Why, God, why do you believe that? Loopy conspiracy theories

Heh. Well, whatever, Mae...

Oh, yes, and...

Quote :

Jonathan Barnett, professor of fire protection engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, calls such claims "bad science". Barnett was a member of the World Trade Centre Building Performance Study, one of the government groups that investigated the towers' collapse.

A matter of seconds and the Twin Towers were TOTALLY DESTROYED. Into
DUST. By a fire and a flimsy commercial jet. Read that again. And a
third time. A fire and a commercial airliner brought down the Twin
Towers. BOTH of them. Within half an hour of each other.

The Twin Towers are NOT a deck of cards. In the event of their collapse, they would have fallen OVER, not IN.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Jet fuel burns, yes. But it doesn't burn hot ENOUGH. Not enough to melt through solid steel beams, which is what skyscrapers are built with.

Okay. What's the word for very rapid, very energetic combustion? (This is usually made worse by happening in an enclosed space.)

To drop the top portion of the buildings on the lower portion and bring the whole thing down, the steel doesn't need be completely turned into a liquid. The building already lost a good chunk of support (ya know, from having an airliner full of fuel crashed into it at a few hundred miles an hour) and the fire just made things worse. Remember: as metals heat, they get softer and expand. This means the supports would be softening and cracking long before they reached whatever temperature it takes to make them completely runny. All it has to do is make the supports incapable of holding up whatever weight is above them.

Remember, the south tower was hit second, but collapsed first, because it was hit lower. Assuming the damage on the towers was about the same, the supports in the second tower would not need to weaken as much before they failed, because they were holding up more weight.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

A fire could NOT bring down the Twin Towers. Not even the magical jet fuel.

Just think about what happened. Impact-> explosion-> fire.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Skyscrapers are built to withstand pretty much anything - except a specially controlled explosion to bring them down.

Say it with me: "explosions are not magic." A big enough uncontrolled explosion will do the same thing as a controlled one. And quite a bit more, in many cases.

Harley are you actually Jennifer Diane Reitz because I seem to remember her claiming this exact same thing

I'm with CW Harley, in that you need to shut the fuck up. I remember seeing it. I walked into my US History classroom, and the TV was on because we watched the news every morning. All of a sudden, the program switched. I saw the second plane fly in.

You could see the plane take out the supports. This made the top floors collapse. You could see the weight of them falling destroy the rest of the tower, going down like a house of cards. It wasn't a demolition.

A matter of seconds and the Twin Towers were TOTALLY DESTROYED. Into DUST. By a fire and a flimsy commercial jet. Read that again. And a third time. A fire and a commercial airliner brought down the Twin Towers. BOTH of them. Within half an hour of each other.

Please, THINK.

The flimsy science supporting the 'collapse' has too many questions attached. Too many 'yes but if it happened this way' things to let such questions go unanswered. These are not decks of cards, they are SKYSCRAPERS, of concrete and steel and double-glazing, specially constructed to stay UP.

They're designed to be EARTHQUAKE PROOF, dammit.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

If you'd look at the gaping holes and think about the fact that it's being claimed that COMMERCIAL JET AIRLINERS made them, you'd be concerned too. Compare a jet airliner to a building the size and strength of the Twin Towers.

One of the structural columns in the buildings were damaged during both attacks, which weakened the structural integrity of the entire building. The BLACK SMOKE (assuming you have eyes and can see since you're espousing other people to use theirs) is indicative of a fire that's burning with an accelerant or fuel... which in this case means jet fuel.

Quote :

Wait, and you are claiming that BURNING FURNITURE helped to bring down the towers? Jet fuel couldn't, so it needed the help of BURNING FURNITURE?! Christ almighty, HOUSES are still standing after fires, even bad ones. Those buildings crumpled into DUST. Within seconds.

A housefire

Look, it's still standing, despite all the flames.

Are you seriously comparing a house fire to the Towers? What. The. Fuck.

Let me try to explain so you'll understand. The crashes weakened one of the support columns. The fire, fueled by jet fuel, heated the steel infrastructure. Coupled with the weakened support column, one floor crashed into the next one (I forget which floor it was). It held for a moment, but that floor couldn't hold all the weight, and so it crashed into the next one, causing a snowball effect which led to the Towers collasping. Collasping straight down, I might add. Which, *GASP* as any professional demolitionist can tell you, causes a huge cloud of smoke as the materials inside--which include plaster, paper, wood, the furniture, etc etc etc--and outside are crushed under the weight of the building.

As explained above--and in the article I linked which you obviously didn't bother reading--the steel wasn't melted completely. Part of the problem is the structural damage caused. Part of it was the uneven heating on the infrastructure, which caused buckling at points, which in turn led to other parts of the infrastructure taking on much more weight than it was originally designed to. Skyscrapers are designed to withstand a fire for a good long while before collapsing, so as to get people to safety. Now, are you fucking saying that a house on fire is the same thing as a skyscraper on fire?

Quote :

I know why people don't want to listen to these theories. It's because it's simply HORRIFIC to have to acknowledge that your own government, the people you trust, would do such a thing to incite a war, just for money. That they would put a monetary value on human life.

This is because you are a good person and don't want to believe that somebody you trust could and would do such a thing, so you'll believe the explanation that it was somebody else.

I'm not such a good person, so I can believe it. Also, I'm not American, which helps.

Believing the government hired terrorists to attack, or that the oil companies funded terrorists, or that W. wanted to search for WMD and needed some way to do it...all of that is fine. That's why it's a conspiracy theory. Thinking the government either wired bombs, sabotaged the Two Towers somehow, or had people working on the inside of the Towers to make it structurally unsound when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary and absolutely no witnesses of any "strange behavior" the days before the attack or any other sort of circumstantial evidence is just gullible.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

If you'd look at the gaping holes and think about the fact that it's being claimed that COMMERCIAL JET AIRLINERS made them, you'd be concerned too. Compare a jet airliner to a building the size and strength of the Twin Towers.

Yes, let's. You can compare their relative sizes here.

Quote :

Wait, and you are claiming that BURNING FURNITURE helped to bring down the towers? Jet fuel couldn't, so it needed the help of BURNING FURNITURE?!

THEIR STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY WAS COMPROMISED BECAUSE THE FUCKING SUPPORT STRUCTURES WERE PARTIALLY DESTROYED, YOU DENSE, IGNORANT, FUCKWITTED SHITHEAD.

Quote :

Those buildings crumpled into DUST. Within seconds.

DID YOU READ THE FUCKING GUARDIAN ARTICLE YOU LINKED, YOU PUS-QUAFFING SHITSTAIN?

Quote :

the planes' impact weakened the structures and stripped off the fireproofing materials. That caused the top floors of both towers to collapse on to the floors below. "A big chunk of building falling down made the next floor fall down, and then they all came down like a deck of cards," Barnett says.

Quote :

I know why people don't want to listen to these theories.

Because they're a great big pile of horseshit.

Why is it so fucking hard for you to believe that a highly organised and dedicated terrorist group managed to hijack four commercial jet liners and crash them into three buildings? What are you going to say about Flight 93? Wait, don't answer that, it'll be a load of ignorant wank.

Quote :

A matter of seconds and the Twin Towers were TOTALLY DESTROYED. Into
DUST. By a fire and a flimsy commercial jet. Read that again. And a
third time. A fire and a commercial airliner brought down the Twin
Towers. BOTH of them. Within half an hour of each other.
The Twin Towers are NOT a deck of cards. In the event of their collapse, they would have fallen OVER, not IN.

THE TOP OF THE TOWERS COLLAPSED DOWN ON THE FLOORS BELOW. GRAVITY. REMEMBER GRAVITY? REMEMBER CONCRETE AND STEEL AND HOW HEAVY IT IS?

Jesus Christ Harley you are too stupid to fucking live. This isn't "flimsy science", this is BASIC CLASSICAL MECHANICS. Either shut your mouth or open a vein.

Quote :

THEIR STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY WAS COMPROMISED
BECAUSE THE FUCKING SUPPORT STRUCTURES WERE PARTIALLY DESTROYED, YOU
DENSE, IGNORANT, FUCKWITTED SHITHEAD.

Cyber, are you really Cyber? You used to be so rational.

They were partially destroyed by the explosives in the planes that hit them, and suspected deliberate rebuilding weeeks previous to aid the destruction of the towers. Not melted by fire.

*watches movie*

When other camera holders were screaming and turning and running all over the place, this guy just stands there calmly and gets a clear shot? Well, not totally a clear shot... you don't see the actual impact, only the massive explosion that seems a little TOO massive.

"Bullseye".

That is what he says. Listen. Bullseye. You haven't convinced me of anything but that the cameraman was expecting that crash.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

They were partially destroyed by the explosives in the planes that hit them

What, you mean like, oh, GALLONS OF JET FUEL BURSTING INTO FLAME, as it is known to do even after a "controlled" crash landing?

Quote :

When other camera holders were screaming and turning and running all over the place, this guy just stands there calmly and gets a clear shot?

You mean like several other camera holders that day?

Quote :

"Bullseye".

That is what he says. Listen. Bullseye.

He says, "Oh, fuck."

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Not melted by fire.

Jet fuel burns at up to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit, and combustible materials inside the WTC raised the temperature even higher. Steel softens and loses strength as it heats up. According to the American Institute of Steel Construction, steel loses about half its strength by the time it reaches 1100 degrees.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

The flimsy science supporting the 'collapse' has too many questions attached. Too many 'yes but if it happened this way' things to let such questions go unanswered.

Yes, the science surely raises more questions than the accusation of a massive government and media conspiracy founded on a layperson's idea that "skyscrapers are not houses of cards."

Ok. Harley's either trolling (and doing a spectacular job of it) or is just too stupid to live. Either case, I'm not wasting anymore time on her.

Nope, I listened and listened about twenty times, and tried to hear the words 'What the fuck' in there, and I couldn't. Still sounds very much like 'Bullseye', or a similar word. 'What the fuck' is not what I heard, even when I listened for it.

And his calm reaction - to this incredibly shocking sight - is TOO calm. He acts like he was expecting it.

OK so this is already seriously TLDR for me, I would just like to say the following:

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

I saw several of those videos of the collapse, and I used my brain (despite conspiracy theories going around, I do have one) and thought, "No, buildings don't fall over like that."

South Tower Collapse

It collapsed. INTO DUST. LOOK at it.

It collapsed into its own basement. You know why so much of it disappeared? Because the whole area underneath WTC was one huge big honking underground shopping center and subway station. It didn't sit on flat ground, it basically sat on top of a ginourmous cave. Given that each story ended up being about, what was it, a couple of feet thick, there's on awful lot of building fitting down in there.

Wow yes, under 80 floors of building, there were 80 floors of totally hollow basement made of balsa wood and paper.

I look at that HUGE plane crashing, and I think, "Hey, if the plane crashed, where's the plane? Shouldn't it be sticking halfway out of the building?"

I look at that damage, and I think, "A commercial airliner, which is a hollow tube of metal, caused that amount of damage?"

I look at that collapse and I think, "That amount of damage caused that total and utter crumbling into DUST of the Twin Towers? BOTH of them?"

I look at that dust and I think, "That's classed as structural collapse?"

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

RETARDED SPECULATION

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Wow yes, under 80 floors of building, there were 80 floors of totally hollow basement made of balsa wood and paper.

No. Ok, one more time and real slow.

There were several stories of stores and train station underneath. Those tend to be higher than office floors, yes? So, a lot of room.
Then, while crashing, each of the floors above was reduced to, dunno, a foot or so in height. Meaning that you could probably fit ten stories in one intact one. Now think about how many stories would then be able to fit in a train station!!!
And then, consider the humongous heap of rubble that was still above ground afterwards.

Clearer now?

Quote :

I look at that HUGE plane crashing, and I think, "Hey, if the plane crashed, where's the plane? Shouldn't it be sticking halfway out of the building?"

I look at that damage, and I think, "A commercial airliner, which is a hollow tube of metal, caused that amount of damage?"

So wait- the plane is basically almost virtually entirely not there at all and just "tinfoil and glue" (your words, yes?) but you find it suspicious that there aren't more bits of it?



[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Actually I think it was Cyberwuld who said tinfoil and glue...

A little clarity is needed on that last part, grmbl.

If the plane was made of 'tinfoil and glue', the collapse of the building could have destroyed it into effectively nothingness. But it couldn't have brought down the building or caused that kind of damage.

If the plane was hard enough to carve that humongous gash in the building, it could have caused the collapse, but then where's the plane? And commercial jets aren't built to bring down buildings anyway.

You can have one or the other, but you can't have a plane that is tough enough to bring down the building and then vanish into dust. And that's not just ONE building that all of this stuff conveniently happened in this particular way to. It's TWO.

95300 kg of "tinfoil and glue" x 900 kph =

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

If the plane was hard enough to carve that humongous gash in the building, it could have caused the collapse, but then where's the plane? And commercial jets aren't built to bring down buildings anyway.

:teach:

Here's some of the plane. It's not "dust." Note the fact that other than the windows, you can't really tell that it's part of the plane; this is what enabled the plane wreckage to be lost with the rest of the scrap metal in the rubble. The plane did not completely cause the collapse; the subsequent jet fuel fire contributed. The plane was "hard enough" to damage the building because of its momentum; the crash transfered the plane's kinetic energy into the deformation of the plane and the WTC. Imagine punching a wall very hard; your hand is softer, and you may break your hand but simultaneously still dent the wall. Commercial jets may not be built to bring down buildings, but buildings are not built to withstand hits from commercial jets. I have heard this theory many times and I do not believe it is plausible.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

If the plane was hard enough to carve that humongous gash in the building, it could have caused the collapse, but then where's the plane? And commercial jets aren't built to bring down buildings anyway.

Lots of things can do things that they aren't designed for. For example: A Nintendo 64 was not made to hit someone over the head with, but that doesn't mean it would hurt any less if I smashed someone over the head with it.

THAT brought down a building?

Everybody acts like Jet fuel is some magical liquid that can make buildings burn hotter and melt steel. They can't even melt airplanes in real crashes.

Steel often melts at around 1370 degrees C (2500°F). Jet fuel burns at up to 900 degrees C.

Jet fuel may not need to specfically melt the steel to weaken it, but that's a big, BIG gap between burning point and melting point, to make the steel supports vanish, and the buildings crumble into dust faster than gravity alone should make it collapse.

Oh, and how much fuel can an airliner carry? Traditionally they don't carry more than it takes to make the flight. And they don't spray it all over the place when they crash - the fire remains localised within the plane, mostly. People are basing their explosions on movies. The plane would find it tough to melt itself, let alone steel-re-infor[/size]ced concrete. Concrete doesn't burn very well.

Cyberwulf wrote:

If you're claiming that the Government did 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq, what was with all that "Al-Queda did 9/11" bit in Afghanistan?

This right here is exactly why I can't embrace the conspiracy theories. I actually shut up a bunch of Truthers on another board by simply pointing out "But if Cheney and/or Bush were really behind it, wouldn't they have framed Saddam Hussein for it?"

This certainly isn't an endorsement of the Cheney/Bush administration. There is no doubt in my mind they're evil human beings who used this tragedy to further own agendas; Cheney, and Bush's brother Jeb, signed a document back in the 1990's calling for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein for the purposes of furthering American hegemony. They said they doubted the political will could be summoned, though, short of a "Pearl Harbor level event"

So yeah, when 911 happened the fuckers were ready to use it, and they did. They used it to justify the invasion of a broken country that wasn't posing any immediate threat to us. They used it to justify huge, no-bid contracts to Halliburton (the company Cheney used to run before he selected himself for Vice President), Blackwater, and the oil companies. They used it to justify spying on Americans. They used it to justify building a Gulag and torturing people.

But too many people would have been too quiet for too long for me to accept "The Gubmint Did It!" There's certainly a lot of questions that have never been answered...but frankly, I attribute it more to Cheney/Bush's reflective hatred of telling anybody anything, and wanting to protect their aura of competence. They got caught with their pants down on 911, and didn't want to admit that anymore than they wanted to admit that Iraq and Katrina were epic clusterfucks of their own.

Trioculus wrote:

This right here is exactly why I can't embrace the conspiracy theories. I actually shut up a bunch of Truthers on another board by simply pointing out "But if Cheney and/or Bush were really behind it, wouldn't they have framed Saddam Hussein for it?"

Because it was not believable that Saddam would arrange such a thing. Furthermore, he's a man with power - or he was - to protect himself. Also, he was sane. No sane government supports terrorists. Not even tyrants like Saddam. It was far more believable that crazed suicide terrorists, already on the run from the law and with no way to legally protect themselves - somebody like Bin Laden - would arrange such a thing. Somebody nobody important would care about or know much about. How much did you know about Bin Laden before 9/11?

But Bin Laden doesn't run Al Qaeda. NOBODY runs Al Qaeda. He's just a loud, old man whose words have a lot of influence in certain Islamic fundamentalist circles, not a criminal mastermind. There's not even any certainty he's still alive.

So... how 'bout them Reptilians?