let alone answered.
PatrickB wrote:
Do you ever wonder how crimes are solved, when there are no eyewitnesses willing to testify?
—
Sideshow ‘Bot, I specifically did not ask your opinion about whether or not you considered Captain Dennis Tardio and Patrick Zoda reliable witnesses, because I already knew what your answer would be.
I wanted to see how many of other Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists here were as willing as you to as sumarrily as you dismiss the testimony of every single witness whose testimony contradicted the official account of 9/11.
Interestingly, it seems that no-one else is.
No doubt, if I were to put the testimony of each and every witness listed on the abovelinked page to ‘Bot he would, pronounce each of them in turn, beginning with 9/11 Hero William Rodriguez as similarly ‘unreliable’.
Of course, if the testimony not to be in contradticion with ‘Bot’s opinion, that is an entirely different matter.
‘Bot wrote:
A little known fact was that we were always there. Since the Port Authority owned the buildings, we (the Police) were responsible for the public safety therein.
As for the fact that the
‘Bot wrote,
No, ‘Bot. This is what David Lim of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey wrote:
(BTW, the character played by Nicholas Cage in the 2006 movie World Trade Center was a Port Authority policeman)
The Wikipedia entry states:
I trust that others here, besides ‘Bot are capable of grasping the difference between security in general on the one hand and “responsib[ility] for the public safety” on the other.
‘Bot wrote:
Clearly ‘Bot can’t recognise an explosion when it is staring him in the face, so I guess he would experience a great deal of difficulty in recognising any evidence when he sees it, or, perhaps,’Bot operates on the premise that a falsehood, repeated often enough, will become the truth.
—
As I keep saying, when confronted with piece of incomprehensible forum spam, please consider referring again to the post it purports to be in response to.
Oops!
The last link back to ‘Bot’s rant is slightly wrong and could well cause this whole page, laden with all of ‘Bot’s rants, to be loaded yet again, almost certainly causing many to exceed their ISP download quoatas. My apologies.
Also paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 in response to ‘Bot should have been deleted.
I don’t. The answer is: “with evidence”. As you readily admit, you don’t have any.
Diddums.
Yep. Rodriguez is unreliable. He didn’t witness an explosion. He reckons he heard one. So what?
Is it?
No, I didn’t write that.
Thanks for that piece of movie trivia, but I’m glad you acknowledge that the PAPD were responsible for public safety in WTC.
As I said, Securacom did not manage WTC security. It was a contractor employed for a time on some projects at the WTC. At no time did it “manage security”. Let me quote from Wikipedia, i.e. YOUR OWN SOURCE:
See? You’re wrong, yet again, on a fact you could have checked easily, but chose not to. Why?
Who says it’s an explosion? You, Daggy? What makes you an expert on explosions?
Why stop there? Most of what you say is flat-out wrong. You’re a rolling clusterfuck of muddle-headed wrongness, Daggy.
Along the lines of furious balancing’s comment at 718, some “thruthers” believe that no plane actually hit the second tower. The footage of the plane striking the tower was all faked, even on the day.
“Do you ever wonder how crimes are solved, when there are no eyewitnesses willing to testify?”
You could add “and no physical evidence”.
As I said before it is often very difficult to prove a crime in the absence of the things you mention. It becomes even harder when the other side have a more reasonable explanation of the facts.
In your case I’d say that given the tenuous nature of your circumstantial evidence for a controlled demolition and the weight of evidence supporting the “destroyed by terrorists in planes” theory that you would indeed have very little chance of convincing a public prosecutor proceed to trial.
OK, Bob, it seems that, after all I was somewhat wrong about Securacom.
It turns out that, as you say, Securacom ‘only’ looked after key aspects of WTC ‘security’ until 1998, including the installation of electronic badging, security gates, and CCTV in 1996, ‘only’ handled ‘security’ at Dulles international airport from which two of the hijacked aircraft took off from on 11 September 2001 and ‘only’ handled the ‘security’ for United Airlines of which flights 93 and 175 were hijacked on that day.
So, I am not sure who it was who handled the WTC ‘security’ when the massive quantities of demolition charges including nano-thermite were laid and wired in the Twin Towers prior to 9/11. Maybe it was even the Port Authority Police Department as you insist, and, for once, you may be right about one detail.
Whoever it was, they have not been questioned about what happened prior to 9/11 and, as I pointed out above. Marvin Bush has refused to respond to requests for interviews or to answer questions about Securacom’s failure to protect the lives of American citizens.
–
Bob asked:
?!!
I think I am perfectly capable of recognising an explosion when I see one, thank you very much, just as did many witnesses who saw exactly the same as what was captured on that image and almost countless videos and photos.
So, does anyone else on this forum, besides Bob, insist that one has to be an ‘expert’ in explosions to be able to recognise one?
As far as I am concerned, Bob has more than amply shown himself to be either a moron or a time-wasting liar.
Why anyone should take seriously a single word written by him from now on, I don’t know.
whaaa ??
Fine, PatrickB,
I am more clear now that you think the circumstantial evidence is tenuous and that the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory is “a more reasonable explanation of the facts” and that the fact that not one person with a proven link to 9/11 has been captured in Afghanistan after 8 years of occupation dose not strike you as suspicious.
I just pray you are never selected for jury duty on a major criminal trial.
—
Shaun wrote:
Well, duhhh!
Had you read my comment (@ 319)?
I also had something to write about this here.
“I just pray you are never selected for jury duty on a major criminal trial.”
Likewise Dagget. I’m fairly sure that, given you’ve expounded your theories so publicly, you’d be tossed out at the selection stage.
“I am more clear now that you think the circumstantial evidence is tenuous”
I would have thought that this was fairly clear several posts ago. I have made a considerable effort to stay focused on the need for you to provide direct evidence for a controlled demolition of the so called Twin Towers located in New York, New York, USA on the morning of September the 11th 2001. If you provide this then it fatally undermines the widely held view that the aforesaid towers collapsed after being struck by aeroplanes which caused a fire that fatally weakened them.
This is the view of large numbers of experts who base their conclusions on the physical, anecdotal and circumstantial evidence available. There is no evidence that any explosives were attached to any part of the buildings that collapsed on the day in question.
“the fact that not one person with a proven link to 9/11 has been captured in Afghanistan after 8 years of occupation …”
Appears to have nothing to do with the collapse of the twin towers.
Anyway, have you come up with any direct evidence for the controlled demolition?
PatrickB wrote,
Of course you would say that. As it happens, that would suit me fine. However, rejecting the fiction of 9/11 after having taken the trouble to study the evidence as I began to do six years after 9/11 should be a good reason to select someone like myself for jury duty and not reject him/her.
As I pointed out at the start of this forum I fully accepted the US Government version at the time and (unfortunately) did not even begin to seriously question it until 6 years later.
Part of the reason was that there were so many liars and ignoramuses at all levels of society shouting, as they are here that the 9/11 Truth Movement is rubbish.
I only changed my view after I studied the evidence. I particularly took the trouble to listen to debates including one between Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and ‘sceptic’ Michael Shermer, whom I had previously respected.
Because I had a lot of respect for Michael Shermer and was actually on his e-Skeptic mailing list at the time, I truly did not know which way I would be swayed at the outset (and have been subsequently unsubscribed, although I am not sure how).
At the end of the 1 hour radio debate, it was obvious to me that either Shermer was a poor choice of someone to uphold the Official version of 9/11 or he was wrong.
He avoided discussing the evidence and continued to drag red herrings across the trail: How dare Richard Gage cast aspersions against the company responsible for WTC security? Doesn’t he know he could be sued? There’s nothing to discuss. After all, Osama bin Laden confessed.
My subsequent research further confirmed that Gage was right and Shermer was wrong.
—
PatrckB wrote, “I have made a considerable effort to stay focused on the need for you to provide direct evidence for a controlled demolition of the so called Twin Towers located in New York, New York, USA on the morning of September the 11th 2001.”
Well, I don’t have that kind of “direct evidence” and the 9/11 Truth Movement never have made such a claim.
Do police wait until they have such conclusive evidence before they begin to investigate a crime?
What we have, whether or not you choose to recognise it as such, is strong evidence which suggests that a crime was committed. That includes, amongst many other things, residue of nano-thermite and microscopic iron spheres in dust samples collected from around the grouond zero. That should have been cause to warrant a proper investigation in order to find more conclusinve evidence.
One of many possible lines of investigation would be to make inquiries of the military, who are the only people known to have nano-thermite, to see how it could have got into the dust around ground zero.
—
Bob asks of 9/11 Hero William Rodriguez‘s testimony of a massive explosion in the basement of the WTC which lifted him off the ground and badly disfigured the face of one of his co-workers before Flight 11 struck the North Tower:
If nothing else, this response demonstrates an astonishing lack of curiosity about a topic about which he holds himself to be such a fantastic authority.
PatrickB:
“I didn’t say I was satisfied. I asked for direct evidence of a plan to destroy the towers by controlled demolition and you have admitted you don’t have any. In the light of that I don’t know why I should accept you explanation over others.”
no, you should take the word of the US government, who also told you that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and even made false footsaage to prove this point. they didn’t just get it wrong, but they actually made false statements and also showed false video footage to get their war. the US government has been proven to invent and fabricate eviudence. Yet, people are still so dumb to keep beleiving what they are told.
Even justthinking about it. Think about a plane hitting a building. What do u imagine would happen? Apparently these buildings were built to withstand the impact of a place hitting.
Also, what happened to the remains of the other plane that hit the pentagon. Supposedly it burned into nothing.
Man, why are pepole just so naive.
Another thing. Many people seem to think that conspiracy theories are so far fetched.
what is so far fetched about thinking that in this world there could be a bunch of powerful people who plot to make themselves more powerful and rich. In fact iut seems more likely than it is unlikely. Its been happening since the beginning of time.
Spot on,
One ‘conspiracy theory’ that is no longer a theory, but a historical fact is Operation Northwoods, in which in the early 1960′s the US military planned to stage assassinations, highjackings and other terrorist acts against US citizens and blame them on Cuba in order to justify an invasion of Cuba.
President Kennedy closed it down as soon as he got wind of it. And, as we know, the following year, Kennedy was murdered.
Not sure how those double quotes got around your name and subsequent paragraphs, Gordon (and not “Gordon”). Sorry if it looked strange.
“no, you should take the word of the US government, who also told you that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and even made false footsaage to prove this point”
Gordon you can keep your advice to yourself. Do you have the missing evidence of a controlled demolition? Up till now Dagget has tried to convince us using bad video and highly improbable cause and effect scenarios. He has alleged that the buildings were loaded with tens of tonnes of explosives and yet there is no evidence that there were explosives in the buildings prior to their collapse and there is no evidence that explosives were detonated.
What is clear and what was witnessed by thousands in New York and millions around the world is the the towers were hit by planes. They then caught fire. Not long after they collapsed. There is no evidence of an explosion.
Still clutching at straws, Daggy?
Securacom/Stratesec did NOT “handle security” at Dulles International; the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority and its Police Department did, under FAA and TSA oversight. Again, Securacom had been a contractor to the airport in the mid-1990s – it did not manage security for the airport on 9/11.
Also, Securacom/Stratesec did NOT “handle security” for United Airlines. Argenbright Security and Huntleigh USA managed security (i.e. screening) for United Airlines at the relevant airports on 9/11.
At this juncture, Daggy, I feel compelled to ask you: when are you going to check any of these “facts” of yours before regurgitating them onto unsuspecting websites? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: do your fucking homework.
Um, Daggy? What “massive quantities of demolition charges including nano-thermite”? There’s no evidence that anything of the sort was laid and wired in the Twin Towers.
Hang on a second here: are you demanding the questioning of unknown people who didn’t plant explosives that didn’t exist in a building, the security of which they didn’t manage? Why?
As for Marvin Bush, given we’ve now demonstrated that Securacom/Stratesec had nothing to do with 9/11, why should he be questioned?
Given that it wasn’t an explosion and you can’t prove it was an explosion it’s quite obvious that no, you are NOT “perfectly capable of recognising an explosion” when you see one.
Heh. There’s that irony again.
Or indifference to hearsay from an unreliable witness and, it appears, professional conspiracy theorist, who has proved unable and/or unwilling to defend his accusations in court.
Also, I’m not claiming to be a “fantastic authority”, Daggy. Clearly, if anyone’s an authority on fantasies, it’d be you, Daggy.
Well said, PatrickB. Keep your lying advice to yourself, Gordon.
We’re all awake to the lies of the Bush administration here, you know, including the WMD lie.
—
PatrickB Wrote:
OK, it would seem that two Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists so far, PatrickB and Bob, see nothing here or here remotely reminds him of explosion in all those dramatic images of the Twin Tower ‘collapses’.
PatrickB, would you care to take a careful look, not at the furiously violently swirling cloud atop the ‘collapsing’ North Tower, which is so obviously caused by the forces of gravity alone, as Bob keeps telling us, but at the horizontal plume of debris being ejected, by my judgment, two stories below that cloud on the right side.
What do you imagine could have caused that?
Someone sneezing inside the North Tower, perhaps?
And what do you imagine is the puff off debris roughly in the middle of the wall slightly below the level of that horizontal plume?
—
A very good article on the evidence of the use of explosives is “Kevin Ryan: Top 10 Connections Between NIST and Nanothermite”
Kevin Ryan, as I mentioned above, was a whistleblower who lost his job for his part in exposing the role of the Underwriters Limited laboratories’ role in covering up evidence contrary the Official account of the 3 building ‘collapses’, no doubt, as Bob will surely soon insist, another ‘unreliable’ witness.
He writes:
Dagget,
Looked at the photo. It’s like many I’ve seen before. I don’t see any evidence of an explosion. Could you please present your direct evidence of a conspiracy to bring the towers down by controlled explosion?
Either a participant in the conspiracy or some physical evidence (e.g. photographs or eyewitnesses) of either the placing of the explosives or evidence that directly shows that a detonation of sufficient force to collapse the towers occurred and that the explosion was caused by the explosives that had been placed in the building.
Since I missed Torchwood on Friday night, I don’t feel I can make a worthwhile contribution to the discussion at the moment.
dagget @733
Just when you put a limit on your credulity in @730 you blow it.
PatrickB wrote:
we’ve been through that.
No-one has attested to having seen the wiring and planting of explosives in the twin towers, as far as I am aware. From that you have concluded that it could not have happened and there is no need for a further investigation and I disagree.
Now, can we move on?
I see that you are also adamant that that plume of debris being ejected to the right of the North Tower, not to mention that violent swirling cloud atop the North Tower, is not evidence of explosions, although you have declined to tell us what you think it is.
If you can’t see what looks perfectly clear to me in that photo, we aren’t going to reach agreement here on that question, are we?.
Let’s just, for the benefit of others trying to work out who, of the two of us, is more likely to understand what we are talking about, who does recognise images of explosions in those stills, and who does not, and move on.
—
I note Bob has dismissed as ‘hearsay’ by 9/11 hero William Rodriguez the burning and disfigurement of Filipe David by a massive explosion in the basement of the North Tower prior to the impact of Flight 11.
Thanks, Bob. I think that might give others yet another good clue as to whether or not it would be worth their while to wade through the rest of your numerous and lengthy ‘contributions’ to this discussion.
—
Paul Burns tells us:
I don’t feel I can make a worthwhile contribution to the discussion …
So, what else is new?
—
Your comment on my comment on my comment is way too subtle for my limited intellectual capabilities, Shaun.
Please elaborate.
Corrections:
1. (To PatrickB) Let’s just, for the benefit of others trying to work out who, of the two of us, is more likely to understand what we are talking about, leave on the record who does recognise images of explosions in those stills, and who does not, and move on.
2. Your comment on my comment on your comment is way too subtle for my limited intellectual capabilities, Shaun.
Please elaborate.
daggett @744
Looking back it is too subtle for me as well. I’ve attributed a comment to you and can’t find the one I was supposed to reference. My apologies for that.
“No-one has attested to having seen the wiring and planting of explosives in the twin towers, as far as I am aware.”
Actually what has happened is that an investigation has been conducted. As there is no evidence that a controlled explosion was in anyway responsible for the disaster there is no-one who can attest to the plot.
“…plume of debris being ejected…you have declined to tell us what you think it is.”
Sorry didn’t know you were interested. Well to me it looks like plumes of debris being ejected from a window. As to the cause, I’d say it was caused by the collapse of the floors above. As there was no controlled explosion (as you note above there isn’t any evidence whatsoever for this) the material can’t have been ejected as the result of an explosion.
““…plume of debris being ejected…you have declined to tell us what you think it is.””
Looks like a puff of dust and debris to me. I’d be pretty shocked if none such appeared in any collapse due to any cause.
What I definitely don’t see is a sequence of such puffs, one floor after another, such as is typical in controlled demolitions.
Oh, but this was different to all other controlled demolitions – convenient huh?
But please note, it is EXACTLY THE SAME as all previous cases of a building collapsing after being known to have hit by a 767 filled with aviation fuel.
Conveniently enough, for the purposes of establishing the strength of the precedent, the precedent was a building very nearby, of the same size, constructed exactly the same way, hit by a 767 on the same day. The results were very similar, and in neither case did the results resemble a controlled demolition.
Rodriguez didn’t witness either: 1) an explosion; or 2) the burning of Felipe David. Felipe David was burned by a jet fuel fireball that travelled down the liftwells to the basement, not a demolition explosion. Refer to NCSTAR 1-8, pp43-44.
It just might at that, Daggy.
Now, it seems, FDB has decided that he is an expert on ‘collapses’ of steel framed buildings driven by gravity alone.
FDB wrote:
Indeed, why?
Have you observed other ‘collapses’ of steel-framed buildings driven by gravity alone and happened to have noticed similar plumes of debris beig ejected?
Somehow as 11 September 2001 at the WTC is the only time and place that this has ever happened, or so we are told, (as FDB, himself, has so wittily informed us) I think not.
So, if FDB would have been “pretty shocked if [no such plume] had appeared” I can only conclude that FDB is telling us that he has studied theoretical models which would have predicted what that image shows.
So, please enlighten the rest of us about those theoretical models, won’t you, FDB?
FDB wrote:
Well how would you know whether there is or is not in that image, given the way the cloud of debris has obscured the front wave of the collapse?
In any case, if you look closely at the YouTube broadcast “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wZ54n-kYqw” you will see precisely “a sequence of such puffs, one floor after another” through a gap in the debris cloud.
I had a look at that “sequence of puffs” and it seems simply debris being blown out as the floors collapse.
What was interesting was the dirty great big chunks of building you can see falling to the right. If it was a demolition it was in no way controlled.
Bob, the following statement:
… is plainly stupid as I pointed out and your response to my response avoids either defending it, or withdrawing it.
It is one of many I could pluck from the spam you have poured into this forum in a transparent attempt to disrupt the discussion.
If anyone here mistakes you for a serious and genuine debater, I will be sure to draw their attention to that statement, amongst a good many others.
—
In regard to your points about Marvin Bush, Securacom, etc.: There may be a small grain of truth in what you write insofar as my case may turn out not to be quite as strong as I at first thought. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the White House attempted to conceal Marvin Bush’s relationship with that company and he did not answer questions put to him by Margie Burns. I based what I wrote upon her article “‘Secrecy surrounds a Bush brother’s role in 9/11 security’” of 20 Jan 04.
Other than that, I am not going to fight you to the death over that ground.
Footnotes
1. Bob’s ‘contributions’ are to be found here: 63, 147, 151, 205, 213, 231, 448, 452, 464, 487, 489, 502, 514, 520, 525, 532, 539, 561, 564, 566, 569, 582, 588, 599, 602, 607, 611, 614, 627, 630, 646, 648, 667, 683, 684, 694, 699, 709, 713, 715, 721, 725, 738 and 748. The fact that, until now, no-one, other than myself, has referred to the actual content of any of them, as far as I can tell, may be a good indication of their worth. I think we can safely assume that Bob, himself, doesn’t want others to be able to systematically look at all the outpourings he has dumped on this forum and that is why he has changed his identitiy with each new post on this forum, making a search for his posts very time consuming.
And, in case anyone here may wish to find posts in which they can learn something about the 9/11 controversy, my posts are:
28, 50, 72, 105, 126,
139, 142, 172, 186, 187, 193, 196, 227, 236, 237, 246, 251, 256, 265, 268, 271, 273, 280, 281, 282, 286, 287, 289, 291, 292, 294, 298, 309, 310, 315, 316, 319, 324, 328, 333, 335, 339, 342, 343, 345, 347, 348, 351, 354, 358, 360, 371, 372, 376, 378, 383, 384, 390, 393, 407, 442, 451, 454, 465, 484, 488, 494, 497, 506, 516, 519, 524, 529, 535, 549, 555, 557, 560, 565, 573, 584, 587, 594, 595, 600, 601, 603, 605, 608, 609, 612, 616, 619, 626, 632, 651, 661, 674, 676, 693, 703, 712, 714, 719, 723, 724, 728, 730, 732, 735, 736, 739, 743, 744 and 749.
I think people who know me will agree that I am usually careful in what I write and my intention is to inform and help others discover the truth.
Daggett, 3 questions:
1) From Kevin Ryan:
How could they have known in advance exactly where the planes would hit? You have stated, Daggett, that you do not associate yourself with the wild and wacky division of the Truth movement — so presumably you do not think that what hit the towers were some guided missile with a plane hologram around them.
So then, if what hit the towers were the real planes piloted by real jihadists, without great flying experience, how could they have piloted them precisely into the parts of the buildings where the explosives were pre-set?
Did the conspiracy paint a big targeting crosshair on the side of the buildings on the morning of 9/11?
2) You wrote about 9/11 Hero William Rodriguez (incidentally, is ’9/11 Hero’ his formal title, like Dr or Professor?):
Um, the basement? Why were there explosives in the basement, Daggett? Weren’t the nano-thermite shaped charges attached to the the structural members higher up, sufficient to bring the building down?
Wasn’t planting explosives in the basement rather suspicious and unnecessary? And why the heck would they have detonated them before the plane hit?
3) You have stated several times that all you want is a proper inquiry, the 9/11 Commission being unsatisfactory in your eyes.
Fine. Let’s say you got your wish. Who would you actually have on the panel of that inquiry, since you evidently regard both Congress and executive government bodies (such as NIST) as being either incompetent or in on the plot?
And how would the inquiry achieve anything unless some, of the many thousands of people involved in the plot, who have amazingly all kept quiet about it ever since, were willing to break ranks?
The plotters would presumably just deny everything on the witness stand, and you’d be back to square one, no?
I note Gordon has turned up here. Maybe he’s going to become a permanent fixture on this blog. Lucky us.
Oh, how I miss the good old days when the trolls were witty aesthetes like John Greenfield.
PAtrickB:
You ask for evidence of the detonation. DId you ask for evidence of WMD when the Iraq war started. you are well brainwashed my friend.
did you ask for evidence of why there is abolutely no evidence of a plane hitting the pentagon. or why the remains of the ther plane that crashed supposedly completely dissentegrated.
Prinde is a funny thing. I know an old man . If you tell him that he has a problem that could lead to a disease, he would rather ignore you and pretend he has no problem and then later get the disease, then to admit he has a problem and have it fixed. Its just easier on his pride then to admit that what he has always beleive in was actually false.
Paulus:
It seems that you have chosen decide to insult those who disagree with your opinion.
“DId you ask for evidence of WMD when the Iraq war started. you are well brainwashed my friend.”
Actually I wrote to all the leaders of the countries in the coalition of the willing asking for proof.
“Prinde is a funny thing.”
Indeed it is, added to cocktail it leads to the spontaneous removing of ones garments, which can be hilarious in the right circumstances.
While we’re at it, have any other LPers experienced the joys of prinde? As a side note, there are a number of prinde support groups for those that overindulge. I myself only recently attended a prinde addict’s intervention. Usual story, a bit of prinde at a party and before he knew it he was prindeing like there was no tomorrow. Very sad and yet … not.
Again replying with stupidity and pettyness by highlighting typos. the fact is that in that situation you chose to beleive something without evidence and you were proven misguuided to beleive this and yet now you are demanding hard evidence from someone to prove something against the people who were just proven to make things up.
mate..who can really be bothered fixing typos when you would thikn the people here would be smart enough to work it out.but actually they are smart enough to do this, but childish enough to think they are so funny by pointing a typo out.
“Prinde is a funny thing.”
Well Gordo given I haven’t a clue what your anecdote re: the old man is supposed to tell me it’s a bit difficult to, well … work out what the typo might be. For all I know prinde may indeed be a funny thing around where you come from but in these parts it’s no laughing matter.
And I’m not really seeing how you’re helping the Dagget Foundation to come up with some direct evidence of a successful conspiracy to destroy the twin towers by controlled explosions.
And I find your lack of faith in my attempt to force COW leaders to present us with the proof of WMD “disturbing”.
Gordon, here’s something to chew on.
The neo-cons, or ‘Bush clique’, or ‘military-industrial complex’, or whatever and whoever one supposes to be behind 9/11, were so powerful and sophisticated that they could launch the greatest conspiracy in human history … and yet couldn’t plant a few barrels of nerve gas in Iraq retrospectively to save Bush’s ass?
I can only see two possible explanations for this:
1) There was no conspiracy. Or …
2) The conspiracy was never actually supposed to benefit the Bush administration. The succeeding government — that of a certain Mr B.H. Obama — was always meant to be the real beneficiary. See the following for further enlightenment.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/09/12/saturday-salon-208/#comment-827234
Of course I agree with Gordon. Personal attacks should normally play no role in normal healthy discussions. On the web-site candobetter.org, which I help to run, our tolerance of personal attacks is close to zero.
However that has not, so far, prevented anyone with a substantial view critical of (as well as supportive of) our own from posting.
—
Paulus,
In regard to (1) If you use a small amount of imgagination, surely it should not be hard to see how the planes could have been crashed into the twin towers. Almost certainly the patsy/hijackers would not have had actual control of the aircraft, certainly not near the end.
More than likely the aircraft would have been under the complete control of remote human controllers. The technology to do this has been around for years.
Clearly they had a good idea precisely where the planes would hit. The camera set up to capture the impact of Flight 11 that Bush let slip he witnessed live, was clearly pointed in the right direction.
In regard to (2), whilst I don’t fully understand the mechanisms of controlled demolitions, I have read that the explosions in the basement were most likely necessary to weaken the towers to ensure that the subsequent demltion went ahead smoothely. Why the initial explosion went off befor the impact of Flight 11, I can’t say for sure, but my guess was that there may have been a small miscalculation in timing.
Those in control of the security of the Twin Towers would have faced little difficulty in keeping prying eyes out of where they weren’t wanted I would have thought. An investigation of 9/11 would include thorugh questioning of all emplyees responsible for security.
In regard to (3), plenty of inquiries have been set up in the US and elsewhere with competent investigators with no links to people with vested interests in the inquiry’s outcome. That clearly did not happen with the 9/11 Commission.
Philip Zelikow, who was in charge of the 9/11 Commission was a close associate of Condoleeza Rice.
A proper investigation would have power to demand answers of those being investigated. Most inquiries which are properly run find the means to get the truth out of even unwilling witnesses.
On top of that there would be a vast number of willing witnesses and a good deal could be learnt even if unwilling witnesses are not be compelled to give evidence.
Bob wrote:
By reperating the unbelievable rubbish that aviation fuel spilled all the way down the shaft, Bob has further proven himself to be a liar or totally credulous of anything told to him by authority.
The fact that the 9/11 Commission went to such extraordinary to suppress William Rodriguez’s testimony should make those of us with some degree of scepticism towards government suspicious.
Rodriguez’s account was also corroborated by Jose Sanchez who worked on the 4th sub-level.
If Rodreiguez was such a liar, then why did the Bush administration make him a national hero? Why not look for yourself of those photos on http://www.william911.com?
If, insteaed of speaking the truth, Rodriguez had kept his mouth shut in order to become a Republican politician, then Bob would, no doubt, be singing his praises today.
Let’s at least hope that some people here can understand why I choose not to waste my time reading the lying NIST reports that Bob would have us accept as gospel.
Gordon,
If you were to accept my advice, I wouldn’t waste my time even thinking about Paulus’s non-argument. It’s all already been put on the 9/11 Truth Online Opinion discussion forum and torn to shreds. (Be warned, before you click on the link, it is fairly large, although not as large as this.)
Daggett,
I’ve had a quick look at that OLO link, and all I can say is: the amount of effort you’re putting in to bring the ‘truth’ to people is enormous. It’s evidently a full-time occupation for you. I hope it pays well.
Now, as to Iraq and WMD.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world for the US to plant WMD in Iraq. For one thing, the US itself has vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons (it is slowly destroying them under arms control conventions). For another thing, they’re easy to make, particularly the chemical ones. I had a friend who was doing a PhD in chemistry who confidently asserted that he could whip up various nerve agents in his lab if ever he wanted. (Note for law enforcement personnel reading this blog: as far as I’m aware, my friend never actually did!)
Now, Iraq still had facilities all over the country which had been used for its vast WMD programs which pre-dated the first Gulf War. Inspectors who visited these in the 1990s were amazed by the size and scope of what they found (which helps explain why many people assumed Saddam was up to his old tricks again by 2003).
These facilities were non-operational in 2003. But they could have covertly flown in some CW or BW materials and equipment, and made it look like at least one facility was still going. Then bribe some relevant Iraqis to make statements, and Bob’s your uncle.
While many critics of the war would not have changed their mind, the wavering middle ground might have then accepted Bush’s argument, with all sorts of useful political results.
But instead I guess the vast 9/11 conspiracy organisation staff were all off drinking Pina Coladas at Trader Vic’s, or something.
That Paulus puts an ‘argument’ that proves precisely nothing about 9/11, rather than attempt to deal with the substantive arguments put here, including my earlier response to his arguments, seems, to me, to be a sign of desperation.
On that other forum, I, at first, tried to ignore the ‘argument’ which seemed just as self-evidently silly there as it does here. I only responded after the argument was put a second time:
Earlier, I wrote:
Last night I decided to roam Youtube (appropriate given this is the most favoured means of analysis for 911 ‘truthers’) and look at videos of controlled demolition. Can’t link to any due to work but they are easy to find on Youtube.
If you have a look at the WTC collapes, they look nothing like the usual controlled demolition. The only resemblance is that in end a building fell down.
Controlled demolitions are from the bottom up, WTC was from top down. Also, controlled demolitions fall inwards. The WTC collapses spewed huge chunks of debris out from the building.
No, Daggy, what’s “plainly stupid” is asserting that a statement is self-evidently true when it’s not, simply because you, stupidly, want it to be true.
That’s an uncharacteristically wise decision, Daggy. Based on your performance on this thread you shouldn’t enter into any debate where your life is on the line.
I also note that that is one of the most graceless concessions I’ve seen on this blog. You were proven to be comprehensively wrong, on some very basic facts that it took me minutes to check, and your response? “…my case my turn out not to be quite as strong as I first thought.” Pathetic.
“…outpourings dumped on this forum…”, Daggy? From your own post (#752) it’s patently obvious who’s been dumping on this thread, and it’s not me, Daggy. And no, you can “safely assume” nothing of the sort. In fact, past experience shows your assumptions are typically cloddish, but this one particularly so, as not once have I changed my identity – my gravatar has remained constant – and changing my pseudonym is something I do for fun, not deception. That you’ve evidently wasted your time counting my comments is an unexpected bonus.
No, Daggy. It’s the truth. Did you read the report to which I referred you? Why do I bother even asking? Let me quote from NCSTAR 1-9 (pp43-44):
These facts are attested to by multiple witnesses.
When and how did the 9/11 Commission “suppress” his testimony, Daggy? He says he testified to both the 9/11 Commission and NIST. How is that government suppression?
Sanchez’s account notes that “a huge ball of fire went through the freight elevator” – that’s entirely consistent with the previously mentioned jet fuel cloud fire moving down the liftwell.
Do I have to? The dilemma with this guy is that he undoubtedly acted in a brave and selfless manner on 9/11, and was justly decorated as a result [I haven’t seen any mention of the Bush administration making him a “national hero”, however], but has since cheapened his image by pursuing his newfound career as celebrity hero & conspiracist. Unfortunately, looking at his self-aggrandising website [he literally refers to himself as “Keymaster”!] doesn’t persuade me that his hearsay testimony is any more reliable, but does remind me of Phil Olivetti.
Not true – I’ll sing his praises today regardless: he acted in a brave and selfless manner and I respect him for that. I just don’t think his testimony about 9/11 tells us much that’s useful.
Good luck with that.
Sheesh, I was only responding to your straw poll. No need to be so passive aggressive.
Well, because each floor contains a great deal of air, and as it collapses that air and with it a great deal of various other materials (interior plaster walls, bits of masonry, and in a fully occupied building, a whole lot else) which would have to go somewhere. Out the windows is really the only option.
Yes, as I said. Your photo and youtube video are of the North Tower collapse. It was preceded by the South Tower collapse, which looked very similar, and in similar ways it looked quite unlike a controlled demolition.
Actually, as I have shown, there is a precedent, and an awesomely applicable one. [By the way, I like the Freudian slip aspect of "I think not"; could be your motto!]
What I’m telling you is what it looked like to me, which is what you asked for. Free of charge, I’m also applying some interpretation and reasoning to what I’ve seen, to explain to you why it doesn’t look like a controlled demolition to me.
Yo mama’s a theoretical model.
Absence of evidence is not blah blah blah
Nope. A sequence in a controlled demolition is orderly, bottom-up, evenly timed series of explosions. That video shows something different on all counts – chaotic, top-down, big plumes of smoke and debris shooting out 15 to 20 floors below the front of the collapse. It’s also, as Shaun has pointed out, in no way controlled. Huge chunks are flying everywhere.
Bob pretends not to understand my argument:
Obviously one of us being totally disingenuous in this discussion over whether or not all those images, I referred to, contain what are clearly recognisable, to anyone who has looked at a TV set for more that an total of a few hours in the last few decades, as explosions and this discussion is not going to be settled by Bob and myself saying, “Yes, they are!”, “No, they are not!”, “Yes, they are!”, etc.
If Bob was debating genuinely, he would realise that and desist, but, of course, he is not. Clearly he understands that if you are on the side of establised authority, you don’t need to win the debate, all you need to do is maintain some degree of doubt confusion.
However, that was not my point. My point was simply that to argue that, when every living adult, not living in the middle of the Amazon jungles as a primitive hunter-gatherer, would have seen many hundreds of images of explosions in their lives, that one has to be an ‘expert’ in explosions in order to recognise one when one sees one, is obviously ridiculous.
The only reason that anyone would attempt to use it, is to dissuade others from recognising the clear evidence of their own eyes.
Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is about how people can be duped into seeing something that is not there (or the reverse). It is exactly that kind of deception that the mass media have put over much of the public since 2001.
As far as I am concerned all those who have proclaimed that they can’t see what are clearly explosions on the images I have referred to are behaving exactly as those unscrupulous tailors in Han Christian Andersen’s story.
No doubt, the the same will be said of me. However, I simply ask others, not committed in advance to one view or other over 9/11 to simply look at all the images I have refered to for themselves.
Again I suggest people check for themselves my posts, Bob’s posts and the posts of others and work out, for themselves, where the truth is most likely to lies.
There you go again, Daggy. Repeating the same thing over and over again won’t make it any truer. The fact that you think it’s an explosion does not make it one, no matter how much you wish it to be so.
Prove it’s an explosion or get off the fucking pot.
It’s the vibe of thing, your honour.
“Again I suggest people check for themselves my posts, Bob’s posts and the posts of others and work out, for themselves, where the truth is most likely to lies.”
Geez, the subconscious is getting a workout today eh Dags?
dagsterman
“contain what are clearly recognisable, to anyone who has looked at a TV set for more that an total of a few hours in the last few decades, as explosions….”
They don’t look remotely like explosions to me. Remember..you asked….? @743
So now you are either going to say that I’m not qualified to have an opinion
@749 “FDB has decided that he is an expert on ‘collapses’…”
Or that I don’t need to be qualified to have an opinion…
@769: “that one has to be an ‘expert’ in explosions in order to recognise one when one sees one, is obviously ridiculous….”
Just…silly…..
Aw, daggett, I agree with you about murdoch. :)
Eric Sykes, it’s quite simple. You don’t need to be an expert to recognise an explosion, but you do need to be an expert to not recognise one. Okay?
“when every living adult, not living in the middle of the Amazon jungles as a primitive hunter-gatherer, would have seen many hundreds of images of explosions in their lives”
How many passenger aeroplanes hitting massive office towers have you witnessed Dagget? I willing to bet it’s no more than 2.
May the prinde be with you.
Ok Brett, ta…fogive me, I had forgotten this is a Bizarro comic.
OK daggett, I wanted this thread to reach 1000 as much as the next guy, but not at the expense of your rapidly diminishing credibility.
I mean at the start I thought you might have at least the germ of an idea of a point of a theory, but I think that I was sadly mistaken. Your failure to respond to jo’s questions @700 was pretty damaging, as was your claim about explosions that Brett mercifully untangled and a few other things I don’t have the patience or time to untangle myself.
So don’t worry about getting to 1000, don’t worry about the taunts, don’t worry about trying to convince anyone – just give it a rest.
You going Uncle Remus on us there Adrian?
I like it.
Daggett, please don’t respond to anyone’s substantive questions.
You can cut off my toes one by one and feed them to my cats, but please don’t respond to anyone’s substantive questions.
at 760:
Ok, so now you are trying to say that the US government were not involved in a conspiracy to start a war in Iraq because they did not finish of the conspiracy by planting the WMD, even though it was later shown that they had in fact made up and fabricated their supporting evidence. If this is not a conspiracy, then I don’t know what is.
1) By this stage they had already been proven to have provided fabricated evidence to the UN.
2) They had already achieved their objective of entering Iraq.
3) Yes, it leads on the savior Obama coming in and saving the people from Bush. That’s the plan. Bush is not the big boy, nor is Obama. They are simply tools used by the “big boys”.
Their objectives had been reached in Afghanistan and Iraq, using bush. Now, the people are disilliusioned and angry, so we will give them Obama to appease them. Then the people will think that their free democracy still works and will continue.
Bottom line, is that US government has been involved in countless instances of lies, deception and down right evil. Whether the building came down by an explosion or by the planes does not matter to me. Whether 9/11 was orchestrated internally or not does not even matter to me. All I can see for myself is that a lot of wrong things are happening in the world and not many are opposing these things. I am not for terrorism in any way at all, but the US has killed planty of foreign civilians before 9/11. And it all seems very convenient that they were now able to achieve the building of the oil/gas pipeline through Afghanistan and also control the oil in Iraq.
“Their objectives had been reached in Afghanistan and Iraq”
What objectives?
Frist.
Creating a war that results in big profits from weapons sales, re-building, etc. the securing of Iraqs oil and the securing of transporting Turkmenistans oil and gas through afghanistan.
FDB this ones for you too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNQ5V740LDY&feature=PlayList&p=343D6FE5D370300B
“What objectives?”
And what has this to do with the alleged controlled demolition of the twin towers? Dagget, do you agree with Gordon’s guilt by association approach? Is this approach part of the truther cannon or do you think Gordon is toasted on prinde?
Wow…PatrickB is also so caught up on a typo.
Shit, you must have nothing else ot make you feel good.
Its not about guilt by association, but just looking at their track record.
Enjoy this PatrickB:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNQ5V740LDY&feature=PlayList&p=343D6FE5D370300B
Present them.
They bhave presented themselves quite obviously without my help. Are you blind or something?
Read my ealrier posts that present them and explain all about the oil/gas pipeline that the US led conglomerate of companies were negotiating with the taliban well before 9/11. the taliban refused permission . if you dont realise iraq was all about oil then you probably have your head burried somewhere.
Sorry.
I guess you’ve never actually watched the episode of South Park you keep hilariously (oh, my aching sides!) linking to a clip from.
[HINT: the bit you keep linking to is the feedline, not the punchline.]
FWIW I agree Iraq was partly about oil (while mostly about domestic US politics and symbolism, and partly, a teeny little bit, about getting rid of Saddam, who lots of Bushlings thought had made fools of them in Gulf War Take #1, and who had actually been a pretty awful and brutal dictator).
Afghanistan… nope. Anyone with an ounce of sense would have realised (as the US did) that the only way to get a viable pipeline in would be with the consent of the Taliban and tribal warlords. You couldn’t possibly hope to guard the whole length of it 24/7 from relatively easy attack, so what would be the point?
The “wanted to build a pipeline, so came in and stirred up a hornet’s nest AWESUM!” theory has been widely and thoroughly discredited.
“Shit, you must have nothing else ot make you feel good. ”
Not true, I have this thread and my vial of purest prinde. Anyway, Gordo, I still can’t see the connection between the controlled demolition theory with special reference to the twin towers as espoused by the Dagget clan and you rambling discourse on US foreign policy. Dagget people can you please help Gordo out perhaps you have some YouTube videos you can refer ot?
What FDB said.
Also, Gordo, you might note that the trans-Afghan pipeline hasn’t actually been built yet, 8 years after 9/11.
They might start building one in a year or two. If so, it will be used to move natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, and possibly to India as well. The pipeline, and the gas moving through it, will be owned by the regional countries in the consortium — not by the US.
If, Gordo, you think that the US killed 3,000 of its own citizens in order to help Pakistan get some cheap energy, you are utterly prinding clueless.
daggett
… all you need to do is to maintain some degree of doubt confusion….
Well, you’re good at these:
* truth confusion
* logic confusion
* refutation confusion
* judgement confusion
* evidence confusion
so dealing out some ‘doubt confusion’ would be a doddle, daggsworthy.
FDB:
I have seen that episode. I know there is more to it. I searched specifically for the shortened version with only that line…just for you. That is the only part you need to hear. So, SMB.
I think you have it completely wrong FDB. Iraq was mostly about oil and they threw in the remaining reasons as excuses. There are plenty of other dictators around the world that the US is not moving to get rid of, but rather they have installed them as these dictators are willing to play ball with the US. Just as Saddam had before. Only problem for them now, was that Saddam told em where to go finally. They don’t seem to have a problem with the dictatorship in Saudi or many of the others in Africa, where huge multi nationals are making massive profits stealing resources from these countries.
“Afghanistan… nope. Anyone with an ounce of sense would have realised (as the US did) that the only way to get a viable pipeline in would be with the consent of the Taliban and tribal warlords. You couldn’t possibly hope to guard the whole length of it 24/7 from relatively easy attack, so what would be the point”
You obviously don’t have an ounce of sense. Exactly…the Taliban opposed the pipeline and hence the only way to get the pipeline in was to get rid of the Taliban. I think your brain is fried from too many drugs in your adolescence FDB.
At 790 whoever this wanker is:
“Also, Gordo, you might note that the trans-Afghan pipeline hasn’t actually been built yet, 8 years after 9/11.”
What does this prove? Except that the Taliban have been harder to get rid off then they thought.
Pakistan, India and Afghanistan are buying the natural gas from Turkmenistan
Not too mention that this project is being funded by ADB, Asian Development Bank, which is owned by members from 48 different countries. Just because the US is used as a tool to get something done, does not mean that the US itself will be receiving the benefits of the outcome. Its the big boys at the top that receive this outcome, international bankers, international investors etc. Presidents may come and go, but these big players keep playing. Its not about nationality, but more about the big players that are gaining hugely from this project. Business is such a crooked game these days, there are all sorts of ways to set up companies, trusts etc so as to not be seen.
The US still has much to gain from this project. Another key aim of the project is to supply natural gas to Europe and take the Russians out of the natural gas game.
Another point is the huge profits made from the actual war, in terms of weapons sales.
How about then going to ask why the US had bombed Afghanistan back in 1999. The reason was reprisal for the Al Quaeda Bombing of US Embassies in Africa. So, the question is why did Al Quaeda bomb US embassie in Africa. This then leads us to the really dark area of foreign mining companies basically raping, stealing and enslaving Africa.
Anyway, some people just don’t want to see clearly and would rather live in the illusion that they are free men, when they are most definitely not.
FDB:
I have seen that episode. I know there is more to it. I searched specifically for the shortened version with only that line…just for you. That is the only part you need to hear. So, SMB.
I think you have it completely wrong FDB. Iraq was mostly about oil and they threw in the remaining reasons as excuses. There are plenty of other dictators around the world that the US is not moving to get rid of, but rather they have installed them as these dictators are willing to play ball with the US. Just as Saddam had before. Only problem for them now, was that Saddam told em where to go finally. They don’t seem to have a problem with the dictatorship in Saudi or many of the others in Africa, where huge multi nationals are making massive profits stealing resources from these countries.
“Afghanistan… nope. Anyone with an ounce of sense would have realised (as the US did) that the only way to get a viable pipeline in would be with the consent of the Taliban and tribal warlords. You couldn’t possibly hope to guard the whole length of it 24/7 from relatively easy attack, so what would be the point”
You obviously don’t have an ounce of sense. Exactly…the Taliban opposed the pipeline and hence the only way to get the pipeline in was to get rid of the Taliban. I think your brain is fried from too many drugs in your adolescence FDB.
At 790 whoever this wanker is:
“Also, Gordo, you might note that the trans-Afghan pipeline hasn’t actually been built yet, 8 years after 9/11.”
What does this prove? Except that the Taliban have been harder to get rid off then they thought.
Pakistan, India and Afghanistan are buying the natural gas from Turkmenistan
Not too mention that this project is being funded by ADB, Asian Development Bank, which is owned by members from 48 different countries. Just because the US is used as a tool to get something done, does not mean that the US itself will be receiving the benefits of the outcome. Its the big boys at the top that receive this outcome, international bankers, international investors etc. Presidents may come and go, but these big players keep playing. Its not about nationality, but more about the big players that are gaining hugely from this project. Business is such a crooked game these days, there are all sorts of ways to set up companies, trusts etc so as to not be seen.
The US still has much to gain from this project. Another key aim of the project is to supply natural gas to Europe and take the Russians out of the natural gas game.
Another point is the huge profits made from the actual war, in terms of weapons sales.
How about then going to ask why the US had bombed Afghanistan back in 1999. The reason was reprisal for the Al Quaeda Bombing of US Embassies in Africa. So, the question is why did Al Quaeda bomb US embassie in Africa. This then leads us to the really dark area of foreign mining companies basically raping, stealing and enslaving Africa.
Anyway, some people just don’t want to see clearly and would rather live in the illusion that they are free men, when they are most definitely not.
Oh, goodie, everyone’s favourite drooling troglodyte is back. We’re so lucky to have you with us, Gordon. Those who suffer from any fear of intellectual inferiority must be immensely cheered by your presence.
One minute you’re telling us that 9/11 was to advance US foreign policy interests. The next minute you say that it was actually to benefit the
Jews‘international bankers, international investors etc’.So why did all those US government and military personnel — who are not part of the world of international banking — go along with a scheme to murder thousands of Americans?
Would you, as someone who was supposedly in the ADF at some point, have gone along with an illegal order to assist in the murder of thousands of Australians, in order to benefit international bankers? No? Then why do you think all those CIA, FBI, USAF, NYPD, NYFD, NY Port Authority etc etc personnel would have gone along with such a plan?
Oh, and here’s something else to cogitate upon. [Dictionary.com will explain what 'cogitate' means.] Who were the majority of people who died on September 11? Clue: not strawberry farmers, truck drivers, or porn stars.
No, the majority of people who died on 9/11 were the very international bankers and their support staff who this plot was supposedly meant to benefit, in your twisted world-view.
Personally, were I a principal of Merrill Lynch, I’d have politely asked at the conspiracy planning meetings, if the planes could be directed towards other buildings, rather than my office, so that I wouldn’t have to be burned alive by jet fuel.
Can we knock the “international investor” = “code word for Jew” thing on the head right now, cos there are some serious issues with international investment and privately owned trans national orgnisations.
Because some of those people may well fit some peoples definition of the term “jew” but many others don’t. Saudi and American people for example. I can think of a few Americans who did OK out of Iraq, and out of the fall out from 9/11 who have more to do ith the Catholic Church than any ZO/WG. In that sense the Iraq war was actually about privatisation.
I think I’ll repeat that…
The Iraq war was actually about privatisation.
The privatisation or outsourcing of military power.
I can’t speak for Gordon, givem his performance on another thread he might well be using “internation business” as a code for Jews.
He’s dumb if he is tho, cos international business only owes allegience to money.
US foreign policy has been about supporting their corporate success overseas since operation paperclip at least. The only difference now is that its getting to the point where the US itself is no longer necessary to support those entities. The markets global, the US serves their purposes, but they (ohhh they) own its institutions. In many ways the US has been looted especially since Iraq. Not by evil joos tho.
(By all means criticise racist bollocks, but … the US govt is owned by big business. Ultimately there’s not alot of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, the Democrats seems “nicer” on the surface, since the 60s … thats about it tho. Both owned by big business. If you want to throw an ethnic generalisation onto that big business, its vicious with a painful sting.)
Jules:
No, i did not use the word international bankers as a code for Jew. they are of many backgrounds, including Jewish, but i do not beleive it has anything to do with being jewish.
At 794, the same old mate wanker who wont use his real name:
Starting off by throwing around insults, shows how intelligent you must be. Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNQ5V740LDY&feature=PlayList&p=343D6FE5D370300B
Next you try to discount what I have said by inferring I am being racist. Where in the hell did you get the idea that I was referring to Jewish people? I most certainly was not, although some of these international bankers and business’ may be jewish, among other nationalities.
US foreign policy is tied to international business and banking. So, yes dim wit, my original statement stands that it may have been orchestrated to further US foreign policy, which is tied to benefiting international business and banking.
Using fancy words is not an indication of how intelligent you are. A parrot can learn fancy words. Trying to twists someones sentences around is not intelligence either. Even better than intelligence is wisdom. The wisdom to not be so arrogant as to become a fool, full of pride who thinks he knows it all and is not willing to learn anything new. Thus, in this way intelligence can sometimes turn one into a blind fool.
By the way, Merrill Lynch’s head office is in London, not in the US. So, anyone who unfortunate enough to have been at the World Trade Centre, would not have been at the top of the company. This goes for most of the other people who were unfortunate enough to have been there.
Next my friend, it doesn’t take the whole of the CIA or FBI or whatever to be involved. In fact it doesn’t even take any of them to be involved. It could be anyone contracted to this or just a few persons. Money buys most things these days.
Well, it is difficult for us to see something which we have been taught the opposite all of our lives. In fact not just taught the opposite, but brainwashed since the day you started school or watched a TV or read a newspaper. The world does not work the way you have been told or the way you wish it works. Just take a good honest look around and you will see this. Just start with Africa and the so called poverty situation over there.
This could easily be solved by simply allowing them to control and profit from their own resources. When I say profit, I mean the people who work in the mines actually get to see something too (not some shitty $1 a day crap). Multinationals are basically raping, stealing and running modern day slavery in african countries. And this not only goes on under the nose of the US, among others, but is due to the US and other countries. Oh, but they have a corrupt government. Yes, one that the west has backed, that gives out the contracts to the multinationals. Do you think Africans couldn’t learn how to operate a mine? Hmm…maybe you are truly the racist one if you believe this.
But it’s ok for you dive in headlong and do the very same thing whenever it suits you, Gordon?
I guarantee you’d get a bit more respect around here if you held back from labelling just about every man who disagrees with you a wanker/sissy/nerd, and every woman a man/self-hating feminist.
Especially if you think they insulted you first. Two to tango, and all that other stuff my dad taught me.
Regarding Paulus’s “international banker Jew” nonsense insinuation, what you wrote @ 796 was all that was required on the matter.
(and, please, enough with the SMBs! let’s keep it civil and out of the frickin’ gutter for goodness sake)
Regarding the ““international banker Jew” nonsense insinuation”, my antennae start twitching when people make vague reference to “international bankers” without specifying exactly who they mean. And, as wikipedia notes, a “myth popular with 9/11 conspiracy theorists is that 4,000 Jewish employees skipped work at the World Trade Center on September 11″.
But Gordon has said that that wasn’t what he meant, so I apologise for having made the insinuation.
Happy birthday, yet again, thread!
This one’s for you, daggett ;)
Paulus, there is a nasty strain of anti semeticism that goes along with some people who question 9/11. Kind of matches the nasty strain of anti arabic/anti muslim nastiness that goes along with some people who don’t question 9/11.
So anyway, Erik Prince, Cofer Black and Gary Jackson are very sus individuals. Not jewish, (and I don’t know if they had anything to actually do with 9/11 itself, tho Cofer Black’s failure to do his job properly definitely did.)
Nobody here would serously disagree that there are very rich, powerful, non- or even anti-democratic interests afoot in the world, influencing governments and international bodies in ways that could often be described as dodgy in the extreme.
There is however, as step between that and the execution of the 9/11 atrocities. A number of steps. Okay, a 3000ft high suspension bridge made of rotten timber lashed together with vines, like in Temple of Doom.
Even if a plausibly circumscribed actual group could be identified who would profit directly in some way from the murder of 4000 US bankers etc, that would still only fulfill one of the requirements for establishing guilt, i.e. that of motive.
There still remain opportunity and capacity, which are extremely doubtful – particularly when the above has not occurred, and no properly-defined suspect is in the frame. How can we assess their opportunity and capacity to commit the crime, when we don’t know who they are or what resources they had to draw upon?
Of course, motive, opportunity and capacity to commit a crime only themselves become relevant when some eyewitness testimony or physical evidence puts a suspect in the frame.
Which as the history of this thread shows, is the main problem for Daggett et al.
All you’ve really got is a motive. A motive without a suspect.
Eric Sykes wrote:
Indeed, I did ask, Eric.
As I wrote earlier to Bob:
And that is just as much applicable to you.
Brett wrote:
I think you need to read my post again.
What conclusion could I have drawn from FDB’s statement:
… except that he had to have some kind of expertise on demolitions?
How would anyone who is not an expert know what to have expected?
How can that be construed to mean that I am claiming one needs to be an ‘expert’ on explosions in order to be able to recognise the absence of one?
Logically, being able to recognise an explosion where one sees one would also entail being able to “not recognise one” as Eric Sykes put it. The only person here who, so far, has made the idiotic claim that one needed to be an ‘expert’ to do either is Bob.
As I wrote earlier, “The only reason that anyone would attempt to use [such an argument], is to dissuade others from recognising the clear evidence of their own eyes.”
—
FDB wrote in response to my earlier comment:
What I presume that FDB means to imply in that is that, as the building above collapses it will neccessarily force the air, within the collapsed part of the building downwards, But not only air, but, apparently “a great deal of various other materials (interior plaster walls, bits of masonry, [etc.]” Somehow all this material will be dragged down trhough the uncollapsed floors underneath even faster that the visible rapidly moving outside collapse front. And it will be pushed along with such force that we have to expect windows below the visible collapse front to be broken and that material ejected through it.
I would have thought even just to state this would be be make its absurdity more than apparent.
I think if FDB had thought about this for more than 10 seconds, an obvious problem would have occurred to him:
1. For the air to be forced downwards some means to capture that air, analagous to a piston, has to exist. As the floors above are clearly breaking up (to considerably understate matters) surely any air in the building would simply escape through the more than ample gaps that would have been made by those floors breaking up.
2. Even if sufficient air, etc had somehow been captured by the tower above and forced down, why would the air and debris have broken through at one (or two) sharply focused places and nowhere else?
It’s obvious that either FDB hasn’t thought this through and has simply concocted (or regurgitated) an incomplete explanation to avoid having to acknowledge that the only way that the violent ejection of that plume of debris can be explained is that it is the result of an explosion.
—
Bob wrote:
If you want to avoid what you claim to be my repetition, could I, again, suggest that you either defend your statement, implying that only ‘experts’ can comment upon whether or not the images are images of explosions or withdraw it?
Bob continued:
Surely that would cut both ways. Why should the fact that you maintain that they are not explosions any more make them not explosions.
My simple point, again, is that, if neither of us need to be ‘experts’ to be able to recognise those images as being explosions, or not explosions as the case may be.
My other, far more basic, point is this:
If, apart from Bob, we are agreed that one doesn’t need to be an ‘expert’, then either one side of the discussion or the other is lying. Either it is me, or it is Bob, FDB, PatrickB, Eric Sykes and possibly others I may have missed. Adrian? Jo? Nick? Liam? Until one or the other, whichever it is, desists from lying, this discussion cannot proceed.
The only way around this impasse, is place on the record our respective claims as I have done, and allow others, who are not committed, in advance, to one or other position to form their own judgements.
“The only way around this impasse, is place on the record our respective claims as I have done, and allow others, who are not committed, in advance, to one or other position to form their own judgements.”
I’m not committed to anything Daggett.
Show me some positive evidence for an explanation other than planes causing fires causing collapse, and I’ll be happy to take it on board.
Whereas you will reject anything that doesn’t fit your explanation, no matter how compelling.
That you can’t see this is obvious – and of course I don’t expect to get through to you. Again, like you, I’m just pointing it out in case anyone else reading might be foolish enough to follow you into committing intellectual suicide.
“Show me some positive evidence for an explanation other than planes causing fires causing collapse, and I’ll be happy to take it on board.”
Be careful FDB, you’re inviting another YouTube spam. You know what I mean, underqualified nerds with stats programs and grainy, pixelated video claiming they have definitive evidence. What I want from Dagget is direct evidence of the conspiracy both it it’s formation and execution. As it stands we have very clear evidence that the towers were brought down by the fires and structural damage caused by the impact of the ‘planes. “lets place on the record our respective claim[s]” I have done this and I have just done it again. It is not a claim made by me by the way, it is the result of seeing the event occur.
“contain what are clearly recognisable … as explosions” clearly recognisable to you dagster, to you.
“then either one side of the discussion or the other is lying”…sheeesh…I am not lying and I deeply resent that accusation dagsterman. I just don’t see anything that looks like an explosion in any of the material you have so far linked to in support of your assertion of pre-planned demolition….none of which btw constitutes evidence…..it just constitutes what it is…a series of images open to diverse interpretation….just like life really
You can repeat yourself as much as you like, Daggy, and have, and I will continue to pillory you for it.
What you refer to was not my “statement”, but three questions, namely: “Who says it’s an explosion? You, Daggy? What makes you an expert on explosions?”
Not only were these questions NOT a statement, but you’ve also inferred incorrectly. I don’t imply that “only ‘experts’ can comment” on the images; I imply that YOUR opinion on whether the image shows an explosion (i.e. of a controlled demolition) is worthless as your opinion is not expert, i.e. not authoritative. People can comment however they like. People can claim to see whatever they like. That doesn’t make their claims or their opinions accurate or reliable. THAT is the implication, Daggy.
As you are no expert, and you have been unable to prove that what you see was, indeed, an explosion, we can only conclude that you do NOT know an explosion when you see one and that your opinion, as I implied – and as I’ll state categorically now – is worthless.
Hope that helps.
St Brigid in a brothel you are one lost, misbegotten soul of dopey delusion. I maintain that they are NOT explosions because THERE IS NO FUCKING EVIDENCE THAT THEY ARE EXPLOSIONS. You maintain that they ARE explosions because you think they look like explosions, despite the fact that there is no evidence supporting this belief of yours. Do you see the difference, Daggy?
Huh? If…then what?
FMD.
Buehler? Buehler? Congratulations, Daggy, that is the most fucked-up attempt at Chewbacca Defense I have ever seen. Honestly, that’s so bad I’m wondering if you’re on drugs right now.
Whether whoever agrees on whatever you mean by needing to be an expert has no bearing on whoever is lying. You are right that one of us is lying, however. I’ll give you a hint: it’s the bloke who reckons the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolitions.
As for the procession of this discussion, who gives a fuck? You’ve been reduced to arguing that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolitions because you reckon, from watching YouTube videos, that it looks – TO YOU – like controlled demolitions. That’s all your argument rests upon: your opinion. BFD.
This isn’t an impasse, Daggy; it’s a dénouement.
FDB wrote,
Then PatrickB wrote:
And PatrickB has already written wrote earlier:
Actually what has happened is that an investigation has been conducted. As there is no evidence that a controlled explosion was in anyway responsible for the disaster there is no-one who can attest to the plot.
Of course, I reject all those assertions and my respective rejecting of those respective assertions does no more to advance that discussion than your making those assertions in the first place.
So, can we leave those claims and counter-claims aside and discuss the evidence at hand?
Can both of you begin by acknowledging, as I asked above that either I must be lying when I claim to see what I maintain what is clearly recognisable as explosions in those images, or both of you, and a few others, besides, are lying when you maintain that you see nothing in those images which is recognisable as explosions?
Or do you happen to agree with the conclusion that must logically follow from Bob’s statement that most people in this discussion, presuambly including you and me, not being ‘experts’ on explosions are not capable of knowing one way or the other what they see in those images?
Clearly, lying about what one sees in straightforward photographic and video evidence and then using that lie as a basis to pronounce that one has won the debate poses great difficulty for those wishing to debate this objectively and rationally and that needs to be acknowledged, whichever of us are guilty of doing that.
FDB, could you then respond to my response to your nonsense explanation for that plume of debris being violently ejected from the North Tower?
—
PatrickB wrote:
Now, where did I say that, Patrick?
“Now, where did I say that, Patrick?”
I don’t know, somewhere in this thread you acknowledged there was no direct evidence for a controlled demolition on the twin towers. Or perhaps I dreamt it, in which case will you now present us with the direct evidence of aforementioned disaster?
I don’t accept you assertion that you must be lying.
“Can both of you begin by acknowledging, as I asked above that either I must be lying when I claim to see what I maintain what is clearly recognisable as explosions in those images, or both of you, and a few others, besides, are lying when you maintain that you see nothing in those images which is recognisable as explosions?”
For myself I don’t think you are lying, I think you are badly mistaken. I think that any reasonable person, looking dispassionately at your posts would consider them, and the material you have linked to as – at best – badly mistaken – at worst – stubbornly delusional.
So, at best I think you and other truthers have made an error of judgment. And I still deeply resent the accusation of lying thrown at me dagster and I await your mature recognition that an image can be genuinely read in a myriad of different ways, especially when looked at by ordinary folk like you or I as opposed to those who have the professional skill to make a deeper judgment, and then what’s more, back that judgment up with accurate and reasonable, scientific and uncontestable data and here comes the twister, here it comes…….evidence.
I have just skimmed through the latest posts so my appologies if this has already been pointed out but all references to freefall so far have been in relation to freefall in a vacuum, these buildings were not in a vacuum but rather were at sea level. 50% slower than freefall in a vacuum might well equate to freefall at sea level for some of the larger sections of the buildings.
And at the same time not only overcoming the resistance from the massive intact structure below but also doing the phenomenal work required to pulverise virtually all the concrete, hmmm (any ‘work’ done during the collapse must slow the collapse).
The speed of these collapses is only justifiable if explosives were both removing the intact building below and doing the work of pulverising the concrete.
In Bob’s most recent long hysterical rant, he wrote:
So, now you are deeming me not to be an ‘expert’ because I claim to see something that you say is not there, which is the reverse of what you said earlier.
Still, I would think that being an ‘expert’ or not is beside the point as every adult in the world should be capable of recognising an explosion when he/she sees one and trying to imply that one needs to be to do so, as you did above is plain stupid. (Apologies for the bad link in my previous post.)
Bob wrote,
I am glad that Bob, at least, accepts this point.
As further claims and counter-claims as to who is lying and who is not would be pointless, all I can do is suggest that others view the images for themselves and make up their own minds.
—
Sorry. Eric Sykes if the implication that you draw from my statement offends you, but, as I said, either I must be a liar or you must be.
I personally find offensive the way that so many people, who profess to be humanitarian, progressive and anti-war, are so willing to lie to themselves and to others in order to perpetuate the Big Lie of 9/11 that has been used as a pretext to murder hundreds of thousands in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Has anyone noticed that the words “conspiracy” and “explosions” both contain exactly ten letters?
Coincidence? I think not.
Nope. Your non-expertise is the premise, not the conclusion. Comprehension FAIL.
Thanks for correcting the link, but still no statement there, Daggy. That’s twice you’ve lied on the same point.
Also, your assertion that “every adult in the world should be capable of recognising an explosion” is unsubstantiated assertion and, in your case – I’m assuming that you’re an adult, but that might be over-generous – falsified, as you clearly see an explosion where there was none.
People lie to themselves and others all the time, Daggy. What’s your excuse?
So..let me get this straight, you put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up…oh…sorry…you say people should “make up their own minds” but when they tell you they have you accuse them of lying….unless they agree with you..then we’d all be prinde truthers together eh? Ta dags, that, you see just reinforces your position as stubbornly delusional.
I too read a post from you Mr daggett, in which you admitted there was no direct evidence of controlled demolition of the three buildings. I have neither the time nor the inclination to re-read your posts to find that little nugget.
But you seem to have the time, (though, strangely not sufficient to read a NIST report). So how about you find it and report back to the seven of us who are still perusing this?
Daggett said at 719
There was also the daggett @ 732, who conceded:
Casey #817, this is all your fault!
What? how did I start this?
We crossed before I put the link up.
Eric Sykes,
This is an image of a building being demolished with explosives to be found on this page.
This is one of many images of the North Tower collapsing.
Are you seriously maintaining that nothing in the latter in any way reminds you, in any way, of anything in the former?
Well dagsterman they are both buildings and they are both falling down. One has explosions starting at the bottom and running up. That’s about it from me on the “this looks like that” show and tell. I am serious, I am not lying.
And a turtle can sometimes look a bit like a tortoise, depending on the light and one’s point of view of course.
Daggett,
I thought the point of the ‘nano-thermite shaped charges’ was that they focused their energy very tightly so as to cut through steel beams without creating a large visible explosion?
Anyway, my major question is: what do you think a skycraper collapse would look like without the use of explosive?
Y’see, it’s not enough to just show pix of a demolition and pix of the WTC. If you want to seem more convincing, show us what a tall building collapse looks like when there are no explosives involved. And then explain how it differs from the WTC pix.
But look at all the hours of fun we have had! But trust you, Paul Norton, to find out the secret meaning of the word Shelm. Now if you will excuse me, I just have to go check who I originally said it to. I’m hoping it’s not who I think it is. But for the record, I was talking about the peanut butter.
But look at all the hours of fun we have had! But trust you, Paul Norton, to find out the secret meaning of the word Shelm. Now if you will excuse me, I just have to go check who I originally said it to. I’m hoping it’s not who I think it is. But for the record, I was talking about the peanut butter.
Languid C op cit mentioned a nugget from daggett.
Is that a naggett, or a dugget?
But I dig it, man. Also, I like “daggster” and “dagsterman”.
Dagget,
Looks like you did acknowledge that there was no direct evidence for a controlled demolition of the twin towers. Why not swallow you prinde and admit that you’ve been a bit silly and that in future I’ll let the adults have the discussions.
Unless you’d like to keep this thread going, but if that’s the case you’ll have to get some new arguments. You’re becoming boring. I’d often wondered what would happen to a believer in a conspiracy theory when they are relentless bombarded with sound refutations of their patently ludicrous ideas. Now I know, they become very, very boring.
Without 9/11 Bush could not have invaded Iraq. And that was all he was about. That was the reason they put the dummy in there.
LIHOP
I don’t need any direct evidence. The scare tactics of the big boys that run the world have always been the same. And it worked perfectly again. Scaring the people into believing that they need the system to survive and protect them.
Other than that it all seems so convenient. US trying to build a pipeline in Afghanistan. Taliban refuse. Next 9/11 happens. US full scale invasion of Taliban, then Iraq all mostly based on 9/11.
Getting direct proof is very hard when the party running the investigation is the accused. When the party running the investigation was asked why they were not investigating the paper trail to find out who financed 9/11 their response was “its not important”. There are just so many dodgy circumstances surrounding 9/11.
The US government has already been proven themselves unworthy of being trusted. You think its far fetched to believe that they may kill their own citizens lives. They don’t care about their own citizens lives. Which is why the send young boys in to die for oil.
Checkout Zeitgeist the movie. Hey, if you dont agree, then you have nothing to lose.
Another thing. Really, do you think that a building would fall like this from being hit by a plane and catching fire way up the top. You would think it would tip over. Just looking at the videos is looks just like a controlled demolition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ptvvbaR0-U
Again, these buildings were built to withstand such an attack by an airplane.
No,
I wouldn’t expect it to “tip over”.
Built to easily withstand very strong forces of (more or less) horizontal winds.
Built to withstand a collision by an airliner, rather than an ‘attack’.
The gentlemen who planted explosives in the basement (1993?) wanted to topple a tower over so that it could take other buildings down as it toppled, to incresase the death toll.
They failed. Their little mates tried again later, apparently.
So, you would expect it to implode and crumble from the the bottom?
Gordon, have a look at the following video:
Vérinage Compilation – Explosiveless Demolition
These are all also controlled demolitions.
daggett will be the first to point out they were concrete, not steel, and that they’d been prepared beforehand for demolition by removing everything but the support structures themselves. There would be numerous other dissimilarities he could list for us, which would all be kinda irrelevant as I’m not arguing the Twin Towers were brought down by CT, and it’s obvious enough none of these building had fully loaded planes crashed into them, before burning intensively for hours.
The point is that it was essentially found to be a similar principle at work.
Using vérinage, the supports for 2 or more floors are forcibly removed from the side by cables.
In the Twin Towers case, the were ‘removed’ by the fires weakening the steel supports of the floors already damaged by the crash to the point where they couldn’t continue to hold up the 30,000+ tonnes sitting on top of them.
The top portion of the building collapes onto the bottom portion, and gravity *by itself* does the rest, floor by floor. Each floor crushed adds to the mass of the top portion, creating a snowball effect.
The buildings all more or less implode into their own footprints – without any need at all for the *synchronistically timed, floor by floor* detonations insisted (ad nauseum) by the video you linked to above.
As daggett has previously conceded on this thread, there is no evidence whatsoever of explosives having been detonated in the Twin Towers.
Nick:
Good video and interesting point.
I’m still not convinced that the US government was not involved given their track record of shadiness, deceit and in some cases downright evil.
General shadiness does not necessitate guilt in every unhappy incident, gordon.
Otherwise the police could just find one genuine murderer, and charge him with every murder; absurd, wouldn’t you agree?
I prefer this video of the effects of a jetliner hitting the WTC than pixel counts and one sided views of the collapes.
All I know is that George W Bush and most of the US government should be facing war crime charges, amongst others and possibly international terrorism charges too. I’d say John Howard and Tony Blair would be in there too.
Interesting video Nick, the buildings look as though they are extensively weakened throughout before the 2 or 3 floors are collapsed. It would be interesting to find out if indeed the whole building must be significantly weakened for these collapses to work the way they do. (it is actually normal practice to significantly weaken structures prior to controlled demolition).
All those collapses look like they slow up to me after the initial freefall period, (unlike the towers which continue speeding up all the way to the ground) although I admit I can’t measure this accurately. The first building does not collapse all the way to the ground as you can clearly see at 37s one floor is left standing.
You understand of course that these are precision engineered controlled demolitions? And that the effect that fire has on steel is to soften it, and that when steel is softened to the point of yielding it will bend and buckle? It will not fail completely and instantaniously.
AND when steel buckles it still retains some strength so a slower collapse is expected, not to mention the impossibility of getting dozens of steel columns to fail simultaniously due to fire.
You are right though, those precision engineered controlled demolitions do have many similarities with the engineered controlled demolitions of the towers.
“And that the effect that fire has on steel is to soften it, and that when steel is softened to the point of yielding it will bend and buckle?”
Which is what happened to the twin towers. A lot of structural steel was heated to a point at which it weakened and buckled, this caused a collapse and a great deal of weight fell on to an already weakened structure, which caused a great deal of weight to fall on to an already weakened structure … do you get my drift? So no need for that last sentence eh?
You’ve already made an excellent point, best not to over reach yourself. Oh, unless you have some direct eviden … now where did he go?
PAtrickB:
again speaking with a smug tone. what for?
you sound very smug.
PatrickB, the rapid onset is one of many pieces of direct evidence of explosives, you have agreed that fire can only possibly soften steel to the point it yields through the buckling process, which is a slower collapse mechanism as some strength is retained throughout the buckling process.
THEN you talk about the upper block falling onto the lower structure, the upper block can only fall if there is a mechanism that allows it to fall by removing the columns, fire softening the steel to a tipping point will not remove the columns, they will still be there and will still retain a significant amount of strength throughout the buckling process.
The buckling process and the upper block falling are mutually exclusive.
PatrickB wrote:
No, I did not. (Please take note Casey, Nick,) I wrote:
… and:
Now, Patrick, Casey and Nick are entitled to take those words to mean the same as “there isn’t any evidence whatsoever for [controlled explosion]” but that is not the literal meaning of those words and that is not what I intended them to mean.
I think it’s instructive that Patrick has avoided answering this question which was included with the second of my responses above:
And FDB has yet to respond to this.
And Paulus has yet to respond to this.
—
Welcome back Andrew
andrew @ 811,
“[...] all references to freefall so far have been in relation to freefall in a vacuum, these buildings were not in a vacuum but rather were at sea level. 50% slower than freefall in a vacuum might well equate to freefall at sea level for some of the larger sections of the buildings.”
???
andrew @ 839,
“You are right though, those precision engineered controlled demolitions do have
manysimilarities withthe engineered controlled demolitions of the towersthe Twin Towers collapses.”The Twin Towers collapsed well outside their own footprints.
Ambigulous: “General shadiness does not necessitate guilt in every unhappy incident, gordon.
Otherwise the police could just find one genuine murderer, and charge him with every murder; absurd, wouldn’t you agree?”
But what if the Bush admin had heard there was a terrorist attack coming at a time when they were determined to implement an expansionist military policy. And what if they had an impossible task convincing the electorate to go with that policy. The neocons at PNAC wrote in 2000 that there would need to be a Pearl Harbour to implement their policies. The actions and inactions of people like Bush, Ashcroft, Cheney, Zelikow are very, very suspicion. Both before, and after 9/11.
Cheney – with his wife – was already in the bunker control room giving orders for NORAD to stand down.
Zelikow – all through 2001 it was Zelikow’s job in the Whitehouse to bury any reports of Richard Clarke’s or Tenet’s re imminent terrorist attacks. Clarke and Tenet were kept at distance. The President doesn’t know anything about any attacks, and that is policy.
Bush – the August 6 memo was in part a response by Tenet and Clarke to get information to Bush about an imminent attack. Its title, bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside US. Bush’s response was to go on holiday and do nothing. Not a single thing was done on the back of that report to Bush.
Ashcroft fought with the FBI over terrorist alerts. He said point blank he did not want to hear about it. But Ashcroft refused to fly commercial planes because of a threat of terrorist attacks. Hmmmmm….
Extremely suspicious.
The Bush admin, didn’t have to be involved, and didn’t have to know everthing. All they had to do was nothing and wait for the event that would give them the opportunity to set up military bases around the richest reserves of oil and gas in the world. Around thirteen trillion dollars worth.
As was revealed in the Plame case: despite the smoke and mirrors, the President knows more, and knows it earlier than everyone else.
I note that a lot of the ‘refutation’ of the controlled demolition hypothesis for the World Trade Centre Towers is based on the argument that it was not bottom-up.
All that ‘proves’ is that they were not classic demolitions.
The reason that the sequencing of the explosions were not bottom-up should be obvious and barely worth further discussion.
If the destruction had proceed from the bottom up, then clearly nobody would have been fooled by the official explanation that the ‘collapses’ were somehow caused by the crash of the aircraft.
Nick points out that the “Twin Towers collapsed well outside their own footprints.” Well, obviously they would have, wouldn’t they?
If the building is blown apart from a great height, instead of being allowed to remain intact at each floor level until it reaches ground level, then we would expect a lot of the debris not to fall within the footprint of the building (unlike what happened with WTC 7).
However the striking thing about the pattern of the fallen debris is it’s unlikely symmetry.
If the destruction had proceeded from the bottom up, then clearly nobody would have been fooled by the official explanation that the ‘collapses’ were somehow caused by the crash of the aircraft.
I think by now, the list of charecteristics of the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers from the web site of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth ber repeating here.
1. Destruction proceeds through the path of greatest resistance at nearly free-fall acceleration
2. Improbable symmetry of debris distribution
3. Extremely rapid onset of destruction
4. Over 100 first responders reported explosions and flashes
5. Multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally 600 ft at 60 mph
6. Mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking
7. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic-like clouds
8. 1200-foot-dia. debris field: no “pancaked” floors found
9. Isolated explosive ejections 20 – 40 stories below demolition front
10. Total building destruction: dismemberment of steel frame
11. Several tons of molten metal found under all 3 high-rises
12. Evidence of thermite incendiaries found by FEMA in steel samples
13. Evidence of explosives found in dust samples
14. No precedent for steel-framed high-rise collapse due to fire
The charecteristics of the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ also bear repeating:
1. Rapid onset of “collapse”
2. Sounds of explosions at ground floor – a full second prior to collapse
3. Symmetrical “collapse” – through the path of greatest resistance – at free-fall acceleration
4. Imploded, collapsing completely, and landed mostly in its own footprint
5. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic dust clouds
6. Several tons of molten metal reported by numerous highly-qualified witnesses
7. Chemical signature of Thermite (high tech incendiary) found in solidified molten metal, and dust samples by physics professor Steven Jones, PhD.
8. FEMA finds rapid oxidation and intergranular melting on structural steel samples
9. Expert corroboration from the top European Controlled Demolition professional (i.e Danny Jowenko, referred to above)
10. Fore-knowledge of “collapse” by media, NYPD, FDNY
(I have not included above the links within that list, not wishing to push my luck with whatever it is about this site’s Content Management system that often causes posts containing links to disappear. However, I think it would be well worth people’s time to visit that site and follow those links.)
—
Eric Sykes, You did not answer my question. Obviously there are differences between the two demolitions, but I asked.
I will have to take your answer as ‘no’. At least this answer together with your previous answer:
… to my previous question to Bob:
… will give others, able to see, some idea of the likely worth of opinions expressed by you elsewhere on this forum.
—
Also another film of the ‘collapse’ of the South Tower, apparently not widely available is well worth viewing. It is linked to on the abovementioned site. The direct link is here. It is labeled “WTC 2 Explodes”.
Let’s see whether Bob, FDB, Eric Sykes, PatrickB and others will again insist that they don’t see explosions in that video either.
A little physics:
“free fall in a vacuum” would not affect the outcome. Air resistance is a tiny force, relatively speaking, in this situation.
“at sea level”?
Air density is greatest at sea level, but at the top of the Towers it’s not significantly lower, so the effect (on lowering air resistance)is a small percentage of a tiny force, basically negligible in this instance.
Gravitational force (and acceleration) reduces with altitude, but the Earth’s radius exceeds 6,000 km; the effects of being above sea level are negligible in the WTC experiment.
All due honour to Isaac Newton. We could do worse than to study his concepts carefully.
Sorry, I should have written:
I will have to take your answer as ‘yes’, that is, nothing in the image of the collapse of the North Tower reminds you of the explosions in the latter video.
—
For once, I am in agreement with Nick. The difference in free fall speed in a vacuum and in air would not be significant (that is, unless, we are talking about feathers and not steel and concrete), and nowhere near 50% so andrew is wrong in that regard.
—
Please surprise me, Nick, and give us another point on which we can agree. Please take a look at the abovementioned video (near the bottom of that post) and tell us what you actually see and not what suits the position you are trying to defend in this debate.
daggett,
suppose I agree with you and say it was a controlled demolition. Whats next?
I’d have to ask: who did it, how did they do it, why did they do it, and when did they do it (place the explosives).
Brendon
That’s a point raised by many posters here. Unfortunately daggett seems to regard it as a “side issue” even though it seems central to his apparent scenario.
The most amusing claim for me (at the moment -it changes regularly) is the idea that explosive residue was found in the dust or on steel samples from the collapsed building.
Indeed given that buildings were full of all sorts of things that contained all sorts of chemicals, then there is a very simple explanation for why chemicals were found. The number one culprit was likely building materials. The chemical traces found are as expected given the building materials used, not ridiculous fantasies involving thermite.
It gets even funnier when the truthers trot out beams cut by oxyacetylene torches during the clean up as “evidence.”
Anyway, an interesting article found just now.
“And FDB has yet to respond to [link]”
Which linked to this:
Sorry.
Which linked to this:
It does Daggy, you’re right. That is truly a massively and obviously wrong reading of what I said. Verging on the absurd, yes.
I think you’ve gotten yourself confused (again), and I think I know how, so look, I’m a nice guy and I’ll help you out.
I mentioned the plumes of material being ejected many floors below the front of the collapse, because it suggests something odd was going on many floors below the front of the collapse. Isolated, ramdom puffs of stuff being ejected from lower floor windows would indicate something pretty serious – perhaps connected with jet fuel fires, but not at all compatible with any known controlled demolition method.
As those puffs are clearly NOT occurring where a floor is currently collapsing, it is just as clear to anyone trying to read for meaning that I was talking about two completely different things.
Now please can you resond to the following propositions. I have observed by now, particularly in your transactions with the esteemed M. Terwilliger, that you simply ignore questions you don’t like, and concentrate on filibustering on some minor detail or, as above, utterly boneheaded misinterpretation. So I’m going with simple propositions instead, I suppose in the hope that it’s just that you’re allergic to question marks or something.
Note that I have helfully provided two and only two available responses for each. Simply cut and paste the list, and bold your selected response:
1) When a floor of a building collapses, smoke, dust and other debris is likely to come flying out the windows, whether in a controlled demolition or not. Agree / Disagree
2) A sequence in a controlled demolition is orderly, bottom-up, evenly timed series of explosions. Agree / Disagree
3) That video shows something different on all counts – chaotic, top-down, big plumes of smoke and debris shooting out 15 to 20 floors below the front of the collapse. Agree / Disagree
4) It’s also, as Shaun has pointed out, in no way controlled. Huge chunks are flying everywhere. Agree / Disagree
Should you wish to briefly expand on your answers you may do so, but please do me the courtesy of answering them all.
And then take that new-found skill and run with it. Answer everyone’s questions, even when you don’t really wanna. Then you’ll have a leg to stand on when demanding answers of others.
By the way, your assertion that where two people disagree one must be a liar is just amazing. Do you honestly think that? I don’t. I guess one of us is lying.
Or a Cretan.
Or something.
Once again the old red herring.
Look: not all Cretans are liars! Just as not all ladies of Lesbos are ladily inclined. Eat up your souvlaki and leave us alone…
“Look: not all Cretans are liars!”
Well, you would say that.
Not all of us are communists.
You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.
Andrew blahs
“the rapid onset is one of many pieces of direct evidence of explosives”
No it isn’t. Can you provide direct evidence of the conspiracy e.g. witness statements etc (we’ve been through this)? Then we’ll move on to the direct evidence for the explosives in place, and then on we go to the actual direct evidence of the explosives being detonated. Andrew … Andrew?
Daggett,
So you do have direct evidence for a controlled explosion? Great wheel it out and we on the side of reason will all look like fools and you can do a victory dance.
[Daggy presents long list of highly circumstantial evidence that could be interpreted as supporting official report conclusions]
I present: ‘planes hitting buildings at high speed, towers catching fire, towers collapsing.
What I want to know is why this discussion has thus far ignored the The Pentagon?
Brendon, I tend to agree with everything you said @845.
I’m not saying it means anything specific, its just sus enough to demand more questions. I think Cheney actually said “The orders still stand” in refernce to the “stand down orders” that had been given to NORAD, suspiciously enough after Black and Tenets briefings on 10 July. (IIRC) Thats according to Norman Mineta’s actual testimony. Alex Jones was responsible for turning Mineta’s testimony from “The order’s still stand” to a claim that Cheney actually gave orders to Stand Down.
In pursuit of a tabloid headline Jones got it wrong, and missed that Mineta’s testimony contradicted Cheney’s significantly, especially wrt to when he actually entered the bunker and took command of the situation, which (again iirc) was, if nothing else unconstitutional.
But anyway …
“The Truther wars are over, and Loud, Dumb and Misguided hold illimitable dominion over all. The moment for justice has passed, and the truth movement has become an Alex Jonestown.”
An online friend wrote that, and they were spot on.
‘Cause it wuz exorcised?
860 was in response to 858.
Because we all know that a nano-thermite armed controlled demolition team hit the Pentagon at high speed.
For that matter, what about Flight 93, the one that crashed in a field on its way to Washington DC? Was there a building (Capitol? White House?) covertly wired up for demolition in readiness for Flight 93 to crash into it, thwarted by the unexpectedly heroic actions of the airline passengers? If so, presumably it was just as covertly unwired after 9/11. Without anybody noticing, of course.
Well, if it’s truth you’re after then questions are all well and good.
But if you want The Truth, you’re only allowed to ask The Questions.
Y’see?
The Pentagon was obviously a huge version of one of Solomons Jars. The US military captured the Cuthulu spawned servant of the Ogdru Jahad that was working with Nazis in germany. (Mike Mignola was wrong when he wrote hellboy, the Anung Un Rama is not a dude with a cool haircut but it has a red right hand. (Cos of all the blood.) )
Jack Parsons and L Ron Hubbard performed the babalon working in march 46, and as a result the cleft in spacetime allowed something through. This critter was born to that well known hellspawn Barbara Bush on July 6 1946, and rose to power in the US through the 90s. Not being fully human it only needed a gestation period of about 4 months.
This creature had come to earth with a mission, to free the servant of Ogdru Jahad that was trapped in the pentagon. hence 9/11. The towers were just a distraction, and a conveinient source of blood and pain for the servant, which is either Negral or Irra Jahad most probably.
I really thought all this was obvious. – jules @400and something
(I can’t really agree with Paul Burns that the pentagon was exorcised, based on all the blood its shed since…)
What is there to say about the pentagon really? Actual evidence tho, not hearsay and conjecture.
The Pentagon! Flight 93!
Yes. Of course!
9/11 was a government plot. Only government had the means to pull it off!
The WTC strikes were a diversion. Flight 93 was destined for the White House. But it was the only plane brought down by a “passenger” revolt. This was a clever ruse to make it look like that the centre of US government was an actual target. In any case, Bush was out of town on the day of the attack
So … the real, actual target of 9/11 … the Pentagon! The real actual target of 9/11?
… Donald Rumsfeld.
Cos of the trillions of dollars?
Now we’re getting somewhere. Sometimes all it takes is the right question.
“What is there to say about the pentagon really? Actual evidence tho, not hearsay and conjecture.”
Yes jules, but in case you hadn’t noticed we’ve taken 800+ posts to discuss the demolition of the twin towers based on er… heresay and conjecture. It just doesn’t seem fair somehow to leave the pentagon out of it.
PatrickB,
I said the rapid onset was direct evidence of explosives and then you start rambling on about providing evidence of the “conspiracy”, you would not make a very good cop if you ignore all the physical evidence of a crime just because you don’t have anyone confessing.
WRT to my earlier post about the freefall at sea level as opposed to a vacuum, I will retract that because I can’t back it up with equations, but the premise is not unfounded.
If you were to drop a block of wood from the top of the towers it would take significantly longer than a steel beam would to hit the ground because of air resistance, most intact steel framed buildings have the average density of a block of wood (they could theoretically float if their widows etc maintained ingegrety), so if part of the upper block remained intact as Bazant and Zhou speculate then it is not unreasonable to suggest that freefall for those sections could be significantly slower than freefall in a vacuum.
Certainly air resistance would have little effect on individual steel members or hunks of concrete, I am only explaining why I wrote what I did and don’t want to get into an any discussion about it as I have retracted the post.
I always thought that exorcism of the Pentagon didn’t work.
Nope, not “a lot” of the refutation. Just one point.
What proof do you have that they WERE demolitions, OF ANY KIND?
They weren’t demolitions at all: they collapsed from the point where two large aircraft struck them, causing extensive fires that led to the collapse of the buildings.
So the explosions had to be top-down because your conspiracy theory wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. That doesn’t make sense.
Why would “we” expect that, Daggy? And it wasn’t “blown apart from a great height”.
What “unlikely symmetry”?
You should know by now, Daggy, that too many links causes the system to identify your comment as spam. Which is ironic in your case, isn’t it?
It’s evident from those lists that you’ve simply been regurgitating Truther garbage for several weeks now, and all of it has been thoroughly debunked here or elsewhere. If you feel particularly confident in any of it, produce the evidence and we’ll have it out again.
I don’t. Honestly, I don’t.
Brett,
Nobody knows what the plans were for flight 93, some speculate it might have been heading for WTC 7, in which case they just went ahead with the demolition anyhow.
Some speculate it was shot down rather than crashed because of it’s unusually large debris field.
Some even speculate that flight 93 didn’t crash there at all because the scar in the ground was there prior to 9/11 as this vid shows.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-59kouBgO_s
I don’t see any need to post the same post a second time, FDB. I think most of us would have worked out what had happened. I also at least once similarly neglected to match an opening <blockquote> tag with a closeing <\blockquote>, and in hindsight, I should not have had blank lines between the different items in the list of observed characteristics of the WTC tower ‘collapses’, but that can’t be changed, unfortunately.
FDB responded to my earlier post:
There are a large number of “plumes of material being ejected many floors below the front of the collapse” (or what I argue are squibs or mis-timed demolition explosions) recorded in various footages of the ‘collapses’. Surely, FDB can’t be claiming that the aviation fuel found its way to all those different parts of the towers and was able to continue burning for all that length of time?
In any case, why if it was caused by burning aviation fuel would no similar phenomena have been observed, except for immediately in front of the wave of collapse?
Most of the fuel burnt shortly after the impact. In the South Tower the fires has almost burnt out 51 minutes after Flight 175 struck. We know that because Battalion Chief Oreo Palmer, who, in a phenomenal athletic feat climbed 34 floors from the 44th floor to the 78th floor, close to where United Airlines Flight 175 had slammed into the World Trade Center South Tower radioed the following message back to his controllers :
Of course, minutes later the building containing only two isolated flames somehow turned into an exploding, collapsing inferno and Oreo Palmer perished. Part of the cover-up of 9/11 was the refusal of the Port Authority of New York to release the tape for over a year until forced to do so by the New York Times.
For me, this particularly sad. An experienced firefighter, using his calm, professional judgement, more than his undoubted courage, performs an extraordinary physical feat in order to save lives and limit further damage and destruction to the South Tower. At the end of the day he should have deservedly lauded as a hero.
Instead, he is murdered and his experience and professional judgement is implicitly diminished by the lying official acccount of 9/11.
There is simply no way that he could have stood where he did if the steel around him was melting to the point where it would have catastrophically failed minutes later. There is simply no way he could have failed to notice that heat.
I have written more of this in the article “Science Show too quick to close discussion of World Trade Center collapses” of 24 Dec 08. in case anyone is interested.
As to FDB’s questions:
1) When a floor of a building collapses, smoke, dust and other debris is likely to come flying out the windows, whether in a controlled demolition or not. Agree / Disagree
As we are discussing floors below the collapse front, my answer is ‘Disagree’
2) A sequence in a controlled demolition is orderly, bottom-up, evenly timed series of explosions. Agree / Disagree
Rubbish! Why can’t detonations be sequenced in any direction the person controlling the demolition chooses?
3) That video shows something different on all counts — chaotic, top-down, big plumes of smoke and debris shooting out 15 to 20 floors below the front of the collapse. Agree / Disagree
That’s one possible way one could describe a building that is progressively and rapidly being blown to pieces from the top down. So, count that as ‘Agree’.
4) It’s also, as Shaun has pointed out, in no way controlled. Huge chunks are flying everywhere. Agree / Disagree
This is idiotic. ‘Controlled’ need not mean controlled in every possible way. Clearly, by definition, aspects of explosions and resultant destruction can’t be controlled. This would be particularly so, when it is from the top down (and when it is necessary to use extra explosives just to be certain that the job is thoroughly done, leaving as little possible standing afterwards in which prying investigators might uncover evidence of the crime committed). So, count that as ‘Disagree’.
FDB wrote:
OK, I’ll put it more politely from now on.
Either you and PatrickB, Bob, and Eric Sykes, at least, have some bizarre form of visual impairment that prevents you from seeing what is in those images, or I do.
I would be amazed if the form of visual impairment that I am claiming that all of you have demonstrated to have would be shared by many in the broader Australian community.
So, please, just for the record, so others can better judge the likely worth of your expressed views elsewhere in this discussion, tell me whether or not you see massive violent billowing explosions in the video here which I also linked to above.
—
Andrew, My own views on Flight 93 are here. If it had got to the Capitol building, I believe that the US constitution would have been suspended on that day and the glaring holes such as the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ would have been easily papered over in a climate of martial law.
Fortunately Flight 93 did not make it.
—
I see Bob is still ‘debating’ this topic by pronouncing that “all of [my claims have] been thoroughly debunked here or elsewhere.”
Well, Bob, I disagree.
Now how has that moved this discussion forward?
—
I note that at least Bob has risen to the challenge I put to him and has stated that he has ‘honestly’ not seen explosions in that video.
Thank you, Bob.
I think a few more, knowing that, may well decide to follow this link past your latest additional piece of forum spam back to something intelligible written by andrew.
Given that not everyone was in the conpiracy, do you know that if there was any remnants of explosives, detonators, or any other such thing found amongst the rubble? There was lots of remnants of the planes found.
Or maybe the conspiracy not only goes all the way to the top, but also all the way to the bottom. Even the most junior cleanup assistant was in on it.
Well yes, Daggett.
On that eurovision of a WTC tower collapse I do see explosions preceeding the line of disintegration of the building.
An explosion is an avulsion. An avulsion my or may not have direct pyrotechnic causes.
The avulsions I see are explicable by the gathering weight of material of the floors above pressing down and outwards on the disintegrating outer walls below.
In other words, no pyrotechnics to be seen.
Imagine you had a tower made of Vitaweets. Then imagine you dropped a brick on it. You’d get a similar visual effect if you filmed that small, domestic catastrophe.
Some free advice after Katz’s comment: if you’re about to google “avulsion”, make sure you’re not searching Google Images. You’ll be glad.
“you would not make a very good cop if you ignore all the physical evidence of a crime”
But you haven’t provided any physical evidence of a crime. And you’d make a very good cop in some jurisdictions what with your “start from a conclusion and work backwards interpreting the facts to suit your pre-determined conclusion” methodology.
“then you start rambling on about providing evidence of the “conspiracy””
Sorry I was rambling but I think you have to establish that a plot was hatched before you start examining its outcome, don’t you? I mean it’s a bit unfair to argue that the total lack of any evidence of a conspiracy is no barrier to maintaining that the resultant collapse of the twin towers was a product of the wholly unprovable conspiracy.
Now Andrew where’s that physical evidence? …Andrew…Andrew, hey am I the only one in here? There was another guy in here just a second ago?
Katz: “An avulsion is an explosion.”
Just looked it up. Its not even a sysnonym. You are wrong. Ergo and ipso facto Doggett is right. The planes did crash into the buildings, but by a strange coincidence, at the excact same time someone detonated explosions to blow the place up.
Thank god thats cleared up. If it wasn’t for the fact that Katz wrongly used “avulsion” we would never have evangelized the truth. BTW, evangalized means to know something.
re Liam @ 876,
You guys are lucky I dunno how to put pitchers on the internet. :)
“ither you and PatrickB, Bob, and Eric Sykes, at least, have some bizarre form of visual impairment that prevents you from seeing what is in those images, or I do.”
Why are you restricting this visual impairment to us? Surely there are millions of people who believe that the building collapse was not due to a controlled demolition?
“tell me whether or not you see massive violent billowing explosions in the video”
No I see massive, billowing clouds of dust etc caused to the collapse of a large building
Whos to say that the towers were not brought down by the same hydrolic method used to remove the supports?
All, I know is the whole situation smells foul and a proper investigation should have been held, and there sure was a lot to gain in the aftermath of 9/11.
The perfect way to raise patriotic war feelings.
By the way, apparently, when comparing the crash site of the plane that supposedly crashed in the middle of nowhere to other crashes, this “crash site” bears no resemblance to a real crash site and has not real evidence of a plane crash. There was not even any blood.
Oh, I better correct that. I meant to write hydraulic and hydrolic.
Thought I should clear that up, before some smartie geek like Paulus finds it and gets all excited that he find a typo. Then he will go ask his Mummy for a lolly.
“So the explosions had to be top-down because your conspiracy theory wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. That doesn’t make sense.”
DING DING DING DING DING DING!!!
Hear that bell Daggett?
I do.
If you don’t I guess one of us is lying, right?
Anyway…
Well, thank you for your advice on showing respect for readers. You’ll forgive me I hope, if I continue to do things my way. I would like to point out though that when discussing HTML tags, it pays to use square brackets (as I’ve helpfully done to my quotation from you above), so as not to confuse the poor software. Category errors are a bit beyond most blog software packages to sort out.
Squibs! Awesome. So, you’re prepared to maintain that the perpetrators of your vast conspiracy were incompetent at a very very very very basic level. How does that square with the rest of your account? [Daggett: "lalalalalalala I can't hear you"]
Similar phenomena like huge fires and fireballs within the building at levels WAY below and indeed hours before the collapse? They were observed Daggster, they were. When, here and there, evidence of the inferno within becomes externally visible, I’d suggest (no expert, mind you) that it had something to do with the whole fucking building flexing and crumbling and thus losing its integrity. Fresh supplies of oxygen to existing fires, the removal of barriers to pressure release, that kind of thing.
I’m quite sure someone who actually knows what they’re talking about could do better than either of us on that score though. It certainly wouldn’t be hard to come up with a better explanation than your [irony alert] squib, for a start, even one that still gives succour to your delusions.
It is possible for someone to be wrong, even if they agree with you, Daggett. His account differs starkly to that of people who reported huge fires and fireballs down to the concourse level. Were the office workers and others who saw those fires (and saw their friends and colleagues dying in them) lying, because they weren’t reporting the same thing as a man dozens of floors above?
According to your view of lying, either lots of people were lying about how their friends died in the fire they only just escaped with their lives, or Palmer was lying. So which is it? Me, I’d prefer to think that everyone was reporting what they were seeing, and in hindsight we can see that Palmer was (innocently) wrong.
No, he was wrong. His efforts to find out what was going on and to save as many people as possible, rather than save himself as might have been fairly easy, deserve recognition and commendation. He acted heroically, but unfortunately he was wrong and his cause was doomed.
Well, that’s your opinion. Presumably it’s based on an extensive body of research into what people do or don’t notice, and how aviation fuel fires progress, within steel-framed buildings that have been hit with upwards of 50kL of aviation fuel hours earlier. Or is it just a guess, based on a hunch?
Anything you haven’t already written here? Should I really bother, when you won’t even read the NIST report, clicking though to some other place you’ve polluted with this nonsense?
Oh goody!
We are discussing what I have explicitly referred to, and nothing else. I’m actually fairly open about my failings, but clarity in the written word is not usually one of them.
That is to say, my question was about “a floor of a building”. I’ve tried before to tempt you into the dark side of discussing matters general, abstract or hypothetical. It appears you are not capable of doing it, and I won’t try again. As I recognise my own limitations, so will I respect yours.
I didn’t ask what it could be, I asked what it is. Are controlled demolitions conducted via top-down sequences of explosions? No, they are not.
3) That video shows something different on all counts — chaotic, top-down, big plumes of smoke and debris shooting out 15 to 20 floors below the front of the collapse. Agree / Disagree
That’s one possible way one could describe a building that is progressively and rapidly being blown to pieces from the top down. So, count that as ‘Agree’.
Yay! I love agreement!
So you agree that it was not controlled, and shows plenty of evidence of being chaotic, but you disagree with the proposition that it was uncontrolled. Awesum!
I would only disagree on one point here. I think it’s a cognitive impairment we’re talking about, not a visual one.
Wait, so from the fairly measured position that one or other party must be impaired in their judgement, you’ve moved to the conclusion that it’s everyone else but you? On what basis?
I conclude that it’s you, on the basis that numbers are against you. Not an iron-clad basis, sure, but at least I’ve got something.
We’ve been here already. I see “explosions” in the sense of a quantity of matter dispersing rapidly, but I DO NOT SEE ANYTHING LIKE AN INCENDIRAY EXPLOSION. What I see is completely in accord with the sort of thing I’d expect to see when enormous buildings of concrete and steel and partition walls and carpet and computers and humans and wallpaper and copiers and fishtanks and projectors and boardroom tables all collapse on top of each other in a building containing, and weakened by, an hours-long inferno of jet fuel.
Honestly.
“Whos to say that the towers were not brought down by the same hydrolic method used to remove the supports?”
What hydraulic method, used to remove what supports? Are you talking about the link to controlled demolitions you were given? Are you aware that there is absolutely no way that could be prepared without many thousands of people becoming aware of it weeks beforehand?
LOL…FDB has got too much time. Explains why he is also over the moon when he gets to pick out a typo or spelling error. He wants a reward from mummy.
FDB..there was also a time when one man suggested the world was actually round, while evryone else thought it was flat. It is possible for the majority to be fooled into something, while only a few see the truth. In fact this is more likely than than not.
FDB, even a conventional demolition of the towers would have been done in a similar “top down” manner, with one or two upper blocks being created like the verinage video posted earlier, or this video of asia’s tallest demolition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq4dWT-9DhE
The reason is that a base initiated demolition would have too great a chance of toppling with very tall buildings, therefore creating an upper block is not an uncommon practice.
WRT your comment about “hours-long inferno of jet fuel”, well this is just factually incorrect, the two official reports so far (NIST and FEMA)have concluded that the jet fuel lasted no more than 10 minutes and that it’s main role was to ignite widespread office fires, the towers collapsed after approx 40min and 80min of office fires so even these didn’t last “hours”.
Nor were they raging infernos, the thick billowing black smoke seen pouring from them is a sign of an oxygen poor fire. I urge you to have another more objective look at all 3 of those collapses.
Time for work.
Quite right, andrew. I also wrote “hours” last night, which is false.
You’re also correct that “the jet fuel lasted no more than 10 minutes and that it’s main role was to ignite widespread office fires”. It’s good to see you incorporating the results of NIST’s extensive research and modelling into your theories.
Does this mean that you consider likewise much of what you’ve written to be “factually incorrect”?
eg.
FDB:
There was also a time when one man suggested the world was actually round, while evryone else thought it was flat. It is possible for the majority to be fooled into something, while only a few see the truth. In fact this is more likely than than not.
Apart from the immediate structural damage to the several floors hit by the plane, the very hot fires are quite likely to have caused internal damage, e.g. floor/ceiling collapse into the next lower floor.
Why do I think so?
Because of the standard bushfire scenario, for a brick veneer or timber house in which occupants have sheltered as the fire front passes. Sometimes, 20 to 30 minutes later, the house is engulfed in flames. A single ember has lodged in the timbers above the ceilings and fire has spread across that area, unseen. Suddenly ceilings are collapsing into several rooms and the house is burning fiercely.
Fire is powerful. Possibly sprinkler systems and small fire extinguishers weren’t of much use on 11th Sept.
Even an “oxygen poor fire” can do damage.
“Yes jules, but in case you hadn’t noticed we’ve taken 800+ posts to discuss the demolition of the twin towers based on er… heresay and conjecture. It just doesn’t seem fair somehow to leave the pentagon out of it.”
You lot have taken 800 plus posts to discuss it. I have been doing my best to shut up about it. I’m a bit over the Alex Jonestown Show myself. So much of potential interest about 9/11 and people spend fucking months banging on about CD. I am sure I have already written that at least once in these 800+ posts, probably more than once, cos I’m getting serious deja vu.
On the plus side I brought a violin today and drank some rum so … fuck how many hundred posts on 9/11 and we are exactly how far further than when we first started. Look into my eyes, look deep into my eyes…
I’ll tell you what the real conspiracy is. Those sleazy Hollywood producers.
Of course you do. Your failure to demonstrate WHY you disagree, as evidently you have no basis for your disagreement, is proof enough that you have squibbed, yet again, on defending your baseless assertions. Your conspiracy theory is nothing but a flimsy tissue of delusional fubarity.
How has your disagreement moved the discussion forward? I don’t know that it has, Daggy.
I’m more curious about what you hope to achieve with your current “strategy”, if desperate appeals to strangers’ opinions can aspire to so lofty a description. You entreat others to watch your videos and give you their honest opinion. Then, when they give you the “wrong” opinion, you accuse them of lying and “visual impairment”.
How is THAT progressing the discussion, Daggy?
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&complete_911_timeline_key_events=complete_911_timeline_key_day_of_9_11_events
Timeline of events on 11/9/09 with regard to the twin towers. I think it’s fairly obvious from this that there was no conspiracy.
That’s not a timeline
This is a timeline.
Daggett you should read it, if you haven’t.
PatrickB: “Timeline of events on 11/9/09 with regard to the twin towers. I think it’s fairly obvious from this that there was no conspiracy.
But Patrick, the whole point of a conspiracy is to have the conspiring done in secret. There isn’t going to be in any report something like: “…and Barry and Geoff were seen whispering to each other in the dining hall just before Cheney walked in.”
Yeah but Jules my time line only deals with 11/09/09 as I stated. If you’re going to out-time line me you have to have a better time line of the day in question.
… although it is a very fine time line.
I want a diary/timeline from the guys who put in the tons of explosives into the towers.
Yeah some sort of fully referenced conspiracy time line would do it for me ot.
(I’m sure someone can do better than that!)
The twin towers collapsed in less time than it now takes an average able-bodied human to scroll through this thread.
Coincidence? I think not.
“(I’m sure someone can do better than that!)”
Preferably, the people arguing for this script.
C’mon, daggett.
You were the one who asked us to use our imaginations…
Take it beyond your world of weekend differential explanation and enterprising one-dimensional puppets, and tell us how it might have REALLY gone down (from bottom to top for a change).
Jules at #892 links us to the History Commons Complete 911 Timeline as a challenge to the narrower History Commons Day of 911 timeline offered by PatrickB at #892.
Seems certain players are culpable either narrowly for ordering the setting of explosives or tasking al qaida CIA assetts or more broadly through Blowback due to funding of al qaida against the Russians in 1980s.
Day 30 (11 Sept 2001):
Still collecting my thoughts. Can’t believe what just happened. I’m looking at the video right now of what just took place. Its morning and the WTC buildings look pristine. In the background I can hear Dick counting down,
“10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1…Ka……What the fuck?”!!!!”
But Dick didn’t get to say “Ka-Boom!” Just at that point when we detonated the bombs a damn plane slams into the side of the building. At the excact same time! All we saw was a small flash, then the plane crashes into it. Man, I feel cheated.
Oh well, at least we got the other building ready to go in about 15 minutes. It couldn’t possibly happen again. What would be the odds. Like a gazillion to one, I reckon.
Day 30 (11 Sep 2001) second entry (log: 9.04 am…)
I don’t believe it……
FDB wrote:
Yes, if the conspirators had decided to literally follow the manual for standard bottom-up demolitions[1] they would have had to have been complete idiots, so, in that limited sense, both Bob and you would be correct.
But we’re discussing what we observed, not what should have happened if the instruction manuals had been followed.
FDB wrote:
I have already pointed out length that everything obviously did not go exactly according to the conspirators’ plan. Why is acknowledging this obvious fact necessarily the same as claiming that the conspirators were incompetent?
FDB continued:
I was discussing the squibs observed immediately ahead of the collapse, not every phenomenum observed following the plane crashes. It seems implausible to me that, if they were somehow caused by the fires you claime were raging all over both towers, no other squibs would have been observed until a fraction of a second before the collapse wave reached the spots where they were observed.
FDB wrote:
So, yet another (deceased) witness whose testimony contradicts the official explanation is to be added to your and Bob’s list of ‘unreliable’ witnesses?
FDB continued:
No, it doesn’t. Battalion Chief Oreo Palmer was in a different part of the building much higher up.
FDB continued:
Even your own question answers itself if you think about it. See, also, immediately above.
FDB wrote:
Yes, he was obviously ‘wrong’, not having any idea that the building was packed with explosives that were to be detonated only minutes later.
But, how can you presume to know that his professional assessment of the damage caused to the South Tower by the impact of Flight 175 at that time was wrong?
FDB wrote:
It’s based on common sense. If the fires were hot enough to cause, minutes later, total structural failure of the steel immediately above and around him, there’s no possible way he could have been standing where he stood. There’s no possible way he could not have noticed.
I note that FDB goes on to castigate me for not exactly answering his precise questions.
In regard to (1), obviously “smoke, dust and other debris is likely to come flying out the windows” at the point of the collapse front, if the building is collapsing. So the answer to FDB’s question, literally interpreted, is a non-sequitur. However, I thought we were discussing the violently ejected plume of debris below the collapse front.
In regard to (2), FDB is talking rubbish. Of course the explosives can be sequenced to be detonated in any order the demolition engineer chooses.
In regard to (3), FDB wrote:
I think all this demonstrates is that FDB thinks (when it is convenient) that everything has to be either black or white. For him, there is no concept of grey.
FDB wrote:
Firstly, even NIST acknowledges that the fires did not burn for hours (in fact, no more than 10 minutes) and Oreo Palmer testified moments before he died that there was no inferno, rather, in his words, “two isolated pockets of fire [that could have been] knock[ed] down with two lines [from two fire trucks]“.
Given your evident lack of common sense, that I referred to above, I somehow doubt if others studying this issue with an open and critical mind would place much weight on what you would “expect to see.”
Footnotes
1. That is, assuming that bottom-up is appropriate for such tall buildings, which has been challenged above.
It seems the timeline should be amended as follows:
August 1968 – Explosives are on site and will be incorporated into the buidlings’ structure for planned demolition in 2001.
Oh no!!!! Dagsterman has gone for the “common sense” argument!!! Damn, we are all done for now.
Common sense.
I’m flabbergasted.
Shall we expect to see common sense wheeled out across the board Dagster? Or just when it suits you.
Because there’s an awful lot of fanciful shit underpinning your whole “theory” – just be careful you don’t point that fancy new common sense ray at the foundations.
Brendon @905.
Cheers that made me laugh.
The Three Angels of Publication
Please note that WAY back up the top of this towering, smouldering edifice (World Tower Conspiracy 7), one j_p_z who actually lives in NY, observed that the towers were constructed of thermite. This was widely known. There was no need to “pack them” with explosives as Engineer daggett asserts. Refer to Sept. 17th [sic] around 11am.
They were built of explosive material. Noo Yawkers thought nothing of it. Always has been a remarkable city. When j_p_z was young, he and his friends used to go over to Manhattan and scrape a little thermite off to use for fireworks. Kids!!!
Look, j_p_z lives there. We should take his word for it. To do otherwise would be to besmirch the memories of so many 911 Heroes.
The truth is always available if you have the right informant. Just leave your critical faculties at the door as you go in. Thanks.
Heh.
69911, Japerz!PPC had comment 911. Is this significanr?
As for those snide dismissals of Gordon’s observations of how the world is being run today:
Many credible historical figures have written of an ‘invisible government’ which decides behind our backs what policies Governments will and will not adopt. These include Thomas Jefferson, Otto von Bismarck, President Woodrow Wilson.
In the 1930′s they approached First World War hero General Smedley Butler and asked him to overthrow President Roosevelt and become Fuhrer of the United States. Fortunately General Smedley was a loyal American and blew the whistle on the plot.
Unfortunately those who plotted the coup were not put on trial and jailed.
In the 1960′s, as we all know, they had more luck and got rid of the most charismatic as well as incorruptible leaders that has ever led the US, namely JFK. Then in the ensuing years of that decade, as I mentioned above, three more similarly charismatic, principled and popular leaders were murdered by the invisible Government: Malcolm X, MLK and RFK.
More of that cand be foun on this Online Opinion discussion Money from nothing: supplying money should be a public service”
And of course, in 2001 they pulled that off stunt, we are discussing in this forum, which almost 3,000 US citizens were murdered to further advance their agenda.
To anyone who attempts to dismiss this as all too far fetched, ask themselves who they think decided it would be such a good idea for Queensland to flog of $15billion in publicly owned assets and told Fraser and Bligh to do so? Or do thinkd that the idea just dropped out of the sky?
It was certainly not the people of Queensland, more than 84% of whom oppose privatisation, who told them to do it.
Who do they think told Iemma and Costa to flog off NSW’s electricity assets?
Thank you, JPZ, for the funny, and serendipitously making it possible for everyone to say: comment #911 is, in fact, a joke.
Yo, get get get, get down…
OK, I’ve cracked it. I’ve been thinking that Daggy reminded me of someone, and now I know: Cu-CKOO!
Nice tie in to Colonel Sanders, too.
“Who do they think told Iemma and Costa to flog off NSW’s electricity assets?”
I fucking KNEW this would all have to come back to the NSW ALP right.
Well Liam? Where’s your fandangled banal sarcasm now?
Did anyone else notice that PP&C referred to j_p_z’s contribution on Sept. 17th as “around 11am”.
In fact it was PRECISELY at 11.30am. The record is there. You don’t need to read a NIST report.
So what are we to make of the thirty minute discrepancy? 30 minutes is a long time. A hijacked airliner travels hundreds of km in 30 minutes. A President can read a children’s story in a primary school classroom in 30 minutes. 400 extra kg of explosives can be hidden in the “Utilities Room” conveniently located just below the impact point of the hijacked airliner in 30 minutes, given that the packers have top level security clearance and are in fact in league with that drip who’s CONVENIENTLY left town for the day to visit an elementary school.
30 minutes is a long time in the world of super secrecy.
You could whisk the other 17 gunmen away from a grassy knoll. Or remove all traces of the debilitating poisons from Dr King’s motel room, or get RFK to sleep with Marilyn Monroe again.
Hell, in this wacky world of plots and complete secrecy, you could get a B-grade Hollywood actor elected President, or you could FAIL COMPLETELY to assassinate Fidel Castro [note the failure: there will be a test at the end of the list]. You could send men to the Moon then convince millions of Americans that it didn’t happen. You could promote cannabis, LSD, Prozac and unsharpen thousands of minds. You could lose billions in a Global Financial Crisis cunningly disguising your profit-gobbling motives. You could dream of oil pipelines.
All for $$$$: how tawdry, excessive and unnecessary. Because all of this could also happen without your lifting a finger. Life’s a beach.
Chief Palmer’s eyewitness account of mild fires in the Towers is backed up by every bit of available evidence, there is zero evidence that the fires got hot enough for collapse to initiate.
Anyone can look at those Towers prior to their collapses and they will not see flames billowing out of multiple stories like we have seen in other high rise enfernos, what is mostly visible is thick black smoke that is indicative of an oxygen poor fire.
There is a photo of one unfortunate victim clinging onto the steel where the planes entered, so the steel temperature can’t have been too hot there.
NIST own testing of the steel to see what temperature the steel endured never found one piece that came anywhere near what NIST’s computers deemed necessary for collapse to initiate.
These buildings had more steel in them than any other highrise, their ability to dissipate heat throughout the structure meant that they were virtually immune to collapse due to fire.
And don’t forget that these massive structures went from standing bolt upright into suddenly failing at near freefall from smouldering, oxygen-poor fires – something is seriously wrong in Kansas.
Here is a reference for the claim that NIST didn’t find one bit of steel that was hot enough for collapse to initiate, it is from NIST’s own Professor of fire engineering, Dr James Quintiere, he is also complaining about the destruction of evidence and the lack of proof that all the fireproofing would have been stripped:
Quote:
2. Why were not alternative collapse hypotheses investigated and discussed as NIST had stated repeatedly that they would do? Their current explanation for the collapse of the towers is critically based on an assumption that the insulation was removed from the steel in the path of the aircraft, particularly the core columns. NIST does not show calculations or experiments to satisfactorily confirm that the insulation was removed in the core. As some large aircraft components went directly through the buildings, and NIST indicates the others were splintered on impact, can they explain why these small splinters could still denude the steel?
3. Spoliation of a fire scene is a basis for destroying a legal case in an investigation. Most of the steel was discarded, although the key elements of the core steel were demographically labeled. A careful reading of the NIST report shows that they have no evidence that the temperatures they predict as necessary for failure are corroborated by findings of the little steel debris they have. Why hasn’t NIST declared that this spoliation of the steel was a gross error?
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/science/hsy24133.000/hsy24133_0f.htm
Andrew, by what rule does black smoke indicate an oxygen poor fire?
Apparently this is an oxygen starved fire.
Shaun,
something you don’t know about New York. Safety regulations enacted in 1968 ban oxygen in buildings over 40 storeys for this very eventuality. Also, air around most major buildings is removed on an hourly basis to prevent any would-be terrorists from getting the idea of ploughing fuel laden pasenger planes into something like the WTC buildings creating holes that would allow the air in. The down side is that nearly 2 million office workers a year die from asphyxiation. But as Mayor Rudy Giuliani once said:
“We think the price is worth it.” -
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm
Shaun, it is a general rule of thumb that thick black smoke is casued by oxygen deprivation, firefighters are taught this, I don’t have time to find a reference (every search I do gives me pages of 9/11 sites, which I’m sure wont satisfy you for a reference).
Please compare the photo you have of the towers with these inferno’s, note that the Madrid fire (second link) did suffer a partial collapse of the upper floors, but as you can see from the photo there was a lot of slow buckling of the steel, as you would expect, and the collapse never progressed down the building (it burned for 24 hours, and the actual period of collapse for approx 10 stories took over 2 hours, not 16s for 110 stories)
http://www.beijingboyce.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/mandarin-hotel-fire-beijing-china.jpg
http://www.elmundo.es/documentos/2005/02/windsor/album1/02.html
andrew, it isn’t a general rule of thumb. Simply a myth peddled by truthers. black smoke is also caused by plastics, petroleum and other material, plenty of which where in both towers.
The smoke screen that “black smoke = oxygen deprived” is an classic example of the ass backwards assumptions that surround the myths of 911. In this case, starting from the idea the fires weren’t hot enough to black smoke means oxygen deprived.
The prosaic and correct explanation is that the smoke was black due to the material that was fuelling the fire.
As for the two photos, they were taken at night. Not a good comparison for photographs taken in the day. It is hard to make any sort of judgement about the relative intensity of any fire just based on a photograph anyway.
Or are we now back to the “it’s the vibe” mode of investigation?
Brendan @ 922,
I obviously have not done enough research and apologise. I shall now hold my breath as penance.
Know what is burning via smoke colour.
Smoke indicators.
From a fiery type bloke .
I forgot Practical Fire and Arson Investigation.
Umm. I know this is a dumb question but with this ban on oxygen above 40 storeys how do the people who work above 40 storeys breathe?
Shaun, yes different compounds can also cause black smoke, it doesn’t detract from the fact that an oxygen poor fire will also produce thicker black smoke that one that has a good supply.
This is not about the “vibe”, it’s about the evidence, along with the black smoke is a lack of widespread visiable flames, Daggett listed a firefighters eyewitness account, I listed a victim who was able to hold onto the steel at the impact site, and I listed the NIST’s inability to find one bit of steel that corroborates high temperature.
I also noted the mass of steel in the towers to act as a heat sink, please have another look at the photo you provided and take note of just two pockets of fire in that huge steel structure, then honestly say that you believe those pockets of fire are enough to make all the steeel columns in that massive structure fail instantaniously and simultaniously.
Not one bit of evidence corroborates high enough temperatures, in fact all the evidence is to the contrary, but you still have the audacity to suggest we are relying on the “vibe”? I suggest you are relying on blind faith to stop you from seeing the obvious truth.
Air prohibition is sarcastic, GregM. Took me a while, too, and I sympathise; it’s getting hard to tell who’s pulling whose leg around here.
Beardo, I’m not usually a conspiracist, but for the NSW Labor Right I make exceptions. The story of that faction is of a phenomenon of large numbers of very smart, very capable, very driven people so often being undone by circumstance and hubris it’s almost Shakespearian. But… that’s a story for another monster thread.
Brendon,
Something you should know, all highrise buildings are designed to deny fires of oxygen as much as possible, such as the use of hermetically sealed doors in cores and stairwells etc, they should never be able to act as chimneys to feed fires oxygen.
The Towers were no exception to these practices.
Apart from the collapse, you mean? Palmer was only on the 78th floor. There were more and larger fires on the floors above him. His eyewitness account doesn’t tell us about those fires.
What Shaun said. Dearth of oxygen is not necessary to create black smoke. Plastic, for example, gives off black smoke. Further, NIST found that there was ample ventilation for the fires to keep burning.
No, perhaps not there, but elsewhere?
NIST only tested a very small (e.g. 3% of exterior panels on the fire-affected floors) proportion of the steel from fire-affected areas, and, indeed, did not find evidence of sufficient heat exposure to cause collapse in those pieces. The sample was too small to be representative of the fire-affected floors. This does not mean that fire-affected steel structures did not collapse; it means they didn’t find and test those that did. This is documented in NCSTAR 1-3C.
Immune? What do you base your opinion upon, Andrew?
Something might be wrong in Kansas, Andrew, but there’s definitely something wrong with your analysis: there’s no evidence the fires were too “oxygen-poor” to weaken the structure.
First off, Quintiere was not “NIST’s own Professor of fire engineering”. He had worked at NIST prior to 9/11 and at the time of his testimony to Congress was a professor at the University of Maryland.
NIST states in NCSTAR 1-3 that there was extensive evidence of insulation being removed/dislodged. As I’ll show below, Quintiere seems a little fixated on this issue as it plays to his own theory on the collapse.
As noted above, NIST didn’t have a large sample of steel from the site. That’s unfortunate, but doesn’t invalidate their findings, which consequently were more reliant upon other evidence.
You should also be aware that Quintiere is another “expert” who doesn’t believe the WTC towers were destroyed by controlled demolition. As reported here:
That last paragraph explains his interest in insulation and steel evidence – he simply has an alternative collapse theory, also based on fires causing the collapses.
Except for those big ventilation holes created by large aircraft impacts…
The Towers had great big holes in them caused by the planes. This let in a lot of air.
The hermetically sealed system on those floors were made redundant. Lots of fire, lots of oxygen. As the pictures of the fires attest. The was plenty of black smoke, and plenty of white smoke. And plenty of fire.
No it’s not, Generalissimo. It is a search for truth. If oxygen was banned from buildings over 40 storeys tall how could the people who worked in them breathe? But also how could those fires have burnt for so long in those buildings,deprived of that essential element of combustion, before the nano-thermite charges were set off?
Andrew has set us a conundrum. He tells us that there was no oxygen in the buildings so there could be no fire but that there was fire. Where did the oxygen come from?
Let us try to solve this problem.
(Small clue- basic physics and—-VORTEX)
K, I’m going for the pot here….
The whole thing was a conspiracy, because there were no “911 planes.” There was no “911 attack” because there was nothing to attack. The “World Trade Center Towers” never existed, everybody knows that.
The whole notion that two 110-story buildings ever stood in NY city is patently ludicrous on its face, but the simpleton masses accept it as fact none the less.
All those mindless drones who buy the pablum spoon-fed to them by the fascist dictatorship of the US government about these ficticious structures invented to demonstrate “superior” US engineering, its a joke!
Damn straight, my brother! Lies compounded upon lies, piled high until they can no longer sustain themselves, and have to be covered up by a poorly-produced disaster video before they collapse under their own weight. F@ckin’-A, bubba!
Absolutely! That’s precisely what the dark lords in Washington need to be told, and where they need to be sent, for attempting to perpetrate such a blatantly phony architechtural hoax on the public! Go to hell, *****ing politicians!
I move than Brendan’s comment @935 is 65 comments to early and should be stricken from the record.
andrew @929
You are yet to provide any evidence that black smoke means an oxygen poor fire. I’m happy to be wrong but so far you continually make this assertion without providing any evidence to back it up.
As Brendan @ 933 points out, there were dirty great big holes in the building anyway.
As for the photo @921, hard to tell much especially state there were only two pockets of fire especially with smoke obscuring some floors.
And I’ll just say whatever Morphing Moniker @932 said to save me time.
We have reports of aviation fuel dropping down lift shafts to the plaza and basement. Possibly the lift doors were open (or opened by impact) on several floors. There’s another source of fresh oxygen: the lift shafts.
andrew @ 8.47 repeats this vibe about steel columns failing simultaneously. That’s not what the video shows. If it’s the impact of a solid upper block, then as it falls its mass and momentum increase (accumulating mass, increasing speed). Structures below fail sequentially.
“http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/93652main_kuwait_novm.jpg”
Here’s a photo of the Kuwait oil fires taken from space. Plenty of thick black smoke there. Were they oxygen starved. Commonsense would say that because they burned in the open air you’d think not.
Patrick B @939
Saddam obviously stole the previous Kuwaiti the oxygen before he started the fires. The evil bastard took all he could.
My own theory? What we have is a classic double bluff. The truther movement is part of the conspiracy. Think about it, if you wanted to plant explosives and bring the towers down by controlled demolition what better way to cover your tracks than establish a bogus group that expounds an outlandish theory describing exactly what you did in fact do.
Of course you also need to set up the initial conspiracy amongst the patsy hijackers so you have something to fraudulently investigate so that your real bogus conspiracy group has something to take issue with and discredit and denigrate as a govt. cover-up.
In the end your real actions become the the cause celebre of a group of nutters, no-one belives them and you retire to stroke you large,furry pussy in a cane chair.
What’s that … a knock at the door? No … not you … Scaramangaaaaaaaaaa ….
Bob’s latest ‘contribution’ in response to andrew’s is yet another illustration why others would be well advised to leave his many vast outpourings to the very last to read, that is if they bother to read them at all (although Bob should, at least, be given credit for not engaging in personal attacks, for a change).
In regard to my post about Oreo Palmer, let’s bear in mind that, as I pointed out, The Port Authority tried to suppress that tape for 12 months until forced to release it as a result of legal action by a New York Times journalist, so that they and the US Government could peddle their lie about 9/11 without having those uncomfortable facts to explain away. No doubt, if I had not raised that evidence, Bob would have been more than happy to leave everyone here oblivious to a story that is, at once, both inspiring and sad, but which deserves to be made known.
Bob’s practice here is to reveal as little as possible, even from his own version of events, because he knows that the more he reveals the more stupid it looks. See, for example the summary of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory I have given above, which none of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists here, including Bob, have attempted to defend.
Instead, it is left to others to contribute any actual substance to this discussion, whereupon Bob just drags in only just as much from his ‘case’ as he thinks necessary to appear to refute the argument put or, if not, at least to sow doubt and confusion. Nothing of what he writes actually helps anyone to form a coherent understanding of what happened. This possibly explains why even fellow ‘debunkers’ don’t refer to the content of his posts, as I pointed out above.
andrew wrote
Then Bob responded
The fact that the South Tower ‘collapsed’ means that there had to have been more fires, doesn’t it?
I consider this a circular argument.
Then Bob continued
How could Bob presume to know what Oreo Palmer did or did not know? How could he presume to know that perhaps others present may have been able to tell him what was happening on the floors above, or that Palmer could not have worked it out by looking up through the gaps in the floors?
Whatever, the film footage shows that there were unlikely to be any raging fires and Palmer was quite definite in his professional judgment. Once again:
If Palmer thought there was any likelihood that the situation was more serious than that, wouldn’t he have said so?
The fact that he must have been standing on steel trusses that minutes later were going to fail as a result of intense heat is absolute confirmation that the story that Bob is attempting to feed us must be a lie.
Incredibly, this is what a National Geographic video in support of the Official Account tells us was going on from the 77th floor, that is one floor below where Plamer was, all the way up to the 85th floor. It’s only 2 and a half minutes long. Why not check for yourself?
Bob then ignores andrew’s point about the lack of any visible signs of a raging inferno and repeats Shaun’s assertion that black smoke need not indicate a lack of oxygen, which, of course, proves nothing.
And then we are implicitly told that somehow searing heat from the alleged inferno at the core of the North Tower would somehow not be conducted by the steel trusses in the floor to where Edna Cintron is observed standing not noticably uncomfortable at the edge of the building.
And then Bob tries to explain away evidence in contradiction to the claims of a raging inferno, claiming that insufficient sample of steel from which to draw a conclusion was available. Note how Bob neglects to mention who removed the evidence from the scene of the crime in such a hurry or to offer an opinion as to why that was done.
andrew wrote:
Then Bob feigns ignorance of steel’s well understood efficiency as a conductor of heat:
For now, I will have to leave it to others to deal with the remaining red herrings in the rest of Bob’s post.
PatrickB.
I’m glad someone finally realised…
It’s not clear to me that steel which is insulated can carry heat away from a fire. To carry heat way as an efficient conductor, it needs to gain (absorb) that heat (and become warmer) before it can carry the heat away to other parts of the building.
Was the insulation stripped off some steel beams during the aircraft impact? If so, then they would be efficient conductors of heat, but must themselves be heated by the fires.
If the insulation was NOT stripped off, they would not be absorbing much heat (because they were insulated, see?)
And just by the by: if only several floors worth of beams were fully exposed (uninsulated) to heat, where did they conduct that heat away to? Themselves. The beams themselves warmed up, nearby. Why? Because they were insulated nearby. Heated but insulated: nowhere for that conducted heat to dissipate to. Would have taken days to cool again. Only, as it turned out, 30-40 minutes was all they had….
The laws of physics and the conduction of heat don’t change just because it’s a sunny autumn morning in South Manhattan and some malevolent individuals have crashed airliners into skyscrapers.
Nononono j_p_z, if steel is “an efficient conductor of heat”, then it’s automatically a superconductor.
In this case, actually a superdooperconductor, because in a conspiracy, construction materials behave differently.
Frankly I’m surprised the controlled demolition nanothermite shaped charges were able to cut through it.
I am not, and have never been j_p_z.
The very idea!
Ambigulous, sorry.
No gravatar, and frequently a similar tone.
Question: what proof do you have that Palmer was “must have been standing on steel trusses that minutes later were going to fail as a result of intense heat”?
You introduce this as fact. Where is the proof?
As for Palmer having the best view just because he was close, I don’t buy it. Video and photographic evidence shows just above Palmer there was a raging fire. No living person would be in that area that could tell him. Firemen from a distance where they had a better all round view said this:
“We were looking at two large bodies of fires that neither of us in our 33-year careers had ever seen anything that enormous.” –FDNY Chief of Safety Albert Turi
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110142.PDF
Palmer couldn’t see literally what was just above him.
You guys aree still arguing about this?? Can’t u see there will never be a consensus because there was never a proper investigation done.
thats the whole point.
apology accepted, FDB.
(I like your tone, Mr EffDeeBee)
You guys aree still arguing about this?? Can’t u see there will never be a consensus because there was never a proper investigation done.
thats the whole point.
I think everyone actually knows that.
But its only 50 (49 even) to go…
ok let me help with that then..only 48 now and daaaaamn this page is slow to load.
I know.
It takes frikken ages. (I am sure that adding comments like this will speed it up tho. So I’ll keep doing it.)
Don’t know why you would assume that jules@953. Do you have proof?
Well I’ve got this youtube video ….
Gordon, Jules,
Please understand that this issue is important. A monstrous crime was committed and blamed on innocent people to justify incessant wars and the regimentation of our societies. The evidence pointing to who committed that crime is overwhelming (notwithstanding FDB’s silly demolition of the straw man of the 9/11 Truth case somehow requiring that steel be a superconductor rather than merely the efficient conductor of heat that it is.\).
If the people who committed the crime are not held to account and put behind bars, they will do it again, and our future will only be even more bleak than has been the past.
However, by committing that crime they have given us the best chance in decades to begin to properly fix up much of what is wrong with the world.
It’s nonsense that the argument cannot be resolved.
Most online discussions I have had on 9/11 have been finished very quickly.
It’s only on relatively rare occasions when I encounter people willing to persistently use disingenous debating tactics and insist that black is white, such as is happening here, that discussions are prolonged.
Why not stop making excuses for not standing apart from the herd and grab this opportunity with both hands?
—
The argument that covering structural steel with a fire-resistant coating will somehow prevent that steel, once heated, from efficiently conducting heat throughout its length and into any adjoining lengths of steel is too silly to warrant any further response.
—
Brendan asks:
If he was standing on the 78th floor as he said he was he would have been separated by only centimetres at most from steel trusses that we are told were about to melt or at least turn to a plastic state and fail. There is no way he could have stood there and there is certainly no way he could not have noticed.
If Oreo Palmer said he was on the 78th I don’t think he would have made it up or imagined it.
Brendon wrote:
It does not.
The only ‘raging fire’ seen was the one that occurred was the one that ooccred minutes afterwards at the commencement of the demolition. At the time that Palmer stood there, there was no raging fire.
And I am not that interested in what was said of the firesby a senior FDNY bureaucrat, who was almost certainly part of the cover-up. I am far more interested in the physical evidence and the testimony of those there on the spot.
“a monstrous crime”
“and blamed on innocent people”
??????
no, the plane hijackers may be called all kinds of things, but “innocent” is not one that springs to mind…..
Wow…the dagster says he’s into physical evidence.
when are you going to present some dags…?
we are all dead keen to run with the herd….i mean if you actually got around to presenting any you’d have a full blown dogone stampede on your hands i rekon. Yippeethaiyotieyay!
daggs: “The argument that covering structural steel with a fire-resistant coating will somehow prevent that steel, once heated, from efficiently conducting heat throughout its length and into any adjoining lengths of steel is too silly to warrant any further response.”
OK, I’ll go through it step by step.
Generally heat insulation prevents (or vastly reduces) the rate of heat conduction. If the steel is A and the surrounds are B, the insulation prevents heat moving from B into A, and equally well prevents heat moving from A into B. Or slows down the rate of movement significantly.
If the steel heats up somehow, the heat will rapidly be conducted away along the steel beams. But if they are all insulated, that heat has nowhere to go. It stays in the steel. It doesn’t escape into the air. The beams will heat up due to conduction, throughout the building. That’s because the insulation coating, designed to keep heat OUT OF the beams, will also keep heat IN, should excess heat ever find its way into the beams.
By fire, say.
Caused by aviation fuel, say.
Followed soon thereafter by combustion of desks, tables, carpets, wall hangings, papers, etc.
Silly, eh?
“A monstrous crime was committed and blamed on innocent people to justify incessant wars and the regimentation of our societies.”
A monstrous crime was committed and those directly responsible died in the process of committing it. Some who were involved in planning have been charged and tried. The people you accuse were not involved and it thus impossible to charge them with a crime. I deplore you use of innuendo and conjecture to advocate the conviction of innocents.
Daggett, just stop and think for a minute.
Jut suppose the WTC was wired by the maintainance teams witnessed by whoever the hell that guy was. OK. Who were they? How do you actually draw a link between those individuals and the people you assume are responsible for 9/11?
Right now the truth movement can’t even begin to get near naming individuals who committed the on the ground crime of preparing the WTC for demolition. Any suspects? No. Anything thats actually within 1000 miles of usable (in court) evidence that could actually convict individuals for the specific crime of wiring the WTC buildings with explosives? Or even link them to it? Any plan to develop actual cases regarding these things? No.
And what innocent people?
Do you actually think that Bin laden and his Mega Rich Saudi Mates weren’t as in on this as Cheney? Really?
Thats what they want you to think. (Whoever the fuck they actually are.) Whatever happened at time in NYC and Wahingtonm DC, there are other real, potentially investigatable connections between 9/11 and what might be termed “Deep State” players in a number of countries. Sibel Edmunds story is the classic example, and even now thats still playing out. (I think in her case its unlikely to lead to actual convictions re 9/11, but you never know, when you start investigating the potential bribing of members of the US govt and its officials in relation to nuclear secrets smuggling and who knows what else, who knows where it could end up. Usually nowhere unfortunately.
Iran Contra has been brought up before on this thread, yet less than a tenth of the potential crap surrounding that ever came out. Well so far anyway.
So we’ll what, if anything, comes of Edmunds’ whistleblowing, but while we are on the subject Daggett, what do you think Of Indira Singh’s claims regarding Ptech, and the other claims surrounding the company?
With respect, you have not backed up your claim re Palmer “standing on steel trusses that minutes later were going to fail as a result of intense heat” with any facts.
Again, what facts to support your claim. If you can prove that the floor above Palmer (79th) was the one that first collapsed, then you may have something.
If Oreo Palmer said he was on the 78th I don’t think he would have made it up or imagined it.
Brendon wrote:
Video and photographic evidence shows just above Palmer there was a raging fire.
It does not.
The only ‘raging fire’ seen was the one that occurred was the one that ooccred minutes afterwards at the commencement of the demolition. At the time that Palmer stood there, there was no raging fire.
And I am not that interested in what was said of the firesby a senior FDNY bureaucrat, who was almost certainly part of the cover-up. I am far more interested in the physical evidence and the testimony of those there on the spot.
I didn’t engage in any personal attacks as none were warranted. Andrew has conducted himself in a relatively temperate and civil manner. You should learn from his example.
I’m not so sure it deserves particular attention – a lot of good people died that day. The fact that you’re exploiting Palmer’s death in your attempt to score points is disgusting in the extreme. Also, what evidence do you have the Port Authority “tried to suppress” the tape? Why would they release ANY tape to the media?
This is a patently ridiculous assertion of yours, Daggy. I have introduced fact after fact refuting your bunk and the only person that has appeared more stupid as a consequence is you.
As for defending YOUR cack-handed summary, why would I? I’ve pointed to the official summary – yours is garbage.
Why should I introduce more than is necessary to refute your “arguments”? I’m not into waffling spam like you, Daggy.
Why? There’s nothing circular about it.
I don’t know what Palmer did or did not know, and neither do you. What we do know is what he said on the tape. And nowhere on the tape does he say that:
1. He moved above the 78th floor;
2. Others present told him what was happening on the floors above; or
3. He worked out what was happening on the floors above by “looking up through the gaps in the floors”.
No, not “whatever”. Palmer was not in a position to judge for any location other than where he was, and we have no reason to believe he was any higher than the 78th floor. Remember that the aircraft struck nine floors, 77-85, and that floor 78 was underneath the main impact areas above 80. Time for some YouTube
For a better view of those “raging fires” that Daggy doesn’t believe existed, check out this footage. Right in the middle of the frame is a “raging fire” in the North East corner of WTC 2 (the South tower). This fire burned right up to the point of collapse, and Palmer was nowhere near it.
Again, Palmer was in a less damaged and critical area of the building. He wasn’t in a position to know how bad things really were for the building, or how bad they were going to get.
That’s not a fact, that’s an assertion. Why “must” Palmer have been standing on steel trusses?
Actually, Daggy, it doesn’t tell us anything about what was going on above floor 78. What it DOES do, however, is give us more footage of those raging fires you assert didn’t exist. Ironic, huh?
The commentary on supposedly invisible fires was nonsensical and didn’t need a response – there’s one above if you really need it. The refutation of Andrew’s point about black smoke was, indeed, to show that it proved nothing. THAT WAS THE POINT. It was Andrew who claimed the black smoke was meaningful.
Why would it? There’s no fire in her immediate area, which is exposed to the air, why should it be unbearably hot there?
How many times do you have to be told this? ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE. The fact that there was little steel recovered showing evidence of heat-induced collapse does not contradict the claim that fires weakened the steel. What it demonstrates is that there was not enough steel sampled to be conclusive one way or the other.
I didn’t neglect to mention it, Daggy, as I don’t know who did. Do you?
This is NIST’s comment on the removal of steel:
Squib. Others have already pilloried these ridiculous assertions and I note that Andrew has failed to demonstrate why the WTC towers were “immune”.
However, let me propose an experiment for you to conduct [sorry] at home. You may wish to involve an adult for your own protection.
First, get a spoon and, grasping one end with your hand, hold the other end of the spoon over a naked flame. Do this until the end you are holding begins to get uncomfortably hot. Then, grab the other end [you know, the one that’s been exposed to a naked flame for a while]. Is that end:
a) Hot?
b) Cold?
c) Don’t know? or
d) Dubya did it?
PatrickB:
The reason they have not been charged is not because they wouldn’t be able to come up with enough evidence if a full scale investigation were to take place. The reason is the same reason why Bush has not been charged with War Crimes, even though he could easily be charged with war crimes without any investigation. Its not on the agenda of the powers that be.
Bob wrote:
Of course you would not be “so sure” when it blows such a massive hole in the lie that you are attempting to peddle.
Bob continued:
Please spare us the hypocritical platitudes.
Bob continued:
I also think that knowingly lying about 9/11 on forums such as these and overloading them with spam is also “disgusting in the extreme.”
Bob continued:
I made it up, Bob.
Anyway, I will have to come back some time to deal with the rest of Bob’s logical contortions, suffice it to say that the story he is peddling differs from that on the pro-Official-Conspiracy-Theory National Geograhic video, which has the 78th floor trusses heating up to the point where they will fail beneath Oreo Palmer’s feet, somehow, without him noticing.
Bob now asserts that all that now only happened in the floors above his head.
The Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory story just keeps changing, as new facts and new absurdities are exposed, doesn’t it?
On the contrary, I would deeply interested in any genuine evidence of “controlled demolition”. As I’ve shown, Palmer’s account isn’t it.
You’d be the expert in those, wouldn’t you, Daggy?
Spell it with me, kids: H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y
And yet you keep doing it, don’t you? I’ve caught you out time and again with lie after lie and we’ve seen no retraction or apology from you. Likewise, this whole thread is testament to your monomanic spamming on this subject. Anyone who wants to can go right back and see how much crap you’ve dumped here.
Your link to allegations on a Troofer site doesn’t prove the Port Authority suppressed anything. Original sources, please.
No, it doesn’t.
That’s where the major fires were, Daggy, and I’ve proved it. Either rebut or concede. Take your time.
Actually, no, the official explanation doesn’t keep changing. Every single allegation you’ve brought up has been thoroughly debunked and no part of the official story has changed.
Now, Daggy, you have some homework due. Where is your EVIDENCE?
Still going I see,
WRT the thick black smoke, it is only one of many pieces of evidence that the steel never got hot enough for collapse to initiate, it is possible for black smoke to be produced by various compounds however if it was a raging inferno that produced the thick black smoke wouldn’t we expect to see more flames? Some pre-collapse views of the towers show no visiable flames while others show just a few pockets.
One more point (above and beyond not one piece of steel NIST tested having reached a hot enough temperature) regarding these smouldering fires being able to bring down two of the lagest steel structures ever built, is that there is no fuel in the all-important cores for those invisable infernos. No office furniture etc, just stairwells and lift shaft, I suppose some of you are going to suggest that that is where the raging inferno was because it’s certainly not evident around the perimeter of the buildings. How did all the core columns get hot enough to simultaniously fail (not that it’s at all possible to get steel columns to completely and simultaniously fail due to fire, no matter how hot the fires)
And what is the one bit of evidence put forward that the fires were hot enough? that the towers fell down!!! LOL. This of course is not at all contrary to the controlled demolition hypothesis.
We are making very slow progress here, why don’t we just go straight to the number one bit of evidence for controlled demolition that day… WTC 7, and the 2.25s priod of freefall experienced early in it’s symmetrical collapse, that means all the steel columns failed to provide any resistance for approximately 8 stories.
We know how the columns are removed in controlled demolitions, but how does slow-acting random fires achieve the same result as precision timed cutter charges would (for the third time that day, astonishing).
Do you “debunkers” honestly believe that it is possible to completely raze a modern highrise just by cutting some columns and then lighting a fire, and do you know that repeatability is the number on requirement for proving a hypothesis? Those 3 demolitions will only ever be repeated through precision controlled demolition practices.
“And what is the one bit of evidence put forward that the fires were hot enough? that the towers fell down!!! LOL. This of course is not at all contrary to the controlled demolition hypothesis.”
LOL away, but “that the towers fell down” is the only piece of evidence supporting a controlled demolition, so I’d not be too keen to poo-poo it if I were you.
The presnt Dr. Who is going to die soon. I read it in the Guardian. And now they’ve got a zombie on Torchwood. If that can happen, Maybe the WTC … na, I was just speculating aloud. I suppose because it makes more sense to me that Dr. Who and Torchwood are more likely to be real than any genius from the Bush administration planning the destruction of the WTC would be. So, if you want reality …
Interestingly each building began their implosion where the planes crashed. The coincidences just keep piling up.
“We are making very slow progress here, why don’t we just go straight to the number one bit of evidence for controlled demolition that day… WTC 7, and the 2.25s priod of freefall experienced early in it’s symmetrical collapse”
Can you provide the number one piece of evidence for a controlled demolition, i.e. evidence of a conspiracy, e.g. name and testimony of people involved? The observation you refer to is not evidence of a controlled demolition. Evidence of a controlled demolition could be photographs showing the explosives in place or actual footage of the explosives being detonated.
You need to provide at least this before you can even begin to convince any of those who regard you argument as spurious that it is in fact not spurious but at least a possibility. You have not provided anything of that nature.
“Interestingly each building began their implosion where the planes crashed. The coincidences just keep piling up.”
Well of course it’s not a “coincidence” if the collapses were diliberately engineered to give the impression that the planes caused the collapses.
Even this point, which some people cling onto as evidence that the towers fell as a result of the plane crashes, doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny.
The floors on which the tower’s collapse initiate are not the most damaged ones as would be expected, in the case of tower 1 the collapse initiates on a floor that has almost no damage from the plane impacts, here is a very good referenced article on the subject:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/FentonWTCInitiationFloors.pdf
Or, better still, have a look for yourself (look very closely at where the building first gives way – very high up in the damaged area). Ignore the way this building that was so strong it barely flinched when hit by a plane suddenly starts disintegrating to dust, because that just raises more ackward questions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH_iBZEHEdE
BTW, WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, nor did it fall towards any damage it may have recieved from the towers collapsing.
“which some people cling onto”
Bad choice of words. Anyway I don’t think you can characterise people who diagree with you unsubstantiated and unsustainable story as having a tenuous grip. A reasonable person would say that it is people like you who are grasping at straws. You really need to let go and get a grip on yourself.
Judging by the link and the very odd opinions, “dagget” is the same James Sinnamon I used to enjoy playing with over at Quiggin’s.
How are you James? Still having fun playing with the lunatic left? Do you still want to kill off everyone but 300 million people? If so, I would have thought you would have been applauding Bush for doing this (if, indeed, he had).
One more point, Andrew.
You say bombs were detonated in the 98th floor to make it look like the collapse was caused by the plane attack. There were windows exploding from the heat and jet of flames on the 98th floor 10 minutes before the buidling collapsed. Very intense heat, and a lot of damage. So I got a question:
How did the dtenation explosives stay intact? How was it that the detonators still worked in those conditions?
The thick black smoke isn’t any sort of evidence that the steel didn’t get hot enough, for the reasons previously given.
There was plenty of visible flame.
The aircraft brought their own fuel. Yes, think about that for a moment.
There was plenty of fuel on the floors.
Fires WERE evident around the perimeter of the buildings.
The core columns didn’t fail simultaneously, and nor did they need to. Remember that the Twin Towers relied upon their perimeter columns as well for structural stability.
It’s not the only piece of evidence. As mentioned above, we know the buildings collapsed. There was no evidence of controlled demolition, but copious evidence of aircraft striking the buildings and causing intense fires. The structural engineers investigating the collapse concluded that aircraft impact alone was insufficient to cause collapse. The fires were the critical factor in weakening the steel structure.
The only people making slow progress are those who refuse to face the facts and continue to believe what they want to believe rather than what can be supported by those very same facts.
No, WTC 7 is not the “number one bit of evidence for controlled demolition”. We’ve already been through that tower’s fall. It, too, collapsed due to fire.
The fires weakened the steel structure. As noted, we’ve been through this.
I sincerely hope those three collapses won’t be repeated.
Yes, we know that buildings can be brought down by fire and we’re not talking about “cutting some columns and then lighting a fire”; we’re talking about flying a 767 into the side of building. If you don’t think that’s a major challenge to any tower I’d like to see your qualifications.
But let me ask you a question: do YOU honestly believe that some group of people you can’t name planned a controlled demolition for reasons you can’t identify then planted masses of explosives you can’t prove were there that went undetected by anybody you know of AND made sure that those explosives were able to survive both the impact and firestorm caused by aircraft strikes that they ALSO planned and executed without anyone identifying their involvement but for which crimes they were able to frame a bunch of shady Arab dudes who conveniently happened to have been studying how to fly planes AND were on the flights that day?
Oh, and just to be clear on all of that, you can’t prove ANY OF IT and yet STILL you believe that they were controlled demolitions? Feel free to phone a friend before you answer those questions.
The article is crap, from a bogus “journal”, written by a nobody, who drew the wrong conclusions from the NIST report. Both of the floors where collapse initiated were heavily damaged by fires.
Fires on many floors must have become unbearably hot, given that many occupants decided it was preferable to jump out. At the very least it seems to indicate that inbuilt sprinkler systems or portable extinguishers were ineffectual.
And yet in an “ordinary” office block fire those would have been adequate. The fires must have been extraordinarily fierce.
“You say bombs were detonated in the 98th floor to make it look like the collapse was caused by the plane attack. There were windows exploding from the heat and jet of flames on the 98th floor 10 minutes before the buidling collapsed. Very intense heat, and a lot of damage. So I got a question:How did the dtenation explosives stay intact? How was it that the detonators still worked in those conditions?”
They probrably chose the 98th floor because there was very little damage so any explosives would have remained undamaged, plastic explosives are very stable, for example C4 you can shoot a bullet through or throw it on a fire and it wont explode, it requires a detonator.
I can’t find any images of tower 1 10 min before it’s collapse, but tower 2 collapses approx 20 minutes before tower 1s collapse, and at that time I can’t see any flames at all coming out of tower1(nor tower 2 for that matter), here is a short vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b-TzmqpnwU
The aircraft brought their own fuel. Yes, think about that for a moment.
There was plenty of fuel on the floors.
Fires WERE evident around the perimeter of the buildings.
The core columns didn’t fail simultaneously, and nor did they need to. Remember that the Twin Towers relied upon their perimeter columns as well for structural stability.
No, the jet fuel only lasted for a handful of minutes, from then on the fires were reliant on other fuel sources, which were sorely lacking in the cores.
Yes, in order for a building to go from standing upright into complete failure all the columns must fail simultaniously, this is always done in controlled demolitions out of necessity.
The fires weakened the steel structure. As noted, we’ve been through this.
Interesting you use the word weakened, in order for freefall to occur all of the steel structure must instantly offer no resistance, not just a weakened resistance.
In the case of WTC 7 there is no way, no how, no possibility, that fires can completely remove all of the steel structures integrety. All it can possibly do is soften/weaken the steel to the point that it deforms by buckling, the steel will still retain some of it’s mechanical strength as it bends and buckles, so it will still offer significant resistance.
Andrew, my advice to you is not to tie yourself into knots following all of Bob’s twists and turns. He has shown himself to be a skilled obfuscator on top of being thoroughly disingenous in this discussion. One example — and he is not alone here — is his insistence that he does not see massive and violent explosions in all those movies and stills of the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers, even though this is how a number of reporters descibed that way on the day. Another is his idiotic implicit claim that I was not capable of recogising in those images explosions because I was not an ‘expert’ in explosions. These are only two of many examples of tactics used to obstruct the progress of this discussion towards a conclusion.
In his most recent contribution we find his umpteenth apparent attempt to conflate the crash of planes into the twin Towers with the collapse of WTC 7.
In one paragraph he states:
Then, in the next he states:
No, Bob, We don’t ‘know’ that steel framed buildings can be brought down by fire alone. I can only conclude that this is a deliberate lie on your part. This has never happened before and never since.
Bob ever so helpfully points out that flying a 767 into the side of building would be a major challenge to a building. I think we are agreed that it would be a challenge, but Bob also well knows that the Twin Towers were designed to withstand a head on impact from a Boeing 707 which is comparable to a 767, so Bob should therefore well understand that the fact that 767′s crashed into those buildings on those days does not address all outstanding questions and he should stop pretending that it does.
And the crash of the 767′s into the twin towers answers nothing about the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7. One attempt by one Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist to imply that the limited structural damage caused by the ‘collapse’ of the North Tower in any way contributed to the collapse of WTC was abandoned after I pointed out that even NIST does not pretend this to be the case.
Andrew, you may need to know the basis of Bob’s strident and repeated claim to have back somewhere in this thread to have proven that WTC 7 was brought down by fire and not by a controlled demolition. I have explained them in my post above:
After that I asked:
Bob claimed I had missed something.
I asked him again and again to state what else there was to his ‘case’, but he refused to say, until, eventually, he claimed to have explained everything by having copied and pasted a few sumary paragraphs from the NIST report. So, in addition to the above, we can now add the following:
If these look familiar to you, andrew, it may be because they featured in David Chandler’s videos I referred to above.
So, the implications I draw from what Bob holds to be the complete explanation for the ‘collapse’ is:
1. Prior to the initiation of the collapse, all the weight of the North Wall across its whole length somehow came to be supported on “the exterior columns in the lower stories of the north face,” presumably the lowest 8 stories.
2. Within what NIST claims to have been the first 1.75 seconds of collapse, all the strength in those exterior columns that had previously supported the entire Noth wall was somehow lost.
If both (1) and (2) had not been true then it would not have been possible for the North Face to have collapsed at free fall speed. Either some descent at less than free fall speed would have been observed or the Norht wall would have been broken up.
So I leave it to Bob to explain whether or not he agrees with my understanding of what logically must follow from the NIST explanation of the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ and if he does not, then to explain to all of us why I am wrong.
—
Andrew, another post in which I discuss WTC 7 is 524.
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When Oreo Palmer arrived on the 78th floor, he would have applied the best of his training and experience to evaluate what he observed and report back to the other firefighters what was required to put out the blaze. Whether or not Palmer could see for himself the full extent of the damage, the definite tone in his voice indicates that one way or another he had wored out what was going on up their or, at least, what should have been going up there from is initial observations, his training and his past experience. If there was anything about the situation that was not clear to him at that point he would have conveyed that in what he said.
Yes, Bob, you are right Palmer did ‘neglect’ to inform them:
1. If he moved above the 78th floor;
2. If others present told him what was happening on the floors above; or
3. If he worked out what was happening on the floors above by “looking up through the gaps in the floors”.
My guess is that the reason he did not was because that he judged that time was of the essence and that those below did not need to understand why he had arrived at his evalation of the situation, but simply to know his evaluation of what was required, and for his part Palmer would not have wanted to waste his own breathe and time on conveying superfluous information.
As I pointed out Oreo Palmer clearly did not have the full picture of what was happening when he arrived on the 78th floor. Obviously he knew nothing of the explosives that had been packed into the building.
On top of that he appeared unaware of other fires at that point starting to spread that could not have been caused by the planes. The key to understanding this can be found in the excerpt from Kevin Ryan’s article which I included above:
Bob makes a great deal of another fire burning a few floors up at the corner of the building but disingenuosly fails to point out the stream of molten steel (and, Bob, don’t try to pretend it must be molten Aluminium as a number of Truth Deniers have dishonestly attempted to do). There is simply no way that any fire caused by aviation fuel could have caused steel to melt in the way we have observed.
Bob wrote earlier:
Bob, why do you imagine I would care in the least about your pretence not to be convinced? If there was anything on that page that was not true, you would have no doubt found out by now and not wasted a minute before pointing that out to everyone here.
Saw some high cumulus clouds yesterday afternoon, daggo. They were huge. The tops were rapidly changing shape. They must have been 1 km across at least. Damn, the ‘cauliflower’ shapes up the top looked like they could only have been caused by aerial explosions.
How else to explain the huge velocities and accelerations? So someone must have wired the very air up there, with explosives, eh?
I have nothing to add to this, except to wonder whether it will rival the Is Missy Higgins a Lipsniger thread in the longest LP threads of all time.
FYEO
Correect.
Cumulo-nimbo-nano-thermite
Lofted on hot, humid days.
Massive micro-explosions.
Convection shifts massive micro-explosives up.
Technically more interesting:
batteries, capacitors used for “lightning”
Heavier.
Assisted by convection.
Lab chaps working on new solar-powered versions
Won’t work at night obvs.
Thunder at night?
Swarms of micro-planes carry capacitors up.
Top secret.
No witnesses.
No evidence.
Cumulo-nimbo resembles fireworks too.
Deep cover.
Massive computers.
All govts involved.
“Weather balloons”
“Weather radar”
Heavy rain near thunder anvils
Convenient coincidence.
Part of cover.
Rain washes away traces of
thermite.
No investigations.
Suits Met Bureaux.
“La plotta continua”
“I have nothing to add to this, except to wonder whether it will rival the Is Missy Higgins a Lipsniger thread in the longest LP threads of all time.”
I was kinda hoping that once it hit one thousand the thread would just detonate from controlled explosion from within.
“They” chose the 98th floor? Who are “they”? This is a ridiculous assertion. And you have failed to address the issue of fire-proofing the detonators.
The perspective in that video is too distant to show much. Look at this one and tell me if you see fire.
After the aircraft had dislodged a huge amount of material? Remember also that the aircraft furnishings themselves provided fuel for fires.
Is that right? And what do you base these assertions upon?
Freefall didn’t occur.
Again, upon what do you base your assertion that fires cannot weaken a steel structure’s integrity? Furthermore, we’ve already established that it wasn’t necessary for the entire structure to fail simultaneously – we know failure was progressive. Finally, we know there was some resistance because the building did not fall at free-fall speed.
Yes, Andrew, you should leave the self-knotting to experts like Daggy here.
Neither example is obfuscating, disingenuous or obstructive. I did NOT see “massive and violent explosions” in those “movies” (as you call them) and you patently don’t know an explosion when you see one, because you claim to see an explosion where we know there isn’t one.
Nope, no conflation, Daggy.
Again, there’s no conflation there. Do you know what “conflation” means, Daggy? Please don’t use words you don’t understand.
The fact that it hasn’t happened before or since reflects the lack of similar situations, i.e. airliner strikes, not its impossibility. As I showed earlier, total building collapses are rare, so the list of precedents is small to begin with, and there have only been two instances of large airliners striking steel-framed office towers, and they were the WTC attacks.
Andrew stated earlier that a steel-framed building was “immune” to collapse and then squibbed when asked to defend this assertion. You appear to be arguing the same. Care to tell us why?
I’m not pretending anything of the sort, Daggy – I’ve stated from the very start that it was the fires caused by the airliner strikes that were critical in the collapse of the towers. Please do keep up.
No, NIST argues that fires were the principal cause of collapse. You’ve been unable to falsify that theory, Daggy.
I “refused” nothing of the sort, and I’d pointed you to the official explanation in the NIST reports from the very start. Do you remember those? They’re the ones you said you hadn’t read. And I supplied the summary paragraphs you mention in response to an earlier discussion.
First, I don’t hold your cack-handed summary to be the complete explanation for the collapse.
Second, apart from not making sense your first point doesn’t relate to the NIST explanation. It’s a strawman, and a stupid one at that.
Third, your second point is consequently a non-sequitur.
Fourth, your understanding of many things has proven to be deficient time and again. You’ve been unable even to explain the NIST explanation, let alone critique it.
Daggy, we only know what he told his colleagues, from what he experienced. Anything else you want to assert is merely your opinion, and not fact. As has been stated several times now, he was nowhere near the worst fires and his account has no bearing on your “controlled demolition” theory.
What “inexplicable fires”? You missed the sentence preceding that paragraph:
“All parties”? The NIST report states that there was ample fuel from the aircraft and the furniture on the floors that burned.
Ryan’s article is unsubstantiated bunk.
Ah, yes, the “molten steel”. How do you know it was molten steel, Daggy? Is this going to be another one of those “vibe” arguments?
I’m glad you accept that there WERE visible fires on the floors above Palmer, however.
Squib. It’s YOUR claim that it was suppressed, so YOU prove it.
A roadmap to this discussion, the beginning of which I am including below, may help to prevent this disccussion going further around in circles. Of course, no-one here need accept my roadmap as the definitive road map. Others are welcome to provide their own.
Roadmap to “Saturday Salon — The Truth is Out There! edition”
28: daggett notes that, whislt on the one hand, the Government and the newsmedia consttantly cite 9/11 as a justifiaction for the “War on Terror” and for curtailments of human rights, most of the left and alternative media is silent on this question.
48: Nana Levu responds with link to “Pepe Escobar in Asia Times asks 50 questions about 911″.
50: Daggett, not noticing Nana levu’s comment, points out that CIA says it expects more 9/11′s
72 13 Sep: Daggett posts link to Sheen Challenges 9/11 Truth Debunkers to Larry King Live Debate and excerpt.
105 14 Sep: daggett responds to Nana Levu’s previous post@ 48.
106 14 Sep: FDB attacks daggett for allegedly cutting and pasting from his own comments.
107 14 Sep: Liam joins in.
108 Sep: FDB attempts to parody case of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
111 14 Sep: Brian attempts to ridicule 9/11 Truth Movement
112 14 Sep: More ridicule from FDB.
114 14 Sep: Liam makes reference to Chilean coup of 11 Sep 73.
126 15 Sep: Daggett responds to FDB (@ 106). Points out that there are two conspiracy theories to explain 9/11 and that rejection of one requires that the other be embraced. Asks FDB which Conspiracy Theory he embraces. Cites example of the Murdoch Press peddling the Official 9/11 Conspiracy to justify the continuation of war in Afghanistan. Points out that after 8 years of occupation of Afghanistan that not one person with a proven link to 9/11 has been captured. Asks “how much longer it will be until such a person is captured?
127 15 Sep: murph the surf responds by asking how long it will take until a 9/11 conspirator from within the US state blows the whistle.
128 15 Sep: GregM responds stating that Kahlid Sheikh Mohammod, an alleged 9/11 plotter, was captured on 1 March 2003
136 15 Sep: FDB points out that his sister reported for Time magazine on 11 Sep 01 and supports the Official account. Asks daggett if he considers her part of the conspiracy. “You do their efforts a grave injustice.”
138 15 Sep: Jules that she essentially does not consider 9/11 an important issue.
139 15 Sep: Daggett argues to murph the surf @ 127 that absence of whistleblower from US state 9/11 conspirators is not proof of absence of conspiracy.
Puts forward factors that would dissuade a whistleblower from stepping forward. Cites example of Barry Jennings, a former New York Housing Authority Emergency Coordinator, who worked in the WTC Building 7 on 11 September 2001 and who was outspoken with testimony against the Official account of the collapse of Building 7, who died mysteriously in August 2008. Before he died he told of how his job had been threatened and he feared for his life. Cites example of Computer Technician Scott Forbes, who witnessed power downs and many other mysterious events, including visits by large numbers of technicians with toolboxes up to the weekend prior to 9/11 during these power downs.
Points out to GregM @ 128 that alleged 9/11 plotter, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), was tortured and his confessions have not been tested in a proper open trial.
15 Sep: Jules supports daggett’s point @ 139 about KSM being tortured into making a confession.
Disputes that “the uncontrolled collapse of the 2 WTC towers looks anything like a controlled demolition”: “Calling the collapse of the twin towers a controlled demolition is the sort of abuse of language that makes anyone with a brain look at ‘truthers’ through very narrow eyes.”
142 15 Sep: Daggett thanks Jules for supporting him about KSM but defends his categorisation of the Twin Tower ‘collapses’ as controlled demolitions. Points out that 9/11 Commission and NIST refused to consider the controlled deomolition hypothesis for any of three ‘collapses’ in spite of testimony snd physical evidence in support of hypthesis. Refers Jules to ae911truth.org.
143 15 Sep: FDB. 144: Liam. 145: FDB. 146: Ambigulous.
148 15 Sep: Paul Burns attempts to riducule 9/11 Truth Movement. Attempts to liken unofficial 9/11 conspiracy theory to belief that moon landing was a hoax.
150 15 Sep: David Irving argues that Bush administration figures suspected of orchestrting 9/11 too stupid to pull it off and that surely someone from within the conspiracy would have blown the whistle by now.
152 15 Sep: GregM predicts that public trial of tortured alleged 9/11 coup plotter KSM will vindicate US Government and make 9/11 Truth movement look stupid.
153 15 Sep: Liam cites Duran Duran to say of 9/11 Truthers “They will believe what they want to believe come what may.”
155 Sep: Jules puts foot in both 9/11 Truther camp and in camp of sitting on the fence. Points out to GregM that any confessions extracted from KSM under torture would have no value in a trial. Asks why weren’t Bush and Cheney impeached or hung from a lamp post for gross negligence the next day? Restates belief in irrelevance of Controlled Demolition (CD) hypothesis, but gives examples of implausibility of official explanation of 9/11.
162 15 Sep: Murph the surf attempts to dismiss daggett’s arguments against the implausibility of US state 9/11 conspirators spilling he beans before now. Claims that those who bellieve that they had been probed by extraterrestrials are sane compared to 9/11 Truthers. Claims that anti-semitism oozes out when you just scratch the surface of 9/11 truth sites.
164 15 Sep: In the midst of post about sport, Jules makes post in apparent support of official 9/11 explanation: “The 9/11 attacks were also a classic underdog strike.” (?!)
165 Sep: GregM on subject of torture.
166 15 Sep: Jules further argues against reliability of evidence used in trial of KSM.
167 15 Sep: GregM attacks Jules statement @ 164 about 9/11 being a “classic underdog strike.”
168 15 Sep: GregM claims in response to Jules at 166that KSM hasn’t been tried yet.
170 15 Sep: Jules points out that trial of KSM beganin 2008 at Guatanamo Bay but has not finished.
172 16 Sep: Daggett provides links to videos by David Chandler which demostrate that WTC 7 fell at free fall speed and NIST being forced to admit that WTC 7 had admitted that it did. Reiterates earlier point that proper inquiry has not been conducted. Asks why demands of 9/11 Truth Movement should not be agreed to.
Challenges Jules statement @ 164 (but from different angle to Gregm @ 167) that “9/11 attacks were also a classic underdog strike”: “How does it help an underdog to judge him/her guilty of a crime he/she did not commit?”
Responds to GregM’s prediction at 152 that trial of KSM will vindicate US government. Looks forward to open trial of KSM that US has refused to conduct to find out what the case against KSM, other than confessions extracted under torture, consists of. Puts to GregM that it is, in fact, the Official Conspiracy Theorists, rather than 9/11 Truthers, who “will believe what they want to believe come what may.”
177 16 Sep: Liam (very melodramatically, clearly written in the hope that producers of court room dramas in the US, will note his script writing abilities) diagnoses daggett’s paranoid delusions. He demands “What’s your theory about what happened?” (Please read on, Liam.) “What could possibly satisfy you that there was not a massive conspiracy to whip Americans into war-frenzy? Is there any evidence that could be presented to you that would change your mind about the invalidity of your so-called Official Narrative?” (Yes, there is Liam. Answers provided by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al that provide an alternaitve and verifiable alternaitve explanation — I can’t begin to conceive what — explanation for their bizarre behaviour, before, during and after 9/11 at a proper inquiry into 9/11).
Liam announces that he will refuse to consider any evidence I put to him: I will not watch your videos. “I will not read your Questions. I will not debate you on the differences between detonation and deflagration and the finer points of aluminium thermite’s utility in demolitions. I utterly reject the idea that your argument can be dealt with fairly or reasonably. Your ‘movement’ should be engaged with only with derision, mocking and contempt.”
178 16 Sep: adrian writes of Liam’s above oration, “I think that the word your searching for is “mockery”, Sheik, of which your rant is a fine example.
179 16 Sep: FDB corrects grammatical error in adrian’s post.
180 16 Sep: Liam. 181: Adrian. 182: adrian. 183: FDB.
184 16 Sep: Liam informs daggett of article “The hopless stupidity of 9/11 conspiracy theories” by Taibbi in Rolling Stones magazine is even more hard hitting than he has been.
185 16 Sep: adrian.
186 16 Sep: Daggett thanks Liam for his post 177 anticipating that it will cause 9/11 Truthers to collapse in uncontrollable fits of laughter for years to come.
Your “roadmap”, aside from being (thankfully) incomplete, appears to be uncomfortably close to 1:1 scale, Daggy, which suggests it’s not actually a map, let alone of any use to anyone.
Not to mention