... is that it demonstrates that conspiracists aren't just out of touch with the reality of historical events, they are out of touch with the reality of their own circumstances. For example, I've never seen the "conspiracy theorist" label applied to anyone for simply "questioning the official account of events." No, the definition of "conspiracy theorist" -- as derived from their own behavior, not a CIA plot -- is someone who asserts highly implausible and speculative conspiracy theories as absolute facts, for what prove to be unsubstantiated and highly dubious reasons. Furthermore, since the JFK assassination, modern conspiracy theories are also theories about huge and elaborate hoaxes, which the modern conspiracy theorist apparently believes releases them from the constraints of evidence-based reasoning: In their world view, all the evidence that supports the official story must be fake and all the evidence that would conclusively prove the conspiracy theory must have been covered up, so neither evidence nor lack of evidence makes the slightest bit of difference to them. They simply pretend to care about evidence when they combine half-truths with abject bullshit to try to induce new members into the cult, when it's quite clear that the half-truths and bullshit can't really be the reason that they believe what they believe. And finally, whining about the "conspiracy theorist" label being used to dismiss the theories out-of-hand and avoid discussing them is a transparent attempt to avoid the harsh reality that the real bane of their existence is not people who dismiss the theories but rather the people who deconstruct their arguments and evidence and show how far short they fall of proving their implausible claims. Neither one of these guys can face the reality of how poorly conspiracists fare in meaningful debate, so they delude themselves into thinking they are in possession of superior knowledge of "the truth" and dismiss anyone who says otherwise as being willfully ignorant. Just like all other cultists.

The second really depressing thing this interview shows is how hopeless it is to think that reason might eventually penetrate the fortress of delusions. That does happen on very rare occasions, but so does spontaneous human combustion. Or so they say.

for simply "questioning the official account of events", maybe that's because you don't question the official account and you don't hang out with people who do.

It's kind of like arguing, "Well nobody calls me (---racist insult---) and therefore nobody calls anybody (---racist insult---)."

Did you ever think of that? No? That's sad.

... because they have a religious belief that they already know the "answers." Sorry, but it's very easy to tell the difference: People who sincerely "question" the official account are willing to accept reasonable answers to those questions; conspiracy theorists are not.

Your assertion that conspiracy theorists go beyond the "questioning" spec is correct.

That wasn't your claim. Your claim was that the "conspiracy theorist" label is not applied to those skeptics who merely question the official claims.

Don't you even read your own posts before responding?

The reasonable questions of the 9/11 skeptics have not been answered. 273 of the 9/11 widows' 300 questions have not been answered. Ron Brookman's request for NIST's thermal expansion calcs on WTC7 was not answered. And NIST's objective of explaining why and how the towers collapsed was not answered. NIST claimed they did not analyze the collapses.

... even when you apparently don't have a cogent point is making you look silly.

I have changed no "spec," and you are apparently the one with a reading comprehension problem. Maybe reading it again will help. I said:

The post that you say "wasn't {my} claim" is simply a shorter restatement:



If you think that's "chang{ing} the spec" then I have to conclude that you simply don't understand what I'm saying, which is not my problem.

> The reasonable questions of the 9/11 skeptics have not been answered.

Sez you, a conspiracy theorist, after giving example after example on this board of exactly what I'm talking about. Thanks for proving my point.

When I said that was not true, you changed the subject to the claim that conspiracy theorists are religious nuts. That's what I meant by you changing the spec.

And then you reserved for yourself the right to define what was a reasonable answer and what was not, and thus who was a skeptic and who was a conspiracy nut, when your level of knowledge does not justify that right.

And then you proved my point by calling me a conspiracy theorist. Where do you get the idea that I'm a conspiracy theorist?

And are you now willing to accept the reasonable explanations for why the NIST hypothesis is a much better fit to the facts? Or do you still insist that NIST is deliberately lying to cover up a controlled demolition?

How about your endorsement of the 2004 "9/11 Truth" statement?

Don't get me wrong; I heartily condone rehabilitation. If so, I'll consider apologizing for jumping to conclusions based merely on what you actually said.

Well I can do twice as well as you at that game.

I was just laughing at your lame dodge.

I simply asked if you wanted to retract some of your earlier endorsements of conspiracy theories so that you could try to score a point by claiming to not be a conspiracy theorist. And now, I'm simply laughing at your unwillingness to say either yes or no.

I didn't endorse any conspiracy theories. Is it your purpose to spread confusion or do you do that without realizing it?

Or maybe you endorse conspiracy theories without realizing it? I notice that you don't read my posts very carefully; do you read yours?

Why didn't you?

I started out by correcting your silly claim that the "conspiracy theorist" label was not applied to non-conspiracist skeptics of the official accounts--a claim as absurd as claiming that the "communist" label has never been applied to non-Marxists.

You then made a non-sequitur response asserting that conspiracy theorists are not non-conspiracists--which is true, but has nothing to do with defending your stupid claim above.

You then accused me of having a reading comprehension problem, and called me a conspiracy theorist--nicely contradicting your original claim.

And that was when the thread had "substance". It's been silly since comment 1. You made it so.

Is that what you're about here, waging a holy jihad on conspiracy theories? What's your problem--did a conspiracy theorist steal your girlfriend or something?

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At Fri Nov 1, 2013, 10:41 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1135&pid=6146

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Rude and needlessly insulting . I understand the poster is new but needs to understand they can engage without insulting.

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Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: An unnecessary comment, but not "over-the-top." Besides, I would leave it so others can see it. Nothing screams "I lost this debate" more than someone resorting to these types of comments.
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Yes, I know that "truthers" hate the term "conspiracy theorist," even though it's accurate.

If you believe 19 hijackers flew 4 airplanes into 3 buildings you're a conspiracy theorist. It certainly hasn't been proven. Unlike you, I don't claim to know what happened on 9/11. I'm not a conspiracy theorist.

So what motivates your holy jihad against conspiracy theorists that is so aggressive that you attack even innocent bystanders like me?

"If you believe 19 hijackers flew 4 airplanes into 3 buildings you're a conspiracy theorist. It certainly hasn't been proven."

Unfuckingbelievable.



Glad to know you are part of the "legitimate" truth movement.

More argument by emoticon, I see.

Well I can do much better than you



See? I win!

What evidence have you other that the 9/11 Commission's assertions based on the hearsay evidence of CIA interrogation transcripts of testimony obtained under torture?

It's true that most "truthers" don't really have a coherent theory about exactly what happened, but they are still "conspiracy theorists" because they do have a theory that there was SOME sort of "inside job" conspiracy. You certainly seem to fit that description to me, but if you want to deny that, suit yourself since it really doesn't matter.

But anyway, I think most people understand that "conspiracy theorist" has become an idiomatic expression meaning more than "someone who has a theory about a conspiracy." And sorry, but people who "believe 19 hijackers flew 4 airplanes into 3 buildings" don't fit the definition, not the least reasons being: A) that "theory" is highly plausible given the number of suicide attacks by radical Islamists; B) it's well supported by very credible evidence; and C) it isn't a theory about secretive "powers that be" which control the world by executing unnecessarily complicated and risky hoaxes. In short, it's exactly the opposite of what most people understand to be a "conspiracy theory."

Last edited Sun Nov 10, 2013, 12:55 PM - Edit history (1)

meaning "anybody who is concerned about, and knows more than I do about, an issue that I know nothing about and don't want to think about" when employed by people like yourself.

The theory of the 19 hijackers' suicide flights as officially stated and as believed by lazy fools is hardly "highly plausible" given that it requires that 1) warnings from 13 foreign countries, 4 FBI offices, and the CIA had to be ignored; 2) the military had to do next to nothing for 100 minutes in response to a plot that had been known to the intelligence community since 1995 and 3) three skyscrapers had to exhibit physical behavior so bizarre that government agencies tasked with explaining it threw up their hands and declared that they could not explain it.

The hijacker theory is NOT well-supported. It's supported largely by testimony extracted under torture and by evidence that well-deserves suspicion that it was planted.

The fact that the attack was unnecessarily complicated and risky makes very unlikely its perpetration by poorly-funded Arabs. They had so slight a reasonable expectation of success that the plot was lunacy. They could not have known that there would be no air defense. The fact of its unnecessary complications and risks is consistent with its perpetration by arrogant, lunatic, rank amateurs with prestigious university degrees who had been encouraged to believe themselves to be uebermenschen--in other words, neocons.

So much for your disingenuous denials of being a conspiracy theorist.

> The hijacker theory is NOT well-supported. It's supported largely by testimony extracted under torture and by evidence that well-deserves suspicion that it was planted.

Abject bullshit. The hijacker "theory" is "supported largely" by the people who were actually on the plane and watched it happen; by the airliners' records of who those hijackers were; by the history of those hijackers' involvement with Islamist radicalism; by the history of those hijackers getting flight training; by the hijackers' own "martyrdom" videos; and by the confessions of both bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who were NOT under duress of torture when they confessed. Your statement quoted above belies serious ignorance of the evidence for this "theory" while hypocritically declaring that people who find it overwhelmingly convincing to be "lazy fools."

> The fact that the attack was unnecessarily complicated and risky makes very unlikely its perpetration by poorly-funded Arabs.

Bullshit on top of bullshit. The plan was risky, of course, but it was not at all complicated or prohibitively expensive, which is precisely why it's highly plausible that it was chosen over alternative attack plots. You seem to have trouble dealing with the possibility that Arabs could be intelligent enough to figure out how to exploit our vulnerability to that kind of suicide attack, even though that vulnerability was glaringly obvious after the fact. You find it inconceivable that we weren't prepared to deal with that kind of attack (not the least reasons being apparent incompetence and apathy), yet you are willing to entertain absurd theories about people preparing 24x7-occupied office buildings for an exotic and untested demolition and then somehow getting to every person who could have exposed the plot and convincing them to go along with covering up a mass murder. And then you expect your own incredulity of the "official story" to carry some weight? I think not.

Last edited Tue Nov 5, 2013, 10:22 PM - Edit history (2)

... at Pensacola Naval Air Station and courses at the Defense Languages Institute.

Who died and left you her crystal ball so that you can so confidently declare that KSM's alleged
confessions were "not under duress"? Vas you dere, Sharlie? Zat vuld explain a lot iff you vas.

The plan was complicated and a whole hell of a lot went wrong. Flight 77 got delayed, so Bush had to
sit on his ass in a schoolroom and do nothing until the plane hit its target. WTC7 didn't blow up on
schedule so they had to do the job right out in front of everybody instead of under cover of a cloud
of dust from WTC1. Flight 93 had a passenger revolt and had to be terminated. The fires were going
out in WTC2 so it had to be brought down early. That meant WTC1 had to come down early too.

There was NO vulnerability to suicide hijacking attack. Al Qaeda's Project Bojinka plot had been known
since 1995. NORAD had even done drills on hijacked-airliner-into-WTC scenarios. There were warnings
from 13 foreign countries, 4 FBI offices, and the CIA.

It ain't rocket science to bring down a building. The main structural columns of the towers were accessible
from the towers' 15 miles of elevator shafts. Your lazy credulity is noted.

... when he and Ramzi bin al-Shibh described the planning of the attack to al-Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda. After his capture, KSM was tortured at Gitmo, but he volunteered a confession in a written statement to the military tribunal. Some people think KSM exaggerated his role in the planning, which is quite possible, but there is simply no rational reason to doubt that he was at least tangentially involved in this al Qaeda-sponsored attack, as he was in several others.

OBL wasn't being tortured in the so-called "fat Osama" tape where he bragged to his buddies about his role in the attack. He wasn't being tortured when he admitted planning it, explained his motives, and warned the US to stop meddling in the M.E. in a video released to al-Jazeera just before our 2004 elections, nor in several other videos and taped messages where he alluded to al Qaeda's responsibility for the attack.

I'm sure I can't convince you that you'll be wasting everyone's time with your disbelief of these confessions or the veritable mountain of other evidence that convinces a rational person that 19 radical Islamists carried out the 9/11 attacks, so have at it. But your personal incredulity is neither interesting nor relevant if you can't prove that all that evidence is fake and/or produce credible evidence that tells a different story. The M.O. of "modern" conspiracy theorists is to simply claim that all the evidence that supports the "official story" MUST be fake and that all the evidence that would prove a conspiracy MUST have been covered up. Prove it, and you won't be called conspiracy theorists any more.

> The plan was complicated and a whole hell of a lot went wrong. Flight 77 got delayed, so Bush had to sit on his ass in a schoolroom and do nothing until the plane hit its target...

Nah, you aren't a conspiracy theorist, are ya.

> It ain't rocket science to bring down a building. The main structural columns of the towers were accessible from the towers' 15 miles of elevator shafts.

It would take more than rocket science to invent silent explosives, and your claim about the easy access to core columns through the elevator shafts is "truther" bullshit which you apparently didn't bother to verify, which makes your following hypocritical statement rather amusing:

> Your lazy credulity is noted.

Your incredulity is neither interesting nor relevant if it can't be substantiated with more than hand-waving. The reason the "truth movement" had spiraled into irrelevancy by 2007 is that it was manifestly unable to substantiate any "inside job" claims.

Only someone laboring under the weight of extreme confirmation bias would give Fosri any credibility whatsoever.

What gives you the idea that I'm a conspiracy theorist? You claimed that the plan to get four hijacked planes past the most powerful defense establishment the world has ever seen was "not at all complicated or prohibitively expensive" and I showed that you were wrong and it was extremely complicated.

You don't know what "fat Osama" said. You get your talking points from lying propaganda websites.

The access to the WTC core columns from the elevator hoistways can easily be verified simply by looking at the WTC blueprints. Photos showing this can be found on the internet or in the movie "9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out". There is no need for silent explosives. It is sufficient to weaken the columns, and incendiaries can handle that.

... and ignore the rest? Impressive.

> What gives you the idea that I'm a conspiracy theorist?

As if that wasn't already obvious, maybe this is a clue:

> The plan was complicated and a whole hell of a lot went wrong. Flight 77 got delayed, so Bush had to sit on his ass in a schoolroom and do nothing until the plane hit its target. WTC7 didn't blow up on schedule so they had to do the job right out in front of everybody instead of under cover of a cloud of dust from WTC1. Flight 93 had a passenger revolt and had to be terminated. The fires were going out in WTC2 so it had to be brought down early. That meant WTC1 had to come down early too.

And then we have this:

> You claimed that the plan to get four hijacked planes past the most powerful defense establishment the world has ever seen was "not at all complicated or prohibitively expensive" and I showed that you were wrong and it was extremely complicated.

You seem to have misunderstood; you described why an "inside job" conspiracy would have been complicated and risky. As commercial domestic flights, these planes were already "past the most powerful defense establishment" which was geared for attack from abroad and completely unprepared for commercial airliners being used as weapons. While it's a good question why not, 9/11 conspiracists have done nothing but detract attention from valid 9/11 questions by focusing on perfectly idiotic "controlled demolition" theories. There was nothing "complicated" about the hijackers gambling that they would not be shot down, since there was virtually no chance of that at least until the first plane hit its target. And even if only one plane had hit its target and the other three were shot down, killing the passengers, I do believe the hijackers would have considered that a successful attack. Taking over the flights was not complicated, given the standing policy to not attempt to use force against hijackers, and pointing a plane at a large building is not complicated for someone who has had at least a few hours training. You have shown nothing, "Ace."

> You don't know what "fat Osama" said. You get your talking points from lying propaganda websites.

Which reminds me of another characteristic of conspiracy theorists: hypocrisy. To wit:

> The access to the WTC core columns from the elevator hoistways can easily be verified simply by looking at the WTC blueprints. Photos showing this can be found on the internet or in the movie "9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out".

You are hypocritically parroting a claim that's very popular in conspiracy propaganda but which is simply not true, as can be verified by looking at the floor plan above the 78th floor "sky lobby" (rather than at the ground floor):



Now tell me how core columns were accessible from elevator shafts (and I should warn you that you should probably first do some homework to identify which shafts are elevator shafts, if you don't want to look even more hypocritical.)

> There is no need for silent explosives. It is sufficient to weaken the columns, and incendiaries can handle that.

And as I pointed with Gage's cognitive dissonance, that's what conspiracists claim when they want to "explain" why there were no explosive sounds, but then they claim that only a "controlled demolition" can explain the sudden and supposedly symmetric collapses. Sorry, you can't have it both ways, and the fact that you can't come up with a coherent theory doesn't excuse you from being a conspiracy theorist. Another characteristic of conspiracy theorists is that they are willing to give credibility to anything except the "official story" -- i.e. the story told by the actual evidence.

You claimed that the plan to get four hijacked planes past the most powerful defense establishment the world has ever seen was "not at all complicated or prohibitively expensive" and I showed that you were wrong, it was extremely complicated, and in fact a whole lot of stuff that could predictably go wrong DID go wrong.

The domestic flights were not "past the most powerful defense establishment". NORAD had scrambled fighters 1600 times over 4 years for missions to identify or aid unknown aircraft. These scrambles were from domestic air bases. Major Nasypany said the problem with the radar was too many blips, not that they couldn't see the hijacked planes. We already went over that. You won't learn.

Your framing of the issue as shoot-down is dishonest. NORAD was tasked with interception and they didn't do that. There were many steps between interception and shoot-down. Pointing a plane at a building is not complicated, but hitting it at 500 miles an hour when it's only 200 feet wide or only 75 feet high is not easy.

Your own diagram shows 15 core columns directly accessible from the elevator shafts, and another 4 in close proximity.

If you didn't get your talking points from propaganda websites you might pick another floor than the 94th floor sky lobby for your sample. The 79th floor, for instance, shows 18 core columns directly accessible, with another 11 in close proximity.
At the 45th floor, 25 core columns were directly accessible, with another 15 in close proximity. That's 40 out of 47.


Where do you get the idea that you can't have a quiet controlled demolition by thermite?

There was no "94th floor sky lobby." I posted a floor plan that was typical above the 78th floor sky lobby because the elevator layout was the same from that level all the way to the top floor. To refresh you apparently failing memory, the collapse began at about floor 98 in WTC 1 and about floor 82 in WTC 2. I also cautioned you to be careful about which shafts were elevator shafts, since you claimed those were the ones "easily accessible."

But you ignored my caution and arrived at an incorrect count of 15 that were near any kind of shaft and then, even more disingenuously, toss in "another 4 in close proximity," then apparently hope that nobody will notice that even that bloated count is still not enough to cause the core to collapse. Then you quickly shift to completely irrelevant counts below the sky lobby and below the collapse initiations and post a floor plan for the 45th floor, which had the maximum number of elevator shafts because it was at the top of the lower sky lobby.

I think it's pretty obvious that you did that because you were caught red-handed peddling "truther" bullshit, just as I said, and that you have no intention of debating honestly, while hypocritically accusing others of that behavior.

But at least you've revived some of the humor that we've enjoyed in past years on this board. It's been pretty dead the last couple of years.

Last edited Fri Nov 8, 2013, 07:29 PM - Edit history (1)

You change the subject a lot--when you're forced to yield on a fact, you try to make the fact seem irrelevant. It's not. You claimed that the FACT that the core columns were accessible from the elevator hoistways is "truther bullshit".

I showed that you're wrong, and you changed the subject to where did the collapses begin and a completely evidence free claim that the loss of the 16 core columns accessible on the 95th floor would not cause the core to collapse.

Your own diagram shows 13 core columns in the elevator shafts (and 3 more in practical proximity) at the 95th floor.

Down lower, as you acknowledge, there were more elevator shafts and more thorough access.

Truth-seekers try to establish the facts first before analyzing them. Propagandists like you labor to fit the facts to your analysis, and to disqualify inconvenient facts.

... through elevator shafts made demolition easy. How is where the collapses started irrelevant? How is the floorplan many levels below where the collapses started relevant?

The floorplan above the 78th floor sky lobby clearly shows that there was not access through elevator shafts to enough columns on the 82nd or 98th floors to initiate the collapse at those levels, even if you count columns that were in mechanical shafts rather than elevator shafts. The floor plan at the 44th floor sky lobby is absurdly irrelevant.

You simply parroted bullshit you read on "truther" sites without verifying it, but then you hypocritically accuse others of that behavior.

> Truth-seekers try to establish the facts first before analyzing them. Propagandists like you labor to fit the facts to your analysis, and to disqualify inconvenient facts.

LOL, in context, that sounds like a confession, but I'm sure you intended it to be another hypocritically accusation. And I'm quite sure that this will be yet another never-ending thread where you will attempt to defend your indefensible claims. But as I said, it's fun to have some entertainment value restored to this board, so please proceed.

... of demolition charges. That is not "truther bullshit" as you claimed. It is objective fact.

I didn't say that "where the collapses started" was irrelevant. I said that at the 95th floor the loss of the 16 core columns accessible from elevator shafts could arguably cause the core to collapse. Your own diagram shows 13 core columns in the elevator shafts (and 3 more in practical proximity) at the 95th floor. Those in practical proximity in mechanical shafts were accessible by breaking through partitions from the elevator shaft to reach the mechanical shaft.

I didn't parrot any bullshit. The 44th floor floor plan is hardly irrelevant to the collapse of the 44th floor. The collapse of the lower core under no more stress than its own weight--after it had been relieved of its job of holding up the upper 65 floors and after the collapse of the outer floors had concluded--is one of ten essential mysteries that NIST neglected to address in its 10,000 page report.

I do not make indefensible claims. I leave that kind of cynical, useless, and time-wasting activity to you.

> "where the collapses started" was irrelevant. I said that at the 95th floor the loss of the 16 core columns accessible from elevator shafts could arguably cause the core to collapse.

Which is abject bullshit. "Truthers" love to point out that the core columns were designed to support about 3 times the gravity load that was on them, so randomly taking out 1/3 of the columns should not be expected to cause the core to collapse since there would still be a 100% safety factor. But the non-random situation is actually even worse than that for your argument, because the columns accessible by shafts (even though you disingenuously want to include mechanical shafts now plus ones that were only in "close proximity&quot were mostly interior to the core, not the much heavier columns that carried half the load of the long floor spans. Taking out a few columns around the elevator shafts would not cause those columns to collapse. Moreover, taking out columns around the elevator shafts would certainly not cause the exterior columns along one wall to start buckling inward about 20 minutes before the collapse, and to completely buckle inward with the onset of the collapse, allowing the tower tops to tilt. Seems to me that elsewhere you were bragging about how much evidence gathering you do before jumping to conclusions...?

> The 44th floor floor plan is hardly irrelevant to the collapse of the 44th floor.

Your apparent ignorance of structural mechanics and dynamics is hardly relevant. Even if the initiation had been by magical silent explosives or mysteriously synchronized thermite melting, there would be no need to take out any columns on the 44th floor. And don't bother denying your ignorance, since you said this:

> The collapse of the lower core under no more stress than its own weight--after it had been relieved of its job of holding up the upper 65 floors and after the collapse of the outer floors had concluded--is one of ten essential mysteries that NIST neglected to address in its 10,000 page report.

That would be because it ISN'T any mystery to structural mechanics experts who understand that the core was not designed as a free-standing structure == the floors trusses restrained the core columns laterally to prevent buckling -- and that the resistance to column buckling varies with the SQUARE of the unrestrained length. And anyway, speaking of mysteries, you're just fabricating another "just so story" to imply that there must have been some mysterious reason that the alleged demolition team needed to bring down that lower part of core after the rest of the building was destroyed.

> I do not make indefensible claims.

Well, it's true you don't seem to understand that they are indefensible, I'll give you that.

I have not jumped to any conclusions. My conclusion is that the NIST report is incomplete, unscientific, and dishonest. I never alleged that there "must have been some mysterious reason that the alleged demolition team needed to bring down that lower part of core."

We were talking about your erroneous claim that the FACT that the core columns were accessible from the elevator hoistways is "truther bullshit". I showed that claim to be wrong.

The fact that the core as a whole could carry 3 times its design weight does not mean it could survive the destruction of nearly 1/3 of its structure. That would impose a lot of stresses that the building was not designed to resist.

The three columns in mechanical shafts are in close proximity to the elevator shafts--as you could see if you would bother to study your own diagram.

The collapse of the lower core under nothing but its own weight AFTER the outside floors had already hit the ground is a complete mystery, unexplained by NIST. If NIST believes the core toppled, it is for NIST to prove that. They make no effort whatsoever. I haven't seen any photographic evidence that the core toppled.

Your assertion of speculative theories without evidence and without authority is a real hoot. I do not make indefensible claims, your silly do not show that I do, and in fact your need to indulge in attitude instead of presenting facts only discredits your own case.

... and sorry, but the laughs are my only motivation to take time to respond to you, and here's a good example of why:

> We were talking about your erroneous claim that the FACT that the core columns were accessible from the elevator hoistways is "truther bullshit". I showed that claim to be wrong.

You deliberately distort issue after issue while hypocritically accusing others of straw-man arguments. It was never my claim that there weren't ANY columns accessible from elevator shafts, which would have been silly since my own post clearly showed that SOME were. My claim was -- and still is -- that the speculation that the building could be taken down by the "easy access" to those few columns is abject bullshit peddled by "truthers," and you most certainly have NOT showed that claim to be wrong by just denying it. I gave my logical reasons for WHY that is bullshit, and as always you just danced around them and denied it again.

> I never alleged that there "must have been some mysterious reason that the alleged demolition team needed to bring down that lower part of core."

And another of your favorite games: Imply something, then deny that you "alleged" it. You claimed that the floorplan and elevator shafts below the 44th floor sky lobby was "relevant" to the discussion of a controlled demolition because you couldn't otherwise understand why the lower core collapsed after the floors had already fallen away. Either that observation is actually irrelevant to controlled demolition theories, or you are implying that the alleged demolition team had some reason to bring down that last part of the core after the rest of the building had collapsed, so that's what they did by sneaking into the elevator shafts below the 44th floor and planting some more magical silent explosives and/or mysteriously synchronized thermite melting devices. Either own the implicit argument or retract it.

> The collapse of the lower core under nothing but its own weight AFTER the outside floors had already hit the ground is a complete mystery, unexplained by NIST.

I hesitate to predict how many times I'll need to repeat this, but "its own weight" was quite sufficient to bring down the "spire" because the core was NOT designed to be free-standing. With the floors no longer providing lateral restraint, the core columns soon buckled. There isn't any mystery about it, and there is no reason that NIST should be expected to prove something that obvious -- and certainly not to people who are as determined to not understand things as "truthers" are.

You claimed in post 32 that the FACT that the main structural columns were accessible from the elevator hoistways is "truther bullshit".

Rather than admit you were wrong, you try to reframe the issue as if it were "ANY columns accessible".

I never said that the floorplan and elevator shafts below the 44th floor sky lobby was "relevant" to the discussion of a controlled demolition. I said it was relevant to the question of column access, and relevant to the omissions in the NIST reports.

It's not a "spire" that was brought down. Photos and videos show that the entire lower core was left standing after the rest of the building had collapsed completely, and then the entire lower core fell under its own weight.

If you have some evidence that the lower core columns buckled, please provide it. NIST doesn't say that. Your belief that we should accept the hand-waving arguments of an anonymous internet poster in lieu of a thorough, honest, scientific investigation betrays you.

... or are you just using it as a rhetorical device to again pretend to have a valid point?

> You claimed in post 32 that the FACT that the main structural columns were accessible from the elevator hoistways is "truther bullshit".

Bullshit. I was responding to your explicit claim that it would have been easy to bring down the towers because of the "easy access" to core columns, which is bullshit; I was not denying that there was access to some columns. Specifically, in post #31 you said:

> It ain't rocket science to bring down a building. The main structural columns of the towers were accessible from the towers' 15 miles of elevator shafts.

When I asked you to tell me how many columns were "accessible," I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe that you are so dense that you actually thought I was denying that some columns were accessible, especially since in the same post I put a floor plan that showed that some were! Give me a break. I'm sorry, but I have to believe that you fully understood what I was getting at because you immediately tried to not only exaggerate the number but also threw in irrelevant counts from floors below the collapse initiation, simply because they were more down there.

However, if you honestly misunderstood my point , I trust that now we've cleared that up and you will address it with something resembling a cogent refutation, no?

(I'm gonna guess, "no.&quot

> It's not a "spire" that was brought down. Photos and videos show that the entire lower core was left standing after the rest of the building had collapsed completely, and then the entire lower core fell under its own weight.

Jeez, here we go again with another pointless, argumentative dodge where you pretend to have a point. The "spires" are what those standing core columns are frequently called on "truther" sites, and I can't think of anything less relevant than what you want to call them.

> If you have some evidence that the lower core columns buckled, please provide it. NIST doesn't say that. Your belief that we should accept the hand-waving arguments of an anonymous internet poster in lieu of a thorough, honest, scientific investigation betrays you.

LOL, the funny thing about that comment is that you have already demonstrated that you won't believe anything coming out of NIST, even though their investigation was carried out by many dozens of non-anonymous recognized experts, including dozens from academia and private industry, whom "truthers" blithely accuse of being accessories to murder after the fact because what they found doesn't suit their absurd controlled demolition theories. You can't come up with a reason why the "demolition team" needed to go to all the trouble and risk of rigging those "easily accessible" columns in the lower cores, because it just doesn't make a lick of sense. But no, I wouldn't waste a minute trying to convince a "truther" of anything. The best I can hope for is to give a clue to any truly objective lurkers here that "truthers" peddle bullshit -- check it out for yourself. But as I said elsewhere, all I'm getting out of this is the humor value.

I didn't say it was easy to bring down the towers. That's your misstatement.

Creating confusion is a common tactic of those who need to create confusion to cover up their incongruencies with reality.

The entire core, of 47 columns linked by 6" concrete floors, 87 feet by 133 feet, will be equated to a few surviving columns (the "spire&quot only by someone who is either very ignorant or who finds it rhetorically useful to pretend he is. The video and photo evidence shows that the entire core stood for about 40 stories, and then fell under nothing but its own weight.


I never said I wouldn't believe anything that came out of NIST. You have no grip on reality. Your bloated and counterfactual posts are a waste of time to read, let alone to correct.

> I didn't say it was easy to bring down the towers. That's your misstatement

But you said:

> It ain't rocket science to bring down a building. The main structural columns of the towers were accessible from the towers' 15 miles of elevator shafts.

Let's simplify it to see if we can skip the song and dance routine on this one: If you are now conceding that it wasn't possible to access enough "main structural columns" through the elevator shafts to bring down the building, then this argument is finished. If you are still maintaining that it was, then you are simply wrong.

> Creating confusion is a common tactic of those who need to create confusion to cover up their incongruencies with reality.

If there is any confusion about the argument you are trying to make or my rebuttal, then it's your own doing. How about you start clearing it up by stating exactly what your argument is, and if you're still confused about why I dispute it, I'll give i another crack. Your rhetorical games are amusing, but they are getting to be like hearing the same joke over and over.

Oh, but wait, there's more:

> The entire core, of 47 columns linked by 6" concrete floors, 87 feet by 133 feet, will be equated to a few surviving columns (the "spire&quot only by someone who is either very ignorant or who finds it rhetorically useful to pretend he is.

As I clearly said, that's not my term and I really couldn't care less what you call it. But you try to make it yet another word game, while hypocritically accusing me of doing that in the same sentence. Please try again to find a "rhetorically useful" dodge for the salient issues: 1) The core was not designed as a free-standing structure, so it's completely unsurprising that it soon collapsed. 2) You have presented no logical reason for why "they" would go to the extra complexity and risk to bring down that part of the core. It's just another of your "just so" stories; that's what they did so they must have had some reason.

> I never said I wouldn't believe anything that came out of NIST.

Ah, I guess I just assumed that because you called them liars. I presume you mean that if they found evidence of thermite, you'd believe that?

Last edited Mon Nov 11, 2013, 04:03 PM - Edit history (3)

Anyone who can read a blueprint can see that.

My argument is simply to counter your untruthful statements, such as your claims in post 30 that the 9/11 attack plan was for a small bunch of small Muslims "not at all complicated" and "highly plausible", your claim that there was a "vulnerability" to an al Qaeda attack plan that had been known since 1995, and your claim that the idea that people could have done demolition preparations covertly was "absurd".

Let us establish the facts first, before we go running around creating hand-waving theories (like yours).

Your inability to distinguish between a slender and swaying "spire" and a robust, cross-braced structural core capable of holding up most of the weight of the 65 stories above it is a matter of persistent blindness. I didn't say "they" went to the trouble to bring down the core. I said its destruction has not been explained, and was even dodged by the NIST report. When did I call NIST liars?

> It was possible to access most of the main structural columns from the elevator shafts

> Anyone who can read a blueprint can see that.

Anyone who can read a blueprint can see that either you can't read a blueprint or you have incredible chutzpah. Even by your own inflated count, 1/3 of the columns is not "most," and you completely ignored my point that those weren't the ones carrying the greatest loads, so they weren't the "main structural columns." As I said (and you ignored), the simple reason is that, with only a couple of exceptions, the columns accessible from the elevator shafts were NOT the ones carrying the load of the long floor spans of the office space:



(Edit to add cite: http://www.sharpprintinginc.com/911/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8&MMN_position=19:19)

> My argument is simply to counter your untruthful statements...

Then one has to wonder why you persist when you have no such argument. Sometimes it seems that you don't think anyone will notice.

> Your inability to distinguish between a slender and swaying "spire" and a robust, cross-braced structural core capable of holding up most of the weight of the 65 stories above it is a matter of persistent blindness.

Third time: I don't give a damn what you call it, it wasn't designed as a free-standing structure, and there was hardly any cross-bracing. (Another favorite piece of "truther" bullshit is to claim that the temporary crane towers seen in some construction photos were permanent cross-bracing, so I assume that's the bullshit you're parroting.) Your ignorance of column buckling is completely irrelevant, but it seems it doesn't really matter, anyway, since you now seem to be coy about tying that core collapse to any demolition theories. It would appear that once again you were only pretending to have a point.

Your insistence on restricting access to the 95th floor is silly.

The cores were cross-braced by the 6" concrete floors with steel framing underneath. You don't care about the difference between a slender and swaying "spire" and a robust, cross-braced "structural core" because denying the difference is necessary to give you the illusion that you have a point.

The point is that the collapse under nothing but its own weight of the robust, cross-braced, core that was built to hold up most of the weight of 60 stories above it after the rest of the building had already fallen down is a mystery that NIST has not explained.

This isn't the only thread where you've shown that you think bullshit can be spun into gold with enough repetition, and/or you think you can wear down your opponent with that tactic, and/or you think the readers of this board are stupid.

> Your insistence on restricting access to the 95th floor is silly.

You opened this subject by implying that the demolition of the towers could easily be accomplished by accessing the core columns through the elevator shafts. The collapses began at the 82nd and 98th floors, and the elevator shaft layout was the same from the 78th floor sky lobby all the way to the top. When it became clear that you were caught red-handed peddling "truther" bullshit, because less than 1/3 of the core columns in the collapse zone could be accessed through elevator shafts, and the smaller columns at that, you suddenly tried to back away from associating your claim with idiotic demolition theories. Now, that's silly.

> The cores were cross-braced by the 6" concrete floors with steel framing underneath.

Cross-bracing is a term with a specific meaning, and it isn't whatever you want it to mean. Another term I'll bet you're unfamiliar with is moment frame, which is another way to construct a free-standing tower. Neither method was used in the WTC cores because it would have been a totally unnecessary extra expense, since the office-space floor diaphragms restrained the core laterally, which prevented buckling.

> The point is that the collapse under nothing but its own weight of the robust, cross-braced, core that was built to hold up most of the weight of 60 stories above it after the rest of the building had already fallen down is a mystery that NIST has not explained.

With the floors gone, it isn't a mystery why the core soon fell: It wasn't designed to be free-standing so the unrestrained columns buckled. You place an undue burden on NIST to explain everything that you don't understand, especially given your abject refusal to understand.

Last edited Tue Nov 12, 2013, 02:48 PM - Edit history (7)

I didn't imply anything. You made a silly claim (post 30) that the demolition theory was "absurd" on the basis that the buildings were occupied. I refuted your silly claim by pointing out the fact that most of the main structural columns were accessible from the elevator shafts. I didn't peddle any bullshit. I stated a fact. You tried to minimize the significance of that fact by restricting the issue to the collapse initiation zone. It's still a fact. I didn't back away from theories I didn't assert. I stated facts.

Your attempt to rewrite the record, forcing us to rehash what's already been hashed, is an effort to give the erroneous impression that you weren't wrong. And now you're "flipping" by trying to make it me that's unable to admit when I'm wrong when it's YOU that's unable to admit error.

I've already corrected you about "easy" and you repeat it. I never said "easy" or "easily". I said it wasn't rocket science. Not complicated. Not requiring advanced mathematics. You are debating with a punching bag of your own design.

Your inability to distinguish between "cross bracing" (the stability conferred to columns by floors) and "X-bracing" is noted. I'm familiar with a moment frame. I don't know if there was a moment frame in the tower or not. Some people allege that this photo shows a moment frame:

I suspect it's a temporary brace to support temporary crane towers, but I'm not saying I know.

It is a mystery why the cores fell when they were built to hold up 60 stories above them that were no longer there to weigh on them. The core was not designed to be freestanding, you're right. An engine-block is not designed to be a coffee table, but that doesn't mean it's going to collapse under the weight of a sheet of glass and a few magazines. If you're going to claim that the core toppled because of excess slenderness, please provide some evidence of toppling, or of excess slenderness.

NIST did not explain what brought down the cores, and that was only ONE of TEN mysteries NIST dodged by cutting off its analysis at the moment of collapse initiation.

The handwaving arguments of an anonymous lawyering internet poster are no substitute for a thorough scientific investigation. Your belief that they should be only demonstrates your own incompetence in evaluating your own sources.

... like "fact." And "most." And "main structural columns." And "wrong." And "bullshit."

> I refuted your silly claim by pointing out the fact that most of the main structural columns were accessible from the elevator shafts.

If you want to claim that this has anything to do with a controlled demolition hypothesis, then it certainly isn't "silly" to talk about which columns were accessible where this demolition allegedly occurred. By my definition, less than 1/3 of the columns is not "most" of them. Even if you insist on talking about how many were accessible between the two sky lobbies (implying that the demolition needed to take out those columns too, for some reason), then 23 of 47 is not "most." I would rather say it's "silly" to ignore that and claim that secretive demolition is plausible if "most" of the columns were only accessible below the 45th floor. And in all three sections, since "most" of the ones that were accessible were generally the lightest columns in the core, not the columns carrying half the the load of the office space floors, I can't classify them as the "main structural columns." So, your claim is not a "fact" if I use my dictionary. So you didn't "refute" anything.

Since no part of your statement is "factual," I say that you are "wrong." Since you deliberately offer a "wrong" assertion in defense of an absurd demolition hypothesis, I call that "bullshit."

Now, perhaps if you will provide your definition of these terms, we can determine where we disagree.

But wait, there's a few more:

> Your inability to distinguish between "cross bracing" (the stability conferred to columns by floors) and "X-bracing" is noted.

Amazing. I even provided a link which explained what cross-bracing is -- and if you doubted it there's plenty more where that came from -- but you deny that conventional definition and insist on your own definition. That's just "wrong." My "inability to distinguish between 'cross bracing' ... and 'X-bracing' " is because in my world they are the same thing, whereas saying that it's "the stability conferred to columns by floors" in a failed attempt to save your "wrong" assertion is "bullshit."

> The handwaving arguments of an anonymous lawyering internet poster are no substitute for a thorough scientific investigation.

I offer the "facts" that the core was not designed as a free-standing structure because it had very little "cross-bracing" and it was NOT designed as a "moment frame" -- and I claim that these are "facts" which are supported by information on the web == and I add the logic that there was no reason to incur the extra expense of such a design -- and I conclude that it is not a mystery why the core collapsed: buckling, because the floors that restrained them laterally were gone. Arguments based on sound facts and valid logic are not "handwaving arguments." In my dictionary, that would be more like the "proof by assertion" that you typically offer.

So, then there's "hypocrisy," but let's save that one for later.

I'm glad you've persevered where some of the rest of us have not been able to keep up with regular participation, because we would have missed gems like this otherwise. I'm reminded of our experiences with other people who have used their own definitions for technical terms (Tony Szamboti, for example) instead of the conventionally accepted definitions.

Last edited Wed Nov 13, 2013, 12:53 PM - Edit history (1)

... and somehow that's supposed to be my fault.

Most of the core columns were accessible from the elevator shafts. Your putative inability to recognize this does not change the fact.

The columns were cross-braced by the 6" concrete floors and their supporting girders. X-bracing is another animal. Your putative inability to recognize this does not change the fact.

The fact that the core was not designed as a free-standing structure does not change the fact that NIST failed to address its collapse. Your handwaving arguments are no substitute for a rigorous scientific examination, and your apparent belief that they should is antidemocratic.

Rather than waste more time deconstructing the same absurd bullshit yet again, I'll just say that the one and ONLY factual statement in your post is that "NIST failed to address (the core) collapse," so I'll answer to that one. That's true, but given that the reason is obvious to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of structural mechanics, and given that it would have been beyond NIST's clearly stated purpose in its investigation anyway, and given that "truthers" believe what they want to believe anyway, it's just another of your pointless points.

I have to wonder if your fellow "truthers" are starting to cringe when they read your posts.

NIST's number one objective was to explain why and how the buildings collapsed.

Collapse of the core was part of explaining how. Not only did they not do so, they even claim they did not analyze the collapses.

The reasons for the collapse of the core may be obvious to you with your rudimentary knowledge, but you provide not a shred of evidence to support your claim, no authority for the belief that the cores were too slender to stand 40 stories tall, no evidence that the cores toppled, which would be expected to leave a stereotyped debris pattern on the ground--including relatively intact floor elements.

The only evidence I've seen for the collapse mechanism for the cores is the behavior of the north tower "spire", which after swaying a little bit appears bizarrely to have fallen straight down.

But you don't have to accept my answer, since NIST already responded to your criticism:

http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/faqs_wtctowers.cfm

The fact that you think the "how" should include every detail until the last piece of steel hit the ground does not mean that NIST is required to accept that unfeasible and unnecessary requirement to fulfill its objective. The fact that you don't believe that the collapse of the core was "readily explained" is not significant since you've made it pretty clear that structural mechanics is not a subject you're familiar with. After the collapse initiation, the "how" was thousands of individual failures, many of which were the direct result of falling debris delivering kinetic energy to the structure that is couldn't absorb. But many other failures were an indirect result of that damage, caused by the loss of structural integrity, which invalidates any theoretical load calculations that assume structural integrity. Looking at the debris, most columns were not bent; they failed by buckling at the column end splices after the floor trusses and beams were ripped away from them.

And no, this not merely my opinion. It is described in the FEMA report:


http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch2.pdf

Pray tell, how can NIST say "the propagation of the collapse was readily explained" when they claim they did not analyze the collapses? They even admitted that they are "unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse".

I never said anything about every detail about every last piece of steel. You sound like an embezzler explaining that he can't account for the use of every 3X5 card and every post-it note. Thanks for being so transparent.

The collapse of the core was not explained at all, let alone readily explained. Pray tell, how was the loss of structural integrity inflicted without energy inputs demonstrated by slowing the collapse down? Ever hear of the law of conservation of energy?
Shyam Sunder told NOVA that the collapses took 9 seconds and 11 seconds. That's freefall.

... notably in Dr. Bazant's analysis, which compared the gravitational potential energy to the energy that the structure could absorb, and in the FEMA report, both of which NIST referenced in its report. As it says in the Q&A response I quoted, NIST was concerned with explaining the "why and how" of the collapse initiation because that was the mystery and that was what was needed to accomplish NIST's other objectives. Once the collapse got started, propagation was not a mystery to knowledgeable experts; it was "readily explainable" by structural mechanics, as demonstrated by the many technical papers before and after the NIST report. Your inability to comprehend that does not entitle you to accuse NIST of lying.

That includes the collapse of the core after the floors were stripped away, because it simply wasn't designed to be free-standing, your laughable rejection of the meaning of "cross-bracing" notwithstanding. One doesn't need to be a structural engineer to understand that a free-standing structure needs to be braced to hold its shape in all three axes, and the core floors clearly did not serve that purpose. You can't successfully dismiss such common sense just because it's offered to you by anonymous internet posters. If you want to insist that the core should have remained standing, you need to explain what should have prevented laterally movement that would lead to column buckling, and you can't because there wasn't anything.

But you, yourself, demonstrate that "truthers" do not want any non-conspiratorial solutions to their "mysteries" because they disingenuously want to use them to rationalize dismissing the entire NIST report, which they have manifestly failed to do on valid technical grounds. Disingenuous, because the purpose of their "just asking questions" game is not to seek answers but to imply that they already know the only acceptable answers. As you demonstrate, that true purpose becomes clear when they refuse rational answers.

Instead, you parrot the classic quote-mining of the NIST response to a "request for correction" letter from "truthers." That quote comes from a paragraph answering to the criticism that the entire collapse should have been modeled by computer simulation:

http://www.911proof.com/NIST.pdf

NIST could not provide a "full explanation of the total collapse" based on computer simulation because it wasn't technically feasible to model the total collapse. This is just another game that "truthers" like to play, called "gotcha," which has nothing whatsoever to do with solving mysteries.

If he did explain the collapse, isn't NIST"s failure to name him just a little bit strange? Probably they don't credit him because his theory violated Newton's Third Law, is inconsistent with the behavior of the upper part of WTC1, and is inconsistent with the persistence of the lower core.

Propagation such that the collapse was total, symmetrical, and "essentially in free fall" was not explained.

The mere fact that the core was not designed to be freestanding does not explain its collapse. NIST does not explain its collapse at all, and certainly does not explain its total collapse. I didn't say the core should remain standing. I said its collapse has not been explained. What should have prevented lateral movement is that 47 columns 40 stories high and built to hold up the weight of 70 stories above them were all tied together by concrete membranes 87 X 133 feet and by girders 2 feet deep.

Thanks for quoting NIST on the computer models, which shows that no matter how they tried, they could not make their models do what the towers did. Thus they terminated their analysis at the moment of collapse initiation, and claimed that they had not bothered to analyze the collapses.

If it was not possible to model the collapses in 2005, why should we rest on the limitations of 2005-era computers? Let's run the models with 2013 computers! What possible excuse is there for not doing it?

That reminds me of a joke, and his name is James Gourley. I'd guess that readers of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics don't get a lot of opportunity to laugh their asses off at a published article, but "truther" Gourley afforded that opportunity when he wrote a Discussion (a letter to the editor) criticizing one of Bazant's published papers and Bazant took the opportunity to write a Closure (a response to a Discussion). It takes a lot of balls to suggest that one of the world's foremost experts in structural mechanics doesn't understand Newton's Third Law, which Gourley repeatedly did in his letter (see link), but Bazant was very polite while giving those balls a sound whacking with a big clue bat:

Link.

Bazant proceeds to dismantle every single one of Gourley's misconceptions, with the recurring theme that Gourley is simply not familiar with material taught in elementary courses in structural mechanics. Hence Bazant's summary of Gourley's criticisms:



Ouch, that's gotta leave a mark. And yet, here you are six years later -- and six years after Gourley promised he was gonna give Bazant whatfor youbetcha in a reply -- here you are parroting Gourley's bullshit because it's still out there on "truther" sites, "misleading and wrongly influencing the public with incorrect information."

> If it was not possible to model the collapses in 2005, why should we rest on the limitations of 2005-era computers? Let's run the models with 2013 computers! What possible excuse is there for not doing it?

Go ahead. Maybe you should ask Richard Gage what he's doing with all that money he's collecting, besides touring the world, and why those "2,090 architects and engineers" haven't already done that, or in fact, come up with a single scientifically valid challenge to the NIST hypothesis. (Hint: Gourley is one of the brighter ones.)

Anyone who's actually studied it understands that as the "piledriver" nibbles on the lower structure, the lower structure nibbles back on the piledriver.

I'm not parroting any bullshit at all. Bazant's ludicrous theory is contradicted both by the behavior of the WTC1 top block and by the persistence of the lower core structure.

It would take Richard Gage 79 years to collect as much money as has been spent on the official 9/11 investigations. so stop your blather about "all that money".

It's no surprise that you aren't actually interested enough to even read Bazant's responses to Gourley:

(Bolding added so you can't miss it. Don't bother responding if you're not going to address that.)

You're pretending to have X-ray vision to see what's happening inside the cloud of smoke and dust, which is amusing, but "crush down/crush up" can actually be seen in Verinage demolitions:




So Bazant's theory about that is certainly not "ludicrous" (and being called that by someone who thinks the core floors would prevent column buckling is truly ludicrous), but all of the hoopla over "crush down/crush up" is nothing but irrelevant noise, anyway. It's a desperate but futile attempt by "truthers" to avoid the significant point of Bazant's analysis: There was much more energy unleashed than the structure could absorb, so once the collapse started the building was doomed. Richard Gage wouldn't need any huge budget to disprove that if it weren't true, but the reason his "2,090 architects and engineers" haven't done so is not a lack of money but a lack of scientific facts.

How you can put on such a pretense of being an objective seeker of truth but then think your ignorant opinions are more valid than expert analysis is beyond me.

Dr. Bazant does not show when the debris becomes overwhelming. And NIST doesn't show when the debris becomes overwhelming. And NIST does not invoke Dr. Bazant by name.

Verinage demonstrations have no relation to the towers because you do not have the total elimination of one floor in the towers. Also, in verinage you have a noticable jolt that is absent from the collapse of the towers.

Verinage demonstrations validate Newton's 3rd Law. "Crush-up/Crush-down" is a different animal entirely, and is contradicted by the persistence of the lower structural core. Bazant's theory is thus ludicrous.

You provide no evidence to support your claim that "There was much more energy unleashed than the structure could absorb". That is an article of faith with you.

Richard Gage needn't prove that proposition untrue. He need only prove that the NIST reports are incomplete, dishonest, and unscientific--and that's pretty easy.

... in that paragraph. It explains what's wrong with your notion that "as the 'piledriver' nibbles on the lower structure, the lower structure nibbles back on the piledriver." Those forces are not equal for the reason Bazant states, and the Verinage demolitions demonstrate that Bazant is correct: After the first couple of floors are demolished, there is "crush down," followed by "crush up" when the collapse front hits the ground. Once again, it seems you think an argument is invalidated by your inability to understand it.

Bazant's analysis it based on a one-dimensional model, and as stated in each of his papers, it's only intended to study the question of whether or not the structure could have absorbed the kinetic energy that was unleashed. I'll agree that the standing core means that the WTC towers didn't "crush down" all the way to the ground, but that's completely irrelevant to the fundamental energy question that Bazant's analysis actually addresses and answers. It's irrelevant because, although the actual collapse was far more complicated than his simple model, the actual failure modes would have consumed less energy than the one assumed in his model, i.e. that all of the columns absorbed the maximum amount of energy by bending until they buckled. One major example of a different failure mode is that stripping the floors away from the core required less energy than crushing the core. So anyone who thinks that the standing core invalidates Bazant's energy argument simply does not understand that energy argument. Let me say that again in hopes that you won't miss it: Anyone who thinks that the standing core invalidates Bazant's energy argument simply does not understand that energy argument.

And sorry, but anyone who wants to attempt to refute Bazant's energy argument needs to start by demonstrating that they actually understand it. But that's not what we see in Trutherland. The vociferous denial of "crush down/crush up" is really just part of the "truther" agenda to find an excuse -- any excuse -- to dismiss and ignore what the analysis actually demonstrates. This is exactly the same agenda we see with the attempts to dismiss the NIST sim of the collapse initiation: Focus on the fact that their sim stopped after that point and hope that fuzzy thinkers will take that as a reason to dismiss and ignore what the sim did study.

Suit yourself, but you are forfeiting the opportunity to be taken seriously. Bazant's analysis is just one of many that arrived at the same conclusion. Ironically, that includes "truther" Gordon Ross's "momentum transfer" analysis, discussed in another thread, after correcting the glaring error in it.

As for Szamboti's "missing jolt", it's really sad that someone with a degree in mechanical engineering was never able to understand why there was no jolt because the top block tilted rather than falling straight down. If it had fallen straight down, as we see in Verinage demolitions, then all of the columns would have been able to simultaneously resist the impact, and we should see a "jolt" of deceleration. But that's just not what happened. The tilt meant two things actually happened: 1) the columns in the falling block did not squarely impact the columns below so those columns could not offer their maximum resistance; and 2) the columns were impacted sequentially across the building rather than simultaneously. Again, suit yourself by not understanding it, but that means you will never understand why the "missing jolt" hypothesis is not taken seriously by people who do understand what's wrong with it.

Last edited Fri Nov 15, 2013, 05:35 PM - Edit history (1)

and the Verinage demo behaves exactly as Newton would predict. The upper block is nibbled away as it nibbles away the lower. Newton's 3rd Law is hardly "[my] notion". It is accepted science.

Yes, Bazant's model consumes more energy than actual failure modes. That's because he has to assume maximal energy transfer to get the behavior he wants. He has to assume that 287 tubular columns in the top block fall 3 meters to strike 287 columns below in perfect registration--no misses, no shearing, no friction, no punching holes in concrete floors.

The standing core invalidates Bazant's mechanism argument. I don't need to refute Bazant. The absurdities in his assumptions are self-refuting--and refutation is moot because no one endorses Bazant's thesis and NIST does not acknowledge it in their report.

If, as you say, the impacts were not simultaneous, this would inevitably have led to asymmetrical forces--making all the more mysterious the symmetrical and total nature of the collapse. It is problems like this that caused NIST to abandon its objective of explaining how the towers collapsed, and terminate their analysis at the moment of collapse initiation.

Your posts are verbose blather meant to intimidate but not illuminate. I'll imagine that has been very successful for you in inhibiting discussion in this group. Mission accomplished.

> The upper block is nibbled away as it nibbles away the lower. Newton's 3rd Law is hardly " notion". It is accepted science.

What's not "accepted science" is your abuse of the 3rd law in a failed attempt to justify "The upper block is nibbled away as it nibbles away the lower." Bazant clearly explained exactly what you are missing (and I asked you to please not waste everyone's time responding if your weren't going to address it), and the Verinage videos show that he is correct, regardless of your denials: After the first couple of floors, we see "crush down" followed by "crush up" when the collapse front hits the ground. Bazant understands dynamics; you do not.

> Yes, Bazant's model consumes more energy than actual failure modes. That's because he has to assume maximal energy transfer to get the behavior he wants.

Bullshit. If the collapse is to be halted, then the kinetic energy of the falling mass must be absorbed. Bazant's observation of that simple and undeniable fact as the starting point of his analysis demonstrates his expertise; it cuts to the crux of the matter. Your nonsensical non sequitur here demonstrates that the discussion is over your head, even though the principle is very simple.

> He has to assume that 287 tubular columns in the top block fall 3 meters to strike 287 columns below in perfect registration--no misses, no shearing, no friction, no punching holes in concrete floors.

Abject bullshit. He takes that as the limiting case of his energy argument -- the absolute maximum that the building could possibly absorb -- and states explicitly that the real situation was far more hopeless. In the real collapse, floors and beams were simply ripped away from columns and the columns were simply pushed aside because they no longer had any lateral restraint, using far less energy than it would take to crush the columns. We know that because most of the columns were not buckled; they were just broken at the end splices. Your inability to comprehend why that makes global collapse easier, not harder, is not relevant. Again, you simply do not understand Bazant's argument. If you did, you'd understand why your babble leaves the argument completely unaddressed, much less refuted.

> Your posts are verbose blather meant to intimidate but not illuminate. I'll imagine that has been very successful for you in inhibiting discussion in this group.

If you find these debates intimidating, perhaps you should reconsider your positions. I think most people will recognize that I put a lot of effort into formulating actual arguments and expressing them clearly, and I give you every opportunity to refute them. In my book, that's the exact opposite of "inhibiting discussion." It's really rather amusing that you don't understand most of what I'm saying and yet you're quite sure I must be wrong.

Last edited Sat Nov 16, 2013, 09:20 AM - Edit history (1)

Newton's 3rd Law is accepted science. Dr. Bazant's piledriver theory is inconsistent with both the early phases and the last phases of the actual collapse. It bears no resemblance to reality. If it were true, we could expect to find the hat truss relatively intact within the footprint of the tower. If it were not true, we could expect to find the elements of the hat truss widely scattered. Of course none of the officials had any interest in a rigorous examination of the crime scene.

There is no insulating debris mat in any of the Verinage demos I've seen. Verinage demos start in the middle of the building. Verinage demos have nothing to do with Bazant.

Bazant has to assume maximal energy transfer to get the behavior he wants--100% efficiency in the transmission of force to the structure. In real life there would be enormous inefficiencies and much kinetic energy lost to friction, pulverizing the concrete, shearing, bending, crushing of structural steel, and bouncing the debris around on its trip to the ground. I understand your simplistic principles just fine. They ain't rocket science, though puffy bluffers like to pretend they are. You are deliberately trying to cause confusion by conflating the initiation stage of the collapse--which requires the absurd assumption of a 3-meter freefall--with the later stage of the collapse when the lower structure was overwhelmed by 100,000 tons of falling debris.

Why are you defending Bazant at all? His theory bears no resemblance to reality, and NIST does not even name him in their report.

I don't find you the least bit intimidating. Bullying is the refuge of the bluffer who doesn't know what he's talking about. Clearly others do find you intimidating, because they do not engage you. You do not express yourself clearly. You blow smoke to create confusion and give the false impression that you know what you're talking about.

I'll just keep posting this until you a least attempt to respond to it:

Here Bazant takes into account an important detail that Gourley completely missed, and once again I've bolded it so you can't pretend that you missed it again. You got caught parroting Gourley's "3rd law" bullshit and rather than admit that he was wrong and you fell for it, you think you can just hide behind a wall of denial and obfuscation. Nope, there's a reason you can't refute what Bazant says very clearly in that paragraph: It is based on sound facts, valid logic, and real physics. Furthermore, the Verinage videos shows exactly what Bazant describes: After the first couple of stories, we see the top of the buildings "crush down" and then "crush up" when the collapse front hits the ground.

> Bazant has to assume maximal energy transfer to get the behavior he wants--100% efficiency in the transmission of force to the structure.

There are so many things wrong with that nonsense that it's hard to know where to start, but in the first place, Bazant calculates that there was more than 8 times more energy available than it would take to crush all the columns, so 12% of it would have done the job. Second, I apparently need to repeat that Bazant does not "assume" that all the columns were actually crushed -- he explicitly says otherwise -- rather he takes that as a limiting case in his analysis, i.e. the maximum amount of energy that the structure could possibly absorb. And third, I apparently need to repeat why that matters: If the collapse is to be halted, then the kinetic energy of the falling mass must be absorbed. You can't make that energy disappear by ignoring it, and the point does not disappear just because you don't comprehend it.

I believe everything I've said in this post is perfectly clear, "Ace," for the second or third time. Can you respond to it, or is hypocritically accusing me of blowing smoke and creating confusion all you've got?

As the upper block nibbles away the lower, the lower nibbles away the upper. There is no debris mat.

Dr. Bazant's theory rears no resemblance to reality. There is no evidence of a pristine top "block" riding a debris mat down to the ground, pulverizing all the floors in the way. No photos. No photo evidence from the debris pile. The notion is refuted by the persistence of the lower core, and by the fact that the upper block on WTC1 was visibly coming apart before the structure under the impact zone failed. Dr. Bazant's theory is thus discredited.

Dr. Bazant's "limiting case" assumes MAXIMAL transmission of kinetic energy to the structure. It ignores all the energy requirements of pulverizing the floors. breaking connections, twisting and crushing the steel.

I never said the collapse has to be halted. That's a straw man argument. But I've never seen anyone do an energy budget that accounts for all the energy sinks (pulverizing the floors. breaking connections, twisting and crushing the steel) at all, let alone one that explains the speed of the collapses. Instead, NIST simply dodges the issue.

Oh, so this was yet another thread with no real point except for your desperate search to be right about something -- anything -- even if there's no real significance to it? Oh, well, there's not much else going here, so let's continue discussing why your search has not yet ended...

> As the upper block nibbles away the lower, the lower nibbles away the upper. There is no debris mat.

Huh? How did you make the debris disappear? Yes, the "lower nibbles away the upper" but what we're discussing is Gourley's mistaken notion that it was "equal and opposite" to "the upper block nibbles away the lower." In the Verinage videos, what we see is that the upper blocks only shorten by one floor while "pile-driving" through several lower floors:




Bazant explains this; Gourley does not.

> Dr. Bazant's theory rears no resemblance to reality. There is no evidence of a pristine top "block" riding a debris mat down to the ground, pulverizing all the floors in the way. No photos. No photo evidence from the debris pile. The notion is refuted by the persistence of the lower core, and by the fact that the upper block on WTC1 was visibly coming apart before the structure under the impact zone failed. Dr. Bazant's theory is thus discredited.

Again, it isn't possible to see through the smoke and dust, so there is no evidence of Gourley's "equal and opposite" claim, either. Before smoke and dust obscures everything, we can see a couple of floors of the upper block destroyed, but Bazant acknowledges that -- those first few floors are where the debris layer comes from. (However, we can see in the videos that your claim that "the upper block on WTC1 was visibly coming apart before the structure under the impact zone failed" is just silly.) But what we can say is that Bazant takes into account the effect of the falling debris, which Gourley's claim clearly does not, so it makes more sense to say that it's Gourley's claim that "bears no resemblance to reality." Since you still haven't addressed it, I will just post this again, as promised:

I see that you also dodged my point that "crush down/crush up" is an aspect of Bazant's one-dimensional model, but it is not in any way an essential part of his fundamental energy argument, so let's get back to that:

> Dr. Bazant's "limiting case" assumes MAXIMAL transmission of kinetic energy to the structure.

It doesn't matter how many times you say that; it's still bullshit: There is no such assumption in the analysis, and in fact your reasoning is exactly backwards about what difference that would make, anyway. You simply do not (or more likely, disingenuously refuse to) understand what the analysis demonstrates. But I'll give it one more try, explaining it as simply and clearly as possible: The analysis calculates the maximum amount of energy that would be absorbed, even if every columns presented its maximum resistance up to the point of buckling, even though we can be pretty sure that that's not what happened in many cases. In many cases, floors were ripped away from the columns and they were simply pushed aside, absorbing much less energy than would be absorbed by buckling. The analysis then compares that maximum possible energy absorption to the gravitational energy that was present and finds that there was a huge disparity: the structure simply could not absorb that much energy, even under the most optimistic assumptions. The conclusion is therefore undeniable: If the energy of the falling mass could not be absorbed, then the collapse was bound to continue all the way to the ground.

There are only there possible ways to refute Bazant's analyiss: Prove there was less energy available than he calculates; prove that the structure could absorb more energy than he calculates; or prove that the conclusion I italicized about is fallacious. When you don't even attempt to address any one of those, you simply demonstrate that you don't understand why you need to, which means you're just wasting everyone's time with drivel like this:

> It ignores all the energy requirements of pulverizing the floors. breaking connections, twisting and crushing the steel.

Bullshit, if there was 8 times more energy available than would be required to buckle every column, then there was enough energy to explain all the other damage. Furthermore, there was no "requirement" to pulverize the floors in order to bring down the building, and in fact, that pulverization simply demonstrates how much extra energy there was. Again, you are parroting illogical "truther" bullshit about that, and what's really hilarious about claiming that as a reason to doubt a "natural" collapse is that "truthers" don't seem to understand what they are implying: Since thermite can't pulverize concrete, they are implying that the "perps" used many, many extra tons of their magical silent explosives to pulverize concrete, for no apparent reason whatsoever. Pulverizing concrete with explosives is no easy task, either: You would need to put huge amount of it all over the office spaces.

> I never said the collapse has to be halted. That's a straw man argument.

My apologies, then, for assuming that you have an actual argument. For some reason, I thought you were attempting to deny Bazant's conclusion that total collapse was inevitable after it got started, as a way of making controlled demolition sound like the only plausible explanation.

> But I've never seen anyone do an energy budget that accounts for all the energy sinks (pulverizing the floors. breaking connections, twisting and crushing the steel) at all, let alone one that explains the speed of the collapses. Instead, NIST simply dodges the issue.

Where have you looked? I mentioned in a different thread that "truther" Gordon Ross attempted such an analysis, but he made a gross error that led him to the wrong conclusion. That analysis is still online ("truther" bullshit being as hard to kill as Freddy Krueger), and I mentioned what the error was if you want to investigate it.

NIST correctly stated that the progressive collapse after initiation was "readily explained," and FEMA and Bazant aren't the only ones to do so. If you're satisfied with your lame excuses for discounting NIST, FEMA, and Bazant, then get busy on this list: https://sites.google.com/site/911science/

Physics World Stunned as Newton's Third Law is Disproved. "How could we have been so wrong?" head of Academy of Sciences asks.

I've answered that several times now, but I'm sure one more time will do it. You and Gourley are wrong because you missed a simple but important detail, but Bazant did not:

Can you or can you not respond to the paragraph above in a way that sounds like you at least understand it? I seriously doubt that the "head of Academy of Sciences" would be so baffled. (Actually, I'd like to think that the typical fifth-grader could understand it.)

Genuflect all you want at the Holy Cathedral of the Miracle of Bazant, but the point is moot.

It does not change the fact that NIST gave us only half a report and in so doing, dodged the ten essential mysteries of the incident.

... but that would take all the fun out of it, wouldn't it. You feed your fantasies by accusing hundreds of experts of lying to cover up a mass murder, and your "reason" turns out to be your own willful and intransigent ignorance.

You are the one who thought Gourley's "Third Law" bullshit was a good excuse to discount Bazant's analysis, and that's all you were looking for. Now it's "irrelevant" because it doesn't "resemble" your imaginary physics?

There's a reason I always put "truthers" in quotes...

What makes you willing to accept "answers" that bear no resemblance to reality?

James Gourley did not invent Newton's Third Law.

... yet you want to tell someone who does understand it that "Bazant's theory bears no resemblance to reality?" Comedy gold. You seem to not comprehend that it isn't just Bazant's undeniable qualifications as an expert; it's the fact that what he's saying is not that complicated and it makes perfect sense, while your dear-in-the-headlights responses to it are pathetic. It's been over five years since Bazant made a laughing stock of Gourley with the following, and even with the help of Gage's "2090 architects and engineers," Gourley's inability to respond to it should give you a clue:

... and YOUR inability to even acknowledge the above, much less sensibly respond to it, is definitely a clue, o heroic "truthseeker."

To those that have been following this "discussion", it is painfully obvious that you should have stopped quite some time ago.
But since you insist on continuing to show you inability to understand the basics...

The tactics you guys employ are transparent. Obfuscation, misdirection, personal attack, and empty claims of victory.

Also, posting in the middle of a long thread, which guarantees that nobody is reading anyway.

"Also, posting in the middle of a long thread, which guarantees that nobody is reading anyway."

So?

I post for an audience of readers--not for the "la la la la I can't hear you!" brigade that posts.

Who you post for is not at all clear.

I hope someday you will understand what you are being told, but I certainly doubt it.
But, the amusement you provide makes up for it.

If you understood it, you could discuss it intelligently, and clearly you cannot. I have explained Bazant's central thesis to you several times now, i.e. his energy argument, and you have repeatedly shown that you don't understand it, much less that you have a valid criticism of it. Instead, you have repeatedly avoided any discussion of his actual thesis, substituting your own misunderstanding of it and even then offering a criticism that made no logical sense whatsoever. Sorry, you can't fake understanding.

I don't think this group is indexed by Google.

If I put any effort into any posts, you'd only slather them with spam sauce.

Bazant's piledriver thesis is not named in NIST's report. It is not consistent with the facts of what happened. The top "block" could not have arrived at the ground as Bazant posits. You have changed the subject to a lot of immaterial blather about the mat of debris.

Truer words have never been spoken!

... so apparently the "game here" IS worth a lot of typing, eh?

So much typing; so little thinking -- perhaps that's why you're not doing very well in the "game here."

The mat of debris certainly is material to explaining why one of Gourley's "Third Law" arguments is simply wrong, and I think I've posted Bazant's explanation why enough times now that you may well be the last person on the board who still doesn't understand it. I've certainly posted it enough to prove that you have no intention of responding to it, so that issue is settled by your default concession.

However, as I've said several times now and you persist in ignoring, the whole "crush down/crush up" thing is NOT germane to Bazant's central thesis, which is simply that the structure could not absorb the energy that was unleashed, and if it could not be absorbed, then the structure could not stop the collapse. When you call that "spam sauce" you are confessing that you are absolutely clueless about Bazant's analysis, and now you admit that it's just too much effort for you to even think about it?

As amusing as this is, it really is getting to be like hearing the same joke over and over.

Perhaps you cut and paste your stuff?

The mat of debris is immaterial to the impossibility of Dr. Bazant's piledriver theory. It's just an attempt on your part to distract.

Gourley's argument may or may not be wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that Bazant's theory bears no resemblance to reality--a point that you have been trying to bury in moot spam.

... has obviously been directed toward finding excuses for avoiding it rather than understanding it -- it really isn't that complicated -- and all the typing you've done indicates that you believe that the "game here" is called Last Post Wins.

But there's nothing to be gained by belaboring the painfully obvious any further, so go ahead and "win."

Last edited Fri Nov 22, 2013, 02:12 PM - Edit history (1)

The fact that his theory bears no resemblance to reality makes his theory moot (a mere distraction).

The fact that NIST does not credit his work in their report makes his theory doubly moot (doubly a mere distraction).

... is an admitted liar.

You're not even going to bring up the argument that he had what you regard as good reasons for lying in his mainstream news article?

... that I took it as a concession of the point, so it didn't seem anything else needed to be said. But if you insist: Obviously, you even know that Yosri Fouda said he lied about the date of the interview -- an irrelevant detail -- so that he could be sure that anyone who knew the correct date was legitimately connected with al-Shibh and KSM. But it hardly matters that "truthers" use that as an excuse to discount the confession, since KSM volunteered another confession to the military tribunal. As for your lame dismissal of the "fat Osama" video, your personal incredulity hardly matters given the other videos which you ignored, e.g. the one released before our '04 elections.

Last edited Fri Nov 8, 2013, 05:57 PM - Edit history (2)

Not to honest people, that is.

It's hardly irrelevant that Fosri lied in his report.

Your claim that a man who was waterboarded 180 times "volunteered" a confession once again does an excellent job of demonstrating your raging confirmation bias. And again it's hearsay. There are no tapes, only the CIA's alleged transcript.

That you are willing to take such evidence at face value discredits your opinions.

Last edited Sun Nov 10, 2013, 11:59 AM - Edit history (2)

... and they are admissible as evidence, e.g. MacNeil's confession to an inmate in the trial that ended yesterday. As in that trial, such a confession would not be enough to convict KSM, but an honest person would admit that that isn't all the evidence against KSM. Abu Zubaydah had already named KSM as the 9/11 planner a few months before Fouda's interview (without waterboarding, btw), a fact unknown to Fouda at the time. His voluntary confession to the military tribunal may well exaggerate his involvement with 9/11 and a long list of other al Qaeda plots, but his involvement in 9/11 is also established by stuff found on his computer when he was captured and by eavesdropped telephone conversations.

Your unwillingness to accept any evidence discredits your opinions.

EDIT: I forgot to comment on your unwillingness to address OBL's confessions, although once again your only reason for dismissing them is personal incredulity.

2nd EDIT: I also forgot to mention some more evidence you'll be compelled to deny: Corroboration of Fouda's interview was posted on jehad.net by al Qaeda's "media office" on September 21, 2002.