NationStates Jolt Archive

Which conspiracy theroys make your blood boil? Which ones make you wonder who could possibly believe in them? Tell us why,

That the Catholic Church engineered the Holocaust.

Although if it's true, and if it's also true that the Jews control the Catholic Church, then the Jews are effectively behind the Holocaust, which is amusing in an entirely inappropriate way.

They're all pretty damn annoying, but I have to say the 9/11 conspiracy theories annoy me the most (though to my mind they aren't the most heinous).

Seriously, if the government planned 9/11, they would've had more of the hijackers be Iraqi.

Which conspiracy theroys make your blood boil? Which ones make you wonder who could possibly believe in them? Tell us why,

All of the above. I have no idea why people waste their time on these theories.

"The Apollo moon landings were a hoax filmed in Nevada"

Most. Annoying. Most Irrational. Theory. Ever.

Loose Change in my book, but all the theories in the poll have the power to make a meal of my patience on any given day. I think the one that is the most egregious when it comes to actual proof to its contrary is the theories of the Holocaust deniers. Loose Change's partial plausibility comes from the lack of trust the US government has earned since the end of WWII. But to see the films of the dessicated and starved bodies being loaded into mass graves and say "naaaaah" -- that's just insanity.

I get pretty tired of hearing the OKC Bombing theories.........but that's probably because of where I live.

a non-local one though that annoys me is those people who deny the holocaust, not the ones who question the numbers and all but the ones who say it never happened at all........:rolleyes:

loose change by far is the most annoying. mostly because people are actually listening to it and think that everything said in it is absolute truth. even though it has been disproven by many other sources/anyone that can think on their own.

most conspiracy theaories are annoying because it is almsot always someone that doesnt have much credit to their name trying to prove that the government is trying to hide stuff from us. and for some reason they are the only ones that noticed this.

The Mormon Church...


MORMON MISSIONARIES=GLOBAL STRIKE FORCE

The Mormon Church...
MORMON MISSIONARIES=GLOBAL STRIKE FORCEMORMON MISSIONARIES=GLOBAL STUPIDIFICATION FORCE

"those tricksie scientists are just making up evidence for [insert clearly solid scientific theory here] and covering up all the mountains of evidence against it."

MORMON MISSIONARIES=GLOBAL STUPIDIFICATION FORCE

I hate Mormons. I live in Vegas, near a Mormon church. Everyone is so Stepfordized.

Gov. did 9/11

I would say the 9/11 CT, mostly because the fuckin' amout of idiots that believe in it. Most of them are anti Americans who will believe in it just to make America seem bad.

Though the Halocaust denial or the World being flat CTs are way dumber, but only Nazis or retards believe in them.

"The Moon Landing was faked."

*grits teeth*

We use the base of the Apollo 11 lunar module to bounce lasers off of to help measure the distance to the moon and continental drift. If the moon landing was faked, how did the giant fucking mirror get there?!?

http://www.abestweb.com/smilies/ranting.gif


:)

If the moon landing was faked, how did the giant fucking mirror get there?!?

space ponies

space ponies

I hear space pony poop grows some really special mushrooms. :)

"The Moon Landing was faked."

*grits teeth*

We use the base of the Apollo 11 lunar module to bounce lasers off of to help measure the distance to the moon and continental drift. If the moon landing was faked, how did the giant fucking mirror get there?!?

http://www.abestweb.com/smilies/ranting.gif


:)

Ruins of an alien base, not our moon lander, stupid.

The global islamo-libernazi world domination conspiracy theory.

That and loose change, and all the idiots who are totally persuaded because of a few fuzzy pictures with rock music playing in the backgrounds.

Ruins of an alien base, not our moon lander, stupid.

*eyes narrow*

You're not shooting down the space pony theory, are you?

The whole death of Princess Diana conspiracy. Not so much whether Al Fayed (spelling?) is right or wrong, more the fact that no bugger will just let her rest because it has the capability to generate large sums of money for the individual.

Note:Yes I buggered up the title.

*eyes narrow*

You're not shooting down the space pony theory, are you?What's the the space pony theory??

i like to add the NS one who is Pedro The Donkey

What's the the space pony theory??

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.


Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.


Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.


Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.


Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.


Gen 1:6 ¶ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.


Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.


Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day

...

Most annoying is the Gov./Jews/*insert group here* did 9/11 theories floating about. Most interesting is probably the Nazi moon landing one.

The one huge point the moon landing guys miss (apart from the laser mirrors)
was that the soviet union was tracking the apollo spacecraft too, and sent a robotic explorer to the site of one of the moon landings

Given the soviets were our mortal enemies at that point in history, do you think they would have kept quiet if they spotted something amiss?............... unless they were in on it too:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Most annoying is the Gov./Jews/*insert group here* did 9/11 theories floating about. Most interesting is probably the Nazi moon landing one.

OH yeah, gotta love that one. Mmmm, so the Jews, which control the government and the media, needed to get the US people behind military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. So, the Jews, which control the government, staged the 9/11 attacks, to that the we would support military actions against Afghanistan (Osama) and latter in Iraq, both of which have been vocal about terminating Israel.

However, if the Jews also control the media and the government, then why did they need to mount the 9/11 attacks to get popular support?

Just a thought.

Vic

9/11 theories agitate me the most, but the holocaust theories are a close second.

Most annoying is the Gov./Jews/*insert group here* did 9/11 theories floating about. Most interesting is probably the Nazi moon landing one.

Oh yeah, so they are crazy conspiracy theories, but when we say 'the muslims did 9/11' - that's sane?

Diana. I DON'T FUCKING CARE. IT WAS TEN YEARS AGO.

This does, of course, apply to most of the theories mentioned here to a greater or lesser extent. This one just gets my goat for some reason.

There's a theory that the entire British Royal Family are alien reptiles here to take over the world.
9/11 and Holocaust theories piss me off.The conference in Tehran gets my blood boiling,Ahmadinejad really needs a good kick up the arse frankly.

Diana. I DON'T FUCKING CARE. IT WAS TEN YEARS AGO.

But it was fuggin MI6 and the fuggin FBI who killed... (cont. p94)

Definitaly the holocaust. It is much bigger than any of the others. Millions of people died because of it, and there are people who dont believe in it? That is fucking sick.

Well, every one in the list is stupid.

Also, I quite hate all the da Vince theories. After the book and the movie, people started to believe in some pretty wacky stuff. Not to mention the mormons and iluminati.

Oh yeah, so they are crazy conspiracy theories, but when we say 'the muslims did 9/11' - that's sane?

Of course not.

But it was fuggin MI6 and the fuggin FBI who killed... (cont. p94)

It was Prince Charles!MI5!The CIA!FIFA!The Brownies!The Thames Sailing Club!The Boy Scouts!

[/dead ringers rant]

Oh yeah, so they are crazy conspiracy theories, but when we say 'the muslims did 9/11' - that's sane?

'The' Muslims did not do 9/11. 'Some' Muslims did. And it's sane because of what's known in the trade as 'ev-i-dence.'

'The' Muslims did not do 9/11. 'Some' Muslims did. And it's sane because of what's known in the trade as 'ev-i-dence.'

What he said. :/

It was Prince Charles!MI5!The CIA!FIFA!The Brownies!The Thames Sailing Club!The Boy Scouts!

[/dead ringers rant]

Frankly I've had my suspicions about the Scouts for some time now...

'The' Muslims did not do 9/11. 'Some' Muslims did.

So 'the' Nazis didn't carry out the Holocaust, 'some' Nazis did?

So 'the' Nazis didn't carry out the Holocaust, 'some' Nazis did?

Technically, that would be correct, no?

Technically, that would be correct, no?

You would therefore agree to the statement 'the Nazis didn't carry out the Holocaust', yes?

So 'the' Nazis didn't carry out the Holocaust, 'some' Nazis did?

No, 'the entire machinery of Nazi Germany was complicit or actively involved in the Holocaust and Nazism ideologically demanded it.'

Are you seriously comparing the deliberate action of a national government who had always claimed extermination of 'undesirables' was their goal to the actions of a small terrorist group made up of members of a vastly larger religion?

I prefer being disgusted with the "aliens control the government" rather then the Jews doing the controlling. It is funnier, those who think the X-Files is a semi-documentary or something.

You would therefore agree to the statement 'the Nazis didn't carry out the Holocaust', yes?
Not at all, and I suspect you know that. While it is correct to say that not all Nazi party members were complicit in the Holocaust (except by their silent consent, which is a different debate entirely); it is also correct to say that the Holocaust was carried out by the Nazis.

The world trade centre attacks were carried out by Muslims, but it is not fair to say that all Muslims were complicit in the attacks (not even by the sin of omission argument). I'm not sure where you're going with this, BWO?

Are you seriously comparing the deliberate action of a national government who had always claimed extermination of 'undesirables' was their goal to the actions of a small terrorist group made up of members of a vastly larger religion?

Me? I'm just asking questions.

I would have to say Loose Change and the 9/11 conspiracies. These people will just not listen to reason.

My most annoying one?

That the US government planned to turn Jupiter into a star and call it, "Lucifer."

When I heard that, my mind hit brick wall.

My most annoying one?

That the US government planned to turn Jupiter into a star and call it, "Lucifer."

When I heard that, my mind hit brick wall.

Ridiculous! :rolleyes:



We'd name it "Freedom". :D

That the US government planned to turn Jupiter into a star and call it, "Lucifer."

The US government is behind the Monoliths?

Only the JFK conspiracy is annoying out of the ones you suggested. Its the only one that without a shadow of a doubt not true. I think the others are debatable.

Only the JFK conspiracy is annoying out of the ones you suggested. Its the only one that without a shadow of a doubt not true. I think the others are debatable.

I dunno, I mean why would Jack Ruby shoot Oswald?

Only the JFK conspiracy is annoying out of the ones you suggested. Its the only one that without a shadow of a doubt not true. I think the others are debatable.

So the Jews could control the Media/Government, and there's a chance the Holocaust didn't happen....? I'm just trying to be perfectly clear with what you're saying.

My most annoying one?

That the US government planned to turn Jupiter into a star and call it, "Lucifer."

When I heard that, my mind hit brick wall.
Bwahahahaha! Just how would it be turned into a star? It has insufficient mass for gravitational confinement fusion. That has got to be one of the funniest conspiracy theories I've ever heard.

I dunno, I mean why would Jack Ruby shoot Oswald?
Because Oswald shot Kennedy so he could steal the Jack Ruby.

"Tupac / Hitler / Bambi's mum is still alive - no really!"

I dunno, I mean why would Jack Ruby shoot Oswald?

attention? I'm not sure but I am sure it wasn't to cover up some conspiracy.

So the Jews could control the Media/Government
Yes, of course. I've said that before.

and there's a chance the Holocaust didn't happen....?
There's a chance it was drastically overblown.

I'm just trying to be perfectly clear with what you're saying.

now we're clear.

Nazi Aliens from Area 51 who killed JFK under orders from the Jew media who hid in the fake moon landing soundstage gave the Mormons who killed Howard Hughes the spaceships they used to blow up the World Trade Center. :headbang:

Oh my GOD!!! Hillary Clinton and Prince Charles are going to get me!! Ive let the cat out of the bag!!!!

My favorite Halloween decoration is a tombstone that says "Bambi's Mom".

There are some pretty funny 9/11 theories out there. My favorites would have to be the one with a plane full of CIA clones hitting both towers and the one involving holograms and a controlled demolition. The pure idiocy of those and just about every other is the stuff of comedy gold. That so many believe in them makes it all the more funny and sad.

Bwahahahaha! Just how would it be turned into a star? It has insufficient mass for gravitational confinement fusion. That has got to be one of the funniest conspiracy theories I've ever heard.

It's from Arthur C Clarke's 2001-verse.

Yes, of course. I've said that before.

My apologies for not reading every single one of your posts.

It's from Arthur C Clarke's 2001-verse.
That doesn't answer the question of how it would be turned into a star with insufficient mass. Even tossing in every other Jovian-type world in this system (don't ask me how you'd do that) wouldn't provide sufficient mass to turn it into the dimest red dwarf.

That doesn't answer the question of how it would be turned into a star with insufficient mass. Even tossing in every other Jovian-type world in this system (don't ask me how you'd do that) wouldn't provide sufficient mass to turn it into the dimest red dwarf.

Plot device.

That doesn't answer the question of how it would be turned into a star with insufficient mass.

The magic of bad writing, now with 2000% more mass.

I guess for me, the most annoying ones are the 9/11 conspiracy (sheer prevalence), the holocaust denial conspiracy (sheer silliness with nazism mixed in) and the global-controlling jew conspiracy (just stupid).

What's most annoying though is the conspiracy freaks who think EVERYTHING is a conspiracy. The ones for whom every magazine page and every news event is just another block in their Grand Unified Conspiracy theory. "Aha! See the use of the letter G here! refers back to the ancient egyptian illuminati reptiles!" they point out, clicketty-clicketty on a web-surfing bonanza of conspiracy theory orgasms, citing one badly-written HTML page after the another as "proof" of this, that, or the other thing. The kinds of people who think non-conspiracy-buffs are "sheeple" too foolish to see the obvious truth or brainwashed by HAARP.

I would say the ones that annoy me most are people who claim absence of evidence for a conspiracy is also proof of the conspiracy, since it's proof that there's a cover up. It's a really annoying 'heads I win / tails you lose' mentality.

1) 9-11
2) JFK
3) Liberal Media Control
4) Moon landings=faked
5) The Conspiracy theory that the US was founded on christian morals, peace, love and freedom. ;)

I feel most of the conspiracy theories have some basis.
9/11 (11/9 really), the doubt about it being real is because people want conclusive evidence, why is there none? How the fuck would the Americans get it? By knowing about it in advance? I'd be more worried if they could explain everything away.

Holocaust? I have no doubt that it happened. Yes, number could be skewed, I haven't found any records of anything that wasn't slightly out. It could be on purpose, if they made it seem 10% worse, take away that 9% (Yarly) and it's still freaking bad.

The JFK one, that one I feel is possible, because it was so wrapped up in a neat little package, it worries me, but it's not like they're going to do that again, come on. The absence of Evidence thing that GMC hates people using :)

Moon Landings? I guess it could be faked, but it would have been easier to do the half-assed job they claim to have done. Occams razor.

All of the above.

I don't overly hate conspiracy theories, there has to be something to keep people on their toes, but conspiracy theorists, gtfo. Like srsly, unless it's a big issue (To people other than yourself) it doesn't really matter does it? There are more pressing issues, and no way for you to find the truth.

9/11 (11/9 really), the doubt about it being real is because people want conclusive evidence, why is there none?

Well, there is, actually. If there's enough to satisfy insurance companies to pay out, there has to be a fair shitload.

"The Moon Landing was faked."

*grits teeth*

We use the base of the Apollo 11 lunar module to bounce lasers off of to help measure the distance to the moon and continental drift. If the moon landing was faked, how did the giant fucking mirror get there?!?

http://www.abestweb.com/smilies/ranting.gif


:)
And let's not forget the 700+ lbs of moon rock the 6 missions brought back. Moon rock which has been analysed thousands of times by hundreds of scientists the world over and found to be of a different make-up than anything found on Earth.
And of course the Russians would have to have been in on it, too. They were tracking the Apollo missions carefully. Think they would let a fake pass by right at the height of the Cold War?

Moon Landing and 9/11 are my two bugbears.



As for the Jewish control of the World - I was at a party last week and conspiracy theories came up. I mentioned the Zionist conspiracy and the one guy who had never heard of it was a Jew.
coincidence...?

Well, there is, actually. If there's enough to satisfy insurance companies to pay out, there has to be a fair shitload.

ZOMG IT WAS INSURANCE SCAM.

But to address your statement completely, I meant why is it not fully conclusive (Insurance companies have to be 'sure', that word being fairly subjective). If there is doubt, there's something wrong, and there would only be doubt if it was unexpected tot he authorities, or if they did a piss-poor job (Which they've shown they wouldn't). So I think it happened, I think planes hit the WTC, if the government planned it, (By which I mean officially, sure they could still have had something to do with it) then it would ahve been done much better. Planes would have hit lower, the pilots would have had more training, it would have been a busier time. I feel that it could still have been a little more professional without giving their hand away (Counter-Argument is that they're so pro, they'd do a good job at making it not look pro, I rebute that with my previous statement.)


Next time I'll paragraph, sorry, I was trying to get it down fast.

And let's not forget the 700+ lbs of moon rock the 6 missions brought back. Moon rock which has been analysed thousands of times by hundreds of scientists the world over and found to be of a different make-up than anything found on Earth.
And of course the Russians would have to have been in on it, too. They were tracking the Apollo missions carefully. Think they would let a fake pass by right at the height of the Cold War?

Moon Landing and 9/11 are my two bugbears.



As for the Jewish control of the World - I was at a party last week and conspiracy theories came up. I mentioned the Zionist conspiracy and the one guy who had never heard of it was a Jew.
coincidence...?


Surely, they would have exposed a conspiracy when it would have helped them, as opposed to recently,w hen hte conpiracy theories arised, when they don't have a shit-show of it helping them at all.

And coincidence? Sure why not? I mean, people generally dont tell their kids what bad things people accuse them of, why would they?

And coincidence? Sure why not? I mean, people generally dont tell their kids what bad things people accuse them of, why would they?
No, I mean surely the fact he hadn't heard of it proves it exists. He was just trying to play ignorant on it.

Further proof was supplied by the other Jew (non-practicising - just jewish by birth) at the party. He knew all about it.
Obviously, once they're out of the loop, they can talk about it. Before that, they're apparently under some sort of post-hypnotic suggestion to deny it's existance.

Thus we have proof that the Zionist world domination conspiracy is indeed real.

No, I mean surely the fact he hadn't heard of it proves it exists. He was just trying to play ignorant on it.

Further proof was supplied by the other Jew (non-practicising - just jewish by birth) at the party. He knew all about it.
Obviously, once they're out of the loop, they can talk about it. Before that, they're apparently under some sort of post-hypnotic suggestion to deny it's existance.

Thus we have proof that the Zionist world domination conspiracy is indeed real.

I see, so he did know about it, yet claimed he didn't to show that it must not exist if even they don't know about it. I'm going on msn and telling everyone I know that it is infact true.

Wait...you mean the Jews don't own the all the media?

Too bad, I was planning to marry me a newspaper.

ZOMG IT WAS INSURANCE SCAM.

Yes, the world's first reverse insurance scam, where the payout was an addition to the much higer cost of rebuilding.

But to address your statement completely, I meant why is it not fully conclusive (Insurance companies have to be 'sure', that word being fairly subjective).

Because demands for absolute proof are pure sophistry, since it is impossible to prove anything beyond 'I think therefore I am' in absolute terms. Beyond that, there is always the ability to generate doubt. I can claim that there's only one other person in the entire world and the rest are an elaborate hoax designed to prevent me realising this. While this claim isn't really possible to refute because the hoax can be used as a catch-all excuse for any irregularities in the evidence ['it's part of the hoax!'] it's still a fucking stupid theory.

I see, so he did know about it, yet claimed he didn't to show that it must not exist if even they don't know about it. I'm going on msn and telling everyone I know that it is infact true.
Exactly.
Ignorance of a conspiracy proves its existance.
No-one can argue with that.

Yes, the world's first reverse insurance scam, where the payout was an addition to the much higer cost of rebuilding.



Because demands for absolute proof are pure sophistry, since it is impossible to prove anything beyond 'I think therefore I am' in absolute terms. Beyond that, there is always the ability to generate doubt. I can claim that there's only one other person in the entire world and the rest are an elaborate hoax designed to prevent me realising this. While this claim isn't really possible to refute because the hoax can be used as a catch-all excuse for any irregularities in the evidence ['it's part of the hoax!'] it's still a fucking stupid theory.

You know what, I actually believe 9/11 happened aprroximately as the American Government claimed, I think there are issues in some places, but no real reason to doubt it so much as to call it a conspiracy.

I get the feeling we're arguing the same point to each other.

assassination of santa claus by the easter bunny. the evidence points towards a grotesque suicide.

The US government is behind the Monoliths?

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA.

MAKE NO LANDING THERE.

USE THEM TOGETHER.

USE THEM IN PEACE.

Oh I just remembered a very annoying set of conspiracy theories. Corporate conspiracy theories. You know the ones about how evil multi-national companies are plotting to enslave or destroy the world somehow. The few I've heard are pretty stupid and annoying.

The most annoying that comes straight to my mind is that the US and/or Israel caused the 2004 Asian tsunami either deliberatly or by accident with a nuclear test/bomb.

What a load of rubbish. Any bomb would have had to have been set off not far off West Australia's coastline, and I think we would have noticed something like that. This automatic blaming of the US and Israel for any and all of the worlds woes these days is just getting boring, not to mention predictable.

The most annoying that comes straight to my mind is that the US and/or Israel caused the 2004 Asian tsunami either deliberatly or by accident with a nuclear test/bomb.

What a load of rubbish. Any bomb would have had to have been set off not far off West Australia's coastline, and I think we would have noticed something like that. This automatic blaming of the US and Israel for any and all of the worlds woes these days is just getting boring, not to mention predictable.

Not to mention the fact that the energy in the tsunami probably exceeded our entire human arsenal by one or more orders of magnitude.

Not to mention the fact that the energy in the tsunami probably exceeded our entire human arsenal by one or more orders of magnitude.

The idiots who believe this crap think that it was an underwater nuclear bomb that caused the earthquake that caused the tsunami. The most far fetched theories say the whole excercise was designed to kill off the muslims in Indonesia.

What they seem to forget is this tsunami happened not far from a major western nation that has the technology to detect that sort of thing, not to mention an unfettered press that would have happily spread the news from one end of the planet to the other if there was any shred of truth in it.

I would say the 9/11 theories... BS.
And the retarded "the moon landings were faked in Area 51" theory :headbang:
And of course, the Holocaust denial.

Oh yes, and how could I forget the "Jews control the media!" one?

On September 11th, 2001, nineteen Muslim terorists hijacked some planes and flew them into the WTC, PEntagon, and a cornfield in PEnnsylvania (thanks to the brilliant efforts of all the passengers... may they rest in peace).
We really did go to the moon, mmkay? All the "evidence" that supports this theory is a load of bad science, astornomy, a poor knowledge of physics, as well as a pathetic ignorance of basic photography. STFU already, we went!
And Hitler did kill 12 million people in the Holocaust. It's in the books. It's there. STFU.
And the American media is not controlled by Jews, it is controlled by idiots. Jews =/= idiots.

a non-local one though that annoys me is those people who deny the holocaust, not the ones who question the numbers and all but the ones who say it never happened at all........:rolleyes:

Coming from the mouth of those un-deniably diabolic racist little bastard twins, (aka the mouthpeice of ignorance) Lynx and Lamb:

"We just don't think there was that many Jews"

:rolleyes:

"The Moon Landing was faked."

*grits teeth*

We use the base of the Apollo 11 lunar module to bounce lasers off of to help measure the distance to the moon and continental drift. If the moon landing was faked, how did the giant fucking mirror get there?!?

http://www.abestweb.com/smilies/ranting.gif


:)

I like you too much to be natural Lunatic Goofballs:)

Wait:eek:

And Hitler did kill 12 million people in the Holocaust. It's in the books. It's there. STFU.

There are also books about how the holocaust didn't happen.

Only silly people think books actually tell the facts, most are about as truthfull as t.v. although most editors have the good sense not to publish BS books masqurading as fact.

But you already know that:) :fluffle:

And the American media is not controlled by Jews, it is controlled by idiots. Jews =/= idiots.

So are you saying simply because someone is a jew, they can't be an idiot? thats streotyping.

*Hillarious

At any rate, the theory that Canadians live in igloos really frustrates me. And we don't say aboot, thats your yanks in the Mid west.

1. The Masons= world domination. It's secret so it must be bad. [/sarcasm]

2. The 9/11 conspiracy about the missile hitting the pentagon. There is no logical explanation as to where the people and the plane went and why they would do that to begin with.

3. Any conspiracy theory that can't answer the "why would they do that?" question.

My physics training tells me exactly how much effort it takes to get to the moon, so I find the claims that we didn't the funniest. ("Well, even if we didn't, we could, and here's about how much it would cost...")

Frankly, there are a couple I find plausible reasons for concern. There are very real problems with, for example, the propaganda techniques surrounding 9/11 and the culture of "anybody who says otherwise is a terrorist." The technique of avoiding rational debate is problematic and should raise concerns promptly.

This is complicated by the fact that the official explanation for 9/11 is that it was a conspiracy. Technically speaking, there is no explanation offered for 9/11 that does not invoke one or another flavor of conspiracy, and the limited amount of scientific investigation permitted on the incident thus far will leave endless room for endless flavors of conspiracy theories. Personally, I doubt that scientific investigation is sure to settle the issue for good, as some have claimed (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/11/12/18329055.php), but the current atmosphere leaves plenty of gaps of information and science.

Similarly, for example, unless heretofore undisclosed evidence is suddenly revealed, conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination will abound. The evidence known in the case has remained essentially constant for years, and there's no reason to expect anything to change in 40 years with regard to conspiracy theories.

At any rate, the theory that Canadians live in igloos really frustrates me. And we don't say aboot, thats your yanks in the Mid west.
We do not. And we don't say "Ya sure you betchya" either. We do say "thank you much" but we're not really known for it.

And it's not Canadians that live in igloos, it's dolphins. Dolphins live in igloos. And I wrote Walden.

Frankly, there are a couple I find plausible reasons for concern. There are very real problems with, for example, the propaganda techniques surrounding 9/11 and the culture of "anybody who says otherwise is a terrorist." The technique of avoiding rational debate is problematic and should raise concerns promptly.


Yeah, and that should concern anyone who appreciates liberty, but it doesn't have much to do with the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11. I mean, conspiracy theorists are not usually dismissed as terrorists. Nutcases perhaps. :)


This is complicated by the fact that the official explanation for 9/11 is that it was a conspiracy.

Meh. Technically yes. But I consider a "conspiracy theory" in this context to be one that goes contrary to what the public, official and/or popular belief is; usu. one that holds that belief to be a cover-up, lie or deception.


Personally, I doubt that scientific investigation is sure to settle the issue for good, as some have claimed (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/11/12/18329055.php), but the current atmosphere leaves plenty of gaps of information and science.

Similarly, for example, unless heretofore undisclosed evidence is suddenly revealed, conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination will abound. The evidence known in the case has remained essentially constant for years, and there's no reason to expect anything to change in 40 years with regard to conspiracy theories.

True. Problem with conspiracy theories is they operate on a lack of evidence. And where there is evidence, they dismiss or ignore it. Such a principle means conspiracy theories will never, ever die; they just become more or less in vogue amongst "conspiracy circles."

That the Catholic Church engineered the Holocaust.

Although if it's true, and if it's also true that the Jews control the Catholic Church, then the Jews are effectively behind the Holocaust, which is amusing in an entirely inappropriate way.

best way for something to be amusing :p

I had enough with the moon landing conspiracy and its not because I beleive in it, but because I don't care about space.

I had enough with the moon landing conspiracy and its not because I beleive in it, but because I don't care about space.

I heard a great idea from a guy I knew in 5th grade. The moon is made of cheese, and it had aliens on it. Naturally, the government did not want us to know either of these things, and they made a moon base. Y'see, the craters on the moon are caused by the massive war between the US government and the Aliens for control of cheese resources, and the phases of the moon are the moon being eaten and regenerating.


Also, I find the "liberal/jew media" annoying. The Holocaust theory is so ridiculous that I'm not terribly irritated by it.

Frankly, there are a couple I find plausible reasons for concern. There are very real problems with, for example, the propaganda techniques surrounding 9/11 and the culture of "anybody who says otherwise is a terrorist." The technique of avoiding rational debate is problematic and should raise concerns promptly.
Do you also support having a rational debate on whether or not the Holocaust happened or whether or not it was such a big deal? I hear A-muddy-dinner-jacket just had a whole conference on the matter.

This is complicated by the fact that the official explanation for 9/11 is that it was a conspiracy. Technically speaking, there is no explanation offered for 9/11 that does not invoke one or another flavor of conspiracy, and the limited amount of scientific investigation permitted on the incident thus far will leave endless room for endless flavors of conspiracy theories. Personally, I doubt that scientific investigation is sure to settle the issue for good, as some have claimed, but the current atmosphere leaves plenty of gaps of information and science.
Collapses and how to avoid them was one of the first things I was taught when I started studying architecture. I can tell you that 9/11 was a horse researched to death and then beaten. All structural engineers came away with the same conclusion, that the fires started by the planes spread to the combustibles in the towers and with the fire-retardant blown off in the explosion the steel softened and failed. Each floor fell onto the one below it and the weight just grew with each floor that collapsed. It's like stacking bricks with tootpicks and then setting some in the middle on fire. The whole thing collapses because the lower floors supports can't hold the upper floor falling on them.

9/11 happened. Planes were used quite effectively to take out skyscrapers. It might have been avoidable had there been sky marshalls on all the flights but there weren't so it happened.

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Oh yeah,who knew that Paul McCartney was dead,has been since 1968,and some guy called Billy Shears has taken his place since then?
:eek:

So are you saying simply because someone is a jew, they can't be an idiot? thats streotyping.

Are you saying that because someone is a Jew,they have to be an idiot?
Ha!Fooled by your own question!!




.....yes,I'm joking.

9/11 theories make me go ballistic, I swear, mainly because people spend so much time yelling at Bush for what he hasn't done than for what he has done. He's an awful President, but for fuck's sake, yell about what he's really done!

Holocaust theories also irritate me, because it's one of those fact denying things, and I hate it when people deny facts and reality. It just gets at me. This is true to a lesser extent for most other conspiracy theories as well.

Do you also support having a rational debate on whether or not the Holocaust happened or whether or not it was such a big deal? I hear A-muddy-dinner-jacket just had a whole conference on the matter.
Rational debate is fine, if remarkably brief. Irrational debate tends to focus the whole matter on Zionism, the state of Israel, and anti-semitism, rather than the rather large number of Jews, Rom (Gypsies), homosexuals, and communists documentably persecuted by the Nazis.

If you like, you can split fine hairs over exactly how many of each were made to disappear in what fashion, what methods should be used to enumerate them, etc etc, but that doesn't really matter.
Collapses and how to avoid them was one of the first things I was taught when I started studying architecture. I can tell you that 9/11 was a horse researched to death and then beaten. All structural engineers came away with the same conclusion, that the fires started by the planes spread to the combustibles in the towers and with the fire-retardant blown off in the explosion the steel softened and failed. Each floor fell onto the one below it and the weight just grew with each floor that collapsed. It's like stacking bricks with tootpicks and then setting some in the middle on fire. The whole thing collapses because the lower floors supports can't hold the upper floor falling on them.

9/11 happened. Planes were used quite effectively to take out skyscrapers. It might have been avoidable had there been sky marshalls on all the flights but there weren't so it happened.
And I can tell you that one of the first things I picked up in looking at the reaction to the WTC attacks is that the models have been changing and adapting - constantly.

It was not "researched to death." Nor is it accurate to say that "all structural engineers came away with the same conclusion" immediately afterwards. This is precisely the sort of attitude that leads to problems, leading to the relative lack of scientific study that have led an increasing number of scientists to cautiously suggest that more study of the collapse is required.

There is actually a dearth of articles published on the matter, as any cursory database search will demonstrate; models were repeatedly examined and discarded, with numerous new models entering discussion in publication between 2001 and now.

There are some problems with the details of the "pancake" model you describe. It is a question of some philosophical merit whether this model should simply be adjusted further in its details to incorporate previously non-considered factors in order to achieve complete consistency with existing data, or whether other models should be considered instead...

... and the bare trickle of scientific investigation on the matter should, were it a flood, surely provide a more practical answer that will render the philosophical considerations irrelevant.

It is understandable that there has been relatively little research carried out on the WTC collapse in light of its politically sensitive nature, but without more rigorous scientific analysis than has been performed to date - and possibly without data that has since been eradicated in the disposal of the rubble - conspiracy theories may not be laid to rest with the sort of confidence that the modern historian can affirm the genocidal tendencies of the Nazis.

The closest thing to a conspiracy regarding 9/11 (aside from the officiall bit, which is technically a conspiracy as it involved multiple people orchestrating the attacks) is of Flight 93? (the one that went down in Pennsylvania) was shot down by a fighter plane and the public was not informed because they wouldn't have understood the necessity. Even then, this is less out of evidence and more out of my refusal to accept that any government could be so unbelievably incompetent as to not do that.

But, I digress. On topic, the conspiracy theory that pisses me off the most is the "dinosaurs aren't real" one.

Given the soviets were our mortal enemies at that point in history, do you think they would have kept quiet if they spotted something amiss?............... unless they were in on it too:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: According to some peoples, they were run by Jews too.

*Peewee Herman voice*

Amazin', huh?

Princess Diana

Have you ever noticed how over time the things that are gong to destroy this country get lamer and lamer?

40s: Nazis
50s: Communists and Elvis Presley
60s: Vietnam Protests and Rock n' Roll
70s: Pot
80s: Madonna, Pot and heavy metal
90s: Y2K/Terriosts/Hackers
2000: Al Gore and the Liberals
2002: Terriosts
2003: 3rd world dictators with basically no power outside their country
2004: Flag Burning/John Kerry/11 year old kids
2005: Gays/Flu/Identity Thieves/CGI or Drawn Child Pornography
2006: Gays/Teenagers having sex/Teenagers taking cough syrup/Sex and drugs in general


It's estimated in 2020 our next real threat of Cyborg Zombie Ninja Pirates with chainsaws for legs.

See above
What about the avian flu, anthrax and smallpox? You forgot those!

It's estimated in 2020 our next real threat of Cyborg Zombie Ninja Pirates with chainsaws for legs.

It's happening on NSG as we type...

But, I digress. On topic, the conspiracy theory that pisses me off the most is the "dinosaurs aren't real" one.
Who on earth says that? Dinosaurs were even accepted by people who argued against evolution... in fact, dinosaurs were presented as evidence against evolution in Darwin's time.

Who on earth says that? Dinosaurs were even accepted by people who argued against evolution... in fact, dinosaurs were presented as evidence against evolution in Darwin's time.
...

What? How the hell did they reason THAT one out, exactly?

What about the avian flu, anthrax and smallpox? You forgot those!

And YOU forgot about the West Nile virus. :p

This thread is a Jewish Conspiracy! :eek:

Who on earth says that? Dinosaurs were even accepted by people who argued against evolution... in fact, dinosaurs were presented as evidence against evolution in Darwin's time.

Surprisingly many people. Most creationist organizations accept the existance of dinosaurs simply because it's an easy way to hook kids.

...

What? How the hell did they reason THAT one out, exactly?
IIRC, the short version is "missed the Ark."

Since absolutely nothing like dinosaurs existed today, it was obvious the whole line had been wiped out by divine catastrophe. Something along those lines. The idea of a series of creations, with God wiping out things like dinosaurs, was prevalent. Gradual evolution would have meant that we'd expect to see dinosaur-like critters around today - not just as fossils. I'm probably not capturing it all very well, but...

You can actually see it in the modern age, albeit in a rather less intellectual form, with Dr. Dino and similar creatures.

The most ridiculous, morally repugnant, and asinine conspiracy theory is "the Holocaust never happened."

There are mountains of documentation confirming it happened, so to deny it would be the epitome of foolishness.

The most ridiculous, morally repugnant, and asinine conspiracy theory is "the Holocaust never happened."

There are mountains of documentation confirming it happened, so to deny it would be the epitome of foolishness.
There is one thing that really bothers me about Holocaust deniers and the arguments that come against them:

Everybody seems to ignore the other groups oppressed by the Nazis, and focuses solely on the Jews to the point where they ignore the Gypsies (the Nazi's first ethnic target for round-up), homosexuals, communists, etc.

Seriously. Think about it for a minute. Jews weren't the only people in these prison camps, weren't the only group that swiftly disappeared from northern Europe in that era... they were just the biggest and most visible such, and happen to have a lot of political attention focused on them.

And I can tell you that one of the first things I picked up in looking at the reaction to the WTC attacks is that the models have been changing and adapting - constantly.

Yes, that happens when something is investigated. The only people who find it bad that models are refined as more data is gathered are those championing hopelessly irrational viewpoints regardless of evidence, who view any change to someone's position as proof the position is weak.

It's like arguing that because Einstein refined Newton's theories of gravity to take new evidence into account, Newton and Einstein must be wrong and gravity must come from Mammoths rubbing together.

It was not "researched to death." Nor is it accurate to say that "all structural engineers came away with the same conclusion" immediately afterwards.

Yes, just...All of them. Not a single person with a background in structural engineering or demolitions has advanced any alternate theory than the one where the WTC fell down because two planes hit it, the subsequent massive fire weakening the steel support beams to the point they collapsed.

This is precisely the sort of attitude that leads to problems, leading to the relative lack of scientific study that have led an increasing number of scientists to cautiously suggest that more study of the collapse is required.

Aside from the massive inquiry by the commission, studies of the steel and various papers published on the subject, you're right. Which means you're wrong.

And what's an 'increasing number?' Who are these 'scientists,' what are their fields, how many of them are there, and what's their reason for suggesting 'more study' is required, given the huge amount of statements and studies that already exist from experts in related fields? Vague allusions to 'scientists' don't cut it.

There is actually a dearth of articles published on the matter, as any cursory database search will demonstrate

There are hundreds of articles on the subject, including at least one peer-reviewed paper. There's a list of papers, articles and simulations at the bottom of this (http://www.debunking911.com/links.htm) page, and further a peer-reviewed paper here (http://www.debunking911.com/paper.htm).

Also, shall we compare this with the zero articles from people with relevant experience on the conspiracy theorists' side?

There are some problems with the details of the "pancake" model you describe.

So? No other explanation comes close to generating accurate predictions regarding the events which occurred, and the conspiracy theories go from inane to outright pathetic trying to explain how six or seven demolition charges all detonated at the top of a building could somehow cause it to collapse entirely.

Also, pancake collapse is a known phenomenon, not a 'model.' What are the 'details' there are problems with? Handwaving generalisations aren't a particularly convincing form of evidence.

It is understandable that there has been relatively little research carried out on the WTC collapse in light of its politically sensitive nature, but without more rigorous scientific analysis than has been performed to date - and possibly without data that has since been eradicated in the disposal of the rubble - conspiracy theories may not be laid to rest with the sort of confidence that the modern historian can affirm the genocidal tendencies of the Nazis.

Aside from the fact that all the conspiracy theories either can't generate predictions at all, can't generate accurate predictions, or use circular logic out the wazoo. Seriously, there's no conspiracy theory regarding 9/11 that comes close to being logically consistant or useful, and there's tons of research including peer reviewed papers on the subject.

Wouldn't you think that if there was a conspiracy, structural engineers outside America would quickly figure it out? I don't see what someone in Iran or China [they have buildings there too] would have to gain by not publishing if there's such an obvious conspiracy.

IIRC, the short version is "missed the Ark."

Since absolutely nothing like dinosaurs existed today, it was obvious the whole line had been wiped out by divine catastrophe. Something along those lines. The idea of a series of creations, with God wiping out things like dinosaurs, was prevalent. Gradual evolution would have meant that we'd expect to see dinosaur-like critters around today - not just as fossils. I'm probably not capturing it all very well, but...

I love the idea, especially because that was around the same time New Zealand was (re)discovered with whats now accepted as dinosaurs closest relation, the tuatara.

what i would consider the most annoying is the theory that conspiracies don't exist. as if any but the minuetest fraction of humanity could even survive in today's world without 'networking' with each other in SOME sense!

i think it is annoying to see real possibilities belittled because they cannot or haven't been demonstrated to be unassailable certainties.

often as a resault of gratuitously withheld evidence.

if those accused of conspiring truely had nothing to hide, all they would need to do to prove it to the rest of us, would be to stop withholding evidence, often on the pretense of national security, to which 99.999 percent is in no way even remotely related. only to the security of their own persoanl or extracarricularly organized malfeasant activities.

=^^=
.../\...

what i would consider the most annoying is the theory that conspiracies don't exist. as if any but the minuetest fraction of humanity could even survive in today's world without 'networking' with each other in SOME sense!

Conspiracies do indeed exist, but most are relatively mundane. The vast-scale imaginary conspiracies would collapse under the weight of the sheer number of people they supposedly attempt to keep silent, since it would be impossible to guarantee thousands of people were absolutely loyal and hyper-competant at all times.

i think it is annoying to see real possibilities belittled because they cannot or haven't been demonstrated to be unassailable certainties.

They're usually belittled because they have no supporting evidence whatsoever. It's not enough for something to be 'possible,' it needs to be plausible. It's possible we're actually a bunch of fleas living in Santa's beard who've deluded ourselves into thinking we're human beings, but it's entirely implausible and a useless theory.

often as a resault of gratuitously withheld evidence.

Ah, an old chestnut of the conspiracy theorist, 'we could prove it but they've hidden all the evidence.'

if those accused of conspiring truely had nothing to hide, all they would need to do to prove it to the rest of us, would be to stop withholding evidence

Ok, and what if they say they've released all the evidence, and there's still nothing to support any conspiracy theories? You'd accuse them of not releasing all the evidence, wouldn't you? And, indeed, you'd continue to do so regardless of the lengths they went to to demonstrate they had released everything, until you got the evidence you already believe exists.

What you really mean is that until they produce evidence that supports you, you'll constantly accuse them of witholding it regardless of what other evidence they produce. That's profoundly irrational.

often on the pretense of national security, to which 99.999 percent is in no way even remotely related.

Really? On what basis did you calculate that particular statistic?

Surprisingly many people. Most creationist organizations accept the existance of dinosaurs simply because it's an easy way to hook kids.

That RuleCaucausia character, for one.

attention? I'm not sure but I am sure it wasn't to cover up some conspiracy.

I'm not so sure. Depends, really. Was the mafia in on it? More than likely, I would say. Jack Ruby(Who was in the mafia) was even quoted as to saying that Oswald was a patsy, before he died of course. The mafia was quite pissed off at JFK at the time, and I would say that they could easily have pulled it off. The CIA is a bit sketchier, of course, but they did have motive, at the very least. The JFK assassination, when you get into it, is really quite sketchy as Oswald being the only one involved.

It's got to be the whole moonlandings thing. Damn me but it just makes me want to slap people!:D

The JFK assassination, when you get into it, is really quite sketchy as Oswald being the only one involved.

No, it really, really isn't. Demonstrating someone had a reason to want JFK dead is a far cry from demonstrating they did the deed, and all the evidence points rather clearly to Oswald being the only shooter, Oliver Stone aside.

IIRC, the short version is "missed the Ark."

Since absolutely nothing like dinosaurs existed today, it was obvious the whole line had been wiped out by divine catastrophe. Something along those lines. The idea of a series of creations, with God wiping out things like dinosaurs, was prevalent. Gradual evolution would have meant that we'd expect to see dinosaur-like critters around today - not just as fossils. I'm probably not capturing it all very well, but...

You can actually see it in the modern age, albeit in a rather less intellectual form, with Dr. Dino and similar creatures.
Oh, I see now. Makes logical sense, actually. Of course, we disprove it later with the whole birds thing, but meh.

Speaking of Gypsies, what is it about them that makes Europeans want to persecute them so?

On-Topic:

Moon landing conspiracies make me seethe with rage. Rage, I tell you!

Speaking of Gypsies, what is it about them that makes Europeans want to persecute them so?

They're a convient other that power blocs can use to unite social groups against. See also: Jews, the French/Germans/anyone else, immigrants, bolsheviks, fascists, etc etc.

Romanies are so clearly outsiders, however, that they're an easy group to persecute.

Yes, just...All of them. Not a single person with a background in structural engineering or demolitions has advanced any alternate theory than the one where the WTC fell down because two planes hit it, the subsequent massive fire weakening the steel support beams to the point they collapsed.



One of the things to remember is the fire was never hot enough to melt the steel........ ah ha go the conspiracy nuts, the building must have been brought down by demolition, because the steel never melted

However looking into the properties of steel at 20C and looking at the properties of steel at 700C reveals that steel loses much of its mechanical strength (about 75% i think the figure is) at 700C compared to 25C

So a steel crossbeam that has 25 tons load on it and a maximum load of 50 tons at 25C is heated to 700C by a fire and suddenly has a maximum load of 12.5 tons...... while still exposed to the orginal 25 tons load...................

But the biggest no-brainer in the 9-11 conspiracy is the sheer number of people and the amount of work involved in making it happen

You try planting enough explosive charges on about 120 steel columns inside a occupied building to ensure it collapses and without anyone noticing.
But the building was empty over the weekend cry the nuts....... but 9-11 was on a TUESDAY! I suspect the regular users of the building would have noticed all the shot holes and demolition wires everywhere on the monday morning.

But some people will never be convinced no matter how much real evidence is shown to them........ they just put their fingers in their ears and chant "la la la la la I cant hear you":headbang:

Favourite conspiracy theory: The Titanic (which was actually its sister ship with a new paint job) was sunk deliberately in a botched insurance scam.

It's brilliant. It's got all the elements of a classic conspiracy theory - major corruption, loss of life, huge deception, totally unsupported by the evidence.

Bizarrely, the theory was made popular by a book which was published several years after it had been disproved. Goes to show how much people like a good conspiracy.

One of the things to remember is the fire was never hot enough to melt the steel........

Which is why I said 'weakening' the support beams rather than melting them, yes.

Another one that I hate is that somehow, some crazy nuts *cough sovietstan cough* actually believe that Israel and most of the Jews actually use the holocaust as an excuse for their actions.

There is absolutely no evidence of this at all, especially on an institutionalised level.

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA.

MAKE NO LANDING THERE.

USE THEM TOGETHER.

USE THEM IN PEACE.

Somethign wonderful is going to happen.

Surprisingly many people. Most creationist organizations accept the existance of dinosaurs simply because it's an easy way to hook kids.

lol, yeah. I have a book I borrowed (and kept) from a friend called Dinosaurs by Design and is written by a German creation scientist. It is bloody hilarious. The drawings and language they use to try and make evolution look dodgy to kids is pure gold.

http://images.bestwebbuys.com/muze/books/59/0890511659.jpg

Conspiracies do indeed exist, but most are relatively mundane. The vast-scale imaginary conspiracies would collapse under the weight of the sheer number of people they supposedly attempt to keep silent, since it would be impossible to guarantee thousands of people were absolutely loyal and hyper-competant at all times.
Except that not all "conspiracy theories" require anything of that sort, and when you try to apply those to all of them, it doesn't work out.

The question becomes how many people have to be involved before a secret is liable to break out... and whether or not those people will be alive for questioning.

Take the JFK assassination theories.

Now, as a matter of fact, the evidence is sufficiently murky, and the HSCA concluded that there were two shooters in 1979, and debate continues to rage about whether there were one or two shooters with good enough reason. Naturally, each side question's the other side's evidence...

...but how many people are required in the alternative theories to the "lone gunman" story espoused by the Warren Commission? Some of the theories involve several dozen people, and if we mush together all the conspiracy theories, we'd have hundreds - but most only require a few people to act, and you only need to conclude a couple people to be corrupt or in on it in the investigation to make sure that two shots seem dubious - or, if you're particularly twisty, to make one shot seem dubious even though it's the official story.

There's a big difference, therefore, in the number of people involved in these conspiracy theories.

For JFK assassination theories, we're typically talking about 6-12.

For the claim that the WTC collapse in fact involved a controlled demolition, we're talking 50 people or so.

For claims that there's a global Jewish conspiracy to create the Holocaust, we're talking many thousands of people involved - at a bare minimum.

For the moon landing was faked theory - just the mechanics of it - you need about a dozen people in the studio and the astronauts involved. This is assuming that the Apollo rocket in fact had some other sinister mission that kept it equally busy.

Of course, there's also the small matter of all the people who were certain they built the darn thing to specifications that could fly, most flavors of "fake moon landing" conspiracies have to involve many thousands of people.

Except that not all "conspiracy theories" require anything of that sort, and when you try to apply those to all of them, it doesn't work out.

Actually, the general category of conspiracy theories tend to be defined by a requirement for a ridiculous overarching conspiracy that couldn't possibly exist, and tend to operate by assuming it exists and working from there.

The question becomes how many people have to be involved before a secret is liable to break out.

Two. If there's more than one person involved, the first person cannot absolutely trust the second. Every subsequent additional person vastly increases the likelihood that someone will give the game away.

Now, as a matter of fact, the evidence is sufficiently murky

No, it's not. Oliver Stone's stupid movie is not evidence.

and the HSCA concluded that there were two shooters in 1979

Wow, so a mere twenty seven years out of date on that one. People are allowed to correct past mistakes, you know. If we were talking about astronomy, would you keep bringing up the Terracentric and Heliocentric models against modern cosmology even though both are thoroughly discredited?

For JFK assassination theories, we're typically talking about 6-12.

Plus some entire group like the CIA or Mafia, making it hundreds easily. You think a massive organisation can get anything done without generating huge amounts of paperwork and hundreds of people being involved in it?

For the claim that the WTC collapse in fact involved a controlled demolition, we're talking 50 people or so.

No, you're talking thousands, and hundreds directly involved to draw up and execute any plan to set demolition charges in such a large building, using tons of explosives and miles of cables [oh, involve a few more hundred right there with paperwork, shipping and handling all this stuff, since these explosives, drills, timers, wiring and so on must've come from somewhere] and working for weeks prior to the event. You're talking all the staff of the WTC, the firefighters, the insurance companies, the airlines, most of NORAD, a shedload of fighter pilots, the cleanup team, and every demolitions expert and structural engineer in the entire world. To claim they're all in on it is nothing short of ludicrous.

For the moon landing was faked theory - just the mechanics of it - you need about a dozen people in the studio and the astronauts involved. This is assuming that the Apollo rocket in fact had some other sinister mission that kept it equally busy.

And every other mission to the moon ever, and here's the kicker, including the Russian ones which would otherwise have taken great joy in showing an empty space where the lander should have been. You also have to accept that NASA murdered one Apollo crew, since there's no way they could possibly have been killed on a non-fuctional film set.

I love the idea, especially because that was around the same time New Zealand was (re)discovered with whats now accepted as dinosaurs closest relation, the tuatara.

The tuatara is almost as far away from dinosaurs as one can get while still being in the clade Reptilia. Only turtles are more distantly related. The closest living relatives of dinosaurs today are birds, which are dinosaurs. The next closest are crocodiles.

Actually, the general category of conspiracy theories tend to be defined by a requirement for a ridiculous overarching conspiracy that couldn't possibly exist, and tend to operate by assuming it exists and working from there.
In which case you'll have to excuse many of them here, as they don't involve ridiculously large conspiracies.
Two. If there's more than one person involved, the first person cannot absolutely trust the second. Every subsequent additional person vastly increases the likelihood that someone will give the game away.
That's the theory. Two can keep a secret if one is dead.

However, in practice, secrets known to more than one person have been kept for a substantial length of time.
No, it's not. Oliver Stone's stupid movie is not evidence.
Did I mention Oliver Stone once? No. I referred to the findings of the House Select Commitee on Assassinations. Oliver Stone's movie was a work of fiction partially based on their findings and some extra "stuff" thrown in there.

All the forensic evidence for the Kennedy assassination is available. Some people conclude - with good reason - that it would be impossible for there to have been only one shooter sitting up in the book depository. Others conclude - again, with good reason - that it would be impossible for there to have been a second shooter.
Wow, so a mere twenty seven years out of date on that one. People are allowed to correct past mistakes, you know. If we were talking about astronomy, would you keep bringing up the Terracentric and Heliocentric models against modern cosmology even though both are thoroughly discredited?
And the Warren Commission is "forty three years out of date."

Even into the 90s and 00s, experts studying the evidence have continued to make conclusions at loggerheads with one another, defending and attacking the conclusions of the Warren commission. If you'll read the "one shooter" and "two shooter" sections of the wiki article here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_assassination_theories), you will see the lists of evidence which the two sides use exclude the possibility of the other theory.

The simple fact is that the whole body of evidence is very difficult to arrange into a consistent pattern. Since the existence of a second shooter, which will always remain somewhat plausible based on the evidence that isn't going to change, requires a conspiracy of at least two people, one of whom remains uncaught, and there are plenty of suspects around, we will always have JFK assassination conspiracy theories.

No point in getting angry about them.
Plus some entire group like the CIA or Mafia, making it hundreds easily. You think a massive organisation can get anything done without generating huge amounts of paperwork and hundreds of people being involved in it?
The notion that the CIA or Mafia ordered the hit doesn't actually involve hundreds of people in the know.

Let's say I'm head of the some nefarious organization. I want a hit made. I ring up one of my lower level managers in charge of operations in some region, and tell him who I need hit. He, in turn, dispatches directly some... oh... dozen field agents, half of whom have absolutely no clue of anything going on beyond their specific limited part in the mission. Total people who know about the assassination in that case? Eight.
No, you're talking thousands, and hundreds directly involved to draw up and execute any plan to set demolition charges in such a large building, using tons of explosives and miles of cables [oh, involve a few more hundred right there with paperwork, shipping and handling all this stuff, since these explosives, drills, timers, wiring and so on must've come from somewhere] and working for weeks prior to the event. You're talking all the staff of the WTC, the firefighters, the insurance companies, the airlines, most of NORAD, a shedload of fighter pilots, the cleanup team, and every demolitions expert and structural engineer in the entire world. To claim they're all in on it is nothing short of ludicrous.
You display a startling lack of knowledge of the details of the "conspiracy theories" you so decry.

NORAD and fighter pilots don't need to be "in on it." Nor do insurance companies, airlines, or the cleanup team, nor do the experts you erroneously claim are (and have been from the start) unanimous. Presented with the guilty party and an obvious cause, it is the rare investigator who is going to look for a second cause independently.

The current criticism and advocates of further scientific investigation into the possibility of a controlled demolition aren't saying that the WTC wasn't hit by planes, mind you. I've seen those before.

We are already well familiar with that evidence, and there are dozens upon dozens of WTC conspiracy theories that we can call ridiculous.
In this paper, I call for a serious investigation of the hypothesis that WTC 7 and the Twin Towers were brought down, not just by impact damage and fires, but through the use of pre-positioned cutter-charges. I consider the official FEMA, NIST, and 9-11 Commission reports that fires plus impact damage alone caused complete collapses of all three buildings. And I present evidence for the controlled-demolition hypothesis, which is suggested by the available data, testable and falsifiable, and yet has not been analyzed in any of the reports funded by the US government.
The total amount of material and manpower involved in such a demolition is also brought up by those advocates:
Roughly 2,000 pounds of RDX-grade linear-shaped charges (which could have been pre-positioned by just a few men) would then suffice in each Tower and WTC 7 to cut the supports at key points so that gravity would bring the buildings straight down.
Frankly, a truckload of explosive charges does not involve necessarily hundreds of men. The Oklahoma city bombing involved 5,000 pounds of lower-grade explosives, and is generally considered to have only required two men.

Nor, in the modern information age, does this involve stringing miles of cable from detonation point to detonation point. It does involve a remarkable amount of concerted planning and effort to carry off, of course, but it does not necessarily involve a large team. Every bit of calculation and analysis that a large team can carry out, a small team can carry out given a greater length of time.

You still, of course, have two tricky points if you're to argue in support of a controlled demolition. The party positioning such explosives, whether it's Karl Rove or a cell of Al-Qaeda, needs to (A) have foreknowledge of the plane attacks, either through intelligence or conspiracy, and (B) manage to place such charges without being noticed. The combination of those two is difficult.

And for something like this, 50 people or so is a lot to keep quiet. As the author of that paper - which set off quite a stir among those who were paying attention, and certainly was the first time I felt I had cause to actually take such a "conspiracy theory" about 9/11 seriously - pointed out, all that is needed to test the theory is further investigation.

And I, like he, find surprisingly little research in the journals on the collapse, and the scientific problem of tweaking the model well past parameters in order to fit the existing cause already decided upon is discomforting to any serious scientist. Ergo, why some - and I will readily join them - suggest more scientific scrunity of the collapse is needed than has been applied.
And every other mission to the moon ever, and here's the kicker, including the Russian ones which would otherwise have taken great joy in showing an empty space where the lander should have been. You also have to accept that NASA murdered one Apollo crew, since there's no way they could possibly have been killed on a non-fuctional film set.
Well, the Apollo 13 mission going bad didn't necessarily have to do with them going to the moon or not. If you want to construct the most plausible conspiracy theory, you still need to put the Apollos somewhere in space - perhaps trying to hunt flying saucers or something. :-P

As far as number of people involved, that doesn't increase it too dramatically if you're trying to minimize it - and why wouldn't the Russians copy our idea and fake moon landings of their own? ^_^

It's still awfully ridiculous, of course. The big problem with the moon landing conspiracies is that any physicist can demonstrate exactly how much work it takes to put something on the moon.

"The Holocaust didn't happen."

How often something like Hitler has to pop up to keep people's memories fresh? :headbang: There are the records of the people who survived; the gypsy guy who went to Nuremberg to kill the man who made him drink salt water and took chunks from his liver; the mass graves, the concentration camps...

and the most important of all: the Nazi ideology and practice. It's all there, on Hitler's plans and in the Mein Kampf. Their eugeny plans were documented by themselves. Their plan was to create a pan-Germanic nation, enslave the countries of Slavic origin and kill the Jews.

I don't understand why Nazi sympathizers keep saying the Holocaust didn't happen - wouldn't it be a good thing by their Jew-hating standards? Shouldn't they be proud of it? ¬¬

Well, the Apollo 13 mission going bad didn't necessarily have to do with them going to the moon or not. If you want to construct the most plausible conspiracy theory, you still need to put the Apollos somewhere in space - perhaps trying to hunt flying saucers or something. :-P


More plausible, but much less of a conspiracy - is it really worthwhile faking the moon landings when you genuinely have the capability to get people into space?
Incidentally, I doubt GMC was referring to Apollo 13.

More plausible, but much less of a conspiracy - is it really worthwhile faking the moon landings when you genuinely have the capability to get people into space?
Incidentally, I doubt GMC was referring to Apollo 13.

Aye, he was referring to the Grissom-White-Chaffee accident on the launch pad for Apollo 1.

Frankly I've had my suspicions about the Scouts for some time now...

Curse! We are discovered! *Orders the sentient fanatical Taleban mouse who controlled the Hitler robot and shot JFK with his Mystical Magical Superbullet to order the same British Royal Family alien battleship that shot Diana from orbit to contact the Jew-controlled media to use their Evil Teleport that the Jew-controlled goverment Hushed Up to lift him to safety in Osama's secret bunker beneath the White House, then reveals to the world that, (dun, dun, dun...) Ariel Sharon planned the holocaust whilst disguised as a time travelling Napoleon Bonepart!*

Did I mention the llamas? Llamas were definately involved.

On a more serious note, I really hate the "Jews control the Government!" mythos. It's just another way of legitimising pogroms, this time appealing to the idiotic and increasingly popular belief that the Authority is always bad and the Rebel is always good.

The 9/11 conspiracies are all stupid, but this one makes me laugh.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/w.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/soldier5.htm&h=351&w=500&sz=34&hl=en&start=9&tbnid=4brDYhes02TlEM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHydrogen%2BBomb%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26rls%3DRNWA,RNWA:2003-36,RNWA:en%26sa%3DN

The government will do some things that aren't quite legal, yes, sometimes, but detonate a nuclear bomb in the center of New York City is not one of them.

We landed on the moon. Otherwise this would have never been a story (http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast01sep98_1.htm).

The government will do some things that aren't quite legal, yes, sometimes, but detonate a nuclear bomb in the center of New York City is not one of them.

I agree. 'Finnish military expert' doesn't strike me as a reliable source of information. His grasp of metallurgy is certainly questionable.

The government will do some things that aren't quite legal, yes, sometimes, but detonate a nuclear bomb in the center of New York City is not one of them.
Seriously. If you don't want to be detected, you use conventional weaponry. Nuclear weaponry is rather distinctive, what with the radiation and the tendency to reduce everything at ground zero to ash.

If you want to make a conspiracy theory, make sure it isn't totally ludicrous.

"The Moon Landing was faked."

*grits teeth*

We use the base of the Apollo 11 lunar module to bounce lasers off of to help measure the distance to the moon and continental drift. If the moon landing was faked, how did the giant fucking mirror get there?!?

http://www.abestweb.com/smilies/ranting.gif


:)
:fluffle:

QFT

"The Moon Landing was faked."

*grits teeth*

We use the base of the Apollo 11 lunar module to bounce lasers off of to help measure the distance to the moon and continental drift. If the moon landing was faked, how did the giant fucking mirror get there?!?

http://www.abestweb.com/smilies/ranting.gif


:)

What makes you think there's really a giant mirror up there? And those figures about continental drift and distance, can you verify them? They could just be made up, slightly different than the earlier ones, you wouldn't be able to tell.





:p

i like to add the NS one who is Pedro The Donkey
>.>
<.<
It's not me......

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:eek: Freemasons run the country!


And the conspiracy's about some mysterious group running the entire world and actually starting all the conspiracy theories themselves to throw people off the scent.

Which conspiracy theroys make your blood boil? Which ones make you wonder who could possibly believe in them? Tell us why,

The Jews control the media/government.

I'm not Jewish myself, but many people I know in RL, and one person on this forum (looking at you, anarchyland34), are. This is just stupid. If it weren't so offeensive, the idea that someone could believe this would be funnier than a Mel Brooks movie (Even Blazing Saddles).

PS: It's theory, for Christ's sake.

Which conspiracy theroys make your blood boil? Which ones make you wonder who could possibly believe in them? Tell us why,

None of them annoy me.

None of them cause me to wonder why people believe in them.

I'm an Atheist living in a largely Christian (by name at least, very few live the ideal) nation... so watching people swallow hugely illogical stories that are beyond my capacity to accept... is pretty everyday.

People should doubt everything they haven't personally seen... and even the things that have seen should be assessed in the light of perception being subjective.

In which case you'll have to excuse many of them here, as they don't involve ridiculously large conspiracies.

Apollo, JFK, 9/11, Titanic, Pearl Harbour, Roswell, the 'evolution is a conspiracy' crowd and so on all would.

That's the theory. Two can keep a secret if one is dead.

Nope, since now one has to also keep the secret of murdering the second, and such a contract is likely to fail since the second guy doesn't benefit from seeing it through.

However, in practice, secrets known to more than one person have been kept for a substantial length of time.

Also in practise, they have been demonstrated to be dramatically more difficult to keep the more people they involve, given clashing motives and the likelihood of a member selling the others out to save their own neck.

Some people conclude - with good reason - that it would be impossible for there to have been only one shooter sitting up in the book depository.

No, with bad reason. They tend to use the same old easily-debunked evidence time after time.

Others conclude - again, with good reason - that it would be impossible for there to have been a second shooter.

Not impossible, simply unnecessary. Oswald could have done it all himself, so Parsimony says this is the superior theory since it doesn't require us to invent a mysterious unknown 'second gunman' we have no real evidence of.

you will see the lists of evidence which the two sides use exclude the possibility of the other theory.

So? That would be because if one theory is right the other must be wrong, it's not really any surprise the two are mutually exclusive.

The simple fact is that the whole body of evidence is very difficult to arrange into a consistent pattern.

No, it's easy to arrange into a pattern where one man, acting alone, killed JFK. Frankly, the shooter in any conspiracy would have no reason to take the job to start with.

we will always have JFK assassination conspiracy theories.

We will also always have stories about Santa Claus, does that mean Santa Claus is real?

The notion that the CIA or Mafia ordered the hit doesn't actually involve hundreds of people in the know.

The notion that the CIA did it most certainly does. Anyone who's worked for a large bureaucratic organisation will tell you you can't make a major decision without generating a mountain of paperwork and dozens of people finding out, even before you get into them telling other people or keeping notes somewhere safe to cover themselves if things turn bad and they need something to hold against their bosses.

And what about the inquests, the autopsies and X-rays, the limosine only showing bullet strikes from behind, the Zapruder Film showing the back of Kennedy's head intact and so on? Did the few conspirators somehow fabricate and tamper with all this evidence to suggest a single gunman, without alerting anyone else including those who had done the autopsies and X-rays in the first place? If so, how?

Let's say I'm head of the some nefarious organization. I want a hit made. I ring up one of my lower level managers in charge of operations in some region, and tell him who I need hit.

Is anyone listening to you? Do you tell anyone else in case he double crosses you? Do you have someone watch over him to make sure he does it?

Really high-profile assassinations are rare outside completely lawless areas because the assassin has so much to lose. After all, he's likely to get the first bullet to keep him quiet even if he does do it, something the theory that Oswald was silenced is quick to point out. Would you take a job where the payoff would be near-certain death no matter who caught you?

You display a startling lack of knowledge of the details of the "conspiracy theories" you so decry.

Nice with the personal attacks, there. But that would be you.

NORAD and fighter pilots don't need to be "in on it."

They do, actually. One of the standard claims is that the exercises NORAD was performing at the time were deliberately designed to prevent interception of the aircraft aimed at the two towers.

Nor do insurance companies, airlines, or the cleanup team

Yes, they do. If the conspiracy is so obvious [as is claimed] the cleanup team would have to be briefed specifically to destroy, hide or ignore evidence of it, or they would quickly establish foul play. The airlines would have to be in on it or they would sue for lost profits due to a deliberate act by the conspirators. The insurance companies would have to be in on it, or they wouldn't pay out, since very few insurance policies cover deliberate terrorist action by national government as a payout condition.

nor do the experts you erroneously claim are (and have been from the start) unanimous.

They are unanimous about the major details: namely, that there was no controlled demolition involved and the towers collapsed because of out-of-control fires ignited by burning jet fuel, along with massive structural damage from the impacts themselves.

Experts may differ on details of the collapse, but the overall reason is agreed among all of them. You wouldn't find anyone in demolitions, failure analysis, fire safety engineering or structural engineering who seriously believes the whole 'controlled demolition' nonsense.

Or are we claiming a cold fusion professor and a theology professor count as 'experts' regarding a matter of civil engineering?

Presented with the guilty party and an obvious cause, it is the rare investigator who is going to look for a second cause independently.

Not when all the evidence points to the first one and none to the second, no.

The current criticism and advocates of further scientific investigation into the possibility of a controlled demolition aren't saying that the WTC wasn't hit by planes, mind you. I've seen those before.

There is no possibility of a controlled demolition. Even if the surveyors and work crews could somehow evaluate the structure of a busy office building and place tons of explosives and miles of cable without anyone noticing, how could the detonation setup possibly survive an airliner smashing into it and still function? Why does the collapse of the World Trade Centre not even resemble a controlled demolition collapse?

The total amount of material and manpower involved in such a demolition is also brought up by those advocates:

Professor Jones has all of zero experience with explosives or controlled demolitions, so his authority to make such a claim is non-existant. He doesn't have the faintest idea what he's talking about, put bluntly. He also believes the demolition involved the use of Thermite, despite that no demolition in the history of the world has ever used it.

Frankly, a truckload of explosive charges does not involve necessarily hundreds of men.

You're failing to grasp just what a controlled demolition involves. It's not just a truckload of explosives, the preparation alone takes months of meticulous analysis and surveying.

The Oklahoma city bombing involved 5,000 pounds of lower-grade explosives, and is generally considered to have only required two men.

Ludicrous comparison. The Oklahoma city bombing was a truck bomb, not a controlled demolition, and the building didn't even collapse.

Nor, in the modern information age, does this involve stringing miles of cable from detonation point to detonation point.

Actually, it does. The demolition of the 439ft J.L. Hudson Building in Detroit in 1998 required a 21-man work crew surveying the structure for three months and then spending another four preparing the building for demolition. It required 36,000 feet of detonating cord, 4,512 delay elements and 2,738 pounds of explosives divided into 4,118 seperate charges in 1,100 locations. The twin towers were each almost one thousand feet taller.

How in the hell could anyone fail to notice work on the sort of scale that would be required to set up a controlled demolition in a gigantic, busy office building?

It does involve a remarkable amount of concerted planning and effort to carry off, of course, but it does not necessarily involve a large team. Every bit of calculation and analysis that a large team can carry out, a small team can carry out given a greater length of time.

Except the smaller team doesn't have a greater length of time, given there were explosive sniffing dogs in the building until five days before 9/11. That leaves you with four days to lay enough charges to take down two buildings each three times bigger than a building which took a 21-man team seven months to set up a controlled demolition in with unfettered access to all areas at all times and no need to conceal anything.

Oh, and the setup here has to be robust enough to handle a plane hitting it and still function, too.

The combination of those two is difficult.

That's not how you spell impossible.

And for something like this, 50 people or so is a lot to keep quiet.

As for the hundreds of others...Remember the Gunpowder Plot, a massively less far-reaching plan to destroy a relatively tiny wood-framed building that was still found out?

As the author of that paper-

Professor Stephen E Jones is a physics professor specialising in nuclear fusion with no expertise whatsoever in civil engineering, notable for his other equally silly paper 'Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ's Visit in Ancient America.'

You should be aware that even his own university doesn't support him (http://www.debunking911.com/jones.htm), and that, in fact, he has since left his post.

-pointed out, all that is needed to test the theory is further investigation.

Further than what? The CD setup would be impossible to create and the collapse doesn't even resemble a controlled demolition implosion-collapse anyway. What more can you 'investigate' when the entire premise is ludicrous?

And I, like he, find surprisingly little research in the journals on the collapse, and the scientific problem of tweaking the model well past parameters in order to fit the existing cause already decided upon is discomforting to any serious scientist.

Ev-i-dence? The model of the collapse has undergone minor refinement as more evidence has come to light, while the controlled demolition theory is still the same mess it always was.

Ergo, why some - and I will readily join them - suggest more scientific scrunity of the collapse is needed than has been applied.

More than dozens of articles by experts, analyses by industry figures and even a fully peer-reviewed paper on the subject?

Well, the Apollo 13 mission going bad didn't necessarily have to do with them going to the moon or not.

Nor does it have anything to do with what I was talking about.

As far as number of people involved, that doesn't increase it too dramatically if you're trying to minimize it - and why wouldn't the Russians copy our idea and fake moon landings of their own?

Why didn't they? Why not use the data from their unmanned probes as part of it, faking a 'first' landing that also discredited the American claim?

My personal fave is the one about the faking of the moon landing. Priceless. I have friends who STILL try to argue that one with me when we get drunk together, and I just laugh and laugh.

No, it really, really isn't. Demonstrating someone had a reason to want JFK dead is a far cry from demonstrating they did the deed, and all the evidence points rather clearly to Oswald being the only shooter, Oliver Stone aside.

It's not just that the mafia had the motive, but a great deal of the evidence is sketchy. Hardly conclusive, but still raises an eyebrow or two, and the evidence just doesn't add up very well. I'm not saying it's a massive cover up of grand scale, here, just that it seems there is more afoot than one crazy person.

I'm not saying it's a massive cover up of grand scale, here, just that it seems there is more afoot than one crazy person.

Trouble is, a mafia hitman would never take a job like that, because he'd surely be aware it would be a cast-iron certainty he'd get whacked right after so he couldn't tell anyone, even if he didn't get caught; there's no way his boss could risk the kind of law enforcement crackdown that would happen if the government seriously thought organised crime had just killed one of the most powerful men in the world. Jobs where being killed is part and parcel of the deal aren't that popular among hitmen, I imagine.

Oswald, on the other hand, was a lone nut, and only had to worry about people trying to kill him because he'd just shot the president. There was at least a chance he'd get away with it there.

To be precise, my main qualm with Oswald as the shooter is the weapon used: The Manlicher Carcano. This utter piece of crap is the very last weapon one would consider to use for assassination. It was terribly inaccurate, jammed, and was a completely worthless weapon.

Even considering he used it, new problems arise. First off, Buell Frazier, the man who gave Oswald a ride to work that morning, said that Oswald had the parcel packed under his armpits. A Manlicher-Carcano, when fully dissassembled, would have sat a full eight inches above Oswald's armpit. There is no way Oswald could have stretched his arm, nor for a Manlicher to be dissembled further, for this to occur.

Next, we run into a huge problem. The weapon reported as being found was NOT the Manlicher that Oswald owned, but instead a 7.65 Mauser. Now, there is no way one can confuse a 7.65 Mauser for a 6.5 Mannlicher, especially for anyone trained with weapons. For instance, the the Mannlicher has "Made in Italy" on it, and the two are not similar in appearance in many respects. To confuse a Mauser for a Mannlicher is highly improbable.

Something just seems amiss here, and simple explanations don't seem to suffice.

This utter piece of crap is the very last weapon one would consider to use for assassination. It was terribly inaccurate, jammed, and was a completely worthless weapon.

It's actually a Paraviccini-Carcano. And that's odd, the Italian Army were fine with it for forty-seven years.

Even considering he used it, new problems arise. First off, Buell Frazier, the man who gave Oswald a ride to work that morning, said that Oswald had the parcel packed under his armpits.

People don't always make statements that are designed to be evaluated in exact terms, nor do they remember everything in crystal-clear detail. If someone says they saw something that's manifestly impossible, it's likely they in fact did not see it.

Next, we run into a huge problem. The weapon reported as being found was NOT the Manlicher that Oswald owned, but instead a 7.65 Mauser. Now, there is no way one can confuse a 7.65 Mauser for a 6.5 Mannlicher,

Just by glancing at it? The only really apparent difference is the trigger area, actually. And also, this is rubbish, the weapon found was simply misidentified; Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone and Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman are unlikely to have been two people with great knowledge of specific differences between types of bolt-action rifle. Here's a Mauser, a Carcano, and a photo shot in the book depository by Tom Alyea:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/Wrongcopy.jpg

Look at the trigger area. It's a Carcano.

especially for anyone trained with weapons.

Were Eugene Boone and Seymour Weitzman trained with both Italian and German WW2 rifles?

For instance, the the Mannlicher has "Made in Italy" on it

Neither Boone or Weitzman handled the rifle. Are you seriously suggesting it's written in so obvious a manner you can see it without picking the weapon up?

and the two are not similar in appearance in many respects. To confuse a Mauser for a Mannlicher is highly improbable.

On the contrary, they have many similarities; most likely, the officers who misidentified it was just more familiar with the Mauser.

Something just seems amiss here, and simple explanations don't seem to suffice.

Yes, the something is that you're avoiding the obvious conclusion.

Trouble is, a mafia hitman would never take a job like that, because he'd surely be aware it would be a cast-iron certainty he'd get whacked right after so he couldn't tell anyone, even if he didn't get caught; there's no way his boss could risk the kind of law enforcement crackdown that would happen if the government seriously thought organised crime had just killed one of the most powerful men in the world. Jobs where being killed is part and parcel of the deal aren't that popular among hitmen, I imagine.

Oswald, on the other hand, was a lone nut, and only had to worry about people trying to kill him because he'd just shot the president. There was at least a chance he'd get away with it there.

The problem with your logic, theoretically flawless though it is, is that reality doesn't support it. Criminal organisations do carry out actions that cause 'law enforcement crackdowns'. One might argue, the very existence of the Mafia is just such an element.

Would a Mafia hit necessarily entail huge reprisal? That would rather depend on how it was handled in the initial hours - and doesn't necessarily require a huge conspiracy... maybe just a few people in key points deciding that it didn't matter why JFK got whacked. Even if they arrived at that conclusion individually, a few of the 'talking heads' in the early hours willing to go with the 'one crazed gunman' story rather than probe any deeper, would probably be enough to ensure the relative safety of organised crime involvement.

As for whether or not a man would risk a high probability of death for someone else's cause... who knows what someone will do when pressure is applied. It isn't so hard to imagine that a man might risk almost certain death, if a member of their family was at risk of harm, for example.

It's actually a Paraviccini-Carcano. And that's odd, the Italian Army were fine with it for forty-seven years.


And the American military have been fairly content to use M16's, despite their historical lack of long-range accuracy, their inability to punch through lightweight cover, issues of 'fouling', and problems with fragmentary projectiles.

A military being willing to not replace a weapon, doesn't mean that weapon is the ideal sniper weapon.


People don't always make statements that are designed to be evaluated in exact terms, nor do they remember everything in crystal-clear detail. If someone says they saw something that's manifestly impossible, it's likely they in fact did not see it.


Why manifestly impossible? Because you are starting with the assumption that the witness must be wrong?


Just by glancing at it? The only really apparent difference is the trigger area, actually. And also, this is rubbish, the weapon found was simply misidentified; Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone and Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman are unlikely to have been two people with great knowledge of specific differences between types of bolt-action rifle. Here's a Mauser, a Carcano, and a photo shot in the book depository by Tom Alyea:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/Wrongcopy.jpg

Look at the trigger area. It's a Carcano.


Actually - you may be the victim of classic misdirection here - the thick red circle in that picture isn't really needed - most of us know where to find the trigger, at least, on a gun - even if we are relatively unfamiliar with firearms. On the other hand - looking opposite the trigger, the weapon in the Depository picture doesn't really seem to be a good match for either of the rifles shown. But, they tell you to look at the trigger, and so you do.

Even if they arrived at that conclusion individually, a few of the 'talking heads' in the early hours willing to go with the 'one crazed gunman' story rather than probe any deeper, would probably be enough to ensure the relative safety of organised crime involvement.

You never plan with the best case scenario in mind, you balance the risks. And the risk of massive clampdowns versus the entirely dubious gain of killing the figurehead of a government that would still be there afterwards doesn't strike me as a worthwhile payoff.

As for whether or not a man would risk a high probability of death for someone else's cause... who knows what someone will do when pressure is applied. It isn't so hard to imagine that a man might risk almost certain death, if a member of their family was at risk of harm, for example.

You don't tend to recruit a sharpshooter by threatening to kill people close to him. Given he wouldn't owe you the remotest loyalty, his reaction would be entirely unpredictable [he might go to the law, go after you, or any one of a dozen other things] and therefore your plan would be totally unreliable.

And the American military have been fairly content to use M16's, despite their historical lack of long-range accuracy

Erm...Actually, that's one of the few things they don't lack. The M16's really rather good as a target rifle, unless you're talking extended range.

A military being willing to not replace a weapon, doesn't mean that weapon is the ideal sniper weapon.

It does, however, suggest it can't possibly be as completely worthless as is claimed. Anyway, why should it be ideal? It just needs to function adequately. Oswald was a qualified Marine sharpshooter, and it's the hand holding the rifle that's the main factor in deciding where the bullet ends up.

Also, apples to oranges comparison. Pre-WW2 bolt-action rifles are better for sniping by default than postwar assault rifles because assault rifles are not designed for long range accurate fire anyway.

Why manifestly impossible? Because you are starting with the assumption that the witness must be wrong?

No, because that's what Seangoli suggested, that there was no way to carry it like that. If there really is no way to carry such a rifle like that, the witness must have been mistaken, since Oswald did indeed carry the rifle up to the sniper's nest.

Witness testamonies are an unreliable form of evidence, being open to vagueness, poor memory, interpretation or deliberate fabrication. There was a Carcano found up there, all the bullets fired were 6.5mm Carcano rounds, and the gun must've got there somehow. Moreover, the curtain rods Oswald claimed were in the package have never been found.

None of which is even slightly relevant, however, since Buell actually simply said Oswald was carrying the package under his arm, one end under his armpit, supporting it with his hand. I've yet to hear of a 3.4-kilo rifle designed in such a way you can't do that.

On the other hand - looking opposite the trigger, the weapon in the Depository picture doesn't really seem to be a good match for either of the rifles shown.

Actually, it's an excellent match for the second. If you insist, here without the circle:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/day1.jpg

I admit a slight error: my Carcano pic is the wrong model. Oswald's was an M38. So, here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/carcano38.jpg

The odd-looking thing on the top in the first image is an Ordinance Optics Incorporated 4X telescopic sight. The rest is identical.

You never plan with the best case scenario in mind, you balance the risks. And the risk of massive clampdowns versus the entirely dubious gain of killing the figurehead of a government that would still be there afterwards doesn't strike me as a worthwhile payoff.


However, the mafia was already facing massive clampdowns by the government at the time. They really had not much to lose.


You don't tend to recruit a sharpshooter by threatening to kill people close to him. Given he wouldn't owe you the remotest loyalty, his reaction would be entirely unpredictable [he might go to the law, go after you, or any one of a dozen other things] and therefore your plan would be totally unreliable.


Going to the law would be the worst thing someone involved with the mafia could do, as it would mean certain and immediate harm to whomever was threatened. Also, they wouldn't be going after you, because you have a not only personal guards, but an entire ring of people who are paying attention to your every move, and killing a higher-up in the mafia isn't exactly going to win you favor. The entire point of the mafia is that they work outside of the law, they had established their own system of governing, in a way.

That being said, there were many very loyal to the mafia who probably would have done anything they were told. Loyalty was very high in the mafia. Think the gangs of today, only much greater loyalty.


It does, however, suggest it can't possibly be as completely worthless as is claimed. Anyway, why should it be ideal? It just needs to function adequately. Oswald was a qualified Marine sharpshooter, and it's the hand holding the rifle that's the main factor in deciding where the bullet ends up.


Well, as far as piles of shit goes, and completely worthless weaponry being issued, one good example is the Chauchat, which was used quite regularily in WWI. It was a complete pile of trash, but was still used. However, the ONE saving grace of the Carcano was that it could be reloaded and fired relatively quickly.

Not to mention that Oswald spent his entire military career gaining the Sharpshooter rank, which is the lowest rank one can receive, and only performed adequately. And if I remember correctly, Oswald's gun was the short-barreled version of the Carcano, whcih was terribly inaccurate for rifles of the time, even when compared to the long barrel models.


Also, apples to oranges comparison. Pre-WW2 bolt-action rifles are better for sniping by default than postwar assault rifles because assault rifles are not designed for long range accurate fire anyway.

The point was, obsolete weaponry are often used by milltary forces, simply because they are cheap to produce.



No, because that's what Seangoli suggested, that there was no way to carry it like that. If there really is no way to carry such a rifle like that, the witness must have been mistaken, since Oswald did indeed carry the rifle up to the sniper's nest.


The point is, it casts doubt on the issue. And no, there is no way to carry it like that. Also, pictures taken at "the sniper's nest" on the very day of the shooting show that infront of the window was a stack of boxes, which would have made it impossible to maneuver into position.


Witness testamonies are an unreliable form of evidence, being open to vagueness, poor memory, interpretation or deliberate fabrication. There was a Carcano found up there, all the bullets fired were 6.5mm Carcano rounds, and the gun must've got there somehow.


It was also completely polished of fingerprints, and found rapped and on the other side of the room.


None of which is even slightly relevant, however, since Buell actually simply said Oswald was carrying the package under his arm, one end under his armpit, supporting it with his hand. I've yet to hear of a 3.4-kilo rifle designed in such a way you can't do that.


The point is, the way Buell described it, there is no possible way to break down that particular weapon to that length.


Actually, it's an excellent match for the second. If you insist, here without the circle:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/day1.jpg

I admit a slight error: my Carcano pic is the wrong model. Oswald's was an M38. So, here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/carcano38.jpg

The odd-looking thing on the top in the first image is an Ordinance Optics Incorporated 4X telescopic sight. The rest is identical.

Actually, to be technical, it was an M91/38 Carcano, which was largely a prototype weapon in 1938, when it was "built"(Technically speaking of course).

This, plus the fact that Oswald didn't take the easiest shot possible(The time period when Kenedy's vehicle was moving toward the Depository), but instead was shot at the last possible second, in the worst possible place to hit a target(Moving away from you), and more doubt is shed.

Let's not mention the "Back and to the left", which anybody whom has ever shot any animal knows is almost impossible if the shooter was behind Kenedy.

Actually, it's an excellent match for the second. If you insist, here without the circle:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/day1.jpg

I admit a slight error: my Carcano pic is the wrong model. Oswald's was an M38. So, here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/carcano38.jpg

The odd-looking thing on the top in the first image is an Ordinance Optics Incorporated 4X telescopic sight. The rest is identical.

On the B/W image, I can't see the bolt that should be against the side of the gun near the trigger. Can you?

On the B/W image, I can't see the bolt that should be against the side of the gun near the trigger. Can you?

Ya know... now that you mention it... I didn't notice that. Good eye.

Ya know... now that you mention it... I didn't notice that. Good eye.

It could be forward - in line with the metal housing thingy, and reflecting the light similarly. I'm no gun expert though.

There's is a large divide between getting a nickel for extortion and money laundering, and getting life imprisonment for murdering the leader of on of the most powerful and legalistic countries on the entire planet, during the rise of the CIA during the height of the cold-war era. It wasn't the mafia.

Also just because a weapon could use improvement does not imply the weapon does not perform adequately; no military on earth would equip its soldiers with what is really a glorified club with a fancy seeing scope if it can help it. Oswald's choice of weaponry may have not been the epitome of grand gun design, but considering it was DESIGNED with hitting something from a long range in mild, and considering Oswald was TRAINED to hit things from far away, and considering this target was EASILY LEADABLE compared to most things you would find out in the field, it is not a grand leap of logic into the foul-smelling abyss of irrationality to conclude that Oswald splattered JFK's head organ all over the road.

Another thing to think about: Sharpshooter may be the lowest rank one may achieve in the military, making him less of a marksman than others of better shooting abilities, yet a Ph.d in physics is smarter than someone with a B.A. in physics, who is in turn smarter than Jimbo the Redneck out in the field smashing beer cans with his tractor; point being that someone who has the lowest grade in $_area is still more apt to do something than an idiot who hasn't got a degree in anything.

The one that bugs me the most is the idea that Global Warming is just a scam cooked up by environmentalists to make money.

Yes the people who deny the Holocaust tend to be more evil and have worse motives, but it isn't happening now so it's understandable how someone can be so ignorant.

The Global Warming thing is just mind-boggling.

However, the mafia was already facing massive clampdowns by the government at the time. They really had not much to lose.

Yeah, because killing the President would do...What, exactly? How would they benefit from it?

Going to the law would be the worst thing someone involved with the mafia could do, as it would mean certain and immediate harm to whomever was threatened.

Who says that a sufficiently ruthless sharpshooter would care more about threatened person X than saving their own skin?

Well, as far as piles of shit goes, and completely worthless weaponry being issued, one good example is the Chauchat, which was used quite regularily in WWI. It was a complete pile of trash, but was still used.

It was more commly discarded than used, actually. It's rather better to say it was 'manufactured' and 'issued.'

Not to mention that Oswald spent his entire military career gaining the Sharpshooter rank, which is the lowest rank one can receive, and only performed adequately.

Adequately is enough for what he did.

And if I remember correctly, Oswald's gun was the short-barreled version of the Carcano, whcih was terribly inaccurate for rifles of the time, even when compared to the long barrel models.

Nope, it was the M38, not the carbine version.

The point was, obsolete weaponry are often used by milltary forces, simply because they are cheap to produce.

So? How does that change that a trained marksman could hit a slow-moving target twice with three shots fired in 8.5 seconds, using a scope that ment it was effectively 25 yards away?

The point is, it casts [b]doubt on the issue. And no, there is no way to carry it like that.

Sure there is. Butt under the arm, hand supporting the front. Buell repeatedly contradicts himself when questioned about precisely how Oswald was holding the package, says he would only very roughly say how long it was, and even several times says he wasn't really paying attention.

And doubt isn't enough. The weapon did get up there, it fits in the package, and Oswald's curtain rods are nowhere to be found.

Also, pictures taken at "the sniper's nest" on the very day of the shooting show that infront of the window was a stack of boxes, which would have made it impossible to maneuver into position.

Because it's impossible to move boxes?

It was also completely polished of fingerprints, and found rapped and on the other side of the room.

There were two smeared fingerprints found on the rifle. Useful fingerprints are actually seldom found on weapons by investigations. And no, it was found by the window.

The point is, the way Buell described it, there is no possible way to break down that particular weapon to that length.

The way Buell described it was so vague Oswald could have been carrying anything from a Derringer to a bazooka. He also said the thirty-eight-inch bag found in the depository, more than large enough for the 34.8 inch M38, 'could have been the sack or package which he saw in the possession of Oswald on the morning of November 22, 1963, but that he does not feel he is in a position to definitely state that this original is or is not the sack.'

Actually, to be technical, it was an M91/38 Carcano, which was largely a prototype weapon in 1938, when it was "built"(Technically speaking of course).

No, it was an M38 rechambered to use the older 6.5x52mm round, as many were after 1940.

This, plus the fact that Oswald didn't take the easiest shot possible(The time period when Kenedy's vehicle was moving toward the Depository)

You believe the easiest shot possible was to fire bullets straight through a large tree that was obscuring his view?

but instead was shot at the last possible second, in the worst possible place to hit a target(Moving away from you), and more doubt is shed.

He had 8.4 seconds and fired three shots. That's hardly the last possible second.

Let's not mention the "Back and to the left", which anybody whom has ever shot any animal knows is almost impossible if the shooter was behind Kenedy.

Actually, it's entirely possible. And why is there no damage whatsoever to the back of Kennedy's head if he was shot from the front? Where's the exit wound?

On the B/W image, I can't see the bolt that should be against the side of the gun near the trigger. Can you?

There's a white blur in line with where it should be; looks like it's lifted up.

There's a white blur in line with where it should be; looks like it's lifted up.

It's up but not forwards. I see it now.

Apollo, JFK, 9/11, Titanic, Pearl Harbour, Roswell, the 'evolution is a conspiracy' crowd and so on all would.
No, plain and simple. You're getting your manpower/involvement records befuddled. The point is that not all of these require anywhere near a large number.
Nope, since now one has to also keep the secret of murdering the second, and such a contract is likely to fail since the second guy doesn't benefit from seeing it through.
No, simply the secret of why the second was murdered. That the second got murdered doesn't need to be kept secret at all.
Also in practise, they have been demonstrated to be dramatically more difficult to keep the more people they involve, given clashing motives and the likelihood of a member selling the others out to save their own neck.
Or having a crisis of conscience, more often. Most of the time, all of those involved have very real motivations of self-interest keeping them quiet, so it's the sudden attacks of conscience or carelessness you worry about.
No, with bad reason. They tend to use the same old easily-debunked evidence time after time.

Not impossible, simply unnecessary. Oswald could have done it all himself, so Parsimony says this is the superior theory since it doesn't require us to invent a mysterious unknown 'second gunman' we have no real evidence of.



So? That would be because if one theory is right the other must be wrong, it's not really any surprise the two are mutually exclusive.



No, it's easy to arrange into a pattern where one man, acting alone, killed JFK. Frankly, the shooter in any conspiracy would have no reason to take the job to start with.

The notion that the CIA did it most certainly does. Anyone who's worked for a large bureaucratic organisation will tell you you can't make a major decision without generating a mountain of paperwork and dozens of people finding out, even before you get into them telling other people or keeping notes somewhere safe to cover themselves if things turn bad and they need something to hold against their bosses.

And what about the inquests, the autopsies and X-rays, the limosine only showing bullet strikes from behind, the Zapruder Film showing the back of Kennedy's head intact and so on? Did the few conspirators somehow fabricate and tamper with all this evidence to suggest a single gunman, without alerting anyone else including those who had done the autopsies and X-rays in the first place? If so, how?

Is anyone listening to you? Do you tell anyone else in case he double crosses you? Do you have someone watch over him to make sure he does it?

Really high-profile assassinations are rare outside completely lawless areas because the assassin has so much to lose. After all, he's likely to get the first bullet to keep him quiet even if he does do it, something the theory that Oswald was silenced is quick to point out. Would you take a job where the payoff would be near-certain death no matter who caught you?
You're really neglecting the details that your opposition is focusing on here. For example, no halfway intelligent CIA agent would generate mounds of paperwork on a presidential assassination they were going to commit. That's the sort of thing that you don't make records of, because it's going to get you in trouble.

Those claiming a second gunman point to evidence that there was damage from the front of the car, that the physical arrangement of entrance and exit wounds require there to be at least one gunman who wasn't Oswald, that the timing of the shots did likewise, etc.

It's been hashed over thousands of times - and the evidence is clearly not conclusive for either side's claims. The only real motivation for picking the single shooter theory over all others "definitively" is to simplify the problem. It's pragmatic, and doesn't require you to start wondering what hidden powers called for a hit on Kennedy.
We will also always have stories about Santa Claus, does that mean Santa Claus is real?
Are you going to blow your top every time Santa Claus is mentioned? Last time I checked Wiki, I heard that 70% of the American public thinks something fishy was behind the Kennedy assassination. It's something you should be used to.
Nice with the personal attacks, there. But that would be you.
No, it's you, GMC. Don't strawman, pay attention to what I'm talking about.
They do, actually. One of the standard claims is that the exercises NORAD was performing at the time were deliberately designed to prevent interception of the aircraft aimed at the two towers.
One of the standard claims of one of the more complex conspiracy theories.

Frankly, NORAD's exercises are absolutely irrelevant. It's non-testable, unlike the controlled demolition hypothesis I mentioned.

I will not deny that there are ridiculous conspiracy theories floating around about 9/11 - of course. There are also much more reasonable ones flying about.
Yes, they do. If the conspiracy is so obvious [as is claimed] the cleanup team would have to be briefed specifically to destroy, hide or ignore evidence of it, or they would quickly establish foul play.
No need for this. That would have been impractical. Better to let them baffle briefly over the massive destruction.

The obvious cause of the airplanes crashing into the towers discourages great curiousity into other matters.
The airlines would have to be in on it or they would sue for lost profits due to a deliberate act by the conspirators.
Again, no need for this. Airplanes that were hijacked were hijacked. You're trying to complicate things immensely and unnecessarily. Stop building strawmen.
The insurance companies would have to be in on it, or they wouldn't pay out, since very few insurance policies cover deliberate terrorist action by national government as a payout condition.
The insurance companies have absolutely no need to be in on this. What in the world are you thinking?

An insurance company that hasn't been told anything would act exactly as they have.
They are unanimous about the major details: namely, that there was no controlled demolition involved and the towers collapsed because of out-of-control fires ignited by burning jet fuel, along with massive structural damage from the impacts themselves.
The experts are not so unanimous.
Experts may differ on details of the collapse, but the overall reason is agreed among all of them. You wouldn't find anyone in demolitions, failure analysis, fire safety engineering or structural engineering who seriously believes the whole 'controlled demolition' nonsense.

Or are we claiming a cold fusion professor and a theology professor count as 'experts' regarding a matter of civil engineering?
A New York Times article says that while peer reviewers were quite critical of Pons and Fleishchmann's research they did not apply such criticism to Jones' much more modest, theoretically supported findings. Although critics insisted that his results likely stemmed from experimental error,[9] most of the reviewing physicists indicated that he was a careful scientist. Other research and experiments confirmed his findings.[10]
You may ad hominem Dr. Jones in particular as much as you like; however, the fact is that only since his paper on the WTC collapse hit the media has Jones experienced any notable negative peer reviews on his physics research. In fact, as Wiki will readily point out to you, his relatively famous paper on piezofusion received accolades relative to the others, and his modest results were supported and further clarified in subsequent experiments.
There is no possibility of a controlled demolition. Even if the surveyors and work crews could somehow evaluate the structure of a busy office building and place tons of explosives and miles of cable without anyone noticing, how could the detonation setup possibly survive an airliner smashing into it and still function? Why does the collapse of the World Trade Centre not even resemble a controlled demolition collapse?
Again with the complete garbage that indicates your lack of understanding. Miles of cable? No. Tons of explosives? Very few. Localized damage to a particular setup of the tower would disable only a handful of cutting charges, and nearly make up for it through impact.
Professor Jones has all of zero experience with explosives or controlled demolitions, so his authority to make such a claim is non-existant. He doesn't have the faintest idea what he's talking about, put bluntly. He also believes the demolition involved the use of Thermite, despite that no demolition in the history of the world has ever used it.

You're failing to grasp just what a controlled demolition involves. It's not just a truckload of explosives, the preparation alone takes months of meticulous analysis and surveying.
I'm not failing to grasp anything. I know that a great amount of work is involved - and that this is one of the major obstacles to demonstrating a controlled demolition hypothesis.

The destruction, in a CD hypothesis, is also not necessarily as carefully controlled as a commercial demolition. The primary emphasis is insuring the building collapses swiftly.
Except the smaller team doesn't have a greater length of time, given there were explosive sniffing dogs in the building until five days before 9/11. That leaves you with four days to lay enough charges to take down two buildings each three times bigger than a building which took a 21-man team seven months to set up a controlled demolition in with unfettered access to all areas at all times and no need to conceal anything.
For planning, you have all the time in the world. It is simply the question of setting the charges.
Oh, and the setup here has to be robust enough to handle a plane hitting it and still function, too.
Not a real consideration. We're not talking about long cables strung around the building. Anything you have needs to be on a direct radio signal or timer.

The most difficult part to explain is, of course, the case of the WTC 7 building, which - as Jones accuses - is often left out of discussion of the WTC collapse.

The heart of his critique - and the heart of what I've been saying here - is that there has not been sufficient scientific research into the matter. There are vanishingly few peer-reviewed articles published on the WTC collapse.
As for the hundreds of others...Remember the Gunpowder Plot, a massively less far-reaching plan to destroy a relatively tiny wood-framed building that was still found out?

Professor Stephen E Jones is a physics professor specialising in nuclear fusion with no expertise whatsoever in civil engineering, notable for his other equally silly paper 'Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ's Visit in Ancient America.'

You should be aware that even his own university doesn't support him (http://www.debunking911.com/jones.htm), and that, in fact, he has since left his post.
That website speaks with the exact same amount of authority as the ones it criticizes. There's no point in trading off links between the two and claiming anything worthwhile.

You may also be happy to note that Jones has been bounced from "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" for publicly ruling out what he considers to have been ridiculous explanations offered by other members. As I said, there are some clear loonies around.

Dr. Jones does not appear to be one of them, and his credentials as a scientist are still fairly solid in spite of his politically charged firing.
Further than what? The CD setup would be impossible to create and the collapse doesn't even resemble a controlled demolition implosion-collapse anyway. What more can you 'investigate' when the entire premise is ludicrous?

Ev-i-dence? The model of the collapse has undergone minor refinement as more evidence has come to light, while the controlled demolition theory is still the same mess it always was.
More than minor refinement, actually. Experts on building fires have been working hard to try and twist out a reasonable explanation for everything that happened, and they've either gotten remarkably creative or figured out a couple new things.

It's not easy with the data available.
More than dozens of articles by experts, analyses by industry figures and even a fully peer-reviewed paper on the subject?
One fully peer-reviewed paper? "Dozens" of articles by "experts" like Jones (fusion specialist) and Greening (molecular spectroscopy specialist)?

You're making my case very well here. We have, here, a remarkable act of destruction of immense political significance with potentially unprecedented amounts of information about large fires, large buildings, and their collapses that could - should - lead to a new set of considerations for structural safety measures... and there are how many peer reviewed articles published analyzing the model of its collapse in the past five years?

Very few. And this relative lack of scientific scrutiny leads to problems - and not just problems with people like Jones pointing out that FEMA's study amounted to tweaking model parameters until something resembling the expected result came out. With most of the limited scientific scrutiny of the event limited to health sciences, I can find more articles published in English on a relatively obscure experiment conducted in Kamchatka by a team of Russian scientists a couple years ago that has contributed to the affirmation of a theory on how lightning strikes develop...

... and for the most part, such articles as there are on the seem to have been more intently reviewed and give more detailed results and models on the Tien Shan Mountain observations than the few articles examining the physical collapse of the WTC buildings.
Nor does it have anything to do with what I was talking about.
So what were you talking about?
Why didn't they? Why not use the data from their unmanned probes as part of it, faking a 'first' landing that also discredited the American claim?
Because then we would claim they faked it, of course, and with both of us pointing fingers, neither one of us would be believed. Prisoner's dillemma.

Nobody wants the plebes to start mistrusting their leaders, mmk? If they did, we'd have to actually land on the moon instead of chasing UFOs around. Or whatever it is the Apollos were "really" up to post-launch. ^_^

Heh. My friend came up with what he calls "The most ridiculous JFK assassination theory ever."

It is...


Lee Harvey Oswald. Acting alone.

The one that bugs me the most is the idea that Global Warming is just a scam cooked up by environmentalists to make money.

Yes the people who deny the Holocaust tend to be more evil and have worse motives, but it isn't happening now so it's understandable how someone can be so ignorant.

The Global Warming thing is just mind-boggling.

Same thing with me

One of the reasons why controlled demolitions take so long, is that the people pushing the plunger have to make sure the building actually collapses and doesn't just fall part way. You could get away with this in the 9/11 conspiracy by having them use stupidly large charges up at the top of the building (therefore reducing the likeliness that they will survive) so it pancakes like it did, but those kind of charges would have caused a noticeable explosion and we'd all be watching Rummy or whoever was in charge of the CIA at the time dangle from a rope for high treason.

Occam's Razor throws us towards Oswald; who was more apt to shoot Kennedy than some made-up Gman or high-brow assassin from a vantage point no one can quite agree with.

The stuff about Area 51 is likely the result of a government misinformation program designed to divert attention from the actual testing going on there.

Here is my conspiracy theory regarding 9/11:

9/11 was the creation of an Islamic extremist group called Al-Qaeda. They want, ultimately, to take over the world, and impose an extremist theocracy upon us all. In particular, they hate America, because of all the 'infidel' nations, America is one of the largest and most powerful.

They hijacked 4 airliners on 9/11. Two were crashed into the Twin Towers, one was crashed into the pentagon, and a fourth was crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers stormed the cockpit.

When the planes hit the twin towers, they started fires, fueled by the jet fuel, that weakened the supports of the Twin Towers. Eventually, the supports collapsed, and the upper floors collapsed straight down, like a stack of pancakes.

As for the JFK assassination, I know diddly squat about it.

Look at the first page of NSG, and if it's started by The Plastic Ear, I hate it.

The Holocause theories are definitely most idiotic.

The stuff about Area 51 is likely the result of a government misinformation program designed to divert attention from the actual testing going on there.

Here is my conspiracy theory regarding 9/11:

9/11 was the creation of an Islamic extremist group called Al-Qaeda. They want, ultimately, to take over the world, and impose an extremist theocracy upon us all. In particular, they hate America, because of all the 'infidel' nations, America is one of the largest and most powerful.

They hijacked 4 airliners on 9/11. Two were crashed into the Twin Towers, one was crashed into the pentagon, and a fourth was crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers stormed the cockpit.

When the planes hit the twin towers, they started fires, fueled by the jet fuel, that weakened the supports of the Twin Towers. Eventually, the supports collapsed, and the upper floors collapsed straight down, like a stack of pancakes.

As for the JFK assassination, I know diddly squat about it.


Slight ammendment: They may not necessarily want to take over the world, but instead kill as many infidels as possible. The rest is aggreeable.

I think the most annoying conpiracy is the idea that you could somehow limit the ownership of firearms in the united states. and to think that its actually working? yikes.

Yeah, because killing the President would do...What, exactly? How would they benefit from it?


Remove a political opponent to what they were doing. They were already facing large-scale clampdowns, and had not much to lose.


Who says that a sufficiently ruthless sharpshooter would careWe more about threatened person X than saving their own skin?

Family, close friends, etc. Even ruthless people have people they care about. Also, there was massive loyalty in the mafia. You could easily find someone to do such a job.


It was more commly discarded than used, actually. It's rather better to say it was 'manufactured' and 'issued.'


Well, that's what I meant. However, it was still quite possibly the most worthless weapon to have ever been created.


Adequately is enough for what he did.


I was simply trying to dispute that him being a Marksman in the marines meant he was an amazing shot.


So? How does that change that a trained marksman could hit a slow-moving target twice [both shots close to missing] with three shots fired in 8.5 seconds, using a scope that ment it was effectively 25 yards away?


Hitting a moving target from a good distance away is tricky business, and an inaccurate weapon just doesn't fit the bill, really. Also, although it COULD easily be reloaded in 8.5 seconds 3 times, the problem is jamming and misfiring, which are fairly common problems in the Carcano. This, with the innaccuracy issue, sheds a bit of doubt as to whether it could have been used.


And doubt isn't enough. The weapon did get up there, it fits in the package, and Oswald's curtain rods are nowhere to be found.


[quote]
Because it's impossible to move boxes?


No, however whomever would have moved the boxes would have been in serious trouble for tampering with evidence. Also, the image more often seen was one taken three days later, where the boxes were moved to make a good sniper's nest. The one taken on only a few hours after the assassination was likely a far more accurate version of how the boxes were set up.



You believe the easiest shot possible was to fire bullets straight through a large tree that was obscuring his view?


What tree?

Dealey Plaza in the 60's:http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/DPlaza/dealeyoverview.JPEG



He had 8.4 seconds and fired three shots. That's hardly the last possible second.


It is for anybody whom is shooting a target. If you are going to shoot something that is moving, you want the best line of site, and you want to shoot long before the target is moving away from you, and will be gone in a few seconds. You want to take the earliest, best shot. And there is a point in which Kennedy would have been an easy target as he was moving towards the Depository.

Also, there is some question on the three shots. For instance, both Kennedy and Conally were injured in rapid succession, the two being wounded to quickly to have another shot fire by a single person. Not only this, but a single bullet causing seven wounds in varying parts of the body, breaking a rib, AND shattering Conally's wrist... The bloody thing would have had to change trajectories several times, which is damn near impossible for a bullet to do. That, added to the fact that the bullet that "caused" this was found, completely unharmed and in perfect shape. Something really doesn't add up in this part.


Actually, it's entirely possible. And why is there no damage whatsoever to the back of Kennedy's head if he was shot from the front? Where's the exit wound?


Let me ask you this: If you was shot in the back of the head by a person whom was on the sixth story of a building, how is it possible for the entry point to be lower than the exit?

I'm perfectly willing to accept Oswald was there(Albeit scrutinising the evidence), and may or may not have been involved, but I have doubts as to him being the only shooter.

... You don't read what you write do you Seangoli? Bribing a judge, killing the police chief, or threatening the prosecutor is one thing: assassinating the most powerful leader in the world is quite another. What the Mafia was looking at for the most part dealt with crimes related to tax evasion and money laundering, things which can cause you to suffer long prison sentences, but do not fall under the label of 'treason' which would probably have your head blown off or your feet dangling in the air as you try to breath through a particularly tight noose. It wasn't the mafia.

Also: the gun wasn't as good as other weapons from other countries: alls the same Italy still designed it and gave it to its armed forces after designing it to kill other guys on the often chaotic battlefield. It can certainly be used in a nice, calm setting with a target that's easier to lead than some pissed-off Frenchmen trying to stab you in the heart with his standard-issue white flag during WWII.

There is also no proof that the weapon would have misfired or would have jammed just because the rate of occurrence for that particular weapon is higher than in others. It's like saying people can't drive down a highway without dying because most car accidents happen on the road.

Inaccuracy would be a bit of a conundrum if Oswald hadn't been trained to shoot guns at targets trying to dodge bullets, shells, and other assorted nasties on what we sometimes call a 'battlefield' which has targets notoriously more difficult to hit than a slow moving car with an exposed target waving at oblivious spectators.

As far as your magic bullet impossibilities is concerned: watch mythbusters, they proved a bullet can do what people have been claiming it can't. It was quite interesting actually, as it proved people who know jack-shit about ballistics totally wrong and knocked them down from their pedestal of 'truth.'

Id say the theory that the Free Masons plan to take over, or control the US government

Same thing with me

Same here too, I hate when people deny it, half the time they dont know what there talking about themselves from my experiences

"The Apollo moon landings were a hoax filmed in Nevada"

Most. Annoying. Most Irrational. Theory. Ever.

Amen! It's the stupidest conspiracy theory I've ever heard.

That the Chernobyl melt down was a deliberate attempt by the Soviet government to cover up an Area 51 type complex.:rolleyes:

Amen! It's the stupidest conspiracy theory I've ever heard.

Indeed, as the videos taken from the moon cannot in any possible way be replicated on earth, they alone prove it.

But meh.

That the Chernobyl melt down was a deliberate attempt by the Soviet government to cover up an Area 51 type complex.:rolleyes:

Duh. It would make more sense to do this to CREATE an Area 51. Clear out everyone, plus you can get mutant warlords through the radiation.

Am I the only person surprised Bush didn't implicate Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein in the JFK assassination?

My most hated conspiracy theory?
The idea that the country is controlled by liberal atheists trying to destroy Christianity. The silliness of Christians complaining about being persecuted in the US makes me want to bang my head against the keyboard.

My most hated conspiracy theory?
The idea that the country is controlled by liberal atheists trying to destroy Christianity. The silliness of Christians complaining about being persecuted in the US makes me want to bang my head against the keyboard.

don't do that you have to spend money for a new

an more like they are destroying it by there own hand's

Which conspiracy theroys make your blood boil? Which ones make you wonder who could possibly believe in them? Tell us why,
People who blame conspiracy when simple stupidity will do

No, plain and simple. You're getting your manpower/involvement records befuddled. The point is that not all of these require anywhere near a large number.

Yus, all of them do. Back up your claims otherwise, please.

No, simply the secret of why the second was murdered. That the second got murdered doesn't need to be kept secret at all.

Actually, it does. How are you supposed to benefit from it at all if you're implicated in the murder and get sent down anyway?

You're really neglecting the details that your opposition is focusing on here. For example, no halfway intelligent CIA agent would generate mounds of paperwork on a presidential assassination they were going to commit.

Since when are civil servants universally competant? Since when can one agent carry out such a thing without going through the motions first?

That's the sort of thing that you don't make records of, because it's going to get you in trouble.

You can't help but make records of it. There'd be analyses, evaluations, reports, meetings, briefings, memos and every one of the mountain of things that are generated by any major action a government branch performs. You'd need to prepare evidence of what materials you'd need, what impact you believed the operation would have, and go through failure scenarios in case things went bad, with various backup plans all requiring the same level of planning and data.

A government department is utterly incapable of just leaping up and doing something. The bureaucracy is there specifically to prevent it. You can't order a box of paperclips without going through the paperwork and dozens of people knowing about it, do you seriously think killing JFK would be less of a deal?

It's been hashed over thousands of times - and the evidence is clearly not conclusive for either side's claims.

You could make the same claim about evolution versus creationism, the Holocaust, or the Flat Earth Society. The evidence is conclusive, one side just refuses to accept that.

The only real motivation for picking the single shooter theory over all others "definitively" is to simplify the problem.

And because no evidence exists which requires a second shooter.

Last time I checked Wiki, I heard that 70% of the American public thinks something fishy was behind the Kennedy assassination. It's something you should be used to.

Should we compare this to polls on the percentage that believes evolution isn't real? Nice appeal to popularity, there.

No, it's you, GMC. Don't strawman, pay attention to what I'm talking about.

I am. You're talking about things you're not thinking through to their logical conclusions, because if you did you'd realise them to be totally illogical.

One of the standard claims of one of the more complex conspiracy theories.

No, one of the standard claims period.

Frankly, NORAD's exercises are absolutely irrelevant. It's non-testable, unlike the controlled demolition hypothesis I mentioned.

Which is so testable even its champions admit they have absolutely no idea how it could actually be arranged.

I will not deny that there are ridiculous conspiracy theories floating around about 9/11 - of course. There are also much more reasonable ones flying about.

No, there are less unreasonable ones, but they're all unreasonable. The controlled demolition one is in no way reasonable, does not fit the evidence, would be impossible to implement, and requires every demolition expert in the world to be in on it, since none of them agree that the collapse could be replicated with explosives.

No need for this. That would have been impractical. Better to let them baffle briefly over the massive destruction.

And fail to find any bomb remains? Parts of bombs have been found even when aircraft have been destroyed by them in mid-air. Are you saying the conspirators would just ignore this possibility and assume that the bombs were guaranteed to magically obliterate every trace of themselves?

The obvious cause of the airplanes crashing into the towers discourages great curiousity into other matters.

And that the collapse was entirely consistant with that and entirely inconsistant with controlled demolition.

Again, no need for this. Airplanes that were hijacked were hijacked. You're trying to complicate things immensely and unnecessarily. Stop building strawmen.

Actually, not strawmen. If anything, you might call them 'ironmen' since they're vastly stronger and more consistant with reality than the arguments you're actually making. If the airlines weren't in on it, why don't they support further investigation?

The insurance companies have absolutely no need to be in on this. What in the world are you thinking?

Ok. Let's imagine the world consists of normal humans, shall we? The airlines and insurance companies, who made massive losses and massive payouts respectively, hear that there's a theory that the collapse of the towers was actually a government plot.

Why, if there's a shred of credibility to this 'theory,' would they not be the first ones to champion its cause and be shouting loudest for further inquiry? And why, for that matter, would the NYC Police and Fire Departments not call for an investigation despite losing hundreds of their own?

The experts are not so unanimous.

You keep saying that, but you keep failing to cite anything resembling evidence. Why is there nobody in controlled demolitions, failure analysis, fire safety engineering or civil engineering that agrees with the controlled demolition hypothesis?

You may ad hominem Dr. Jones in particular as much as you like

Demonstrating he is speaking entirely outside his area of expertise isn't an ad hominem. Neither is demonstrating his slightly bizarre attitude towards the scientific method in other papers he's published, which is also present in his CD paper. Which was published in a Marxist economic journal. Slightly odd place to go for an honest peer review, don't you think?

In fact, as Wiki will readily point out to you, his relatively famous paper on piezofusion received accolades relative to the others, and his modest results were supported and further clarified in subsequent experiments.

Would you also argue that Tesla was a genius and therefore his well-documented quackery must all be true? The fact that Jones has made correct statements in his own area of expertise doesn't change that he doesn't know a thing about controlled demolitions, explosives, thermite, or building safety analysis.

Again with the complete garbage that indicates your lack of understanding. Miles of cable? No. Tons of explosives? Very few.

You can call it garbage, but where's your proof? Where's evidence of any building on this scale demolished without the use of miles of detonating cord and tons of explosives? I gave numbers, can you?

Localized damage to a particular setup of the tower would disable only a handful of cutting charges, and nearly make up for it through impact.

How did they know where the plane would hit to plan for this, then? How can you be sure the damage wouldn't screw with the charges? How could you be sure the fire wouldn't? How could you be sure the building wouldn't completely fuck up the demolition sequence by starting to collapse by itself before it was initiated? Remember, structural engineers have expressed how impressive it was that the towers didn't collapse from the impacts themselves!

I'm not failing to grasp anything. I know that a great amount of work is involved - and that this is one of the major obstacles to demonstrating a controlled demolition hypothesis.

One of the others being it's impossible, I suppose.

The destruction, in a CD hypothesis, is also not necessarily as carefully controlled as a commercial demolition. The primary emphasis is insuring the building collapses swiftly.

Why? Why does it matter how fast the building falls as long as it does? The primary concern would actually be ensuring the detonations weren't externally obvious, time wouldn't be a factor.

For planning, you have all the time in the world. It is simply the question of setting the charges.

No, you don't. You need to survey the building closely for weeks, carefully, without anyone noticing the various strangers taking measurements and notes for no apparent reason.

And then how do you set them all in four days without anyone noticing?

The most difficult part to explain is, of course, the case of the WTC 7 building, which - as Jones accuses - is often left out of discussion of the WTC collapse.

It collapsed because it was severely damaged and on fire for hours. Not a single building in the WTC complex was left standing, so why does a particular one falling down surprise you?

The heart of his critique - and the heart of what I've been saying here - is that there has not been sufficient scientific research into the matter.

But there has. The fact that none of its findings support the controlled demolition hypothesis does not justify wasting more time beating a dead horse. Let's invent a 9/11 conspiracy theory, shall we?

Ok, I've been playing Metroid Prime 2 far too much recently, so we'll go with that. The WTC Towers were destroyed by a controlled demolition instigated by Samus Aran, who used a Power Bomb to destroy the Denzium foundations of both towers. Why Samus? Well, only Power Bombs can destroy Denzium, and only Samus, the SA-X and the Power Bomb Guardian have those. The Power Bomb Guardian is immobile and SA-X is dead, so that only leaves Samus.

It's true no Denzium has been found in the rubble, and that so-called 'experts' claim that Denzium wasn't used in the foundations, but I think more research is needed before we can rule out this hypothesis.

Or we could just remember the Samus, Power Bombs and Denzium aren't real and stop wasting our time. What you're going for here is the classic burden of proof fallacy: why should we bother to waste effort further disproving an obviously irrational hypothesis?

There are vanishingly few peer-reviewed articles published on the WTC collapse.

There are vanishingly zero peer-reviewed articles published on the controlled demolition hypothesis, and no support from anyone with any relevant qualifications. Says something, that.

That website speaks with the exact same amount of authority as the ones it criticizes.

You obviously missed the bit where it's full of links to reports written by people with actual qualifications as opposed to people with irrelevant ones.

You may also be happy to note that Jones has been bounced from "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" for publicly ruling out what he considers to have been ridiculous explanations offered by other members.

So? There are people further out than him, big deal. World War One doesn't suddenly become a period of uninterrupted peace just because World War Two was worse.

Dr. Jones does not appear to be one of them, and his credentials as a scientist are still fairly solid in spite of his politically charged firing.

They are also totally irrelevent to his statements: he has no more authority regarding a matter of civil engineering than I do.

More than minor refinement, actually. Experts on building fires have been working hard to try and twist out a reasonable explanation for everything that happened

And have built a consistant model that fits the facts a thousand times better than the CD hypothesis could ever hope to.

One fully peer-reviewed paper? "Dozens" of articles by "experts" like Jones (fusion specialist) and Greening (molecular spectroscopy specialist)?

Dozens of articles by people with relevant qualications in failure analysis, fire safety engineering, civil engineering and demolitions. Versus no articles by same.

You're making my case very well here. We have, here, a remarkable act of destruction of immense political significance with potentially unprecedented amounts of information about large fires, large buildings, and their collapses that could - should - lead to a new set of considerations for structural safety measures.

Why? How many buildings are expected to survive collisions with fully-loaded, fully-fueled airliners moving at five hundred miles per hour? Is it really a day-to-day concern?

.. and there are how many peer reviewed articles published analyzing the model of its collapse in the past five years?

How many have been published criticising it? Oh, that's right, zero. How many people with relevant qualifications support any of the conspiracy theories? Zero again.

Very few. And this relative lack of scientific scrutiny leads to problems - and not just problems with people like Jones pointing out that FEMA's study amounted to tweaking model parameters until something resembling the expected result came out.

And he'd know all about that, since he has so much experience in civil engineering, right? What's supposed to be wrong with refining a model until it produces a result that matches a known figure? Is Jones saying his hypothesis, which can't produce any figures, is better?

So what were you talking about?

If you don't know enough about the Apollo missions to know, you don't know enough about them to talk about them. Two other posters have identified the event in question. Nobody died during the thirteenth Apollo mission, so that's obviously not what I was talking about.

Apollo mission where someone died...Weren't that many of those, so it should be easy to narrow down.

Remove a political opponent to what they were doing. They were already facing large-scale clampdowns, and had not much to lose.

And nothing to gain, either.

Family, close friends, etc. Even ruthless people have people they care about. Also, there was massive loyalty in the mafia. You could easily find someone to do such a job.

Easily find someone to perform an assassination in broad daylight, in a public place, in front of dozens of witnesses? You'd have to be out of your mind to take a job like that, and more so to order someone to do it.

Well, that's what I meant. However, it was still quite possibly the most worthless weapon to have ever been created.

Yes, and the majority were disposed of by their operators rather than used, they were barely issued, and were rapidly replaced. Chauchats were not the primary weapon of a national armed forces' regular infantry for almost half a century.

I was simply trying to dispute that him being a Marksman in the marines meant he was an amazing shot.

He isn't required to be an amazing shot. He had as long as whe wanted to line up his first shot and still missed the car entirely. The second shot was too low, and if the third shot had been any higher it would have missed Kennedy entirely. We're not talking the work of a master sniper here.

Hitting a moving target from a good distance away is tricky business, and an inaccurate weapon just doesn't fit the bill, really.

So why, if they were planting a weapon, woud they plant a Carcano rather than an Enfield, Springfield, Mauser or Mosin-Nagant? Oswald picked a Carcano because he owned a Carcano, it's not like he had a rack of scoped rifles in front of him to pick the best from.

Also, although it COULD easily be reloaded in 8.5 seconds 3 times, the problem is jamming and misfiring, which are fairly common problems in the Carcano.

If I recall correctly, Oswald's rifle was jammed when it was found.

This, with the innaccuracy issue, sheds a bit of doubt as to whether it could have been used.

The accuracy of the rifle was found to be .29 mils by Ronald Simmons, who bench-tested it at the Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory. This is a fairly typical figure for a high-powered rifle, and it was described as 'Quite accurate' to the Warren Commission.

No, however whomever would have moved the boxes would have been in serious trouble for tampering with evidence.

Since Oswald moved them to shoot the President, I imagine that wasn't among his top ten concerns.

What tree?

The one nearest the depository.

It is for anybody whom is shooting a target. If you are going to shoot something that is moving, you want the best line of site, and you want to shoot long before the target is moving away from you, and will be gone in a few seconds.

Who says Oswald had a chance to shoot while the President was coming towards him? I imagine he'd be concerned about being spotted at that point, if he was in position at all.

You want to take the earliest, best shot. And there is a point in which Kennedy would have been an easy target as he was moving towards the Depository.

And when the police escorts would have been looking right at him. It would have been the worst time to take the shot.

Also, there is some question on the three shots. For instance, both Kennedy and Conally were injured in rapid succession, the two being wounded to quickly to have another shot fire by a single person.

It was the same bullet, IIRC.

Not only this, but a single bullet causing seven wounds in varying parts of the body, breaking a rib, AND shattering Conally's wrist... The bloody thing would have had to change trajectories several times, which is damn near impossible for a bullet to do.

But possible, nonetheless.

That, added to the fact that the bullet that "caused" this was found, completely unharmed and in perfect shape. Something really doesn't add up in this part.

This bullet? Conspiracy theorists hate looking at it from this particular angle.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/ce399.gif

Would you buy a bullet that looked like that if someone told you it was 'in perfect shape?'

Let me ask you this: If you was shot in the back of the head by a person whom was on the sixth story of a building, how is it possible for the entry point to be lower than the exit?

If he was really shot by a gunman in front of him, how is it possible that the back of his head remained completely intact?

Two longest mod posts in general. Ever.

Most annoying conspiracy theory: That the Illuminati (sp?) control the world. Or almost anything dealing with them. I used to work as the late night board op at a talk radio stations and got to listen to all sorts of great conspiracy radio.

Two longest mod posts in general. Ever.

aww! you beat me to it...

Most annoying conspiracy theory: That the Illuminati (sp?) control the world. Or almost anything dealing with them. I used to work as the late night board op at a talk radio stations and got to listen to all sorts of great conspiracy radio.

Fnord
(again!)
honestly...

seriously though, my favourite conspiracy theory has to be capitalism

id give a nod to the whole thought that the holocaust never happened...for gods sake, there was a whole meeting headed by the iranian president about the issue, mostly to advance the idea that the holocaust is a myth. a quoted speaker at the meeting?

a ku-klux-klansman, and i am not joking.

Tupac lives, people. You may denounce it as a conspiracy theory, but the fact is that Shakur faked his death in order to boost the sales of his albums, and to escape the racist CIA-KKK conspiracy aligned against him.

I know this because Tyler knows this.

aww! you beat me to it...



Fnord
(again!)
honestly...

seriously though, my favourite conspiracy theory has to be capitalism

And in the first one it was another mod he was quoting. I actually rather enjoy it when the mods enter these sort of threads.

And Fnord yourself:)

Yus, all of them do. Back up your claims otherwise, please.
I have. You keep trying to claim (for no particularly well backed up reason) that more people have to been involved. I've been puncturing those claims neatly each time you make them.
Actually, it does. How are you supposed to benefit from it at all if you're implicated in the murder and get sent down anyway?
Well, first, you have to get caught for it - and since it's not a high profile assassination itself, it'll be easier to get away with. Second, because you're really dedicated to your cause if it does come down.

I mean, come on. You're assuming that kind of thing for a lone gunman in the first place, don't pretend you're a stranger to that. Suffice it to say that getting rid of key co-conspirators can be a way to cover the tracks - and this is one of the big reasons for all the JFK conspiracy theories. Oswald claimed that he was a patsy, and some nut shot him almost immediately after he killed JFK - whether that happened by orders or not, it certainly prevented Oswald from outing any co-conspirators.
Since when are civil servants universally competant? Since when can one agent carry out such a thing without going through the motions first?
"Universal" isn't necessary at all, GMC.

Or are you going to deny that there could be any competent agents (civil servant isn't necessarily the right word here)?
You can't help but make records of it. There'd be analyses, evaluations, reports, meetings, briefings, memos and every one of the mountain of things that are generated by any major action a government branch performs. You'd need to prepare evidence of what materials you'd need, what impact you believed the operation would have, and go through failure scenarios in case things went bad, with various backup plans all requiring the same level of planning and data.
You're still assuming a white op when it absolutely has to be a black op. Look, GMC... if I can put the pieces together, so can some murky Mr. X in the CIA, KGB, mob, etc. These are groups accustomed to putting together operations that manage to remain secret, or at least mostly murky, decades later. Can the BS and sell it to someone else. I'm not buying it.
A government department is utterly incapable of just leaping up and doing something. The bureaucracy is there specifically to prevent it. You can't order a box of paperclips without going through the paperwork and dozens of people knowing about it, do you seriously think killing JFK would be less of a deal?
The government has misplaced hundreds of millions of dollars before - just ask the GAO - let alone paperclips. You're arguing from completely ludicrous grounds...

... which apply to only one of the many flavors of conspiracy theory offered to explain who else a putative second shooter. If you want to examine or critique the official story or the alternative explanations, you need to strictly look at the evidence in terms of one shooter acting alone, or Oswald not being alone or not being the killer.
You could make the same claim about evolution versus creationism, the Holocaust, or the Flat Earth Society. The evidence is conclusive, one side just refuses to accept that.
The analogy does not hold.
And because no evidence exists which requires a second shooter.
Excepting the evidence which does. And now we're back into circularity.

I'm not going to claim that I'm an expert. However, I know very well that the experts remain split on the topic, and also know very well that the evidence available is nowhere near as complete and convincing as (for example) the Earth's roundness.
Should we compare this to polls on the percentage that believes evolution isn't real? Nice appeal to popularity, there.
An appeal designed to do one thing:

Tell you to wake up, smell the coffee, and get used to it.
I am. You're talking about things you're not thinking through to their logical conclusions, because if you did you'd realise them to be totally illogical.
None such.
No, one of the standard claims period.
Still making strawmen.
Which is so testable even its champions admit they have absolutely no idea how it could actually be arranged.
Actually, I can think of one method off hand which could have immediately tested the controlled demolition hypothesis - more detailed examination of the wreckage.

For that matter, a full collection and analysis of all available existing data on the wreckage and collapse should probably manage to, as well as further experimentation and simulation.

As I've mentioned, the problem is the lack of serious scientific study.
No, there are less unreasonable ones, but they're all unreasonable. The controlled demolition one is in no way reasonable, does not fit the evidence, would be impossible to implement, and requires every demolition expert in the world to be in on it, since none of them agree that the collapse could be replicated with explosives.
You keep claiming that "none of the demolition experts in the world" say anything but exactly the same thing, and "none of the structural engineers in the world" support anything but exactly the same thing. They don't all say the same thing.
And fail to find any bomb remains? Parts of bombs have been found even when aircraft have been destroyed by them in mid-air. Are you saying the conspirators would just ignore this possibility and assume that the bombs were guaranteed to magically obliterate every trace of themselves?
"Bombs," we're now talking, instead of small cutting charges or whatnot.

A few pounds of potentially suspicious rubble among thousands of tons of wreckage? You can assume fairly safely that they wouldn't be picked up or identified among all the other crap.
And that the collapse was entirely consistant with that and entirely inconsistant with controlled demolition.
This has never been demonstrated. There has not been enough study of the matter to show either of those to be the case.
Actually, not strawmen. If anything, you might call them 'ironmen' since they're vastly stronger and more consistant with reality than the arguments you're actually making. If the airlines weren't in on it, why don't they support further investigation?
BS. GMC, if the airlines know nothing, how would they act? As if the buildings were brought down by planes. Would they support further investigation? Well, just as much as they did in the case that they did.

Stop being ridiculous. The only thing you're demonstrating is that you seem to have no idea how to carry out a successful hoax, conspiracy, or anything else requiring secrecy or deception.
Ok. Let's imagine the world consists of normal humans, shall we? The airlines and insurance companies, who made massive losses and massive payouts respectively, hear that there's a theory that the collapse of the towers was actually a government plot.

Why, if there's a shred of credibility to this 'theory,' would they not be the first ones to champion its cause and be shouting loudest for further inquiry? And why, for that matter, would the NYC Police and Fire Departments not call for an investigation despite losing hundreds of their own?
You're now assuming that airlines and insurance companies are run by expert scientists able to judge the physics of the matter.

I'll put it this way: They're in no better a position to judge it than you are. Worse, probably. Not only that, but think of the can of worms you open. You don't want to go there. I don't.

For that matter, for all I know, it could have been "terrists" planting bombs in the WTC buildings to make sure they go down. Doesn't matter to the controlled demolition hypothesis one bit.

So I'll ask you the economic question: Is it to your benefit, Mr. Airline Executive, to pursue any line of investigation into the matter? Or is it better for you to keep quiet, hope the official story is true, and not jeopardize matters?

It's not. All the people you're talking about are emotionally, financially, and politically invested the official story being true.

And here's how it plays out. The WTC goes down. Everybody sees the planes hit, the buildings burn, and then they collapse. "Obviously" they collapse because of the planes hitting them, and almost everybody supports the administration's response. You're invested in that response emotionally - which is why you have such a powerful knee-jerk reaction to someone like me pointing out that there hasn't been enough study made.
You keep saying that, but you keep failing to cite anything resembling evidence. Why is there nobody in controlled demolitions, failure analysis, fire safety engineering or civil engineering that agrees with the controlled demolition hypothesis?
Actually, almost everybody who has published on the WTC collapse itself and its models has noted that further study is required to explain exactly what happened, particularly in the case of the WTC 7 building.

Which is academic-speak for "Can't be sure, need more data and analysis."

And if you want to get picky, at least one of the "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" is a qualified structural engineer, and in the critical articles you can find (e.g., Dr. Jones'), there are plenty of citations of the scant existing studies on the matter used to support their conclusions. So knock of with the ridiculous universals, k?
Demonstrating he is speaking entirely outside his area of expertise isn't an ad hominem. Neither is demonstrating his slightly bizarre attitude towards the scientific method in other papers he's published, which is also present in his CD paper. Which was published in a Marxist economic journal. Slightly odd place to go for an honest peer review, don't you think?
The CD paper was, according to press flap about it, "going to be published in Nature soon," IIRC. After the political and press flap, that clearly wasn't going to happen.

Those whom you cite (e.g., debunking911.com) are just as much "speaking outside of their field of expertise." As I pointed out.
Would you also argue that Tesla was a genius and therefore his well-documented quackery must all be true? The fact that Jones has made correct statements in his own area of expertise doesn't change that he doesn't know a thing about controlled demolitions, explosives, thermite, or building safety analysis.
Tesla was a genius... and therefore it behooves us to study his notes carefully. He does still hold a few world records for things like largest man-made spark, only man-made earthquake (albeit a small one), etc. Of course, it's commonly accepted he was also a bit nutty, and like many brilliant scientists, he also was brilliantly wrong on occasion. He never really bought into relativity, for example.

But his brilliance has motivated projects to study even his seemingly nutty moments, just in case he really did pull it off. You try to take people like Tesla seriously through the first couple independent attempts to duplicate his results.

Jones knows a heck of a lot about physics - and what he's doing in critiquing the official explanation comes primarily out of his training in physics, for the most part.
You can call it garbage, but where's your proof? Where's evidence of any building on this scale demolished without the use of miles of detonating cord and tons of explosives? I gave numbers, can you?
Where's any building demolished on this scale period? Where's any evidence of a paper-and-hydrocarbon fueled fire reaching the melting temperature of steel?

I can pull all the numbers out of my ass that I want to - and so can you. The simple matter, though, is that you're assuming a crapload of things that aren't necessary. There's a big difference between bringing a building down as an act of terrorism (imagined or real), and bringing a building down in a safe and economical fashion under controlled circumstances.
How did they know where the plane would hit to plan for this, then? How can you be sure the damage wouldn't screw with the charges? How could you be sure the fire wouldn't? How could you be sure the building wouldn't completely fuck up the demolition sequence by starting to collapse by itself before it was initiated? Remember, structural engineers have expressed how impressive it was that the towers didn't collapse from the impacts themselves!
All of which insure that they're not following OSHA regulations...

As far as the surprise... this sort of thing is something we simply don't have enough data on. Some people are surprised they stood for that long; others are surprised they collapsed at all. Granted, it would be fairly expensive to erect skyscrapers and crash jets in them to get a good feel for how well they take the hits...
Why? Why does it matter how fast the building falls as long as it does? The primary concern would actually be ensuring the detonations weren't externally obvious, time wouldn't be a factor.
Why fall time matters isn't in questioning how you set timers to demolish the building. Fall time matters in testing the model of collapse.

What's necessary in the case of the main towers, for example, is that the internal steel core supports lead the collapse of the main floors, because there's no way to efficiently "pancake" the central vertical columns (as sometimes erroneously assumed in some graphical oversimplifications of the collapse).
No, you don't. You need to survey the building closely for weeks, carefully, without anyone noticing the various strangers taking measurements and notes for no apparent reason.
Oooorrrr you could just work from the blueprints and hope that any errors are small enough not to screw things up too badly.
And then how do you set them all in four days without anyone noticing?
That is the crux of the problem with a controlled demolition.
It collapsed because it was severely damaged and on fire for hours. Not a single building in the WTC complex was left standing, so why does a particular one falling down surprise you?
Well, the manner of its collapse didn't just surprise me - it surprised the people conducting the official study of the collapse. One of the many things they indicated needed further study.

Study that is not forthcoming. You can complain all you want about the dearth of articles published supporting (for example) controlled demolition - however, there are vanishingly few peer reviewed articles published on the collapse period.

One of the consequences of this lack of study is a plethora of well-grounded alternate theories that could be tested - but aren't and won't for purely political reasons. And I don't have to look any further than you to see the mind-set shouting for study to be and stay closed. There are few people who want there to be complications in the WTC collapse.

If you don't want to see the further study and rigorous science that would close off these possibilities, then you don't want to really know what is and is not true; you just want to believe in the truth, trusting in faith to guide you.

Myself, I find Jones' stated main argument in his conclusion convincing, namely, that further study of the WTC is appropriate, regardless of the political consequences.
If you don't know enough about the Apollo missions to know, you don't know enough about them to talk about them. Two other posters have identified the event in question. Nobody died during the thirteenth Apollo mission, so that's obviously not what I was talking about.
Blame Hollywood for thirteen popping into my mind.

The simple fact, though, is that the number of people required for the "moon landing carried out in a studio" theory isn't that high intrinsically - it's just the very real physical problem that physicists know exactly what it takes to put something on the moon, and therefore that we can put things on the moon, which put a crimp in it. The idea that we couldn't go to the moon in the first place is what motivates the conspiracy theory.

And in the first one it was another mod he was quoting. I actually rather enjoy it when the mods enter these sort of threads.
It's part of the Great Moderator Conspiracy where we pretend to disagree so you don't know that we're aliens from outer space attempting to gain complete control over the planet via subliminal messages to all the politics junkies.

^_^ Now, I see I actually left my post incomplete...

My friends and I always run around making JFK assasination jokes. It all started when I put her name next to the question "The alleged assasin of JFK" and our History teacher picked up the sheet and saw it. Now we've got this whacked inside joke about how she was in the book registry, and she's the one who killed him, but I was on the grassy knoll, firing random shots to throw people off. And she's got his brain in her basement.

Oh, I love conspiracy theories!

Where's any building demolished on this scale period? Where's any evidence of a paper-and-hydrocarbon fueled fire reaching the melting temperature of stee

Did you not bother reading one of my previous posts?

the fire temperature fueled by jet fuel and the burning contents never rose in general over 750C, in places, fueled by the chimney effect it may have got to 900C

the melting point of steel is about 1300C

Soooooo the beams never melted and therefore they must have been cut by demolition charges

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!:headbang:

As steel increases in temperature, its mechanical strrength begins to seriously weaken ,75% of the strength goes as the steel reaches 700C a bar at 1/2 maxiumum load at 20C becomes a bar at twice maximum load at 750C:eek:

El-Presidente Boris
Dip.Comp.(Open) Bsc(Hons)(Open) 20 yrs experience in machining/forging materials including everything from steel to exotic materials
If I'm not an expert I dunno what what else to study to make me an expert:upyours:

Companies/employers are the devil and will always try to exploit their workers to death. That and "real work is <insert manual and brainless activity here>".

Apparently Mods are very interested in conspiracy theories.

I smell a conspiracy.

Apparently Mods are very interested in conspiracy theories.

I smell a conspiracy.

In Soviet Russia, conspiracy smells you!

Did you not bother reading one of my previous posts?
Actually, I had seen that post.
As steel increases in temperature, its mechanical strrength begins to seriously weaken ,75% of the strength goes as the steel reaches 700C a bar at 1/2 maxiumum load at 20C becomes a bar at twice maximum load at 750C
And this is all accounted for in the models used. The temperature reached by the steel supports is a critical variable manipulated in all models of the collapse.

If I read the articles correctly, the critical temperature for the steel of the tower in this particular case to fail to meet its load-bearing requirements is ~800 celsius (e.g., Bazant & Zhou, 2002) or thereabouts, and tensile strength is in a state of rapid decline at that point.

Criticism focuses on the difficulty of a fire which, as you mentioned, would ordinarily be expected to reach temperatures of no more than ~750C, to heat massive and highly conductive steel columns to 800C. They also point out that - while the NIST rightly points out that no skyscraper has experienced the sort of multi-floor conflagration the WTC did - there have been multi-floor conflagrations in other countries. E.g., since the WTC collapse, we've seen a raging multi-floor inferno a buildings fully 60% as tall here. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/18/world/main649824.shtml) Etc.

There is a great deal of accidental misinformation and rumor floating around about various models of the WTC collapse, and contrary to what GMC, for example, may claim, those models have changed.

For example - re: "pancaking," mentioned a page or three ago by one person insisting the "official" story of the WTC collapse must be correct and saying that the building "pancaked," the NIST offers this answer on its FAQ page:
NIST’s findings do not support the “pancake theory” of collapse, which is premised on a progressive failure of the floor systems in the WTC towers (the composite floor system—that connected the core columns and the perimeter columns—consisted of a grid of steel “trusses” integrated with a conc]rete slab; see diagram below). Instead, the NIST investigation showed conclusively that the failure of the inwardly bowed perimeter columns initiated collapse and that the occurrence of this inward bowing required the sagging floors to remain connected to the columns and pull the columns inwards. Thus, the floors did not fail progressively to cause a pancaking phenomenon.
In order to best understand those criticizing FEMA and NIST's official reports, it's best to start there first and then reference back to the critics.

On, for example, the page GMC linked to (debunking911.com), there is quite a bit of material that - in fact - is properly a dispute of the official account in detail. For example:
This proves the buildings fell well below free fall speed.
...the building section above came down essentially in free fall...

I think I mentioned 'pancaking'. I was unaware of the NIST report that debunked pancaking.

On the subject of JFK, I know very little, but I would propose that while Lee Harvey Oswald may have been the assassin, could he have been working for someone else?

Not the CIA, of course. JFK would have lived, had that been the case.

I would point the figure at the obvious target - the Soviets. I read somewhere (it was a long time ago) that Oswald had lived in Russia. Might he have been trained as a sleeper agent? And after he got caught, the KGB had him killed before he could out them.

And this is all accounted for in the models used. The temperature reached by the steel supports is a critical variable manipulated in all models of the collapse.

You didn't read much of that FAQ, did you?

In no instance did NIST report that steel in the WTC towers melted due to the fires. The melting point of steel is about 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,800 degrees Fahrenheit). Normal building fires and hydrocarbon (e.g., jet fuel) fires generate temperatures up to about 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,000 degrees Fahrenheit). NIST reported maximum upper layer air temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) in the WTC towers (for example, see NCSTAR 1, Figure 6-36).

However, when bare steel reaches temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius, it softens and its strength reduces to roughly 10 percent of its room temperature value. Steel that is unprotected (e.g., if the fireproofing is dislodged) can reach the air temperature within the time period that the fires burned within the towers. Thus, yielding and buckling of the steel members (floor trusses, beams, and both core and exterior columns) with missing fireproofing were expected under the fire intensity and duration determined by NIST for the WTC towers.

In other words, the fire was more than hot enough.

For example - re: "pancaking," mentioned a page or three ago by one person insisting the "official" story of the WTC collapse must be correct and saying that the building "pancaked," the NIST offers this answer on its FAQ page:

You're wrong, unfortunately, since you're misreading the report. The NIST report is talking about what made the building collapse, up to when it started. NIST at first believed pancaking had caused the collapse, but it turned out to be a result of it, with the bowing floor being the cause. Pancaking is how it proceeded after the collapse began.

In order to best understand those criticizing FEMA and NIST's official reports, it's best to start there first and then reference back to the critics.

Or just point out that they themselves obviously don't understand said reports. Let's go with the bit below that you didn't quote, shall we?

In other words, the momentum (which equals mass times velocity) of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it (the structure below) was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass.

This is pancake collapse, by the way.

From video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse.

Quite illuminating regarding the awesomely silly freefall argument, isn't it?

...the building section above came down essentially in free fall...

The section above. Remember, the NIST report stops talking about causes of collapse at the moment the collapse takes hold. The top section essentially coming down in freefall does not contradict debunking's statement that the entire building did not collapse at anything resembling freefall speed. If it did collapse at freefall speed, how in the world could debris from the towers be falling faster in every image of the collapse itself?

Debunking911 actually has a section on this precise claim near the bottom of their 'collapse' page, outlining the exact argument you just made.

http://www.debunking911.com/collapse.htm

Conspiracy theorists are taking the above out of context in an effort to mislead readers into thinking the NIST and I are in disagreement. We are not. As I mentioned above, the pancaking happened AFTER the building was on it's way down and therefore NOT part of the NIST investigation. The NIST only studied the collapse until "Global collapse was inevitable". Any conspiracy theorist that tells you the NIST said the building NEVER pancaked is lying. The building didn't pancake CAUSING the collapse but evidence is strong the building pancaked AFTER the collapse was "inevitable". Let me make this really easy for them...

1) The NIST said, the heat from the fires sagged the trusses which bowed the columns inward CAUSING the collapse. Pancaking did NOT cause the collapse. The evidence I see agrees with this conclusion.

2) The evidence on the ground strongly indicates, after the collapse began, the building pancaked spreading the debris as we see below. The NIST never studied this so how could we be in disagreement?

After much consideration of the evidence presented here I have come to the conclusion that 9/11 was in fact a conspiracy. In my theory about 20 guys from a secret world-wide terrorist organization called al-Qaeda met with their leader in a cave in some mountains in Afganistan and decided to hijack 4 planes in the US and fly them into 4 different buildings. 1 plane struck the Pentagon and caused severe damage. 2 others struck the WTC towers in NYC and, through the heat of fires started by jet fuel, weakened the steel members supporting the building until they collapsed. The last was intended to fly into the White House but the passengers decided to fight back and eventually won but could not safely land the plane.

It was a conspiracy I tell you!

I can't say much to the other issues you brought up.. but PNAC is a reality. Well documented even. Perhaps that was a bad choice to include it in your tin foil hat mission.

I have. You keep trying to claim (for no particularly well backed up reason) that more people have to been involved. I've been puncturing those claims neatly each time you make them.

You've been making unsupported assertions that less people are necessary without any form of proof, actually. If you think X number of people are needed, how are they assigned?

Were someone making a similar argument in II, the logistics guys would eviscerate them, and rightly so.

I mean, come on. You're assuming that kind of thing for a lone gunman in the first place, don't pretend you're a stranger to that.

A lone nut acting on his own requires no external people to plan for. He doesn't have to convince higher-ups to give him permission and materials, or go through possible failure scenarios with them. He doesn't have to sell them on the idea. He doesn't have to care what happens to him afterwards, or if he does, doesn't need to generate a plan that convinces anyone but him.

Oswald claimed that he was a patsy, and some nut shot him almost immediately after he killed JFK - whether that happened by orders or not, it certainly prevented Oswald from outing any co-conspirators.

No, Ruby once said Oswald was a patsy. Ruby shot Oswald because he believed he'd be an American hero and not spend a day in jail.

Or are you going to deny that there could be any competent agents (civil servant isn't necessarily the right word here)?

You need everyone who comes into contact with the information to be entirely competant. That's so mind-bendingly unlikely it can basically be discounted.

You're still assuming a white op when it absolutely has to be a black op. Look, GMC... if I can put the pieces together, so can some murky Mr. X in the CIA, KGB, mob, etc.

Assuming he can get the pieces. The system of document classification exists to prevent sensitive materials getting into the wrong hands. If your logic here works and an assassination on this scale creates no sensitive information, why would there be such a thing as classified documents at all? They'd be totally unnecessary.

These are groups accustomed to putting together operations that manage to remain secret, or at least mostly murky, decades later. Can the BS and sell it to someone else. I'm not buying it.

They are also groups accustomed to planning. Planning requires you to sell the people in charge on your idea, which in turn involves presenting them with exhaustive data on said idea. This means people have to gather that data, analyse it and compile it, and get it all typed up into nice evil manilla folders for you so you can present it.

The CIA is still a government department no matter what else it is. It still has to assign money and manpower to any operation it mounts, and the people assigning that money still have to be convinced it will have the desired effect and won't be a total waste of time and funding with potentially disasterous fallout before ordering the go-ahead.

The government has misplaced hundreds of millions of dollars before - just ask the GAO - let alone paperclips. You're arguing from completely ludicrous grounds...

It's also misplaced an entire 95-ton tank for decades and then simply found it sitting on a firing range. But you're arguing for something that was deliberately planned. Bureaucrats looking out for their own necks would have to be convinced, plans made, resources and agents assigned, and so on. Nothing this massive would be allowed the go-ahead until the higher-ups were totally sold on the idea that it would work.

The analogy does not hold.

Does, actually. You could try explaining why it doesn't, though.

Excepting the evidence which does. And now we're back into circularity.

There is no evidence which does.

I'm not going to claim that I'm an expert. However, I know very well that the experts remain split on the topic

Not really. As with the WTC, they remain split on specifics. There's little doubt that Oswald could have pulled it off on his own.

An appeal designed to do one thing:

Tell you to wake up, smell the coffee, and get used to it.

No, tell me people aren't getting any smarter. Again, creationists and ID advocates love to point to similar statistics as proof of support, but the fact that a lot of people believe X does not make X true or even make X reasonable.

Still making strawmen.

I love how you never bother to demonstrate or explain why it's a strawman, so I'm left with accepting it just because you say so.

Actually, I can think of one method off hand which could have immediately tested the controlled demolition hypothesis - more detailed examination of the wreckage.

More detailed than what? There was no bomb debris or explosive residue found. The hypothesis was tested, and it failed instantly. NIST investigated controlled demolition scenarios and found they didn't fit the facts at all, it says so in that very same FAQ you cited.

For that matter, a full collection and analysis of all available existing data on the wreckage and collapse should probably manage to, as well as further experimentation and simulation.

And strangely enough, it does, as there's no bomb debris, no explosive residue, and the damage to the columns is totally inconsistant with explosive charges. How about that?

You keep claiming that "none of the demolition experts in the world" say anything but exactly the same thing

No, that's your pet strawman. I keep saying no demolition expert in the world has come out in support of the CD hypothesis, or any of the other conspiracy theories. Popular Mechanics can easily pull dozens of experts to make an article debunking the myths, so why can't the CD hypothesis get even one?

and "none of the structural engineers in the world" support anything but exactly the same thing. They don't all say the same thing.

So what? None of them support any hypothesis but the one where the building collapsed as a result of impacts and fire, which cause a collapse near the impact point in each building, leading to total collapse. Dissent is irrelevent when none of the dissent supports the theory. Nobody checked the wreckage for Trogdor the Burninator's footprints, either, does that mean more study is needed before we can rule out Trogdor as a cause?

"Bombs," we're now talking, instead of small cutting charges or whatnot.

Well gosh, maybe your theory is so vaguely defined I can't tell what it's supposed to involve. How small, how many, where are they located, and what would debris from them be expected to look like? You can't say the cleanup results look wrong unless you can explain what you'd expect to see from a controlled demolition.

A few pounds of potentially suspicious rubble among thousands of tons of wreckage? You can assume fairly safely that they wouldn't be picked up or identified among all the other crap.

Yes, passports, airline seats and human remains have been found, but it's totally unreasonable to think parts of a bomb could survive. Nobody would ever plan for that, despite that it would instant blow the whole thing wide open.

You're trying to have the best of both worlds here: an unbelievably clever conspiracy that doesn't bother to plan for even the most obvious contingencies imaginable. There's no way you'd put this setup together and then risk the cleanup crew finding out; you'd have to get them on your side. And this would include the firemen in said cleanup team, who'd just had three hundred of their friends slain.

This has never been demonstrated. There has not been enough study of the matter to show either of those to be the case.

Sure there has, you're just ignoring it. But you can easily demonstrate it to yourself. Watch a controlled demolition, watch the WTC collapse. They don't look even remotely similar.

BS. GMC, if the airlines know nothing, how would they act? As if the buildings were brought down by planes. Would they support further investigation? Well, just as much as they did in the case that they did.

The airlines lost incredible amounts of money, in a capitalist and infamously litigious society. If there was even a slight chance they could get a payout that would make the cigarette company lawsuits look like pocket change, you think they wouldn't take it?

Stop being ridiculous. The only thing you're demonstrating is that you seem to have no idea how to carry out a successful hoax, conspiracy, or anything else requiring secrecy or deception.

Can I get a rebuttal with that ad hominem? You're simply demonstrating you have no idea how things work inside a large, bureaucratic entity like the CIA. People need to be convinced that Clever Conspiracy Plan X will work before they allow it. If you need proof, move back to WW2, and look at the monumental amounts of effort that were put into the D-Day landing cover story and Montgomery's fake troop movements in North Africa. These were both secrets of the higest magnitude, and yet thousands of people still had to know about them, and often know every detail of them.

Your idea that you could easily sell people on an idea to blow up the WTC or kill JFK is a simple failure of imagination: you'd need to present the guys in charge with a ton of raw data to convince them it would work like you say, and then they'd have to convince their higher-ups, and so on.

You're now assuming that airlines and insurance companies are run by expert scientists able to judge the physics of the matter.

No, I'm assuming they're run by petty people who like money and want to get it back if they lose some. You know, like they actually are.

I'll put it this way: They're in no better a position to judge it than you are. Worse, probably. Not only that, but think of the can of worms you open. You don't want to go there. I don't.

If it's my money on the line, damn right I want to go there. I want to go there and set up a tent there and stay there stomping around and shouting until someone tells me if I can get it back.

For that matter, for all I know, it could have been "terrists" planting bombs in the WTC buildings to make sure they go down. Doesn't matter to the controlled demolition hypothesis one bit.

Yes, because nobody in the WTC would have seen something like a bunch of Arabs planting bombs, something they had already tried once in a manner that demonstrated they didn't know much about demolitions at all, and gone on to mention it to someone else or report it.

And in any case, that would open up the security service responsible for the towers to massive legal action for their failure to spot this gigantic operation while it was being carried out.

So I'll ask you the economic question: Is it to your benefit, Mr. Airline Executive, to pursue any line of investigation into the matter? Or is it better for you to keep quiet, hope the official story is true, and not jeopardize matters?

It's in my interest, if a legitimate theory comes along whereby I'm getting screwed over by the government to pursue matters until there's conclusive evidence against it. Fortunately, the CD hypothesis is ludicrous and there's been conclusive evidence against it all along.

It's not. All the people you're talking about are emotionally, financially, and politically invested the official story being true.

Why? If I can get tens of billions in compensation and be held up as the hero who showed the conspiracy to the world, why's it not in my interests to pursue an inquiry, unless I know the theory I'm supporting is ridiculous and unsupported by any of the evidence?

And here's how it plays out. The WTC goes down. Everybody sees the planes hit, the buildings burn, and then they collapse. "Obviously" they collapse because of the planes hitting them, and almost everybody supports the administration's response.

No, obviously they collapse because of the massive fire weakening them to the point their upper sections collapse, the lower sections, being totally unable to support a two hundred fifty thousand ton section of the building falling on top of them, then pancaking floor-by-floor as their supports failed. This is borne out by the wreckage, in fact. One piece of rubble Jones specifically cites is actually several pancaked floors.

You're invested in that response emotionally - which is why you have such a powerful knee-jerk reaction to someone like me pointing out that there hasn't been enough study made.

No, I'm invested in that response logically, because the other options don't make any sense and aren't supported by the facts. You could just as easily argue that I'm invested in the Holocaust being true or Evolution existing emotionally, which is why I have such a powerful knee-jerk response to denial of those. Or it could just be because I know the facts support them, of course.

In any case, how strong my response is has nothing to do with the truth of my claims.

Actually, almost everybody who has published on the WTC collapse itself and its models has noted that further study is required to explain exactly what happened, particularly in the case of the WTC 7 building.

The NIST has published a preliminary report (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/WTC%20Part%20IIC%20-%20WTC%207%20Collapse%20Final.pdf) [beware of PDF] on building Seven. It's really no surprise a building with huge unfought fires, serious structural damage and tanks containing 43,000 gallons of diesel that sits atop a four-inch gas main and an electrical substation collapsed. The fire crews even realised it was coming down on the day itself and pulled out before it did.

These were the same fire crews who did not realise the twin towers would collapse. So, are we to argue that they knew about the controlled demolition of 7 but not the main towers?

And if you want to get picky, at least one of the "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" is a qualified structural engineer

Which one? Judy Wood, a mechanical engineer who specialises in dentistry? Joseph Phelps, who is 82 years old and runs a 9 hole golf course in Florida? Why is the entire body of 'expert' opinion on the CD hypothesis confined to a bunch of laypeople and an old man, when Popular Mechanics can pull dozens of industry experts to write a single article?

and in the critical articles you can find (e.g., Dr. Jones'), there are plenty of citations of the scant existing studies on the matter used to support their conclusions. So knock of with the ridiculous universals, k?

Jones either distorts existing reports or uses data from reports by people with even more dubious qualifications than his own. Creationists like to use the same selective quoting of reports by actual scientists, it proves nothing.

The CD paper was, according to press flap about it, "going to be published in Nature soon," IIRC. After the political and press flap, that clearly wasn't going to happen.

Nature also published a famously ridiculous feature about the accuracy of Wikipedia (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/25/britannica_wikipedia_nature/). If even they won't touch it, it must be pretty bad.

Those whom you cite (e.g., debunking911.com) are just as much "speaking outside of their field of expertise." As I pointed out.

They, however, can cite people speaking in their field of expertise. Jones can't, without distorting what they're actually saying. Certainly, nobody in a related field has written anything that supports him without selective quoting.

Tesla was a genius... and therefore it behooves us to study his notes carefully. He does still hold a few world records for things like largest man-made spark, only man-made earthquake (albeit a small one), etc. Of course, it's commonly accepted he was also a bit nutty

Well, if 'a bit' includes occasional megalomania and god complexes. Otherwise, he was a lot nutty.

But his brilliance has motivated projects to study even his seemingly nutty moments, just in case he really did pull it off.

You'll find nobody seriously studied his silly global broadcast power ideas, mind, let alone tried to do anything with them.

Jones knows a heck of a lot about [i]physics - and what he's doing in critiquing the official explanation comes primarily out of his training in physics, for the most part.

But he knows little about applied physics in extremely complex situations. And nothing about explosives, thermite, or the specific physics of building collapse. Again, NIST compiles a report that takes 4 years and involves 210 experts and you think a single layman speaking miles outside his field of expertise knows better?

Where's any building demolished on this scale period? Where's any evidence of a paper-and-hydrocarbon fueled fire reaching the melting temperature of steel?

Ah, with the classic CD strawman, there. Nobody outside controlled demolition advocates has ever claimed the structural supports melted, only that the fire was enough to weaken them, and NIST stated pockets of the fires in the WTC could have reached one thousand degrees C. Or are we talking about the molten material found later which someone thought was steel, even though they only looked at it?

I can pull all the numbers out of my ass that I want to - and so can you.

No, you can't. Otherwise, let's see these numbers where a large building was demolished without the use of miles of detonation cord and tons of explosives. Lengths of detonating cord to two significant figures will do.

The simple matter, though, is that you're assuming a crapload of things that aren't necessary.

No, you're assuming a crapload of things that are necessary aren't.

There's a big difference between bringing a building down as an act of terrorism (imagined or real), and bringing a building down in a safe and economical fashion under controlled circumstances.

But the claim is it was a controlled demolition, not an uncontrolled one. And further, you would have to be very careful with such a demolition. You've have to ensure the flashes from explosives weren't obvious on any of the dozens of videos and photos, you'd have to ensure bomb parts were never found, you'd have to be sure the impact and fire neither caused the building to collapse nor caused enough damage to severely affect the demolition setup, your have to somehow ensure no firefighters found the charges and got out to tell people, and so on.

As far as the surprise... this sort of thing is something we simply don't have enough data on.

There's plenty. It's just the kind of inconsiderate data that doesn't support silly ideas about the US government blowing up the WTC for some goddamn reason.

Some people are surprised they stood for that long; others are surprised they collapsed at all.

It's not September 2001 anymore, mind. Now that engineers have gone over the data, it's said that it was a sign of impressive strength on the part of the towers that they withstood the collision, that the towers might have survived if the crashes hadn't blasted spray-on fireproofing off the support columns, and it was a combination of the massive impact damage and the fires it started that caused the towers to fall.

Why fall time matters isn't in questioning how you set timers to demolish the building. Fall time matters in testing the model of collapse.

And the fall time is consistant with collapse, not with controlled demolition. The entire building comes down far too slowly for that.

Oooorrrr you could just work from the blueprints and hope that any errors are small enough not to screw things up too badly.

Have you ever been to a site that compares the accuracy of model kits to blueprints? If you have, you'd note that blueprints themselves often differ, even for something as precisely machined as a main battle tank. How could you get much more than a rough and incomplete set of data from the blueprints of something as vast as an entire building? Why would demolitions companies spend months surveying buildings if, as you claim, they can just look at an existing piece of paper to get all the information they need?

Well, the manner of its collapse didn't just surprise me - it surprised the people conducting the official study of the collapse. One of the many things they indicated needed further study.

They then conducted that further study, and produced a model that was consistant with the collapse.

Study that is not forthcoming. You can complain all you want about the dearth of articles published supporting (for example) controlled demolition - however, there are vanishingly few peer reviewed articles published on the collapse period.

How many peer-reviewed articles are there on the USS Cole bombing, the Madrid Train Bombings, the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, or the collapse of the McCormick Centre in Chicago, the Sight and Sound Theater in Pennsylvania, or the Kader Toy Factory?

Why would you expect, therefore, a large number of peer-reviewed papers on this single particular collapse of steel-framed buildings? If the CD hypothesis has any meat on its creaky skeleton, it can publish, but the one major peer-reviewed paper is still infinity times more than the zero published on the CD hypothesis. The fact that there's even one when there's already a 43-volume, 4-year official study that completely refutes the possibility of a controlled demolition indicates people going out of their way to support the main hypothesis and deal with the ridiculous demands of conspiracy theorists.

Real investigations take tons of time and money. Show me something on the scale of the NIST investigation on the CD side. Hell, show me anything resembling it.

One of the consequences of this lack of study is a plethora of well-grounded alternate theories that could be tested - but aren't and won't for purely political reasons.

And because they aren't well-grounded. I see we're now on to the 'evil conspiracy of everyone' part. What 'political reasons?' What engineer wouldn't want to get a Nobel prize and become a national hero for exposing those responsible for the greatest murder plot in US history?

And I don't have to look any further than you to see the mind-set shouting for study to be and stay closed. There are few people who want there to be complications in the WTC collapse.

No, my mindset is that wasting public funding to disprove a ridiculous hypothesis that can be disproved with the existing data is pointless. Give said millions to a better cause than generating data so that dyed-in-the-wool CTs can just ignore it and demand even more data.

If you don't want to see the further study and rigorous science that would close off these possibilities, then you don't want to really know what is and is not true; you just want to believe in the truth, trusting in faith to guide you.

Nonsense. Science doesn't work by establishing things as impossible. You're sounding just like those who claim science needs to disprove the existence of God, or else we must assume he does exist.

The CD theory can't even withstand basic logic, so why bother giving it so much attention it's done nothing to warrant? My CD theory implicating Samus Aran is about as worthy of anyone's time. NIST found no evidence to suggest controlled demolition at any stage in an exhaustive 4-year inquiry, and found the collapse entirely consistant with fire caused by jet fuel. Again, this is stated in the same FAQ you used earlier. Or are the 210 people involved in the NIST report, plus the thousand or so they interviewed, also part of the conspiracy?

The simple fact, though, is that the number of people required for the "moon landing carried out in a studio" theory isn't that high intrinsically

Yes, it is. NASA is a massive government branch where thousands of people would be in a position to know about a faked moon landing; in particular, the labs that analysed the rock recovered from the moon, those responsible for instruments used to measure the capsule's location, those relaying radio signals from it, and the crews of each and every later Apollo mission who would have seen there was nothing on the moon where the landing was supposed to have occurred.

The fact that NASA would have to be guilty of deliberately murdering 3 astronauts is just the icing on a particularly large and stupid cake.

The idea that we couldn't go to the moon in the first place is what motivates the conspiracy theory.

Nope, now you're oversimplfying. There's other theories that 11 was the only fake moon mission just to get the title and the rest were real. These aren't refuted by the claim that it's possible, since they acknowledge that, but they're still built on the same flimsy and stupid criticisms of the film of the moon landing.

I can't say much to the other issues you brought up.. but PNAC is a reality. Well documented even. Perhaps that was a bad choice to include it in your tin foil hat mission.

Well, yes, it's a publically accessible document, in fact. It's more the conspiracy theories relating to it that are being talked about there, I imagine, such as the idea the quoting a few paragraphs from the massive PNAC document proves the US was involved in 9/11.

The typical section is:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.

The problem is that this sentence doesn't really give you the gist of what the report is saying: it's saying that the transformation of the American military would be slow barring an event which were to show they were doing everything wrong.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour showed America the immense power of the aircraft carrier in naval warfare, and catalysed a complete change in their shipbuilding and ship design philosophies, taking into account that the new enemy was the aircraft, not other ships. 9/11 did not such thing: it doesn't fit the PNAC's definition of a 'new Pearl Harbor' at all.

You didn't read much of that FAQ, did you?
I read plenty of it. Temperature and temperature distributions are the critical variables of all the models.
In other words, the fire was more than hot enough.
Normal building fires do not, in fact, generate overall temperatures of 1100+C frequently. Office supplies, cubical panels, etc with a restricted oxygen supply rarely reach such temperatures, which is why burning steel-frame buildings generally do not collapse. I direct you again to
You're wrong, unfortunately, since you're misreading the report. The NIST report is talking about what made the building collapse, up to when it started. NIST at first believed pancaking had caused the collapse, but it turned out to be a result of it, with the bowing floor being the cause. Pancaking is how it proceeded after the collapse began.
Not at all. The report says that pancaking is not the cause of the collapse – unlike what some people “defending the official account” have said in their failure to be up to date on the matter.
Or just point out that they themselves obviously don't understand said reports. Let's go with the bit below that you didn't quote, shall we?
No, claim without cause that the critics did not understand said reports.
As I've demonstrated, debunking911.com and similar sites display an appalling lack of agreement with the NIST report. The NIST as well as its critics agree that the towers were essentially in free fall; debunking911.com and similar sites of even less merit claim that the towers deviated signficantly from free-fall behavior.
The section above. Remember, the NIST report stops talking about causes of collapse at the moment the collapse takes hold. The top section essentially coming down in freefall does not contradict debunking's statement that the entire building did not collapse at anything resembling freefall speed. If it did collapse at freefall speed, how in the world could debris from the towers be falling faster in every image of the collapse itself?
Actually, it (and the NIST's discussion of the time to fall) do contradict debunking911.com's claim about the timing.
You're arguing with plays taken from a source with substantial disagreements with the NIST reports' findings, frequent misunderstandings of the contents of those reports, etc.
Debunking911 actually has a section on this precise claim near the bottom of their 'collapse' page, outlining the exact argument you just made.

http://www.debunking911.com/collapse.htm
Deceptively, you try to quote a section referring to pancaking in response to my quoting a contradiction about the timing of the building collapse. Try again, GMC. This time find a canned rhetorical argument that's relevant.

Now, debunking911.com, on that page, makes the claim that they are not in disagreement with the NIST report. This, when – as a matter of hard, cold, fact – they do disagree in detail with the official account, and frequently have internal consistency issues with one another.
The official account states that the top of the tower impacted at times that cannot be differentiated from free-fall times; debunking911.com claims, as I pointed out, that there is a significant and real difference between free fall and the leading edge of the collapse within the building.
Direct observation tells us that the Twin Towers both collapsed in a time a few
seconds greater than the 9.1 second free fall time of an object dropped from a height of
416 meters onto a base about 10 meters high.
This is not what the NIST says in response to the same question, (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm) to say the least.
Another example:
The seismic spikes for the collapse of the WTC Towers are the result of debris from the collapsing towers impacting the ground. The spikes began approximately 10 seconds after the times for the start of each building’s collapse and continued for approximately 15 seconds. There were no seismic signals that occurred prior to the initiation of the collapse of either tower. The seismic record contains no evidence that would indicate explosions occurring prior to the collapse of the towers.
The NIST states that the seismic signals observed are the result of the visible debris impacting the ground. F. R. Greening of debunking911.com, however, says something different:
The CNN TV images show that WTC 1 starts to collapse at 10:28:23. The
ground impact of the upper section follows about 10 seconds later at 10:28:33. This is
consistent with the Palisades data if we allow 17 seconds for travel time of the seismic
waves. Thus, if we treat the Palisades data as if it were recorded at the WTC site, the
published seismic trace would now effectively begin at 10:28:13 and the ground impact
responsible for the large oscillations of the trace would occur at 10:28:32.
F. R. Greening places, in other words, the seisimic trace 10 seconds before the start of the collapse – a claim which, in spite of his rhetoric to the contrary and his claim that this timing is “consistent” with the collapse, would stand in direct contradiction to the NIST's claims.
As if that were not enough to demonstrate Greening's substantial differences with the NIST report, I quote him further:
However, it is suggested that the total collapse of both towers would have occurred even
without the jet fuel fires.
This, in complete contravention of what the NIST claims, that the collapse was only possible through the combined effects of impact damage and substantial heating in multi-floor fires, with the latter effect being substantially more important.

Debunking911.com is not engaged in an elucidation of the NIST report or detailed support of it; it is instead engaged in a scattershot assault on the critics of the NIST report. It is, on the whole, no more “expert” and no more “honest” than the conspiracy sites it decries – and its resident “expert” is no more qualified than Dr. Jones. F R Greening, who did almost all the technical writing of any note, is specialized in spectroscopy.

It's very simple – and if there was a controlled demolition conducted, we would consider F R Greening's work to be a collusion in the cover-up. Mind you, not an actual conspirator. This leads to my next point.
You've been making unsupported assertions that less people are necessary without any form of proof, actually. If you think X number of people are needed, how are they assigned?

Were someone making a similar argument in II, the logistics guys would eviscerate them, and rightly so.
I've already described that – in detail. My assertions are far from unsupported, unlike your ridiculous attempts at unnecessary complication. I will point out to you first and foremost that collusion does not entail conspiracy. Collusion can, in fact, be unwitting, and relying upon unwitting collusion by parties simply following their own natural behaviors or self-interest is far more effective than attempting to co-opt them (as you keep claiming re: insurance companies etc.)

If we were to believe your ridiculous claims, we'd have to believe that no secret can ever be kept, even for the brief five years that have elapsed since the WTC plane-bombing.

So, with that in mind, I'll point out secrets and mysteries that were kept or left unresolved for more than five years: Who was Deep Throat? What happened to the Lindbergh Baby? Amelia Earhart? How did primitive Chinese alchemists “dissolve” gold into a solution for failed “immortality” elixirs? Who was Jack the Ripper? What happened to Jimmy Hoffa?
A lone nut acting on his own requires no external people to plan for. He doesn't have to convince higher-ups to give him permission and materials, or go through possible failure scenarios with them. He doesn't have to sell them on the idea. He doesn't have to care what happens to him afterwards, or if he does, doesn't need to generate a plan that convinces anyone but him.
And? Take the same lone nut, and put him in J. Edgar Hoover's office instead of a shack. Suddenly that nut has many more resources to draw upon, even if he chooses not to do anything involving permission or paperwork.

There's nothing intrinsically unique about the determination of a lone nut.
You need everyone who comes into contact with the information to be entirely competant. That's so mind-bendingly unlikely it can basically be discounted.
Not at all. The CIA's business is keeping secrets. So, for that matter, is the KGB's business. And, for that matter, the Mob has to be expert in keeping secrets. That's why those are favorite suspects, but each one of those regularly demonstrates the ability of humans to keep a secret.
Assuming he can get the pieces. The system of document classification exists to prevent sensitive materials getting into the wrong hands. If your logic here works and an assassination on this scale creates no sensitive information, why would there be such a thing as classified documents at all? They'd be totally unnecessary.
Actually – for one thing – documentation is legally required, and the records being retained may be useful in the future.
They are also groups accustomed to planning. Planning requires you to sell the people in charge on your idea, which in turn involves presenting them with exhaustive data on said idea. This means people have to gather that data, analyse it and compile it, and get it all typed up into nice evil manilla folders for you so you can present it.
All comforts which you must unfortunately dispense with for an op on a friendly. Of course, someone like the KGB may keep such records, but if you want it to be rogue CIA agents or a rogue CIA, you have to assume that they go completely off the books to protect themselves.
The CIA is still a government department no matter what else it is. It still has to assign money and manpower to any operation it mounts, and the people assigning that money still have to be convinced it will have the desired effect and won't be a total waste of time and funding with potentially disasterous fallout before ordering the go-ahead.

It's also misplaced an entire 95-ton tank for decades and then simply found it sitting on a firing range. But you're arguing for something that was deliberately planned. Bureaucrats looking out for their own necks would have to be convinced, plans made, resources and agents assigned, and so on. Nothing this massive would be allowed the go-ahead until the higher-ups were totally sold on the idea that it would work.
You keep describing these things as “massive.” They aren't, not for the more plausible theories. As I've pointed out, a limited supply of manpower and material is involved in those.

Most people do a better job hiding things intentionally than accidentally. After all, you can always “accidentally” misplace things by intention.
There is no evidence which does.
Take it to the experts.
Not really. As with the WTC, they remain split on specifics. There's little doubt that Oswald could have pulled it off on his own.
“Little” meaning “some,” and “could” not meaning the same thing as “did.” Frankly, the experts seem more split on the JFK assassination question than the WTC collapse, whether for political reasons or the rather unpalatable requirement of someone placing charges in order to aid in the collapse of the WTC.
No, tell me people aren't getting any smarter. Again, creationists and ID advocates love to point to similar statistics as proof of support, but the fact that a lot of people believe X does not make X true or even make X reasonable.
No, but it does make X something that you should get used to.
I love how you never bother to demonstrate or explain why it's a strawman, so I'm left with accepting it just because you say so.
I love how you never demonstrate how what you say has anything to do with what I say, so I'm left with pointing out that you're making strawmen, e.g., by attacking the claim that there were no hijacked planes.
More detailed than what? There was no bomb debris or explosive residue found. The hypothesis was tested, and it failed instantly. NIST investigated controlled demolition scenarios and found they didn't fit the facts at all, it says so in that very same FAQ you cited.
I will now point out that you're baldly lying to cover ignorance. The NIST did not and does not intend to investigate controlled demolition scenarios, preferring (with understandable motivations) to focus its investigations on creating or manipulating the existing model.

I point you again to the NIST, a reliable source for what the NIST report says:
NIST’s findings also do not support the “controlled demolition” theory since there is conclusive evidence that:
the collapse was initiated in the impact and fire floors of the WTC towers and nowhere else, and;
the time it took for the collapse to initiate (56 minutes for WTC 2 and 102 minutes for WTC 1) was dictated by (1) the extent of damage caused by the aircraft impact, and (2) the time it took for the fires to reach critical locations and weaken the structure to the point that the towers could not resist the tremendous energy released by the downward movement of the massive top section of the building at and above the fire and impact floors.
The NIST is also not ashamed to announce a whole passel of things that it has not investigated. As far as the NIST is concerned, that a model of the WTC 1 and 2 collapse may be developed solely from the impact and subsequent fires (albeit at great length and with numerous complications and assumptions that certain critics deem unwarranted) is sufficient. I.e., that the model can be developed demonstrates a sufficiently high probability that the causes used by the model were correct.
The NIST has published a preliminary report on building Seven. It's really no surprise a building with huge unfought fires, serious structural damage [including a hole fire crews described as being 20 storeys tall] and tanks containing 43,000 gallons of diesel that sits atop a four-inch gas main and an electrical substation collapsed. The fire crews even realised it was coming down on the day itself and pulled out before it did.

These were the same fire crews who did not realise the twin towers would collapse. So, are we to argue that they knew about the controlled demolition of 7 but not the main towers?
The NIST also warily notes that it needs further study before releasing its final report – and the omission of more than cursory discussion of the WTC 7 building in earlier reports is a sharp demonstration of the lack of scientific inquiry.

It is, of course, an unhappy state of affairs when it takes conspiracy theories in order to progress the model.
They, however, can cite people speaking in their field of expertise. Jones can't, without distorting what they're actually saying. Certainly, nobody in a related field has written anything that supports him without selective quoting.
Jones does not distort his citations any more than Greening does. Granted, that says little; however, I have yet to find a single case of Jones misrepresenting what he describes as unhappy omissions in the official account at the time of the writing of his paper, e.g., the NIST does not explain molten steel found in the wreckage, FEMA does little to explain WTC 7 collapse, etc.
Well, if 'a bit' includes occasional megalomania and god complexes. Otherwise, he was a lot nutty.
It is well documented that his eccentricities, present in astounding measure at the height of his career, did not prevent him from doing his greatest work. Even when Tesla was a financial success (a very brief phenomenon), his quirks were well worth noting – and even when Tesla was still doing good work, results that have been, shall we say, “irreproducable” were occurring at the same time. It is therefore remarkably
You'll find nobody seriously studied his silly global broadcast power ideas, mind, let alone tried to do anything with them.
Actually, a couple studies on the fundamental bits he intended to build into a global broadcast system were conducted. Just in case.
But he knows little about applied physics in extremely complex situations. And nothing about explosives, thermite, or the specific physics of building collapse.
Neither, I will point out, does F. R. Greening of debunking911.com.
Again, NIST compiles a report that takes 4 years and involves 210 experts and you think a single layman speaking miles outside his field of expertise knows better?
He's not talking miles outside his field of expertise except in the section when he starts to chatter about thermate. The basic foundation and stated conclusions – that some philosophically and materially questionable techniques were involved in the construction of the official model of the collapse – are solidly within his purview.
Ah, with the classic CD strawman, there. Nobody outside controlled demolition advocates has ever claimed the structural supports melted, only that the fire was enough to weaken them, and NIST stated pockets of the fires in the WTC could have reached one thousand degrees C. Or are we talking about the molten material found later which someone thought was steel, even though they only looked at it?
Ahh, yes, we would be talking about the reported molten steel found afterwards. You may now proceed with your canned argument.
No, you can't.
Yes I can. And as I said, I know better than to play that game – because it's all bullshit.
No, you're assuming a crapload of things that are necessary aren't.
Not in the least.
But the claim is it was a controlled demolition, not an uncontrolled one. And further, you would have to be very careful with such a demolition. You've have to ensure the flashes from explosives weren't obvious on any of the dozens of videos and photos, you'd have to ensure bomb parts were never found, you'd have to be sure the impact and fire neither caused the building to collapse nor caused enough damage to severely affect the demolition setup, your have to somehow ensure no firefighters found the charges and got out to tell people, and so on.
“Controlled” is a relative term. In this particular case it appears to mean “intentional.”

Again, what you discuss with regard to ensuring X and Y, I refer you again to unwitting collusion. The odds are remarkably low that any electronic debris or “bomb parts” would not be found and identified, especially since nobody was looking for them in particular.
There's plenty. It's just the kind of inconsiderate data that doesn't support silly ideas about the US government blowing up the WTC for some goddamn reason.
Plenty? “Plenty” to you, perhaps.
It's not September 2001 anymore, mind. Now that engineers have gone over the data, it's said that it was a sign of impressive strength on the part of the towers that they withstood the collision, that the [b]towers might have survived if the crashes hadn't blasted spray-on fireproofing off the support columns, and it was a combination of the massive impact damage and the fires it started that caused the towers to fall.
Something that debunking911.com expresses great skepticism about.
And the fall time is consistant with collapse, not with controlled demolition. The entire building comes down far too slowly for that.
And here you demonstrate complete ignorance. See earlier section on fall times. Fall times are perfectly consistent with a controlled demolition hypothesis.
Have you ever been to a site that compares the accuracy of model kits to blueprints? If you have, you'd note that blueprints themselves often differ, even for something as precisely machined as a main battle tank. How could you get much more than a rough and incomplete set of data from the blueprints of something as vast as an entire building? Why would demolitions companies spend months surveying buildings if, as you claim, they can just look at an existing piece of paper to get all the information they need?
“And hope it's good enough.”

I'll put it this way: The information available to the people putting together the models of the WTC collapse is little better than the information available to any putative demolition squad aiming to make sure they fall after the planes hit, and reconstructing the collapse is not only more difficult (i.e., involving a couple orders of magnitude more crunching), but also far more sensitive.
They then conducted that further study, and produced a model that was consistant with the collapse.
Still working out the kinks, to say the least.
How many peer-reviewed articles are there on the USS Cole bombing, the Madrid Train Bombings, the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, or the collapse of the McCormick Centre in Chicago, the Sight and Sound Theater in Pennsylvania, or the Kader Toy Factory?
I decided to check sequentially, and then stopped after the first one. You would be surprised to find that there are more, or at least as many (I cannot assume my available databases are complete, after all) peer-reviewed articles discussing the bombing of the USS Cole as the collapse of the WTC – a matter in which there is much less of scientific, practical, or political interest to motivate such study.
Real investigations take tons of time and money. Show me something on the scale of the NIST investigation on the CD side. Hell, show me anything resembling it.
There's not the budget. Who is going to fund any study stepping into politically inflammatory lines, such as the possibility that anything else might have been involved in the WTC collapse?

Especially after publishing a single article, which appeared intended more to raise questions than answering them, resulted in the prompt summary firing of a tenured faculty member.
And because they aren't well-grounded. I see we're now on to the 'evil conspiracy of everyone' part. What 'political reasons?' What engineer wouldn't want to get a Nobel prize and become a national hero for exposing those responsible for the greatest murder plot in US history?
Bullshit, GMC. No engineer expects to become a national hero for “exposing those responsible,” and no engineer can expect to build the sort of specific case that would be required.

Simple fact. Poking your nose in the fire is going to get people like GMC here yelling at you; scientific journals don't like to touch things that blow up in their faces politically, etc.

It's not an evil conspiracy of everyone; it's a simple fact about the political climate.
No, my mindset is that wasting public funding to disprove a ridiculous hypothesis that can be disproved with the existing data is pointless. Give said millions to a better cause than generating data so that dyed-in-the-wool CTs can just ignore it and demand even more data.
Which does not explain your harsh knee-jerk reaction to any criticism of the official story. Face it, GMC: You, like many others, are invested emotionally in the official account.
Nonsense. Science doesn't work by establishing things as impossible. You're sounding just like those who claim science needs to disprove the existence of God, or else we must assume he does exist.

The CD theory can't even withstand basic logic, so why bother giving it so much attention it's done nothing to warrant? My CD theory implicating Samus Aran is about as worthy of anyone's time. NIST found no evidence to suggest controlled demolition at any stage in an exhaustive 4-year inquiry, and found the collapse entirely consistant with fire caused by jet fuel. Again, this is stated in the same FAQ you used earlier. Or are the 210 people involved in the NIST report, plus the thousand or so they interviewed, also part of the conspiracy?
No need. The experts have been commissioned to produce a report on how the planes brought down the buildings. That was their focus from the start, and there has been plenty to keep them busy in fine-tuning the model until it reached a point at which the scenario of collision and fire caused a collapse.

You don't even understand half the criticisms or the NIST report itself, GMC. Give it a rest... and realize that vigorous disagreement leading to more rigorous discussion leading to more solid thery is the scientific way.
Yes, it is. NASA is a massive government branch where thousands of people would be in a position to know about a faked moon landing; in particular, the labs that analysed the rock recovered from the moon, those responsible for instruments used to measure the capsule's location, those relaying radio signals from it, and the crews of each and every later Apollo mission who would have seen there was nothing on the moon where the landing was supposed to have occurred.
Hm, forgot about rocks and 'scopes, that does amplify it a little. C&C can be spoofed if you suborn the right technicians and plant the right devices, of course (costing you a few more dozen "in on the secret"), but things like rocks are hard to fake.
The fact that NASA would have to be guilty of deliberately murdering 3 astronauts is just the icing on a particularly large and stupid cake.
Nothing has to be deliberate about that. An accident can still be an accident.
Nope, now you're oversimplfying. There's other theories that 11 was the only fake moon mission just to get the title and the rest were real. These aren't refuted by the claim that it's possible, since they acknowledge that, but they're still built on the same flimsy and stupid criticisms of the film of the moon landing.
And is there also a theory claiming that there were actual moon missions prior to, concurrent with, or leading up to that time, but that the film was faked anyway because of difficulties with signal reception?

I mean, that one would fit pretty nicely... not many would have to be in on that secret.

The conspiracy that the government was behind 9/11 is probably most annoying to me. Way to give the government, Bush (especially Bush), or whoever way too much credit, people!

There's not the budget. Who is going to fund any study stepping into politically inflammatory lines, such as the possibility that anything else might have been involved in the WTC collapse?

Especially after publishing a single article, which appeared intended more to raise questions than answering them, resulted in the prompt summary firing of a tenured faculty member.

Bullshit, GMC. No engineer expects to become a national hero for “exposing those responsible,” and no engineer can expect to build the sort of specific case that would be required.

Simple fact. Poking your nose in the fire is going to get people like GMC here yelling at you; scientific journals don't like to touch things that blow up in their faces politically, etc.

It's not an evil conspiracy of everyone; it's a simple fact about the political climate.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh the ultimate refuge of the conspiracy theorist, the government is suppressing the evidence to prove me right, despite what the real experts say about the events.

Anyways, time to move onto a far more sinister conspiracy that 50% of the world's population are in on.

They are all conspiring with each other not to have sex with me!!!! no other theory fits the evidence.:eek:

El-Presidente Boris

< was thrown out of the local singles bar last night when the manager found out I was'nt married:mad:

Cyp, that has no relevance what I'm saying, although what you describe is indeed a traditional refuge of conspiracy theorists. Read it again, or at least try not to quote me when you're saying something that has no relevance to what I'm saying.
The conspiracy that the government was behind 9/11 is probably most annoying to me. Way to give the government, Bush (especially Bush), or whoever way too much credit, people!
I prefer to think of Bush as simply having taken political advantage of the opportunity myself. Simple, elegant, and if there was anything otherwise, it would be a devil to prove in court.

And really, holding him accountable for what he has most definitely done is a much higher priority.

Normal building fires do not, in fact, generate overall temperatures of 1100+C frequently. Office supplies, cubical panels, etc with a restricted oxygen supply rarely reach such temperatures, which is why burning steel-frame buildings generally do not collapse.

They're also generally not hit by airliners which fill their interior with burning jet fuel, you might note. You have oxygen generators in that fire, which burn ridiculously hot. You have all those nasty fabrics used in office furniture which have the flammability of secondary explosives. You have aluminium from the plane itself burning very hot, as anyone familiar with the HMS Amazon or USS Belknap fires would realise. Calling it just a paper and fuel fire shows a serious failure to understand either what's in a plane or what's in an office.

How was this a normal building fire? How many normal building fires involve burning airliners?

Not at all. The report says that pancaking is not the cause of the collapse – unlike what some people “defending the official account” have said in their failure to be up to date on the matter.

How does that affect what actually happened? People make mistakes, you know, but those mistakes don't tend to alter reality.

No, claim without cause that the critics did not understand said reports.

Why? You obviously didn't, since you claimed the NIST report says the whole building collapsed in freefall when it only actually says the top collapsed at near freefall speed. How near is near?

As I've demonstrated, debunking911.com and similar sites display an appalling lack of agreement with the NIST report.

No, as you have failed to demonstrate. The debate tactic of constantly saying 'as I have demonstrated' when you haven't isn't in any way impressive.

The NIST as well as its critics agree that the towers were essentially in free fall

The NIST report says that at the moment of collapse the top parts of the tower were essentially in freefall. The collapse did not proceed at freefall speed, which is obvious because the debris from the towers falls faster than the rest of the towers does. If the towers are in freefall, is the other debris then travelling faster than freefall speed? If so, how on earth is it doing that?

Deceptively, you try to quote a section referring to pancaking in response to my quoting a contradiction about the timing of the building collapse. Try again, GMC. This time find a canned rhetorical argument that's relevant.

I guess your argument was so vague I couldn't tell which particular point you were arguing. But sadly, you're still wrong, since debris from a structure in freefall would not hit the ground before the structure itself. The towers could not possibly have collapsed at freefall speed, and the NIST report does not ever say they did.

Also, read the NIST FAQ carefully. You missed something rather important, which we'll get to in a minute.

Now, debunking911.com, on that page, makes the claim that they are not in disagreement with the NIST report. This, when – as a matter of hard, cold, fact – they do disagree in detail with the official account, and frequently have internal consistency issues with one another.

Nope. Cold, hard misinterpretation, maybe.

The official account states that the top of the tower impacted at times that cannot be differentiated from free-fall times; debunking911.com claims, as I pointed out, that there is a significant and real difference between free fall and the leading edge of the collapse within the building.

Wrong. It states that the entire building did not collapse in freefall, which it didn't.

This is not what the NIST says in response to the same question, (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm) to say the least.

Actually, you just have a little problem with reading that FAQ. What's that time actually referring to? The main body of the building, as you claim? Or, perhaps:

NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2.

Right. I guess these are the exterior panels we see falling in the video clips, yes? The ones that fell way ahead of the rest of the tower? The ones that sheared away from the surface and would give a time associated with an object falling in freefall because they did fall in freefall? Your argument is wrong, TJ. These aren't the times until the whole tower was down, they're the time from the beginning of the collapse to when the first parts of the external cladding hit the ground. You're, again, failing to read the FAQ properly and just cherry-picking it for stuff that looks like it agrees with you.

The NIST states that the seismic signals observed are the result of the visible debris impacting the ground.

No, they're the result of the debris and the towers themselves hitting the ground. You realise 'debris from the collapsing towers' includes the entire body of each tower, right? Greening is talking about the total collapse time for the main body of debris, whereas NIST defines the collapse as the time from initiation to when the first external part of the tower hit the ground. There's a contradiction in definition here, but not in what's being said.

F. R. Greening places, in other words, the seisimic trace 10 seconds before the start of the collapse – a claim which, in spite of his rhetoric to the contrary and his claim that this timing is “consistent” with the collapse, would stand in direct contradiction to the NIST's claims.

No, that just proves you don't know the difference between where the trace begins [Greening] and where the spikes begin on the trace [NIST]. How do you think the NIST knows there are no seismic signals prior to the initiation of each collapse? The trace begins before the collapse does, that's why.

As if that were not enough to demonstrate Greening's substantial differences with the NIST report, I quote him further:

'It is suggested.' Does he say it's suggested by the NIST report? No. Does he say the suggestion is consistent with the NIST report? No. You're really starting to reach for these 'contradictions,' TJ.

Debunking911.com is not engaged in an elucidation of the NIST report or detailed support of it; it is instead engaged in a scattershot assault on the critics of the NIST report.

Actually, if you carefully read the NIST report rather than skimming it for apparent contradictions, both are in total agreement.

It is, on the whole, no more “expert” and no more “honest” than the conspiracy sites it decries – and its resident “expert” is no more qualified than Dr. Jones. F R Greening, who did almost all the technical writing of any note, is specialized in spectroscopy.

Which, I would assume, is why he is merely collecting and explaining data and accounts by others, rather than proposing new hypothesis he recognises himself as unqualified to make. You don't have to be Einstein to say E=Mc^2.

It's very simple – and if there was a controlled demolition conducted, we would consider F R Greening's work to be a collusion in the cover-up.

Along with the NIST report that agrees with him, I imagine.

I've already described that – in detail. My assertions are far from unsupported, unlike your ridiculous attempts at unnecessary complication.

Which are, after all, only grounded in the reality of paperwork and analysis. Hundreds would need to be complicit to the murder of thousands of American civilians, with none of them talking. This from a government that couldn't even pull off a simple break-in at Watergate.

If we were to believe your ridiculous claims, we'd have to believe that no secret can ever be kept, even for the brief five years that have elapsed since the WTC plane-bombing.

No secret so massive involving a deliberate act of mass-murder could be kept for long, since people in the loop wouldn't all want it kept. Stalin couldn't keep his gulags a secret and Nazi Germany couldn't keep its death camps secret, plentiful data was collected on both and Allied bomber command has been rightly criticised for doing little to stop the Holocaust. If even totalitarian police states can't keep mass murder a secret, how is a relatively liberal democracy supposed to?

So, with that in mind, I'll point out secrets and mysteries that were kept or left unresolved for more than five years.

Point to one involving complicity in the murder of thousands of your own countrymen. Your examples are totally irrelevant.

And? Take the same lone nut, and put him in J. Edgar Hoover's office instead of a shack. Suddenly that nut has many more resources to draw upon, even if he chooses not to do anything involving permission or paperwork.

But his subordinates aren't nuts, and don't share his motivations. If their boss is clearly nuts, they'll soon realise it would be a lot easier to cover up the death of one boss than one president. One tragic auto accident later and normality is restored, JFK still un-deaded.

Ok, let's take a lone nut and put him in charge, and see what happens. How good were Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union at keeping secrets? Didn't they have people willing to risk their very lives to get those secrets out?

There's nothing intrinsically unique about the determination of a lone nut.

Sure there is. Nobody will share it, since lone nuts work badly together. The lone nut's lack of need for co-conspirators is his advantage, and allows him to do things that would be much more difficult for a large group.

Not at all. The CIA's business is keeping secrets. So, for that matter, is the KGB's business. And, for that matter, the Mob has to be expert in keeping secrets. That's why those are favorite suspects, but each one of those regularly demonstrates the ability of humans to keep a secret.

How do you demonstrate the ability to keep a secret? You can only know a secret was kept when it fails to be, after all. And the Mafia was always full of informants and snitches, last I checked, it's not a very good example.

All comforts which you must unfortunately dispense with for an op on a friendly. Of course, someone like the KGB may keep such records, but if you want it to be rogue CIA agents or a rogue CIA, you have to assume that they go completely off the books to protect themselves.

Why do I have to assume that? How do they get funding, materials and intel reports without appearing on the books? How do they file reports? Even during WW2, the British OSS kept extensive files on what its people and their contacts were up to. You think the CIA wouldn't do the same in peacetime?

Take it to the experts.

Why? Last I checked they tend to agree that it would be entirely possible for Oswald to have done it alone.

No, but it does make X something that you should get used to.

I'm fairly used to the idea that people aren't logical, thanks.

I love how you never demonstrate how what you say has anything to do with what I say, so I'm left with pointing out that you're making strawmen, e.g., by attacking the claim that there were no hijacked planes.

When did I ever do that, exactly?

I will now point out that you're baldly lying to cover ignorance. The NIST did not and does not intend to investigate controlled demolition scenarios, preferring (with understandable motivations) to focus its investigations on creating or manipulating the existing model.

I point you again to the NIST, a reliable source for what the NIST report says:

Now you're just deliberately avoiding reading the whole document at the same time, I see. Directly below the section you quoted:

Video evidence also showed unambiguously that the collapse progressed from the top to the bottom, and there was no evidence (collected by NIST, or by the New York Police Department, the Port Authority Police Department or the Fire Department of New York) of any blast or explosions in the region below the impact and fire floors as the top building sections (including and above the 98th floor in WTC 1 and the 82nd floor in WTC 2) began their downward movement upon collapse initiation.

In summary, NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to Sept. 11, 2001. NIST also did not find any evidence that missiles were fired at or hit the towers. Instead, photographs and videos from several angles clearly show that the collapse initiated at the fire and impact floors and that the collapse progressed from the initiating floors downward until the dust clouds obscured the view.

No evidence found, no behaviour consistent with. There's nothing that supports a controlled demolition at all.

The NIST is also not ashamed to announce a whole passel of things that it has not investigated.

Yes, like checking for Thermite residue, because it notes that all compounds present in thermite would be present in the metals in the tower and drywall that was used in it. Jones knows this, and he knows very well he could claim this as evidence of thermite if he ever does get his investigation, despite that it is not.

As far as the NIST is concerned, that a model of the WTC 1 and 2 collapse may be developed solely from the impact and subsequent fires

Because their findings failed to find any evidence of or consistent with controlled demolition. When there's no evidence of something at all and no events point to it, you tend to discount it.

The NIST also warily notes that it needs further study before releasing its final report

Which is has released since. I see you're only reading the preliminary reports, not the September 2005 final report.

and the omission of more than cursory discussion of the WTC 7 building in earlier reports is a sharp demonstration of the lack of scientific inquiry.

Or, more likely, that they decoupled the building 7 investigation from the 1 and 2 investigation to free up manpower for that, since it was seen as the more important report.

Jones does not distort his citations any more than Greening does.

Evidence, since we've just been through some alleged distortions by Greening and found they're just evidence you misread the NIST report?

e.g., the NIST does not explain molten steel found in the wreckage

There was no molten steel found in the wreckage, pockets of molten material that looked like steel were found. In any case, Jones' idea that it was thermite is totally absurd: thermite reactions are incredibly vigorous, and even myself, with only an A Level in chemistry, can tell you incredibly vigorous reactions use up their reactants rather quickly. It's difficult to make thermite burn for minutes, the idea it would burn for weeks is nonsense.

FEMA does little to explain WTC 7 collapse, etc.

WTC 7 collapsed because it had a massive hole in it and unfought fires that had been burning for hours. Everyone on the day realised it was going to fall, hence why the investigations are treating it as low priority.

Neither, I will point out, does F. R. Greening of debunking911.com.

Again with your strawman, I see. As I keep pointing out, he is easily able to cite papers and studies that agree wholeheartedly with his statements. Jones cannot.

The basic foundation and stated conclusions – that some philosophically and materially questionable techniques were involved in the construction of the official model of the collapse – are solidly within his purview.

No, they're not. What does a physicist know about building safety analysis?

Ahh, yes, we would be talking about the reported molten steel found afterwards. You may now proceed with your canned argument.

Which I addressed. Someone thought a pool of something looked like molten steel. Visual identification of liquids is not a precise business, as a rule; it could easily have been aluminium with impurities, which would certainly have been present and still liquid.

Anyway, how does a controlled demolition explain the presence of a pool of still-molten steel? You can't point it out as a flaw unless your own theory can explain it better, since otherwise it's just a flaw in both theories.

Yes I can. And as I said, I know better than to play that game – because it's all bullshit.

Ah, so you can't. Concession accepted, there's no precedent for a CD setup of this scale and type ever being constructed without the use of miles of detonating cord and tons of explosives. If you have the figures as you claim, what's the point of hiding them? Where are the figures of a building on this scale demolished without the use of detonating cord? Where are the figures on any building in the history of the world demolished using thermite?

The odds are remarkably low that any electronic debris or “bomb parts” would not be found and identified, especially since nobody was looking for them in particular.

I'm glad you agree, though I'm a little curious as to whether you intended to.

Something that debunking911.com expresses great skepticism about.

Yes, which is an opinion. They don't claim the NIST supports said opinion, but the whether the towers would have survived with the fireproofing intact is rather academic, because it was not intact.

And here you demonstrate complete ignorance. See earlier section on fall times. Fall times are perfectly consistent with a controlled demolition hypothesis.

Ah, so you're accusing me of complete ignorance for knowing the NIST's definition of 'collapse' is not the time for the entire building to collapse, just the time until the first exterior panels hit the ground? The fall times are totally inconsistent with controlled demolition, as is the manner of the collapse.

I'll put it this way: The information available to the people putting together the models of the WTC collapse is little better than the information available to any putative demolition squad aiming to make sure they fall after the planes hit

Nonsense. The NIST had eyewitness accounts, access to the wreckage which allowed them to analyse over 200 pieces of steel, and a team of over 200 experts. The demolition squad would, under your scenario, have a set of blueprints, little access to expert opinion, four days to complete their work and no precedent of any demolition on this scale to refer to.

It's not enough information by half.

I decided to check sequentially, and then stopped after the first one. You would be surprised to find that there are more, or at least as many (I cannot assume my available databases are complete, after all) peer-reviewed articles discussing the bombing of the USS Cole as the collapse of the WTC – a matter in which there is much less of scientific, practical, or political interest to motivate such study.

I notice you keep forgetting the massive studies by NIST and FEMA are above and beyond 'peer-reviewed papers' in both scale and authority, given the amount of experts and effort involved in them. There's nothing resembling that from the CD side, and I doubt there ever will be. If they want their study, they can fund it out of their own pockets. If they're really so well supported, they'll have no problems with that.

And obviously you stopped before checking the other collapses of steel-framed buildings.

There's not the budget. Who is going to fund any study stepping into politically inflammatory lines, such as the possibility that anything else might have been involved in the WTC collapse?

Private individuals. If you have a reasonable hypothesis to offer, there's more than enough anti-establishment people with large sums of money to pay for an independent inquiry. It's not like people like Jones would ever trust an official inquiry that didn't support him anyway.

Especially after publishing a single article, which appeared intended more to raise questions than answering them, resulted in the prompt summary firing of a tenured faculty member.

Firing? Oh, you mean when he accepted a voluntary retirement package so he could concentrate on his silly conspiracy theories?

Bullshit, GMC. No engineer expects to become a national hero for “exposing those responsible,” and no engineer can expect to build the sort of specific case that would be required.

Sure he would. America likes people who expose corruption and problems, as a rule, and there's currently a real fad for it; just look at Enron, the success of Michael Moore, Supersize Me! and various others like them, and so on. If someone came up with a reasonable, rational theory that was supported by evidence, they'd have it made.

Simple fact. Poking your nose in the fire is going to get people like GMC here yelling at you; scientific journals don't like to touch things that blow up in their faces politically, etc.

Ah yes, the same excuse as used for why papers saying the pyramids were built by aliens, phrenology works or there's proof of 'intelligent design' fail. It's not because they're ridiculous, it's because there's an evil secret conspiracy of scientists keeping them silent.

It's not an evil conspiracy of everyone; it's a simple fact about the political climate.

Yes, that's why Mike Moore has been assassinated for criticising the...Oh, wait, he's a millionaire, isn't he? Whoops.

Which does not explain your harsh knee-jerk reaction to any criticism of the official story. Face it, GMC: You, like many others, are invested emotionally in the official account.

You like attacking people's motives instead of their arguments, don't you?

No need. The experts have been commissioned to produce a report on how the planes brought down the buildings. That was their focus from the start, and there has been plenty to keep them busy in fine-tuning the model until it reached a point at which the scenario of collision and fire caused a collapse.

More attacks on motives, I see. The NIST did investigate controlled demolition. It doesn't fit what actually happened at all. Controlled demolitions experts agree there would be no way to bring down the towers in the manner they fell by using explosives, and Jones' thermite setup wouldn't work; the NIST even addresses the idea specifically in their FAQ.

You don't even understand half the criticisms or the NIST report itself, GMC.

Sure I do. I just don't go along with your piecemeal use of the FAQ from it to form arguments that sometimes even ignore the paragraphs that follow them.

Give it a rest... and realize that vigorous disagreement leading to more rigorous discussion leading to more solid thery is the scientific way.

Vigorous disagreement from laymen and none from experts tends to suggest the laymen are wrong about something. Again, why is the only person Scholars For Denying 9/11 can get with a relevant qualification a pensioner?

Nothing has to be deliberate about that. An accident can still be an accident.

But it can't, since the astronauts were in on it and the capsule was never going to the moon, remember? If it's a conspiracy, they were in on it, and they must've been killed deliberately since that Apollo wasn't going anywhere.

And is there also a theory claiming that there were actual moon missions prior to, concurrent with, or leading up to that time, but that the film was faked anyway because of difficulties with signal reception?

I mean, that one would fit pretty nicely... not many would have to be in on that secret.

Oh yes, an entire fake NASA. Did you think about this idea at all? How would you launch a giant rocket into space, visible for hundreds of miles, without anyone seeing it, and without involving at least as many people as the actually moon landing did, with all of them having to keep it a secret?

This is like saying four people plus airwing could crew a carrier 'if they run around really fast.' It's just a failure of imagination.

The conspiracy mindset:
It's not a belief in corrupt leaders. Hell, we all believe in corrupt leaders. It's a belief in a corrupt everybody. It's driving around in a world where every single person you see out of your windshield is utterly bloodthirsty and amoral, all except for you and a few, brave friends. What could make you feel more important than that?

You can see the attraction right away. Most people, to feel special, have to actually do something special. But why not do what these guys do, and just make the rest of the world out to be wretched? Hell, once we've painted everyone else as mindless or murderous, all we have to do to feel superior to them is roll out of bed.

Remember what I said earlier about Dylan Avery and how it was probably just a desire for fame that drove him to do all this? Look at the parallel here. At the heart of all this is that basic human need to feel special somehow, twisted in the most warped and corrosive way imaginable.

In conclusion, the 9/11 Conspiracy Guys aren't evil and they aren't liars. They're merely filling a basic human need, using their imaginations and paranoia to elevate themselves to a level the real world will never elevate them to. Also, they're retarded.

Hello, true believers and confused. You might want to read through this (http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/911truth.html) site. It sums up the conspiracy argument and what's wrong with it for those of you who don't want to read through pages of sentance-by-sentance refutations of paranoid delusions by a mod.

my personal favorite is that George HW Bush payed off the supreme court members to vote in favor of his son to give him the florida election. Had he done that, we would have an obvious paper trail because of tax records and wire transfers. There would be some $$$$ missing in some accounts. Unless of course bush payed off...oh the entire IRS, too. Florida wasnt election fraud, just a the rusty old gears of the electoral college grinding to a halt. Shit happens...lets remember that 2000 wasnt the first time somethign like that happened.

They're also generally not hit by airliners which fill their interior with burning jet fuel, you might note.
Which was consumed fairly quickly – most in the initial fireball, and is not of great importance in the latter stages of the fire.
You have oxygen generators in that fire, which burn ridiculously hot.
On the plane, you mean? Again, gone in a hurry. The role of the plane in the NIST models is not to supply the thermal energy to soften the steel; it starts the fires and severs a small number of supports, mainly the external supports on the side of impact.
You have all those nasty fabrics used in office furniture which have the flammability of secondary explosives. You have aluminium from the plane itself burning very hot, as anyone familiar with the HMS Amazon or USS Belknap fires would realise. Calling it just a paper and fuel fire shows a serious failure to understand either what's in a plane or what's in an office.

How was this a normal building fire? How many normal building fires involve burning airliners?
And the aluminum – in very limited supply compared to the fire – is not particularly significant either. What is burning past the time of interest are the office supplies – present in practically every fire in a large steel-frame building.

As Bazant and Zhou incidentally point out, sufficient heating will cause the slow piecemeal collapse of any steel-frame building. That others have failed to do so – even after 17 hours of raging inferno in the case of the tower in Caracas - indicates that something further must be involved. The NIST appears to have decided that the main difference is in missing or dislodged insulation.
How does that affect what actually happened? People make mistakes, you know, but those mistakes don't tend to alter reality.
This is directly relevant to the thesis of my argument. Perhaps I did not repeat myself enough times.

Let's explain what this – and debunking911.com's behavior – indicates: A strong desire, induced by emotional investment, to defend a particular account of events and squelch all alternative explanations, regardless of whether or not the defender successfully grasps the science involved. The potent power of what, in an individual rather than a group, becomes the political pressure that leads to Jones' prompt firing.
Why? You obviously didn't, since you claimed the NIST report says the whole building collapsed in freefall when it only actually says the top collapsed at near freefall speed. How near is near?
I never said a thing about the “whole building.” Don't put words in my mouth.

As a matter of fact, for the NIST, “near” means “very fucking near.” Apparently you still haven't bothered to read through even the FAQs the NIST publishes...
NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2.
For reference, these are the free fall figures. The NIST has pored over the video evidence and seismic evidence and concluded that the collapse happened at rates indistinguishable, at the precision possible from those measurements, from free fall. Their discussion of how little they feel the top slowed should make that perfectly clear. The claim that they in fact took several seconds longer, which you have parroted in claiming that the speed of fall is too long to allow for controlled demolition, is not, in fact, part of the NIST's account of events.

This is not a claim unique to F R Greening, debunking911.com, and yourself; other similarly uninformed or deceptive individuals have made similar claims in “defense” of the “official account,” in some cases claiming that it took as much as 15 seconds from the start of the collapse to impact.

This, I will add, gives even more substantial weight to what I've been saying about political pressure. The instinct that leads to knee-jerk inaccuracy in defense of the “official account,” as the knee-jerkers view it, is terrifying when multiplied by thousands and millions.
No, as you have failed to demonstrate. The debate tactic of constantly saying 'as I have demonstrated' when you haven't isn't in any way impressive.
Except that I really have demonstrated that. I'm saying 'as I have demonstrated” because I don't feel like writing out the examples more than I already have.

Which have been quite a few times by now. These posts are long, have you not noticed?
The NIST report says that at the moment of collapse the top parts of the tower were essentially in freefall. The collapse did not proceed at freefall speed, which is obvious because the debris from the towers falls faster than the rest of the towers does. If the towers are in freefall, is the other debris then travelling faster than freefall speed? If so, how on earth is it doing that?
Not really. I can think, off the top of my head, that there are a couple things going on that help contribute to that mistaken argument. Of course, you really should just consult the NIST about it, right?

First is that the actual leading part of the collapsing tower is not visible. The buckling around the outer edges trails the impact within. As you can see in the front page photo if you simply complete the parallelogram of the top section, by the time the sides buckle out, the leading part of the chunk is already several floors into un-exploded tower on the interior.

Second is that the “fast” debris you talk about has a small lead in distance that translates to an even smaller lead in time... and it happens to be generated ahead of the main part of the tower falling. What you're seeing “lead” the top isn't always from the top; it's from several floors below the site of “insignificant” impacts.

Combine this with a very small lead in speed, and you may understand why the NIST concluded that the top of the tower came down at speeds indistinguishable from free fall. Especially with the way that everything is obscured visually, you may now understand why the seismic record is so useful.
I guess your argument was so vague I couldn't tell which particular point you were arguing. But sadly, you're still wrong, since debris from a structure in freefall would not hit the ground before the structure itself. The towers could not possibly have collapsed at freefall speed, and the NIST report does not ever say they did.
The NIST says very directly that the towers did – even giving the times of 9 and 11 seconds.

You must understand, of course, that these are not necessarily “perfect” free fall speeds; they are simply “essentially” free fall speeds, i.e., speeds which cannot, within the precision of measurement available for the start, stop, and distances of collapse, be distinguished from free fall speeds.
Also, read the NIST FAQ carefully. You missed something rather important, which we'll get to in a minute.
I most certainly did not.
Nope. Cold, hard misinterpretation, maybe.
The facts are plain, GMC.
Wrong. It states that the entire building did not collapse in freefall, which it didn't.

Actually, you just have a little problem with reading that FAQ. What's that time actually referring to? The main body of the building, as you claim? Or, perhaps:

Right. I guess these are the exterior panels we see falling in the video clips, yes? The ones that fell way ahead of the rest of the tower? The ones that sheared away from the surface and would give a time associated with an object falling in freefall because they did fall in freefall? Your argument is wrong, TJ. These aren't the times until the whole tower was down, they're the time from the beginning of the collapse to when the first parts of the external cladding hit the ground. You're, again, failing to read the FAQ properly and just cherry-picking it for stuff that looks like it agrees with you.
No, I've read more than you. Read more carefully. The NIST makes it absolutely clear – even in the FAQ – that they consider the tower to have not been slowed significantly in its collapse:
In other words, the momentum (which equals mass times velocity) of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it (the structure below) was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass.
Now, logically, of course, there is some slowing; there has to be as a matter of conservation of momentum. However, when the NIST is saying that there was no slowing, they refer to the sort of slowing that can be measured.

Not the order of several seconds out of ten.
No, they're the result of the debris and the towers themselves hitting the ground. You realise 'debris from the collapsing towers' includes the entire body of each tower, right? Greening is talking about the total collapse time for the main body of debris, whereas NIST defines the collapse as the time from initiation to when the first external part of the tower hit the ground. There's a contradiction in definition here, but not in what's being said.
Actually, there's more of a contradiction of what's being said than in definitions. Your “misconstrual” of Greening's work is a perfect example; in spite of the fact that the NIST makes it perfectly clear they're talking about the whole top of the tower coming down at essentially free fall speeds, you continue to persist in claiming that the towers fell too slowly to be a demolition.
No, that just proves you don't know the difference between where the trace begins [Greening] and where the spikes begin on the trace [NIST]. How do you think the NIST knows there are no seismic signals prior to the initiation of each collapse? The trace begins before the collapse does, that's why.
However, that does not prevent him front contradicting the NIST report. He's not talking about any seismic signal; he's talking about the really huge spikes.

See... the trace of interest starts when measurable noise on the seismograph does. He is, of course, interested in arguing against this (http://libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=29807&Disp=45&Trace=on) article. However, he still admits to seismic signals predating the collapse:
Having made these adjustments to the timelines of the 911 seismic data we are
able to conclude that the small ripples in the traces of the WTC collapse events - ripples
that precede the period of large oscillations - represent the first stage of collapse as
defined more precisely below.
Greening goes on to further chatter about these “small ripples,” in the end inventing an explanation for certain seismic signals starting prior to the actual beginning of the collapse.

While I must admit that – for once – I managed to misinterpret Greening's steaming pile of explanation, the disagreement between his claims and the NIST is still there.
'It is suggested.' Does he say it's suggested by the NIST report? No. Does he say the suggestion is consistent with the NIST report? No. You're really starting to reach for these 'contradictions,' TJ.
“It is suggested.” When, in fact, Bazant and Zhou note explicitly that the impact was insufficient to achieve collapse.

This is, as I have described it, a major difference between Greening's account and the NIST report. The NIST, much like Bazant and Zhou, does not feel that the aircraft impact alone was sufficient to collapse the towers. Greening does. Make no bones about it.
Actually, if you carefully read the NIST report rather than skimming it for apparent contradictions, both are in total agreement.
They are not.
Which, I would assume, is why he is merely collecting and explaining data and accounts by others, rather than proposing new hypothesis he recognises himself as unqualified to make. You don't have to be Einstein to say E=Mc^2.
Actually, he's going out on a limb on his own – and so does debunking911.com in general.
Along with the NIST report that agrees with him, I imagine.
Yes, precisely. No orchestrated coverup is required with censor-conspirators leaning over every technician's shoulder.
Which are, after all, only grounded in the reality of paperwork and analysis. Hundreds would need to be complicit to the murder of thousands of American civilians, with none of them talking. This from a government that couldn't even pull off a simple break-in at Watergate.
As I mentioned... not hundreds. We're talking dozens, plausibly. No paperwork, analysis performed on private machines which may then be formatted.

No need to make things unnecessarily complicated.
No secret so massive involving a deliberate act of mass-murder could be kept for long, since people in the loop wouldn't all want it kept. Stalin couldn't keep his gulags a secret and Nazi Germany couldn't keep its death camps secret, plentiful data was collected on both and Allied bomber command has been rightly criticised for doing little to stop the Holocaust. If even totalitarian police states can't keep mass murder a secret, how is a relatively liberal democracy supposed to?
GMC, you're talking about shipping around millions of people, property seizures, mass executions, construction of ghettos and death camp facilities...

... we're talking about a much smaller operation here. For that matter, while the chiefs may have known, the grunts on the ground didn't get to find out until the march into Germany.
Point to one involving complicity in the murder of thousands of your own countrymen. Your examples are totally irrelevant.
Hm? If you insist, Tonkin Gulf.
But his subordinates aren't nuts, and don't share his motivations. If their boss is clearly nuts, they'll soon realise it would be a lot easier to cover up the death of one boss than one president. One tragic auto accident later and normality is restored, JFK still un-deaded.
He's in a position to locate a subordinate who is a nut. Or several.

And he doesn't have to be in the top office, for that matter. Just in a better position to tap some available talent.
Ok, let's take a lone nut and put him in charge, and see what happens. How good were Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union at keeping secrets? Didn't they have people willing to risk their very lives to get those secrets out?
And they kept a few secrets regardless.
Sure there is. Nobody will share it, since lone nuts work badly together. The lone nut's lack of need for co-conspirators is his advantage, and allows him to do things that would be much more difficult for a large group.
Oh really? Lone nuts do more damage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_bombing) when there's more than one of them. McVeigh didn't suffer one bit for having Nichols available. (Sure, there was a third one who turned testimony on them when it came to trial. There's some hit or miss.)

And then there's the ability to train, equip, and send out “lone” nuts, e.g., suicide bombers.
How do you demonstrate the ability to keep a secret? You can only know a secret was kept when it fails to be, after all. And the Mafia was always full of informants and snitches, last I checked, it's not a very god example.
So we now know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa?

We know the CIA and KGB are good at keeping secrets because of the amount of time it takes before they release some secrets – and the fact that most of the secrets they let out, they do so of their own volition rather than accidentally.
Why do I have to assume that?
It's that or assume they're idiots.
Why? Last I checked they tend to agree that it would be entirely possible for Oswald to have done it alone.
I repeat:
“Little” meaning “some,” and “could” not meaning the same thing as “did.” Frankly, the experts seem more split on the JFK assassination question than the WTC collapse, whether for political reasons or the rather unpalatable requirement of someone placing charges in order to aid in the collapse of the WTC.
Now, shall we move on?
When did I ever do that, exactly?
I believe you started in on missiles several pages ago.
Now you're just deliberately avoiding reading the whole document at the same time, I see. Directly below the section you quoted:

No evidence found, no behaviour consistent with. There's nothing that supports a controlled demolition at all.

Because their findings failed to find any evidence of or consistent with controlled demolition. When there's no evidence of something at all and no events point to it, you tend to discount it.
GMC, you're missing the point. The NIST did not look for such evidence. It's hardly surprising that they didn't find what they didn't look for. They didn't look for any evidence of a demolition. Quote them out of context all you like.

The simple fact is that the NIST offers as their primary argument against controlled demolition – their only argument of any strength – their model of fire induced collapse.
Which is has released since. I see you're only reading the preliminary reports, not the September 2005 final report.
Are you nuts or what?
The final report on the collapse of WTC 7 will appear in a separate report.
Draft NIST Report on the World Trade Center Investigation
NOTE: The NIST investigation of the WTC 7 building collapse is not yet complete. The report on the WTC 7 collapse investigation will be released in draft form for public comment and posted on this web site as soon as it is available.
Sure, they're working on it. Even now, though, they're not done. Hence why what they've released so far is “preliminary” and in “draft form.”
Or, more likely, that they decoupled the building 7 investigation from the 1 and 2 investigation to free up manpower for that, since it was seen as the more important report.
Decoupled is, in this context, the same thing as “ditched as a low priority until the complaints got too loud.”
There was no molten steel found in the wreckage, pockets of molten material that looked like steel were found. In any case, Jones' idea that it was thermite is totally absurd: thermite reactions are incredibly vigorous, and even myself, with only an A Level in chemistry, can tell you incredibly vigorous reactions use up their reactants rather quickly. It's difficult to make thermite burn for minutes, the idea it would burn for weeks is nonsense.
Reports of molten steel buried beneath the rubble are distinctly present. Jones, Greening, and the NIST all acknowledge these reports; the NIST considers them outside the scope of their investigation.

Of course, Jones isn't claiming that the thermite burned for weeks... simply that molten steel, buried under rubble, stayed hot for weeks. You're misrepresenting him now.
Again with your strawman, I see. As I keep pointing out, he is easily able to cite papers and studies that agree wholeheartedly with his statements. Jones cannot.
Jones cites many of the same papers Greening does... and does a much better job of representing the official NIST report correctly.
No, they're not. What does a physicist know about building safety analysis?
What does an OSHA rat know about classical dynamics?

There's a place for the OSHA rat and a place for the physicist in the study of the WTC collapse. Unfortunately for the OSHA rat, the more interesting parts, such as dealing with falling objects smashing into each other and support beams softening, are more properly in the purview of the physicist.
Which I addressed. Someone thought a pool of something looked like molten steel. Visual identification of liquids is not a precise business, as a rule; it could easily have been aluminium with impurities, which would certainly have been present and still liquid.
Aluminum tends to go away fast. As you've noted, it burns. Thin aluminum burns very easily, in fact, and there wasn't too much of it to start with.
nyway, how does a controlled demolition explain the presence of a pool of still-molten steel? You can't point it out as a flaw unless your own theory can explain it better, since otherwise it's just a flaw in both theories.
“My” theory? Jones has a theory; he thinks that it's because of thermite or thermate used to bring the towers down. Debunking911.com also has a theory; they think that a thermite reaction happened in part because of firefighters spraying water on the rubble, producing pools of molten steel.

“My” theory is that given the failure of such things to be adequately examined, there clearly has not been enough research conducted to rigorously rule out alternative mechanisms.
Ah, so you can't. Concession accepted, there's no precedent for a CD setup of this scale and type ever being constructed without the use of miles of detonating cord and tons of explosives. If you have the figures as you claim, what's the point of hiding them? Where are the figures of a building on this scale demolished without the use of detonating cord? Where are the figures on any building in the history of the world demolished using thermite?
Concession? Like I said, it's all bullshit. Any figures would be extrapolated with questionable assumptions.

Since you insist... there are less than 50 core columns. Figure an average of 20 kg in cutting charges to cut each of them (some require more than others), and you're up to no more than a ton. Without the support of the internal columns, the tower inevitably collapses. Voila.
I'm glad you agree, though I'm a little curious as to whether you intended to.
Of course not. Typos happen.
Yes, which is an opinion. They don't claim the NIST supports said opinion, but the whether the towers would have survived with the fireproofing intact is rather academic, because it was not intact.
And academics have been considering it. Bazant and Zhou spoke quite conclusively, and the NIST has agreed with them. (So, for that matter, has Jones.) However, you should instead take the word of a spectroscopist writing on a website whose vitriolic tone and emotional rants provide substantial emotional resonance, rather than the experts.
Ah, so you're accusing me of complete ignorance for knowing the NIST's definition of 'collapse' is not the time for the entire building to collapse, just the time until the first exterior panels hit the ground? The fall times are totally inconsistent with controlled demolition, as is the manner of the collapse.
See above re: Fall times.
Nonsense. The NIST had eyewitness accounts, access to the wreckage which allowed them to analyse over 200 pieces of steel, and a team of over 200 experts. The demolition squad would, under your scenario, have a set of blueprints, little access to expert opinion, four days to complete their work and no precedent of any demolition on this scale to refer to.

It's not enough information by half.
You're again mixing things up.

The demolition squad has four days to place charges. The demolition team has all the time in the world to prepare.
I notice you keep forgetting the massive studies by NIST and FEMA are above and beyond 'peer-reviewed papers' in both scale and authority, given the amount of experts and effort involved in them.
Not particularly. That it has taken FEMA and NIST so much expert hours and so much adjustment of model parameters – years of it – to get what is in essence a fairly simple problem solved is one of the indicators critics point to as a sign that they've let themselves get sucked into an easy trap to fall into – tweaking the model until it shows what you want it to.
There's nothing resembling that from the CD side, and I doubt there ever will be. If they want their study, they can fund it out of their own pockets. If they're really so well supported, they'll have no problems with that.
There is no funding, and there is also the collected mass of data that the “feds” (NIST) are sitting on that Jones is demanding that they release (e.g., footage).
And obviously you stopped before checking the other collapses of steel-framed buildings.
Good thing I did stop with the Cole, because the Oklahoma City bombing got more peer reviewed articles than the Cole and the WTC put together.
Private individuals. If you have a reasonable hypothesis to offer, there's more than enough anti-establishment people with large sums of money to pay for an independent inquiry. It's not like people like Jones would ever trust an official inquiry that didn't support him anyway.
Funding is not that easy to come by.
Firing? Oh, you mean when he accepted a voluntary retirement package so he could concentrate on his silly conspiracy theories?
“Voluntary” meaning “leave with it or we'll figure out how to get you to leave without it.”
Sure he would. America likes people who expose corruption and problems, as a rule, and there's currently a real fad for it; just look at Enron, the success of Michael Moore, Supersize Me! and various others like them, and so on. If someone came up with a reasonable, rational theory that was supported by evidence, they'd have it made.
“America like people who expose corruption and problems” - and you mention Michael Moore. Any idea how much shit people throw at Moore? You don't have to read far on NSG to find out how much flak he gets.

If you're going to point fingers, you need a solid case. And in a case like this, even a solid case might not be enough to save you from getting dragged through the mud.
Ah yes, the same excuse as used for why papers saying the pyramids were built by aliens, phrenology works or there's proof of 'intelligent design' fail. It's not because they're ridiculous, it's because there's an evil secret conspiracy of scientists keeping them silent.
No, not an evil conspiracy of scientists. Nature steers away from publishing things that smell like political op-ed pieces out of pure self-interest. No conspiratorial motivations need be ascribed to that.
You like attacking people's motives instead of their arguments, don't you?
Your motivation happens to be a key part of the thesis I'm arguing.

It is, of course, not fair for me to be advancing a sophisticated argument about science, about the political climate -about the lack of serious scientific study and the reasons for it – when your playbook only includes some wash about thermite, ad hominem attacks on Dr. Jones, and appeals to unnecessary complexity.
More attacks on motives, I see. The NIST did investigate controlled demolition. It doesn't fit what actually happened at all. Controlled demolitions experts agree there would be no way to bring down the towers in the manner they fell by using explosives, and Jones' thermite setup wouldn't work; the NIST even addresses the idea specifically in their FAQ.
See above discussion of what the NIST did and did not investigate and why.
Sure I do. I just don't go along with your piecemeal use of the FAQ from it to form arguments that sometimes even ignore the paragraphs that follow them.
Pot. Kettle. Black. And I'm being generous in saying that, since I'm not being piecemeal.
Vigorous disagreement from laymen and none from experts tends to suggest the laymen are wrong about something. Again, why is the only person Scholars For Denying 9/11 can get with a relevant qualification a pensioner?
Relevant? Dr. Jones' qualifications are relevant. F. R. Greening's qualifications are relevant. You fail to grasp the broad scope of the inquiry.

As a matter of fact, Scholars includes a shocking number of academics in its ranks. Just shocking.
But it can't, since the astronauts were in on it and the capsule was never going to the moon, remember? If it's a conspiracy, they were in on it, and they must've been killed deliberately since that Apollo wasn't going anywhere.
Not necessarily deliberately. Accidents do happen, you understand.

Perhaps that was what inspired them to set up the studio...
Oh yes, an entire fake NASA. Did you think about this idea at all? How would you launch a giant rocket into space, visible for hundreds of miles, without anyone seeing it, and without involving at least as many people as the actually moon landing did, with all of them having to keep it a secret?

This is like saying four people plus airwing could crew a carrier 'if they run around really fast.' It's just a failure of imagination.
Nah. Real NASA, real Apollo... spoofed video feed for public consumption. ^_^ You should like that one even more than your “It was only 11 that we faked, honest!” theory.

my personal favorite is that George HW Bush payed off the supreme court members to vote in favor of his son to give him the florida election. Had he done that, we would have an obvious paper trail because of tax records and wire transfers. There would be some $$$$ missing in some accounts. Unless of course bush payed off...oh the entire IRS, too. Florida wasnt election fraud, just a the rusty old gears of the electoral college grinding to a halt. Shit happens...lets remember that 2000 wasnt the first time somethign like that happened.
Actually, there's been a mess of election fraud in Florida, but we're talking the old-fashioned kind for the most part, and small time for the most part in 2000.

If you want to talk about problems in officialdom, point your fingers over at Jeb's administration of Florida, who through a combination of clever foot-dragging and/or incompetence made sure things ran out to the point that the Supreme Court was faced with the practical concern that there was no way Florida could finish a recount on time.

Al Gore only had a few hundred more votes than Bush when everything was settled, really, unless there were some old fraudsters that got away with it clean in spite of all the investigation... and there's no reason to assume a conspiracy at the heart of any of what happened in Florida in 2000.

Which was consumed fairly quickly – most in the initial fireball, and is not of great importance in the latter stages of the fire.

Aside from as a source of ignition for other things that wouldn't easily ignite otherwise, and as an accelerant.

And the aluminum – in very limited supply compared to the fire – is not particularly significant either. What is burning past the time of interest are the office supplies – present in practically every fire in a large steel-frame building.

Several of which have in fact collapsed purely due to fire. In others, the fires have been devastating enough to cause partial collapse, cause firefighting efforts to be abandoned due to fears of pancake collapse, and resulted in buildings with such heavy damage they had to be reinforced before they could be demolished safely.

As Bazant and Zhou incidentally point out, sufficient heating will cause the slow piecemeal collapse of any steel-frame building. That others have failed to do so – even after 17 hours of raging inferno in the case of the tower in Caracas - indicates that something further must be involved.

Unfortunately for you, others have also succeeded in doing so. The Sight and Sound Theatre in Pennsylvania, the Kader Toy Factory and the McCormick Centre in Chicago are all steel framed buildings that collapsed due to fire.

The NIST appears to have decided that the main difference is in missing or dislodged insulation.

Which was also why the McCormick Centre burned down; work crews had accidentally cracked off the fireproofing. It's not without precedent.

Let's explain what this – and debunking911.com's behavior – indicates: A strong desire, induced by emotional investment, to defend a particular account of events and squelch all alternative explanations, regardless of whether or not the defender successfully grasps the science involved.

So, just like your argument, then? You're projecting. Their desire is to explain the official account and debunk the myths spread by conspiracy theorists.

The potent power of what, in an individual rather than a group, becomes the political pressure that leads to Jones' prompt firing.

He wasn't fired. He retired. And to be honest, I couldn't blame anyone for firing him; a man charged with teaching the scientific method shouldn't conspicuously abuse it to attempt to prove a false conclusion.

I never said a thing about the “whole building.” Don't put words in my mouth.

Oh, so you want parts of the building to still be standing after your controlled demolition, then?

For reference, these are the free fall figures. The NIST has pored over the video evidence and seismic evidence and concluded that the collapse happened at rates indistinguishable, at the precision possible from those measurements, from free fall.

Aside from the tiny matter of their explicit statement the core of the building did not fall at all for anything up to 25 seconds, you mean?

Their discussion of how little they feel the top slowed should make that perfectly clear.

I suppose, if you don't bother to read it properly. They said the top wasn't slowed by the floor immediately below it, and that the force on each floor increased. They did not say the totality of floors below the collapsing section failed to slow it at all, and, at least in the FAQ, they did not say when they felt the top sections hit the ground.

Again, you're just reading their statements as is convenient to your argument, without applying any kind of logic to them.

This is not a claim unique to F R Greening, debunking911.com, and yourself; other similarly uninformed or deceptive individuals have made similar claims in “defense” of the “official account,” in some cases claiming that it took as much as 15 seconds from the start of the collapse to impact.

Impact of what? This is a rather important point that shows your ignorance of demolitions. In a controlled demolition, the entire building should fall at close to free-fall speed, no exceptions. On 9/11, as the NIST report indicates, the upper section fell on the first floor below it at close to free-fall speeds and fell very quickly downwards as the floors below it gave way, but the core supports may have been standing for anything up to 25 seconds after the beginning of the collapse.

I've had similar accusations levelled at me by people who think bipedal combat machines aren't useless for actual combat. Agreeing with the official line is only bad if the official line is wrong.

This, I will add, gives even more substantial weight to what I've been saying about political pressure.

Yes, I'm really pressurised to agree with the official line here in England. I don't know what my friends would think of me if I didn't. Oh noes.

The instinct that leads to knee-jerk inaccuracy in defense of the “official account,” as the knee-jerkers view it, is terrifying when multiplied by thousands and millions.

Of course, the insane sense of smugness you get by not being one of us sheep means you don't mind, I'm sure. Take three steps back: what would the point of this controlled demolition be? Just the attacks would be enough to start the wars, the buildings didn't need to come down for that. So why?

Except that I really have demonstrated that. I'm saying 'as I have demonstrated” because I don't feel like writing out the examples more than I already have.

No, you have not. You have repeatedly failed to demonstrate it, which is hardly surprising given what you are trying to demonstrate is false.

Not really. I can think, off the top of my head, that there are a couple things going on that help contribute to that mistaken argument. Of course, you really should just consult the NIST about it, right?

I have. They say the first floor the top of the tower encountered didn't slow it down. They say the lower parts of the tower would have a massive load bearing down on them. They do not however say that these floors didn't slow it down, only that the first floor didn't.

As you can see in the front page photo if you simply complete the parallelogram of the top section, by the time the sides buckle out, the leading part of the chunk is already several floors into un-exploded tower on the interior.

So we ignore shots where the debris is falling well ahead of the tower? Like, oh, I don't know, this one?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/collapse.jpg

See, the top of the tower can't be any lower than the visible base of the dust cloud around the top of the tower, otherwise we'd see the sides of the building bowed outwards by it. Here we have pieces of the exterior panels, the thing the NIST estimated times for, falling way ahead of the building itself. They'd obviously hit the ground long before the collapse was over, and that's when NIST stop their stopwatches.

This is not a building falling in freefall.

Combine this with a very small lead in speed, and you may understand why the NIST concluded that the top of the tower came down at speeds indistinguishable from free fall.

TJ, you are now simply ignoring the report. The NIST says that the top of the tower was falling at near freefall at the moment of collapse, they said nothing about it continuing at freefall speed for the entire duration of the collapse. Neither did they say the entire tower collapsed at freefall speed; in fact, they explicitly said the core, which would be destroyed first by an implosion as associated with a controlled demolition, stood the longest. Demolition in reverse?

The NIST says very directly that the towers did – even giving the times of 9 and 11 seconds.

Nope. You're, again, ignoring the rebuttal. They counted time from the collapse initiation to the first piece of external cladding hitting the ground; the collapse itself wasn't over for quite some time following that event.

I most certainly did not.

'I deny you! Go away, nasty logic! Away!'

The facts are plain, GMC.

Yes. They support me, sadly, and not you.

No, I've read more than you.

And this from someone who demands evidence. How in the hell would you know how much I've read?

Now, logically, of course, there is some slowing; there has to be as a matter of conservation of momentum. However, when the NIST is saying that there was no slowing, they refer to the sort of slowing that can be measured.

They said that of the first floor only. Any idiot can look at the photo I posted and see you're wrong; there's a significant lead between free-falling debris and the collapse of the building itself.

Actually, there's more of a contradiction of what's being said than in definitions. Your “misconstrual” of Greening's work is a perfect example; in spite of the fact that the NIST makes it perfectly clear they're talking about the whole top of the tower coming down at essentially free fall speeds

...In the moment following the collapse, not for the entire collapse. Nor did they ever say the entire tower fell at free-fall speed. You're just failing to read the parts about the core supports standing far longer.

you continue to persist in claiming that the towers fell too slowly to be a demolition.

Because they did. They also collapsed in entirely the wrong way.

However, that does not prevent him front contradicting the NIST report. He's not talking about any seismic signal; he's talking about the really huge spikes.

No, he's talking about smaller spikes preceding them. Strangely enough, this doesn't contradict the NIST's talk about the large spikes.

While I must admit that – for once – I managed to misinterpret Greening's steaming pile of explanation, the disagreement between his claims and the NIST is still there.

...In your mind, where it always was.

“It is suggested.” When, in fact, Bazant and Zhou note explicitly that the impact was insufficient to achieve collapse.

So? Does he say they suggested it? Again, inventing contradictions where none need exist. Differences of opinion aren't awful heresy in science, last I checked. Others suggested the impact alone may have been sufficient, including several demolition experts. Some difference of opinion regarding that point doesn't really have any relevance, since they did collapse.

Yes, precisely. No orchestrated coverup is required with censor-conspirators leaning over every technician's shoulder.

What? So none of them would talk about that?

As I mentioned... not hundreds. We're talking dozens, plausibly.

Garbage. You're not allowed to have them all be clones of Dexter and James Bond in real life.

No paperwork, analysis performed on private machines which may then be formatted.

Sure. After all, those machines don't have technicians, there's no chance of them going wrong during a process involving sensitive data, you don't need data analysis, compiling, or dozens of other tasks requiring you to get people in on it just as backup, or anything like that.

You don't need truckloads of explosives, you don't need to spend 12 days just setting the charges as CD Inc did with a much smaller building, you don't need to make file copies for anyone so they know how you're getting on...

No need to make things unnecessarily complicated.

No, but a need to make things necessarily complicated.

GMC, you're talking about shipping around millions of people, property seizures, mass executions, construction of ghettos and death camp facilities...

And you're talking about a state that really could kill whoever it felt like with no repercussions at all, and they couldn't even keep the locations of individual camps a secret.

Hm? If you insist, Tonkin Gulf.

...Isn't anything like it either. Try again?

He's in a position to locate a subordinate who is a nut. Or several.

And they tend to do poor-quality work, because they're nuts with little uniting them. I can believe you could get a few of them to take over a plane and randomly crash it into a building. I have significantly more problem with the idea you could train them to precisely place explosives in a very limited timeframe without being spotted.

Oh really? Lone nuts do more damage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_bombing) when there's more than one of them. McVeigh didn't suffer one bit for having Nichols available. (Sure, there was a third one who turned testimony on them when it came to trial. There's some hit or miss.)

Yes, but who were the three of them reporting to? Were they obliged to follow any kind of plan drawn up by a superior? If they were, would they have followed it?

It's that or assume they're idiots.

No, assume they can keep reasonable secrets by convincing the many people inevitably involved in any such operation that it's in the nation's best interests to keep them. In the case of secrets where it was conspicuously not so, why should they bother keeping the secret?

I believe you started in on missiles several pages ago.

But you can't even quote it, can you?

GMC, you're missing the point. The NIST did not look for such evidence.

It stated it found no evidence to support a controlled demolition hypothesis. That rather implies it did not find any evidence in anything it looked at.

The simple fact is that the NIST offers as their primary argument against controlled demolition – their only argument of any strength – their model of fire induced collapse.

And the lack of evidence, and that the collapse itself is not consistent with any controlled demolition in history.

Are you nuts or what?

I assumed you were talking about the WTC 1 and 2 reports, since your statement implied none of NIST's final reports have been issued.

Decoupled is, in this context, the same thing as “ditched as a low priority until the complaints got too loud.”

No, it means 'ditched as a low priority to free up manpower for the central investigation.' I see now we're on to personal attacks on the entire NIST investigation team, all 210 of them.

Reports of molten steel buried beneath the rubble are distinctly present. Jones, Greening, and the NIST all acknowledge these reports; the NIST considers them outside the scope of their investigation.

Of course, Jones isn't claiming that the thermite burned for weeks... simply that molten steel, buried under rubble, stayed hot for weeks. You're misrepresenting him now.

Then how did it stay hot if it was impossible for it to get that hot, TJ? You wouldn't get pools of molten steel unless you were using dozens of tons of thermite to melt entire sections of support beam.

What does an OSHA rat know about classical dynamics?

A lot, given engineers work with physics all the time. It's their job, you know.

There's a place for the OSHA rat and a place for the physicist in the study of the WTC collapse.

No, there isn't. Engineers specialising in building collapse already understand the physics involved, whereas physicists aren't trained to understand the engineering involved. You're showing some true irrationality here.

Unfortunately for the OSHA rat, the more interesting parts, such as dealing with falling objects smashing into each other and support beams softening, are more properly in the purview of the physicist.

Oh? Are nuclear physicists often trained specifically in building failure analysis? No, they're not. Jones may know how to deal with particles colliding, but massive objects do not collide like particles, and he has no training in how they do collide.

And 'support beams softening?' What the hell does a physicist know about materials science, exactly? Why should he know anything about how massive metal bars behave during a fire?

Jones has no authority here. And your calling the engineers involved 'rats' shows just how low your opinion is of engineering as a profession and how exaggerated your opinion is of what a physicist is trained to do.

Aluminum tends to go away fast. As you've noted, it burns. Thin aluminum burns very easily, in fact, and there wasn't too much of it to start with.

Tends to 'go away?' Ok, where does it go to, TJ? Maybe it forms large pools of oxidised metal?

Also, I'll assume simple ignorance here. The cladding of the entire building was made of aluminium!

“My” theory is that given the failure of such things to be adequately examined, there clearly has not been enough research conducted to rigorously rule out alternative mechanisms.

Nonsense. The molten 'steel' might not even have existed, and a rational explanation exists for it even if it did. No further research is needed over something that can be explained rationally with existing data. Investigating a ridiculous hypothesis like Jones' is a waste of time, and NIST recognised that even if it were investigated the results would be inconclusive.

Since you insist... there are less than 50 core columns. Figure an average of 20 kg in cutting charges to cut each of them (some require more than others), and you're up to no more than a ton. Without the support of the internal columns, the tower inevitably collapses. Voila.

Right, figures and a scenario you just made up. Those have real authority. Where's a real demolition, TJ? My figures came from Controlled Demolition Inc's own website, whereas yours, it seems, came from your ass. You can't point to a real demolition of a building half this size which didn't use thousands of pounds of explosive, because no such demolition exists.

Not particularly. That it has taken FEMA and NIST so much expert hours and so much adjustment of model parameters – years of it

Right, so now we're criticising them for spending time refining their model to fit the situation as well as possible before releasing their results. I guess they should have just released shabby incomplete models instead rather than bother to finish them.

You really have no idea how any of this works, do you?

– to get what is in essence a fairly simple problem solved is one of the indicators critics point to as a sign that they've let themselves get sucked into an easy trap to fall into – tweaking the model until it shows what you want it to.

And only a layman can spot it, right? No other expert would ever see that's what they'd done and point it out. That's why nobody in failure analysis or fire safety analysis supports this idea that the model was just some random creation as opposed to being established on the basis of the evidence from before and after the collapse, as well as from information from hundreds of other building collapses and fires.

There is no funding, and there is also the collected mass of data that the “feds” (NIST) are sitting on that Jones is demanding that they release (e.g., footage).

Jones is simply demanding what he knows he won't get, so he can continue claiming his lack of evidence is due to a deliberate cover-up rather than the non-existence of proof. Jones can drum up funding if he can get the support he claims he has. If not, well, that's probably because his theories are totally unconvincing.

Good thing I did stop with the Cole, because the Oklahoma City bombing got more peer reviewed articles than the Cole and the WTC put together.

So? What fields? How many were there on the damage to the building itself? How many of those investigated the idea the McVeigh was just a patsy and the building was destroyed by the CIA?

“Voluntary” meaning “leave with it or we'll figure out how to get you to leave without it.”

Right. And you cite what for this? Even Jones himself says he left to concentrate on his theories.

“America like people who expose corruption and problems” - and you mention Michael Moore. Any idea how much shit people throw at Moore? You don't have to read far on NSG to find out how much flak he gets.

Any idea how much money people throw at him, TJ? You think he got to be a millionaire with several movies and multiple bestselling books in a political climate that would have him killed as a traitor?

Your motivation happens to be a key part of the thesis I'm arguing.

And we are now into profoundly irrational debate, TJ. Attacking motives doesn't affect the arguments made one iota; it doesn't matter why someone is arguing a given point.

It is, of course, not fair for me to be advancing a sophisticated argument about science, about the political climate -about the lack of serious scientific study and the reasons for it –

About attacking your opponent's character, about insisting all engineers don't know how to do their jobs, about misquoting a report every time you try to make an argument about the science involved...

when your playbook only includes some wash about thermite

That would be Jones' paper. I assume you bothered to read it, yes?

ad hominem attacks on Dr. Jones

He's unqualified and speaking outside his expertise. He knows nothing the field he's criticising. Those aren't ad hominems, they're facts.

and appeals to unnecessary complexity.

That would be necessary complexity. Seriously, have you ever worked in a job somewhere like a warehouse, which would give you some grounding in the realities of how much work and how many people it takes to move anything anywhere in a modern bureaucracy?

Pot. Kettle. Black. And I'm being generous in saying that, since I'm not being piecemeal.

Patting yourself on the back that you're not doing X doesn't mean you're not doing X, TJ.

Relevant? Dr. Jones' qualifications are relevant.

Garbage. Jones is speaking a mile and a half outside his area of expertise, and it shows in his silliness about thermite bombs.

As a matter of fact, Scholars includes a shocking number of academics in its ranks. Just shocking.

A shocking number of people with no qualifications as engineers. It has a lot of people with degrees in philosophy, English literature, psychology and theology. It has a few physicists, and a couple of engineers, of which one is a nut who thinks the US dropped an anti-matter bomb on Jupiter.

Acedemics are irrelevant. They need engineers, and they don't have them, seemingly because they can't get them.

Nah. Real NASA, real Apollo... spoofed video feed for public consumption. ^_^ You should like that one even more than your “It was only 11 that we faked, honest!” theory.

But everyone in NASA would know it wasn't video from Apollo 11 the minute they saw it on TV versus what they saw and analysed. You can't fool people with a tape that's clearly better quality than the one they saw and includes people moving entirely the wrong way.

As Bazant and Zhou incidentally point out, sufficient heating will cause the slow piecemeal collapse of any steel-frame building. That others have failed to do so – even after 17 hours of raging inferno in the case of the tower in Caracas - indicates that something further must be involved. The NIST appears to have decided that the main difference is in missing or dislodged insulation.


In the other cases of a steel framed building on fire, did the buildings have the same design as the WTC towers? (internal core, external frame and the floors hung between them) also in the other fires, did an aircraft take out anywhere up to 40% of the supporting steel work?

CT nuts point out the empire state building also was hit by an aircraft and survived.
Sadly however, the empire state building is a different design and the plane was far lighter/going slower that either of the aircraft that hit the WTC



El-Presidente Boris

In the other cases of a steel framed building on fire, did the buildings have the same design as the WTC towers? (internal core, external frame and the floors hung between them) also in the other fires, did an aircraft take out anywhere up to 40% of the supporting steel work?
40% is not the figure, Cypresaria. The NIST estimates in its base case (i.e., "What we would expect from calculation alone and detailed information on the WTC") that only 3 core columns were severed, with 4 more damaged. After further adjusting the model in order to accomodate observed effects, their estimate was 4 core columns severed with 5 damaged. Overall, we're talking less than a 20% reduction in support, which with the strength reduction curve of steel, represents a relatively small change in the critical temperature required for collapse - see figure here (http://www.corusconstruction.com/en/design_and_innovation/structural_design/fire/steelwork_fire_resistance/).

In the local region of 800 C, this is a difference of less than 50 degrees or so, and although the Parque tower showed some damage after its 17 hour long inferno, it did not display symptoms of collapse. Hence the critical nature of fire insulation or lack thereof on the columns within the model - as, of course, we cannot expect reasonably to see higher temperatures in the far better maintained WTC tower, which was as far as we know much closer to meeting fire code in all the non-structural departments, and the time it takes to heat the columns is something that stands firmly in favor of predicting the Parque building to collapse.

As Bazant and Zhou pointed out early on - and as the NIST concurred, of course - the WTC was designed to handle the impact alone, and all data indicates that it would have handled the impact alone very well. F. R. Greening's claim otherwise is quite remarkable.

Aside from as a source of ignition for other things that wouldn't easily ignite otherwise, and as an accelerant.
Neither of which cause that which it ignites to burn any hotter.
Several of which have in fact collapsed purely due to fire. In others, the fires have been devastating enough to cause partial collapse, cause firefighting efforts to be abandoned due to fears of pancake collapse, and resulted in buildings with such heavy damage they had to be reinforced before they could be demolished safely.

Unfortunately for you, others have also succeeded in doing so. The Sight and Sound Theatre in Pennsylvania, the Kader Toy Factory and the McCormick Centre in Chicago are all steel framed buildings that collapsed due to fire.

Which was also why the McCormick Centre burned down; work crews had accidentally cracked off the fireproofing. It's not without precedent.
Still working straight from the debunking911.com playbook, I see. The McCormick Center roof collapsed. All of these buildings were relatively small steel frame buildings with enormous open areas and limited to no internal column support – and none of these can be compared to the true skyscrapers.

The Kader Toy Factory, for example, was a substandard piece of crap that basically added up to a four-floor chicken shack. There's a reason why nobody other than the scatter-shot “debunkers” are even bringing these buildings up – they're not comparable to a modern well-built skyscraper.
So, just like your argument, then? You're projecting. Their desire is to explain the official account and debunk the myths spread by conspiracy theorists.
“Explain the official account” = “A strong desire, induced by emotional investment, to defend a particular account of events.”
“Debunk the myths” = “Squelch all alternative explanations, regardless of whether or not the defender successfully grasps the science involved.”

Precisely as I said.
He wasn't fired. He retired. And to be honest, I couldn't blame anyone for firing him; a man charged with teaching the scientific method shouldn't conspicuously abuse it to attempt to prove a false conclusion.
GMC, the man was tenured. He was “asked to retire” for creating a public flap questioning an official account... which is exactly the sort of thing tenure is intended to defend.
Oh, so you want parts of the building to still be standing after your controlled demolition, then?
Not what I said either. Still trying to put words in my mouth, GMC.
Aside from the tiny matter of their explicit statement the core of the building did not fall at all for anything up to 25 seconds, you mean?
“Portions” of the core. You're still working from the playbook, and it's still leading you into mistakes.
From video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse. Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely.
I.e., in other words, it is possible that the lower part of the cores stood for up to 25 seconds, because we can't see them through the debris clouds.

It is, of course, known that regardless of the behavior of certain obscured portions of the lower core sections, the upper core sections led the collapse.
I suppose, if you don't bother to read it properly. They said the top wasn't slowed by the floor immediately below it, and that the force on each floor increased. They did not say the totality of floors below the collapsing section failed to slow it at all, and, at least in the FAQ, they did not say when they felt the top sections hit the ground.

Again, you're just reading their statements as is convenient to your argument, without applying any kind of logic to them.
No, I'm reading them quite carefully. The NIST is agrees with the “conspiracy theorists” that the tops of the towers came down at what cannot be distinguished from free fall rates.

Free fall timing is, of course, not the only thing that debunking911.com, yourself, and other such “defenders” disagree with the NIST regarding.
Impact of what? This is a rather important point that shows your ignorance of demolitions. In a controlled demolition, the entire building should fall at close to free-fall speed, no exceptions. On 9/11, as the NIST report indicates, the upper section fell on the first floor below it at close to free-fall speeds and fell very quickly downwards as the floors below it gave way, but the core supports may have been standing for anything up to 25 seconds after the beginning of the collapse.
Impact of what we saw start falling, of course. I.e., the upper section.
I've had similar accusations levelled at me by people who think bipedal combat machines aren't useless for actual combat. Agreeing with the official line is only bad if the official line is wrong.
Which is why you should stop kicking and screaming when Jones agrees with the official line, e.g., as he does with regard to how fast the towers fell.
Yes, I'm really pressurised to agree with the official line here in England. I don't know what my friends would think of me if I didn't. Oh noes.
Mmm hm.
Of course, the insane sense of smugness you get by not being one of us sheep means you don't mind, I'm sure. Take three steps back: what would the point of this controlled demolition be? Just the attacks would be enough to start the wars, the buildings didn't need to come down for that. So why?
Take four steps back: I'm not arguing about controlled demolition. I'm arguing about methodology, science, and problems with the official account, which make explorations of alternative explanations (such as controlled or not so controlled demolitions) warranted.
No, you have not. You have repeatedly failed to demonstrate it, which is hardly surprising given what you are trying to demonstrate is false.
I have repeatedly demonstrated it.
I have. They say the first floor the top of the tower encountered didn't slow it down. They say the lower parts of the tower would have a massive load bearing down on them. They do not however say that these floors didn't slow it down, only that the first floor didn't.
I quote again:
In other words, the momentum (which equals mass times velocity) of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it (the structure below) was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass.
The structure below – not the first floor, all of them including each successive were unable to slow measurably the falling mass.
So we ignore shots where the debris is falling well ahead of the tower? Like, oh, I don't know, this one?

See, the top of the tower can't be any lower than the visible base of the dust cloud around the top of the tower, otherwise we'd see the sides of the building bowed outwards by it. Here we have pieces of the exterior panels, the thing the NIST estimated times for, falling way ahead of the building itself. They'd obviously hit the ground long before the collapse was over, and that's when NIST stop their stopwatches.
Not necessarily. The “leading edge of the collapse” is interior to the building, after all. We don't see the bulging until we're a number of floors into it...

... and at the rate both of those are moving, the time difference between the leading edge of the leading “panel” is only a fraction of a second ahead of the leading edge of the interior collapse.
This is not a building falling in freefall.
The NIST says otherwise.
TJ, you are now simply ignoring the report. The NIST says that the top of the tower was falling at near freefall at the moment of collapse, they said nothing about it continuing at freefall speed for the entire duration of the collapse. Neither did they say the entire tower collapsed at freefall speed; in fact, they explicitly said the core, which would be destroyed first by an implosion as associated with a controlled demolition, stood the longest. Demolition in reverse?
They refer to portions of the lower sections of the core standing briefly afterwards, GMC, and make it clear that when they're talking about the collapse. You're getting yourself all befuddled. See above re: “entire building.”

Note, incidentally, that CD advocates say the demolition was not a very conventional one, which would have started with explosives on the base.
Nope. You're, again, ignoring the rebuttal. They counted time from the collapse initiation to the first piece of external cladding hitting the ground; the collapse itself wasn't over for quite some time following that event.
You're again still ignoring what the NIST clearly says.
'I deny you! Go away, nasty logic! Away!'
More strawman claims..
Yes. They support me, sadly, and not you.
More absurd displays of ignorance...
And this from someone who demands evidence. How in the hell would you know how much I've read?
OK, so perhaps I simply comprehend much more of what the NIST is saying than you instead of having read much more. I must concede that is a possibiilty.
They said that of the first floor only. Any idiot can look at the photo I posted and see you're wrong; there's a significant lead between free-falling debris and the collapse of the building itself.
They say that of the entire structure below, as what I have repeatedly quoted for you makes perfectly clear.

Ultimately, it is the seismic evidence which provides timing for the impact of the main part of the building... which is, as I and the NIST have indicated, is largely obscured by debris. You may, in fact, return to F. R. Greening's discussion of the seismic data, in which case he indicates the visual start of the tower collapse at 10:28:23 and the “major ground impact” at 10:28:32 for one of the towers, i.e., 9 seconds.
...In the moment following the collapse, not for the entire collapse. Nor did they ever say the entire tower fell at free-fall speed. You're just failing to read the parts about the core supports standing far longer.
Not at all. You repeat yourself a lot, did you know that?
Because they did. They also collapsed in entirely the wrong way.
See above. Repeat, repeat...
No, he's talking about smaller spikes preceding them. Strangely enough, this doesn't contradict the NIST's talk about the large spikes.
Bullshit. The NIST does not just talk about large spikes.
There were no seismic signals that occurred prior to the initiation of the collapse of either tower.
...In your mind, where it always was.
It's still there in many places.
So? Does he say they suggested it? Again, inventing contradictions where none need exist. Differences of opinion aren't awful heresy in science, last I checked. Others suggested the impact alone may have been sufficient, including several demolition experts. Some difference of opinion regarding that point doesn't really have any relevance, since they did collapse.
No, he's suggesting it in direct contravention of their results. Review:

Jones: Fire and impact insufficient together to explain collapse.
NIST and Bazant & Zhou: Collapse only possible through a combination of fire and impact, with impact clearly far and away incapable of causing the collapse, but fire alone, combined with insulation damage or lack of insulation damage, to be possibly sufficient.
Greening: Impact alone quite sufficient to cause collapse.

As a matter of simple fact, Greening, in advancing this claim, is no closer to the NIST, FEMA, or Bazant & Zhou than Jones.

Which leads me to the question: Why do you trust Greening, but not Jones?
Garbage. You're not allowed to have them all be clones of Dexter and James Bond in real life.
Not necessary at all.
Sure. After all, those machines don't have technicians, there's no chance of them going wrong during a process involving sensitive data, you don't need data analysis, compiling, or dozens of other tasks requiring you to get people in on it just as backup, or anything like that.

You don't need truckloads of explosives, you don't need to spend 12 days just setting the charges as CD Inc did with a much smaller building, you don't need to make file copies for anyone so they know how you're getting on...
No, those “technicians” would be in on it. You have your planning team (perhaps a dozen people if you have sufficient time), and your demolition squad (perhaps several dozen) whose job is to swiftly and secretly place charges.

The normal commercial demolition of a building is quite a bit different from the destruction of the WTC.
And you're talking about a state that really could kill whoever it felt like with no repercussions at all, and they couldn't even keep the locations of individual camps a secret.
Of course not. Each of those camps involved thousands of people coming, going, driving, building... the Nazi's love of meticulous paperwork didn't help them keep them secret either.
...Isn't anything like it either. Try again?
No, it meets your criteria perfectly. Five years after the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, with thousands dead, it was not yet clear to the public that it had been founded on a lie. (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2261)

This is, of course, well known now.
And they tend to do poor-quality work, because they're nuts with little uniting them. I can believe you could get a few of them to take over a plane and randomly crash it into a building. I have significantly more problem with the idea you could train them to precisely place explosives in a very limited timeframe without being spotted.
“Randomly crash into a building” requires no small amount of training... certainly no less than placing charges in a location determined by someone else.
Yes, but who were the three of them reporting to? Were they obliged to follow any kind of plan drawn up by a superior? If they were, would they have followed it?
McVeigh is usually credited as the one in charge of the operation.
No, assume they can keep reasonable secrets by convincing the many people inevitably involved in any such operation that it's in the nation's best interests to keep them. In the case of secrets where it was conspicuously not so, why should they bother keeping the secret?
“Many people inevitably involved” is your problem, and why you keep stumbling.
But you can't even quote it, can you?
Finding it would take too much time.
It stated it found no evidence to support a controlled demolition hypothesis. That rather implies it did not find any evidence in anything it looked at.
So?

When an investigator looks at – say – a steel column and perfoms tests on it, each test is intended to answer “yes” or “no” on a particular question. Don't ask the right questions, and it's very unlikely that you'll get the right answers. The fact that they were not looking for such evidence is sufficient explanation for why they would not have found any evidence had there been evidence.
And the lack of evidence, and that the collapse itself is not consistent with any controlled demolition in history.
No. Neither of those are part of an argument of any strength offered by the NIST. They were not modeling demolition (i.e., did not test for consistency of the collapse mechanics with a demolition), and they were not looking for evidence of demolition (which explains perfectly why they found none).
I assumed you were talking about the WTC 1 and 2 reports, since your statement implied none of NIST's final reports have been issued.
No, I was – as the sequence of responses on the topic should have made clear – talking about the WTC 7 report. You forgot what we were talking about, apparently not noticing that I quoted you talking about the preliminary WTC report in discussing that it was only a preliminary report.
No, it means 'ditched as a low priority to free up manpower for the central investigation.' I see now we're on to personal attacks on the entire NIST investigation team, all 210 of them.
Not at all. The decision is perfectly understandable given the “need for explanation,” the relatively small role the WTC 7 building played in the public eye, and the great difficulty the NIST was having in getting its models to fit.
Then how did it stay hot if it was impossible for it to get that hot, TJ? You wouldn't get pools of molten steel unless you were using dozens of tons of thermite to melt entire sections of support beam.
It is remarkably difficult to explain under any circumstances.
A lot, given engineers work with physics all the time. It's their job, you know.
No, there isn't. Engineers specialising in building collapse already understand the physics involved, whereas physicists aren't trained to understand the engineering involved. You're showing some true irrationality here.
Oh? Are nuclear physicists often trained specifically in building failure analysis? No, they're not. Jones may know how to deal with particles colliding, but massive objects do not collide like particles, and he has no training in how they do collide.
Structural engineers are not particularly trained in falling buildings. You want to ask demolition specialists - who are, I will note like most engineers, are trained to ask “How do we get it done by doing X” rather than “Why did Y happen?” IIRC, there have been few demolition specialists involved on any side of the table in anything more than brief consultations.

The real experts involved in modeling the collapse for the NIST are in the field of fire science, a relatively obscure academic branch which is quite specialized, but not really a field of engineering either.
And 'support beams softening?' What the hell does a physicist know about materials science, exactly? Why should he know anything about how massive metal bars behave during a fire?
A fair bit of the techniques, actually. A scientist receives the same training as an engineer with regard to how to deal with resistance, elasticity, etc; the focus, however, is different, and physicists typically possess a large quantity of additional theoretical training in fields irrelevant to buildings falling down. After undergraduate work - which is frequently identical or near to it – a typical engineer receives two years of additional training oriented towards the practical problems of engineering.
Jones has no authority here. And your calling the engineers involved 'rats' shows just how low your opinion is of engineering as a profession and how exaggerated your opinion is of what a physicist is trained to do.
When I was talking about OSHA rats, I was more thinking of the flammability of office furniture, actually. I happen to come from a large family filled with engineers of all stripes.
Tends to 'go away?' Ok, where does it go to, TJ? Maybe it forms large pools of oxidised metal?

Also, I'll assume simple ignorance here. The cladding of the entire building was made of aluminium!
You are assuming, then, that the reports of glowing molten steel were simply mistaken.

I will note for the record that brightly glowing metal need not be of any particular stripe of metal to be at truly excessive temperature.
Nonsense. The molten 'steel' might not even have existed, and a rational explanation exists for it even if it did. No further research is needed over something that can be explained rationally with existing data. Investigating a ridiculous hypothesis like Jones' is a waste of time, and NIST recognised that even if it were investigated the results would be inconclusive.
“A rational explanation exists,” he says. Such explanation has not been investigated or tested. This is one of the many additional pieces of research which I note has not yet been completed, and is unlikely to be performed.

“It's a waste of time,” you say. By which you mean you're very certain how the tower collapsed, and have been for quite some time, by which standard you should also consider the entire NIST method a waste.
Right, figures and a scenario you just made up. Those have real authority. Where's a real demolition, TJ? My figures came from Controlled Demolition Inc's own website, whereas yours, it seems, came from your ass. You can't point to a real demolition of a building half this size which didn't use thousands of pounds of explosive, because no such demolition exists.
Figures which I can demonstrate create sufficient condition to cause the collapse of the WTC. You may recall that if 90% of the support is removed halfway up, the entire building inevitably collapses.
Right, so now we're criticising them for spending time refining their model to fit the situation as well as possible before releasing their results. I guess they should have just released shabby incomplete models instead rather than bother to finish them.

You really have no idea how any of this works, do you?
The correct word is not “refining” the model. The question is how much the model has been monkeyed with in order to spit out the correct results – a scientifically incorrect method of going about the problem.

You have no idea what's going on here, do you? Here. Read a few critics (http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200612/NIST-WTC-Investigation.pdf) and then get back to me. You don't even seem to know what I'm talking about at all, so I also recommend that you check out a good book on the philosophy of science and read that, too.
And only a layman can spot it, right? No other expert would ever see that's what they'd done and point it out. That's why nobody in failure analysis or fire safety analysis supports this idea that the model was just some random creation as opposed to being established on the basis of the evidence from before and after the collapse, as well as from information from hundreds of other building collapses and fires.
These are, as I've pointed out, not “laymen,” properly speaking; as I've also pointed out, your claims to universal agreement are not grounded. As I've noted, the problem is in the methology and the lack of independent scientific scrutiny, factors which can cause any investigation to become questionable.
Jones is simply demanding what he knows he won't get, so he can continue claiming his lack of evidence is due to a deliberate cover-up rather than the non-existence of proof. Jones can drum up funding if he can get the support he claims he has. If not, well, that's probably because his theories are totally unconvincing.
How does he know that the NIST won't release its data?

Regardless of whether or not Jones can drum up funding (IMO, he can't), he won't be in a position to launch a comparable investigation unless the NIST releases the data it is sitting on. So why would the NIST not want to release the data?

Because there's a possibility he'll make them look bad if he gets his hands on it.
So? What fields? How many were there on the damage to the building itself? How many of those investigated the idea the McVeigh was just a patsy and the building was destroyed by the CIA?
As far as the fields, the distribution appears similar to the WTC collapse – there are just several times more papers. Without reading individually through all of them (which would take quite a while), I can't be sure that none of them investigate the possibility of alternate motivations or mechanisms... nor, for that matter, does the investigation or lack thereof change the fact that the WTC collapse has by and large not been studied in the number of peer reviewed articles that it should have.
Quote:
Right. And you cite what for this? Even Jones himself says he left to concentrate on his theories.
Which is what I would say in his shoes myself.
Any idea how much money people throw at him, TJ? You think he got to be a millionaire with several movies and multiple bestselling books in a political climate that would have him killed as a traitor?
Nope. Tell me, then, how much money does Michael Moore make off his products, and how much gets thrown at him by shady supporters?
And we are now into profoundly irrational debate, TJ. Attacking motives doesn't affect the arguments made one iota; it doesn't matter why someone is arguing a given point.
Not irrational in the slightest. What I describe as your and Dr. Greening's motivations play directly into my explanation of why there is a regrettable dearth of scientific research on the WTC collapse.
About attacking your opponent's character, about insisting all engineers don't know how to do their jobs, about misquoting a report every time you try to make an argument about the science involved...
None of those I have done. Well, except attacking your character, possibly, I'm pretty sure I've called you dishonest or stupid, but you've also been calling me dishonest or stupid.

You are the one that started the character attacks with your assault on Jones' character.
That would be Jones' paper. I assume you bothered to read it, yes?
Actually, more precisely, debunking911.com's article on themite offered in response to Jones' paper. Have you read Jones' paper, by the way? Actually read, not just scanned?
He's unqualified and speaking outside his expertise. He knows nothing the field he's criticising. Those aren't ad hominems, they're facts.
“Facts” that apply equally well to the person you're citing... and “facts” that don't cover the fact that both Greening and Jones are amply qualified to discuss the classical dynamics problem of a building falling down.
That would be necessary complexity. Seriously, have you ever worked in a job somewhere like a warehouse, which would give you some grounding in the realities of how much work and how many people it takes to move anything anywhere in a modern bureaucracy?
Have you ever worked with or talked to people who do inspections and/or auditing?

I'm familiar with how inspectors get fast-talked sometimes, and I've seen just how easy it can be for someone to get away with some pretty ridiculous crap while bureaucrats meander around... and in how people regularly decide to get things done off the record when they don't want to deal with bureaucratic nonesense.
Patting yourself on the back that you're not doing X doesn't mean you're not doing X, TJ.
No, my not doing X means it. Are you done calling me a liar yet?
A shocking number of people with no qualifications as engineers. It has a lot of people with degrees in philosophy, English literature, psychology and theology. It has a few physicists, and a couple of engineers, of which one is a nut who thinks the US dropped an anti-matter bomb on Jupiter.
“They must be nutty if they're trained and still disagree with me,” he thought to himself.
Acedemics are irrelevant. They need engineers, and they don't have them, seemingly because they can't get them.
Academics are quite relevant – which is why the NIST team includes a fair number of academics, incidentally. For that matter, I can tell you from my “expert” position in knowing so many engineers that in general, people with Ph. Ds in engineering tend to be “academics” rather than “working engineers.”

For the most part, physicists and engineers are a lot more careful about sticking their necks out than - say – philosophy professors. Far more accustomed to political controversy, you understand.
But everyone in NASA would know it wasn't video from Apollo 11 the minute they saw it on TV versus what they saw and analysed. You can't fool people with a tape that's clearly better quality than the one they saw and includes people moving entirely the wrong way.
Oh, no, you need to feed NASA the fake video feed too. That's the simplest way. How's that, GMC? Beats your fake moon landing any day of the week, it does. ^_^

Oh, no, you need to feed NASA the fake video feed too. That's the simplest way. How's that, GMC? Beats your fake moon landing any day of the week, it does. ^_^
No, there were also lots of other monitors like vitals from the 'nauts and fuel levels and power levels and air quality and trajectories and a mountain of papers covered from margin to margin in numbers and abbreviations for the guys in mission control to mull over during the flight. It wasn't just video from the moon that proved we actually sent 3 guys there on 11 (only 2 got to land, too bad for the 3rd). Anyone with a telescope and a really good eye could watch the landings.

Phew, I never knew my thread would get such long posts; now to clarify something...
I can't say much to the other issues you brought up.. but PNAC is a reality. Well documented even. Perhaps that was a bad choice to include it in your tin foil hat mission.
I know the PNAC is a reality but as GMC was trying to point out, there are a lot of unrealistic conspiracy theroys surrounding it. I lumped it with the Trilateral Commission because there was this wierd conspiracy site on the internet where people discussed various theroys (I googled it randomly) and most of the people on that site who believed that PNAC is resposible for 9/11 also believe the Trilateral Commission was in part.

Neither of which cause that which it ignites to burn any hotter.


The crucial period of the weakening of the steel is when it was important. In the period shortly after the impact the jet fuel, as well as combustables in the area, permitted the fire to burn sufficiently hot to weaken the steel.

That the fire cooled slightly shortly afterwards is irrelevant, as the damage to the steel was already done. Gravity, by providing continuous stress to the weakened steel, was willing to do the rest.

The crucial period of the weakening of the steel is when it was important. In the period shortly after the impact the jet fuel, as well as combustables in the area, permitted the fire to burn sufficiently hot to weaken the steel.

That the fire cooled slightly shortly afterwards is irrelevant, as the damage to the steel was already done. Gravity, by providing continuous stress to the weakened steel, was willing to do the rest.
FYI, jet fuel doesn't burn any hotter than a house fire. It ignites more easily, and has a nice energy content, but in normal air, it doesn't actually create a hotter flame than paper.

However, other than that, you've done one of the best jobs describing the NIST model and addressing its critics that I've seen in this thread by talking about the fact that the NIST models the steel as cooling for some time before its collapse, so you get a cookie. Enjoy your cookie!

Neither of which cause that which it ignites to burn any hotter.

But is capable of igniting things that will burn hotter but would not normally ignite. This is also the theory behind the electro-thermal plasma ignition systems currently being researched for tank guns.

There's a reason why nobody other than the scatter-shot “debunkers” are even bringing these buildings up – they're not comparable to a modern well-built skyscraper.

As opposed to the even more irrelevant examples CTs bring up of buildings with totally different construction that didn't collapse, I suppose, like the comparison you make to the Oklahoma City bombing. And, again, we have seen partial collapses even in those fires, and in at least one other case all firefighting efforts were abandoned because there was fear of pancake collapse.

This is more creationist thinking in action, it's exactly how Behe was forced to retreat until he got to the point there were no fossil records to show he was wrong. First it's claimed that no building has ever collapsed due to fire [Loose Change did that], then, when it's shown this is entirely false, it's said no steel-framed building has ever collapsed due to fire. Now that's been shown to be false too, the demand is again altered to a steel-framed skyscraper that collapsed due to fire. But there have been partial collapses of those too, so now we're onto 'steel framed skyscraper that collapsed completely due to fire.' Were another steel-framed skyscraper ever to collapse completely due to fire, I'm sure the demand would be further narrowed to exclude even that, until eventually you end up with something about a guy having a funny hat in his desk drawer on the 75th floor.

Precisely as I said.

Only with additional attacks on motives added. Would you also say Schindler's List was an attack on the idea that the Holocaust did not occur, regardless of whether the defender grasps the supporting science? Of course not.

I.e., in other words, it is possible that the lower part of the cores stood for up to 25 seconds, because we can't see them through the debris clouds.

Accent fallacy. See above what you highlighted; it is known they stood 15-25 seconds after collapse initiation. Not speculated, not possible, known. They did stand up longer than the rest of the building, which is totally inconsistent with a controlled demolition.

It is, of course, known that regardless of the behavior of certain obscured portions of the lower core sections, the upper core sections led the collapse.

Why would you not expect that to happen? It's not like the floors would be expected to lead the collapse, after all, given there's no real way for 28 floors of a building to all detach from its inner and outer structures at the exact same time.

No, I'm reading them quite carefully.

No, you are reading them in bits. There's a difference.

Take four steps back: I'm not arguing about controlled demolition. I'm arguing about methodology, science, and problems with the official account, which make explorations of alternative explanations (such as controlled or not so controlled demolitions) warranted.

But it doesn't, as these explanations have been explored already and found to have no support. The NIST found no evidence of controlled demolition in any of the wreckage they examined, or any aspect of the collapse. The only people hanging on to this hypothesis are people who hate the government so much that simple negligence won't do; it has to have been a deliberate action, no matter how many experts they have to discount and no matter how much they have to twist the facts.

And, to be honest, you've just admitted your entire argument about controlled demolition is pure sophistry. Well done, you're arguing purely for the sake of arguing.

I have repeatedly demonstrated it.

You know, this is rather like standing in front of someone with untied shoelaces while he says he's repeatedly tied them. If your arguments have failed to convince me, then you have not repeatedly demonstrated it, you have repeatedly made unconvincing arguments regarding it.

The structure below – not the first floor, all of them including each successive were unable to slow measurably the falling mass.

Semantics based on your interpretation of what 'the structure below' is defined as. You're arguing it says something that can be easily discounted by any photograph showing the late stages of the collapse, and your evidence is half a sentence. It did not collapse in freefall, and the NIST does not say it did.

Not necessarily. The “leading edge of the collapse” is interior to the building, after all. We don't see the bulging until we're a number of floors into it...

Um, no. The leading edge of the collapse is defined by pancaking floors, the infamous 'squibs' would be visible at whatever floor the lower part of the building was at. The lower part of the tower is conspicuously entirely undamaged, meaning the lower part of the collapse is likely nowhere further than the base of the dustcloud, just as I said.

The NIST says otherwise.

You are confusing your interpretation of it with what it actually says.

Note, incidentally, that CD advocates say the demolition was not a very conventional one, which would have started with explosives on the base.

In other words, as usual, they don't have a clue how such a demolition could actually have occurred.

More absurd displays of ignorance...

Right, so your chief debating tactic here is outright flaming? I guess anyone who dares disagree with your specific interpretation of 'the structure below' is absurdly ignorant. Charming.

Not at all. You repeat yourself a lot, did you know that?

It's rather necessary given your rebuttals are all the same.

No, he's suggesting it in direct contravention of their results. Review:

So? Again, a difference of opinion between demolition experts [several can be cited saying the collapse was inevitable] and the paper in question. Again, it isn't awful heresy to have a minor disagreement, and your endless fixation on this idea that if you can prove debunking is wrong in one place the whole site becomes a bad resource is nonsensical.

Which leads me to the question: Why do you trust Greening, but not Jones?

Because Jones is advancing an idiotic theory with no support, based on things he doesn't understand and cherry-picking evidence to suit his hypothesis while ignoring everything that does not support it. Much like you, in fact, only he's being slightly less pretentious about his goal in doing so.

No, those “technicians” would be in on it.

How many? Do you cover sickness and time off? Do you cover the people they report to? If not, who gives them an excuse to be where they are?

You have your planning team (perhaps a dozen people if you have sufficient time), and your demolition squad (perhaps several dozen) whose job is to swiftly and secretly place charges.

Planning team would likely be over a hundred once you realise you'd need to build an entire tower to dry-run the sequence and probably also do a dry-run with the placement team. Multiply this several times if your initial explosive scheme doesn't work, since you need to rebuild it. Remember, the claim is the layout and demolition would be completely unprecedented, and that means you'd have to test it to see if it worked before anyone would give you the go-ahead; after all, you're not going to take the chance of the building failing to collapse even after the charges go off, are you?

The normal commercial demolition of a building is quite a bit different from the destruction of the WTC.

No shit? Maybe because the WTC collapse wasn't any kind of demolition? We're here in creationist turf again; you want to invent a special demolition with unknown properties, unlike any other in the history of the world, defined only by its ability to replicate what was seen, no matter how stupid, unlikely or dangerous the resulting explosive setup would have to be.

How would this demolition setup be arrived at? How was it tested? How many setups were tested before it that didn't work? Where were the trial runs staged, since a before-the-fact computer simulation isn't a reliable prediction of the real-life behaviour of a very complex system? Who built the test towers? Where? Why didn't anyone see them?

“Randomly crash into a building” requires no small amount of training... certainly no less than placing charges in a location determined by someone else.

Wrong. Placing a modern jet on course is actually simply a matter of data input; you just have to program the right numbers into the autopilot and the plane will basically fly itself. Once the plane's in the air, there isn't a whole lot for the pilot to do. Many aviation experts and pilots have commented that when the hijackers actually took over and went to fully manual control in the final minutes before the three impacts, their flying was atrocious.

“Many people inevitably involved” is your problem, and why you keep stumbling.

No, it's your problem, and why you keep failing to see what an impossible argument Jones made.

Finding it would take too much time.

Right. You want me to read entire papers and books but it'll take you too much time to press control-F and type 'missile.' Why not just come out with it, TJ: you think your time is more important than mine.

When an investigator looks at – say – a steel column and perfoms tests on it, each test is intended to answer “yes” or “no” on a particular question.

Correct. And if the question is 'is this evidence of a natural collapse due to fire?' and the answer is 'no,' it's evidence of something else, and one must try to figure out what that something else is. But no such 'noes' were ever found. On the other hand, the explanation of pancake collapse as instigating the total collapse was discarded. So why, if they're only interested in proving a particular hypothesis, would they so conspicuously discard one? Wouldn't they just keep altering the model until it fit, as you claim, rather than scrubbing it because it didn't fit?

Don't ask the right questions, and it's very unlikely that you'll get the right answers. The fact that they were not looking for such evidence is sufficient explanation for why they would not have found any evidence had there been evidence.

Wrong. Regardless of whether they were looking for evidence or not, if the evidence was there, they would find it. Darwin wasn't looking for evidence of evolution when he began his studies, but he couldn't explain what he saw any other way. If the NIST had found evidence entirely inconsistent with regular collapse, they would have been forced to discard their original hypothesis and investigate others. They did not find any such evidence.

Not at all. The decision is perfectly understandable given the “need for explanation,” the relatively small role the WTC 7 building played in the public eye, and the great difficulty the NIST was having in getting its models to fit.

Right, so getting the 1 and 2 reports out sooner would play no part in it. I see we're busy trying to read people's minds again.

It is remarkably difficult to explain under any circumstances.

No, remarkably easy, actually. The reports of molten steel were just that; reports by eyewitnesses of material that appeared to be molten steel. That there's a way it could indeed be molten steel isn't really necessary, since they could simply have been mistaken; again, visual analysis of molten material is not a precise business.

Structural engineers are not particularly trained in falling buildings. You want to ask demolition specialists - who are, I will note like most engineers, are trained to ask “How do we get it done by doing X” rather than “Why did Y happen?” IIRC, there have been few demolition specialists involved on any side of the table in anything more than brief consultations.

But plenty of statements by them. In any case, building engineers do need to know what makes buildings collapse. You can hardly create a working apparatus without sufficient knowledge of the conditions under which it would fail. This is like saying a naval architect doesn't need to know what makes a ship sink to make it float.

And inquests are designed to establish why something happened and whether it must be taken into account in future to prevent the same thing happening again. Why do you think no bridge like Tacoma Narrows was ever built again?

The real experts involved in modeling the collapse for the NIST are in the field of fire science, a relatively obscure academic branch which is quite specialized, but not really a field of engineering either.

That's why they're called fire safety engineers, I suppose. Fire analysis is an engineering field related to building failure analysis.

After undergraduate work - which is frequently identical or near to it – a typical engineer receives two years of additional training oriented towards the practical problems of engineering.

Training a physicist never need receive, you mean?

I will note for the record that brightly glowing metal need not be of any particular stripe of metal to be at truly excessive temperature.

Who said it was glowing? Let's inject some reality here: were there steel heated to the temperature where it would be glowing, the excavators used to clear the rubble would have immediately ceased functioning. It wouldn't have been possible to work at Ground Zero at all.

“A rational explanation exists,” he says. Such explanation has not been investigated or tested. This is one of the many additional pieces of research which I note has not yet been completed, and is unlikely to be performed.

Well, obviously, since it's only conjecture what the pools were actually composed of. It's rather hard to get anything more for the composition of a pool of liquid identified by sight only that may never have existed at all.

“It's a waste of time,” you say. By which you mean you're very certain how the tower collapsed, and have been for quite some time, by which standard you should also consider the entire NIST method a waste.

No, the NIST model is necessary for the bureaucrats; you wouldn't really get by such a massive disaster without a thorough investigation. Now that said investigation is wrapped up, only those touting silly conspiracy theories aren't happy with it. Again, isn't it a little disconcerting that only laymen agree with you?

Figures which I can demonstrate create sufficient condition to cause the collapse of the WTC.

Can you? Go for it. Let's see how the detonating rig is still sound after a plane crashes into it, in particular, and then how you get the explosives up there, what they're composed of, and why no explosive residue or bomb parts were ever found during a massive cleanup operation.

The correct word is not “refining” the model. The question is how much the model has been monkeyed with in order to spit out the correct results – a scientifically incorrect method of going about the problem.

As opposed to the scientifically correct manner Jones proposes of defining his conclusion ahead of time, ignoring any evidence that disagrees with it and blaming the lack of any supporting evidence on a cover-up? Don't make me laugh. Jones' hypothesis is scientifically invalid because he includes an all-purpose 'conspiracy' as a term, meaning any evidence against him can be discounted regardless of how much is assembled.

Again, the model is supposed to reach a known result with reasonable initial parameters. Sure enough, it does, and can accurately duplicate the collapse with a set of starting conditions that don't require additional terms. This would be impossible if there really was a controlled demolition, as the explosives would introduce failures totally inconsistent with the model and its behaviour would fail to mirror the real collapse.

You don't even seem to know what I'm talking about at all, so I also recommend that you check out a good book on the philosophy of science and read that, too.

Yes, when your opponent isn't convinced by your argument, get angry and accuse him of being unable to understand it. We're into some real good debate tactics here, I see.

These are, as I've pointed out, not “laymen,” properly speaking; as I've also pointed out, your claims to universal agreement are not grounded.

You've pointed out but failed to show. There's one structural engineer in the entire world who agrees with the CD hypothesis, and he's a pensioner. You can talk about the political climate all you like, but NIST's data is freely available now. Where's the reports criticising it from engineers in, say, Iran, Pakistan or China? They still have buildings there, after all, and one can hardly argue their political climate would repress such things.

How does he know that the NIST won't release its data?

Because the data he's looking for doesn't exist. He knows regardless of how much data they release, he can accuse them of withholding more or tampering with what they released. It's lose-lose for them, so why should they bother releasing any data they haven't already just for him to claim it's fake when it inevitably doesn't support him any more than the existing data does?

So why would the NIST not want to release the data?

It has released the data. What do you think is in those 43 volumes they issued, hymns to the power of gravy?

Because there's a possibility he'll make them look bad if he gets his hands on it.

Ah, straight into the final line of all conspiracy arguments. 'The lack of evidence is itself evidence of a cover-up.' Pathetic.

nor, for that matter, does the investigation or lack thereof change the fact that the WTC collapse has by and large not been studied in the number of peer reviewed articles that it should have.

I guess they were too busy with those two massive investigations? Again, the investigations into the WTC collapse far outstrip any prior investigations into building collapses, both in scope and scale. Your fixation on peer-reviewed papers over 43-volume studies is odd, to say the least.

Which is what I would say in his shoes myself.

Don't be ridiculous. You're arguing the man would be willing to expose a plot to murder thousands, but not one to fire a university professor?

Nope. Tell me, then, how much money does Michael Moore make off his products, and how much gets thrown at him by shady supporters?

I fail to see what you're getting at. Moore makes millions from his book sales and movies. Moore is anti-establishment. He is not the only one who has done this. Why doesn't Jones approach one of these people for funding for his study? Surely if his arguments are that convincing, he'd have no problem getting funding to pursue them?

Not irrational in the slightest. What I describe as your and Dr. Greening's motivations play directly into my explanation of why there is a regrettable dearth of scientific research on the WTC collapse.

Because there is a non-regrettable dearth of rational alternate theories that require investigation, yes. Your constant attacks on people's motives and the 'political climate' aren't showing there to be any call for investigation into disjointed theories that can't even survive straightforward logic.

None of those I have done. Well, except attacking your character, possibly, I'm pretty sure I've called you dishonest or stupid, but you've also been calling me dishonest or stupid.

Actually, you've done all of them. Further, you have been using personal attacks and attacks on motives constantly as rebuttals to actual debate components.

You are the one that started the character attacks with your assault on Jones' character.

Oh? I wasn't aware 'you started it' was a valid debate tactic. Oh right, it's the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy, isn't it? And to be honest, I have never attacked Jones' character, merely whether his professional status makes him any kind of authority on what he's talking about, which it doesn't.

Actually, more precisely, debunking911.com's article on themite offered in response to Jones' paper. Have you read Jones' paper, by the way? Actually read, not just scanned?

I fail to see why I should spend my time slogging through 42 pages of nonsense just so you don't have to bother offering quotes from it. Don't bother bringing up Jones unless you're prepared to address the problems with his paper, TJ. He proposes thermite. Thermite cannot do what he proposes. Looking for thermite is therefore pointless, as the hypothesis fails at a far more basic level.

I'm familiar with how inspectors get fast-talked sometimes, and I've seen just how easy it can be for someone to get away with some pretty ridiculous crap while bureaucrats meander around... and in how people regularly decide to get things done off the record when they don't want to deal with bureaucratic nonesense.

Right, because when the audit comes and your stock inventory is short nobody's balls end up on the chopping block, right? Inspections and audits are one of the main reasons why you need paperwork, and they would quickly join the dots if X amount of explosives and X amount of detonators had gone missing or been ordered right before 9/11.

No, my not doing X means it. Are you done calling me a liar yet?

I'm not calling you a liar, I'm saying you're wrong. One doesn't have to consciously lie to be wrong, I'd have thought you of all people would realise that, since you made that self-same argument a while back. Still, it gives you an excuse to act offended, I suppose.

“They must be nutty if they're trained and still disagree with me,” he thought to himself.

Oh? The idea of the US dropping an antimatter bomb on Jupiter is now sane, is it? Bear in mind that the most modern antimatter producing equipment in the world would take half a quadrillion years to make a single gram of anti-hydrogen.

Academics are quite relevant – which is why the NIST team includes a fair number of academics, incidentally. For that matter, I can tell you from my “expert” position in knowing so many engineers that in general, people with Ph. Ds in engineering tend to be “academics” rather than “working engineers.”

Right, so we're now conflating people with relevant qualifications with people with irrelevant ones, as long as we can get them under the aegis of 'academics.'

For the most part, physicists and engineers are a lot more careful about sticking their necks out than - say – philosophy professors.

Ah. So that's why the most celebrated and famous scientists are those who stick their necks out and challenge current understanding; Darwin, Einstein, Newton, Hawking and so on. Same with engineers; those who made a name for themselves, like Archimedes, Whittle, Brunell, Edison and Tesla did so by challenging understanding to make great steps forward.

This is, again, a creationist argument you've appropriated: they also like to claim that a scientist who proposes a radical idea would be ostracised rather than celebrated. The only precedent for such a thing is Gallileo, and he was ostracised by the church, not by science.

Oh, no, you need to feed NASA the fake video feed too. That's the simplest way. How's that, GMC? Beats your fake moon landing any day of the week, it does. ^_^

Do you end every post with a smilie? NASA would have had to see the real video feed during the mission itself, otherwise there wouldn't have been a mission. Someone would then have to decide it wasn't enough and re-shoot after the fact. You won't convince anyone if you then have one mission with the fake feed and then go back to real ones with video that's still grainy and crap-looking.

In any case, why wouldn't the video look perfect if it was faked? Why would there be errors like colours leeching into the camera crosshair due to over-exposure that make it look like the crosshair is drawn behind objects?

But is capable of igniting things that will burn hotter but would not normally ignite. This is also the theory behind the electro-thermal plasma ignition systems currently being researched for tank guns.
GMC, the office supplies themselves have the potential to burn hotter. I'm failing to see anything that would not ignite in a fire like the one in Caracas, but would in the WTC. Please, by all means, bring out this magic burny-thingie that needs specifically jet fuel to ignite.
As opposed to the even more irrelevant examples CTs bring up of buildings with totally different construction that didn't collapse, I suppose, like the comparison you make to the Oklahoma City bombing. And, again, we have seen partial collapses even in those fires, and in at least one other case all firefighting efforts were abandoned because there was fear of pancake collapse.
We have seen partial collapse and damage in fires. For example, after the Caracas fire – really the closest to WTC-like tower that has enjoyed a major fire, although the example has only been available since 2004 - a substantial amount of steel needed to be replaced.
This is more creationist thinking in action, it's exactly how Behe was forced to retreat until he got to the point there were no fossil records to show he was wrong. First it's claimed that no building has ever collapsed due to fire [Loose Change did that], then, when it's shown this is entirely false, it's said no steel-framed building has ever collapsed due to fire. Now that's been shown to be false too, the demand is again altered to a steel-framed skyscraper that collapsed due to fire. But there have been partial collapses of those too, so now we're onto 'steel framed skyscraper that collapsed completely due to fire.' Were another steel-framed skyscraper ever to collapse completely due to fire, I'm sure the demand would be further narrowed to exclude even that, until eventually you end up with something about a guy having a funny hat in his desk drawer on the 75th floor.
Not at all. The closest examples have been brought up not be the scattershot artists of debunking911.com, but the “conspiracy theorists” you so decry. Even the claim that no steel framed building has ever collapsed due to fire is a very close thing; it is very rare for a steel framed building to collapse, and generally only happens under extraordinary circumstances involving poor construction or loss of insulation.
Only with additional attacks on motives added.
The only difference is that I'm explaining the motivation to do precisely what you yourself admit they are up to.
Accent fallacy. See above what you highlighted; it is known they stood 15-25 seconds after collapse initiation. Not speculated, not possible, known. They did stand up longer than the rest of the building, which is totally inconsistent with a controlled demolition.
A normal demolition would go bottom down. The theory under discussion is top down even by its least detailed advocates. Lower sections of core standing for some additional time does not rule out alternative factors being involved in the collapse.
Why would you not expect that to happen? It's not like the floors would be expected to lead the collapse, after all, given there's no real way for 28 floors of a building to all detach from its inner and outer structures at the exact same time.
Thank you.
But it doesn't, as these explanations have been explored already and found to have no support.
The only exploration of alternative explanations has been by Dr. Jones and company. Neither NIST nor FEMA conducted any exploration of alternate explanations, considering it sufficient to develop a model that produced the desired behavior.
The NIST found no evidence of controlled demolition in any of the wreckage they examined, or any aspect of the collapse.
Again, the NIST did not look for such evidence.
The only people hanging on to this hypothesis are pople who hate the government so much that simple negligence won't do; it has to have been a deliberate action, no matter how many experts they have to discount and no matter how much they have to twist the facts.
And have I indicted the government? No. In fact, in this discussion with you, I've been defending the government against accusations of massive incompetence by you.
And, to be honest, you've just admitted your entire argument about controlled demolition is pure sophistry. Well done, you're arguing purely for the sake of arguing.
GMC, you still aren't getting the point here, and you've been persistently not getting the point for about fifty pages' worth of plain text.

Let's cut the bullshit repeats of all your previous debunked claims, none of which appear to have changed since the last ten pages of posts, and start outlining what my argument is in bullet form. Let's see if you can understand what I'm talking about if I spend my time explaining it instead of repeating myself when you show no signs of comprehension dawning in any of the details of reality. The only change has been the up-pacing of your ad hominem attacks and inappropriate analogies, e.g., with creationism.

So let's organize everything I've been talking about into one nested structure and see if you understand how it all contributes to my central thesis.

Item: There has been a relative dearth of research, in absolute terms, on the WTC. Support:
There have been next to no peer-reviewed papers on the collapse.
Other disasters of lesser scope receive considerably more independent research, e.g., the USS Cole attack, Oklahoma City bombing, etc.
This holds even when there is no difficulty in modeling, e.g., the Oklahoma City bombing
The greater difficulty in modeling the WTC collapse and generalizing its lessons to skyscraper construction would ordinarily lead to more, not less, research.
Query: Why has there been a relative dearth of research? Answer: The political environment, i.e., collective emotional investment, makes independent research difficult, discouraging researchers.
Support:
Open hostility towards any question of any detail of the official model is evident. This obstructs the process of peer review.
This hostility persists regardless of the science, comprehension of the official model and its criticisms, and even whether or not the attackers agree in detail with the official model.
Example: Early criticism of “pancaking” was attacked as virulently as any other criticism on the internet, although later the NIST would conclude that pancaking was, in fact, not the cause, and discard that model.
Example: Attackers may make claims such as the towers taking 15-18 seconds to impact ground, in direct contravention of those studying the model seriously.
Example: Attackers may defend outdated models initially advanced by FEMA and discarded years ago.
Example: F. R. Greening & debunking911.com disagree with the NIST in a number of matters, e.g., the existence of tower-related seismic signals prior to the visual start of collapse and whether or not impact damage alone would have sufficed to cause the collapse.
The NIST is not about to hand over data if it could make it look bad.
A tenured physicist, Dr. Jones, was asked to retire for publishing criticism of the official account in a paper that he concluded by saying that more research is required to be sure of anything regarding the WTC collapse.
Given the massive difficulty in producing any additional definitely culpable parties and the unlikelihood of future plane-skyscraper attacks, few sensible individuals will be willing to stick their necks out for little potential benefit and substantial probable harm to their reputations.
Item: The lone official study of the matter has been conducted in a methodologically suspect manner with a limited scope of inquiry.
Support:
Peer review, such as it is, has remained entirely “in-house.”
NIST refusal to hand over data, although understandable in their own self-interest, hampers rather than aids future independent research.
The NIST's approach has been persistently that of forcing the model to fit the explanation rather than considering additional factors or contributing causes outside the original model; indications are that this model was pushed to severe limits.
The NIST increased substantially its initial estimates of impact damage to the towers by the impact.
Further examination by the NIST of steel samples has ruled out exposure to temperatures of 700-800 C as claimed in earlier FEMA reports, or anything in excess of 600 C for the samples available for study; however, the NIST model makes use of heating well past 600 C, as expected in any model from Bazant and Zhou onward.
The NIST has been generally uncooperative in allowing examination of the workings of its model.
The NIST has chosen not to test alternative mechanisms directly.
Conclusion: Study of the WTC collapse has, and probably will remain for some time, insufficient to summarily rule out all alternative explanations for the mechanism of the collapse, and critique of the existing state of scientific study of the matter is warranted.


The most important thing to remember is that the NIST has been conducting investigation with what we may describe as an engineering, rather than scientific, approach, i.e., “How can the planes' impact have caused the towers to collapse?” rather than the more general question of “Why and how did the towers collapse?” Their refusal to investigate alternate causes or contributing factors is entirely understandable, and not necessarily part of some “grand conspiracy,” as GMC would undoubtably love to claim.

The understandable but regrettable lack of independent and scientifically rigorous research on the matter of the World Trade Center collapse requires no additional conspiracy beyond the bare minimum required to make plans to and actually place charges sufficient to cause collapse*, although the conditions for scientific inquiry into the precise mechanism of the collapse could have been made easier (e.g., by retention of a more complete collection of steel debris for study, or had the WTC collapse been less popular as a tool of rhetoric, etc).

Now, I understand this is a complex argument that you have had a great deal of difficulty understanding. You've been trying to argue with me straight out of the debunking911.com playbook, which is designed solely to attack known conspiracy theories via a scattershot method; any additional argument has boiled down to the invocation of unnecessary degrees of complexity and the inability of any group to keep a secret for a mere five years in spite of evidence to the contrary.

*The existing NIST model sets forth the claim that if a sufficient percentage of support is removed from a single floor at once, the building would fall as observed. As you may imagine, it is much easier to do this than to conduct a normal (and safe) demolition. The total explicit claim is that further, this support was removed through heating of the steel support columns via fire, of course..

most annoying--toss up 9/11 or area 51....just really weird both of them....

most believable-The Jews control the media/government.....Jewish lobby groups are fact, that Jews have a powerful influence in the US government and White House also true......whether there is a mastermind behind it all? probably not, ....a joint effort between various groups to influence the public and foreign policy....no doubt

conspiracy theories despite how nutty they sound have to paid attention too.....A President involved in the Watergate cover up conspiracy ....A President involved in secret illegal deals with Iran in order to fund a terrorist organization in Central America, ridiculous... CIA funding a drug lord dictator impossible!:rolleyes:

The holocaust deniers are disgusting, the 9/11 conspiracy nuts the most idiotic and the JFK theorist the least knowledgeable of their subject.

The rest are completely insane but tend to have a very tiny bit of truth behind what they say.
Area 51 for instance, the government does indeed cover up alot of military matters, just not an army base visable from space. Or take the moon landing, not faked but was a show for the Soviets.

I voted Holocaust, but to be honest the most annoying is the 9/11 one. That may be because it's the closest one to me, even though I'm very supportive of the Jewish People and their fight over idiocy over the matter of the Holocaust *meaning that I support that Ahma...Ahmedinjad?...w/e...that Tom will just shut the hell up*, but it's just...

Gah...

Go watch that one movie...

Let's cut the bullshit repeats of all your previous debunked claims, none of which appear to have changed since the last ten pages of posts, and start outlining what my argument is in bullet form.

No, let's not bother doing that either. Let's instead realise what you've been doing in every single reply so far, examine what's wrong with doing it, and then skip back to the problems that mean the controlled demolition hypothesis is so wonky it doesn't yet merit any form of investigation, or much more than derisive laughter.

Ok, what we have here in your debate tactics is a classic example of guerrilla debating in action. Guerrilla debating is a dishonest debating tactic where the debater in question attempts to constantly attack his opponent's position without ever clearly defining his own; it's an effective tactic, since by constantly keeping your opponent defending his own beliefs you can avoid him realising that you've never bothered to set out your own. Indeed, you've even gone so far in the preceding post as to accuse me of doing nothing but attacking, in the hope you can make me defend against that charge rather than actually attack your failure to even define which CD hypothesis, if any, you actually support.

TJ, your entire 'thesis' is meaningless; it doesn't bother to address whether the alternatives to the main theory are actually valid in their own right, because you know they're not and you know you can't possibly defend them. So, instead, you constantly attack those who support the study conducted by the NIST, by whatever means you deem necessary; semantics, confusing interpretation with evidence, confusing eyewitness reports with factual data, claiming your opponents are 'typical of the mentality' [sort of a reverse Appeal to Popularity, I suppose], and so on.

Well, I think I've given you enough rope here to rig a couple of galleons, so let's see what you're really made of. In order for controlled demolition to be considered valid enough to demand further study, it must be logically consistent. It therefore has to answer the following, without appealing to the conspiracy again.

How was the demolition sequence able to exactly match the collapse to the floors that were on fire? Those floors led the collapse, after all. How did they know where the planes would hit? How did they know one would hit higher than the other? Was every floor rigged, 'just in case?' If so, how on Earth would nobody spot this?

How was the sequence tested? You agree it's unprecedented, so who would take the chance that both the fire, impact and charges might fail to bring the building down, leaving the remains of the charges and their blast marks there for all the world to see? Where was it tested? Isn't there any suspicious demolition carried out in an extremely irregular manner that could be pointed to?

For that matter, how did the explosives get inside the building with only four days to make the holes and load the charges? Again, CD Inc took 12 days just loading charges in a building less than a third the size of the WTC towers, with all the holes for them already drilled and cladding sawed away from the supports already. How would you manage one building the same size and two buildings three times the size with a window of just four days? How big is your work crew? Who are they? Why does nobody who worked in the towers remember anything that would suggest this operation in progress? You're going to have to get these explosives inside the building and up to the top somehow, after all.

How did the explosives survive the fire? How did their containers then not survive the collapse too? Why did the NIST find only evidence of columns buckled due to structural weakening from fire? Those shouldn't even exist! Why are the floors visibly sagging immediately before the collapse in images of the holes in the towers?

How did the planners of this conspiracy know the planes would actually hit the towers at all? What if the flights were cancelled? What if the hijackers had chosen another target? What if they had failed to overpower the crews? What if they'd missed or only clipped the towers?

If you argue that the planes were piloted by someone else, who? Where did they train? Why were they willing to kill themselves for this ill-defined cause? Why has nobody missed them? Why, then, did there happen to be known Al'Quaeda members on each flight? Did they just sit there and let this mysterious other party kill them?

Why were explosives needed at the Twin Towers but not the Pentagon? Why were no explosives found in any of the presumed targets of the fourth plane?

Why would the fire crews at the WTC site know about the demolition of WTC 7 but not 1 or 2? Wouldn't they be a little angry about an omission that killed hundreds of their friends? Would the survivors really stay quiet?

Why were there no audible sounds when the explosives detonated? Why were there no visible flashes? Why wait so long to set them off?

Why use planes? Why not just claim it was another bomb in the basement? What's the point of doing immense damage to airline stocks and consumer confidence when you don't have to?

Why bring down the towers? They were insured for less than their rebuilding value, so it can't have been that. Who benefits? Even the plane crashes alone would fulfil the objective of giving a reason to go to war, so why the overkill?

Now, the scientific method dictates that the best theory is the one which fits the observations the best and includes the least number of additional terms. This is the principle called Occam's Razor, and it always goes against conspiracy theories, which by their nature have at least one additional term the official explanation does not. The only exception is where the conspiracy itself is a known entity with known properties that can actually be tied to the event in question; otherwise, it's just a useless undefined additional term.

A fault many CTs, Jones included, fall into is circular reasoning; since the conspiracy in a conspiracy theory is such a versatile term, you can use it as beginning, middle and end of your theory. It can explain a preponderance of evidence or a lack of it, and can even be evidence of itself in some cases. As with your 'thesis' and Jones' complaints, any evidence withheld is automatically assumed to be support for the theory, since it's always an implicit assumption of such theories that the conspiracy term must exist.

This particular belief that there could be no mundane reason for data to be withheld, so it must be to stop the clever CTs getting hold of it and proving their theories, doesn't mesh well with the other belief you bring up, that 'we're persecuted because we know too much.' Why bother hiding evidence from CTs if nobody's going to believe them regardless of whether they have it or not?

So, what we need here is:

A large number of reliable eyewitness accounts or other valid data suggesting unusually large amounts of materials being moved into the towers in the four days immediately prior to 9/11. Since there's no coherent hypothesis for how the demolition setup actually looked but there would have to be a minimum of around ten floors rigged to give even a reasonable margin of error to the hijackers, that's likely dozens of tons of explosives with their attendant strange invincible casings.

Evidence of a material that a container can be constructed from such that it will withstand an aircraft impact and subsequent 1,000 degree inferno without being breached and prematurely detonating its charges, which will then breach easily when the charge does detonate in spite of its immense strength, and which will then completely vanish in the collapse and subsequent cleanup.

Further, evidence of a chemical, mechanical or electronic detonator that can be mass-produced and still reliably survive the same level of abuse and similarly vanish afterwards.

A valid explanation for the lack of explosive residue found on the wreckage, one that does not, as Jones' hypothesis does, involve identifying a chemical incendiary agent which is composed entirely of materials that would be present in the building regardless of whether the agent itself was present or not, even though this agent would be impossible to actually use to replicate the collapse.

Evidence that a fire fed by jet fuel, burning aluminium, burning plastics and synthetics, chemical oxygen generators, lubricants, office supplies and furniture would be unable to reach and sustain sufficient temperature to substantially weaken support columns already damaged by the impact of the aircraft itself. Simply denying it via Appeal to Ignorance isn't enough.

Evidence showing the existence of a mechanism by which externally visible sagging could occur in the floors of the tower if the fire was never hot enough to cause it.

Likewise, evidence that burning liquid aluminium would pour from windows as if the floor it was travelling along was changing shape and buckling, when, again, this would presumably be impossible.

Evidence that the damage to columns from shaped-charge explosives would still somehow be consistent with softening and loss of strength due to fire, and not impossible to rationalise as such.

Evidence of any plan displaying such near-magical foresight as to accurately predict the precise floors of two massive skyscrapers that would be struck by a pair of airliners piloted by rank amateurs, the exact time this would occur, that these skyscrapers would be the targets, and the extent of damage from their collapse such that controlled demolitions would only be instigated in the precise buildings which would be expected to catch fire, with no explosives set in any others. Along with this, exact knowledge of which damaged buildings would catch fire.

If there are no alternate theories that don't have vast, glaring holes in them, there is no need to pursue additional research other than to shore up the main theory still more. Additional evidence can't prove a logically incoherent hypothesis, especially when it's equipped to dismiss all negative evidence as part of the conspiracy. Since CD advocates can't even deal with the existing negative evidence, seeking out more won't help them; their theories still won't work regardless. You can't get rid of something you can't explain by finding something else you can, it's nonsense.

When someone comes up with an alternate hypothesis that's logically consistent rather than resembling a sieve, I would fully support further investigation into it. Until then, wasting public money on such obvious silliness is pointless and is giving these disjointed theories far more attention than they warrant.

Now, on to motives, since you're apparently ok with attacking those. Specifically, yours. They're quite obvious from your posts; mainly, your endless allegations that I don't get it, your proud boasting that you have 'already demonstrated' contentious points and have 'understood more' than me, and your tendency to imagine that the vast majority of people are just emotional wrecks responding to knee-jerk sentiments.

Believing in these theories appeals to your vanity. You're smarter than the sheep because you can see through the lies, and the more 'sheep' believe the official story, the more people you're smarter than; this, perversely, means the more ridiculous the position taken by someone with your outlook the better. It doesn't matter that you're claiming to be smarter than every structural engineer on the planet bar a single pensioner, along with the entire fields of fire safety analysis, building failure analysis and controlled demolitions. In fact, that just makes it better. Mighty TJ is smarter than all the experts, and to hell with anyone who points out the flaws in the arguments you're making; you just accuse them of doing so because they're not smart like you. I imagine the sales concept of fear of loss is present with this mindset, after all, since if you were to turn out to be wrong in your assumption that you're smarter than the masses, the natural conclusion is the masses were actually smarter than you.

We also get into the Bond Villain Paradox with your talk about Jones. The Bond Villain Paradox is common in conspiracy theories; it's the belief that a conspiracy that's easily willing to kill people, even dozens or thousands, in a high-profile attack would be unwilling or unable to despatch a single critic.

You object to parallels between your arguments and creationism, but I've debated creationists who treat Duane Gish, a young-earth creationist with a very real biochemistry PhD, exactly how you treat Dr. Jones; constantly talking about his authority, but ignoring the authority of anyone who disagrees with him, regardless of how many more are in the latter camp. They're actually in the better position, because Gish's qualification is relevant to the discussion, whereas Jones' is not. They also claim that science is involved in repressing anything that doesn't support evolution, they also pick holes in evolution and claim it as evidence of 'controversy' requiring their side to be taken seriously as a valid alternative, and they also constantly re-work demands of evidence until they've constructed a demand that can't be met.

Your arguments, with just changed nouns and a little grammatical fine-tuning, could be applied to anything from aliens building the pyramids to creationism, homeopathy or the accuracy of the prophecies of Nostradamus. Basically:

'Our' experts are right, the proof is being hidden by the [evil NIST and FEMA investigations / evil archaeologists and MIBs / evil atheist scientists / evil pharmaceutical companies / evil people who point out we're just playing around with semantics] and there's too much pressure for the evidence to come out. That's why 'their' experts just go along with the party line. If we were allowed to [insert something easily redefined so even if it happens you can just say it hasn't] without anyone interfering with us, then the truth would come out.

What does this sound like? Oh, yes.

'Our' prophets are right, the proof is being hidden by the [insert personification of evil] and there's too much pressure for the evidence to come out. That's why 'their' prophets just go along with the party line. If we were allowed to preach our gospel to them without anyone interfering with us, then the truth would come out.

All these require a base assumption that theory X is valid prior to commencement, since otherwise any non-present evidence can't be taken as proof of others hiding from the blazing, glorious validity of theory X. So here you're arguing that the illogical argument that underlies religious fundamentalism is scientifically valid. Maybe we can hook Occam up to a generator and see if we can get some electricity from his turning grave.

"The Apollo moon landings were a hoax filmed in Nevada"

Most. Annoying. Most Irrational. Theory. Ever.

I know, ridiculous!

Everyone knows they were filmed in Arizona.

Ok, what we have here in your debate tactics is a classic example of guerrilla debating in action. Guerrilla debating is a dishonest debating tactic where the debater in question attempts to constantly attack his opponent's position without ever clearly defining his own; it's an effective tactic, since by constantly keeping your opponent defending his own beliefs you can avoid him realising that you've never bothered to set out your own. Indeed, you've even gone so far in the preceding post as to accuse me of doing nothing but attacking, in the hope you can make me defend against that charge rather than actually attack your failure to even define which CD hypothesis, if any, you actually support.
You're projecting, GMC.

My position is defined. You are the one that's been just making scattershot attacks while not having any clue of what you're actually attacking... or defending. I pointed this out, and now you're really mad.
TJ, your entire 'thesis' is meaningless; it doesn't bother to address whether the alternatives to the main theory are actually valid in their own right, because you know they're not and you know you can't possibly defend them.
GMC, if you had a whit of comprehension in your head, you'd realize that my very meaningful thesis includes the claim that there is insufficient scientific investigation on the topic to test alternative theories in general.

While a very few such alternates can be tested fairly effectively, controlled demolition is demonstrably not one of them, and for me to argue that a controlled demolition necessarily happened - as you would like me to do - is inconsistent with that thesis. Instead, I have limited my arguments with regard to CD to speaking of whether or not the NIST study tests the theory and whether it is possible to fit existing data to it. I personally consider a demolition unlikely, but the indications are that this has not been sufficiently rigorously established yet, and I therefore ask that more study be done.
So, instead, you constantly attack those who support the study conducted by the NIST, by whatever means you deem necessary; semantics, confusing interpretation with evidence, confusing eyewitness reports with factual data, claiming your opponents are 'typical of the mentality' [sort of a reverse Appeal to Popularity, I suppose], and so on.
Again, you're projecting here. As I have demonstrated beyond any doubt, the "supporters" you speak of are not actually supporting the NIST report, but instead attacking any dissent by whatever means they can come up with.

Your "list" is by and large ludicrous, and for the most part items which are not relevant in examining alternate factors involved in the collapse... but if you are completely unwilling to engage my thesis, there is no point in even talking about them.

Additional evidence can't prove a logically incoherent hypothesis, especially when it's equipped to dismiss all negative evidence as part of the conspiracy.
Something that I am remarkably uninterested. There is, as I've shown, no need to invoke conspiracies for roughly 96% of what you think requires conspiracy; motivations and responses are clear
Now, on to motives, since you're apparently ok with attacking those. Specifically, yours. They're quite obvious from your posts; mainly, your endless allegations that I don't get it,
You don't.
your proud boasting that you have 'already demonstrated' contentious points
I have.
and have 'understood more' than me,
To judge from your arguments, I do.
and your tendency to imagine that the vast majority of people are just emotional wrecks responding to knee-jerk sentiments.
An oversimplification. The "vast majority" do not all have such knee-jerk responses, and having them does not entail being an emotional wreck; simply emotionally invested.

I'm sure you can come up with comparable examples of emotional investment with little difficulty, but if you can't, I can give you examples. At which point you'll probably start really screaming about my turning your more underhanded tactics against you, in spite of the fact that I've been holding a quite consistent thesis all this time.
We also get into the Bond Villain Paradox with your talk about Jones. The Bond Villain Paradox is common in conspiracy theories; it's the belief that a conspiracy that's easily willing to kill people, even dozens or thousands, in a high-profile attack would be unwilling or unable to despatch a single critic.
We have primarily been discussing groups that wipe out their "tools" - not, mind you, critics, Jones' continued existence clearly indicates contrary to your claim of my argument - regarding the Kennedy assassination. As far as the WTC case, I have mainly pointed out that suicidal tools (e.g., pilots of hijacked planes used as missiles, suicide bombers, etc) are neatly self-wiping when successful.
constantly talking about his authority,
I have only defended Dr. Jones inasmuch as you have tried to pretend he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about... when, in fact, the conservation of momentum etc that he's dealing with for the most part are things that any bachelor's education in physics or engineering renders comprehensible, and I have readily acknowledged that particularly in the portions where he starts talking about how thermite or thermate would be used to bring down the WTC, he goes beyond his expertise.
but ignoring the authority of anyone who disagrees with him,
Which is why I have readily acknowledged that Dr. Greening's authority to speak on the matter is exactly level with Dr. Jones?
Your arguments, with just changed nouns and a little grammatical fine-tuning, could be applied to anything from aliens building the pyramids to creationism, homeopathy or the accuracy of the prophecies of Nostradamus.
Incorrect and absolutely ludicrous. While emotional investment leads to knee-jerk responses in many cases (such as nearly all the arguments for, and sometimes even the arguments against, creationism), much of the argument above is impossible to apply past a few very narrow circumstances. Very few items of interest, for example, have fewer peer-reviewed articles published on them than the bombing of the USS Cole.

Incidentally, homeopathic treatment does appear enjoy a certain small degree of success, due to a very particular known and widely acknowledged effect, which scientists have tentatively identified as the cause for its historic popularity in studies designed to test homeopathy.

And if you can understand exactly what hair I split with that sentence with all the nudging cues I gave, there may be hope for you yet - and no, it doesn't involve a homeopathic treatment.

Your thesis is meaningless, TJ; defined is not the same as logical or useful. It's a logical conceit dressed up as rationality. Think about it for a moment; what kind of rational argument is destroyed if everyone agrees with it, and takes disagreement as proof of its validity? You essentially have a two-part argument, the two parts of which cannot simultaneously be shown to be true:

There is hidden evidence of a conspiracy.
There is too much knee-jerk sentiment for this hidden evidence to come out.

I refuse to be drawn on it because you made your rhetorical trap far too obvious; objecting to it proves it because it includes a prediction that people will object to it, whereas complete acquiescence to it, perversely, is actually evidence against it. A similar 'thesis' would be the single sentence 'If you disagree with this statement you cannot possibly understand it.' Any claim constructed so objection to it is further proof of it is logically invalid.

You also don't seem to understand the scientific method, which seeks to find the best hypothesis to explain existing data; it doesn't try to appeal to motives over data it lacks or claim that absent data would support it. Jones destroys himself in scientific terms with his sign off; you never need further research before an alternative theory can be discounted, because a theory cannot be counted until its hypothesis and mechanism are shown to be valid. Since it's impossible to naturally go from a hypothesis of controlled demolition to the conclusion of collapses on the 18th and 28th floors from the top of the two towers only or explain why this setup rather than any other, CD simply fails. It doesn't predict what we see, proposes a useless and mysterious additional term, and cannot go from its premise to its conclusion because it has no idea why the particular conclusion was arrived at or by whom.

This means that scientifically, the naturalistic hypotheses that seeks to assign the collapse as being due to a combination of impact and fire damage is the only one that can be investigated: the 'alternatives' are so disjointed they cannot generate any predictions whatsoever. Until one such hypothesis manages to pass muster as logically sound, they cannot be considered as valid alternatives because they are not scientifically valid hypotheses at all.

As I have demonstrated beyond any doubt

You cannot make that claim, ever. Absent of even the term 'reasonable' it's actually logically impossible, since you cannot prove yourself, the NIST report, the two towers, or anything else to exist beyond my mind beyond any doubt. Empty rhetoric doesn't modify reality, much as you would apparently like it to. More to the point, the fact that I continue to debate you demonstrates you have not demonstrated such beyond my doubt, and as my doubts exist, they alone disprove your claim.

I'll take your objection to answering any specific criticism of CD as an all-points concession on all issues raised. If you can't even defend your stated 'alternative' hypothesis against questions asked of it, it is completely useless and doesn't warrant any further research to disprove it, since it won't even define itself. It's no more valid than the idea that God struck the towers down after seeing they wouldn't fall, or that they thought they needed a lie down.

Incidentally, homeopathic treatment does appear enjoy a certain small degree of success

Placebo effects are hardly the world's best-kept secret, TJ. But placebo effects are treatment-irrelevant, since they depend on whether the patient believes the treatment will work, not what the treatment itself is. This means homeopathic treatments do not enjoy any degree of success in and of themselves, and that you're wrong. Again.

Diana... Sweet Jesus it has to be the Diana Conspiracy, it annoys me that after ten years of being dead she still makes front page news at least once a month in the Daily (Jingoistic) Mail and The (Leftist) Express, shes DEAD, thank god. I believe that she was doing Major Hewitt at the REME base, (Look at Harry, Hewitt was Ginger, Charles isnt), but that she had Dodi Al'Fayed son in her? Who cares! The Firm do not murder her, neither did Blair.

She wasnt important, she wasnt nice, and she wasnt royal!

Your thesis is meaningless, TJ; defined is not the same as logical or useful.
Not at all. Let's review. My argumentation has included:

Claims of material information.
Claims of causality.
Suggestions for how to fix the problem I have indicated the existence of.

It is verifiable (indeed, many items that were idle conjectures when I initially brought them up have been verified since then) and useful.
It's a logical conceit dressed up as rationality. Think about it for a moment; what kind of rational argument is destroyed if everyone agrees with it, and takes disagreement as proof of its validity?
And again, you miss the mark entirely, GMC. While your incomprehending knee-jerk hostility to my argument does play directly into the phenomenon I observed as "additional evidence" (as if that were needed), it is entirely unnecessarily. Indeed, if absolutely everybody agreed with my argument here upon being presented with it, it would not affect the validity of it in the slightest.
You essentially have a two-part argument, the two parts of which cannot simultaneously be shown to be true.
Completely incorrect. There are two material claims at the basis of my argument, but this will be shown to be coincidental to your claim of two parts. Each material claim is supported; each explanation of a material claim is supported; the conclusion is shown to follow logically from the explanations.

There is also no internal contradiction within my argument; you have implicitly acknowledged this by attempting to attack it solely on the basis of the accuracy (and indeed, most often, through relative claims involving plausibility and simplicity) of the material claims of CD theorists.
There is hidden evidence of a conspiracy.
"Hidden evidence of a conspiracy" is nowhere in my argument, GMC. You are again trying to create a strawman.
There is too much knee-jerk sentiment for this hidden evidence to come out.
A reasonable paraphrase for a small portion of the support for the explanation of one of the two basic material claims... if you ignore the previous "part" that you refer to with "hidden evidence."
You also don't seem to understand the scientific method
I do. Very thoroughly. The scientific method does not involve the following key sequence:

Find an explanation.
Kludge the model until you can force the data to fit the explanation.

I am aware of this through both study of the philosophy of science as well as the practice of science itself. My argument is informed by epistemology as well as the history of science - not unrelated things, as poorly conducted science and pseudoscience have taught us how not to properly establish knowledge.

Review the argument. My argument, please, not your persistent mischaracterizations of it.

There are two basic material claims, which I have (for your convenience, since you did not apparently figure out what they were last time I posted this) bolded. The explanations of these claims are the substance of the argument, providing a logical chain from the material claims to the conclusion through the use of explanations, which have been supported with additional data.

I have made the thesis of the argument bold red. We may note, for the record, that this thesis has, upon close examination, two closely related clauses, the "study has been insufficient" clause and "critique is warranted" clause.

Item: There has been a relative dearth of research, in absolute terms, on the WTC. Support:
There have been next to no peer-reviewed papers on the collapse.
Other disasters of lesser scope receive considerably more independent research, e.g., the USS Cole attack, Oklahoma City bombing, etc.
This holds even when there is no difficulty in modeling, e.g., the Oklahoma City bombing
The greater difficulty in modeling the WTC collapse and generalizing its lessons to skyscraper construction would ordinarily lead to more, not less, research.
Query: Why has there been a relative dearth of research? Answer: The political environment, i.e., collective emotional investment, makes independent research difficult, discouraging researchers.
Support:
Open hostility towards any question of any detail of the official model is evident. This obstructs the process of peer review.
This hostility persists regardless of the science, comprehension of the official model and its criticisms, and even whether or not the attackers agree in detail with the official model.
Example: Early criticism of “pancaking” was attacked as virulently as any other criticism on the internet, although later the NIST would conclude that pancaking was, in fact, not the cause, and discard that model.
Example: Attackers may make claims such as the towers taking 15-18 seconds to impact ground, in direct contravention of those studying the model seriously.
Example: Attackers may defend outdated models initially advanced by FEMA and discarded years ago.
Example: F. R. Greening & debunking911.com disagree with the NIST in a number of matters, e.g., the existence of tower-related seismic signals prior to the visual start of collapse and whether or not impact damage alone would have sufficed to cause the collapse.
The NIST is not about to hand over data if it could make it look bad.
A tenured physicist, Dr. Jones, was asked to retire for publishing criticism of the official account in a paper that he concluded by saying that more research is required to be sure of anything regarding the WTC collapse.
Given the massive difficulty in producing any additional definitely culpable parties and the unlikelihood of future plane-skyscraper attacks, few sensible individuals will be willing to stick their necks out for little potential benefit and substantial probable harm to their reputations.
Item: The lone official study of the matter has been conducted in a methodologically suspect manner with a limited scope of inquiry.
Support:
Peer review, such as it is, has remained entirely “in-house.”
NIST refusal to hand over data, although understandable in their own self-interest, hampers rather than aids future independent research.
The NIST's approach has been persistently that of forcing the model to fit the explanation rather than considering additional factors or contributing causes outside the original model; indications are that this model was pushed to severe limits.
The NIST increased substantially its initial estimates of impact damage to the towers by the impact.
Further examination by the NIST of steel samples has ruled out exposure to temperatures of 700-800 C as claimed in earlier FEMA reports, or anything in excess of 600 C for the samples available for study; however, the NIST model makes use of heating well past 600 C, as expected in any model from Bazant and Zhou onward.
The NIST has been generally uncooperative in allowing examination of the workings of its model.
The NIST has chosen not to test alternative mechanisms directly.
Conclusion: Study of the WTC collapse has, and probably will remain for some time, insufficient to summarily rule out all alternative explanations for the mechanism of the collapse, and critique of the existing state of scientific study of the matter is warranted.

(Of course, for consistency, this should also include a header asking rhetorically "Why has the lone official study of the matter been conducted in a methodologically suspect manner..." and then explaining - as I have in several posts, but you should be able to grasp the structure perfectly well without it.)
Placebo effects are hardly the world's best-kept secret, TJ. But placebo effects are treatment-irrelevant, since they depend on whether the patient believes the treatment will work, not what the treatment itself is. This means homeopathic treatments do not enjoy any degree of success in and of themselves, and that you're wrong. Again.
It is a convincing placebo in isolation, therefore it "appears to enjoy a certain degree of success." And that, GMC, is splitting hairs finely and rhetorically. Appearance is not reality. That you tried to jump on it means that you fell in the trap.

It was a multi-pronged trap that you had no way of evading without detaching yourself from your growing emotional investment in showing me to be wrong in every way about all things in this thread. Now, let go of your attachments, take a deep breath, and consider my arguments dispassionately.

Take a minute to look at what my basic material claims are (i.e., what can be verified or falsified by additional raw data).

Then, take a look at the explanations I make for those basic claims (the "Why is this so" questions), and the supporting evidence I use to back these more advanced claims up.

Then, examine how the conclusion ties together those explanations into a coherent whole. Come up with an experiment - real or "thought" - that would test that conclusion.
I'll take your objection to answering any specific criticism of CD as an all-points concession on all issues raised.
And should I then take your repeated refusal to even consider addressing my actual argument as a blanket concession?

The most annoying, farfetched & destructive conspiracy theory of them all, is without a doubt Abrahamic religion.

Your actual argument is useless, TJ. It's designed purely to appeal to ignorance and motives without evidence [for example, your claims of the motives of the NIST investigation, your dismissal of the idea they would consider other hypotheses even though they have done so, and so on]. Your support is wholly subjective with no support to any of these claims; 'some people on the internet may have said it once' isn't evidence.

This leaves you minus all your claimed support for your 'thesis' other than the idea that there is 'political environment' preventing further study; nevermind that you can't demonstrate any theory exists which is worth any further study in itself, or even able to be studied further in a scientifically valid fashion.

Indeed, if absolutely everybody agreed with my argument here upon being presented with it, it would not affect the validity of it in the slightest.

Ok, how does the 'political environment' exist if everyone agrees with you? You've constructed this so that if it's generally held to be true, a principle term of the argument is falsified!

I do. Very thoroughly. The scientific method does not involve the following key sequence:

No, it involves the following:

Identify the known terms available at the beginning state of the collapse; this would be the moment of impact.
Define these as your starting point by assuming that no further mysterious elements not identified will affect the mechanism.
Hypothesis: if it is correct that no additional mechanisms are in play, it should be possible for entirely known mechanisms and mechanics to lead to a collapse condition in the towers. This hypothesis would be falsified if it were to be found that it could [i]not be demonstrated that the fire could do so under conditions that could reasonably occur in the towers.
Demonstration: NIST initially fails to demonstrate that a collapse condition could occur purely due to aircraft impact and resulting pancake collapse. This hypothesis is dismissed, and other possible causes examined; in this case, the fire. NIST report demonstrates conditions under which collapse occurs with no further additional terms required, through heat-related failures caused by a high-temperature fire with jet fuel acting as an accelerant.
Conclusion: no additional terms are required to explain the collapse of the towers.

In other words, they did not multiply terms unless they had no choice but to, the basic statement of Occam's Razor. CD would only be considered by them if there was no explanation that could function without it, and that's entirely in keeping with the scientific method. It's much like how creationism wouldn't be considered as an explanation until all possible naturalistic hypotheses had been ruled out.

So, why are we criticising them for using the correct method of investigation?

And that, GMC, is splitting hairs finely and rhetorically. Appearance is not reality. That you tried to jump on it means that you fell in the trap.

No, it's not. It doesn't even appear to enjoy it unless carefully taken in isolation, otherwise it would be noted that every treatment 'appears to enjoy' an equal small degree of success, not just homeopathy, and you're still wrong. In any case, I see you're back onto trying to attack my character and motives rather than my actual arguments. Yawn.

And should I then take your repeated refusal to even consider addressing my actual argument as a blanket concession?

Oh, I have been. That's why you keep calling me stupid for failing to agree with it, remember? Anyway, what would I be conceding to, that 'further research is needed into alternate theories even if there the cited examples of alternate theories are not coherent alternatives to the main theory anyway?' Or the bit you highlighted in red, which is essentially the old one-way free speech argument, 'you shouldn't argue with me because I have a right to state my views?'

my "other" is any suggesting that Princess Diana was killed by the Royal Family

The Royal Family AND Mossad. Stands to reason they were involved.
Cynics would suggest that Al Fayed whipped up the conspiracy theory to play up the reationship between Diana and Dodi, in the hope that it would help him get a British passport.

Cynics would suggest that - I couldn't possibly comment.

Pictish, how on Earth would Mossad benefit from assassinating Princess Diana? o_o
Your actual argument is useless, TJ. It's designed purely to appeal to ignorance and motives without evidence [for example, your claims of the motives of the NIST investigation, your dismissal of the idea they would consider other hypotheses even though they have done so, and so on].

Your support is wholly subjective with no support to any of these claims; 'some people on the internet may have said it once' isn't evidence.

This leaves you minus all your claimed support for your 'thesis' other than the idea that there is 'political environment' preventing further study; nevermind that you can't demonstrate any theory exists which is worth any further study in itself, or even [i]able to be studied further in a scientifically valid fashion.
Since none of your wholly ungrounded claims about my argument hold or are backed up, we may dispense with them. E.g., the NIST has not tested for explosive residues or explored models involving explosives, the number of peer reviewed papers is demonstrably small, etc.

If you really want to start disputing how the WTC collapse is underrepresented in peer reviewed papers, for example, we can go right in on that again, but I'd recommend you develop some examples that can help your claim first.
Ok, how does the 'political environment' exist if everyone agrees with you? You've constructed this so that if it's generally held to be true, a principle term of the argument is falsified!
Again, not at all. There is a critical difference between my argument and "criticism of the official account" in a general sense. I have shown that criticism of the official account is likely to be attacked regardless of whether or not it or the attackers of it are grounded through an examination of the reaction to Jones and his fellows.
No, it involves the following:

Identify the known terms available at the beginning state of the collapse; this would be the moment of impact.
Define these as your starting point by assuming that no further mysterious elements not identified will affect the mechanism.
Hypothesis: if it is correct that no additional mechanisms are in play, it should be possible for entirely known mechanisms and mechanics to lead to a collapse condition in the towers. This hypothesis would be falsified if it were to be found that it could not be demonstrated that the fire could do so under conditions that could reasonably occur in the towers.
Demonstration: NIST initially fails to demonstrate that a collapse condition could occur purely due to aircraft impact and resulting pancake collapse. This hypothesis is dismissed, and other possible causes examined; in this case, the fire. NIST report demonstrates conditions under which collapse occurs with no further additional terms required, through heat-related failures caused by a high-temperature fire with jet fuel acting as an accelerant.
Conclusion: no additional terms are required to explain the collapse of the towers.
You at long last seem to grasp what the NIST's argument actually is. Good. I've explained it to you enough times.

However, there are flaws in this argument - as I have repeatedly pointed out, the NIST's proof by algorithm is flawed. To boil it down, the NIST is showing that - if certain particular guesses about the behavior of the collision and fire hold to be true, then it is possible for the planes alone to have caused the collapse of the WTC.

These certain guesses - the parameters for the model - have been kludged a great deal without any empirical grounding for the kludging. In many cases, they are at the limits of or even beyond the extrema of empirical evidence. At this point, it would be worthwhile to introduce (test) additional contributing factors in order to strengthen the model.

E.g., FEMA initially estimated higher temperatures based on examination of the steel; if anything, however, NIST's model posits more fire heating of the columns.

The data has remained absent for independent verification of the NIST's results, which is necessary in order to duplicate their results.
In other words, they did not multiply terms unless they had no choice but to, the basic statement of Occam's Razor. CD would only be considered by them if there was no explanation that could function without it, and that's entirely in keeping with the scientific method. It's much like how creationism wouldn't be considered as an explanation until all possible naturalistic hypotheses had been ruled out.
Creationism not being a falsifiable theory, it would never be tested by scientists.

Occam's Razor states that all other things being equal, the theory involving the fewer assumptions that fits all available data is better. This is not necessarily the model with the fewest causes; the NIST model invokes a number of as-yet unverified assumptions in order to make the model fit the data.
So, why are we criticising them for using the correct method of investigation?
The flaws in the NIST's methodologies are two-fold. First, they are not cooperative to duplication of their results. It is necessary that results be duplicated independently. Hopefully, this will happen soon. Second - as is expected from the length of time and number of revisions of the model - their model stretches the limits of the empirical evidence in order to achieve collapse without testing any other potential contributing factors. Their unwillingness to share fully suggests that they do not yet have as much confidence in the precise accuracy of their model as they could.

Both of these flaws are easily fixed.
Oh, I have been. That's why you keep calling me stupid for failing to agree with it, remember? Anyway, what would I be conceding to, that 'further research is needed into alternate theories even if there the cited examples of alternate theories are not coherent alternatives to the main theory anyway?' Or the bit you highlighted in red, which is essentially the old one-way free speech argument, 'you shouldn't argue with me because I have a right to state my views?'
That "bit in red" is not an "old one-way free speech argument" and says nothing about rights and views. It speaks of warrant, which is to say justification.

You would be conceding two things if you conceded to my thesis.

First, that it would be nice to have more scientific study of the WTC collapse - because there hasn't been quite enough yet.

Second, that without such further study, you do not have grounds to rabidly attack all criticism of the NIST report and proposals of alternate mechanisms.

You may, of course, concede and then consistently proceed to dispute the likelihood of various specific "conspiracy theories" based on (for example) the unlikelihood that attack laser satellites of that power are sitting in orbit (one we didn't discuss), pursue your inaccurate claim that the tower "took too long to collapse" to be a demolition, etc. The scope of such being probably beyond this thread (properly, whether or not certain conspiracy theories do [or, as I have extended my argument, should] irritate you), and very substantial, I would recommend you start a new one for it for the sake of the audience.

Since it seems my internet link isn't good enough to convey sarcasm, I'll re-write my last post:

Mossad were also blamed. While a dumb suggestion, this is the sort of thing that conspiracy theorists love because it brings anti-Israeli sentiment into the equation.

Cynics would suggest that Al Fayed whipped up the conspiracy theory to play up the reationship between Diana and Dodi, in the hope that it would help him get a British passport.

Cynics would suggest that - I couldn't possibly comment.

Since none of your wholly ungrounded claims about my argument hold or are backed up, we may dispense with them.

Ok, let's first run through your actual 'evidence' here.

The greater difficulty in modeling the WTC collapse and generalizing its lessons to skyscraper construction would ordinarily lead to more, not less, research.

Assumes that these lessons could be generalised to other buildings. This isn't actually true; it's not likely to lend much to skyscraper construction if, as is suggested, the conditions were unique. Having the WTC's unusual construction plus an indoor aircraft fire in a very confined space plus a 3.2 gigajoule kinetic impact isn't a normal set of things to happen to a building.

Example: Early criticism of “pancaking” was attacked as virulently as any other criticism on the internet, although later the NIST would conclude that pancaking was, in fact, not the cause, and discard that model.

Assumes the criticism of pancaking was valid. Ignores that the majority of collapse conditions are consistent with pancaking and it was at the time the most valid hypothesis with the most expert support. Undermines the argument rather than supporting it, since in spite of this supposedly rabid criticism pancaking was discarded as a model.

Example: Attackers may make claims such as the towers taking 15-18 seconds to impact ground, in direct contravention of those studying the model seriously.

Evidence is conjecture. 'Attackers may claim' is impossibly vague. Evidence is based on your interpretation of the NIST model being the only possible way to read it. Evidence is based on your specific claim of where the base of the collapsing section is and what the words 'the structure below' mean in this context.

Example: Attackers may defend outdated models initially advanced by FEMA and discarded years ago.

Simple statement, not evidence. No support, no numbers. Ignorance in some is not ignorance in all.

Example: F. R. Greening & debunking911.com disagree with the NIST in a number of matters, e.g., the existence of tower-related seismic signals prior to the visual start of collapse and whether or not impact damage alone would have sufficed to cause the collapse.

Evidence is based on your interpretation of his arguments. Evidence is not consistent with the argument, since if the rabid criticism of deviation from the NIST model existed, Greening too would become a victim of it.

The NIST is not about to hand over data if it could make it look bad.

Evidence is an appeal to motive [circumstantial ad hominem fallacy]. Assumes there is no other reason for them to not hand over data. Also fails to support the conclusion, since if the rabid mobs existed the NIST could hand over whatever data they liked and their hypothesis would still be defended to the death.

A tenured physicist, Dr. Jones, was asked to retire for publishing criticism of the official account in a paper that he concluded by saying that more research is required to be sure of anything regarding the WTC collapse.

This and your defence of it I will admit made me laugh out loud. Jones stated he resigned because he wished to concentrate on his theories, and you claimed, to quote directly:

Which is what I would say in his shoes myself.

You really know someone is big on the circumstantial ad hominem fallacy when they attack someone's motives and integrity to defend them from criticism. Your claim itself is a classic example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, since your only proof Jones was forced to resign because of his views is because his paper was published before he resigned. His other paper trying to support his religion was published before he resigned too, so it's just as valid to claim he was fired for being a Mormon.

Given the massive difficulty in producing any additional definitely culpable parties and the unlikelihood of future plane-skyscraper attacks, few sensible individuals will be willing to stick their necks out for little potential benefit and substantial probable harm to their reputations.

Appeal to motive, again. I'll get back to this one later, though, since I'm going to make a thesis of my very own with it.

NIST refusal to hand over data, although understandable in their own self-interest, hampers rather than aids future independent research.

Again assumes there is no valid reason for them to retain data, or for them to have no choice but to retain data. Resembles the claim regarding the rapid selling off of WTC steel, something which was unavoidable as the steel was the property of an owner facing the vast cost of rebuilding seven buildings insured for far under their rebuilding cost.

The NIST's approach has been persistently that of forcing the model to fit the explanation rather than considering additional factors or contributing causes outside the original model; indications are that this model was pushed to severe limits.

Another appeal to motive. This one's basically a claim of psychic powers, since I fail to see any other way you could claim to know how they dealt with inconsistencies.

The NIST has chosen not to test alternative mechanisms directly.

Of course it has. It hasn't found any evidence that determines them necessary to explain the collapse.

E.g., the NIST has not tested for explosive residues or explored models involving explosives

That would be because they found nothing consistent with an explosion beyond the fuel explosion immediately following the impact. If they had, they would have done; remember, they are testing scenarios involving explosions for their report on WTC 7, because it is known there were explosives and potential causes of large explosions present; namely, propane tanks, anything up to 43,000 gallons of diesel, an electrical substation and a 4-inch gas main.

It's illogical to complain they didn't investigate a scenario they found no evidence for in terms of examination of materials, examination of video evidence or the behaviour of their models. I doubt they considered the columns being eaten by penguins, either, should we hold that against them?

I have shown that criticism of the official account is likely to be attacked regardless of whether or not it or the attackers of it are grounded through an examination of the reaction to Jones and his fellows.

Again, we'll get to that shortly.

To boil it down, the NIST is showing that - if certain particular guesses about the behavior of the collision and fire hold to be true, then it is possible for the planes alone to have caused the collapse of the WTC.

More correctly, it's saying under certain circumstances capable of occurring without appealing to unknowns, no further causes but those known to be present are required to explain the collapse. Testing explosives would be rather pointless unless there is a valid, rational hypothesis that predicts them to be there, their configuration, type, payload and so on. Just generally testing 'explosives' is even more flawed than you claim the method they did use is, because it would obviously be possible to contrive a setup of explosives and incendiaries that would fit any building collapse.

Occam's Razor states that all other things being equal, the theory involving the fewer assumptions that fits all available data is better. This is not necessarily the model with the fewest causes; the NIST model invokes a number of as-yet unverified assumptions in order to make the model fit the data.

And a theory involving only known terms beats any theory involving mysterious ones. If we're still talking about fire temperature from hydrocarbon fires, let's not forget that's precisely what a blacksmith's forge is, and what a blast furnace is. If it's impossible for a hydrocarbon fire to get hot enough to soften steel, let alone melt it, we'd still be sitting in the iron age. Insulated top and bottom by intact fireproofing, with an air supply from the ventilation ducts and elevator shafts at the core and bought to an enormously high initial temperature by burning jet fuel and aluminium, you really have all you'd need to soften a steel box-column which has lost its fire insulation.

Second, that without such further study, you do not have grounds to rabidly attack all criticism of the NIST report and proposals of alternate mechanisms.

Oh, I see. It's a strawman. Even without further study, I have grounds to attack all theories that can be demonstrated as invalid or fallacious in their own right, as the controlled demolition hypothesis can. But let's see what else we can do with your thesis, shall we?

Item: There has been a relative dearth of research, in absolute terms, on the WTC. Support:
There have been next to no peer-reviewed papers on the collapse.
Other disasters of lesser scope receive considerably more independent research, e.g., the USS Cole attack, Oklahoma City bombing, etc.
This holds even when there is no difficulty in modeling, e.g., the Oklahoma City bombing.
Query: Why has there been a relative dearth of research? Answer: The political environment, i.e., collective emotional investment, makes independent research difficult, discouraging researchers.
Support:
Open hostility towards any agreement with any detail of the official model is evident. This obstructs the process of peer review. This includes persistent attacks on the motives, integrity, intelligence, courage, professional standing, religion, family connections and all other aspects of the lives of those deemed to be supporters of the official account, with content up to and including death threats (http://lol.chroniclesofgaras.com/hatemail.htm) [Example is the hate mail page of 'Screw Loose Change,' a critical commentary to the CT video 'Loose Change'].
This hostility persists regardless of the science, comprehension of the official model and its criticisms, and even whether or not the conspiracy theorists agree in detail with the official model.
Example: Conspiracy theorists who suggest the planes that hit the towers were real airliners are attacked by others with more extreme views as virulently as those who agree entirely with the official account.
Example: Conspiracy theorists may make impossible and easily debunked claims like pools of 'glowing molten steel' being present at ground zero in the aftermath of the collapse, even though were this true the excavators used to dig through the rubble would have instantly ceased to function and their operators passed out or died.
Example: Conspiracy theorists may attack outdated models, then, when this is pointed out, go on to attack NIST and FEMA for discarding them, insisting it acts as proof that they only wish to make a model that works as if this is in some way a bad thing.
Conspiracy theorists are not about to admit that the NIST report is valid if it will make them look bad or lose them money; some have made significant amounts of it from selling their theories.
A formerly tenured physicist, Dr. Jones, was asked to retire from the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth after refusing to withdraw support for elements of the official account. He has since been accused by other members of the group of being a government agent out to discredit them [no, seriously].
Given the massive difficulty in producing any additional definitely culpable parties and the unlikelihood of future plane-skyscraper attacks, few sensible individuals will be willing to stick their necks out for little potential benefit and substantial probable harm to their reputations.
Item: No peer-reviewed CT papers have been published whatsoever. CT studies of the matter are normally conducted in a methodologically suspect manner with a limited scope of inquiry.
Support:
Peer review, such as it is, is generally by those whose authority on the subject is irrelevant. For example, Jones has claimed his paper passed peer review despite only being published in a Marxist economic journal.
Conspiracy theorist refusal to adequately define their position and models hampers rather than aids future independent research.
The conspiracy theorist approach has been persistently that of forcing the model to fit the explanation rather than considering additional factors or contributing causes outside the original model; indications are that these models are pushed to severe limits.
Some CT hypotheses claim that all photographic, eyewitness and physical evidence has been tampered with to support the official explanation.
All 'no plane' models deny all physical evidence to the contrary, including long duration phone calls to loved ones who were convinced they were talking to people they knew, recognisable debris, and damage inconsistent with any other scenario.
CTs tend to be unreceptive to criticism of their models, either accusing their opponents of being fooled by the alleged conspiracy or even accusing them of being part of it. Again, this is not limited to those who wholeheartedly support the official explanation, as Dr. Jones discovered. The poor guy can't win, can he?
Organisations tend to use the term '9/11 truth' to refer to their theories, showing an implicit assumption that the hypothesis developed by the NIST and others who have written papers on the subject is a lie.
Conclusion: Logically, no theory can be created which is so well-grounded as to summarily rule out all alternative explanations. However, all such alternatives must be prepared to demonstrate their terms and assumptions are valid within reasonable logical grounds, or accept their own irrationality. Constant attacks on the primary model and its supporters by supporters of less valid models do not advance the case of said models, and are unhelpful.

There we are, the exact opposite situation proven to the same standards of evidence. So, how can two diametrically opposed climates of fear exist at the exact same time, TJ?

Assumes that these lessons could be generalised to other buildings. This isn't actually true; it's not likely to lend much to skyscraper construction if, as is suggested, the conditions were unique. Having the WTC's unusual construction plus an indoor aircraft fire in a very confined space plus a 3.2 gigajoule kinetic impact isn't a normal set of things to happen to a building.
They can indeed be generalized.
Assumes the criticism of pancaking was valid.
Much of it was. As subsequent “official” examination has borne out.
Ignores that the majority of collapse conditions are consistent with pancaking
As a cause of collapse? No. Much time and effort was spent in a futile attempt to try and force the truss failure pancaking model to the WTC collapse. In the end, it was determined that it didn't hold up to the light of day for an assortment of reasons.
and it was at the time the most valid hypothesis with the most expert support. Undermines the argument rather than supporting it, since in spite of this supposedly rabid criticism pancaking was discarded as a model.
This rabid criticism continues – in spite of the famous “pancake” model having been discarded, uninformed individuals continue to defend it. As, for example, evident earlier in this thread.
Evidence is conjecture. 'Attackers may claim' is impossibly vague. Evidence is based on your interpretation of the NIST model being the only possible way to read it. Evidence is based on your specific claim of where the base of the collapsing section is and what the words 'the structure below' mean in this context.
All perfectly clear – not conjecture, cold hard fact. If you doubt me, I recommend you read further than the summaries and FAQs. As for the time figures, they are repeated on your own favored debunking911.com.
Evidence is based on your interpretation of his arguments. Evidence is not consistent with the argument, since if the rabid criticism of deviation from the NIST model existed, Greening too would become a victim of it.
“Interpretation,” you say. Again, bullshit. I'm not inventing the minor disagreements (seismic signals, “slower than free fall,” etc) or the major disagreements (e.g., Greening's remarkable suggestion that the WTC towers would have fallen without the effects of the fires.)

The “rabid criticism” is focused not on this. Greening claims to support the official account, is himself a “rabid” attacker of “conspiracy theorists,” and that is enough to armor him against casual view.
Evidence is an appeal to motive [circumstantial ad hominem fallacy]. Assumes there is no other reason for them to not hand over data.
I can think of plenty of reasons. They all revolve around the NIST acting in self-interest. Hoarding their data like precious jewels is not scientifically constructed.
Also fails to support the conclusion, since if the rabid mobs existed the NIST could hand over whatever data they liked and their hypothesis would still be defended to the death.
So I should expect nobody with the nerve of Jones to exist? The “rabid mob” itself is a contributing factor – no more, no less. The political atmosphere encompasses many more subtle pressures.

Of course, I predict that the “mob” will indeed continue to “defend to the death,” as you so put it in your emotionally wrought rhetoric, the official account, at least until some social shift occurs. So what? Do you think that makes releasing data a bad thing? No, of course not.
This and your defence of it I will admit made me laugh out loud. Jones stated he resigned because he wished to concentrate on his theories, and you claimed, to quote directly:

You really know someone is big on the circumstantial ad hominem fallacy when they attack someone's motives and integrity to defend them from criticism. Your claim itself is a classic example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, since your only proof Jones was forced to resign because of his views is because his paper was published before he resigned. His other paper trying to support his religion was published before he resigned too, so it's just as valid to claim he was fired for being a Mormon.
The latter claim falls flat on its face. His “other paper,” as you so call it (neglecting all prior publication), was then and remains today of no note publicly... and BYU is full of Mormons.

Jones is being quite polite. That's not to say that he didn't want to concentrate on his theories, and that resigning when asked would allow him to do so much more easily (i.e., rather than get embroiled in a messy fight for his job). Don't misconstrue my understanding of the probable scenario for an attack on Jones' integrity.
Appeal to motive, again. I'll get back to this one later, though, since I'm going to make a thesis of my very own with it.
And how else do you expect to explain motivations except by discussing motivations? Do tell.
Again assumes there is no valid reason for them to retain data, or for them to have no choice but to retain data.
Valid? They have reasons of self-interest to sit on it. No valid scientific reasons, of course.
Resembles the claim regarding the rapid selling off of WTC steel, something which was unavoidable as the steel was the property of an owner facing the vast cost of rebuilding seven buildings insured for far under their rebuilding cost.
A claim I have not made. Again, while it is regrettable that most of the WTC got sold in a hurry, it is perfectly understandable for non-sinister reasons. Granted, the market value of that steel was extraordinarily low in comparison to the market value of the building, of course, which may make it seem short-sighted and petty, but perfectly understandable.
Another appeal to motive. This one's basically a claim of psychic powers, since I fail to see any other way you could claim to know how they dealt with inconsistencies.
Not really. It's quite evident in the way the model has progressed over time. It's actually a very common approach, and something that's very easy to slip into. When you add in even the slightest bit of motivation to force the model to fit, it's a trap that I would have been surprised to see the NIST avoid.
Of course it has. It hasn't found any evidence that determines them necessary to explain the collapse.
No, it has not. See again what I wrote earlier on, for example, explosive residues.
That would be because they found nothing consistent with an explosion beyond the fuel explosion immediately following the impact.
Because they were eventually able to get the model to fit, you mean.
If they had, they would have done; remember, they are testing scenarios involving explosions for their report on WTC 7, because it is known there were explosives and potential causes of large explosions present; namely, propane tanks, anything up to 43,000 gallons of diesel, an electrical substation and a 4-inch gas main.
Good for them.
It's illogical to complain they didn't investigate a scenario they found no evidence for in terms of examination of materials, examination of video evidence or the behaviour of their models.
Circular. They did not look, because they found no evidence; they found no evidence, because they did not look.
I doubt they considered the columns being eaten by penguins, either, should we hold that against them?
Of course not. When was the last time a penguin displayed the necessary jaw strength?
More correctly, it's saying under certain circumstances capable of occurring without appealing to unknowns, no further causes but those known to be present are required to explain the collapse. Testing explosives would be rather pointless unless there is a valid, rational hypothesis that predicts them to be there, their configuration, type, payload and so on. Just generally testing 'explosives' is even more flawed than you claim the method they did use is, because it would obviously be possible to contrive a setup of explosives and incendiaries that would fit any building collapse.
Obviously. However, by testing for explosive residues, physical evidence for explosions, examining the features of demolition setups that would cause the building to collapse in the manner that it did, etc, they can develop and test such an alternate explanation to a useful degree. They have not; perhaps others would if they had access to all the evidence.
And a theory involving only known terms beats any theory involving mysterious ones.
Only if that theory fits the facts, GMC. Really, Mercury was so close to fitting the Newtonian model. Just kludge it a little bit, or think of it as a minor deviation
If we're still talking about fire temperature from hydrocarbon fires, let's not forget that's precisely what a blacksmith's forge is, and what a blast furnace is. If it's impossible for a hydrocarbon fire to get hot enough to soften steel, let alone melt it, we'd still be sitting in the iron age. Insulated top and bottom by intact fireproofing, with an air supply from the ventilation ducts and elevator shafts at the core and bought to an enormously high initial temperature by burning jet fuel and aluminium, you really have all you'd need to soften a steel box-column which has lost its fire insulation.
Only through extensive work in oxygenating the fire in a blacksmith's forge – using practically pure carbon – able to reach the temperatures needed to melt steel. The open air combustion of jet fuel does not happen at anywhere near 800 C. The open air combustion of office supplies tends to run hotter than the open air combustion of jet fuel, in fact.
Even without further study, I have grounds to attack all theories that can be demonstrated as invalid or fallacious in their own right,
Of course you have grounds to attack theories you can demonstrate to be invalid in their own right. In their own right, however; not on the basis of the NIST managing to kludge their model into giving a collapse.
Open hostility towards any agreement with any detail of the official model is evident. This obstructs the process of peer review. This includes persistent attacks on the motives, integrity, intelligence, courage, professional standing, religion, family connections and all other aspects of the lives of those deemed to be supporters of the official account, with content up to and including death threats [Example is the hate mail page of 'Screw Loose Change,' a critical commentary to the CT video 'Loose Change'].
First, I'm not about to trust that the hate mail is even genuine on that page. In my experience, “hate mail” pages are often partially or completely fabricated in order to provide straw men and rally defenders.

Second, you're not talking about anything resembling research; you're talking about someone who has decided to wade into a raging argument on the internet with fists flying.

Of course, you are perfectly correct in that that mutual, rather than one-way, hostility would still obstruct research... but you will have difficulty constructing the claim that the political climate is friendlier to people questioning the official account rather than support it.
This hostility persists regardless of the science, comprehension of the official model and its criticisms, and even whether or not the conspiracy theorists agree in detail with the official model.

Example: Conspiracy theorists who suggest the planes that hit the towers were real airliners are attacked by others with more extreme views as virulently as those who agree entirely with the official account.
I'm glad we agree that there is no vast conspiracy of conspiracy theorists.
Example: Conspiracy theorists may make impossible and easily debunked claims like pools of 'glowing molten steel' being present at ground zero in the aftermath of the collapse, even though were this true the excavators used to dig through the rubble would have instantly ceased to function and their operators passed out or died.
And that, GMC, is an example of a rhetorically fluid, yet incorrect, claim. The existence of a few molten puddles of steel spotted here and there would hardly prevent excavators working at great length on an enormous site.
Example: Conspiracy theorists may attack outdated models, then, when this is pointed out, go on to attack NIST and FEMA for discarding them, insisting it acts as proof that they only wish to make a model that works as if this is in some way a bad thing.
Now this I have to see.
Conspiracy theorists are not about to admit that the NIST report is valid if it will make them look bad or lose them money; some have made significant amounts of it from selling their theories.
And?
A formerly tenured physicist, Dr. Jones, was asked to retire from the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth after refusing to withdraw support for elements of the official account. He has since been accused by other members of the group of being a government agent out to discredit them [no, seriously].
Exactly. There are loonies out there, and Dr. Jones is clearly not one of them. Even if he is a Mormon.
Item: No peer-reviewed CT papers have been published whatsoever. CT studies of the matter are normally conducted in a methodologically suspect manner with a limited scope of inquiry.
Support:
Peer review, such as it is, is generally by those whose authority on the subject is irrelevant. For example, Jones has claimed his paper passed peer review despite only being published in a Marxist economic journal.
Initial press reports suggested it was going to be published in Nature. I believe I have explained exactly how Jones could have been telling the truth about having had peers review the paper and yet fail to turn up his reviewers once it turned into a flap; I've also explained why most scientific journals would be decidedly uninterested in touching it.

In turn, of course, this underscores the need for proper methodology. The Journal for 9/11 Studies, for example, is essentially only able to effectively call into question details of the official account rather than advance specific theories. To do otherwise is to invite the loonies in and wind up losing what support they have.
Conspiracy theorist refusal to adequately define their position and models hampers rather than aids future independent research.
Actually, conspiracy theorists – as distinguished from, say, scientists – often define their position too thoroughly and in manners that defy explanation.
The conspiracy theorist approach has been persistently that of forcing the model to fit the explanation rather than considering additional factors or contributing causes outside the original model; indications are that these models are pushed to severe limits.
Incorrect. Now, I will warrant that the lunatic fringe out there – which I have never denied the existence of – is too creative for its own good. Hence why Dr. Jones and Scholars for 9/11 Truth parted ways; they were getting much too creative in applying far too many additional factors or contributing causes.
Some CT hypotheses claim that all photographic, eyewitness and physical evidence has been tampered with to support the official explanation.
And these, being unfalsifiable, are utterly worthless to science.
All 'no plane' models deny all physical evidence to the contrary, including long duration phone calls to loved ones who were convinced they were talking to people they knew, recognisable debris, and damage inconsistent with any other scenario.

CTs tend to be unreceptive to criticism of their models, either accusing their opponents of being fooled by the alleged conspiracy or even accusing them of being part of it. Again, this is not limited to those who wholeheartedly support the official explanation, as Dr. Jones discovered. The poor guy can't win, can he?
Not in the current environment, no, barring unforeseen developments.

We agree on that. I will note for the record that the people constructing the official account have been, on the whole, no more open than Jones and similar critics to criticism of their models. I am, from examining the more serious critics, convinced they spend more time addressing counter-criticism (i.e., becoming embroiled in argument with Greening and similar “proponents” of the official account) than in developing their models further.
Organisations tend to use the term '9/11 truth' to refer to their theories, showing an implicit assumption that the hypothesis developed by the NIST and others who have written papers on the subject is a lie.
Other organizations tend to use the term “debunking” along with the term “hoax,” showing an implicit assumption that alternate theories of collapse are part of some grand deceptive scheme or scam. And?
Conclusion: Logically, no theory can be created which is so well-grounded as to summarily rule out all alternative explanations.
Actually, a scientific theory may be in the position to warrant ruling out alternatives out of hand, barring the influx of remarkable new data. For example, any theory superceding relativity must behave “just like” relativity in a wide spectrum of features. In turn, relativity and quantum mechanics needed to limit to the classical case for “ordinary” circumstances. Physicists spent years trying to kludge the Newtonian model until they realized that some form of coherent alternate theory would really be much better than trying to patch the Newtonian model with an assortment of arbitrary adjustments.
However, all such alternatives must be prepared to demonstrate their terms and assumptions are valid within reasonable logical grounds, or accept their own irrationality. Constant attacks on the primary model and its supporters by supporters of less valid models do not advance the case of said models, and are unhelpful.
This is an unfortunate model of human psychology.
There we are, the exact opposite situation proven to the same standards of evidence. So, how can two diametrically opposed climates of fear exist at the exact same time, TJ?
They don't. These are not equal and opposite phenomenon; this is as an echo. For example, F. R. Greening doesn't need to worry about endangering his academic reputation as Jones does – purely as a function of his being someone attacking people who question the official account, rather than someone questioning the official account.

The reaction to each subsequent reaction is smaller - “Loose Change,” for example, draws more heat than some small website complaining about “Loose Change.”

They can indeed be generalized.

Why? Since when would buildings reasonably be expected to suffer such a chain of events to begin with?

Much of it was. As subsequent “official” examination has borne out.

Oh? What do you base that claim on? Certain criticisms of pancaking as a hypothesis would be valid but others would not be, so which ones were being defended against?

As a cause of collapse? No. Much time and effort was spent in a futile attempt to try and force the truss failure pancaking model to the WTC collapse. In the end, it was determined that it didn't hold up to the light of day for an assortment of reasons.

Correct. That was the aspect of the pancake model that was incorrect. The reason it was held in good regard anyway was it explained the rest of the collapse well, and in a case where no theory perfectly explains the facts, the best theory is the one that explains most of the facts.

The thing is, fire was actually proposed as an alternative model within 48 hours of the collapse. It was considered as an alternative because it doesn't propose an unknown like demolition does.

This rabid criticism continues – in spite of the famous “pancake” model having been discarded, uninformed individuals continue to defend it. As, for example, evident earlier in this thread.

Yes, evident from you, TJ. Dosuun, in post #100, described the model of collapse including failure due to fire. You described it incorrectly as the original model of pancake collapse only in post #104. I quote:

All structural engineers came away with the same conclusion, that the fires started by the planes spread to the combustibles in the towers and with the fire-retardant blown off in the explosion the steel softened and failed. Each floor fell onto the one below it and the weight just grew with each floor that collapsed. It's like stacking bricks with tootpicks and then setting some in the middle on fire. The whole thing collapses because the lower floors supports can't hold the upper floor falling on them.

There are some problems with the details of the "pancake" model you describe. It is a question of some philosophical merit whether this model should simply be adjusted further in its details to incorporate previously non-considered factors in order to achieve complete consistency with existing data, or whether other models should be considered instead...

You have continued to build this argument by citing the NIST FAQ later on post #204 by forgetting something mildly important:

For example - re: "pancaking," mentioned a page or three ago by one person insisting the "official" story of the WTC collapse must be correct and saying that the building "pancaked," the NIST offers this answer on its FAQ page:

You forgot that the person who called it pancaking first was you! You made this error yourself by lumping the fire and collapse together as one term and then forgetting that the original poster and the rebuttals to your point were all taking 'pancaking' in your posts to refer to what you were originally addressing: 'collapse due to fire which proceeds due to pancaking.'

You were also wrong back there, since the NIST was not saying the building didn't pancake, only that it wasn't the cause of the collapse.

All perfectly clear – not conjecture, cold hard fact. If you doubt me, I recommend you read further than the summaries and FAQs.

If your want to dispute my claim, I recommend you quote relevant portions and make arguments or concede.

“Interpretation,” you say. Again, bullshit. I'm not inventing the minor disagreements (seismic signals, “slower than free fall,” etc) or the major disagreements (e.g., Greening's remarkable suggestion that the WTC towers would have fallen without the effects of the fires.)

Greening doesn't suggest that. Others have suggested it, he simply repeats it. Or does he? Can you actually quote the statement where he claims they would have collapsed regardless of whether they were on fire or not?

I can think of plenty of reasons. They all revolve around the NIST acting in self-interest. Hoarding their data like precious jewels is not scientifically constructed.

That's nice. Can you prove any of said reasons are valid ones? Can you prove that your inability to imagine a situation where the NIST is not acting in self-interest demonstrates no such situation exists?

Of course, I predict that the “mob” will indeed continue to “defend to the death,” as you so put it in your emotionally wrought rhetoric

Oh hell, are we really on to attacking people's emotional state based on their choices of words now? That's pretty far to go to find a personal attack.

So what? Do you think that makes releasing data a bad thing? No, of course not.

But then why would they hang on to data if it's impossible for said data to actually make them look bad short of a great social shift?

The latter claim falls flat on its face. His “other paper,” as you so call it (neglecting all prior publication), was then and remains today of no note publicly... and BYU is full of Mormons.

No, it doesn't. I imagine he's done plenty of things in his life up until now, and any one of them could potentially be the reason for his resignation. Maybe it was something entirely separate from anything he ever wrote, for that matter.

Don't misconstrue my understanding of the probable scenario for an attack on Jones' integrity.

It is. You said he wouldn't tell the truth about why he resigned. You hoisted yourself by your own petard because you called him a liar and made an attack that questioned his integrity in the process of defending him.

And how else do you expect to explain motivations except by discussing motivations? Do tell.

You can't assume motivations as proof of a hypothesis without evidence of those motivations. What you think the reason is for a lack of X is irrelevant if you can't show it.

Valid? They have reasons of self-interest to sit on it. No valid scientific reasons, of course.

And no valid legal requirements to sit on it for whatever reasons? Remember, the law won't always let you do what science would dictate you should do.

Not really. It's quite evident in the way the model has progressed over time. It's actually a very common approach, and something that's very easy to slip into. When you add in even the slightest bit of motivation to force the model to fit, it's a trap that I would have been surprised to see the NIST avoid.

More attacks on motives that you have no way of demonstrating the validity of.

No, it has not. See again what I wrote earlier on, for example, explosive residues.

Read your statement. Read mine. I was agreeing with you: of course it has 'chosen not to test alternative mechanisms directly.' Try to follow basic logic here: you can't test a mechanism directly if you can't define any properties of it.

Because they were eventually able to get the model to fit, you mean.

Yes. Creating a model that fit the collapse was the entire goal of the investigation, after all.

Circular. They did not look, because they found no evidence; because they did not look.

False. They looked for evidence of the causes of the collapse. They did not find anything inconsistent with the idea that the towers collapsed because of fire leading to pancake collapse. That means where they looked, there cannot have been evidence that could not be explained by this hypothesis, or they could not have maintained it.

Again, they clearly were looking for evidence of the cause of collapse rather than only evidence to support their hypothesis, otherwise they would never have discarded the original model where pancake collapse alone destroyed the towers, because they would have discounted all evidence against it.

Obviously. However, by testing for explosive residues, physical evidence for explosions, examining the features of demolition setups that would cause the building to collapse in the manner that it did, etc, they can develop and test such an alternate explanation to a useful degree.

But we're talking an investigation with limited time and money, which isn't going to just drop everything to go off on wild goose chases, so you'd need much more than that. You'd need to generate a hypothesis that said what explosives you expected to find, why you would expect to find them there, what layout, what quantities, and how big you expected the explosions to be. If there's no rational way you can determine for explosives to be involved in the collapse, even if you found some for some reason you'd still have to prove they were part of the demolition you proposed.

The other problem is since the collapse is consistent with incendiary rather than explosive effects [as Jones realised, hence his penchant for thermite], you'd actually be looking for those. In other words, some sort of source of a damn great hot fire. And look, there's a burning airliner wedged in the side of the building between fireproofed, insulated floors, how about that?

Only if that theory fits the facts, GMC.

Right, so you've accused them of manipulating the model to fit the known facts the entire time, and now you're asking if it does? You're supposed to be criticising their methodology in making the model fit the facts, not if it does.

The open air combustion of jet fuel does not happen at anywhere near 800 C. The open air combustion of office supplies tends to run hotter than the open air combustion of jet fuel, in fact.

It's a shame the fire occurred in a confined space and not the open air, really. Did you forget that whole part where it was indoors?

First, I'm not about to trust that the hate mail is even genuine on that page. In my experience, “hate mail” pages are often partially or completely fabricated in order to provide straw men and rally defenders.

Ad hominem, accusing the author of that page of lying. Your experience is anecdotal evidence, and I spoke to a man the other day who said you're wrong.

Second, you're not talking about anything resembling research; you're talking about someone who has decided to wade into a raging argument on the internet with fists flying.

So? What difference does that make to the fact that people have received not just vague attacks, but threats of actual physical harm? How does that change the creators of, say, Loose Change calling those who believe the official account 'scum?'

I'm glad we agree that there is no vast conspiracy of conspiracy theorists.

Why not? They all saw right through the plan straight away. Maybe they were the ones who did it, because they were bored of talking about JFK all the time. That's how Jones knows how the explosives were set up! Good lord, Watson, we've solved the case!

The existence of a few molten puddles of steel spotted here and there would hardly prevent excavators working at great length on an enormous site.

Unfortunately, it would, because they would kill anyone who moved close enough to spot them. And it couldn't be a few puddles, because cooling is proportional to volume, so only a truly massive pool would still be glowing in the open air unless the excavator had only just uncovered it.

It's impossible. And nobody ever said this material, whatever it was, was glowing except CTs themselves.

Now this I have to see.

Frequent CT attack is to attack pancake collapse, then when pointed out it was discarded, attack the NIST for discarding it by claiming they're just looking for something that works.

And?

Oh, I'm sorry. When you propose vested interest with no evidence at all it's ok, but when I do it it's terrible and wrong?

Exactly. There are loonies out there, and Dr. Jones is clearly not one of them.

No, not that clearly. He just isn't loony enough for the Scholars. I guess outside they now have a cardboard prop of Caligula with 'You must be at least this crazy to enter' to avoid repeats of that.

Initial press reports suggested it was going to be published in Nature.

Then why not publish it there first? It's still not that good, since a structural engineering paper really doesn't go in research science journal rather than a structural engineering journal, but it's a damn sight better than an economic journal.

Also, they can suggest it all they like, but is it actually true?

Actually, conspiracy theorists – as distinguished from, say, scientists – often define their position too thoroughly and in manners that defy explanation.

Well, not. They tend to define it with backup terms using infinitely flexible assumptions, the classic being 'That data might look it like doesn't fit, but it's just the conspiracy trying to fool me.'

Incorrect.

Oh? Adding a term you know nothing about and can't show any proof of [like, say, a nebulous 'explosives' term] is valid?

Other organizations tend to use the term “debunking” along with the term “hoax,” showing an implicit assumption that alternate theories of collapse are part of some grand deceptive scheme or scam. And?

Do the research papers, NIST or FEMA use such terms? Again, if the 'truth' movement judges itself to be a serious research enterprise as opposed to just countering those guy over there <points>, then they need do at least pretend they're willing to consider the main hypothesis could be truthful.

Actually, a scientific theory may be in the position to warrant ruling out alternatives out of hand, barring the influx of remarkable new data.

Which means it isn't in a position to rule out alternatives out of hand because it has to examine the data first to see if it's remarkable. Ruling something out out of hand would mean that regardless of how remarkable the data was, it would be dismissed. No theory is capable of that, not even the foundation ones like the laws of thermodynamics. Sure, if you came up with something that violated conservation of energy science's first reflex would be to find out why it's wrong [assuming it can be replicated], but if it defies all such attempts, questions would have to start being asked.

Physicists spent years trying to kludge the Newtonian model until they realized that some form of coherent alternate theory would really be much better than trying to patch the Newtonian model with an assortment of arbitrary adjustments.

But the important thing to remember is while the Newtonian model isn't as good an explanation, it remains as good as it always was, and is quite capable of generating accurate predictions of the behaviour of macroscopic objects. In many cases, it's actually better because the extra precision of the Einsteinian model isn't useful to the situation and wastes time with pointless calculations.

They don't. These are not equal and opposite phenomenon; this is as an echo. For example, F. R. Greening doesn't need to worry about endangering his academic reputation as Jones does – purely as a function of his being someone attacking people who question the official account, rather than someone questioning the official account.

No, he just has to worry about people issuing threats to him and trying to drag his name through the mud over half the internet. As per your argument, why should anyone who's sure of the primary model's worth want to expose themselves to hate and harassment by writing a paper that just echoes what it says? They can just right a nice paper on the collapse of some building nobody gives a shit about and relax in their own knowledge that they can make the WTC collapse numbers work.

Again, I can just as easily turn this thesis of yours around to explain why people don't come out with reports due to rampant personal attacks on those supporting the official theory, to the point of accusing people of actually being part of the conspiracy itself. If you have a choice between being accused of complicity in the greatest terrorist act on the North American continent and being hated by thousands of people you've never met, or writing yet another goddamn paper on the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which would you go for?

"The Apollo moon landings were a hoax filmed in Nevada"

Most. Annoying. Most Irrational. Theory. Ever.

Agreed.

Only through extensive work in oxygenating the fire in a blacksmith's forge – using practically pure carbon – able to reach the temperatures needed to melt steel. The open air combustion of jet fuel does not happen at anywhere near 800 C. The open air combustion of office supplies tends to run hotter than the open air combustion of jet fuel, in fact.

You still missed the point about hot steel

The steel DID NOT melt:headbang:

It was exposed to 800C temps from a burning building

As demostrated to me in the lab a fair few years ago with a tensile strength machine , a couple of steel samples and a gas torch.
Steel loses its tensile strength as the temp goes above 300C , by the time it gets to 800C 75% of the strength at 20C has gone.

IE the sample that was at room temp took 2 ton load to break it,
the sample that was starting to glow red took 1/2 ton load to break it

For anyone still keen on the 'freefall' argument, I suggest watching this. Remember NIST estimated only the time for the first pieces of external cladding to hit the ground. See how much of the tower is clearly still standing when they do.

http://www.911myths.com/html/freefall__video_evidence.html