Merged Has this structural engineer been debunked? / Astaneh-Asl "melting of girders"

RedIbis said:
...or could someone point me to one of Gravy's links, where this has been debunked?


"Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, who specializes in studying structural damage done by earthquakes and terrorist bombings. He flew to New York on September 19, 2001 to conduct a two-week reconnaissance of the collapsed towers, hoping to gain an understanding of how they'd come down. He was able to examine numerous pieces of steel taken from Ground Zero. [1]"

Lace up your debunking boots, here's his findings:

http://911blogger.com/node/14062
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Do you have a link to the professor's findings, as opposed to the link to somebody else's interpretation of those findings that you posted?
 
I was going to remind Bill of standard Truther operating procedure: When backed into a corner, disappear for a few days, then come back and pretend the whole thing never happened.

Looks like he's already with the program, though.
 
tfk said:
This isn't the place for a giant derail. Perhaps I'll start a thread.

But B&W ain't a bunch of villains, any more than NIST is. They are an engineering business firm, made up of engineers, techs, accountants, project managers, executives, etc., with all the good & bad that comes with that territory.

They know that, if they produce crap that fails. then they are going to be gone in a few years. And everyone will be out of work.

The industry made a bunch of serious mistakes. Principally, in the US, they never settled on a single design like some other countries. Which meant that each plant was unique. And that left a lot of room for operator error.

But let's look at any industry, say "Grammar School Teachers". They start out as a bunch of people trying to do a job. They've got good teachers & bad teachers. The honorable administrators recognizes this & put in a plan to track the indicators of bad teachers - e.g., students failing or routinely getting beat up by the teacher or whatever, (both of which was looked upon as a necessity & a GOOD thing in my high school!) - in order to improve training or to weed out the bad teachers.

Good things thus far, right?

But some groups of people (call 'em "GST Truthers") decided that Grammar Schools were simply evil institutions. And they decided to try to put them out of business. And thru various legal means, they got their hands on those reports. And started waving them around as proof of what an evil, incompetent organization Grammar School Teachers is.

And so the GSTTs pressed, and won, legislation that required PUBLIC disclosure every time something went wrong in the classroom. Whether or not it had any impact on safety or efficacy of teaching...

"ran out of crayons"
"Billy dropped a book"
"Suzy tripped"
"Alex wet his pants"
"Ran out of attendance sheets"

And the GSTTs got those reports & would regularly use them to try to shut your school down.

At this point, the whole "incident reporting process" has gotten perverted. It's gone from a process whose primary purpose was to help improve the organization, to one whose primary purpose is to kill it.

Under those work pressures, the system is guaranteed to fail.

We discussed the exact same pathological process here, in another thread. The aviation industry had a process in place to anonymously report unsafe conditions or events. The process got perverted. It was used for a variety of different purposes, like union pressure to renegotiate contracts. Lots of squawks shut your airline down. When one airline started using non-union pilots in the 80s, the number of reported "incidents" against just that airlines pilots skyrocketed. It was not because of unsafe pilots.

Mistakes happen. Some people try to use those mistakes to improve things. Others have far less admirable agendas. And the Regulatory Agencies are caught in the middle. And become principally Politics Driven. And that is scary.

I'd conclude with a few observations.

The accusations against the nuke regulatory agencies are identical to the accusations against NIST & the 9/11 Commission.

The accusations of "cover-up" against government reports of incidents, like 3 Mile Island, are identical to the accusations against the NIST Report & the 9/11 Commission Report.

The distrust & dismissal of recognized, proven experts in industry, academia & government is identical in both cases.

And the willingness, (wrong word) "ENTHUSIASM" with which the media quote "experts" who gave them the most sensational sound-bite in the anti-nuke news reports of the 70s is very similar to the 9-11 truther web site nonsense.

In both of these cases (& 100 more - Global warming, energy policy, regulation/deregulation, medical practice/malpractice, vaccines/autism, silicone breast implants, high tension wires/leukemia, agent orange, etc) there are several common denominators:

Professionals trying to do their jobs
Customers, whose quality of life depends to some extent on the product
"Motivated" individuals with causes that define their lives
Sensational media trying to improve ratings
Politicians trying to keep their job or unseat an opponent
Lawyers getting rich in the middle

And a public that generally doesn't know to whom to turn for prudent advice & lacks the epistemology needed to help the unravel the mystery.

Just my $0.02.

Tom
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Indeed, however, I was just referring to their new modular nuclear power plants. :D
 
tfk said:
Go check out an interesting company called Hyperion.


Tom
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3bodyproblem said:
Check out Babcock Wilcox too.
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Hyperion and B&W were at the Canadian Nuclear Society annual conference in Calgary back in June.

Hyperion gave one of the more interesting presentations (along with General Atomics and a couple others) as there is some really exciting work being done in the field of small, portable reactors.

In asked the Hyperion presenter during the Q&A if their design was airliftable (or even launchable for space-based applications like mars ships and moon bases) and he said theoretically, but any work done in that regard would be classified (thier work is partly funded by the DoD). An answer I took as "Hell yeah!"

A powerplant that can light a small city for ten years and can fit in a C-17 gives you the ability to do some really amazing things.
 
tfk said:
I didn't know that they were developing one. Cool.

I feel like Emily Litella...

"Nevermind..."

:blush:
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lol, it was still something that needed to be said. This thread is probably as good as any other to point out the similarities between the Truth Movement and other reactionaries.

I wouldn't underestimate the damage they could do if they were allowed to continue unabated. They might not have a direct effect on our progress as a society like anti-nuke, but they could set precedent. If they were allowed to continue with this disinfo campaign and cast doubt on the scientific merit of NIST, what's to say it couldn't spread to other areas? It's not really about 9/11 anymore. It's about critical thinking, science and skepticism. It's important for people like bill smith and bardamu to see people, professional or otherwise, that aren't part of the "establishment" applying critical thinking to what the government sponsors. It's essential we separate politics from science. At the same time it's foolish to blindly follow either. The Truth Movement is a perfect example of why this is so.
 
3bodyproblem said:
They might not have a direct effect on our progress as a society like anti-nuke, but they could set precedent. .
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I'm sure. From now on, whenever the government investigates something, they have to specifically state that there were no nukes, space lasers, or sooper-seekret thermite involved.
 
bill smith said:
You didn't find this phrase hilarious ? '' No one should use that specific quote "molten metal" out of context, to indicate that I have seen molten metal ''

How do you take a tightly descriptive phrase like 'molten metal ' out of context ?
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bill smith said:
Try to be more specific Al. If You cannot show where I am wrong in the last post that must confirm that I am right and that not only is Dr.A-Asl's statement hilarious it is manifestly ridiculous.
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I'm sorry I'm late, but personally I'd like to be "specific" about it.

You simply used cherry-picking at its best by ignoring half of the sentence.

What this man said was :
No one should use that specific quote "molten metal" out of context, to indicate that I have seen molten metal and then use my good name and reputation as a researcher to conclude that there was a conspiracy.

"indicate" refers to the whole bolded part. Do you really expect the readers will not see you for the troll you are when you pretend that most of it doesn't exist ?
 
bill smith said:
How do you take a tightly descriptive phrase like 'molten metal ' out of context ?
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Lak said:
I'm sorry I'm late, but personally I'd like to be "specific" about it.

You simply used cherry-picking at its best by ignoring half of the sentence.

What this man said was :
No one should use that specific quote "molten metal" out of context, to indicate that I have seen molten metal and then use my good name and reputation as a researcher to conclude that there was a conspiracy.

"indicate" refers to the whole bolded part. Do you really expect the readers will not see you for the troll you are when you pretend that most of it doesn't exist ?
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Or, if you are Richard Gage, you simply lie about things.

I was not surprised to hear Gage claim, on his radio debate with Ron Craig this month, that Leslie Robertson says that he saw "molten steel" under the towers ...

... even tho Mr. Robertson himself famously denies that.

THAT is how truthers use "molten metal" and "molten steel" out of context.


Tom
 
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Tfk.

(edited to fix the mistake)
There CLAIM that Leslie Robertson stated there was molten steel in the pile. Of course it was written like two weeks after the collapse.

I'm not sure of the reference, but I have read it. He did make that statement. I"m sure one of the local truthers will trot it out to try to slam you on it.

ETA: Found it.

But 9/11 myths also has a good thorough debunking of it too.
http://www.911myths.com/html/wtc_molten_steel.html

Robertson state he didn't say molten steel, and the notes show he said molten metal
http://www.911myths.com/NCSEA_oct_5_2001_Leslie_Robertson_s_lecture__notes_by_James_Williams.pdf
 
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tfk said:
Or, if you are Richard Gage, you simply lie about things.

I was not surprised to hear Gage claim, on his radio debate with Ron Craig this month, that Leslie Robertson says that he saw "molten steel" under the towers .../
... even tho Mr. Robertson himself famously denies that.

THAT is how truthers use "molten metal" and "molten steel" out of context.


Tom
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Do you have a link ? I'll put it in the ' Notable Retractions' file along with other luminaries such as the good Dr.A.-Asl and even I believe Mark Loiseaux the head of controlled demolitions inc who had also reported seeing molten steel after 9/11.
 
bill smith said:
Do you have a link ? I'll put it in the ' Notable Retractions' file along with other luminaries such as the good Dr.A.-Asl and even I believe Mark Loiseaux the head of controlled demolitions inc who had also reported seeing molten steel after 9/11.
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You believe?

Maybe you should find out.
 
bill smith said:
Do you have a link ? I'll put it in the ' Notable Retractions' file along with other luminaries such as the good Dr.A.-Asl and even I believe Mark Loiseaux the head of controlled demolitions inc who had also reported seeing molten steel after 9/11.
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Here ya go.

Mr. Bryan:

I didn't personally see molten steel at the World Trade Center site. It was reported to me by contractors we had been working with. Molten steel was encountered primarily during excavation of debris around the South Tower when large hydraulic excavators were digging trenches 2 to 4 meters deep into the compacted/burning debris pile. There are both video tape and still photos of the molten steel being "dipped" out by the buckets of excavators. I'm not sure where you can get a copy.

Sorry I cannot provide personal confirmation.

Regards,
==========================

Mark Loizeaux, President
CONTROLLED DEMOLITION, INC.
2737 Merryman's Mill Road
Phoenix, Maryland USA 21131
Tel: 1-410-667-xxxx
Fax: 1-410-667-6624
www.controlled-demolition.com

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.a...e?dmode=source
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aggle-rithm said:
I'm sure. From now on, whenever the government investigates something, they have to specifically state that there were no nukes, space lasers, or sooper-seekret thermite involved.
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I would personally like purple unicorns ruled out first.
 
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