Testing for explosives at WTC

[hack89]

One of the biggest failures of the 911 truth movement that I have never fully understood is why they didn't do their own tests for explosives. As we all know, the massive dust clouds and pyroclastic clouds are proof that large amounts of explosives were used. We also know that know that the dust was spread over a very large area of lower Manhattan and was available in large amounts on rooftops for years after 911. Why didn't some enterprising truth seeker actually go to NY and collect samples for testing a commercial lab? I bet you could even go today and still find dust from the WTC if you looked hard enough.

Surely the truth movement had the brain power and expertise to figure simple thing out. Was it a lack of imagination or perhaps the test were done with unacceptable results? I think the latter - here is a report that tested the dust from the Deutsche Bank building that identifies a unique dust signature for the WTC - it is clear from this test that explosive residue would easily be found if they existed.

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Actually, someone from the truth movement did do testing and found thermite residue.

But you don't except that because of chain of evidence concerns.

So why would testing the dust be any different. You wouldn't accept it because of chain of evidence concerns. And rightly so.

Why NIST didn't test for explosives, though, is unfathomable. They have a chain of custody protocal (or one would think they should) plus access.

[LARED]

7. Let me be the first to call bullshit

No one found thermite residue.

[John Q. Citizen]

10. The only one who found it is the only one who looked. Apparently Dr. Greening

believes there could be spontaniously occuring thermite at the WTC. Bolo cites his work as reliable. Greening's considered a god over at the JREF site. Maybe the residue Jone's announced he found is Greening's spontanious thermite?

So perhaps, between Dr. Jones' thermite residue, and Dr. Greening's spontanious thermite, someone at NIST would have thought to check for any kind of thermite.Or any kind of explosive or thermel excellerant agent.

That may be a little too advanced for NIST to have considered, though. After all, here it is almost 5 years after they started work, and they still have no hypothisis as to what caused the rapid sequential collapse at #7. Though the last I read, they are at least considering explosive regents, if only to be able to rule them out. That's plodding progress at least. Heck of a job, so to speak.

[LARED]

24. If I understand you correctly you made it up that someone has

thermite residue. I assume if you did you would provide something to back up your remarkable statement.

[hack89]

8. What is thermite residue?

do you know what the byproducts of a thermite reaction are?

[hack89]

9. NIST test for explosives would be equally invalid

by your standard considering that they were not tasked to study how the structures collapsed until August 2002. The FBI was responsible for the initial investigation.

Are you saying that because of chain of custody issues, Dr Jones' testing for thermite with the WTC metal sample he says he has would also be invalid?

[John Q. Citizen]

12. NIST presumably would have taken over their part of the investigation from the FBI.

I have always thought that Jones' discovery, while interesting, doesn't meet the well established rules of evidence in any legalistic sense due to the chain of custody problems.

I haven't embraced or ruled out a thermite type substance. I do believe that Jones' theory at least attempts to deal with the observed excess heat at ground zero. NIST just completely ignores it, and to the best of my knowledge, the FBI hasn't published a report on their investigation, whatever that entailed.

It's all very weird and unexplainable from my perspective. I still don't understand why there wasn't any crime scene investigation that's recognizable as such. It looks like a cover up from where I stand. That's my opinion.

What's yours?

[hack89]

21. Why do you assume that the FBI did not test for explosives? nt

[William Seger]

13. Jones didn't find "thermite residue"

He claims to have found some chemicals that might (or might not) have been produced by thermite, from a sample that might (or might not) have come from the WTC, and which even if it did come from there, might (or might not) have been contaminated between the time the towers fell and the time he tested it. All Greening did was to show that it's possible that aluminum and iron oxide (rust) could have easily produced "natural thermite" in the collapse, so Jones findings are meaningless. Greening certainly didn't validate that any "thermite residue" was actually present.

[John Q. Citizen]

16. I think you replied to the wrong post, William. But no matter. Greening at least attempts to

account for the observable phenomena at ground zero, albeit, rather fancifully.

There was no crime scene investigation, in any legitamate sence of the phrase.


And that's criminal in itself.

[William Seger]

18. No, I just replied to two of your posts at once

Tell me what's "fanciful" about thinking that aluminum and rust dust could have come together in that chaos?

[John Q. Citizen]

20. if we use Occam's Razor, we see that

"All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one." In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest hypothetical entities. - from wikipedia.

So if we postualte that there was a thermite like substance present, it's obviuos that a person or persons putting that thermite like substace with an ignition device is the simpleist explaination.

Greenings hypothisis requires many more elements to be possible, such as, the avaible elements, the availble elements being the right size, the avalible right size elements mixing completely in the right amounts, and the available elements, having met all the other rather complicated parameters then having a suitable ignition source. Jet fuel/carpet/office furniture isn't a suitable ignition source for thermite.

But this is all academic from my point of view. As I said above, I haven't yet embraced or rejected any thermite argument.

Is your position that you reject thermite, yet embrace Greening? Or do you reject thermite, and as such, also reject Greening. It seems impossible to have it both ways.

[William Seger]

23. Guess you didn't quite understand it

Thermite is just aluminum dust and rust dust mixed together. There isn't any magic ratio that makes it thermite; if there's an excess of either, then it's just not going to be efficient, fully combusting thermite. Given that the plane itself disintegrated itself in the initial collision with a fair amount of rusted steel, and that the aluminum cladding and the rusted steel were ground together in the collapse, it isn't hard to figure out how aluminum and iron oxide dust might have been produced and brought together. And perhaps you ought to do a little more "natural thermite" research; a friction spark can be hot enough to ignite them. Sorry, but Occam's Razor is not really on your side of the argument here. You would also need to explain why someone would deliberately attempt to use thermite to demolish the building, considering that it's never been done before and that there doesn't seem to be any known practical way to use thermite to cut through vertical columns that thick.

You must have missed this point: Greening neither confirms or denies the existence of "thermite residue"; all he did was to explain why, if there were any compounds produced by thermite in the debris, that doesn't mean that someone must have planted the thermite. It could have been natural, so even if Jones analysis is accurate, that doesn't prove anything.

[planeman]

2. Any rational person knows there were no explosives. n/t

[John Q. Citizen]

3. How would one know that? How do you know that the accused hijackers didn't

have confederates who placed explosives on the planes in the cargo hold, for instance? Would it have been impossible for a terrorist to get a job in cargo handling? (But not to get flight training?)

Or is that just too big of a conspiracy for you to contemplate? Is that just so irrational that you know it could never have happened?

You don't sound that rational, to me.

[BeFree]

4. Spellcheck time!!

You forgot the ir before your 'rational'.

There, you see, it is corrected "Any irrational person knows there were no explosives."

I know you appreciate this, knowing that you would never intentionally mislead people, because no wise person would ever rationalize - without a real investigation - about anything.









.

[wildbilln864]

5. BeFree...

very nice! :hi:
:yourock:

[BeFree]

6. Of course

Now the grammar is all messed up. So, instead of:
"Any irrational person knows there were no explosives."

It should read: Every irrational person believes there were no explosives.

That pretty well sums it up, eh?

[William Seger]

11. Too bad you don't have a logic checker

A rational person should require some evidence. Got any?

[John Q. Citizen]

14. I'm sure you don't have any evidence either, William. that's the point and the problem.

Their was a cover up, not an investigation.

[William Seger]

15. Yes, I do

I have the videos and photos that show the colums bowing in for about half an hour before the collapse, and this video that shows the columns buckling inward to initiate the collapse, with absolutely no sign of the high-velocity blast waves characteristic of explosives:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5405555553528290546&q=trinity+wtc+collapse

Please explain to me what kind of "suck bombs" caused the building to collapse like that.

[Kingshakabobo]

17. Please don't give them any ideas.

"Suck Bombs"...LOL

[John Q. Citizen]

19. Can you document the authenticity of your video? How does the

so called "meteor" with molten iron and fused cement relate to your hypothesis?

How do the eyewitness reports of secondary explosions relate to your theory?

You are welcome to your opinion by the way. But you have no right to expect others to agree with you. I can't understand why that is so intolerable for you.

[William Seger]

22. Authenticiy

It's obviously an amateur video, and according to the Google listing it's from the Camera Planet Archive at www.911archive.net. Do you think it's fake? Well, thanks for the opportunity to point out that "truthers" claim to have "overwhelming evidence" -- but of what, they can't quite seem to agree even among themselves -- and also claim that there is "no evidence supporting the official story" -- because all the physical and documentary evidence just must have been faked and all the eyewitnesses just must be wrong or flat out lying.

> How does the so called "meteor" with molten iron and fused cement relate to your hypothesis?

The "so called 'meteor'" also has scraps of paper that are still legible. (I'll dig up the photo that's a closer view than the one Jones used, if you haven't seen it, but I suspect you have.) That's because it isn't "molter iron" -- it's just the result of several floors worth of debris being compressed together under high pressure.

> How do the eyewitness reports of secondary explosions relate to your theory?

You mean the reports of sounds that sounded like "secondary explosions" when the building collapsed? What exactly does your vivid imagination tell you that a collapsing building should sound like? Or do you mean the reports of "secondary explosions" right after (one of) the planes hit the building? Some of those might have been jet fuel exploding, and at least one of those sounds might have been the elevator that fell when its cables were severed, and some other sounds might have been other debris that was knocked into the elevator shafts by the plane impact. But if any of those those were "secondary explosions" from demolition, why did it take at least another hour before the buildings fell.

> But you have no right to expect others to agree with you. I can't understand why that is so intolerable for you.

Oh, I have no delusions that "truthers" will ever agree with me -- I compare it to being bitten by a vampire -- and I don't have any problem "tolerating" that. But then again, that's not why I post here. I post here for much the same reason that I imagine Buffy fights the vampires.

[John Q. Citizen]

28. You and Buffy. Why is that so believeable....and funny. Well good luck with vampires!

[Grateful for Hope]

30. Yes

Buffy fights what is really not there. I have always had a soft spot for Buffy -- she started out being a delusional teenager who "saw things". It continued as she got older. I have a soft spot for her because she was so terribly young when psychosis struck.

[William Seger]

32. I'm just sorry that I was too late to save you

... but there are lots of other John Q's out there.

[Grateful for Hope]

36. Is this a personal attack?

Oh-oh.

[William Seger]

37. Of course not

You're a victim, and it's not really your fault that you were bitten by the 9/11 conspiracy vampires (who are definitely not imaginary, by the way). People like you are their favorite prey. That's not like implying that you were suffering from some kind of psychosis or anything.

[Grateful for Hope]

42. You are showing your particular

confirmtation bias.

Some day we will all know the truth. I pray you are right.

[BeFree]

53. Speaking of victims, Seger

You must realize it is plausible that you are a victim of bushco and definitely a victim of a closed mind.

[William Seger]

55. Speaking of bushco

... I just happened to have addressed that very obsession of yours below. I happen to believe that bushco is very likey the most dishonest, secretive, and deceptive administration we've ever had, and there's no doubt in my mind that they definitely covered their asses after 9/11. And just because I think the controlled demolition hypothesis is bullshit, that doesn't mean I'll ever forgive the 9/11 Commission for not investigating all the things they should have and not holding the responsible people accountable. But the problem for your accusation here is that most of what we know about what happened on 9/11 -- at least the part about terrorists hijacking planes and flying them into buildings -- didn't actually come from the bushco cabal at all, nor did my understanding of why the buildings collapsed.

[BeFree]

59. Yes it does

You even said it: the investigation was not "all" it could have been. And you don't have the answers so stop pretending you do, please, it is really quite tiresome. Like this part:

...most of what we know about what happened on 9/11 -- at least the part about terrorists hijacking planes and flying them into buildings -- didn't actually come from the bushco cabal at all,....

The FBI is administered by bushco, and it was the FBI that supplied you with your theory. You didn't get your theory from anyone else as it was formulated by bushco. It is the bushco theory that you are pushing.

Anybody with an open mind is willing and able to entertain alternate theories. Any rational person will examine alternate theories until there is solid proof that one theory is proved. Since there are no theories that have been proved, a rational person will not bury his or her head in that theory.

But holding to the most plausible theory is acceptable, and the most plausible theory is not the one that bushco has offered. This forum is proof of that.

[John Q. Citizen]

63. A good example of this ability to buy whatever is offered is the pancake theory.

None of the coincidence theory believers questioned it at all. They bought it.

Then when that changed, they bought the newer improved version. No questions asked.

They were victims of the bait and switch, and they don't even know it. They have never questioned either theory. It's all or nothing with some people.

I have no idea what caused three buildings that suffered three random events to all suffer rapid sequential global collapses. This uncertainty doesn't bother me at all. I do believe that another as yet unknown to me non- random agent was responsible, but i have no idea what that was. How or why would I?

Some people are very uncomfortable with uncertainty, but i'm not one of them. Some people demand tidy answers to complex questions, but I'm OK with a mystery.

Not one of the people I've read on this board who are certain that no non-random agent was causative in the rapid sequential collapses of 3 buildings suffering 3 random events will admit that NIST has no physical evidence to support their time/temperature hypothesis.

Not one of these folks that I've read will admit that 5 years after the fact, that NIST has no hypothesis for what caused #7 to collapse.

Yet they are certain, to the point of obsessiveness, that there was no non-random agent involved in the collapses.

Well Ok then. More power to them and the power of absolute belief. It's not my cup of tea though.

[BeFree]

64. Read the tea leaves tho

And all we find is this mystery. I guess, as you say, some people are uncomfortable with this mystery. They need to believe in something, to find an end.

It's just a shame they have to hassle us as we look, prod and poke into the mystery, using our heads, hearts and logic to turn it over, push it this way and that, and overall, explore the heck out of it.

Hey, yall leave us alone!

[Grateful for Hope]

67. What I think

is that those who buy the official story are probably the most gullible, and prone to think in terms of black-and-white, members of our population. I also think they are prone to respecting what they perceive as "authority" -- regardless of whether or not that "authority" is worthy of respect.

[William Seger]

70. What I think

... is that your statement indicates that you are far more close-minded than you claim. It's especially interesting that you use a black-and-white argument to accuse others of black-and-white thinking.

[William Seger]

69. Pancake theory? Oh, Jeez, you're turning into petgoat

... which is definitely not a good thing.

Your characterization is idiotic: Until the studies were done, the "pancake theory" was a perfectly valid hypothesis, but I seriously doubt that anybody who really understood it "believed" it the way you're implying -- i.e. the "absolute belief" of True Believers in their imaginary religions and/or pseudosciences, or the way most "turthers" seem to believe their own speculations. (I am glad to hear, however, that you are less certain than you once appeared to be about your own belief that virtually everyone in the FAA must have been involed in a plot to make sure Hani Hanjour got a pilot's license.) NIST did study the "pancake theory," as well as other hypotheses, and decided on the most probable one, which proves conclusively that there was nothing like "absolute belief" involved in the process. All you're really demonstrating here is that you really don't understand the scientific meathod, and you really don't understand the approach that rational people take in using that method in an attempt to understand reality as best they can.

> Not one of these folks that I've read will admit that 5 years after the fact, that NIST has no hypothesis for what caused #7 to collapse.

First, your assertion "NIST has no hypothesis" is completely false: There are several hypotheses about why 7WTC collapsed, and this is the one NIST is working on now (from their FAQ):

The current NIST working collapse hypothesis for WTC 7 is described in the June 2004 Progress Report on the Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster (Volume 1, page 17, as well as Appendix L), as follows:

* An initial local failure occurred at the lower floors (below floor 13) of the building due to fire and/or debris-induced structural damage of a critical column (the initiating event) which supported a large-span floor bay with an area of about 2,000 square feet;

* Vertical progression of the initial local failure occurred up to the east penthouse, and as the large floor bays became unable to redistribute the loads, it brought down the interior structure below the east penthouse; and

* Triggered by damage due to the vertical failure, horizontal progression of the failure across the lower floors (in the region of floors 5 and 7 that were much thicker and more heavily reinforced than the rest of the floors) resulted in a disproportionate collapse of the entire structure.

This hypothesis may be supported or modified, or new hypotheses may be developed, through the course of the continuing investigation. NIST also is considering whether hypothetical blast events could have played a role in initiating the collapse. While NIST has found no evidence of a blast or controlled demolition event, NIST would like to determine the magnitude of hypothetical blast scenarios that could have led to the structural failure of one or more critical elements.

In other words, the problem with deciding between the various hypotheses is the lack of detailed information about what was going on inside the building. What seems to be confusing you is that, since none of those reasonable hypotheses require any explosives, there is no reason (at least yet) to consider explosives to be a highly probable explanation -- and there won't be until the more plausible explanations have been ruled out, and some rational explanation if offered for why their were no sounds or blast waves that would be expected from explosives. Weighing the various possibilities and estimating their relative probabilities is called "critical thinking." At most, all you are really complaining about with your hyperbole is that you don't think NIST and the "OCTers" on this board are giving the explosives hypothesis the probability that you think it deserves. But just because you don't understand why that is doesn't give you the right to say this about them:

> Yet they are certain, to the point of obsessiveness, that there was no non-random agent involved in the collapses.

Despite your objections otherwise, I do believe you must be projecting, and again, you are demonstrating a lack of understanding of the scientific method and critical thinking. People who do really understand those things also understand why they can never produce the kind of "absolute belief" and "obsessiveness" that you are accusing them of. You want to see explosives higher on the list of possibilities despite the total lack of a logical reason for why 7WTC would have been blown up and a lack of evidence that it was, but you don't seem to want to understand the reasons why they are not and objectively address those reasons.

[William Seger]

33. Thanks!

Very sporting of you. Now, please stop trying to bite people on this board.

[BeFree]

25. Yes.

It is evident that the towers could not have come down given the OTC explanation. But since there was no real investigation by the O (as in bushcO) then there is no rationallity to say that there were no explosives.

The question of explosives remains a sound and reasonable question and only irrational people would exclude the possibility.

[hack89]

26. The fundamental flaw with your argument

is that it is accepted almost universally in the scientific and academic community that it was theoretically possible for the WTC to fall on 911 without explosives - that the impact damage and fires were sufficient to cause their collapse. They may disagree with NIST on the precise collapse mechanism but you have to search really hard to find any structural engineers or architects that believe that explosives are the only answer.

On the other hand, no 911 truth seeker has proven that in was theoretically impossible for the WTC to fall on 911 without explosives

[BeFree]

27. Which proves the point

You admit that the investigation is lacking in major parameters. Therefore one would have to be irrational to conclude that one thing caused the collapse.

Now, if asked, I can guarantee you that everybody would say that it is certainly possible for explosives to topple the towers. Yes?

[hack89]

29. Of course explosives were possible.

the issue is to translate that possibility into a plausible theory. Much of the "proof" of explosives is simply the misinterpretation of phenomena that most engineers and scientist have no problem explaining in terms that do not require explosives or thermite. Examples would be the rubble pile fires, molten aluminum in the pile, venting from the building, the massive dust clouds due to PE, etc. You don't see many engineers scratching their heads and saying "that shouldn't have happened." Yet by trying to interpret each one of these "anomalies" through a CT prism results in a theory that gets more and more complex and more and more implausible. We all know that to use explosives to bring down the WTC would simply require 47 charges at the base of the core columns - we all know that the truth community does not advocate such a simple and basic possibility.

The fact is that no explosives is the simple case to make - it avoids the huge issue of trying to explain how the WTC were laced with a complex web of high explosives and thermite in massive amounts. It would be a huge logistic feat that no CTr has even attempted to explain.

I personally think that the truth community would have been much more successful in reaching the US public if they had simply said that the hijackers were CIA patsies that were aided by rouge elements in the US government. A simple case that avoids opening the door to theories like mini-nukes, space based energy weapons, holographic planes, etc.

[BeFree]

31. No, we don't

...and you venture much too far at an attempt to rationalize your conspiracy theory. The explosives could have been set anywhere in the building at many points, not just at the base. In fact, videos show explosions many floors below the impact zone.

In fact, your theory says the explosions and fires on the higher floors caused the collapse. So your way out with holding to your singular theory and using your facts to say our ideas are wrong.

You must know that in usual engineered building take downs much care is taken to reduce collateral damage. Well, that scenario holds no water here since there was collateral damage, therefore one can say that was not a concern of the bomb planters, if there were any. We may never know. And that is the point.

[hack89]

34. I am not sure exactly what you mean ...

They could have been set anywhere - that is true. But since no truth seeker has even ventured to put forth a plausible scenario on how it was done, how many explosives were used and how long it took, we have no way to know if it was plausible - not possible but plausible. If you accept concepts like pulverization and Hoffman's pyroclastic flows, one is led to the irrefutable conclusion that thousands of tons of explosives were used. The truth community's unwillingness to take the obvious step and advance a detailed theory on how CD was accomplished is telling to me. Either they lack the ability to figure it out or they have figured it out and didn't like the answer.

My theory says that impact and fires on the higher floors resulting in collapse are more plausible. That plausibility is supported by scientific and academic rigor that is nearly universally accepted in the engineering and scientific community. You, on the other hand, cannot articulate a plausible theory that can be supported beyond vague generalities and amature analysis of internet video.

[BeFree]

47. No

Your plausibility is based solely on a strangled investigation that has been foisted upon us by bushco.

Here again, you say your theory is based solely upon a smoking fire causing the world first and only collapse of a steel framed building. That is simply implausible to me.

I see you claiming, again, that there was some thorough investigation. Well, what follows then is simply not to be believed because there was no thorough investigation, leaving you with nothing but the bushco theory to support you.

The very idea that you are trying to tell me what happened when there is incomplete science behind your words is implausible. All the rest of us are trying to investigate while you have already closed your mind to the possibilities.

[hack89]

56. Again you are missing the point ...

I don't need an investigation to tell me that any theory that involves installing thousands of tons of explosives in the WTC in absolute secrecy such that it was never notice is implausible. I don't need an investigation to tell me that impact and fires were sufficient to weaken steel to the point that it would fail. I don't need an investigation to tell than thermite has never been used in demolition and that thermite cutting charges don't actually exist.

That fact that you think that the fires were merely "smoking" is a classic example of how CTrs delude themselves. Fire science is a well established science based on lots of experimentation and imperial evidence. We know how buildings burn and what kind of temperatures they produce. It has nothing to do with the investigation of 911 - this is simply well documented science that was used in the WTC studies.

Here is the NIST library of fire studies:

http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/

Here is a white paper on the WTC - this is what real science looks like and what the 911 truth movement is unable to duplicate:

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20V%20Fire.pdf

[BeFree]

60. You don't need an investigation?

Why, that is simply irrational! Hey! We've come full circle.

Too bad there was never an investigation of the fire melted steel. Too bad for me, anyway, I need proof. Otherwise, all I can do is theorize. And I'll be damned if I'll accept - lock, stock and barrel - the bushco theory, especially since they didn't need investigations either.

[Grateful for Hope]

35. I agree with you here (but, with reservation)

I just want to talk about what you said:

I personally think that the truth community would have been much more successful in reaching the US public if they had simply said that the hijackers were CIA patsies that were aided by rouge elements in the US government. A simple case that avoids opening the door to theories like mini-nukes, space based energy weapons, holographic planes, etc.

IMO, there is no way to prove that the WTC was blow up or not, reason being that most evidence was removed, and, more important, the agencies investigating this criminal act were not, by definition, unbiased. And this does continue.

One thing I do want to say, though, is that maintaining that all inqueries into 9/11 necessitate bringing up the most outlandish theories like: mini-nukes, space based energy weapons, holographic planes, etc.

Why the strawman(s), Hack89?

[hack89]

38. It is not a strawman

all of them are theories that are forwarded and defended in the truth community and on this forum. The point of my post is that fringe ideas like this are used to tar the entire truth community as moonbats and inhibits wider acceptance. Now I also believe that the truth community has brought this upon themselves by making theirs a "big tent" community that welcomes anyone whose heart is in the right place (ie Bush did it.) If the truth community was more active in combating the more radical theories like mini-nukes, space based energy weapons, and holographic planes then perhaps they would be more accepted.

[William Seger]

39. Those totally wacked-out theories were advanced...

... when it became clear that the initial "controlled demolition" theories wouldn't hold water.

[Grateful for Hope]

40. What I don't see is

Any proof "one way or the other".

[hack89]

43. I think it comes down to what is more plausible..

If one accepts that explosives were not needed to cause the collapse of the WTC then it is a simpler thing to explain and understand. The corner that the truth community has painted itself into is that by trying to explain every observed phenomena in terms of CD, its theories get more and more complex. When you then consider that they are completely unable to explain how these complex theories were actually carried out then you have to consider how plausible CD actually was.

The truth community would be best served by agreeing on a single theory of how CD was done and providing some detail to show that there was some chance of it actually working.

[BeFree]

48. Actually working

Explosives actually work. Duh!

[hack89]

50. Thanks for proving my point

we do know that explosives work. We don't know that the WTC could be demolished in complete secrecy. Now if you could expand on your post and tell me how it was done, we could talk. But right now there is nothing - you will continue to avoid the hard answers.

[BeFree]

51. There are no answers.

I'll repeat, there are no answers. And if you think you have the answers, well, you are being incredible. All you have is a theory, supported by scared scientists and bushco.

But the point is: There are no hard answers.

[hack89]

58. So every scientist in the world is scared?

In an age of internet anonymity where CIA and NSA secrets are routinely leaked to damage bushco, you really believe that millions of scientist and engineers are scared to speak the truth about 911? OK.

[BeFree]

61. There have been scientists

Who have stood against the bushco theory, but then they were fired or otherwise lost their jobs. Are you saying there are no scientists who don't believe the OTC? C'mon, you can't be saying any such thing, you know better.

Just look at the hullabaloo over climate change, it took years before the scientists overcame their fear, and it isn't a tenth as worrisome as taking a position on this matter. Too, remember how many scientists have fessed up and joined in, now that a real investigation on climate change has been undertaken?

I think we all agree that there has been no real investigation of 9/11. Right?

[hack89]

65. Just who has been fired? nt

[AZCat]

71. Uhhh, the scientists weren't the ones having difficulty...

accepting climate change. It was all the non-scientific people that fought it. The scientific community has been almost unanimous (with the exception of a few hold-outs) in its agreement about climate change for decades.

[JackRiddler]

41. Um...

"I personally think that the truth community would have been much more successful in reaching the US public if they had simply said that the hijackers were CIA patsies that were aided by rouge elements in the US government. A simple case that avoids opening the door to theories like mini-nukes, space based energy weapons, holographic planes, etc."

Are you pretending this isn't exactly the main hypothesis explored for years before Plane Site and LC2 arrived to gain an upper hand for (mostly bogus) "physical evidence"? Demolition theory and no-plane at Pentagon were both around from almost the beginning, but the dominant tendency was represented in the work of Paul Thompson, Nafeez Ahmed, Michel Chossudovsky, Mike Ruppert, P.D. Scott, the Justicefor911.org complaint, Hopsicker, or on this board Andre, JohnDoe and KJF, "9/11 Press for Truth," Sander Hicks... all are still around, exploring different aspects, not all are equally valid, but poking around basic variants of this idea.

I don't want to provoke, but I expect you're content with ignoring all that and pretending that 9/11 research is exemplified by and the 9/11 truth movement is led by Haupt, Woods, Sigel, Fetzer and Reynolds.

[Grateful for Hope]

44. I do agree with you

Unfortunately, I get involved in arguments. What you are saying is what I have believed for a very long time.

[hack89]

46. But that is not what is getting across ...

go back and review the CD threads in this forum - they are very black and white. At least here MIHOP = CD.

Perhaps it is simply the medium that filters out the shades of gray here, but remember that most if not all of the "OCTrs" on this board are on record as believing that Bush committed impeachable crimes in letting 911 happen yet we are consistently attacked as Bush supports for refusing to accept CD. If, as you say, the CD proponents have wrestled the 911 truth agenda away from those with a more nuanced perspectives, then you have a lot of work ahead of you if you wish to convince the American public because you are not the public face of the truth movement.

[JackRiddler]

52. Tell you what...

My stint as the public face of the 9/11 truth movement (and believe it or not I had one) was long enough. Why don't you do this work and get on with the vital mission of impeachment? From your own description, it would be a lot more important than the trivial matter of disabusing powerless people you think are naive of their notions.

[hack89]

57. How do you know what I do beyond this forum?

I am active in local democratic politics where I live - I work very hard to get Democrats in office.

[greyl]

77. Why don't you stop distancing the most valuable resources you have here?

Why make enemies of the intellectual left?

[John Q. Citizen]

79. You flatter yourself, greyl. Always. It begs the question of what you are attempting to

compensate for?

Your self glorification, your personal vanity has nothing to do with the topic of this forum or any other forum.

Perhaps DU needs an "I think I'm smarter than everyone else" forum where you could post your self tributes to.

[William Seger]

45. Huh?

> It is evident that the towers could not have come down given the OTC explanation.

According to Merriam-Webster, "EVIDENT implies presence of visible signs that lead one to a definite conclusion." For example, "It is evident from your comment that you don't really understand the progressive collapse of a structure." It is not logical to argue that something can't happen just because one doesn't understand how it could happen -- especially not when there are so many people who do understand progressive collapse, and therefore do understand how it could happen.

> The question of explosives remains a sound and reasonable question and only irrational people would exclude the possibility.

Sound and reasonable? Well, it's true that's one way to bring down a building, but you left out "highly implausible" in this case, since "truthers" haven't yet come up with any "sound and reasonable" explanation for why anyone would plan such a large, complex, and risky hoax when it would be much easier and safer to pull off something simple that didn't involve deceptions (except for who did it), which would accomplish the same presumed purpose with practically no risk of having things go wrong or getting caught. True, that doesn't mean it didn't happen, so we shouldn't exclude it out of hand, but that is the reason why a rational person should expect to see some evidence before accepting that theory over the far more plausible one, which just happens to also be the one supported by the evidence.

[BeFree]

49. OK

> It is evident that the towers could not have come down given the OTC explanation.

Ok then, it is implausible that the towers could have fallen given your conspiracy theory, since there has never been another case of a smoky fire making a steel framed building collapse.

> The question of explosives remains a sound and reasonable question and only irrational people would exclude the possibility.

We shouldn't exclude it out of hand, but some people are doing just that!
Even in the face of a lack of evidence to support the official conspiracy theory, some people cling to it since it is all they ever considered, having closed their minds to other plausible scenarios. And the most plausible scenario of all? Explosives. It's happened a thousand times and is a proven fact that explosives can take down a steel framed building.

Now, ask yourself: who benefited the most from the tower's collapse? Answer that and I'd bet you'll also find the reasoning for such an explosive act.

[William Seger]

54. Not so

> Ok then, it is implausible that the towers could have fallen given your conspiracy theory, since there has never been another case of a smoky fire making a steel framed building collapse.

Not so, for two reasons: 1) It wasn't just the fire that caused the collapse (remember those planes? You can't ignore that damage just because the buildings didn't collapse immediately); and 2) in addition to the well known fact that fire weakens steel, yes, there have been steel buildings that have collapsed because of fire alone. The fact that no buildings like the WTC towers have collapsed after being hit by 500+ mph 767s doesn't imply anything at all useful, when no buildings like the WTC towers have ever been hit by 500+ mph 767s.

And if you're at all interested in how experts view the collapses, here's a very good article on the Civil Engineering Magazine site (although it's now outdated somewhat by the details of the NIST findings, the basic science is still valid): http://www.pubs.asce.org/ceonline/ceonline02/0502feat.html

> We shouldn't exclude it out of hand, but some people are doing just that!

It's one thing to exclude it out of hand; it's quite another to examine the offered evidence and reasoning and conclude that it's far too weak to support such an implausible hypothesis, especially when there is a plausible hypothesis that is supported by the evidence. But you claim:

> Even in the face of a lack of evidence to support the official conspiracy theory, some people cling to it since it is all they ever considered, having closed their minds to other plausible scenarios.

Not so. The "official theory" is supported by a ton of evidence -- see the NIST and 9/11 Commission reports -- and simply declaring that all available evidence must have been faked and all the eyewitnesses to be either mistaken or lying because they were in on it, then claim a "lack of evidence," is not a rational way to deal with it. Sorry, but that approach makes people appear to be irrational. You especially seem to be hung up on this "bushco theory" thing, when in fact most of what we know about what happened on 9/11 didn't come from the administration at all; it came from the civilian people who lived through it or watched it happen, the first responders, the media that covered it, the non-governmental experts who investigated it for FEMA and NIST, and career government people who were in their jobs when Clinton was president and likely will still be there when the next president is a Democrat.

> And the most plausible scenario of all? Explosives. It's happened a thousand times and is a proven fact that explosives can take down a steel framed building.

No, my whole point here is that that it isn't very plausible at all -- much less the most plausible scenario -- considering the totally unnecessary difficulty and risk of doing something like that without getting caught or having something go wrong. Nonetheless, you go with this standard chestnut:

> Now, ask yourself: who benefited the most from the tower's collapse? Answer that and I'd bet you'll also find the reasoning for such an explosive act.

That might tell you who to suspect, but offering that as any kind of evidence is irrational and illogical. You still need to make a convincing case that that's what happened, and that requires evidence. Do you think people can be convicted of murder based on that kind of "evidence?" If you do, thank god you're wrong. Even if I buy your premise that bushco might pull a "false flag" operation (which I don't see as implausible in itself), I see that you, like every other "truther" on this board, aren't willing to offer me any plausible reason why anyone would plan something that ridiculously elaborate and risky, when there was absolutely no need to, when something simple, easy and safe would accomplish the same presumed objective. If you can't grasp some inkling of why I'm saying that, then you'll never understand why so many people find 9/11 CTs to be batshit crazy. It's easy enough to see both how and why Islamic radicals would do something like that (and also to understand why they chose those particular targets); but it's impossible for me to imagine that anyone in bushco is that stupid to plan such a risky hoax when they could do something safe and easy with very few people involved. Which brings us right back to: I'll believe it when you have some convincing evidence, and not until then.

[BeFree]

62. Frankly

I don't care what you believe. But if you want to believe and stake this country's actions on flimsy evidence, then we have a problem.

I'll not stake my life on the flimsy OTC, not now, not ever. And I don't have to prove one damn thing to you. It is the government's obligation to do a thorough investigation. And it has not.

What we got was a whitewash. And I'm not buying it. You can call me all the nasty little playground names you want, it matters not.

What matters is that justice is not being served. If that's how you like justice - half assed and covered up - yeah, we got a problem.

So, do we have a problem, or what?

[greyl]

66. Do you care what you believe? nt

[BeFree]

68. WTF?

Who are you and where did you come from: asking this stupid question? I have been discoursing with hack, seger and what's his name, and you just drop in with an inane thought... are you just a disruptor, or what?

[greyl]

72. Confused?

It seems to me, that you don't care about the veracity of what you've chosen to champion here, as long it's covered in enough sickeningly sweet familiar flavor, evidence be damned.

Again, do you care what you believe?
What are your standards for apprehending the truth?

[BeFree]

73. That's better

I champion justice, so yes, I do care. I champion finding the truth, finding real evidence, and having real investigations. Don't you?

Thousands of people have died because of what happened that day and I am not satisfied that we have heard the truth because of the lack of real and complete investigations.

[greyl]

74. One wouldn't know it by your posts here.

Your posts on this topic indicate that you are enthusiastic but ignorant.
I like your spirit, but wince at the myth you sow.

[BeFree]

75. You wince?

The only thing I wince at is the Official's Conspiracy Theory. A theory, I take it, you are trying to sell?

I have read all about that theory and frankly, it smells like shit. Bushit.

[greyl]

76. That's some weak ass argument you've got.

I have read all about that theory...

Bullshit. You're putting me on. From your posts it's evident that you haven't read dick.

[BeFree]

78. Ooooh, getting nasty, eh?

Why am I not surprised?

Do yourself a favor and check the archives in this forum for some posts and see what I have read. But you don't have to go through all that, believe me, I've read all about it. Well, not all, there are some twists that are new, but the OTC is old stale and stinking, still, after all these years.