Well, well, well...look what I found in a university newspaper...

[FourScore]

Maybe some of us can leave comments supporting this kid or leave some links to great websites in the comment section. Some of the responses people are leaving are really harsh.

http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/01/24/70455

"...There's no way those planes could have made those buildings come down …."

That bone-chilling observation came from an architecture student precisely five years prior, in a crowded classroom in Murphy Hall.

This student and I had just watched the World Trade Center towers crumble into dust, live on CNN and projected onto an innocent screen long accustomed to lecture notes and PowerPoint presentations.

He left the classroom abruptly after making his comment, and I never saw him again.

Over the next five years, I came to forget about this tall, gaunt Swedish graduate student - until I overheard the recently christened drummer of my band, a former Army brat injured in training, mention the work of an organization called "Scholars for 9-11 Truth."

As soon as I got home from practice, I Googled the bloody hell out of this group.

Honestly, I didn't know what to expect. But needless to say, I was intrigued..."

[William Seger]

1. Very sad

> As soon as I got home from practice, I Googled the bloody hell out of this group.

It's like watching Dracula sink his teeth into another victim.

[AZCat]

3. What do you expect?

It's a college paper - you won't find much actual "reporting" in evidence, nor any real journalistic standards.

[Contrite]

19. Shows what YOU know about it

Daily Awards and Honors

The Minnesota Daily and reporter Emily Kaiser ’07 were among the winners of the the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2006 national Mark of Excellence awards. This year, collegiate journalists submitted more than 3,100 entries in 43 categories. The Daily editorial board was honored as a National Finalist in the Editorial Writing category, and Kaiser was honored as a National Finalist in the In-Depth Reporting category for her October 18, 2005 story entitled “Under Heat,” which examined the University’s heating delivery systems.

Regional Mark of Excellence Awards were also awarded to the Daily and a number of individual staff. They include:

The Minnesota Daily, Second Place, Best All-Around Student Newspaper
Daily Editorial Board, First Place, Editorial Writing
Daily Sports Staff, First Place, Sports Column Writing
Elise Adams and Marshall Long, Second Place, Breaking News Photography
Brie Cohen, Second Place, General News Photography
Adam Elrashidi, First Place, Editorial Cartooning
Emily Kaiser, First Place, In-Depth Reporting; Third Place, Feature Writing
Kevin McCahill, Second Place, Breaking News Reporting
Than Tibetts, First Place, Breaking News Reporting
Anna Weggel, Third Place, General News Reporting

The Minnesota Daily won numerous awards in 2005, some highlights from each conference are:

Associated College Press:

* Best of the Midwest
* All-American Rating
* First Place (four-year college broadsheet)
* Best Arts & Entertainment Section

CNBAM:

* Best in Category: Media Kit
* First Place (classified group promotion - Housing Guide)

Society of Professional Journalists:

* Best All-Around Daily Student Newspaper
* 14 Marks of Excellence

The Minnesota Daily is entirely student-run and student-written, with an average staff of 175 students per semester. The newspaper dually operates as a training institution, providing students with real work experience in journalism, photography, editing, advertising sales, marketing, finance, graphic design, editorial & advertising production, human resources, information systems, public relations, survey research and web programming. In addition, many students gain leadership and delegation skills in the Daily's many management positions.

There have been a number of notable individuals to work at the paper, including former NAACP leader Roy Wilkins, longtime CBS correspondent Harry Reasoner, radio personality Garrison Keillor and musician Bob Dylan.

The Minnesota Daily was the first college newspaper to provide access to its coverage via the Internet in 1990. The Daily website publishes each day's stories in addition to exclusive web videos, photo slideshows, and additional features.

Published since 1900, the paper is one of the largest student-run and student-written newspapers in the United States and the fourth-largest paper in the state of Minnesota.

[AZCat]

34. You're right, I wasn't aware of their track record.

It isn't uncommon for me to taste shoe leather.

That still doesn't justify the poor reporting in this particular case, though.

[Make7]

38. The track record of the author of the article is probably more relevant in this case.

For example: The Jenga hypothesis.

- Make7

[AZCat]

40. I saw that one too.

I'm waiting to see what his next article is - whether he acknowledges the divided feedback he's getting in the "comments" section or if he moves on to another topic entirely.

[vincent_vega_lives]

114. I'm EAGERLY awaiting his

Easy-Bake Oven hypothesis of steel melting.

[Contrite]

98. It's not reporting.

It's an opinion piece. And I think it is a hallmark of good journalism that the editors allowed it to run.

[jberryhill]

2. "...There's no way those planes could have made those buildings come down …."

That's exactly what I thought on 9/11.

[AZCat]

4. I hope you have since realized you were mistaken...

to have stated with certainty something that is clearly not so certain.

[jberryhill]

5. Yes, I have changed my mind

I posted this elsewhere, but I'm a patent attorney. Like most patent attorneys, my degrees before law school are in engineering. I was in the office that morning and when both I and another engineering-degreed attorney saw what happened, we both agreed that the planes couldn't have done that, and that there must have been additional explosives.

Since then, we've both come to a different conclusion.

The plan itself was so outrageous that I don't fault anyone for finding what happened unbelievable.

[Bolo Boffin]

6. There is a lot of that around, jberryhill.

It's why so many CT presentations can be so convincing. They play off of these first impressions that anyone can feel.

The mind revolts at things like that crater in Pennsylvania. I look at that crater in shock that a plane could be in there, but it was. It was there. Flight 93 slammed to its death there, even while the passengers were trying to regain the plane - when they were almost there. The facts say this clearly - the plane remains, the DNA evidence.

But it's that revolt of the mind that the charlatans seize upon. For power, for ego, for cash, they feed the doubts and spin fantastic tales. And in the case of 9/11 CT, every liberal voice out there that becomes clouded with these myths and idiocies is a voice negated, a voice neutralized with nonsense. In a country that's almost 50/50 liberal and conservative, we need every liberal voice we can get.

And that's why I'm here, fighting back the nonsense as best I can. Everybody has something they can do for the greater good.

[JackRiddler]

9. Hell, I agree with one thing...

UA 93 slammed into its death there.

Funny how it managed to scatter debris for miles around, though, isn't it?

[jberryhill]

10. The thing about "funny"

Is that I don't know what a pressurized airplane cabin is "supposed" to do when it craters in at high speed like that. It's not part of anyone's daily experience, and saying "Oh, it SHOULD have done X or Y" from armchair experts is not very persuasive. Sure, you can look at other airplane wreckage, but those are typically crashes in which a pilot was presumably trying his best to make the landing as soft as possible, and usually during takeoff or landing.

[sodenoue]

100. once you label me...

"For power, for ego, for cash"
There are those for whom these ends drive their action but save a few I doubt most people who have doubts about the line we were fed by the gov about 9/11 are doubtful as a result of a desire to dominate and control or of avarice.

Something to think about next time before you put everyone into categories: Conservatives like to have you think in black and white, good vs. evil, you against me. once you label me, you negate me.

[Bolo Boffin]

101. I don't even know you.

For the record, the charlatans are people like Dylan Avery and his two sidekicks, Killtown, Alex Jones, Morgan Reynolds, James Fetzer, Christopher Bollyn...who am I missing? Gerald Holmgren, Eric Hufschimd...

People like that. They lead the charge, they are clouding the minds and voices of many a liberal today.

And I didn't put everybody into categories. There are lots of other people besides a) those charlatans and those like them, and b) the liberal voices like people here at DU and other activist, get-the-word-out sites. Those are the only two groups I'm worried with. That's not "everybody" by a long stretch. So I'll thank you to stop projecting your prejudicial thinking onto me and my words.

Yes, I said prejudicial thinking. You don't think that crack of yours about "conservatives" isn't transparent? That's a label you're trying to associate with me, and it ain't sticking.

Back away from what you think I'm saying and read my words honestly. Maybe then you won't make so many foolish mistakes.

[sodenoue]

102. you forgot

larouche. I think he is worse than those others, slightly.

I didn't label you a conservative, sorry for your misunderstanding.

a country that's almost 50/50 liberal and conservative Looks like a clean split, liberal vs conservative...your words

The label statement is a quote by Kirkegard, it is not personal to me, me is figurative.

Truth is subjective.

[Bolo Boffin]

103. Is the American nation the only one with people?

And yes, Larouche, I knew I was forgetting somebody big. And I'd agree that he is slightly worse than all those others...put together. :D

[sodenoue]

104. yeah slightly was an understatement

he is the only one who not only wants you to buy his crappy newsletter but also elect him? give me a break larouche. is he ever going to croak or what?

[vincent_vega_lives]

116. Truth is NOT subjective

One's perception of the truth is.

[AZCat]

7. That's right - I saw that (where you spoke about being a patent attn.)

I don't remember whether or not I was suspicious about the collapses that morning (the shock overrode most of my cognition) but I suppose denial of events wasn't an uncommon reaction - remember all the people that posted "missing" notices all over lower Manhattan even when it was pretty clear that nobody else was coming out of the wreckage?

It wasn't that outrageous of a plan - steal planes and crash them into something - but the result was certainly out of proportion with what one would normally expect.

[Kingshakabobo]

8. I thought for sure they would find more people than they did....

Not thinking about the tremendous amount of force concentrated in such a small area, I figured it would be like an earthquake rescue. But then again, I figured the lives lost would approach 10k.

[jberryhill]

11. Agree

The death toll could have been a lot higher, and I was surprised it was what it was. Just a half hour or so later, and it would have been higher. But, really, with that many people killed, it's hard to say, "It could have been worse".

I didn't expect anyone to be found alive post-collapse, though.

The other weird effect was the depression. I couldn't really focus for days, until I turned off the TV. My brother in law was in a funk for weeks until I told him to try the same thing.

[AZCat]

13. I agree about the depression.

I didn't manage to get any homework done that week, and I wasn't the only student with the same problem. It just seemed so irrelevant...

[Contrite]

17. The death toll is climbing

The first responders are dropping dead

[Bolo Boffin]

23. None of the workers on the Pile should have been allowed back on that site

without adequate breathing protection. That is a goddamned disgrace.

[AZCat]

36. It is, and the impact will be felt for years.

How is NYC going to replace all those first responders? The number of FDNY personnel exposed to the toxic brew is ~10,000 IIRC (I don't know the numbers for other services). While I feel for the individuals who have developed health problems and their families, I also worry about the NYC residents who will be hurt by the loss of who knows how many experienced first responders.

[William Seger]

15. I was stunned but not surprised.

I was working as a structural draftsman for an architectural and engineering firm in Alexandria, VA, in 1973 when one of the Skyline Plaza apartment buildings at Baileys Crossroads suffered a 24-floor "pancake" collapse during construction. It wasn't the whole building, but it was everything on one side of an expansion joint, which in a reinforced concrete building effectively separates the building into separate, loosely connected structures. That collapse was caused by removing floor shoring on the 22nd floor before the concrete had cured enough, because of a too-fast construction schedule in cold weather. But the floors below were at full strength. That was talked about a lot by the engineers in the office, and that's when I first realized that structures are typically not designed to withstand the kind of impact they receive when the building above falls. Even if you figure that any structure is engineered to safely carry much more than the weight above it, when you work out the momentum that that same weight has when if falls just the height of one floor, the only thing that could possibly stop total collapse would be to somehow decelerate it slowly enough that the energy can be absorbed (i.e. since F=ma, the force delivered really depends on the deceleration rate), and that's just typically not going to happen in a building. So, believe me, that's something I've thought about many times since then when looking at (or being in!) tall buildings: how fortunate it is that triggering events are very rare, because when something like that gets started, it's just not realistic to think it's going to stop at one or two floors. So, when I saw the first WTC tower start to collapse, I thought "Oh shit!" but I knew right away it was going all the way down.

[dailykoff]

27. psst: the WTC towers didn't have concrete frames,

they weren't residential mid-rises, and they weren't under construction.

In other words, no comparison.

[William Seger]

45. psst; the comparison involves physics you do not understand

[dailykoff]

52. Such as, for instance?

Specifically, not a reference to somebody's Reaganomic fantasia.

[William Seger]

67. These physics

http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/ProgressiveCollapseWTC-6-23-2006.pdf

http://www.911myths.com/WTCREPORT.pdf

[dailykoff]

68. I said specifics, not links. (n/t)

[William Seger]

75. I already told you

The force of the moving mass was more than the structure could absorb. The links spell it out in the real language of physics: math. Read, and at least TRY to educate yourself.

[dailykoff]

78. Circular reasoning is not "physics." (n/t)

[William Seger]

86. Denial is not an argument

There isn't any "circular reasoning" involved. There are calculations in both of those papers of the forces involved and the ability of the structure to absorb those forces, using two different approaches that reach the same logical conclusion.

[dailykoff]

95. No and neither is Reagonomics. (n/t)

[William Seger]

96. And yet another of your "arguments" spirals into gibberish

[John Q. Citizen]

132. It took you with it. apparently. I feel a little sorry for you. n/t

[Anarcho-Socialist]

106. It always makes me smile

whenever Troofers state their opinion starting with "There's no way..." or "Nothing will ever convince me that..."

In 2002-3 I was strongly LIHOP and considering MIHOP, then I realised the logical fallacies I was using, and my critical thinking improved as a result of reading my degree.

[vincent_vega_lives]

115. I was shocked as well

Never thought they would come down. I was the first one in the crowd around the TV to notice the first tower was gone. Even before the news broadcaster. Took a few seconds for people to belive me.

[dailykoff]

12. The Swedish architecture student got it.

Bright kid.

[salvorhardin]

14. Yes

Because watching buildings collapse on a television screen is the best way to gauge how those buildings failed. And Bill Frist knows the best way to diagnose whether a person is in a persistent vegetative state is by videotape.

[Contrite]

18. That's because the education in Europe

is so much better than ours

[William Seger]

20. Baloney

LOL, he must be better educated because he agrees with your uneducated self? How do you explain the fact that the kid was wrong?

(ETA: I'm only talking about structural engineering knowledge; as many of the "scholars" prove, you may well be educated in other matters but not understand why the buildings fell.)

[Contrite]

21. First, you have no right to call me "uneducated".

You do not know me, nor do you know the extent of my education.

Second, you cannot prove that "the kid was wrong". Your arguments are bolstered by your belief in the NIST report, which is being challenged and questioned by many with enough relevant education to do so.

[Big Pappa]

22. But can

you prove he was right?

[dailykoff]

24. Yes.

Here's one way anybody should be able to understand:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=127965&mesg_id=127965

Of course, you have to believe that the laws of nature weren't temporarily suspended on 9/11, and appparently some here don't.

[Big Pappa]

26. I see a building

falling nothing more or less. How do those pictures prove it was "demolished".

[dailykoff]

28. Um, it helps to read the text.

:eyes:

[Big Pappa]

29. I read the

text. Still does not make it so.

[dailykoff]

30. It says there are 62,700 buckled columns missing.

Have you found them?

[Big Pappa]

31. I have not

looked for them to be honest. Even if they are "missing" does that somehow mean the buildings did not come down from the impacts of aircraft?

[dailykoff]

32. Yes, that's exactly what it means.

If the towers had collapsed under their own weight as a result of structural damage from planes and/or fires, all or most of the columns supporting the collapsed floors--in other words, nearly every column--would have had to buckle.

The fact that this did not occur, which all the photography shows, indicates (or we can say proves) that the buildings did not collapse under their own weight, i.e. under the influence of gravity, which leaves demolition.

[Bolo Boffin]

48. That is complete bullshit, dailykoff.

Point to the exact quote where it says 62,700 columns buckled.

[dailykoff]

51. You can't even do your own math? (n/t)

[Make7]

54. Perhaps you could show us all how you arrived at your figure of 62,700 columns.

I know I would be interested in an actual explanation for that number - perhaps you would be kind enough to post one. Thank you in advance.

- Make7

[dailykoff]

57. You really should do your own homework.

Go ahead, try it. I'll even help you if you need it.

[Make7]

58. I am having difficulty coming up with 62,700 columns. Perhaps you could help me.

Could you give the details on how you calculated that number? Thanks again.

- Make7

[dailykoff]

59. Okay here we go:

220 floors x (47 core + 238 perimeter) = 62,700 columns.

Notes:
1) Excluding basement levels.
2) Perimeter columns = 240 columns - 4/2 (alternating corner column condition) = 238.
3) Perimeter columns were manufactured in multi-floor units but like the core columns were rigidly connected at the floors and so structurally behaved as single-story shafts.
4) There were variations in the perimeter column conditions in the three floors above plaza level which I'm not accounting for but there were also many more columns in the subfloors that I'm not accounting for.

Nitpick away.

[William Seger]

77. It's not a nit

You're simply wrong. Virtually all of the columns broke at the end-to-end connections, whether before or after buckling, so your per-floor count makes no sense at all.

(ETA: The really funny part is that there have been numerous photos posted of buckled columns, but you lack of understanding about that failure mode makes them another mystery... to you.)

[dailykoff]

80. No it isn't.

The fact that "virtually all of the columns broke" i.e. sheared rather than buckled is the whole point.

:crazy:

[William Seger]

83. Look at the photos

They broke at the end-to-end connections, because those connections were weaker than the columns. Mystery solved.

[dailykoff]

85. If you want to revisit that thread, do it there. (n/t)

[William Seger]

87. No, that thread is pointlessly long now

But I will continue to hound you every time you try to foist that same bullshit off on a "newbee."

[dailykoff]

88. Your "wish I'd saids" are sad but hilarious. (n/t)

[William Seger]

90. I DID say the same thing -- a dozen times

Does this mean it's finally sinking in?

[dailykoff]

91. I noticed. (n/t)

[William Seger]

93. Now you're contradicting yourself

Guess you've never heard the First Rule of Holes.

[Make7]

128. Thanks for answering.

Your inclusion of the corner columns seems to be the reason I was not coming up with the same number when I did a rough estimate while assuming that you were using a per story column count. I'm just not entirely clear why you decided to include the corner columns at all since they didn't really carry gravity loads of the buildings.

There were four major structural subsystems in the towers, referred to as the exterior wall, the core, the floor system, and the hat truss. The first, the exterior structural subsystem, was a vertical square tube that consisted of 236 narrow columns, 59 on each face from the 10th floor to the 107th floor (Figure 1-3). There were also columns on alternate stories at each of the beveled corners, but these carried none of the gravity loads. (There were fewer, wider-spaced columns below the 7th floor to accommodate doorways.) Each column was fabricated by welding four steel plates to form a tall box, nominally 14 in. on a side. The space between the steel columns was 26 in., with a narrower, framed plate glass window in each gap. Adjacent columns were connected at each floor by steel spandrel plates, 52 in. high. The upper parts of the buildings had less wind load and building mass to support. Thus, on higher floors, the thickness of the steel plates making up the columns decreased, becoming as thin as ¼ in. near the top. There were 10 grades of steel used for the columns and spandrels, with yield strengths ranging from 36 ksi to 100 ksi. The grade of steel used in each location was dictated by the calculated stresses due to the gravity and wind loads.

http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1CollapseofTowers.pdf

Why do you think that the corner columns would show signs of buckling? What loads would have been acting on them to cause them to buckle?

- Make7

[Bolo Boffin]

55. It's not even math.

The speed at which that building was tearing itself apart, the amount of buckled column pieces wouldn't nearly have included the sum total of them. It's another idiotic benchmark spinning its way free from the collective brain trust of the 9/11 Truth movement. I reject it totally.

[AZCat]

35. The one thing everyone should understand after reading that thread...

is that you don't know enough about the subject to be making these claims. Why don't you try learning about building structures and engineering before arguing about them?

[dailykoff]

37. ... is that it left the OCTs spluttering as usual. (n/t)

[AZCat]

39. Uh-huh. Whatever you have to tell yourself to keep going. n/t

[dailykoff]

41. If that's the best you've got after two months,

I think we can all agree that the argument has not been refuted.

[AZCat]

42. Hardly.

You have yet to make a sound argument in favor of your claim. I don't expect one, since I have seen no evidence of sufficient knowledge on your part.

You seem to have difficulty counting also - it hasn't been two months since that thread was started.

[dailykoff]

43. Take all the time you need.

Take eternity if you want, but you won't come up with anything better your garbled ad hominems.

[AZCat]

46. I'm not attacking your character.

I'm pointing out your lack of knowledge about engineering and building structures. That should also be evident to anyone reading your thread that knows anything about these subjects.

[dailykoff]

49. You've pointed out nothing but your own naivete. (n/t)

[AZCat]

53. I'm quite comfortable with my level of knowledge.

It's you that seems to be the problem here. You perceive yourself having a better grasp than the rest of us, and I can't agree. Too many times have I seen you post misconstrued or simply wrong statements about engineering and building structures to believe that you have any background in either of those fields. Maybe I'm wrong, but the evidence says otherwise.

[dailykoff]

56. Yes, Americans generally are.

The problem is that "knowledge" is mostly jinogistic brainwashing dished out by experts who are anything but.

[AZCat]

60. Spoken like someone who has never...

gone to the trouble of aquiring said knowledge. If you'd make the effort then maybe you would be qualified to comment on the quality of my knowledge but until then it's just mindless jabbering.

[dailykoff]

62. From you, that's funny. (n/t)

[William Seger]

61. There isn't any real issue: your own source proved you wrong

The Wikipedia article on buckling (below) is actually better than the one you dug up, but both of them say the same thing about the particular issue that you are so wrong about. Note that the first diagram is very similar to the one in the article that you linked to, and nothing like the photo you posted claiming that's what buckling should look like: Both show exactly the same single bend that you keep saying is "bending, not buckling." They show that because it is indeed the most common form of column buckling. But the Wikipedia article also has a photo of a demonstration showing the difference in buckling for four "Euler modes," which depend on the end conditions. Only one of them is similar to the end conditions in the photo you presented, so that's the only one with similar buckling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckling

[dailykoff]

63. Click "reply" at the bottom of whatever post

your think you're replying to, and put your rambling rant there.

[Bolo Boffin]

64. Pssst

That thing you call "rambling rant"? It's actually a cogent explanation of something important. Perhaps you're unfamilar with such things.

[dailykoff]

66. Cogent to you maybe

but William still hasn't figured out the difference between pinned and rigid connections so he's making another asinine argument.

[William Seger]

72. More bullshit won't save you

This is really simple, koffy. This is what a rigid, moment-resisting steel connection looks like:




Columns connected to beams like that in both directions would buckle with an "S" curve like the photo you showed. But joists sitting on angles CANNOT make a rigid connection:



In fact, those rubber "damping units" at the bottom of the joists at the perimeter walls were added to absorb building sway because those are not rigid connections. If those joist seat connections held at all (which in most cases they didn't) that angle would bend if the column started to buckle -- it's a "pinned" connection.

Anyone with any mechanical aptitude will easily understand this. People with no ability to understand this even after it's been explained a dozen times should not use their own ignorance as "conclusive evidence of premeditated murder."

[dailykoff]

73. I've already explained why this is nonsense

in the thread where you first made this ridiculous blunder so if you want to reopen the discussion, do it there.

Here's where that conversation ended:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=127965&mesg_id=131916

[William Seger]

74. Your blunder was starting that thread in the first place

... without knowing what you were talking about. Thinking that welding the thin sheet-metal floor decking to the spandrel plates would make a "rigid" connection is even more idiotic than thinking those angle joist seats would be a rigid connection. The drawing I posted shows what it takes to make a rigid, moment-resisting connection: a substantial vertical connection between the columns and beams that won't allow the columns or the beams to rotate with less force than it takes to bend them. That's what caused the "S" curve in the photo you posted: the force required to rotate the column ends away from vertical was greater than the force required to bend the column, so the ends stayed vertical when the column buckled. You simply don't understand the concept, and you apparently lack the mechanical aptitude to ever understand it. That lack of both knowledge and mechanical aptitude is why you should never have started that thread, but you can't quite get it through your head that the more you talk about it, the more incurable ignorance you reveal.

[dailykoff]

76. So far I see no successful challenges

including this bizarre and belated one. You still misunderstand the difference between pinned and rigid connections.

[William Seger]

79. "Successful" at what?

Forcing you to understand something that is beyond your ability to understand? That's a pretty laughable criterion for success.

[dailykoff]

81. At reconciling the OCT with the steel. (n/t)

[William Seger]

82. No, now you're just confusing yourself

It seems you're still "thinking" that the photos need to be reconciled with your misconceptions about buckling. Your misconceptions need to be reconciled with reality, and that ain't my problem.

[dailykoff]

84. Look, if you want to reopen that thread, reopen it. (n/t)

[William Seger]

89. Nope, YOU brought it up in this thread

Shame on you.

[dailykoff]

92. Um, you just admitted you've done it a dozen times.

:rofl:

[William Seger]

94. Seriously

What the hell are you smoking?

[William Seger]

47. It was worse than ignorance

As they say, ignorance is curable. But when I goaded you into finding an accurate reference on buckling, you came back with a link to a page that specifically mentioned the very the points that you were so completely wrong about. Yet, you lacked either the ability or the willingness to understand what was right there in front of your face, or you lacked the intellectual integrity to admit it. That was beyond pathetic, and you still owe the whole board an apology for claiming to have "conclusive evidence of premeditated murder" based on absolutely nothing but your own ignorance. That's the one and only way you could salvage any credibility from that fiasco -- at least having the guts to admit that you were wrong -- but you didn't have it in you.

[dailykoff]

50. Oh please. Spare us the silly sermons. (n/t)

[William Seger]

44. Yes, I do; and yes I can.

> ...nor do you know the extent of my education.

The "extent" of your education in structural engineering is implicit in your comments, so yes, I can indeed infer something about that.

> Second, you cannot prove that "the kid was wrong".

Yes, I can, since what he said was, "There's no way those planes could have made those buildings come down." I can prove that assertion is wrong by referring you to the papers by Dr. Bazant and Dr. Greening.

> Your arguments are bolstered by your belief in the NIST report...

... and by my belief in the accuracy of those papers (which were not in any way connected to NIST), and as I explained in a post above, by my own understanding of progressive collapses, which predates 9//11 by several decades.

> ...which is being challenged and questioned by many with enough relevant education to do so.

That is simply not true! There is not a single qualified structural engineer who has produced a detailed, quantitative, peer-reviewed analysis that challenges the NIST report or the Bazant and Greening papers. The only CTer who has made even an attempt is Gordon Ross (who is not a structural engineer), but his analysis is seriously flawed, and apparently has not been accepted by a single qualified structural engineer. You seem to think this is a matter of subjective opinion, so no real resolution is possible. It is certainly not a matter of subjective opinion; it's a matter of physics and the strength of materials, and Dr. Bazant writes text books and peer-reviewed journal articles on structural engineering and the strength of materials. The architecture student (not even an engineering student?) was definitely wrong in saying "no way." I just thought it was funny that you were complimenting his education because he agreed with you. (But if European educations impress you, Dr. Bazant was educated in Czechoslovakia, so he must be right.)

[Contrite]

97. Okay

I don't have an education in structural engineering. I have significant training and experience in construction, however--enough to know that alot of the OCT doesn't quite add up. Some people just rely on "horse sense", or the "smell test". I have always had a reliably good BS detector. And, as for European education vs. American education--I simply meant that it is much more well-rounded in Europe--and I believe that a well-rounded education provides the best analytical skills.

I know you think Gordon's analysis is flawed, but I am unaware of it's not having been "accepted" by a single qualified structural engineer. I know that he has been challenged by Dr. Greening, and has responded. He said he is open to rebuttals. If you have rebuttals and a suitable education to provide one, why not challenge him yourself? As for other CTers with relevant education and/or training, what about Dr. Jones? And what about Jeff King?

[William Seger]

99. I have yet to see a single structural engineer agree with Ross

> Some people just rely on "horse sense", or the "smell test". I have always had a reliably good BS detector... As for other CTers with relevant education and/or training, what about Dr. Jones? And what about Jeff King?

Jones is a physicist, but his specialty is nuclear physics and chemical analysis. When he talks about how the building should have fallen over like a tree, your BS detector should be pegged if your knowledge of construction provides any understanding of the relevant conditions that would be necessary for that to happen. He also apparently doesn't understand the physics of a progressive collapse, but it doesn't require a physics degree to understand that it's simply unavoidable if the forces exceed the ability of the structure to absorb energy. He should have at least acknowledged that a quantitative analysis was necessary to determine that, but he just brushes off Bazant's analysis of that by focusing on Bazant's use of an early 800^oC estimate for the temperatures reached, apparently without understanding that that particular temperature was not at all a critical part of the analysis and that 600^oC is still enough for structural steel to lose half its carrying capacity. He claims that the "symmetric" collapse would have required all the columns failing "simultaneously" when it isn't hard at all to figure out why the collapse of a 209' wide building would flatten out even if it started out asymmetrically (which it did). The way that his paper slides back and forth between "molten metal" and "molten steel," his uncritical acceptance of anecdotal testimony, his failure to explain any practical means of using thermite to cut through vertical columns, his lack of any estimate of how much thermite would be required, and the fact that he claims thermite could have melted steel but never explains any mechanism that would keep steel molten for weeks should have triggered some reaction in your BS detector that there is very noticeable lack of scientific rigor in his paper.

As for Jeff King: case in point about the deceptiveness of the "truth movement." King received a degree from MIT in electrical engineering in the 70s but then went into medicine right away and has been a practicing physician ever since, but the "truth movement" represents him as an "MIT engineer and researcher" in order to create the completely false impression that he is qualified to analyze the collapses.

As I recall, you also found Ross' "Phase I" description of the "demolition" to be convincing, and I wasn't able to explain to you why it doesn't make a lick of sense. I have to suspect that when it comes to 9/11 conspiracy stuff, you aren't really paying much attention to your BS detector.

[Contrite]

105. If everyone accepted B&Z

the argument would have ended long ago. If it was so convincing, why has it not?

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:inwwQbKzCocJ:www.septembereleventh.org/documents/rodgwtcpdf.pdf+Bazant+and+Zhou&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7

My BS detector is working just fine. Until I have NO questions, I will continue to read the opinions of others. And I do keep their backgrounds in mind--not just their education and training, either.

Just to be fair, I checked Jeff King's site and he provides his bio and says that others referred to him as an MIT engineer but he was unaware of it initially.

[William Seger]

109. "Not accepting" is not the same thing as refuting

> If it was so convincing, why has it not?

No mystery there. The "9/11 truth movement" is a self-selecting group of people who don't want to be convinced of anything that argues against their "inside job" speculations, so they will simply not allow it. As Jonathan Swift said, "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into." The question is still why the "movement" seems to not have a single qualified expert challenging the "establishment" with an alternate analysis that can withstand technical scrutiny.

The article you linked to rejects B&Z mainly by criticizing the 800^oC temperature stated in the original B&Z paper (but not in later papers), without acknowledging that that particular temperature is not at all critical to that analysis. The article cites speculation that the temperatures were well below 400^oC, but we now know that some steel reached 600^oC, which is above the "critical temperature" at which steel structures can become unstable. Like most "truther" analyses, the primary focus is on implying that the fires weren't hot enough to weaken columns enough to initiate the collapse and leaving it at that, but I'm not aware of a single expert who ever argued that it was anything that simple. First, you can't just ignore the damage done by the plane crash just because the building didn't collapse immediately; those loads didn't disappear: they were redistributed unequally to other members. Second, we now know that the collapse was initiated when the columns along one wall buckled inward after slowly bowing inward for some time, and the leading explanation for that is the sagging floors pulling inward on weakened columns, not simply columns becoming too weak from heating to carry their loads.

The article also incorrectly implies that the B&Z paper is predicated on the "pancake theory" -- a specific failure mode first proposed by Dr. Eagar in which the floors failed first -- when they were simply discussing the dynamics of a total "progressive collapse," which is not quite the same thing. Attacking the "pancake theory" is either a straw-man or a serious misunderstanding of the B&Z analysis.

Sorry, but weak attacks like that leave the B&Z analysis essentially unchallenged.

[Contrite]

111. The article addresses more than the heat.

Notice the author's credentials: Rodger Herbst; BAAE, ME

By the way, he has updated it. Here is the 2006 version: http://seekinglight.net/911vis/rwtchtm.htm

In this article, he notes:

Steel Weakened By Heat

Articles by Zdenek P. Bazant of Northwestern University and Yong Zhou appeared in the on-line version of Journal of Engineering Mechanics ASCE, with the first version dated 9/13/01 and revisions dated 9/22/01 and 9/28/01. These articles purported to address why the buildings collapsed. Bazant and Zhou suppose that the steel in over half of the 287 columns of the crash zone was exposed to sustained temperatures exceeding 800 Deg. C. <1472 Deg. F.>. At such temperatures, structural steel exhibits significant viscoplastic deformation, which caused a buckling of columns.

We might ask what supplied the fuel needed for Bazant’s “sustained temperatures exceeding 800 Deg. C.”? Office furniture? Computers? Printer paper? Well, OK, but the central core, which he fails to even consider, had no office furniture, and virtually no fuel, so how did it heat up over an hour or more enough to collapse?

Refutation of Fire Theory. How hot was the fire, and how much heat did it produce? Jim Hoffman notes that Corus Construction performed extensive tests subjecting uninsulated steel-frame car parks to prolonged hydrocarbon-fueled fires. The highest recorded steel temperatures were 360 Deg. C. <680 Deg. F.>.

<http://911research.wtc.net/talks/towers/explanations.html>

This is substantiated by Jim McMichael, who wrote that the maximum temperature achieved in fire testing of unprotected steel supports was also 360 degrees C (680 F), a long way from the first critical threshold in structural steel, 550 Deg. C. (1022 Deg. F.). Heat from the Tower beams was continuously conducted from the heated portions to the cooler portions below, suggesting an even lower maximum temperature. <"Muslims Suspend Laws of Physics”: www.Public-Action.com/911/mcmichael.html>

Charles Clifton is a technical expert in determining the effects of severe fire and earthquake on steel framed buildings. He believed that fire could not possibly have caused the towers to collapse. He has noted that regions of fire at 700 deg C would be glowing red hot and visible from outside the building, and that significant window breakage would have occurred. He noted that none of these conditions occurred in the towers <911strike.com>

Even the NIST WTC study (Section 14) noted that “136 distinct samples (many from the fire floors) evaluated with no spheroidization observed, and thus no significant steel temperatures over 625 deg. C.” Findings include the following: “Of more than 170 areas examined on the exterior panels, only three locations had a positive result indication that the steel may have reached temperatures in excess of 250 deg C.”

*****

Also, it bears repeating, as he does, that the designers of the building accounted for jetliner crashes AND burning fuel.

Further, there is so much more than the heat involved here, which because of its focus on the heat, actually makes B&Z's report weak.

As Kevin Ryan points out (and yes, I know, he's a chemist):

1. How many columns were severed?

NIST admits that only a small percentage of columns were severed: 14% in WTC 1 and 15% WTC 2. This is nowhere near the the number of columns that the designers claimed could have been removed without causing a problem.
2. How much were loads redistributed?

NIST admits that the web of steel formed by interlocking perimeter columns and spandrel plates were efficient at redistributing loads around the impact punctures. It estimates that loads on some columns increased by up to 35% while loads on other columns decreased by 20%. The increased loads are nowhere near those the designers claimed the columns could handle: increases of 2000% above the design live loads.
3. Fireproofing widely dislodged?

The idea that fireproofing was removed from most of the structural steel surfaces of the impact zones is essential to NIST's theory. NIST sought to "prove" that the plane crashes could do this by shooting shotguns at surfaces coated with spray-on foam insulation. Contrary to the popular notion that the jolts of the plane crashes could knocked off large amounts of spray-on insulation from steel not directly in the line of fire, the tests showed that it took being sprayed with shotgun pellets to remove the insulation. In addition to the fact that there is no evidence that a crashing Boeing 757 could have been transformed into the equivalent of the thousands of shotgun blasts it would take to blast the 6,000 square meters of surface area of structural steel in the fire areas, Ryan makes another argument based on the available energy.


* NIST says 2500 MJ of kinetic energy from plane that hit WTC1
o Calculations show that all this energy was consumed in crushing aircraft and breaking columns and floors *
o Shotgun tests found that 1 MJ per sq meter was needed to dislodge fireproofing
o For the areas in question, intact floors and columns had 6000 sq meters of surface area
* Calculations by Tomasz Wierzbicki of MIT

4. How hot Could the Steel have become?

Here Ryan fills in another gap in NIST's theory by doing a calculation they neglected to, that to determine how much heat energy was available and how much it could have raised steel temperatures. Ryan and others have done the calculation using only assumptions favorable to the collapse theory:


* NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires -- 590,000 MJ of energy
* Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
* Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
* The result is less than 600 degrees F
o Assuming fuel burned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat

Thus, the maximum temperatures that could have been attained by the steel were much too low to soften it.
5. Some floors began to sag?

Step five in NIST's collapse theory is that floors began to sag. The idea that fires could have caused floors to sag is not unreasonable, since it has been observed in fire tests and in cases of severe fires in steel-framed buildings, such as the One Meridian Plaza fire.

What is not reasonable is the degree of sagging NIST used in its computer models compared with the amounts its physical tests showed. Whereas the 35-foot floor model sagged only a few inches in the middle after two hours in a high-temperature furnace, NIST's computer model showed a sagging of 54 inches.
6. How did floors pull columns inward causing them to buckle?

of floor-sag-induced inward bowing of perimeter columns the "triple double bare steel computer result." He is referring to the fact that NIST's computer model doubled the height of the unsupported wall sections, doubled the temperatures, doubled the duration of the stress, and ignored the effect of insulation.


* "An exterior wall section (9 columns wide and 9 floors high) was found to bow inward when floor connections applied an inward force." (computer result for one case out of nine)
* Same report says sagging area only 5 floors high!
* NIST had to exaggerate temperatures (1300 F), apply these temperatures for 90 minutes, strip all the fireproofing, and then double the height of the inward pull zone to produce even a hint of bowing from fire

7. Instability spread around entire building perimeter

NIST claims that "column instability" spread from core columns to the perimeter columns and vice-versa, leading to "global collapse" in the case of both Towers. This vague claim occupies only a few paragraphs of NIST's Final Report, despite its being critical to the collapse theory.

Ryan asks how fast the "instability spread" would have to propagate to produce the sudden-onset telescoping collapses. Noting that the perimeter of each Tower measured 832 feet, for "column instability" to spread to all the perimeter columns in half a second would require a supersonic rate of propagation. This idea is entirely contrary to all experience with steel structures, and pre-9/11 literature on the subject.

NIST theory summary

What would objective scientists have found?

1 Relatively few columns lost on impact
2 Remaining columns had considerable extra capacity
3 Fireproofing could not have been widely dislodged
4 Steel could not have softened at the temps found
5 Even higher temps and longer periods tests showed minimal sagging
6 Forces were not sufficient to pull columns inward
7 "instability spread" would have taken longer

[William Seger]

117. I'll assume you took your best shot and address this once

... but I'm really not interested in an unending back-and-forth.

> Also, it bears repeating, as he did, that the designers of the building accounted for jetliner crashes AND burning fuel.

And again, it bears repeating that any "analysis" for fires done in the 60s would have amounted to assumptions and educated guesses, with virtually no empirical knowledge to base it on; and the proof that there was nothing special about the design to withstand the fire following a plane crash is that the fireproofing was just "to code" intended for ordinary office fires -- nothing extra and nothing to protect the stuff from the shrapnel of plane parts and concrete. Whatever "analysis" Skilling did, he must have concluded that was sufficient. Apparently, he was wrong.

> NIST admits that only a small percentage of columns were severed: 14% in WTC 1 and 15% WTC 2. This is nowhere near the the number of columns that the designers claimed could have been removed without causing a problem.

And the designers of the Titanic claimed it was unsinkable. And I see that you still fail to appreciate the fact that whether or not the perimeter columns could handle "increases of 2000% above the design live loads" (a highly misleading claim, at best) is irrelevant if the columns failed by buckling at much less than maximum capacity, because the floors were pulling them in instead of preventing buckling at the start of the collapse. If you want to know what effect bending like that has on the capacity of a column, yes, you should ask a structural engineer, not a chemist or a nuclear physicist. If the loads from those buckling columns could have been redistributed evenly to the other columns, it's very possible the building would not have collapsed. But they couldn't. Instead, the loads were primarily transferred to immediately adjacent columns, which failed because they were overloaded, which put the loads on the next adjacent columns, on down the line. The important point, which I have yet to see a single "truther" address, is that if structural integrity is lost, all those theoretical capacities are virtually meaningless. The kind of single-dimensional analysis that Ross did, using energy absorbtion assumptions that would only apply to an intact structure, doesn't begin to describe the reality of a progressive collapse.

Ryan's claim that "The idea that fireproofing was removed from most of the structural steel surfaces of the impact zones is essential to NIST's theory" is simply false. For example, in WTC1 NIST says, "Fireproofing was damaged from the impact area {i.e. the entry hole} to the South perimeter wall, primarily through the center of WTC 1 and at least over a third to a half of the core width." For WTC2, "Fireproofing was damaged from the impact area through the East half of the core up to the North and East perimeter walls." Neither of those amount to "most" of the surface area in the impact zone, and furthermore there was no assumption in the analysis that even in the damaged area, all of the fireproofing was removed. Ryan attacks a complete straw-man.

Ryan's claim that "Shotgun tests found that 1 MJ per sq meter was needed to dislodge fireproofing" is also false. Chapter 7 of the NIST report, "Adhesive and Cohesive Strength," shows that the "shotgun test" was only one (and not particularly significant) test they did on different thicknesses and densities of fire proofing on different materials and made exact measurements of the force needed to dislodge the fire proofing, not just from shrapnel but also from vibrations due to the collision. And even if we consider only the shotgun test, those tests found that the energy ranged between 10⁵ and 10⁶ J/m² but Ryan's calculation uses only the higher number which is an order of magnitude greater than the low. But far worse is the inference that Ryan seems to want to make that the energy would have been absorbed in removing the insulation, which is absurd and disproved by the tests: the steel was damaged in the tests whether or not the fireproofing was removed. The statement that "calculations show that all this energy was consumed in crushing aircraft and breaking columns and floors" is extremely misleading on its face since the energy couldn't get to the steel without going through the fireproofing, but to imply that therefore there must not have been any damage to the fireproofing is ridiculous.

However Ryan arrived at the maximum temperature of 600^oF, it is clear that he got it wrong since NIST found steel that had reached 600^oC. It also doesn't make sense logically, since if normal office fires only had that much energy (never mind the jet fuel), then fire on steel would hardly be anything to worry about, and we can prove that's not true by looking at steel damage in other fires, including those at WTC5 and WTC6.

Like many other "truthers", Ryan distorts the nature of the fire tests that NIST did on joists, and then uses that distortion to accuse NIST of being dishonest in their model. This is particularly annoying since NIST was quite clear about what they were and were not doing with those tests, so "truthers" are using a dishonest interpretation to accuse NIST of being dishonest. The tests that NIST did were only to determine if the fireproofing that had been used would meet the code requirements if undamaged. Those tests were not intended in any way to be an estimate of how much sagging the tower joists would have experienced. Therefore the longest joists they tested were little more than half as long as the ones in WTC, the fireproofing (and the floor slabs!) were intact, the fire conditions were the ones specified in the standard test ASTM E119, not as severe as the ones in the tower, and the joists were sitting free rather than being an integral part of a structural system like that in the towers. And once again, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference what Ryan thinks ought to have happened when we know from direct evidence what the bowing of the perimeter columns was before the collapse and we know that it would be physically impossible for them to bow that much if the floors only sagged as little as Ryan would like to imagine.

Ryan's assertion that the progressive horizontal collapse must have occurred within half a second is total bullshit, so his calculation of propagation speed is meaningless. If the horizontal propagation had been that fast, the tops of the towers could not have tilted to any noticeable degree, and we know that WTC1 tipped 3 or 4 degrees and WTC tipped nearly 20 degrees before starting to fall vertically. Figure out how long it would take to tilt that far, and you've got the time that the horizontal failure propagation took -- at least several seconds even in WTC1 -- because the tilting was caused by the fact that one side was collapsing while the other side was intact.

These are just the errors that I noticed in a quick read, so I don't doubt that real experts could rip Ryan's analysis to shreds. In short, I don't consider Ryan's analysis to be just wrong: I consider it to be nothing but deliberately deceptive propaganda from someone who is trying to sell his 9/11 speculations by merely pretending to do an objective analysis. And as I mentioned to you when we had a similar discussion before, the primary criteria for any hypothesis about the collapse is that it needs to agree with the known facts. Again and again, Ryan makes suppositions that contradict the known facts, and again and again he makes sinister inferences about NIST's motives despite the fact that NIST's hypothesis is the only one so far that does agree with the known facts. Like other "truthers" such as Ross and Hoffman, who must know damn well that they are pushing a vague hypothesis that is highly improbable on its face, Ryan attempts to make the "inside job" hypothesis seem more plausible by claiming that the "official story" is impossible, yet none of them has offered any detailed alternative explanation for all the known facts that makes any sense at all. That approach is obviously effective with some people -- you say you find Ross' "Phase I demolition" hypothesis more convincing NIST's, but you fail to see several absurd impossibilities in it -- but if they have to resort to bullshit to make their "case" for the "official story" being impossible, then the price is that they will not make any friends among those who understand that they are talking bullshit.

(Edit typos)

[Contrite]

122. Thanks for the reply.

I won't bother to respond, because it seems you are not interested in further discussion.

[Contrite]

126. I will ask you though

Have you heard Charles Pegelow?

[William Seger]

133. I hadn't heard of him until you mentioned him

He claims to be a structural engineer, but judging by his interview on Fetzer's show and his article on S4T, I seriously doubt that he is. I understand that he only claims experience on oil platforms but he definitely doesn't seem to know much about buildings. It was especially odd that he doesn't seem to know anything about either horizontal or vertical progressive failures, which I would expect from any kind of CE. For example, he claims that 90% of the columns would need to fail simultaneously to start the collapse, which greatly overstates the reserve capacity of the building and completely ignores that the nature of progressive collapse is sequential failure. That interview and the article are both suspiciously lacking in technical details -- just dubious generalizations with no substantiation at all -- and his fuzzy and inaccurate knowledge of details about the towers and the NIST report certainly show that he hasn't put much effort into learning much about either. When he states details about those, they're often wrong. I'm just guessing that he isn't' really a CE, but the lack of technical details made me suspicious because it seems that he was intentionally avoiding saying anything specific that would expose him as a fraud.

In short, even if he really does have a CE degree, what he has to say is far less than convincing.

[vincent_vega_lives]

135. How do you explain this then

Refutation of Fire Theory. How hot was the fire, and how much heat did it produce? Jim Hoffman notes that Corus Construction performed extensive tests subjecting uninsulated steel-frame car parks to prolonged hydrocarbon-fueled fires. The highest recorded steel temperatures were 360 Deg. C. <680 Deg. F.>.

It all began when a car pulled in front of a gasoline truck to avoid missing an exit, and the truck, to keep from hitting the car, swerved and plowed into a bridge support under I-65 Southbound. The truck, which was hauling 37,475 liters (9,900 gallons) of fuel, exploded into a fireball that was estimated to have reached more than 1,093C (2,000F) at one point. The heat caused several of the bridge's steel girders to sag approximately 2 to 3 meters (7 to 10 feet), collapsing the structure.

Note that the 1,093C was the temp of the fire not the steel.


http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/02sep/05.htm

[LARED]

107. Jeff King does not have a degree in electrical engineering

He has a biology degree, with a minor in engineering. He presently calls it a dual degree. He said so himself in this forum years ago, but has since embellished his CV to make himself more credible.

[LARED]

108. Will the real Plaguepuppy stand up

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=4716&forum=DCForumID43#60

Jul-12-02, 11:02 PM (ET)

But hey, I'm not shy - it would help me know where you're coming from to hear about your academic and career background. I've tooted my own horn before, and are not ashamed to admit that I went to MIT ('74) with a degree in biology with a senior concentration in Biomedical Engineering, have worked in EE designing and building logic circuits and high-voltage power supplies, worked on some of the first numerical machine-tool controllers, even worked as a test technician for telemetry modules for the Apollo program.

Compared to his present story
http://home.comcast.net/~jeffrey.king2/wsb/html/view.cgi-about.html-.html

PlaguePuppy is the nom-de-net of Jeffrey King, a 50-something former engineer (MIT class of '74, about 10 years in electronics and electro-mechanical engineering), gainfully employed as a family physician for the past 25 years.

It seems pretty clear that in 2002 he had a degree in Biology with a senior concentration in EE. Now he is a MIT engineer.

Obviously well educated, smart, but with no relevant education or experiance regarding structural engineering, and with a designer CV embellished for the CT'ers.

[Contrite]

110. Again, check his site.

He provides his bio, makes it clear what his major/minor courses of study were, and explains that others assigned the MIT engineer title to him prior to his knowing about it.

[LARED]

112. The second quote is from his site

He calls himself an MIT engineer.

[Contrite]

123. This is lifted from his site.

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/letters/

I did my first 2 years at MIT as a math major, left to work in electronics (had a small manufacturing company of my own and worked for Analog Devices when it was still a small MIT spinoff), then went back and did a dual major in Electrical Engineering and Biology (not "physical biology," whatever that is, but molecular biology under Salvador Luria).

This was before there was such a thing as a Bio-Medical Engineering Department at MIT, but my degree program was created by the same faculty members who formed one a year or two after I left. I did all the undergraduate requirements for Bio and EE, as well as a Senior Biomedical Engineering Project Lab - as the only mixed-major student in a group of EE majors, I was also the only one to have a working device at the end of the year (a widget to transmit stethoscope sounds over phone lines using frequency modulation).

After graduating from MIT in 1974 I went to med school at UVM in Vermont, then spent a year at the Harvard School of Public Health in the Pulmonary Physiology lab doing electrical and mechanical engineering work before deciding to do an internship and practice clinical medicine. BTW, the "MIT Engineer" caption on the video was not my doing, and the brief bio I gave at the beginning was truncated to almost nothing when the video was produced. In fact I didn't see the video until almost a year after 9/11/04.

In any case, my engineering experience is substantive and the points I make in my talk are based on simple principles of physics. I stand by the soundness of the evidence and conclusions presented, and I would be happy to respond to anything you believe is incorrect..

Science is not a matter of authority, but if you want to hear it from someone with Mechanical Engineering credentials, an increasing number of academics are coming forward via Scholars for 9-11 Truth:

[LARED]

130. So what is true?

I've tooted my own horn before, and are not ashamed to admit that I went to MIT ('74) with a degree in biology with a senior concentration in Biomedical Engineering, have worked in EE designing and building logic circuits and high-voltage power supplies, worked on some of the first numerical machine-tool controllers, even worked as a test technician for telemetry modules for the Apollo program.

That version or his new version.

Probably neither.

No matter which one is true it is still clear he is not qualified to comment on the WTC structure when implying he is an engineer. Something abundantly clear to someone that has the background.

[vincent_vega_lives]

136. Ahh the old days

Psychosis and giant pictures of penises. I miss plaguepuppy.

Though some folks here almost reach his level...just without the porn.

[vincent_vega_lives]

118. I think it is fair

to refer to anyone disbelieving the NIST's description of the events on 9-11-01 as lacking in education, or at least lacking positive effects of that education.

[Contrite]

124. Is that anything like

"you're either with us or you're with the terrorists"?

[vincent_vega_lives]

129. It would be IF science and engineering were subjective.

This is NOT political as much as the likes of you try to clumsily inject politics into it.

[Contrite]

131. Like whether or not WMD existed is subjective?

Citizens questioning the government's suppositions/predispositions/outright lies about Iraq prompted this divisive statement the uniter decider. The question is: are any of us allowed to question the official story without incessant attacks from those who accept it wholly and without doubt?

There are literally scores of substantial reasons to doubt, reject or ridicule the official 9/11 story. However, their relative importance in spurring people to disbelief still largely depends upon subjective factors like professional knowledge and personal experience. Engineers, for example, are often driven to 9/11 skepticism by the inexplicable WTC collapses, investors by the apparent insider trading and huge war profits of the aftermath, pilots by the novice hijackers' astounding aerial skill, veterans by the suddenly dysfunctional national air defense system, journalists by the stonewall secrecy and investigation phobia, civil servants by the total disinterest in accountability, libertarians by the anthrax-assisted stampede to rubberstamp the repressive "Patriot Act", etc, etc. Others are simply insulted to incredulity by the number of coincidences we are asked to believe to make the official story seem true.

Who would dare question the accuracy of the official theory when it has so much supporting evidence and so many reputable people defending it?

People who questioned the official theory were initially considered to be unpatriotic, anti-American, terrorist sympathizers, or possibly suffering from an ability to think clearly.

There was so little interest in the alternative theories that they could be found only on the Internet, and in self-published books and videos.

Today, however, we find people expressing doubts about the official theory on mainstream television and radio shows. Is this some kind of mass aberration or is it evidence of a large-scale level of skepticism about the official theory by people who are merely thinking about it and why it or parts of it make no sense to them?

[vincent_vega_lives]

134. Since you've taken the time to respond

I will do likewise.

Like whether or not WMD existed is subjective?

I'm sorry but WMD/Iraq has nothing to do with WTC/9-11. I understand the connection you are making...that the administration falsifies information it releases (true enough) but it is a completely inadequate linkage.

Citizens questioning the government's suppositions/predispositions/outright lies about Iraq prompted this divisive statement the uniter decider. The question is: are any of us allowed to question the official story without incessant attacks from those who accept it wholly and without doubt?

Of course "citizens" are allowed to question the "official story". There are PLENTY of things to question regarding the 9-11 attacks, like why preceding warnings were ignored, but questions about jet fuel, pancakes and holographic planes just plain stem from ignorance.

If you think you have some special pass to spread ignorance and outright lies without challenge because Bush lies you are mistaken. Its not a matter of "acceptance", its a matter of actually thinking, analyzing and looking at things in a critical manner devoid of bias. Your "incessant attacks" you complain about are simply in response to some majorly uninformed speculation and conclusions that can only come from some kind of mental illness.

There are literally scores of substantial reasons to doubt, reject or ridicule the official 9/11 story. However, their relative importance in spurring people to disbelief still largely depends upon subjective factors like professional knowledge and personal experience. Engineers, for example, are often driven to 9/11 skepticism by the inexplicable WTC collapses, investors by the apparent insider trading and huge war profits of the aftermath, pilots by the novice hijackers' astounding aerial skill, veterans by the suddenly dysfunctional national air defense system, journalists by the stonewall secrecy and investigation phobia, civil servants by the total disinterest in accountability, libertarians by the anthrax-assisted stampede to rubberstamp the repressive "Patriot Act", etc, etc. Others are simply insulted to incredulity by the number of coincidences we are asked to believe to make the official story seem true.

I have not seen a SINGLE substantive, original, reasoned or critical analysis that successfully refutes what was understood to have occurred on 9-11-01. PLENTY of uninformed speculation and "expertise" driven by agendas so sublime the subject may not even know they exist themselves. I know these people exist from my days of arguing with "experts and engineers" regarding the impossibility of man actually landing on the moon, despite the thousands if not millions of individuals who directly worked to make it happen. Why the photographic evidence "proves" the landing was a hoax, how the government always lies and what motive they had. They used "professional knowledge and personal experience" in their analysis. Its the same arguments all over again, driven by intense ego and unhealthy self-importance. Everyone else was capable of unethical and immoral behavior and only they knew the truth and were pure.

Who would dare question the accuracy of the official theory when it has so much supporting evidence and so many reputable people defending it?

I gather that was your attempt at sarcasm? Daring can be a commendable trait in the face of unfavorable odds. It can be, however, a fools errand.

People who questioned the official theory were initially considered to be unpatriotic, anti-American, terrorist sympathizers, or possibly suffering from an ability to think clearly.

Obviously there is much emotion surrounding an event where 3,000 REAL people died. No theory there. I think the last accusation may be a fair one though when you consider the monumental nature of the crime, the implication of the vast conspiracy, and the actual ramifications.

There was so little interest in the alternative theories that they could be found only on the Internet, and in self-published books and videos. Coincidance? I think not.

Today, however, we find people expressing doubts about the official theory on mainstream television and radio shows. Is this some kind of mass aberration or is it evidence of a large-scale level of skepticism about the official theory by people who are merely thinking about it and why it or parts of it make no sense to them?

At one point 20% of Americans thougth the Moon landing was staged. May still do I'dunno. Many Americans are drawn to CT out of a LACK of understanding of events. It seems to fill in the gray areas and unknown nicely for people, and the human mind doesn't like the unknown.

*edited for those pesky HTML tags.

[dailykoff]

25. He grasped immediately

what it's taken Americans years to figure out, and some of us still don't get it, ahem.

[vincent_vega_lives]

119. Kind of like the start of Christianity?

Took a while for some to grasp the whole Christ rising from the dead thing to take hold too.

[Contrite]

16. My alma mater

makes me proud. The Daily has always been ahead of the curve. I remember reading some very strong anti-war opinions in the Daily during 'nam.

[vincent_vega_lives]

120. And that was uncommon on campuses at the time? (n/t)

[Contrite]

125. Here is a history

http://www.mndaily.com/daily/2000/04/12/news/new3/

(snip)

"As the turmoil of the 1960s brought revolutionary changes to the lives and minds of many Americans, University students increasingly took to activism on campus. The Minnesota Daily reflected the campus environment by recording the daily protests, debates and events that marked the imapct of national issues on a local setting as well as campus-oriented concerns."

It was a big deal here. There were numerous confrontations with police. Don't forget we had Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey on hand.

There was a leading protestor who came from Berkeley just to participate. She had also been at Kent State when the National Guard shot the students there.

[John Q. Citizen]

137. Depends on the campus.

[Grateful for Hope]

33. This child has some guts

it is very good to see.

:applause:

[vincent_vega_lives]

121. Guts with out thought is known as "false bravado" (n/t)

[LARED]

65. It reads like a dime store novel

and has even less substance.

[Strange1]

69. sure it does

And if it supported your view you would think it was great.

[LARED]

70. Unlikely

Appeals to the terminally and willfully ignorant work from either direction.

[Strange1]

71. see

There you go again making assumptions. Have a good one.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

113. Student newspaper

Yes the 9/11 Truthiness movement does operate at the sophomoric level of critique.

[Norrin Radd]

127. Appeal to ridicule. n/t