MM once again you completely misrepresent Jim Millette.
I directly confronted him on everything you talk about here.
I asked him what he would do if he found thermite and he said, "If I find it I'll publish it." He also said he is used to presenting results his clients did not like.
Regarding the EPA, he reported dangerous Ph readings and a veritable witches' brew of toxic substances in the dust, which were praised by Cate Jenkins and used as honest measurements in her allegations against the EPA (hear that, Kevin Ryan?). In so doing he also completely contradicted the government claim that the air was safe to breathe a couple weeks after 9/11.
And BTW, he recommended to me people at other labs who could do DSC tests on the chips. He didn't have one in the office, but that would not have stopped him from doing the test if he thought it would be of any value.
He said that he found no thermite in the chips using standard forensic tests, and if the thermitic paper authors wanted to say the chips were incendieries they would have to come up with a new hypothesis about whast these chips are "because they are not thermite."
As for your mockery of my campfire experiment, if YOU had a sincere interest you would like to know if iron-rich microspheres can be found in a regular campfire.
That's the only question I am trying to answer. And again, my hypothesis is that we will not find them there. But we may both be wrong. You are setting the experiment up to be discounted in advance of it even being done, just in case we DO find the microspheres there.
It is not insincerity that keeps me from wasting Millette's time with asking his opinion of Dave Thomas's work.
And I'd really appreciate your revoking the accusation that Millette did a DSC test and didn't report the results. That IS NOT TRUE.
What IS true is that Kevin Ryan's FTIR results and Jeff Farrer's TEM results were not published or released.
You can be soooooo irritating.
You owe us an apology or at least a revocation of that accusation.
On one matter we do agree. I admire the courage of Kevin Ryan, Niels Harrit, Steven Jones, Richard Gage, etc. They have all paid a high price for publicly taking the stands that they have. But that does not make them right. Still, taking a strong stand for what they believe in, is a human attribute that is rare and which I support. Because sometimes people with that kind of courage are right.
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He didn't have one [DSC] in the office his laboratory, but that would not have stopped him from doing the test if he thought it would be of any value."
DR. MILLETTE DID NOT NEED A DSC TO PERFORM A ~430C HEAT TEST!
You know that. It has been pointed out repeatedly here, yet you persist in using it as a fallback argument.
His laboratory is equipped with a muffle furnace which he chose to use in a restricted fashion (he heated samples to 400C instead of ~430C). It is quite adequate for producing testable residue comparable to that highlighted in the 2009 Bentham paper.
The argument made for why he did not use the 430C heat is that it would have destroyed the sample.
It was then pointed out that once he finished collecting data from his 400C-treated samples, he had no scientific argument for not further heating all or some of that material to ~430C.
By your account, Dr. Millette was supposedly looking to retire, yet was supposedly keenly interested in this investigation.
All too conveniently, he became far too busy to publish his work, or spend a few minutes heating up his no longer needed samples for a quick peek under the microscope.
Unlike yourself, I very much doubt Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein would have been satisfied with such an oddly apathetic response.
The absurdity of your campfire hypothesis is the most desperate red herring I've seen in this thread. It is simply not worthy of more than the briefest of discussion. If you really think it is so worthwhile, why don't you make your own damn campfire instead of asking others to submit their leftovers?
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It is not insincerity that keeps me from wasting Millette's time with asking his opinion of Dave Thomas's work."
Really?
Do you think Dr. Millette is unqualified?
Everyone here opines about the quality and methodology of the work performed by Dr. Harrit et al.
Certainly, I would not expect Dr. Millette to waste his time investigating the quality of Dave Thomas's work.
But, I do believe it would only take him a brief moment to express his opinion about Dave's "trash barrel methodology".
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And I'd really appreciate your revoking the accusation that Millette did a DSC test and didn't report the results. That IS NOT TRUE."
Of course it is not true!
I NEVER SAID IT.
A
heat test does not equate to only a DSC test. You have made it perfectly clear that Dr. Millette does not possess a DSC.
Because he had the means, a muffle furnace, the no how, the time, and the intense interest, I
hypothesized that he "likely" did a further heat test.
If it was an expensive, complex, time consuming test, I could better believe he didn't take a peek.
Regardless, his conclusion that his selected samples were a form of primer paint precludes any match with the highlighted material in the 2009 Bentham paper.
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What IS true is that Kevin Ryan's FTIR results and Jeff Farrer's TEM results were not published or released."
No one said they were published but I have seen a public release of Kevin Ryan's FTIR results. Regarding Dr. Farrer's TEM results being released to the public, I am not sure what you are referring to or how it changes what is already known.
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You owe us an apology or at least a revocation of that accusation."
For the reasons I've given, I still do not owe you an apology or revocation Chris.
It wasn't a lot of my money, but when Dr. Millette accepted it, I and others here became a
stakeholders in his still unpublished endeavour.
Promises to test the findings of the 2009 Bentham paper remain broken, and the excuses for not performing the simple 430C heat test are extremely weak.
On Jan.24, 2012, a month before Dr. Millette presented a report on his findings, you posted:
"Here are some things that came up in my most recent conversation with Dr. Jim Millette, who is already well along in his study of the WTC dust:
His [Dr. Millette's] intention is to replicate the tests done in the Bentham study... The Bentham paper does not report on having done a normal environmental forensic study of the components so Dr. Millette will do that, plus everything they did, plus other tests as needed.
And before we re-visit the argument that Dr. Millette did not find proof of
unicorns thermite because none was observed, it is very important to note that it has been well argued that Dr. Millette must have worked on similar but different red chips from the many kinds found in the 9/11 WTC dust.
As you know, there are significant differences between the chips Dr. Millette examined and those highlighted in the 2009 Bentham paper.
MILLETTE SAMPLE
- electrical resistivity not measured
- small amounts of titanium found on the surface of a clean slice
- when soaked in MEK for 55 hours the red layer was softened
- when soaked in MEK for 55 hours the red layer did not release any particles
- when heated to 400C and studied, no microspheroids of any kind were found
- when heated to ~430C... results remain unknown as Dr. Millette refused stakeholder requests to perform this simple but critical test, deeming it unnecessary.
"Here, I can agree with you[MM]. Millette can do this simple experiment. Only I doubt that he can really explain expected microspheres in the "ash" in detail
(which processes exactly took place), but I can be wrong
This is just my opinion."
- reference test showed low electrical resistivity
- zero titanium was found on the surface of a clean slice
- when soaked in MEK for 55 hours the red layer did not soften like paint
- when soaked in MEK for 55 hours the red layer showed a significant migration and segregation of aluminum
- some of this aluminum was found to be elemental form
- at 400C no microspheroids have been discovered to exist
- when heated to ~430C and studied, iron-rich microspheroids were found
- when heated to ~430C red chips found to be thermitic ignited with a strong exothermic peak
As a
stakeholder in that research performed by Dr. Millette, I feel entitled to challenge his decision to stop short on his testing, especially since he has not published his findings or addressed the discrepancies that exist between the 9/11 WTC dust samples he chose to test and those highlighted in the 2009 Bentham paper.
MM
