<p>But we can prevent it from happening again. Thats the good thing. BTW, you are a very articulate person. Kudos to you.</p>
<p>We can prevent disasters to an extent. We'll never have complete security as long as we wish to have liberties. And that's fine with me. </p>
<p>And thank you.</p>
<p>You can never reduce the threat of a terrorist attack to zero. Honestly, I think 9/11, tragedy though it is, has been overhyped by the government and media. The actual threat of a terrorist attack does not justify the toil it places on our collective national psyche.</p>
<p>Seconded fully.</p>
<p>sponging off uclari's argument wont get you anywhere</p>
<p>"So you mean to tell me that the same government that couldn't keep a minor sex scandal (Foley) under wraps has managed to keep up what would be a conspiracy on the scale of the "Illuminati?"</p>
<p>Obviously a lot of the conspiracy theorists are pointing the finger to bush et al. I think that's overly simplistic. Anyway, the 'why' is in the realm of theory and speculation.</p>
<p>I prefer to stick to the evidence. As with any crime. Think about it: when detectives investigate a murder, they FIRST LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE. It doesn't matter what they think. It doesn't matter if they think a certain suspect could have done it or would have done it. They have to base their hypothesis on the EVIDENCE.</p>
<p>That's what the people at scholarsfor911truth are doing. They are legitimizing the movement with their intelligent assessment of the facts.</p>
<p>So sure, go ahead and be skeptical. Healthy skepticism is fine. Being closed-minded is not fine. Refusing to look at the evidence because one does not WANT to believe it is not fine. True scientific analysis means being willing to look at all the angles of an issue with an open mind.</p>
<p>As for the professors at the scholarsfor911truth site, I didn't say they were ALL specialized physics professors. But you will see an assortment of scholars, including forensics specials, structural engineers, etc. from reputable places like UT Austin, Rice, BYU, etc. as well as former NASA & military officers, etc. </p>
<p>Anyway, that's really irrelevant, because we only need basic high-school-level math and science to figure out that the official story is bogus. Getting back to the evidence, it's simply not possible for the towers to have fallen at freefall speed because of the floors collapsing on themselves; that would have slowed them down because of resistance. The only explanation for freefall speed is controlled demolition.</p>
<p>So...now that we have the evidence (the speed of collapse) for controlled demolition, the NEXT questions are 'who' and 'why.'</p>
<p>There is much, MUCH more evidence beyond the freefall issue. That's just the obvious, glaring one.</p>
<p>A new journal containing more peer-reviewed papers presenting research regarding 9/11/2001 is available here:
<a href="http://www.journalof911studies.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.journalof911studies.com/</a></p>
<p>Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?
by Steven E. Jones</p>
<p>You're missing the point.</p>
<p>It DOES matter what type of "experts" you're deferring to. There are very few structural engineers involved with that site, and those who have reviewed the evidence have largely agreed that the popular theory makes sense.</p>
<p>This has nothing to do with being "closed-minded." It has everything to do with having limited time and energy into reading what is likely to be fruitless. This is why I never bothered getting into the moon landing conspiracy writings: I can basically gather that they're absolute crap. I don't need to read them to know that.</p>
<p>Once again, you're not getting it, I think: conspiracies never pan out for long. Why is this time any different?</p>
<p>
[quote]
A new journal containing more peer-reviewed papers presenting research regarding 9/11/2001 is available here:
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is a joke. You're kidding me, right? It's "peer-reviewed?" More like, "We all submit our writings to a group of like-minded people and gush over how smart we are." This is about as peer reviewed as Creationist journals. It's not.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?
by Steven E. Jones</p>
[/quote]
</a></p>
<p>Broken link.</p>
<p>"The towers canpacked down because the structural support on certain floors FAILED, causing the weight of the entire building to come down on the rest of the building. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Planes cant melt steel, but they sure as hell can weaken it to the point that it cant support tons of weight, thus causing a collapse..."</p>
<p>With all due respect, zip, you are showing your ignorance. Pancaking could not have caused the floors to fall at FREEFALL speed. Freefall speed means ZERO resistance. That's what was required for the towers to fall in 10 seconds and WTC7 in 6.point.something seconds. You can verify these times in the official 911 Commission report:</p>
<p>Page 322 (actual page 322 of pdf, labeled page 305) of the official 911 Commission Report states:</p>
<p>From 9:59 until 10:28 A.M.
At 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds,</p>
<p>There is also evidence that the steel could not possible have gotten hot enough to melt SIMULTANEOUSLY and UNIFORMLY. In other words, if some steel had melted, you would have seen buckling and leaning. But no, what we saw was a 100% FREEFALL - no resistance. Now tell me how that is possible without controlled demolition.</p>
<p>Then, read Dr. Jones' peer-reviewed paper on the evidence of thermite. And explain how that could have happened from jet fuel.</p>
<p>No politics here. Just forensic evidence and simple math and science.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Then, read Dr. Jones' peer-reviewed paper
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Peer-reviewed by whom? More like minded people? Or the greater structural engineering community?</p>
<p>I never bothered with the moon-conspiracy stuff either. Or UFO stuff either. Why? Because they are irrelevant to me.</p>
<p>This, however, is different. A war has been started because of 911. People are dying. I have a son who just turned 18. I see that you are getting past the peak draft age, so maybe you are not concerned.</p>
<p>But some of us are.</p>
<p>What if...just WHAT IF you are wrong? Is it not worth 1 or 2 hours of your life to just be open-minded enough to consider the possbility that this stuff is true?</p>
<p>And, if you are implying that all those professors and professionals at scholarsfor911truth are wacky, then I guess we shouldn't be going to college at all, if they're ALL automatically assumed to be crackpots.</p>
<p>Yes, there are some crackpots in the '911 Truth' movement. There are some people who think there weren't any planes at all! Outrageous! Yeah, no kidding - they think it was all a holographic mirage.</p>
<p>Now THAT'S wacky.</p>
<p>Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Part of what it means to be educated is to learn to think critically and discern what is valid enough to warrent further investigation.</p>
<p>I myself was like you. I REFUSED to listen to friends who tried to convince me to investigate this. As soon as I heard 'remote controlled airplanes' I tuned them out. And I consider myself an open-minded person. So, I know where you're at.</p>
<p>It was the freefall issue that finally woke me up. It's impossible to explain away. Then, the more I started researching, the more damning anomolies I found.</p>
<p>This is no joke. </p>
<p>Wake up, people.</p>
<p>lealdragon,</p>
<p>So the structural and civil engineers who've explained it are the wingbats?</p>
<p>I mean, c'mon. You're violating Occam's Razor here in so many ways it's ridiculous. It doesn't make sense. THINK about it. How would something of this scale have remained covered for this long? Like I said, the same bunch that can't keep Foley out of the spotlight managed to demolish the towers?</p>
<p>Now THAT'S giving them a lot of credit.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A war has been started because of 911. People are dying. I have a son who just turned 18. I see that you are getting past the peak draft age, so maybe you are not concerned.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ah, the ad hominem. The easiest of the fallacies.</p>
<p>Again, I repeat: It doesn't matter if you THINK they couldn't have pulled this off. You are not approaching it scientifically. Your arguments are bogus. You need to look at the evidence before you scoff. You are scoffing while refusing to engage in meaningful discussion of the evidence.</p>
<p>I would be happy to revisit this in a few days, to give you some time to look over the info, if you like. And I do NOT mean that sarcastically!</p>
<p>In answer to your other question:</p>
<p>"...The paper has undergone significant modifications following an additional set of peer reviews organized by Journal of 9/11 Studies Editor Kevin Ryan.<br>
An earlier version is now published in a volume edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott, 9/11 And The American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, Northhampton, MA: Interlink Publishing, 2006. It is published here by kind permission of the editors. One of the editors (Prof. Griffin) has explained that there were four reviewers for my paper, all Ph.Ds, two were physicists..."</p>
<p>Those peer-reviews amount to a hill of beans. It's like a bunch of English professors getting together to peer review papers on economics.</p>
<p>I'd be much more impressed if the majority of structural and civil engineers in the US came out in favor. Otherwise, it isn't really that impressive.</p>
<p>And you're missing the point. I can read the papers all I want. But I'm not going to actually be able to comment much on them. It's far out of my area of expertise (this is the classic principal-agent dilemma.) These guys can probably run circles around my head with clever physics and terminology. At the end of the day, I have to trust the best possible agents I can (i.e. engineers) because they tend to be the best authorities for these issues. Even if I DO read the papers, it doesn't make a difference! They're not terribly qualified for this stuff (no, having a physics PhD doesn't qualify you to talk about engineering issues), and even if they are, they can just run around me with physics that I can't hope to comprehend at their level.</p>
<p>This is why I have to, rationally, submit to the authority of the engineers. They offer the best potential payoff as agents. They are the least likely to have a hidden agenda. They are the most likely to be experts on this issue.</p>
<p>There are so many reasons, rationally, not to begin worrying about the 9/11 conspiracies.</p>
<p>You don't have to have an engineering background. I don't either. It's really just common sense.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It's a given that the towers fell at freefall speed. That part is not being disputed.</p></li>
<li><p>Just think about it. Do you really think it is logical that all those floors could have fallen with ZERO resistance? Even if you believed the official story, c'mon. That's like saying you can walk THRU a closed door as quickly as you could an open door.</p></li>
<li><p>There is a huge amount of denial going on, even among highly educated people. People don't WANT to believe it, therefore they don't. (It's like religion: highly educated scholars can't agree on certain things.) But, that is changing.</p></li>
<li><p>In answer to your question of how they could have pulled it off, read this:</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>People are usually scared to investigate this on their own. So, they make the excuse that it's 'over their heads.' Well, it isn't. But I can respect how you feel - as I said, I felt the same for 5 years. Here is a suggestion: just let the idea percolate a bit. Watch the Loose Change and 911 Mysteries videos. Listen to the testimonies of the firefighters (actual footage) as they describe the bombs going off in the LOBBY before the planes had even hit! Watch the white smoke RISING from the base of the towers before the towers collapsed. Wonder how WTC7 could have fallen at all, much less at freefall speed, when it wasn't even hit by a plane. Look at the footage of the Pentagon and compare it to other plane crash sites. The former has a pristine, green lawn, while the latter have scorch marks and LOTS of debris. Look at how small the hole in the Pentagon is. Where did the plane go?</li>
</ol>
<p>Ask yourself these questions. Don't be afraid to think. The truth is scary, yes. </p>
<p>But not knowing the truth is scarier.</p>
<p>"This is why I have to, rationally, submit to the authority of the engineers. "</p>
<p>The question is, WHICH engineers are you going to believe? Those doing independent research, or those hired by the government?</p>
<p>There are plenty of rational reasons to ask questions. Asking questions is always a good thing. Letting the govt lie to us and get away with it is a bad thing.</p>
<p>Hold on...so wait a sec...</p>
<p>Now you're linking to blogs that use Tom Clancy as a source? C'mon...</p>
<p>Yeah, c'mon. You know he didn't use Tom Clancy as a source. He just referenced a book, that's all. You are really making too much out of that. Look at the OTHER sources he referenced. Anyway, it's just a theory of how it COULD have gone down, and he DOES reference many other legitimate sources.</p>
<p>Regardless, we're talking about someone who basically prefaces his argument based on Clancyism.</p>
<p>And he really leans toward the more "extreme" sources...</p>
<p>I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with everything he says. I just offered it as a theory of how something like that MIGHT have been possible. It's certainly not intended to be an authoritative account of what went down. I think he gives Cheney too much credit, for example.</p>
<p>There are other, probably better, articles on the subject. I'll see if I can find some. But it'll probably be tomorrow.</p>
<p>The st911.org is the best site with the best objective analysis. Next would be <a href="http://www.physics911.net/%5B/url%5D">http://www.physics911.net/</a></p>
<p>See in particular "Taking a Closer Look: Hard Science and the Collapse of the World Trade Center"</p>
<p>And, there is an excellent book that delves more into the possible causes/motives: The New Pearl Harbor. Very scholarly work and well-documented. Not opinionated at all, but sticks to the facts. When you read this you'll be amazed that you ever believed the official story. There are other books out there that are just crappy, but this one is excellent.</p>
<p>Here's another, but I think the first one I posted is better:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rense.com/general73/ow.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.rense.com/general73/ow.htm</a></p>
<p>Anyway, I don't take these hypothetical scenarios too seriously. Maybe, maybe not. We don't know. What we DO know is that 110-story buildings don't fall at freefall speed unless they've been blown up with explosives, which means someone with access to the buildings had to have planted them. (If the terrists did it, the govt. would have had a field day with that.) We DO know lots of other things that do NOT fit the official story. Therefore, the conclusion is that we've been lied to.</p>
<p>That is the first step. The NEXT step is to investigate this seriously and find out the truth.</p>