Are you open to what was once considered tinfoil subjects re Bush?

[bobthedrummer]

The voting fraud, black box voting, disenfranchisement and installation of the administration in 2000.

The neo-conservative inner circle aka the "cabal" or the "Vulcans".

The Bush family and Republican Party's historic connection with real Nazis.

The administration's use of perception management.

The secrecy of the administration.

The awarding of no bid contracts and the use of private companies for DoD, Homeland Security and "national security" work.

There is a lot more, add to the list-if you have changed your mind regarding what were once considered irrational subjects about this administration.

[TheFarseer]

1. I'm open to it

but I still want proof. I'm not going to believe anything just because I can't stand the man.

[bobthedrummer]

6. Surely there is adequate proof of crimes, yet no prosecution. n/t

[spanone]

2. I think Bushco* is light years ahead of us. Not a tin-foil hat too large.

I put nothing past these bastards.

[bobthedrummer]

4. I think some of them are capable of anything.

[bobthedrummer]

3. I voted other. I have been convinced that there's been a coup of sorts

since this administration was installed.

I believe we are seeing a new form of fascism developing.

[Richard D]

11. I agree.

I've seen it since before day one. When I saw the twin towers hit my first thought was that they (BFEE) did it.

[longship]

35. The facts be damned.

"Who are you going to believe? Me? Or your lying eyes."

Is that how it is?

[w13rd0]

14. A kinder, gentler facism...

...a thousand points of communication interception. A shining "city" on a hill looking out over and spying on the peasants villas.

[Vincardog]

5. No, I haven't changed my opinion about conspiracy theory-it's

all I can do to live under this FASCIST regime. After the illegal unconstitutional coup of 2000. I watched in horror as the NeoConvict THUGS had trouble with enforcing their Police State on the USA and empire on the world. They MIHOP on 9/11 and have been whipping that poor dead horse ever since. They stole the 2002 and 2004 elections and are solidifying their control with the SCOTUS. I am getting tired of BOTH so called political parties in their complicity with the FASCIST THUGS.

[dusmcj]

7. never had any doubts. His daddy brought the family out of the closet. nt

[JohnyCanuck]

8. I was a tinfoiler way before Dubya appeared on the scene

I started wearing my :tinfoilhat: after having my eyes opened by reading my first Chomsky book about 25 years ago and realizing how different reality is from the picture presented to us by the corporately controlled mouthpieces media.

[FloridaPat]

9. I thought all these were facts. Some even reached the MSM.

[DrDebug]

10. Despite knowing about the 2000 Election fraud ...

I didn't considered 9/11 a possible MIHOP after it happened. Somehow even knowing that it was a corrupt regime didn't automatically imply that they could sink so low, but so many things didn't add up and were distorted and then we had the 9/11 commission report and I read it and the official report is what made me a conspiracy kook. The more pages I've read of the report, the weirder the story became and the more it started to sound like propaganda consisting of a huge amount of text but no evidence whatsoever and strange inconsistencies. The more I researched and thought about it, the more it looked like fascism.

The weird thing is that there was a speech by Bush somewhere in the summer of 2000 and somehow he sounded like pure evil even back then and I thought to myself, that guy is no good, but I couldn't say what it was and I didn't really care about it either.

[Carni]

12. I never thought any of that was tinfoil

It was widely available from assorted government documents and media with the exception of the Nazi thing to a degree...although the wallstreet journal did confirm that bushit's grandfather's company was caught in the trading with the enemy thing back in the day. (I mean to say one cannot prove he was a Nazi just that he was an unscrupulous business man willing to do business with the enemy but he was not alone in that mindset at that point in history)

The whole notion that bush's criminal behavior was hyped by nuts and was therefore *tin foil* is in big part the reason that we have had to put up with the SOB for 5 years and counting.

Like the old saying says "truth really is stranger than fiction"

[longship]

13. First the punishment, then the trial.

Like the Queen of Hearts, classic conspiracy theories tend to stand the normal methodology for finding facts and drawing conclusions from those facts on its head. It's not a method I'd recommend to get to the bottom of things.

For example, is there something funny about 9/11? You bet there is. But there is zero evidence for much of the garbage floating around about it. I.E., missles, controlled explosions, disappearing airliners (with passengers and crew), etc. Most of this stuff originates from ignorance, which in this case is demonstrated to be a dangerous thing.

What conspiracy theories accomplish is to allow the opposition to label the whole movement as kooky. It undermines our main message that Democrats have rational and intelligent solutions for the nation's problems. Every political movement has its kooky fringe. Our goal should always be to undermine and marginalize this kind of stuff and keep it on the fringe. I'm not saying there shouldn't be investigations, but we should start with the investigation and then draw the conclusions from information we gather from that investigation.

The seemingly huge number of conspiracy theories these days may come from the lack of good investigations in the Bush administration. But these conspiracy theories do no damned good for us.

That's my position.

[Vincardog]

15. But there is zero evidence for much of the garbage floating around about

I.E., missiles,
Did you see any evidence of a plane?
controlled explosions,
Can you show any case where fire caused a STEEL FRAME BUILDING to collapse mush less into its' own footprint?
disappearing airliners (with passengers and crew), etc.
Where is the airplane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon? Where is the film footage of the impact?

Just because they control the evidence does not mean that we need to suspend reason.

[longship]

19. Hmmm.

> Did you see any evidence of a plane?

Do you mean other than the on-the-spot video and witnesses of the planes hitting the buildings?

> Can you show any case where fire caused a STEEL FRAME BUILDING to collapse mush
> less into its' own footprint?

How would you have them fall? Like dominoes? And just how is the building's structure to remain intact laterally while it topples? It was engineered to be stable while gravitational force is verticle, not horizontal. When each of the buildings start to collapse you can see the top floors lean towards one side, but once the lateral forces increase, the structure begins to fall apart and the floors immediately below the collapse also collapse.

It's called pancaking. Once the integrity of the floors immediately below the collapse give way, the floors below that can no longer hold the additional mass from above. They give way as well and of course this precipitates a progressive collapse as the entire structure begins to fall under the force of gravity.

It's simple physics. A very tall building like that can only collapse into its footprint. There's no way it can fall over like a domino.

> Where is the airplane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon?
> Where is the film footage of the impact?

The plane disintegrated as would any light alloy construction which collides with a reinforced concrete structure at over 500 mph. Energy dissapation is huge. The energy dissapated by such a collision is easy to calculate.

The kinetic energy alone (ignoring the exploding fuel, etc.) is dependent only on the mass of the airliner and its speed. For purposes of this calculation we'll use the mass of the empty airliner plus the passengers, plus the fuel. We'll presume an average mass of 70 kg for each of the 66 passengers and crew (including luggage) and 40,000 kg of fuel. Note that this is almost certainly too low as airliners almost always carry mail, packages, etc, in addition to their passengers and luggage.

The total mass of the airliner, passengers, luggage, and fuel:
58,000 kg (757) + 4900 kg (passengers + crew + luggage) + 40,000 kg (fuel)
= 102,900 kg.

The speed of the plane when it hit was over 500 mph. We'll use 500 mph as a conservative estimate. In this calculation we'll use MKS units, so that's about 225 m/s.

The energy dissapated is just the Kinetic energy. KE = 1/2 mv^2

Square the velocity: 225^2 = 49961 m^2/s^2

Multiply by the speed and divide by two .5 * 49,961 * 102,900 = 2,570,503,246 Joules.
So we're talking about 2.5 billion joules of energy. That energy would be dissapated in a very short period of time, probably on the order of one second at most. Watch the film of the WTC 2 collision for an idea of how fast the collision proceeds. It's all over in less than a second. It's the dissapation of 2.5 billion joules of energy in about a second which desintegrates the plane. Don't forget that this ignores the energy released by the combustion of some 40,000 kg of fuel.

There is a short clip of a security cam, but thousands of people were eye-witness to the event. You aren't really suggesting that all those people are in on the conspiracy, are you?

And what about the airliner itself? You aren't really suggesting that an airliner full of people just vanished without a trace, are you? How many people have to be in on your conspiracy for *that* to happen?


I do not expect you to believe me without hard facts. A full explanation of the Pentagon collision.
Purdue's simulation of the collision - Phase I
And, Phase II

The facts show clearly what happened to the Pentagon on 9/11. A 757 hit it, just as was reported. If you ignore all the facts, I suppose you could come up with some kooky theory that something else happened. It's like I said. Conspiracy theories are like the Queen of Hearts, first the punishment, then the trial.

BTW, nobody has control over this information. It's all public info that is available to anybody who wants to take the trouble to do a little research. There is no government conspiracy to hide the mass of an airliner. The pictures available of the Pentagon site are available to anybody who wants to get them. The site was swarming with photographers wanting their Pulitzer Prize. These are available to anybody as well. This is probably the most documented tragedy in recent times. To come to *any* conclusion that does not include the 757 colliding with the Pentagon is delusional.

[longship]

24. Ooops!

K.E. calculation is incorrect.

225^2 = 50625. I used the wrong number in my calculator. Let's call it 50,000 m^2/s^2
Round off mass of airliner to 100,000 kg.

K.E. = 1/2 * 100,000 kg * 50,0000 m^2/s^2 = 2.5 billion Joules. Just a SWAG calculation you can do in your head.

Some have reported the speed of the airplane to be 400 mph ~ 180 m/s.

This changes the result. 180^2 = 32400 m^2/s^2

The K.E. would then be 1.6 billion Joules, still a huge amount.

Let's call it 2 billion, conservatively between the two values.

Purdue simulation has the whole collision happening in about 0.25 secs. That's not a lot of time to dissapate that much energy.

And don't forget that my calculation ignores the energy released by the exploding/burning fuel.

[Vincardog]

37. What is delusional. is to ignore that never before in history has FIRE

caused a steel frame building to collapse. The conclusion that a 757 colliding with the Pentagon could happen without a single frame of photographic evidence or one single shred of physical evidence is asinine.

No body is saying that there were not planes that hit the WTC. The collapse was a controlled demolition. I read the 9/11 commission report and not since the Warren Commission have I seen such a seaming pile of bureaucratic BS.

One last thought on the Pentagon incident- Where is the "Black Box"?

[longship]

38. Straw man argument.

Your argument totally and conveniently ignores the 2 billion Joules of collision energy (plus the energy of the exploding fuel). Of course, conspiracy theorists have never let facts get in the way of their arguments. Your argument is a straw man, easily debunked.

Thousands of people witnessed these events. Yet there is not one shred of evidence that either the WTC tower collapses were "controlled demolitions". Not one witness out of the multiple thousands has come forward with any evidence that this happened. Not one!

The only camera on the Pentagon at the time of the collision was a security cam which captured one single frame of the plane just as it struck. But we don't need that to know what happened because there were hundreds of people commuting to work in the area, all of whom reported what happened. These people, totally unrelated to one another in any way, all said the same thing: A fucking large airliner flew at high speed into the wall of the Pentagon. So what should these hundreds of people believe? You? Or, their lying eyes?

I know, I know. It's all a conspiracy. The White House pointed their super top secret mind control ray at all those people and made them say that a missile was an airliner, and that placed controlled demolitions didn't exist.

Gees, people. It's time to put away the fairy tales. This conspiracy lunacy does absolutely nothing good for our cause. It allows others to label us all (correctly, I might add) as kooks.

BTW, both black boxes were retrieved from the Pentagon wreckage.

[Vincardog]

41. You can get all the Joules you want it does not disappear a 757.

I have not seen one witness of the "Plane" hitting the Pentagon. There are hundreds of Security cameras at the Pentagon yet we have not seen a single picture of the mysterious plane.

The straw man is that you ignore facts and concentrate on BS. Many planes have crashed some into Mountains. Why was this the only one to disintegrate?
Here is a clue because it was never there.

Where are the reports by those hundreds of people commuting to work in the area? I have not seen them. Please provide the link for these first hand accounts.

BTW, both black boxes were retrieved from the Pentagon wreckage.
How did the mysterious 757 become BOTH? We do not have any physical or photographic evidence of ONE and you want to claim MORE THAN ONE?

You should lay off the Kool AID.

You claim that the WTC naturally pancaked into it's own footprint. I dare you to link to any photographic evidence where FIRE caused a Steel Frame Building
to collapse at all much less the impossible situation of it falling into it's own footprint.

Hint if steel melted at the temperature of jet fuel burning then all those Big Rigs on the road would be standing still over a pool of melted engine.


Where is the "Evidence"? It was loaded illegally by the BCF onto a boat and shipped to China.

[longship]

43. Jesus, this is idiocy.

1. There were hundreds of witnesses to the plane hitting the Pentagon, including military servicemen, Pentagon grounds workers, and hundreds of people commuting to work in the DC area. Remember, this happened in the midst of DC rush hour. Your claim that there were no witnesses is complete and utter bullshit. The news media was full of on-the-scene reports that morning. But, I know, I know... That double top secret mind control ray from the White House... Or, was it one of the flash thingies from "Men in Black"?

2. This plane did not crash into a mountain. That's another straw man. (You conspiracy theorists love straw men, don't you.) It crashed into a reinforced concrete building. Not the same thing, is it? Not even the same conditions, is it? By the way, have you ever seen how fragile an airliner really is? I was an engineer at Boeing Aircraft in the 80's. An airliner is made out of thin light alloy, not steel. It's like an eggshell, with thin stressed ribs holding the upper fuselage in shape. The main structural elements are the backbone (which is actually in the belly of the beast) and the wing spars. These are constructed out of box elements which are also made of light alloy. There is a stiffness to the structure, but the alloys used are not meant to be able to survive bending or stressing. Instead, when stressed beyond a point they fracture like an egg shell. A 400+ mph collision with a reinforced concrete structure would utterly crush the fuselage. The interior columns would further disperse the pieces, breaking them into smaller pieces. There would be few large parts, mainly from the backbone, large engine parts, and other particularly robust pieces. But there would be nothing recognizable as, "this is an airplane".

3. An airliner has two black boxes. One records conversations and noise from the cockpit; the other records control movements, altititude, and other flight parameters. Both were recovered but were in very bad shape. See the National Geographic Channel 9/11 report for details.

4. <I dare you to link to any photographic evidence where FIRE caused...> Gees, you really like those straw man arguments. I've already responded to this. It wasn't just a fire, was it? There's the problem of a Mach 0,8 collision of a 100,000 kg body here. Also, there's this 10,000's kg of fuel which just so happened to explode on impact. You repeat the same lame argument in spite of the fact that it's been thoroughly debunked already. And then you accuse *me* of drinking kool-aid? Okay, guy. Show me another tall building into which a Mach 0,8, fuel-laden, 100,000 kg airliner has collided. We're kind of in new territory here. So comparisons to previous fires, etc. is just plain non-sequitor.

5. A tall building can *only* pancake into its footprint. When it fails catostrophically, there's no way a very tall building is going to do anything *but* fall into its footprint. That's physics, pal. I'm sorry you don't like it. But those are the facts.

Look, I'm not making this shit up. I have degrees in physics and long experience in engineering including the aviation industry on large airliners. These conspiracy theories are insane. They make absolutely zero sense. All the arguments I've heard and read use straw man arguments, argument from incredulity, argument from ignorance, cherry picking facts, and every other kind of illogic that my training has taught me to ignore. Debunking them is easy, except for the fact that conspiracy theorists do not seem to want to hear about facts. They only want to hold on to their delusions that the most inept administration in history somehow managed to successfully pull off the most wild and implausible global conspiracy in history. That in itself should be a warning sign that something is screwy with your theory. When you add the facts which we *know* to be true, the whole conspiracy theory collapses like a 110 story building struck by a Mach 0,8, fuel-laden, airliner.

Sorry. I have to follow the facts, not lunatic ravings.

[Vincardog]

45. Provide the links or go drink your Kool Aid and quit waisting my time

SAy straw man all you want a 757 does not fit into a 16 foot hole. Where are the engines? Were are the video cameras from the Pentagon? You ignore and insist all you want it does not make the 9/11 lies true.


If is was the impact that collapsed the towers why did it take so long?
Where is the proof that a steel frame building ever fell due to a fire?

[dailykoff]

47. Rummy says it happened, so it happened.

What more do you want? :sarcasm:

[longship]

53. Lookie here.

> Where is the proof that a steel frame building ever fell due to a fire?

You guys keep asking this and I have responded. Should I presume that you are a troll?

Presuming that you are not a troll and that you are willing to find out the facts, here's some help for you. I truly wish to help you understand why your theory doesn't hold any water.

Here's Google: Google.

Here's a google search for you:
Google - "9/11 pentagon"
Notice that one of the links is entitled "Eyewitness Accounts". These are from the people who conspiracy theorists claim do not exist. I'm sure that you can find other eyewitness accounts if you took the time to narrow the search. I'm sure Nexus/Lexus has plenty of information from the morning of 9/11/2001 if you have access.

Here's the Eyewitness site with a few reports.
9/11 Pentagon Eyewitness Accounts

And here's the link from above which will answer your questions (from abovetopsecret.com):
Evidence that a Boeing 757 Really Did Impact the Pentagon on 9/11

You'll find plenty of information. I suggest that you also check out Purdue University's research on the collision. It models how the airframe broke up on impact. You can view the resulting movie of the simulation.

From what I know about airliners, physics and engineering, all this information makes a huge amount of sense to me. It all fits together very well. The collapsed buildings in New York and DC area are in line with what I would expect to happen given the circumstances. There is no need for any controlled demolitions, disappearing airliners, or anything else that the conspiracies are suggesting. In the skeptical world of science that is sufficient. It's called Occam's Razor (from Sir William of Okham): "Do not multiply entities unnecessarily." It is a primary premise of the scientific method which has stood the test of centuries. The conspiracies suggested in these threads do not pass the parsimony test (among others), so I must reject them outright.

I look at the reports from the conspiracy nuts and I see nothing but illogic, cherry picked facts, and outright distortions of fact and science. I have come to believe that this is deliberate. In other words, the conspiracy people are lying with the sole intent of deception. I have no idea why anybody would want to do that, but I do know that what they are doing does absolutely zero good for our country let alone the people who are taken in by their putatively sleazy agenda.

I suggest that the people putting out this garbage--that's all it is--have a personal agenda, possibly to engrandize themselves, or to sell books, or movies, or something like that. It's the same type of thing with crop circles, space alien abductions, astrology, and other crap trap some people believe.

Here's another link which may be of some value:
Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit.

Thanks for the dialog.

[Vincardog]

55. Where is the proof that a steel frame building ever fell due to a fire?

Calling me a troll is not a response.
Where is any evidence that a steel frame building ever collapsed due to fire?

Is your response is that the combined force of the impact and fuel exploded the building? If so How did the explosion take hours to take effect and then there is that pesky collapse into its' own footprint thing.

But putting that aside lets just look at the one question

Where is any evidence that a steel frame building ever collapsed due to fire
on any other occasion ever?

[longship]

57. Why do you repeat the same, lame question?

The WTC did not collapse because of fire. It collapsed because a fucking large body airliner full of people and fuel collided into it at Mach 0.8.

There has never been an occasion that this happened before. So any comparison to previous *fires* is totally non-sequitor. Why in the Sam Hell can't you wrap your mind around that concept?

It is totally irrelevant whether a so-called fire ever did this before since the circumstances of this tragedy are unique in the history of mankind. Comparisons to previous occurances is stupid.

Your question is totally irrelevant as I and many others have said many times previously. But that doesn't stop MIHOP lunatics from repeating it over and over and over and over.

I know. Who am I to believe? You, or my lying eyes?
Sheesh!

Start reading the other posts. Do some fucking research.

I know.... blah, blah, blah... disappearing airliners.... blah, blah, blah,... invisible controlled demolitions... blah, blah, blah,... invisible missles,... blah, blah, blah,... Blarg!!

[Vincardog]

65. Oh I thought all those Jules were why the 757 disappeared.

Now it is why the towers fell. If it was the explosion why the delay?
If the impact was the cause of the collapse why did it take so long?
to borrow a phrase from you
blah, blah, blah,... invisible AIRPLANES,... blah, blah, blah,... Blarg!!
VISIBLE controlled demolitions

[TankLV]

51. Umm - it wasn't just the fire - the planes took out over 1/3 of the

supporting structure of the building. Everyone with expertise in this matter is amazed that the buildings continued to stand as long as they did. You have just proven you know absolutely of structural engineering or how these buildings were constructed. But continue - you're entertaining at best.

[dailykoff]

52. There's absolutely no evidence to support such a claim.

Possibly 20 perimeter columns were destroyed in each tower, and possibly two core columns -- that's less than 8%, not 33%. You're also forgetting the 80+ floors beneath the crashes which didn't suffer any damage.

[longship]

54. Floors just below impact

When the support columns (however many of them) were taken out the stresses from the upper floors then had to pass to the ground through alternate paths. This put additional strain on those support structures. The integrity of the buildings were jeopardized by this. When the floor supports began to fail in the impact zone these stresses increased to the point that the floors below the impact could no longer hold up the mass of the building above them. They were only designed to hold up one floor of the structure. Because of the severe damage to the supports in the impact zone they were having to take on the load from more than one floor. When enough of the supports eventually failed these floor supports and columns could no longer do their job. They failed catastrophically. This put the increased load on the next floor down which also failed catastrophically. The failures quickly transmitted down the structure of the building, one floor at a time, causing the collapse.

If you've never seen concrete fail under stress you would not be expected to understand the violence in such a failure. It happens instantly with horrific results. The concrete is literally and explosively turned to dust at the fracture points. The reinforcing rebar is twisted beyond recognition. It all happens in hundredths of a second.

For the case of WTC 1 & 2, once the first floors below the impact failed, the entire building was going to collapse no matter what. It wouldn't take many floors before the whole structure was falling under the acceleration of gravity (free fall) each subsequent floor's failure happening instantly due to the ever increasing loads of the mass falling from above. It's a chain reaction, once it starts there's no stopping it.

As usual, your special pleading has no basis in fact. Counting columns doesn't help your argument. The failure of the WTC towers is very well understood if you take the trouble to understand it.

There is *zero* evidence for controlled demolition, nor is it necessary to explain the collapses. Physics and engineering explains everything very well. That's all that is required. Please educate yourself about these matters and you'll understand where you are going wrong. Thanks.

[dailykoff]

60. Please, take an engineering class

or read a book on the subject, preferably not one advertised in Popular Mechanics. Web trusses in floor assemblies don't hold up highrises to start with and the rest is so mangled it would take all night to straighten out.

[Beam Me Up]

62. To say "There is *zero* evidence for controlled demolition," is false.

There may not be conclusive PROOF or evidence that you regard as credible, but to say there is "zero evidence" is false to the point of either intentional deception or psychological denial.

For example, many witnesses on the scene at the time of the catastrophe reported hearing explosions. These were statements by both news media and individuals on the scene. If you visit, 9/11 Eyewitness, you will hear some of these reports. If you watch the 9/11 Eyewitness video, you will hear the recorded sounds of deep, underground blasts preceding each towers collapse. Moreover, there is seismic evidence that is inconsistent with a collapse theory.

The below is borrowed from 9/11 Research

Evidence Surviving the Cleanup Operation

Although the physical evidence was destroyed,
photographic, video, and eyewitness evidence survives.

This evidence shows:

• Dust and fragments were ejected from the towers at high velocities.
  
• The tops of the towers exploded into descending mushrooming clouds of dust.
  
• The mushrooming dust clouds remained centered as they devoured the towers.
  
• The dust clouds grew to volumes several times the buildings' volumes, and covered Lower Manhattan with dust.
  
• The non-metallic components of the towers and their contents were pulverized to sub-100-micron dust.
  
• The steel superstructures were shredded.
  
• Intense heat in the basements melted the foundations of the core columns.
  

Explosive Ejections of Dust and Pieces

• Thick dust clouds spewed from towers in all directions,at around 50 feet/second.
  
• Solid objects were thrown ahead of the dust -- a feature of explosive demolition.
  
• The steel was thoroughly cleansed of its spray-on insulation.
  
• Some pieces of the perimeter wall were thrown laterally 500 feet.
  
• Aluminum cladding was blown 500 feet in all directions.
  
• Blast waves broke hundreds of windows in buildings over 400 feet away.
  

Demolition Squibs

• Energetic ejections of dust (squibs) occurred below the rapidly descending demolition wave in each tower.
  
• Squibs appear at regular intervals about 10 floors below demolition waves.
  
• Squib velocities exceed 200 feet/second.
  

Video: North Tower demolition wave showing squibs
Still frames from this video

Smooth Waves of Destruction Consumed The Towers

Each tower exploded in a smooth wave -- not discrete explosions. A continuous wave of explosive destruction moved down each tower, starting around the crash zone.

• It took 15 seconds for the demolition wave to reach the ground, in each tower.
  
• It sounded like a crashing ocean wave.
  

Video: South Tower demolition wave, with audio

The Towers' Tops Mushroomed

• Each tower began to explode into a cloud of dust within a second of the start of its collapse.
  
• The mushrooming clouds fell and expanded rapidly.
  
• The clouds remained centered around each tower's vertical axis.
  
• The mushrooming clouds expanded to 2-3 times each tower's diameter by 5 seconds, and 5 times their diameter by 15 seconds.
  
  

The Towers Collapsed with Dead-Centered Symmetry

• The towers collapsed straight down. Discounting demolition, they followed the path of most resistance.
  
• The South Tower first began to tip, but then became symmetric exploding radially in all directions.
  
• Achieving symmetric collapse -- an engineering feat --
  is the objective of controlled demolition.
  

Each Tower Disappeared into a Volcano-like Cloud of Dust

The dense dust clouds that replaced the towers resembled pyroclastic flows studied by vulcanologists.

• The dust clouds rapidly expanded to many times each tower's volume.
  
• The dust clouds advanced down streets around 30 mph.
  
• The clouds were dense enough to pick up and carry people.
  

New York Daily News photographer David Handschuh recalled: "I got down to the end of the block and turned the corner when a wave--a hot, solid, black wave of heat threw me down the block. It literally picked me up off my feet and I wound up about a block away."

Non-Metallic Building Parts and Contents Were Thoroughly Pulverized

• The concrete, glass, drywall, insulation, and other non-metallic building parts were pulverized to mostly sub-100 micron powder.
  
• Nearly all office contents were pulverized beyond recognition.
  
• 1000 bodies were "vaporized", preventing identification, even with advanced DNA techniques.
  

Video: The towers turned to dust



The metal parts landed near the buildings' footprints. The non-metallic parts were powderized and distributed widely.

The Steel Structures Were Shredded

• The perimeter walls were shattered into small pieces, mostly less than 30 feet long.
  
• The core columns were chopped into sections no more than a few stories long.
  
• Many perimeter column sections were ripped from spandrell plates at the welds.
  

Intense Heat Persisted for Months

• Fires continued to burn deep in the rubble pile for 100 days, despite the spraying of water onto the pile.
  
• When the rubble was cleared, pools of previously melted steel were discovered at the foundations.
  
• Temperatures needed to melt steel (~1400ºC) could not have been caused by residual hydrocarbon fires. Usually one needs a blast furnace to melt steel.
  

[kliljedahl]

30. "Democrats have rational and intelligent solutions"?

Pray tell, when are we going to hear them? I've been waiting for 5 years to hear them. When has anyone articulated them? Enquiring minds need to know.




Keith’s Barbeque Central

[longship]

34. So, tell me why this means that I have to accept lunacy.

Must I really accept that ChimpCo, the most incompetent U.S. presidency ever, planned and successfully executed the most complex conspiracy which included the cooperation and continued secrecy of thousands of people and includes the mysterious disappearance of three large passenger laden airliners, the controlled demolition of large public buildings with thousands and thousands of daily occupants without a single solitary eye-witness, missiles striking buildings in a large metropolitan area at rush hour without a single solitary eyewitness, etc. Just how many thousands of people are involved in this conspiracy? And precisely how can the most inept and incompetent administration in history keep the lid on such a thing for so damned long.

Sir William of Okham says that the conspiracy theories are rubbish. And so do I.

[leftofthedial]

16. Mu opinion has not changed

the bush crime gang seized power in an illegal coup in 2000, culminating a multi-generational grab for control

most of the "conspiracy theories" are probably true or at least partially true

much worse things are not even being speculated about

history is actually the history of conspiracies; pretty much everything of political significance that has happened in the history of our species on this planet was the result of a conspiracy.

[longship]

20. The facts be damned!

;-)

[dailykoff]

49. The facts and the feds are telling two different stories.

Very different.

[longship]

59. That is true.

However, that does not mean that we now have to accept invisible missiles, invisible controlled demolitions, disappearing airliners (and the people inside), and other MIHOP lunacy.

In this case a little ignorance goes a long way. People generally are not aware of how buildings react to such conditions that were present on 9/11. This is a case where common sense doesn't apply. The conditions in the WTC and the Pentagon on 9/11 were, if anything, uncommon. That's why many of the MIHOP questions concerning 9/11 are totally irrelevant; they are based on ignorance.

What MIHOPers are accomplishing is to muddy the waters and detract from the real issues of 9/11, that ChimpCo was so incompetent that they ignored clear warnings of impending events. That's the real catastrophe of 9/11. That's how we hold ChimpCo accountable, by sticking to facts and not wild, implausible speculations.

MIHOP does severe damage to our case. It allows the Repugs to label us all as loonies. Furthermore, it belittles the efforts of the heroes who put their own lives at risk--many of whom perished in that effort--to save thousands who might have also perished. Those heroes were not government agents, they were real people like you and I who were just doing their jobs. They gladly layed down their own lives to save others. MIHOPers would have these people as part of a ridiculously complex conspiracy. That's a real smack in the face to them. Politically, MIHOP is a disaster for us.

The science, the engineering, the evidence, and everything else clearly and unambiguously calls for the conclusion that the results of the 9/11 attack were brought on by the airliner collisions. MIHOPers ignore all of this to spew their ridiculous and clearly falsified conspiracies. This begs the question, "For what purpose?"

[dailykoff]

61. If you think Rummy, Dick and Pappy "ignored" any NSA/ CIA

reports there's a bridge I'd like to sell you.

[longship]

64. But that's something entirely different, dailykoff.

That's not MIHOP. That's LIHOP.

It's the ignoring of the warnings which condemns ChimpCo. Any way you want to look at it, it's bad for them. If they deliberately ignored the warnings so that attacks could happen, that would be very serious. However, even if it wasn't deliberate, there were clear warnings and they did not take the proper action to prevent an imminent attack. It's totally irrelevant whether that was deliberate or not because they are condemned for it regardless.

Unfortunately, in this world, they are not likely to be held accountable for their omissions and comissions. That's the biggest tragedy of 9/11. We haven't learned squat by it.

Meanwhile, we have a significant proportion of people wasting their time talking about missiles, and controlled implosions, and disappearing airliners, and bullshit like that. What a waste of resources!?

[savemefromdumbya]

17. Known all along that so-called tinfoil is not tinfoil

look at 9/11

[f-bush]

18. Done

[kliljedahl]

21. Remember, Dachau was once considered "tinfoil"

athough they didn't call it that back then.



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[longship]

27. Straw man argument.

nt

[Cleita]

22. Other.

I was in the tinfoil hat club from the beginning.

[Cats Against Frist]

23. It's not tinfoil to believe

that there is a concerted effort by fascists to take over this nation, and that they will stop at nothing to do it, nor that there is any plot too diabolical that they will not undertake.

I'd call that "common sense 101."

[longship]

26. It's not common sense to ignore facts.

9/11 conspiracy theories ignore known facts surrounding the events, and especially ignore facts of science and engineering. Instead, what one sees are argument from incredulity, straw men, special pleading, and other fatuous logic. This is all easily debunked, but it doesn't stop the conspiracy theorist who blindly believes what they will believe in spite of it all.

I think that the way ChimpCo handled 9/11 was horrible. But I see clearly that it was errors of omission, and not comission. They ignored the clear warnings and through incompetence or through plan, let the attack happen. Let's make it very clear, that there is zero doubt that the plane collisions brought down the buildings.

Sir William of Okham said it this way, "Do not unnecessarily multiply entities."
Unfortunately, that's precisely what conspiracy theorists do the most.

[RandomKoolzip]

66. Isn't it spelled "Occam?"

:shrug:

[MrSlayer]

25. Opinion not changed. I believe what is thrown off as "tinfoil" is true.

I believe the PNAC did 9/11 and that the elections were stolen.

Your other points are undisputed fact. The BFEE absolutely did trade with the Nazis, they are absolute propagandists, they are certainly more secretive than any administration in history and the no-bid contracts are a matter of public record. They didn't even try to hide that.

[Ksec]

28. Its all coming true

How could a conspiracy theorist NOT be justified?

This bunch is pushing the limits beyond even what conspiracy people dreamed.

[longship]

33. Because...

> How could a conspiracy theorist NOT be justified?

Ahhh. Let's see... Because the facts don't support the conspiracy theory?

Let's start with that. Once you've seen that the conspiracy theory is counter to the facts you don't have to consider it any further. The whole logical structure collapses like a skyscraper struck by a Mach .8, fuel laden airliner.

People need to retain their ability to discriminate conjecture from theory. As best I can discern, the tin foil hat crowd have given this up for purely ideological reasons. They want ChimpCo to be the bad guys so much, that they will attribute to them wild and implausible attributes. E.G., that they are competent enough to design and bring about such a complex conspiracy.

My feelings are that ChimpCo is incompetent beyond anything we have ever seen. Katrina, Iraq, and the rest of the debacles on ChimpCo's watch have demonstrated that the extent of their incompetence knows no bounds. Is this the type of regime which can put together such complex and universal conspiracies? It strains credulity to think that a regime which cannot even move buses to New Orleans could orchestrate such complex planning that would have whole airliners full of people disappearing without a trace, conduct controlled implosions of whole buildings without anybody seeing anything funny going on, etc. This is ignoring the science, engineering, and eye witness accounts which state unequivocally that airliners did in fact strike those buildings and bring them down.

9/11 happened just as it was reported. The only difference is that the reason it did happen was because ChimpCo totally ignored all the warnings and even discounted them. They did this through the same incompetence that gave rise to the Iraq debacle, the Katrina debacle, and all the other debacles on their watch.

There is no conspiracy except for the total incompetence of a regime which sees virtually everything as political and sees the solution to every problem in terms of politics. And even their implementation of that is incompetent. The whole thing is starting to unravel for them. We all need to stay the course and stop wasting time with these lunatic conspiracies. We need to focus on what we *know*, not on what some lunatic can think up.

Once one sees things in this light, the conspiracy theories evaporate and all is clear.

[Name removed]

56. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MN ChimpH8R]

29. Once I found out the truth about PNAC,

mostly as a result of this site and those referred to on these many pages, I became convinced of LIHOP (or maybe worse), the stolen elections and the Reichwing's plans to create a fascist state.

[dchill]

31. Other...

Always knew about the voting fraud, black box voting, disenfranchisement and installation of Bush in 2000. The truth always lies in the opposite of what Republicans and TV news says.

[lpbk2713]

32. They have convinced me if they can steal the election twice

and if they get caught in lie upon lie only to go lie some more, then they are corrupt to the core. The vast right wing conspiracy is real and is to be taken seriously. They will use whatever means they feel will bring them the desired results regardless of any moral or ethical considerations.

[AZBlue]

36. Other: don't think anything listed in the OP has anything to do w/tinfoil

but some of the other things floated on DU fall into on the following categories: (1) absurd and some should just go ahead, decorate their tinfoil hats, and put them on or (2) the jury's still out, but keep the tinfoil close at hand.

[dailykoff]

39. I signed onto CT when I realized the TV "engineers" were lying

in every possible way. The last four years have witnessed an all too effective abuse of the publicly owned AND cable broadcast media, not to mention the NYT etc.

[Armstead]

40. "Other"

I believe Bush Co. represents the culmination of some really horrible policies and values.

However, I also believe they think what they are doing is moral and decent. There's a lot of Macchianellian "ends justify the means" there. A some of those means are pretty rotten and lowdown.

But some of the wildass theories about how low they will sink have to be proven before I will buy into them. Just being suspicious, or concocting conspiracies is too freeperlike for my tastes. Some of it falls into the left wing version of "We KNOW Hillary killed Vince Foster."

[Delphinus]

42. I clicked other ...

'cause I've always been open to these so-called "tinfoil" hat theories. :)

[robertpaulsen]

44. Another Other.

I've always been open, but I always try to verify my suspicions through extensive research. My signature link gives only a fraction of how extensive the tentacles of the Octopus really reach.

[DemExpat]

46. Other: I tend to think the very worst of this crowd....

so have been open to all tinfoil ideas.

So far, my negative thinking has not been proven misguided....at ALL.

DemEx

[PhilipShore]

48. Other: Nukes the military-Industrial-complex and wars...

[TankLV]

50. Other: I always believe the WORST of this gang of REPUKE Criminals.

I've never been disappointed or had to retract or change my initial thoughts/opinions. Never.

[Raydawg1234]

58. It was all true right from the beginning, Believed it then, now I have

been affirmed. The reason that they call us tin foil hatters is because it is true!
I hate this notion in this country that deep down, our leaders are good people.
It's bullshit, we should recognize evil for evil. This "Tin foil Hattery" and "Fringe of the left" Is just a bullshit attempt by the corporate media at mind control.

[Vidar]

63. Believed there was no evil to which they wouldn't stoop from the start.

[LuCifer]

67. Other

I've always KNOWN what SCUMBAGS BU$Hitler and his gang are.

Pretty simple.