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Live from the LP Convention: Who Planted Those Explosives in the Twin Towers, Anyway?
A bit after noon, Mary Ruwart held a punchy Q&A at the speaker's room at the back of the convention hall. She expressed a vision of compassionate libertarianism that could appeal to the left as well as the religious right; she also called Bob Barr an "unacceptable" choice because he attacked her age of consent passage from Short Answers to the Tough Questions (which she calls one of the "worst-written" things she's ever penned) on Glenn Beck's radio show. Some of the listeners (about 60 of them) were moved to tears and support for Ruwart, and Bob Barr made an apparent blunder by leading a brief, loud rally only a few yards away, before he marched to deliver his tokens for inclusion in tonight's debate. On the way over, Barr's supporters were heckled by radicals; one hummed the "Imperial March" from Star Wars.
Later I caught up with Andrew Ferguson and Mark Rand of Liberty, who'd conducted an interview with Ruwart. Her answer on why she signed the Libertarians for Justice pledge puzzled us. (That 1:30 minute answer is here.)
You know, when you have an attack or you have a crime, the thing that you do is take care of that site and protect it very carefully to deconstruct it, so you know exactly what happened. Our government did not do that on 9/11. What they did is they swept everything up, possibly for a legitimate reason; they didn’t want to alarm the public, they wanted it to be erased as soon as possible.
The downside of that is that if we don’t actually know what happened, how do we prevent it in the future? There’s some evidence that there may have been some explosives involved in the demolition—some demolition involved in the buildings collapsing. If that were true, then we should know about that, because how did those explosives get there? What kind of things did the terrorists find out about our security that they learned in order to do that? Without knowing more, without deconstructing that site very carefully, we can’t find that out.
So I do think we should have more investigation, because there’s a lot of data floating out there that’s been ignored by the official investigation and it’s been brought up by a number of individuals that had access to that data, and that’s something that is important to look at. So I believe we should go ahead, look at it for national security reasons, so we can prevent this in the future.
It sounded to me like Ruwart was making a rhetorical mistake. She didn't suggest that 9/11 was an inside job, just that controlled demolitions might have been part of the attack. Who knows who placed them? I found Ruwart again to get her to clear up the quote. What does she believe happened on 9/11?
I think we don't know because there are so many unanswered questions. That's why I think we should have investigated it as a forensic site. If I was the commander-in-chief that's exactly what I would have done, so we could prevent it in the future.
Who planted the explosives?
We have no idea at this point. How do we know? We don't have enough information. I'm a scientist—I don't like to jump to conclusions. And there's a lot of data left.
So, Ruwart's a skeptic. In the first (flawed) barometer of candidate support, she got 94 tokens for entrance into tonight's debate, tying Barr and Root. Ruwart had directed some surplus tokens to Steve Kubby, and Barr had passed some to Mike Gravel. The top seven candidates from my analysis of the LP field will all be debating.
|5.24.08 @ 5:47PM|#
There's a lot of data left to evaluate on the law of gravity, too. I hear some kids are going to do a pendulum experiment in summer school next week, let's not jump to conclusions by assuming the period of oscillation will be (L/g)^0.5.
Brandybuck|5.24.08 @ 6:04PM|#
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that there were planted explosives. Questions ("we're only asking questions") from nutjob websites do not qualify as evidence.
|5.24.08 @ 6:06PM|#
We have no idea at this point. How do we know? We don't have
enough information. I'm a scientist-I don't like to jump to
conclusions. And there's a lot of data left.
Permanent skepticism is just as harmful to the advancement of
science as jumping to unwarranted conclusions. It would be like the
people running the atom smasher at Fermilab refusing to believe in
the existence of the electromagnetic force because it hasn't been
proven.
Colin|5.24.08 @ 6:06PM|#
Just say no to Truthers.
Dave, do you see a Barr/Gravel alliance is in the making, or was
his help simly Machiavellian?
Gotta love the intrigue.
Stephen the Goldberger|5.24.08 @ 6:07PM|#
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that there were
planted explosives. Questions ("we're only asking questions") from
nutjob websites do not qualify as evidence.
Seriously, and I don't want the LP candidate to waste her/his time
with this nonsense.
|5.24.08 @ 6:12PM|#
She expressed a vision of compassionate libertarianism that
could appeal to the left as well as the religious right;
God help us. Libertarianism is a political philosophy of bare-bones
govt, there's no relevance for compassion or any other emotion.
Wasn't Ruwart supposed to be the REAL libertarian, as opposed to
diluters Barr and Root?
Kolohe|5.24.08 @ 6:14PM|#
Updated list of human endeavors where there is no crying:
1) Baseball
2) The Libertarian Party
3) The Democratic Party
4) The
Republican Party
|5.24.08 @ 6:16PM|#
Kolohe,
That "Republican tears" picture is pretty good, but it can't match
the hands-down best
example in that category.
Kolohe|5.24.08 @ 6:18PM|#
That's why I think we should have investigated it as a
forensic site.
Ugh. It was.
Kolohe|5.24.08 @ 6:21PM|#
crymethink:
Yours is indeed superior; I'm surprised it didn't come up on the
first page of the GIS for "republican + crying."
|5.24.08 @ 6:23PM|#
I noticed Weigel changed his wording in the last paragraph from the fairly sympathetic-sounding "Ruwart can be accused of nothing but skepticism" to "Ruwart is a skeptic". Good move.
hello|5.24.08 @ 6:44PM|#
What about the antenna system that was installed in the towers?
We know who installed that (Giuliani).
The talk about "explosives" is bullshit COINTELPRO being pushed by
Mormon cultist Steve Jones. High-technology energy weapons were
used to virtually disintegrate wash quarter-mile high building in
10 seconds.
Meanwhile, Weigel is doing a great job demanding libertarians swear
fealty to the official government conspiracy theory. Classy.
KKKountry of AmeriKKKa|5.24.08 @ 7:57PM|#
figure out how to work a third "K" in there and it will be more effectice as a political insult
|5.24.08 @ 8:09PM|#
I thought the Kochtopus' enemies were for Barr as a slightly-inferior substitute for Paul. Do I have to update my scorecard again?
TallDave|5.24.08 @ 8:10PM|#
I think we all know the real culprits were religious extremists
who reject modern, Western society.
That's right -- the Amish were behind 9/11.
Dormouse|5.24.08 @ 8:27PM|#
[i]That's right -- the Amish were behind 9/11.[/i]
That explains a lot of things...
|5.24.08 @ 8:28PM|#
Humming the Imperial March might be the single best political
stunt I've ever heard of.
Bravo to that guy. You could do it to Hillary, McCain,
Cheney...
I\'m Just Sayin\'|5.24.08 @ 8:29PM|#
So basically, Libertarians get to choose between truther nutjobs
(or those sympathetic to truther nutjobs), a quasi-socialist, and a
social conservative?
Seriously, FUCK the LP.
|5.24.08 @ 8:35PM|#
Somewhere in Chile, Ron Paul's doppelganger is saying I told you
so:
South
America nations found union
LeTerrassier|5.24.08 @ 8:35PM|#
I think I like Ruwart; I just hope she shuts up about 9/11. Al
Qaeda was clearly behind it, so instead of babbling about
explosives lets talk about why they (Al Qaeda, not Bush/Clinton/The
Jews) did it. Last I checked it is not likely someone would kill
3,000 human beings because they hate their 'freedom'. The focus
should be on 1) Why people in third world countries hate Americans
so much (it might have something to do with those wars we keep
starting). 2) Why Bush does not care about bringing justice to Bin
Laden, and instead cares only about nation building in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and (coming soon...) Iran. 3) What drives religious and
political extremism in general.
Of course these questions would inevitably come back to American
Imperialism, and thus are ignored by most Americans, who seem to
feel uncomfortable with the idea of the 'American Empire' despite
its existence for nigh on a century.
To sum it all up:
Bin Laden = bad
Bush = bad
Ruwart = pretty cool
9/11 Truthers = crazier then me (shockingly)
America = screwed
I think that covers it.
|5.24.08 @ 9:16PM|#
Humming the Imperial March might be the single best
political stunt I've ever heard of.
Bravo to that guy. You could do it to Hillary,
McCain, Cheney...
I think the Wicked Witch of the West music would be more
suited.
Galileo|5.24.08 @ 9:41PM|#
The 9/11 attacks were staged by the executive branch of the federal government. There is video of the Twin Towers and WTC 7 coming down in demolition.
FDM|5.24.08 @ 9:54PM|#
You got to be kidding me... you don't even have to be an architect to know that when the mass of the floors above the impact began to move they would blow thru everything below as if it wasn't there. It's the difference between statics and dynamics. Plus as each disintegrating floor added its mass to the mass already in motion everything accelerated. OF COURSE it looked like demolition. The very structure of the towers made it pull straight downwards. Sheesh... Tinfoil nutjobs at the LP.
|5.24.08 @ 9:55PM|#
I guess if the father of modern observational astronomy thinks 9/11 was an inside job, who am I to argue?
Galileo|5.24.08 @ 10:02PM|#
FDM said;
"You got to be kidding me... you don't even have to be an architect
to know that when the mass of the floors above the impact began to
move they would blow thru everything below as if it wasn't there.
It's the difference between statics and dynamics."
Galileo says;
What you say is NOT reflected in the official NIST report on the
collapse on the Twin Towers. If you have some engineering secret,
you may want to inform NIST.
You are typical of ignorant debunkers, you don't know what you are
talking about.
Ruwart \'08: It\'s for the chi|5.24.08 @ 10:50PM|#
I heard some "twofers" talking about how some of the evidence
wasn't examined and wound up in dumps and nonsense like that. Those
people are nuts. What the government said is what really
happened.
Also, compassion has no part to play in the modern LP. Let us
remain the party of reason... and of Reason!
FDM|5.24.08 @ 11:08PM|#
No Galileo -- YOU CAN'T READ -- I QUOTE THE VERY REPORT YOU
REFERENCE --:
" The change in potential energy due to downward movement of
building mass above the buckled columns exceeded the strain energy
that could have been absorbed by the structure. Global collapse
then ensued."
Acton|5.24.08 @ 11:35PM|#
Good lord again we see why the LP will never ammont to anything. Personally I wold go to the Furry Con down the road. It would be more interesting.
|5.24.08 @ 11:36PM|#
Lonewacko, it looks like someone is taking your advice to heart...there was a question at the LP presidential debate about whether the American Indians' "open borders immigration policy" worked out for them.
|5.24.08 @ 11:42PM|#
Good lord again we see why the LP will never ammont to
anything. Personally I wold go to the Furry Con down the road. It
would be more interesting.
I'm interested to see who they pick for their presidential
candidate
Chasque y Aprenda|5.25.08 @ 12:15AM|#
Oí un cierto "twofers" hablando de cómo algo de la evidencia no
examinó e hiere para arriba en descargas y absurdo como eso. Ellos
son locos. Qué el gobierno dijo es qué sucedió realmente.
También, la compasión no tiene ninguna parte a jugar en el LP
moderno. ¡Sigamos siendo el partido de razón… y de
Razón!
J Golden Rockwell|5.25.08 @ 12:31AM|#
Galileo wrote: "There is video of the Twin Towers and WTC 7
coming down in demolition."
There's video of Yoda fighting Count Duku. That doesn't mean that
the whole Star Wars thing is true.
J Golden Rockwell|5.25.08 @ 12:33AM|#
FDM wrote: "Sheesh... Tinfoil nutjobs at the LP."
What, you thought that the Democrats had the market cornered . .
?
Mike Laursen|5.25.08 @ 1:00AM|#
Libertarianism is a political philosophy of bare-bones govt,
there's no relevance for compassion or any other
emotion.
Yeah, OK, whatever you say, Mr. Spock.
Chamdar|5.25.08 @ 1:05AM|#
I heard some "twofers" talking about how some of the
evidence wasn't examined and wound up in dumps and nonsense like
that. Those people are nuts. What the government said is what
really happened.
Also, compassion has no part to play in the modern LP. Let us
remain the party of reason... and of Reason!
Right, because you're obviously all about compassion when you
support punishing innocent "anchor babies" for the crimes of their
parents.
Galileo|5.25.08 @ 1:10AM|#
The NIST report never explains why "Global collapse then
ensued".
That's the whole point of the report, since the WTC was designed to
not collapse in that scenerio.
Engineers need to know why, if the top 15 floors of a building
falls 10 feet, the remaining 95 floors below it will be crushed to
the ground.
Likely.
Brandybuck|5.25.08 @ 1:38AM|#
Engineers need to know why, if the top 15 floors of a building falls 10 feet, the remaining 95 floors below it will be crushed to the ground.
Did your mother drop you on your head as a baby? The "global
collapse then ensued" because the floor upon which the top 15
floors landed on collapsed. Instead of pretending to have read the
NIST report, why don't you go and actually read it for real?
JB|5.25.08 @ 1:46AM|#
Galileo, mass and gravity. This shit really isn't that
hard.
I have to say I would definitely watch a Youtube video of physics
vs. Truthers. Hammer meets skull results in demolition of head.
masticator|5.25.08 @ 1:49AM|#
The "global collapse then ensued" because the floor upon
which the top 15 floors landed on collapsed.
But then what happened to the next floor down? Don't have an answer
for that one, do you little sheeple?
Brandybuck|5.25.08 @ 2:17AM|#
But then what happened to the next floor down? Don't have an answer for that one, do you little sheeple?
I have no idea if you're joking or not. Because twoofers will say
shit just as stupid. But just in case: The floor below will
collapse because of the weight of 11 floors landing on it. I
haven't yet gotten around to figuring out what caused the floor
below that to collapse, though. I suspect it was due to the weight
of 12 floors landing on it, but I haven't done the math yet...
Kendra|5.25.08 @ 10:35AM|#
Hi all,
I lurk on Hit and Run almost daily, but don't typically have
something to say.
I'm a Denver local so I've been crashing the convention this
weekend. I caught Mary's Q&A and I do think she is a compelling
candidate and great speaker. As a non-Libertarian I was interested
in hearing her speak because so many of her supporters told me they
thought she was the best choice to bring in reluctant people who
are concerned that, once implemented, Libertarian rollback of
certain social programs would lead people to rot.
I am one of those people, and my big issue is education funding, so
I was glad that someone asked Mary about that. I have to say, her
answer was unsettling. She used Sesame Street as an example of what
would be available to people who could not avoid private school
tuition.
Now, leaving aside the fact that this is a program that airs with
government assistance, I tried to imagine a country in which our
worst-off children received their k-12 in front of edutainment TV
brought to you by Kix and Mattel.
I know our public school system is a mess (I do support vouchers,)
but Mary's answer reminded me of why, despite my other libertarian
leanings, I do not want to live in Libertopia.
|5.25.08 @ 11:16AM|#
The Nevada State Chair, Jim Duensing, appears to be a ringleader
of the LP Truthers.
As the former Chair, now a Ron Paul Republican, I can say that
Duensing is an person who claims he wants his state candidates to
be "moderate" as he defines it.
The Nevada LP is totally centered in Las Vegas and Pahrump
now.
Perhaps having a State Chair that claims to be a "moderate" while
organizing the LP Truthseekers is the reason.
Bob Barr was wise to not sign the petition.
|5.25.08 @ 11:21AM|#
Kendra--
Are you aware of the third world private school movement? The very
poorest people in India and Africa are turning to private education
because the public schools are so bad.
The market will find a way to help the poor get educated. Harlem
Prep was a better example for Ruwart to use than Sesame
Street.
If you support vouchers that is OK, but they might backfire if the
state uses them to regulate private schools.
There will be inexpensive private schools in a deregulated world,
and private charity for those who are absolutely too poor.
But, part of Libertopia will be that people will be more aware of
the responsibility that child rearing entails. The Catholic "God
will provide" approach to child rearing will be looked on less
favorably, I think.
Kendra|5.25.08 @ 12:14PM|#
Thanks for the response, libertree. I haven't really heard much
about what's going on in other countries, but I am familiar with
Harlem Prep. I'm very impressed with many of the charter schools
around here, too. Right now most kids receive government assistance
to attend those schools, and I just don't know what free market
incentive there is for anyone to replace those funds.
You are right that Mary could have used inexpensive private schools
as a more convincing example, though. I guess I was just taken
aback by the way she described television-based education as such a
great low-cost learning opportunity, as if it would somehow be an
adequate substitute for a classroom teaching environment of any
kind.
|5.25.08 @ 1:36PM|#
Kendra, the cost to educate a pupil in a public school is around
$4000 to $6000 a year (from memory, you'll have to look up current
numbers). I used to work in a private non-parochial school, and we
charged only $2000 per year.
The problem isn't how to fund private schools, that's the easy
part. Take away public schools, and cheaper and better private
schools will emerge in their place. Competition will increase
performance and lower prices. Despite claims to the contrary,
anarchy is not an option. We ahve to deal with government fingers
in our education whether we want it or not. Decentralizing
government back to the county level is still within the realm of
possibility, and we need to focus on it.
But what about the poor? There are several options. Vouchers are
one way, but they unfortunately come with government strings
attached. 100% tax credits are another way, usuable by anyone who
pays tuition, whether or not it's the parent. Or Friedman's idea of
a negative tax to replace all forms of welfare.
TallDave|5.25.08 @ 5:32PM|#
Right now most kids receive government assistance to attend
those schools, and I just don't know what free market incentive
there is for anyone to replace those funds.
Ideally, I think, the charter schools would compete to be chosen by
parents to have their kids schooled there. Teachers who didn't
perform would be fired because it would hurt the school's revenue,
schools that didn't perform would go bankrupt.
TallDave|5.25.08 @ 5:33PM|#
Oh, and to make this work you would have the schools paid through vouchers given to each parent, who would then decide where to allocate the funds based on who they believe would do the best job of educating their children.
Dave W.|5.26.08 @ 3:45AM|#
I have to say I would definitely watch a Youtube video of
physics vs. Truthers. Hammer meets skull results in demolition of
head.
Why doesn't it make a wave-like collapse that proceeds all the way
down through your body, pulverizing everything right down to the
soles of your shoes? How massive would the hammer need to be to
make that happen?
I don't think the Twin Towers were brought down by explosives, but:
(i) the collapse is not intuitive (even though people love to say
it is); and (ii) a better forensic investigation would have been a
very good thing. Re point (ii), I am left with the firm impression
that if there is a big enough fire in a modern skyscraper, then the
metal at the base will "soften" and the whole thing will be down in
a matter of hours. That seems like a problem that transcends
terrorism.
Dave W.|5.26.08 @ 4:14AM|#
OF COURSE it looked like demolition. The very structure of
the towers made it pull straight downwards. Sheesh...
Here is an experiment you can do at home. Plant a pipe cleaner in a
glob of silly putty so that the pipe cleaner if sticking straight
up like a flagpole. Now drop a heavy book onto the top of the pipe
cleaner. Drop the book as sqaurely down on the top end of the pipe
cleaner as you can.
Now lift the book to see what happened to the pipe cleaner. Did the
pipe cleaner smash straight down into the silly putty base,
demolition-style, or did it collapse a different way?
Like I said, this stuf is not intuitive.
|5.26.08 @ 5:33AM|#
I don't have the budget for the silly putty or pipe cleaner, but
intuition tells me that the pipe cleaner will "fold" into some
"random" pattern/direction, as it will "bend" rather than
"compress". I don't see how that's the same thing as the towers,
though.
Full disclosure: I am not a physicist or an engineer, although both
endeavors intrigue me and I have a subscription to SciAm. I am not
a "truther" although I watched 9/11: Loose Change with some
acquaintances.
|5.26.08 @ 10:22AM|#
Re point (ii), I am left with the firm impression that if
there is a big enough fire in a modern skyscraper, then the metal
at the base will "soften" and the whole thing will be down in a
matter of hours.
It's much less likely in a typical fire. Modern steel buildings
have spray applied fireproofing on the steel that gives them
protection for several hours. The difference in the WTC was the
plane crashing through the building which, more than likely,
stripped the fireproofing off of the steel.
Dave W.|5.26.08 @ 12:49PM|#
I don't have the budget for the silly putty or pipe cleaner,
but intuition tells me that the pipe cleaner will "fold" into some
"random" pattern/direction, as it will "bend" rather than
"compress". I don't see how that's the same thing as the towers,
though.
Okay, then do the same experiment but with mechanical pencil leads
instead of pipe cleaners.
Actually, I think I will make a video of this experiment at some
point and put the results up on the YouTube. Hopefully the pencil
leads will crumble straight down into the putty base, and not
travel laterally outwards, but if they do go sideways then it makes
my point that the support beams crumbling straight down into the
base, demolition-style, is not a matter of mere intuition as so
many people seem to think.
Stay tuned to the 9/11 conspiracy thds here at the HnR and
I will report back sometime in the next couple months.
Dave W.|5.26.08 @ 12:53PM|#
Modern steel buildings have spray applied fireproofing on
the steel that gives them protection for several hours. The
difference in the WTC was the plane crashing through the building
which, more than likely, stripped the fireproofing off of the
steel.
1. The skyscraper I am sitting in now is about as old as the Twin
Towers. Lots of them are. Some even older.
2. I have a hard time visualizing this theory of the shrapnel
shearing the fireproofing off of all the support beams, or even a
majority of them. Would have been nice to have some investigatory
findings on that issue. Absent that, I call bull....
|5.26.08 @ 1:58PM|#
Why doesn't it make a wave-like collapse that proceeds all the way down through your body, pulverizing everything right down to the soles of your shoes?
Because the human body is not constructed like the WTC buildings.
Duh. Neither is a pipecleaner. Duh. You really haven't read the
NIST report have you?
A better analogy is a house of cards. Build one 110 floors high,
and flick out a card from the 86 floor. It's going to collapse, and
it's going to collapse straight down. Why didn't the buildings
topple over on their sides? Because there was no lateral force to
do that. Gravity is perpendicular to the ground. Every fscking
video taken shows it collapsing from the top. When a tree is cut
and falls over on its side, it topples from the bottom, not from a
collapsing top.
|5.26.08 @ 2:56PM|#
Hopefully the pencil leads will crumble straight down into
the putty base, and not travel laterally outwards, but if they do
go sideways then it makes my point that the support beams crumbling
straight down into the base, demolition-style, is not a matter of
mere intuition as so many people seem to think.
The only thing that crumbled straight down was the building (which
is entirely expected -- buildings that size cannot do anything
else). The beams themselves did not "crumble straight down" (as
evidenced by the massive pile of them afterwards), nobody claims
they did, they do not do so in a demolition either. Therefore your
"experiment" is woefully inapt and your point entirely
invalid.
Further, nothing about the properties of graphite make it a
suitable substitute for studying the properties of steel, or more
laughably, building collapses.
Dave W.|5.26.08 @ 3:26PM|#
The only thing that crumbled straight down was the building
(which is entirely expected -- buildings that size cannot do
anything else). The beams themselves did not "crumble straight
down" (as evidenced by the massive pile of them afterwards), nobody
claims they did, they do not do so in a demolition either.
Therefore your "experiment" is woefully inapt and your point
entirely invalid.
Further, nothing about the properties of graphite make it a
suitable substitute for studying the properties of steel, or more
laughably, building collapses.
1. Leaning Tower of Pisa.
2. The support beams did fall substantially into the foot print of
its Tower. They did not fall laterally outwards to any substantial
degree.
3. Fine. Get yourself some steel wires, some plaster of paris and a
100 lb weight. Then how me how the wires fall right into their
base. Personally, I doubt you even be able to get the wires to
crack at all and the ends of your wires will end up even farther
out from the base than my pencil leads do.
4. If you want to get vertical, long beam-shaped compression
members to collapse into their own foot print by dropping a weight
on them from above, then you would probably need to make them out
of very crumbly clay or very brittle glass. Your experiment with
steel will not work out in your favour, I don't think.
Dave W.|5.26.08 @ 3:51PM|#
Further, nothing about the properties of graphite make it a
suitable substitute for studying the properties of steel, or more
laughably, building collapses.
One more thing:
My point isn't to prove that th buildings were demolished. My point
is to prove that the collapses are matters far outside the
intuition that living our quotidian lives afford us. My point is
that when someone says it is common sense that Towers must fall
straight down that it is not common sense at all. There probably is
some reason why steel pipe cleaners, or steel wires, collapse so
much differently than the beams of WTC1 and WTC2 did, but these
reasons are far outside the realm of common sense.
|5.26.08 @ 5:03PM|#
I've seen parts of a couple different documentaries on the WTC collapses. One on PBS. They both offered theories on the collapses, but best believe I can't remember many particulars.
Dave W.|5.26.08 @ 5:23PM|#
btw, my best guess as to what kept the vertical suport beams
from flying outward is that the horizontal members prevented them
from buckling over too long a portion of their total run down to
the ground. So, instead, they buckled more locally, maybe even
buckling within the vertical run of each floor for example. So
maybe there were 86 little buckles instead of one big buckle. OTOH,
this raises the question of why the collapse was so fast and did
not proceed in any sort of perceptible increments.
Whatever the ultimate truth of the collapses is, I am not going to
sit here and say that that is a matter of common sense. If the
theory in the previous para. about why the collapses were
essentially straight down turns out to be the true explanation,
then NIST should have explained it a lot better. If it was
something else entirely, then NIST should have explained that
better, too.
My guess is that NIST didn't even consider the issue, and, really,
that is the problem.
Antiglobalist|5.26.08 @ 5:38PM|#
We planed those explosives ourselves, when we occupied Afghanistan.
|5.27.08 @ 11:08AM|#
1. Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The tower leans because of differential settlement of the
underlying soils, not because of any structural deficiencies.
Actually given the amount the tower leans it's pretty amazing that
the structure is still standing.
Dave W.|5.27.08 @ 12:57PM|#
The tower leans because of differential settlement of the
underlying soils, not because of any structural deficiencies.
Actually given the amount the tower leans it's pretty amazing that
the structure is still standing.
Think of the soft soil as the severed columns, and the hard soil as
the columns not much compromised by the airplane crash. The tops of
the towers could have leaned over and then fallen off, away from
the footprint of the tower, like the leaning tower of pisa is doing
in slo-mo.
Going by intuition, that is what you would expect to happen.
But, like I keep trying to point out, our intuition is useless
here. The collapses are simply not in the realm of common
sense.
(except for the collapse of WTC7, which was clearly a
demolition)
Dave W.|5.27.08 @ 1:02PM|#
on a similar note, do you know how a tree falls when you chop
away at one side and not the other?
Right! That didn't happen with the twin towers.
|5.27.08 @ 4:52PM|#
Dave,
Soil is quite different from steel in structural properties.
There are different kinds of failure with soils. The tower suffers
from settlement, which can occur slowly over many years. If you
overload the soil quickly and cause a bearing capacity failure, the
structure would move downward in a relatively straight
fashion.
Here's a sketch of a theoretical
bearing capacity failure.
I have a picture here at the office that shows what a bearing
capacity failure looks like in a real situation. There was some
asymmetry to the failure but the general movement of the soil
stockpile that caused the failure was straight downward.
With a tree, when you cut a wedge you remove the support completely
from that section of tree, the tree falls toward the wedge.
In the WTC the loads arched around the damaged columns. Think of it
as a bridge with some string dangling from the middle. Which way
does the bridge fall?
Dave W.|5.28.08 @ 8:24AM|#
In the WTC the loads arched around the damaged
columns.
In one case the most damaged columns would have been at one corner.
In the other case they would have been at one side edge.
Intuitively, you would think that the partially severed top of the
tower would sag over the cut/melted/softened/whatever columns
(where the fireballs were), causing the tower top to tilt and the
intact columns to bend or buckle in a direction toward the damaged
columns.
Furthermore, once this tilting got started, you would intuitively
think that this is how the towers would fall because beams are far
more resistant to compressive crushing than they are to bending
forces. Once that bending gets started, the "moment arm" increases
because of the deformation of the beam, and, assuming a constant
load, things will go from bad to worse rather quick as the constant
load works a greater and greater moment with the bending of the
beam.
Now, obviously, this is not what happened.
To answer you question about dangling a string from a bridge -- I
have seen this happen in real life. It is called fishing. Sometimes
the people dangling the strings catch fish and sometimes they
don't. In all cases, the bridge just sits there over the water,
motionless and impassive.
|5.28.08 @ 5:39PM|#
Think for a moment though of how localized the bending could be
(and it likely was). If the towers failed the way the report says,
first the floor trusses failed. The trusses tie the exterior
columns to the interior columns. If the trusses failed the exterior
columns would lose any horizontal support they had from the
trusses. The bending moment would increase, but only in the area
where the trusses failed. The columns would certainly buckle but in
a relatively small zone (maybe the distance between two floors.
Once the columns bend and fail in that local area the building
would start to collapse.
You also have to consider that the columns were likely design with
a factor of safety of 2 or 3. That means that half or more of the
columns could be removed and the tower could still stand. Even with
damaged columns the structure could resist the loads put on the
remaining columns. It was the fire that compromised the structure.
Once the steel got hot enough it was weakened enough to fail.
The best way to think of it is like the game Jenga. If you pull a
block out of the stack fast enough, the blocks above would fall
straight down, not topple.
Actually, best demonstration. Stand on an empty aluminum can. The
have someone poke at one spot on the can. What happens? It
collapses and you fall straight down. The can may bend and tilt
slightly but your inertia causes you to fall straight down.
Beth|5.29.08 @ 11:35AM|#
It is apparent from the conversation in this blog that there are
still unanswered questions about the events of 9/11.
Libertarians For Justice makes no assumptions about who was behind
the events on that day, nor on how these events took place. A
publicly conducted Congressional inquiry, with full subpoena power
is necessary to answer your questions and to seek justice.
Libertarians for Justice Founding Member and longtime expert
researcher Dr. Stephen Jones, has published a PEER REVIEWED
scientific analysis resulting in 14 Points of Agreement with
Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center
Destruction.
You may read the full article here:
http://www.libertariansforjustice.org/?q=node/29
This evidence is further proof of the need for an investigation.
Libertarians For Justice demands a publicly conducted Congressional
inquiry, with full subpoena power into not just the WTC collapses
questioned here, but into all five crime scenes.
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