Skeptic Project

No.

I'm not arguing that it shouldn't be spelled Usama, I agree that it *should*. But Americans typically recognize Osama because of the media.

My argument was that there isn't a single standard for arabic, but a lot, and several that compete head on with each other.

I've got about 25 arabic language books, mostly Eastern arabic, but also modern and some gulf, and each tends to use Qalam, Buckwalter, DIN, or sometimes some other random one, like the library of congress one.

Online arabs always use this weird ASCII-based "standard" that's just a nightmare, really, and I wouldn't call it a "standard" because there's no set way to do it, but it's pretty close. It's mainly the long vowels, and the differing things like diphthongs people can't agree on as far as the online standard, and really even other standards go.

Wow...

Free fall? Seismic data proves demolition?

So many stupid claims I dunno if I have the energy to wade in...

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"You're right, they don't collapse at free fall speed, they collapse nearly at free fall speed, just like all three of those buildings did."

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None of the buildings collapses near free fall either since their collapse times showed significant resistance. Even WTC7 AE911 now admit only 2.5 seconds of the entire collapse was free fall, (though forget their previous error of 100% free fall)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwFHEoiUZ7o

In the video above you see a french demolition method known as "verinage." They do NOT use explosives. They use hydraulic jacks to make the top block fall asymmetrically on the lower block. They do NOT weaken the structure beforehand, the entire destructive power you see in those collapses is in the energy of the upper block.

These collapses are obviously by their very nature "controlled", but they bear all the same "characteristics of explosive demolition" that Richard Gage talks about, but without explosives proving that they are not characteristics of explosive demolition at all and that if a building fails in a similar manor that is more or less how it will collapse.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to propose explosives or thermite in the WTC collapses, in fact all the evidence contradicts that idea.

Here is a video I made showing how Richard Gage doesn't understand sound, explosives or thermite. But its not just Richard Gage, its the main opinion of AE911 so that includes David Chandler and Steven Jones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MusSulcJwSk

My God, we're back to discredited Truther claims from 2005.

How come these nimrods can never accept when anything is debunked?

I'll have a fuller response later, it's been a while since I've had to open my dusty old 9/11 book to discredit wild stories that Popular Mechanics debunked five years ago.

Do you have anything that hasn't been addressed half a decade ago?

Anything at all?

This is tiresome.

with one word

qualia

There are plenty of narratives out there. I can't say for certain which is exactly correct, if any. This event was extremely complex from beginning to end, and it started as early as 1993 when the FBI performed test blasts in the basement. Remember that?

Yes, of course, this idea is floated that there never can be any secrets, particularly in complex endeavors. I have two words for you: Manhatten Project

Also, it's worth noting, the "secrets" regarding the World Trade Center demolition have come out in large numbers, but they've been swamped by a media torrent of lies.

"I have two words for you: Manhatten Project"

Yeah, because communication and media today is exactly like communication during the Manhattan Project.

Balloon boy made worldwide news in a matter of minutes last year.

Do you even listen to yourself?

"Also, it's worth noting, the "secrets" regarding the World Trade Center demolition have come out in large numbers, but they've been swamped by a media torrent of lies. "

The only reason they appear swamped is because conspiracy theorists suck ass at web design.

All of the information I've read from non conspiracy sites is laid out very neatly and easily read.

Protip: The media doesn't care about Truthers enough to smear you with lies.

It seems pretty clear that you have the opinion that the buildings were not demolished in a controlled fashion and no amount evidence will change your mind. I don't have the time, training or inclination to try and overturn that kind of religious faith.

Don't project your faults onto me.

I used to believe all this when I assumed truthers were honest. It was through trying to make sure these kinds of claims could be defended I realised they couldn't.

If your claim is that an exhaustive physical analysis using scientific principles shows the collapses were slightly slower than free fall, I agree, they were "slightly slower".

Well the North tower took about 20 seconds and the South tower took about 15.5 seconds. That's at least twice the speed of free fall, so maybe that's your definition of "slightly".

For WTC7 its harder to see just when it starts, as it started internally that isn't as easy to see. Seismic data however shows about 18 seconds collapse and you can see visual evidence of this AT LEAST 13.5 seconds, such as when you see the penthouse collapse through the building and watch the building visibly twist several seconds before the main structure collapses.

First, none of those buildings are steel frame skyscrapers. This method of demolition is clearly quite effective on mere steel-reinforced concrete. As to whether it would work on any of the three buildings in question here, I can't answer, and I doubt you can answer.

You know I just I just love how truthers become instantly very critical of these verinage collapse comparisons when THEY use all kinds of stupid comparisons to other buildings that don't apply. ie. comparisons to buildings with concrete cores, buildings that are concrete reinforced, where fires were fought with good fireproofing etc etc.

The point is not to say these verinage demolitions are exactly the same as the WTC but the way they collapse shows common truther claims about the WTC collapses are obviously not true.

The fact that all of Richard Gage's "indications of demolitions" can be seen in them is pretty bad for him, since he claims that only explosives can account for those effects.

It is also a common truther assumption that a top and smaller part of a building can't ever crush the rest of it. Anders Bjorkman that AE911 made "Petitioner of the Month" (who is also a "No Planer") thinks no building can be crushed by a smaller part of it and in regards the WTC not even if the top block was raised 2 MILES UP in the air and DROPPED on top of it! AE911 even promoted a paper he wrote about this. Verinage debunks that theory, but Bjorkman has to lie and say that Verinage destroys and weakens the lower structure because he can't face the reality of it. The fact is verinage does not weaken the rest of the structure in order for the top block to crush the rest of it, it even says it in the Patent that you don't so its safer. Its rare you get to see what happens to a building that fails in this way, so Verinage is a great example even if it is controlled.

Are you suggesting that this method of demolition was used on the World Trade Center? I agree that it is possible, but of course there are innumerable credible (firefighters et al) eyewitness reports of explosions inside the World Trade Center.

Of course I'm not saying it was a demolition I'm saying that people like Richard Gage claiming that lots of dust and a rapid collapse for example can only be caused by explosives is just plain wrong.

However claiming the WTC was demolished via some form of verinage would make a lot more sense than Gage and Jones' claims of explosives and thermite.

In regards reports of explosions:

Most reports are talking about things "LIKE" explosives or the person realised later what it was or just had been taken out of context.

Truther's don't understand that explosIONS don't *necessarily* equal explosIVES. Explosions are also expected in large building fires, the WTC fires were extremely bad and the firefighters weren't able to do anything. In the Windsor tower fire in Madrid that truthers always like to (badly) to compare to the WTC collapses, there were reports of explosions being heard deep inside for example. But the WTC had the added situation of jet fuel which people witnessed all the way down to the lowest sub basement so it obviously did flow down there.

The most damaging case for truthers claims of explosives is the WAY they make their claims. Truthers will indiscriminately quote-mine any mention of "explosion" and not look at any details around it. For example they will say that people were "thrown around" by explosives, they will say that people were burnt by explosives, injured by explosives. But what they don't seem to understand is that high explosives work by making a high pressure blast wave. Its well understood what the injuries associated with explosives are and guess how many people suffered as much as a ruptured ear drum? ZERO. There were NO REPORTS of ANYONE suffering ANY injuries consistent with explosives. You might say that it was covered up, but truthers have these peoples names that they quote as talking about explosions, so why haven't they even tried to contact any of them and asked what their injuries were?

The main point here is that what kind of explosives can destroy infrastructure but can't even burst someone's ear drums? If no one was hurt by these explosives, then no damage could have been caused. Could it be that what these people experienced WEREN'T explosives? Think about it... and also in demolitions explosives are timed and sequential they don't go off randomly all over the place.

And of course people like David Chandler, Richard Gage and Steven Jones suggest tons of massive explosives in the buildings so intense they fling steel around. Normal demolitions are DEAFENINGLY loud.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79sJ1bMR6VQ /> ... and they are just enough to cut columns, not fling around heavy steel. People's ear drums would have been pounded into their skulls for miles around if what people like Gage says happened yet we had numerous cameras trained on the WTC buildings and we don't see any evidence of that at all just a slow progressive collapse.

The column you're talking about was not cut with thermite. For a start thermite cant cut at an angle. Secondly, the cut you're talking about looks EXACTLY IN EVERY WAY like a thermal lance cut, which they were using at ground zero in the clean up. We even have pictures of other workers cutting columns at angles with the same slag dripping off. http://www.layscience.net/files/wtc/9.jpg There's also a final problem with this in that the towers collapsed from ABOVE and it would not have required any columns to be cut from the base to think that this column was intentionally cut makes absolutely no sense at all, which is probably why AE911 guys like Jones and Gage have stopped promoting this claim.

So the next part is the molten METAL reported at ground zero. First this stuff was never collected or analysed. All we have to rely on are second hand hearsay evidence from firefighters and other non-experts in metallurgy. I dare say they would have chosen their words more carefully if they knew conspiracy theorists would be saying that it had to be steel just because they said the word "steel" 10 years down the line. The fact that there was molten metal reported for so long proves it can't be thermite, since thermite's reaction is fast and vigorous no matter what kind of thermite you're talking about. It just does not have the energy to keep steel molten that long. However steel itself COULD have burned and melted in the chemical soup that was the burning rubble fires through oxidisation. With the addition of all the rust and heat its certainly plausible that some steel could have melted. The more reasonable explanation for the molten metal however is that it was aluminium which was abundant in the WTC, for example one large source of aluminium was in the cladding surrounding both towers which would certainly have melted in such a fire. Guys like Steven Jones had tried to use pictures like the firefighters surrounding a glowing hole in the ground picture to prove high temperatures, when that turned out to be an "enhanced" picture and then video came out which showed it was just a large flashlight they were using, not that it ever made sense as if it were molten steel they could never have got that close to it.

Next we have the infamous molten metal observed from one corner of the WTC. What's silly to start with is that truthers claim tons of this stuff was used and yet we only see it falling out of ONE corner of ONE tower at ONE level? Truthers also have to lie to claim the more reasonable explanation that it is merely aluminium on the sky lobby pushed up against the corner of the wall along with plane parts melting is wrong, by saying aluminium doesn't glow when molten. The truth is that ALL METALS WILL GLOW at a high enough temperature. Examples of the truth movement's fails are everywhere and they are all so hilarious.

What about the "meteorite", which was a clump of metal and concrete fused by intense heat into a huge ball? Did "verinage" do that, too?

Can thermite? No. (see above)

But underground chemical fires that goes on for weeks could.

I have seen truthers also like to use pictures of steel that have been bent as if to claim that's proves some kind of thermite, yet that's exactly what happens to steel when it gets hot enough to weaken. It looks just like that all twisted and bent! In the National Grographic show they got a steel beam to collapse under a a pool of jet fuel, it looked just like that as well.

What about the hardened metal that was streaked down the sides of girders cut at an angle? Salvage workers would not cut at an angle, it'd be a waste of time and of their acetylene, and acetylene torches make relative clean cuts, they don't stream metal all over.

And of course you're 100% wrong. See previous picture I gave you above. If they are cutting columns they can cut them at an angle so they will fall where they want them to like tree cutters so how is that a waste of their time?

Also, how can you say molten steel slag wont be produced?
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/12/molten-metal-pools-may-have-simple.html</p>

Molten slag would be everywhere!

You seem like a "verinage" coincidence theorist, you want to just explain everything as "verinage" coincidence.

You know talking like that makes you look like an idiot.

Truthers HAVE to believe in some of the biggest coincidences you imagine, they also have to believe these conspiracies are at once the luckiest people on earth and completely genius' at the exact same time while simultaneously that they are the biggest retards you can imagine.

The key difference, though, is moral. It was a hell of a lot easier to recruit people into the Manhattan Project and keep it secret than it would have been a 9/11 conspiracy.

riiight...because well-intentioned people who are trying to do something they think is "good" are much less apt to lie effectively than sinister people hell-bent on slaughtering arabs for their oil...eh-hem

I'm not going to pursue this stuff in this thread any more. I wish I could respond to the "articles" about the World Trade Center demolition on this site, but there's no way to comment on them. Are there any World Trade Center demolition threads, or are they all five years defunct?

Truthers HAVE to believe in some of the biggest coincidences you imagine, they also have to believe these conspiracies are at once the luckiest people on earth and completely genius' at the exact same time while simultaneously that they are the biggest retards you can imagine.

Okay, I lied a little when I said I was done in this thread. This is the same argument people use when they say things like "how could a dying man in a cave in Afghanistan demolish the World Trade Center with box cutters". These people identified as "suicide hijackers" had virtually nothing in the way of resources, and had no access to the buildings, yet they were able to utterly demolish not only the two towers that were struck by planes, but also Seven World Trade Center, which was not hit with anything. whoa

These men were apparently so clever they could accomplish the demolitions so effectively, but they were also so bumbling that they left a trail of bread crumbs for the FBI to follow, including trips to strip bars, arabic flight manuals, flight computers, wills left in luggage, passports that survived the crashes and fireballs, etcetera. eh-hem

If I was repeating the same tired bullshit from ten years ago I'd run away too.

I'm not "running away" from anything, just trying to unhijack this thread. If you want to continue this discussion, start a thread about the World Trade Center demolition, I'll eventually either convince you or so frustrate you that you give up or perhaps attempt suicide. I compulsively correct errors, and I will never give up unless and until I've been proven wrong. Believe me, I love the chance to admit I made a mistake, it's the only way you can prove to people you can learn. It's just so rare that I get the chance to admit I was wrong. :(

If just one of the people the supposed 9/11 conspirators--ONE--decided that they had a moral problem with participating in a plot to kill 3,000 of their fellow countrymen, and said no, and then went to the TV stations, the whole thing would have been blown.

Anyone with any qualms wouldn't have been approached in the first place. Also you have to remember that there are fanatical people in the world who are rabid antisemites (all arabs are also SEMITES) who think any frame job implicating arab nations is a "good" thing. Fanatics don't turn back, even fanatics like Ilan Ramon, the israeli suicide bomber that dropped the bomb on Iraq's nuclear reactor. He volunteered for a mission he was told would be suicide, and he did it anyway. Israel has no shortage of suicide bomber zealots. OKAY, enough of this, please start another thread and I'll discuss it there, I REALLY am going to stop responding to World Trade Center demolition issues in this thread.

"OKAY, enough of this, please start another thread and I'll discuss it there, I REALLY am going to stop responding to World Trade Center demolition issues in this thread."

No you won't because you're wrong about everything and you can't stand it.

See, your errors in logic mock you.

They tug at the back of your mind.

Those whispers from your conscience saying "YOU'RE WRONG!"