I got comment spam! A comment spammer left this in my comments:
Speaking of impeachment, our new majority should actually USE its subpeona power to launch a REAL independent investigation into 9/11. One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying "We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]". Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I've ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases.
He then proceeded to post about 500 lines of stuff without any line breaks or paragraph breaks. I deleted it, of course, because 500 lines of stuff that has no relation to the posting is just plain spam.
Anyhow, here's my opinion on that: There have been too many whistleblowers come forward and say that the Bush Administration dropped the ball on the 9/11 terrorists for me to believe that there was anything other than willful blindness (at most) involved. Richard Clarke, for example, says that the FBI already knew that several of the hijackers were al Qaeda. And there's the famous Phoenix memo where a frustrated FBI agent tries to get permission to tap the phones of hijackers doing flight training there. In other words, there's just too much paper trail here from people who do NOT like the Bush Administration. It may be that the Bushies deliberately turned their head at the preparations for the attack, and deliberately let the hijackers get on the planes. But the notion that the hijackings were an "inside job", so to speak, just don't fly.
As for the "controlled demolition" of the WTC towers, I talked to a very anti-government architect, and he says that "pancaking" as was seen here is exactly what he would expect in the situation, where the fireproofing was displaced by the impact and the building's core served as a stack to turn the vaporized fuel into a blast furnace capable of melting steel. Remember, steel is melted at the foundary that creates it using nothing other than natural gas and air. And jet fuel has even more energy than natural gas.
As for the notion that devout Muslims surely would not engage in behavior that contradicts their religion: Ted Haggard. Ted apparently devoutly believes all that crap he spews about how homos are evil and stuff. Yet he did the dirty with another dude anyhow. Human nature isn't changed by the fact that one has adopted a religion, and seemingly "moral" Muslims go off the tracks just as often as seemingly "moral" Christians.
In short: Two jet airliners piloted by hijackers ran into the WTC towers and brought'em down. That's the facts, jack. A jet airliner piloted by hijackers ran into the Pentagon. That's the facts, jack. We might quibble whether the Bushies knew and turned their heads to make sure that they got their "Pearl Harbor" event that they wanted, but the fact that there were hijackers and jets and that this is what caused everything to happen... well, that's off the table.
-- Badtux the Conspiracy Penguin
I got the same one at my place.
ReplyDeleteIf I were a conspiracy theorist, I could spin a yarn that this is Karl Rove's revenge on America for letting the demo-islamo-commie-libruls win the election [insert 500 lines of gibberish here]
I also received the same spam, I left it up because it was a humorous read, while posing a few issues.
ReplyDeleteI agree that willful incompetence is the more likely answer, with a side dose of encouragement. The neocons needed 9/11 to happen so they could bring about the power changes they wanted. That being said, I don't think that Bushco is smart enough to come up with the plan. Ruthless? Yes. Smart? No.
I think they knew that something major was afoot but thought it wouldn't be that big because it was conceived by brown people. I think it was one of the first instances where they didn't cover all their bases but they still managed to turn it to their advantage. Unlike Iraq and Katrina.
The Bush administration is responsible for the 9/11 attacks to the extent that they did nothing to prevent them. They ignored all the warning signs, even during the stretch where George Tenet claimed "the system was blinking red." They exhibited the same negligence in the days prior to Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf.
ReplyDeleteThere was no inside job. An inside job suggests, at minimum, substantial measures of competence and understanding. The Bush administration has exhibited nothing but indifference. That's not a conspiracy, it's a lame joke...
Believe what you will, facts speak otherwise. Plus there's always WTC7 which collapsed in sympathy with the other two.
ReplyDeleteJet fuel == kerosene (roughly), _not_ gasoline. The smoke was dark meaning an oxygen starved (cold) fire. Remember also, the towers were open at the 'top' (plane hit), but not the bottom. They (the towers) had offset 'chases' & baffles to prevent the 'chimney effect'. The second tower hit was the first to fall.. remember, most of the fuel from the plane that hit it burnt out in the air as the starbord wing (the wings being where the fuel is carried) broke thru the side of the tower. The logical reason is that the people controlling the demolition rushed that collapse to time it with the extinguishing of the fire (the N.Y.F.D. had both fires under control.. N.Y. is not a third world country with no fire laws.) Also, if the floors collapsed 'pancake' fashion, what happened to the steel cores? They (or some of them) should have been left standing. There is a rather famous picture of one of the massive core pieces with a perfect 60 degree angle or so cut in it just as we expect the frame members to be in a demolished building. Notice also that the steel frame member is _not_ distorted & warped as if by heat over a large area.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in the entire history of steel framed skyscrapers, _None_, even in third world countries where some have burned hot for many hours, has ever collapsed. Twisted, & leaning, but not collapsed. Period. Even two since Sept 11, 2001.
Yes, Bush is an incompetent.. But Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenent & the Pentagon are not...
Evil, yes.. incompetent no.
Sorry, Badtux.. This is not a conspiracy theory.. it is a logical conclusion based on an observation of facts.
btw,
cats have more dignity in the simple concept of their existence than the modern sordid Republican Party has in its entire collective body. but that's really not saying much ;-)
warning, "my web page" (obviously, _not_ 'my' web page ;-)) is a long, but interesting, video.
For the record, jet fuel is basically diesel fuel. It has more BTU's than the natural gas used to fuel blast furnaces.
ReplyDeleteAs for all the stuff pointed out as "proof" that there was something suspicious about the collapse of the buildings, I'm not a structural engineer, so I'm not qualified to evaluate that kind of stuff. Instead, I sought out someone who was a practicing architect in New York City during the time that the WTC towers were being built, someone who is famed for being anti-government to the extreme (when Negroponte was in charge of the "Total Information Awareness" project, for example, he started a "Total Negroponte Awareness" project that posted aerial views of Negroponte's house, posted photocopies of the property tax records of said house, etc., just to show how badly Negroponte's project was going to impact privacy). He did not himself work on the WTC towers, but it was a rather famous and controversial project in New York City architectural circles at the time and he was intimately familiar with the design and the way various design decisions played out.
The WTC towers were a two-shell design, whose rigidity relied upon an exterior shell tied together into a grid and an interior core/shell transferring force between the sides of the tower via the floor girders. Disrupting of this shell removes its strength. He says that the collapse of the WTC towers happened because the towers were simply struck by bigger aircraft than they were designed to handle. The towers were designed to withstand a strike by a Boeing 707, which was the biggest jet airliner on the market at the time they were designed. When the much bigger 737's slammed into the towers, they disrupted far more of the structural integrity of the towers than was planned for in the original design. Add in the fire softening the steel in the brackets and girders that connected the floor above to the central core, and said floor sagged, then detached at the core and fell, pulling the exterior shell inwards and causing the outside part of the floor to swiftly join its brother going downwards. Once you had a dozen floors slamming down upon the floors below, the thing simply pancakes. No controlled demolition required, it is simply a problem with the way that the buildings were designed, a problem which he was quite aware of at the time they were designed because there was an enormous controversy amongst New York City architects about whether the design was a safety hazard in the event of an airplane smashing into it (thus the requirement that it be able to withstand a 707 smashing into it).
According to this guy, who was a practicing architect in NYC when the buildings were built, most New York architects at the time were extremely concerned about the possibility of an airplane accidentally running into these tall towers. They were not, after all, very far from the flight paths over the rivers surrounding Manhattan, and a B-25 had already run into the Empire State Building. The design, they felt, did not give it sufficient protection in the event a jet airliner ran into it. But the New York City Port Authority wanted these gigantic white elephants to prove that they had big penises, and this was pretty much the only way to make the white elephants work on that site, and so the New York City Port Authority got what it wanted... and a building designed to withstand a 707 airliner running into it did the expected when a much larger airliner ran into it. He said that no NYC architect that was working at the time the towers were built was suprised that the towers fell when hit by bigger jets... they were more surprised that the towers stayed up long enough for most of the people in them to evacuate
Anyhow, I'll post more above regarding how people seem to disregard experts in favor of their own "intuition" and "hunches" and "logic"...
- Badtux the "If I'm not an expert, I ask one" Penguin
For the record, jet fuel is diesel is kerosene (close enough). None are explosive as is gasoline and, for that matter, natural gas. My diesel truck (IDI) will burn all three (jet fuel, diesel, kerosene (as well as vegetable oil in warm climes)). Again, for the record, the u.s. military in Iraq uses jet fuel in it's diesel vehicles (no road tax, don't they love it!). Jet fuel has more btu's by volume (at atmospheric pressure) simply because (at atmospheric pressure) natural gas exists as a.. gas! As diesel is a liquid, it burns slower. Temperature is a function of heat energy vs time. Faster = hotter, slower = colder. The black smoke (open air) fire at the world trade center was < 1000 degrees. People were seen standing at the original points of the fire (where the planes hit).
ReplyDeleteFor the record, each tower had about 90 floors to fall. If each floor only hesitated for a quarter of a second as the floors above hit, it would still take 23 seconds for the towers to fall.. not 10..12 seconds. I guess the laws of physics were temporally voided on Sept 11th, 2001. Does anyone really believe that all the hundreds of fastenings of each floor collapsed evenly, for every floor? None gave a little sooner than others which would have made the towers collapse sideways & destroy many more side buildings. The odds agains everything that happened that day are astronomical! But if it makes one feel good to believe it.. Krishnamurti said "we want not so much to escape our prisions as to put new curtains on the windows". Orwell said it somewhat differently..
For the record
Edward O’Sullivan, head of the OSP, (circa 85), on consulting [“one of the trade center’s original structural engineers, Les Robertson, on whether the towers would collapse because of a bomb or a collision with a slow-moving airplane.” He is told there is “little likelihood of a collapse _no matter how_ the building was attacked.”]
You will note Les said "_no matter how_ the building was attacked".
Also note, Les gave a talk 9/3..9/7/01 in which he said “I designed it for a 707 to smash into it,”. Further computations in the mid 70's had found it should also withstand a hit by a 747.. a _much_ bigger plane.
For the record, Richard, the Dick, Cheney (who rather famously said "No one ever thought of..") was at that event. Of course, this is the same man who claimed John Kerry would be a bad leader because he had voted for killing the original Bradley Fighting Vehicle project completely forgetting (or simply not mentioning) the fact that the project was killed by the then Sec. of Defense who was, you guessed it.. Mr. Richard, the Dick, Cheney. But honestly, you can trust him.. He wouldn't lie to us & it's all for 'our own good' anyway.
For the record, a 707 & a 767 (which, in spite of Badtuxs 'well' researched article stating 737's hit, were what hit the two towers) have about the same mass & fuel capacities. See also Les Robertsons (an expert) statement, above. Also, in hurricanes, the towers saw _much_ greater forces. Again, it is not the force that is claimed to have been the destruction, it is the 'raging' fire.. Yet there was no raging fire. There was, observedly, an oxygen starved (black smoke) fire. The N.Y.F.D. (the fire depts, who, not the police/military, are _the_ unsung hero's of this country) as well as the sprinkler system, which was working, had the fuel fires out before the collapse's.
I seem to remember that the 'experts' also claim we had to invade Iraq to.. pick your favorite excuse.. they change too fast for me with my twice weekly inet access to keep up with.. I have a 'hunch' tho, that 'logic' dictates that they are lying.. every time. That seems to be an agreement here at Badtux.. Yet the (best that our money can buy) experts follow the official line that the towers did what no other tower, before or since, has done.. Sorry, logic (& following the experts) says other wise. Trying, after the fact, to 'logicize' an irrational political statement (fire destroyed the towers) does not justify calling someone 'experts' when many years of expert data/situations shows that towers of this type do _not_ fall in that way. After 30 or more years, if _one_ of three had fallen this way, it could have been a statistical blip.. But Three? And only 2 hit by planes? America, thy name is gullible.
Too many 'impossible' things happened on one day. Three towers, in two different sets of circumstances, fall in a way that can't happen. Three planes hijacked with no response from the airforce. Again, in the 70's, as a flightline tech in the U.S.A.F. I remember at least monthly scrambles.. The klaxon blares, the jets fire & the crews scramble from their watch room. 3..5 minutes later, they roar skyward. It has been procedure since I believe '73' or so to scramble jets on all 'suspected' hijackings. Yet on this day, not only did the jets not scramble for, count em, 1, 2, 3 (if you wish to believe 4, that simply makes my point more valid) hijackings, but that master of Orwellian truth, Mr Richard, (you guessed it) the Dick, Cheney said that fighters couldn't scramble because it would ruin the morale of the pilots if they couldn't 'intercept' the airliners. FYI, 'intercept' (in air force parlance) means to catch up to and fly along side of. 'Interdict' means to shoot down.. & pilots do _not_ mind not having/getting? to 'interdict' civilian planes (nor do they mind 'intercepting' them). Also note (For the Record ;-)) the FAA said that the air force _was_ notified of the hijackings. Also note that our master of the changing story (that's Mr. Cheney again) had several changing stories about why that was.
I remember several things from mid sept of 2001, having to do only indirectly with the world trade center.
The first was that on the 12th or 13th, Bin Laden (choose your prefered spelling) disavowed being responsible. Given as how he has never denied what he or his people do, I tend to believe him. I may not like him, but, as past actions are indicitave of future actions, I believe him (and, conversely, do not believe the lies of the Cheney/Rove adminstration. I also remember the first CIA produced (pun intended) video tape of 'Bin Laden' taking credit for the events. For those who don't remember, the first two tapes the CIA 'found' had actors who looked nothing like Bin Laden. I remember commenting to friends that 'white men think all arabs look the same". On the third take, the CIA finally found an actor who looked like Bin Laden & now it appears the whole world has forgotten the first two tapes.
The second was that on Sept 11th, the reported last words from the plane over PA were something to the effect of a wing being missing... Two days later they had morphed to "We're gonna get them.." How John Wayne.. not to mention Orwellian.. BTW, anyone else remember that altho the plane was flying down wind that day, there is debris more than a mile behind it.. upwind? Just as one would expect of a plane broken up while in flight. More 'logic'.. but I've a 'hunch' I'm being lied to again.
The third was at the pentagon. The first eyewitness reports on Sept 11th had a small plane had circling the pentagon before flying into it. The first people out of the pentagon said that just before impact they heard the whine of a missile. Take it from me. I used to work on a flight line (Uncle Sams Air Plane Patch (the U.S.A.F. for the picky)). From the sound of an engine, we could instantly tell what the plane was, whether it was lightly or fully loaded (incoming) & a lot about the weather (moisture, air density, etc). If they heard a missile, it was a missile.. not a jumbo jet. Also, in the first half hour after the pentagon was hit, the hole in the side was some 10' x 15'.. with no airplane debris outside.. The wings of the plane, where the fuel is stored, would have a) hit to the sides of the center & b) sprayed fuel out there making the fires exist to the sides of the impact.. Early pictures show no damage to the walls _or_ windows to the side of the impact hole. The fire was centered in the impact hole.. where a plane would have no fuel (burning passengers is bad for business ;-)).
And all those reports disappeared. Within 2 days, all 'news' said otherwise. Also, out of five walls, those considerate (un/lucky?) terrorists chose the wall of the section of the pentagon empty because of construction..
More 'logic' I know.. but I still have a 'hunch' I'm being lied to.
For the record, we all will 'believe' that which most comforts us.. or, least disturbs us. I am no longer young. I no longer need to believe that "my government wouldn't lie to me". Indeed, after the Church Committee's Report & the excesses of the Raygun.. er, Reagan adminstration, I am more likely to believe my own eyes than obviously manufactured reports. Orwell may have been off by a few years, but he was spot on in content.
Bobby, the "I'm careful about my experts", hairless monkey
(hey, it's not my fault! we can't all be born penguins!
at least I like cats (& they like me ;-))
btw, thanks for an interesting blog, Badtux.. even if we don't always agree ;-)
I envy your cycle cruises.. my legs & hips will no let me ride.. :-(