Loose Change - Part III

[kookbreaker]

The single strongest point, if true, is their claim that no other skyscraper has ever collapsed due to fire, and as part of that their claim that fires have burned significantly longer, and over a significantly greater number of floors, in the recent past.

If you look at the history of skyscrapers, you may find that there are perhaps 6 or 7 which had raging, threatening fires. Sure, any (and perhaps most) skyscrapers can have a small blaze, or even a decent burn that takes a couple of hours to put out. But fires that go on for 6+ hours? You geta very low number with that.

The ones I am aware of are:

Meridian Plaza in Philadelphia.
WTC1
WTC2
WTC7
Hilton hotel in Madrid.

Now the Madrid Hilton was concrete with a partial steel structure. Completely different design from any of the WTC buildings that collapsed. The steel portion of that building in fact did collapse. The concrete portion remained standing. This is a detail often overlooked by conspiracy theorists, since they need to compare apples to oranges to score any points.

The Meridian Plaza was another nasty blaze that claimed the lives of three firemen. The fires in that building were constantly fought (unlike WTC7), and even when internal firefighting efforts were abandoned (due to the fear of pancake collapse) the external hose was constantly pumping water. Add to this the concrete over steel structure gave the Meridian several advantages over WTC7. But even with those advantages the building came darn close to collapse. Photos from the inside show massively sagging columns on the verge of failing. Structural engineers who went in to examine the damage really didn't want to stay in there very long. The building needed to be braced before it could be brought down, piece by piece. In another example of CT ineptitude, several CT sites mentioning these fires say the Meridian is 'still standing'.

 

[Brainster]

How about, The Terrorist's Alibi ?

Or Osama's Apologists

Dingdingding! Osama's Apologists it is. Also applies to denial of the confession video. Now, can anybody come up with something sharp and pithy for the bumper sticker?

9-11 Conspiracists Do It With Videos
Loose Change = Loose Brains

Or, you know:

Screw Loose Change

It is rather pithy.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

I got bored of BF2 because it was too easy.

http://bf2tracker.com/bf2_userprofile.php?bf2id=44085570

Damn... I suck.

http://bf2s.com/player/44597943/

 

[60hzxtl]

Dingdingding! Osama's Apologists it is. Also applies to denial of the confession video. Now, can anybody come up with something sharp and pithy for the bumper sticker?

9-11 Conspiracists Do It With Videos
Loose Change = Loose Brains

Or, you know:

Screw Loose Change

It is rather pithy.

The Film So Good We Have to Give it Away!

 

[Pardalis]

The single strongest point, if true, is their claim that no other skyscraper has ever collapsed due to fire, and as part of that their claim that fires have burned significantly longer, and over a significantly greater number of floors, in the recent past.

I think the NIST report is extremely convincing.

The second strongest point I thought is that it would be extremely difficult to fly a large passenger jet plane into the Pentagon, that it would make a significantly larger hole than it did, and that we would have significantly more publicly available video and photographic evidence of the large passenger plane flying into the Pentagon.

But a plane did hit the Pentagon, multiple eye witnesses say so, and the crew and passengers' DNA was recovered in the Pentagon. You can't get better evidence than that.

Although this isn't part of their argument, I also have an open mind about the weakest possible version of a 911 conspiracy narrative: the "Pearl Harbor" angle

I think it's the most probable theory of the CTs, but it remains highly speculative.

 

[gumboot]

If you look at the history of skyscrapers, you may find that there are perhaps 6 or 7 which had raging, threatening fires. Sure, any (and perhaps most) skyscrapers can have a small blaze, or even a decent burn that takes a couple of hours to put out. But fires that go on for 6+ hours? You geta very low number with that.

There's something misleading about the entire "fire" thing.

The reality is multi-storey buildings of various designs DO suffer total collapse. The causes vary.

I just thought I should mention one:

On May 10, ten years ago, the worst factory fire in history took place at the Kader Industrial toy factory on the outskirts of the Thai capital of Bangkok. Officially 188 workers, most of them young women from impoverished rural families, died in the blaze. Another 469 were injured; many seriously and permanently, after they were forced to leap from second, third and fourth floors of the buildings to avoid being burnt to death.

Hundreds of workers were packed into each of the three buildings that collapsed. There were no fire extinguishers, no alarms, no sprinkler systems and the elevated walkways between the buildings were either locked or used as storage areas. The buildings themselves were death traps, constructed from un-insulated steel girders that buckled and gave way in less than 15 minutes. Those who attempted to flee through the narrow ground floor exits found them jammed shut.

my bolding.

What we have here is three multi-storey STEEL buildings that suffered TOTAL COLLAPSE in LESS THAN 15 MINUTES purely due to fire.

Then there's this:

Rescuers found four more survivors under the rubble of a shopping mall today, nearly 11 1/2 days after the building caved in on more than 1,000 people, officials at the Home Ministry said...

...United States military experts searched with sound detectors in what had been a five-story wing of the shopping complex...

Sometimes you don't need fire...

There are others...

1998 Rome, Italy - 5 storey block of flats collapses
1999 Foggia, Italy, 5 storey block of flats collapses

Buildings don't suffer total collapse very often, so one cannot expect any given particular type of construction to have suffered very many total collapses due to one particular cause (especially when that cause itself is a very rare event).

What we can tell, from looking through a history of building disasters, is buildings made of concrete, steel, brick, wood, or a combination, DO suffer universal pancake collapses. Sometimes due to fire, sometimes due to structural failings, sometimes due to earthquakes, sometimes due to terrorist bombs, sometimes due to air crashes, sometimes due to weather, sometimes due to a combination...

There's plenty to choose from.

Here's a nice online list of incidents... Note how many mention "collapse". Note the range of causes.

This is a very small list - I downloaded an excel document categorising 692 major incidents between 1902 and 2005.

-Andrew

 

[brodski]

I am quitting that Nineleven.co.uk board.

All I ask is evidence that bombs were in the buildings, and instead they start asking me about gag orders or that Bush was part of Skull and Bones. I show the firefighter quotes, and they still go off-topic.

I can't debate with morons like that. It's not good for my health and I rather be playing Quake 4. If this is what the majority of people think in Europe, it's no wonder that it's a mess right now. They have Muslims praising Osama Bin Laden and wishing for more attacks in their cities, while they sit on a message board debating about 9/11 being a coverup with no indisputable evidence. I really like their priorities

don't assume that the view on the nineeleven.co.uk are any more representative of the views held by Europeans than the loose change boards are representative of the views held by Americans.

 

[PopeTom]

Why not wear "Investigate Dylan Avery" shirts?

I think Gravy would be better served wearing a "I'm with stupid" shirt if he plans on sticking close to Mr. Avery.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

I'm guessing my pre-coffee pissyness will have earned me suspensions on a couple of forums today:
nineeleven.co.uk

Since it seems clear that rather than have an evidence based discussion you would rather limit/silence dissent I'll leave you to your little Osama apologist/9-11 denier forum. If, however, you want to engage in actual discussion over the evidence feel free to come to the JREF forums http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums - we don't relegate dissenting views to sub-forums.

LC

QUOTE (Ijon Tichy @ Jul 23 2006, 03:20 AM)

QUOTE (eeyore1954 @ Jul 23 2006, 02:01 AM)
I believe I believe these thing not because i am a government apologist or a Bush lackey or a naive sheeple.

Fixed.

Well, if you get to imply eeyore1954 is a government apologist since eeyore1954 doesn't agree with your take, then that means I must get to call you an Osama apologist.

 

[MarkyX]

I think Gravy would be better served wearing a "I'm with stupid" shirt if he plans on sticking close to Mr. Avery.

I was just about to suggest that.

 

[Belz...]

How do.

You do.

 

[Belz...]

There's something misleading about the entire "fire" thing.

[...]

This is a very small list - I downloaded an excel document categorising 692 major incidents between 1902 and 2005.

-Andrew

Very interesting post, Gum.

As usual.

 

[delphi_ote]

This is a very small list - I downloaded an excel document categorising 692 major incidents between 1902 and 2005

Do you remember where you got it or is there some way I could get access to it? I'm very curious.

 

[Johnny Pixels]

Shouldn't the British campaign be for 11/9 truth? Or was there somekind of disaster in November that I missed?

I'm thinking about joining the forum, because I'm still suspended/banned/whatevered from the LC forum.

Just..have..to..remain..calm..and...objective...

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Shouldn't the British campaign be for 11/9 truth? Or was there somekind of disaster in November that I missed?

I'm thinking about joining the forum, because I'm still suspended/banned/whatevered from the LC forum.

Just..have..to..remain..calm..and...objective...

You really don't want to do that.

 

[gumboot]

First post.

I'm a bit behind the times (technically I'm well ahead...time zones and all...) but welcome!

I did manage to read every post in this thread (every post of all three parts, I should say)

*dies*

Well done!

-Andrew

 

[gumboot]

Do you remember where you got it or is there some way I could get access to it? I'm very curious.

Hoorah for Firefox "properties" function...

here it is

Note... this link takes you directly to the Excel file itself, so most likely your computer will try to download automatically...

I'd also like to point out the number of "other structure" collapses - most of them appear to be sports stadiums of some kind or another - there's a lot of them collapsing.

It just seems to be the CT claims about "no all-steel high-rise has ever suffered complete collapse before from fire" is too narrow an event to expect to have ever happened before...

Not to mention the flaws in the logic "this hasn't happened before, so it couldn't possibly have happened".

Take a story my friend loves to tell me:

A turkey is born on a farm in the United States. Every morning, the farmer comes in and gives the turkey some feed, and leaves again. This progresses throughout the turkey's life. Every morning, in comes the farmer with some feed. Over and over. Every day.

Then one day the farmer comes in as usual, but this time he has an axe. The turkey has no idea what's going on. WACK. Everything goes dark. No more turkey.

From the turkey's point of view, there was no possible way, what-so-ever that something like that could have happened. Nothing in the turkey's experience had indicated such an event was even possible.

Yet from the farmer's point of view, it was Thanksgiving. And he does that EVERY year.

Hence we can see the inherrent flaw in assuming something didn't happen just because it hadn't ever happened BEFORE this particular event.

-Andrew

 

[gumboot]

Shouldn't the British campaign be for 11/9 truth? Or was there somekind of disaster in November that I missed?

Here it's the 12/9 Terrorist Attacks... Just doesn't have the same ring to it.

-Andrew

 

[Regnad Kcin]

Love the turkey/farmer illustration, gumboot!

 

[delphi_ote]

Hoorah for Firefox "properties" function...

here it is

Note... this link takes you directly to the Excel file itself, so most likely your computer will try to download automatically...

Wow. That is great, gumboot. Thanks a lot!

If anyone is curious as to the source of the material, it is this group:

The Emergency Planning College is situated at the heart of Government, within the Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) of the Cabinet Office.

The College Organisation Chart sets out the management and operational structure.

Since 1989, it has been the Government's centre for running short seminars, workshops and courses on an inter–agency basis in the field of crisis management and emergency planning. Its diverse and dynamic programme attracts in excess of six thousand delegates per year from a wide range of backgrounds providing a national forum for discussion and the sharing of good practice.

The U.K. government! I knew it! I'm sure this is just a list of buildings they were blowing up as test cases for 9/11.