For those who can’t make it, check out this website by one of the participating organizations. Very disturbing stuff. I thought these folks were all a bunch of nuts till I reviewed some of their data and the credentials of some of the people in the organization: http://www.ae911truth.org/
As someone who lost a friend in the towers, I feel this kind of BS should stop. The towers were brought down by two airliners hijacked by a group of Islamic extremist madmen. Period. The conspiracy theories are far fetched. I’ve seen all the “data” too. It’s crap.
Same with the Pentagon. My good friend, an airforce captain was teaching a class that overlooked the Pentagon when he watched the plane strike the building.
People cannot keep a secret for two minutes from their neighbor, never mind a global conspiracy to start a war using remote control devices and planted bombs. This isn’t a movie, this is real life.
And I don’t like the war anymore than the next guy. It’s botched, its sucks, but Bin Laden and his cronies are our enemy, not the U.S. Government or their covert operatives. Let’s get real.
I don’t think the people on the website to which eafinct has pointed are pushing a “conspiracy theory.” They do not deny that the attack was orchestrated by Bin Laden. I think they are arguing rather that the facts of the collapse do not correspond to the impact of the planes, and that there must have been explosives in the buildings too. I don’t feel qualified to say the evidence they present is “crap” or not, though I have my doubts about the idea — notably the reports that Bin Laden was surprised that the buildings went down. But I defer to the structural engineers — any out there who care to weigh in?
So then the purpose of the Symposium is what? The point that the group running this show is what? Do you really think the narrow focus is to discuss whether an American Airlines Boeing 767 flying a full throttle is powerful enough to damage or destroy large metal frame structures like the Twin Towers? Is this an engineering sponsored event or a political activist sponsored event? Or is it a political event sponsored by left leaning political activists who just so happen to be engineers?
And if they could prove that dynamite sticks were actually stored on the 100th floor would that change that fact that Bin Laden and his army of darkness would try it again, anywhere, anytime? Probably not.
Note where some of the links on the page shown above take you. Right up left wing alley. C’mon now.
Only whdad can explain the mysteries surrounding how this blog works. Including why the spam catcher tends to arbitrarily digest comments from time to time.
Oh sure, blame it on mysteries surrounding how this blog works. Whatever you say, King!
I thought those 911truth guys were crackpots when I saw them on cspan, but after the past 7 years there is no scenario so fantastic, so nefarious, or so Orwellian, that I wouldn’t entertain the plausibility of it.
I just read everything in the spam catcher, from links to ‘pissing porn’ to ads for fake viagra. I didn’t find a single post there that shouldn’t have been gobbled up by a spam catcher.
I do feel like I need to take a shower, though, after seeing in detail what filth some sleazy operators want to fill this blog with!
I should add that I don’t believe the 9-11 conspiracy theories at all. I read the 9-11 Commission report and found it utterly convincing in nearly every respect.
I’m sort of surprised that this symposium is being held at St. Joseph College, which gives it an element of legitimacy that I’m skeptical about.
I too read the 9/11 Commission report and also found it completely convincing. (And extraordinarily gripping reading for a government document!) But I have friends who know something about controlled explosions who tell me the arguments these folks are making about the facts are not just bunk, and I think the Report did not much address these technical issues.
Part of the problem is the “proving a negative” conundrum. Can you prove that the towers were not downed by hidden explosions? No. How likely is it that hidden explosives would have been required to produce the effects? That’s a matter of evidence, analysis, probabilities, and requires some technical competence to sort out. (Unlike the “idea” that the Pentagon was hit by a missle, for which there is no evidence at all.)
My favorite site for 911 is http://stj911.org
It is run by the former head of the physics department at BYU. He has several videos available, and there is no way that the planes by themselves could have brought down the towers. The 911 Commission report a few of you tout, actually gives false information on the construction of the towers, leaving out the fact that there were 48 core columns. And the report doesn’t even address Building 7. I would suggest you skeptics check out this symposium. You can’t change the laws of physics.
America has a long history of embracing conspiracy theories. It happens to be 9/11 this time. Probably the same people who used to be obsessed with the Kennedy assassinations. Freemasons, Jews, the Illuminati, Trilateral Commission, UFOs. It’s sad.
I never said the United States attacked New York. All I said was that the towers could not have fallen by the impact of the planes and the jet fuel alone. Professor Steven Jones, who will be at St. Josephs, has a lot of interesting information on this and building 7. He talks about the physics involved during the impact and the collapse. He does not accuse anyone of carrying out the crime, he’s just calling for a full investigation. A lot of Professor Jones material is on the internet at http://stj911.org.
And I noticed you never answered my question, Phil K, did the melting point of steel change on 911? Because that is the only way the official story could work.
According to an article published in Popular Mechanics March 2005:
“Melted” Steel
Claim: “We have been lied to,” announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. “The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel.” The posting is entitled “Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC.”
FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. “I have never seen melted steel in a building fire,” says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. “But I’ve seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks.”
“Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F,” notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. “And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent.” NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.
But jet fuel wasn’t the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.
“The jet fuel was the ignition source,” Williams tells PM. “It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down.”
Phil: You are forgetting the theory that a cloaked Klingon Bird-of-Prey was also responsible for bringing down the twin towers.
The only problem with that theory is that Klingon ships must generally uncloak prior to firing a torpedo; and since a ship of that size - 157.76 meters would have easily been seen and captured by media - its highly unlikely that this conspiracy theory works.
That being said, there is at least one known instance where a Klingon ship was capable of firing torpedoes while cloaked; (this is well known to Earth historians since the incident nearly ruined the peace treaty between Kronos and the Federation.) However, that ship was thought to have been a single prototype and was destroyed by the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A captained by James T. Kirk, and aided by U.S.S. Excelsior, NCC-2000 captained by Hikaru Sulu on Stardate 9521.6.
I wonder if the Symposium will cover these events too. Every option should be on the table for evaluation.
Phil, the Popular Mechanics claims have been discredited many times. There’s even a book available at Barnes & Noble going point by point with scientific evidence on their claims. The “FACT” section is accurate in regards to the melting point and strength of steel, but that’s it. Also, it’s easy to see that there wasn’t enough fuel to start a fire under every single steel member. Especially since most of the fuel burned off in the fireballs on impact. And the fires that were burning were oxygen starved, which is what caused the thick black smoke. Oxygen starved fires were probably in the 600 - 800 degree range, too cool to melt or weaken steel. Also, if you follow the Popular Mechanics claims, there is no way the building would collapse at free fall speed and collapse completely into a nice neat pile. And don’t forget Building 7. Nothing hit that and it also collased at free fall speed.
I would really suggest you either attend the symposium or at least read up on this.
I’m not going to waste any more time on this topic on this blog because you either understand science, or you don’t. There is no conspiracy on the laws of physics. It’s basic science.
LXD, you cited the melting point of steel, then conceded that Popular Mechanics argument re: the steel was accurate.
The “science” is based on untested or untestable assumptions. Anomalies in visual evidence are common.
The ultimate argument against conspiracy is the human element. The secret could not be kept. The motive ascribed makes no sense. The conspiracy is socially and politically impossible.
And I’ll attend the symposium right after I get back from the Holocaust denial symposium.
A conspiracy of this magnitude could only happen in the movies.
V for Vendetta is my favorite movie of the last 2 years. You would like it - the gov’t commits mass murder in order to manipulate public opinion to suspend democracy and install a totalitarian dictatorship. It’s based on a cartoon.
The 9-11 commission report is a fraud. There are hundreds of scientists, engineers and engineering students faulting that report, and the rebuttals. There are foreign intelligence experts testifying all over the world that the report is a fraud. Morgan Freeman, a former Bush 2 admin economist, quit that admin and recently filed suit in NY with his Danbury, CT Quaker lawyer arguing the report is a fraud. Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst reporting to Bush 1 who heard Dick Cheney order US fighters to stand down on 9/11 knows it’s a fraud and leads an intel experts group on this. Hundreds of NYPD and NYFD families and other families of victims argue it’s a fraud. Explain why building 7 collapsed though it was not struck by a plane? Explain seismographs showing earth tremors around the towers before so called plane impacts? Explain high rates of thyroid and other cancers in surviving NYPD and NYFD comparable to levels in victims after Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
Exoplain the hundreds of witnesses who heard explosions inside and around the towers before they collapsed.
One would need to be an idiot not question these circumstances, conspiracy theorist or not.
The symposium has been updated with an additional speaker. Ed Asner (a.k.a Lou Grant) will open the symposium from 10:00AM - 11:00AM. The web site, http://911hartford.org has all the info.
29 Comments
October 18, 2007 at 7:33 pm
For those who can’t make it, check out this website by one of the participating organizations. Very disturbing stuff. I thought these folks were all a bunch of nuts till I reviewed some of their data and the credentials of some of the people in the organization:
http://www.ae911truth.org/
October 18, 2007 at 8:44 pm
As someone who lost a friend in the towers, I feel this kind of BS should stop. The towers were brought down by two airliners hijacked by a group of Islamic extremist madmen. Period. The conspiracy theories are far fetched. I’ve seen all the “data” too. It’s crap.
Same with the Pentagon. My good friend, an airforce captain was teaching a class that overlooked the Pentagon when he watched the plane strike the building.
People cannot keep a secret for two minutes from their neighbor, never mind a global conspiracy to start a war using remote control devices and planted bombs. This isn’t a movie, this is real life.
And I don’t like the war anymore than the next guy. It’s botched, its sucks, but Bin Laden and his cronies are our enemy, not the U.S. Government or their covert operatives. Let’s get real.
October 18, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I don’t think the people on the website to which eafinct has pointed are pushing a “conspiracy theory.” They do not deny that the attack was orchestrated by Bin Laden. I think they are arguing rather that the facts of the collapse do not correspond to the impact of the planes, and that there must have been explosives in the buildings too. I don’t feel qualified to say the evidence they present is “crap” or not, though I have my doubts about the idea — notably the reports that Bin Laden was surprised that the buildings went down. But I defer to the structural engineers — any out there who care to weigh in?
October 18, 2007 at 8:59 pm
King –
Why did a black box appear by your name on the sidebar a couple of months ago?
October 18, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Gary,
So then the purpose of the Symposium is what? The point that the group running this show is what? Do you really think the narrow focus is to discuss whether an American Airlines Boeing 767 flying a full throttle is powerful enough to damage or destroy large metal frame structures like the Twin Towers? Is this an engineering sponsored event or a political activist sponsored event? Or is it a political event sponsored by left leaning political activists who just so happen to be engineers?
And if they could prove that dynamite sticks were actually stored on the 100th floor would that change that fact that Bin Laden and his army of darkness would try it again, anywhere, anytime? Probably not.
Note where some of the links on the page shown above take you. Right up left wing alley. C’mon now.
October 18, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Only whdad can explain the mysteries surrounding how this blog works. Including why the spam catcher tends to arbitrarily digest comments from time to time.
I think it might be something to do with the fact that I have a blog at http://thekingsview.blogspot.com/ but only he can tell you.
October 19, 2007 at 6:37 am
How about we attend the symposium, see what they say, and then decide?
October 19, 2007 at 8:07 am
Oh sure, blame it on mysteries surrounding how this blog works. Whatever you say, King!
I thought those 911truth guys were crackpots when I saw them on cspan, but after the past 7 years there is no scenario so fantastic, so nefarious, or so Orwellian, that I wouldn’t entertain the plausibility of it.
October 19, 2007 at 8:54 am
The blog gobbles posts from everyone so it is a mystery. I might attend the session, Gary.
October 19, 2007 at 9:16 am
I just read everything in the spam catcher, from links to ‘pissing porn’ to ads for fake viagra. I didn’t find a single post there that shouldn’t have been gobbled up by a spam catcher.
I do feel like I need to take a shower, though, after seeing in detail what filth some sleazy operators want to fill this blog with!
October 19, 2007 at 9:22 am
I should add that I don’t believe the 9-11 conspiracy theories at all. I read the 9-11 Commission report and found it utterly convincing in nearly every respect.
I’m sort of surprised that this symposium is being held at St. Joseph College, which gives it an element of legitimacy that I’m skeptical about.
October 19, 2007 at 9:42 am
I too read the 9/11 Commission report and also found it completely convincing. (And extraordinarily gripping reading for a government document!) But I have friends who know something about controlled explosions who tell me the arguments these folks are making about the facts are not just bunk, and I think the Report did not much address these technical issues.
Part of the problem is the “proving a negative” conundrum. Can you prove that the towers were not downed by hidden explosions? No. How likely is it that hidden explosives would have been required to produce the effects? That’s a matter of evidence, analysis, probabilities, and requires some technical competence to sort out. (Unlike the “idea” that the Pentagon was hit by a missle, for which there is no evidence at all.)
October 21, 2007 at 11:00 pm
My favorite site for 911 is http://stj911.org
It is run by the former head of the physics department at BYU. He has several videos available, and there is no way that the planes by themselves could have brought down the towers. The 911 Commission report a few of you tout, actually gives false information on the construction of the towers, leaving out the fact that there were 48 core columns. And the report doesn’t even address Building 7. I would suggest you skeptics check out this symposium. You can’t change the laws of physics.
October 22, 2007 at 9:43 am
America has a long history of embracing conspiracy theories. It happens to be 9/11 this time. Probably the same people who used to be obsessed with the Kennedy assassinations. Freemasons, Jews, the Illuminati, Trilateral Commission, UFOs. It’s sad.
October 22, 2007 at 11:18 pm
The only conspiracy theory in regards to 911 is the “official story”. Are you trying to tell me that the melting point of steel changed on 911?
October 23, 2007 at 8:54 am
Are you trying to tell me that the United States attacked New York? And Washington? the Pentagon???
October 23, 2007 at 8:55 am
I think you watched “V for Vendetta” one too many times.
October 23, 2007 at 9:54 am
Is the LSD to the x power?
October 23, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I never said the United States attacked New York. All I said was that the towers could not have fallen by the impact of the planes and the jet fuel alone. Professor Steven Jones, who will be at St. Josephs, has a lot of interesting information on this and building 7. He talks about the physics involved during the impact and the collapse. He does not accuse anyone of carrying out the crime, he’s just calling for a full investigation. A lot of Professor Jones material is on the internet at http://stj911.org.
And I noticed you never answered my question, Phil K, did the melting point of steel change on 911? Because that is the only way the official story could work.
October 23, 2007 at 10:15 pm
There’s an old saying, “Two can keep a secret… if one of them is dead”
I find it inconceivable that a conspiracy on this scale be could ever be hushed up.
October 24, 2007 at 10:08 am
I haven’t a clue about the melting point of anything except water.
I think Rick said it best.
October 24, 2007 at 1:52 pm
According to an article published in Popular Mechanics March 2005:
“Melted” Steel
Claim: “We have been lied to,” announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. “The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel.” The posting is entitled “Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC.”
FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. “I have never seen melted steel in a building fire,” says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. “But I’ve seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks.”
“Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F,” notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. “And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent.” NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.
But jet fuel wasn’t the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.
“The jet fuel was the ignition source,” Williams tells PM. “It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down.”
October 24, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Phil: You are forgetting the theory that a cloaked Klingon Bird-of-Prey was also responsible for bringing down the twin towers.
The only problem with that theory is that Klingon ships must generally uncloak prior to firing a torpedo; and since a ship of that size - 157.76 meters would have easily been seen and captured by media - its highly unlikely that this conspiracy theory works.
That being said, there is at least one known instance where a Klingon ship was capable of firing torpedoes while cloaked; (this is well known to Earth historians since the incident nearly ruined the peace treaty between Kronos and the Federation.) However, that ship was thought to have been a single prototype and was destroyed by the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A captained by James T. Kirk, and aided by U.S.S. Excelsior, NCC-2000 captained by Hikaru Sulu on Stardate 9521.6.
I wonder if the Symposium will cover these events too. Every option should be on the table for evaluation.
October 24, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Phil, the Popular Mechanics claims have been discredited many times. There’s even a book available at Barnes & Noble going point by point with scientific evidence on their claims. The “FACT” section is accurate in regards to the melting point and strength of steel, but that’s it. Also, it’s easy to see that there wasn’t enough fuel to start a fire under every single steel member. Especially since most of the fuel burned off in the fireballs on impact. And the fires that were burning were oxygen starved, which is what caused the thick black smoke. Oxygen starved fires were probably in the 600 - 800 degree range, too cool to melt or weaken steel. Also, if you follow the Popular Mechanics claims, there is no way the building would collapse at free fall speed and collapse completely into a nice neat pile. And don’t forget Building 7. Nothing hit that and it also collased at free fall speed.
I would really suggest you either attend the symposium or at least read up on this.
I’m not going to waste any more time on this topic on this blog because you either understand science, or you don’t. There is no conspiracy on the laws of physics. It’s basic science.
October 25, 2007 at 8:49 am
Your last paragraph is the only thing you say that makes any sense.
October 25, 2007 at 10:05 am
I feel like ranting some more.
LXD, you cited the melting point of steel, then conceded that Popular Mechanics argument re: the steel was accurate.
The “science” is based on untested or untestable assumptions. Anomalies in visual evidence are common.
The ultimate argument against conspiracy is the human element. The secret could not be kept. The motive ascribed makes no sense. The conspiracy is socially and politically impossible.
And I’ll attend the symposium right after I get back from the Holocaust denial symposium.
A conspiracy of this magnitude could only happen in the movies.
V for Vendetta is my favorite movie of the last 2 years. You would like it - the gov’t commits mass murder in order to manipulate public opinion to suspend democracy and install a totalitarian dictatorship. It’s based on a cartoon.
Anyone seen any good political movies lately?
October 25, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Listen to the words of former President Clinton on this very topic: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c68_1193347304&p=1
November 1, 2007 at 2:55 pm
The 9-11 commission report is a fraud. There are hundreds of scientists, engineers and engineering students faulting that report, and the rebuttals. There are foreign intelligence experts testifying all over the world that the report is a fraud. Morgan Freeman, a former Bush 2 admin economist, quit that admin and recently filed suit in NY with his Danbury, CT Quaker lawyer arguing the report is a fraud. Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst reporting to Bush 1 who heard Dick Cheney order US fighters to stand down on 9/11 knows it’s a fraud and leads an intel experts group on this. Hundreds of NYPD and NYFD families and other families of victims argue it’s a fraud. Explain why building 7 collapsed though it was not struck by a plane? Explain seismographs showing earth tremors around the towers before so called plane impacts? Explain high rates of thyroid and other cancers in surviving NYPD and NYFD comparable to levels in victims after Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
Exoplain the hundreds of witnesses who heard explosions inside and around the towers before they collapsed.
One would need to be an idiot not question these circumstances, conspiracy theorist or not.
November 2, 2007 at 9:45 pm
The symposium has been updated with an additional speaker. Ed Asner (a.k.a Lou Grant) will open the symposium from 10:00AM - 11:00AM. The web site, http://911hartford.org has all the info.
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