In an email discussion list, one of the members had become convinced of the “controlled demolition” theory of 9/11 (which I consider to be completely nutball), after watching a 2 hour video by Richard Gage. He edited it down to a 22 minute version (and also a 12 minute version) for easier viewing.
Another member of our list, David Christy, watched it and replied as follows (he gave me permission to post this):
Okay, i finally took the time to watch the 22 minute summary clip.
Not only has it failed to convince me, but as a physics major for 3 years before I decided to drop it for math and computer science, it was clear that these people were full of crap, and that makes me f*cking mad.
1st, the steel would not need to melt to collapse the building, and they know it. Steel loses structural integrity long before it reaches the melting point, and considering that most buildings like this are built to use the minimum amount of steel necessary, it actually bolsters the case for collapse.
2nd, all the buildings in the demolition “examples” were steel re-enforced concrete. The WTC buildings were an exo-skeleton, and only an imbicile wouldn’t know the difference. There was absolutely no re-enforcing aspect about the concrete in that building it in the slightest. One would expect all the non structural concrete to fall apart and it did. One would expect massive dust clouds and they happened.
3rd, the fire would have weakened the building enough to collapse, but no-one ever said that the fire itself “caused the explosion outward”. Those assholes refuted an argument that was never even made. The collapse was more than enough to push crap outward.
4th, the weakening would have caused the upper part of the building to push out the exo-skeleton, causing it to break away with insane force and for the floors to fall as quickly as they did .. which would also explain the popping.
5th, the testimonials were bullsh*t, and mean nothing.
6th, sulfer is very common in nature and also in many forms of insulation, it would have been expected to be found at the site.
7th, another name for “iron oxide” is RUST – when you have a mega steel building with an exo-skeleton, rust will likely be everywhere. Why didn’t those assholes just call it f*cking RUST.
8th, thermite is commonly used in welding to bind steel beams. Any thoughtful asshole would know that, and would expect fragments and traces to be found in the way that they were almost everywhere on the structural material.
9th, the burn temperatures of diesel were more than enough to burn people to charcoal, and the collapse more then enough to expell bone fragments everywhere, why in the f*ck did they treat it like such a mystery.
In sum, these people are either full of sh*t and they know it, or are too incompetent to have an expert opinion. It really pisses me off that they would f*ck with peoples lives where they have no business f*cking with them. If they want to make a compelling argument, they need to do a f*ck of a lot better than that!!!!!
The truther guy responded: “Wow, I commend you for watching the video. Now that you’ve seen the evidence, we can discuss it. Specifically, the thermite. Your explanation does not account for why there were unreacted thermite chips in the dust.”
Christy’s response:
Actually, it does. Have you ever seen the tack welding where it spews sparks everywhere. I would expect any welding site to have occasional loose fragments.
If they found c4 traces, and could prove it, it might have convinced me, but this is just bullsh*tting and especially not compelling.
And here is a 1 minute video…., this thermite techique may not have been used in wtc, but it still makes the point. fragments and scaring. the demolition argument is NOT COMPELLING.
Oh, btw, technically–people won’t be burned to charcoal, but it would have been more than enough to burn off all the flesh and probably make the bones brittle.
Most the buildings and their references seemed to be concrete reinforced, ones, not necessairly “all” of them, I didn’t super zone-in, but it was still clear that they were talking apples to oranges and bullsh*t.
Wow. I’ve never heard Mr. Kinsella become profane like that.
In fact, the evidence for explosive demolition of the twin towers is overwhelming. So complete was the disintegration that is cannot even be explained by conventional explosives. Furthermore, I suggest that alleged 9-11 truthers like Richard Gage and Steven Jones, who promote the “thermite” theory, are themselves still deliberately understating the phenomena, for reasons that could be the subject of a different piece. I agree that iron oxide and sulfur are innocent and a distraction.
Consider several points however.
1. No Floors Left. The twin towers were not “an exoskeleton”. The were that, PLUS a central core structure of 47 massive, cross-braced steel box columns. The perimeter and core were connected with the flooring system, which was corrugated steel floor pans, filled with steel-reinforced concrete, held up by a steel trussing system.
There were 107 floors in each tower. If the buildings “collapsed”, there were be a stack of 107 floors in the footprint of each building. No sort of gravity collapse has near the energy to pulverize steel. In fact there are zero floors remaining. Please study photos such as this one.
http://www.zombietime.com/wtc_9-13-2001/wtc_North_Tower.jpg
Bear in mind that according to the most generous collapse model, no more than 20% of the mass of the building can go outside the footprint, or else collapse stops.
2. Mushroom cloud.
Please observe this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoGLW9397D4
Note that the smoke above WTC1 begins expanding rapidly upward and outward, to the right, which is west, which is against the wind. This is conclusive proof that a tremendous heat input was applied, which can only be explained by very strong explosives. Bear in mind that the tower is falling down away from this area while this occurs.
(continued)
It was not my comment. I was quoting someone else and in fact cleaned up the profanity.
3. Squibs. In the above video, ejections of dust and debris are seen shooting out of the building, far below the “collapse” front. It is suggested that the collapsing tower acted as a “pistion”, compressing air below it, and forcing the material out of windows. Leaving aside the question of how the collapsing top could form a seal, how could the material 20 + stories below the collapse have already become crushed?
4. WTC7. A 47 story building symmetrically falls into its footprint at free-fall speed, at 5:20 pm. Free-fall speed requires that all the vertical supports fail simultaneously. Even assuming fire could somehow weaken steel columns to this degree, which has never happened before in all history, how could it do so symmetrically?
(continued)
5. Fuming. Ground Zero (aptly named) fumed for at least 100 days after 9/11. By some accounts, it has not stopped to this day. Officially, they were underground fires, like a coal fire. Except the Ground Zero “fires” had no fuel and no oxygen, and are now said to be “anaerobic fires”, which appear to be new.
This fuming persisted despite constant watering, heavy rain at times, and freezing temperatures. Truckloads of dirt were brought in to quiet the fuming. Does this sound like any fire you know of?
6. Strontium, Barium, and Tritium. Strontium and Barium were not only found in the dust, but they were highly correlated. In the samples where one went up, so did the other. These are in fact a definitive signature of nuclear fission, and have no real business being there.
Tritium is a material used in nuclear fusion. It was found in water samples at about 60 x background levels.
Nuclear fusion is a pretty clean way to create a lot of energy, but it requires extremely high temperatures to initiate it. Nuclear fission creates those temps. It appears both fission and fusion took place at Ground Zero.
(continued)
7. Rare Cancer. Ground Zero workers are coming down with rare cancer at a very high rate. We’re talking thyroid and leukemia. There was asbestos in the towers, which is associated with lung cancer. But radiation appears to be the most likely cause of what we see.
8. 60 foot hole in bedrock. There was a huge hole underneath WTC2. In bedrock. A nuclear fission meltdown could cause this. What else?
9. Melted cars. Some 1400 motor vehicles were melted. Many of these were in areas with no significant debris, such as West Broadway.
Like this:
http://drjudywood.com/articles/DEW/dewpics/Image19swamp.jpg
Come on guys. Buildings collapsed over in the WTC plaza, and THIS happened? Please.
It’s time to face a horrible truth. “Your” government did 9/11 to foment anger at “muslims” to justify war, the Patriot Act, the DHS, the TSA , etc.
Here’s an article of mine from 2 years ago, addressed specifically to Austro-Libertarians;
http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911&subpage1=libertarian_opportunity
-Ace Baker
Stephan, why exactly do you say controlled demolition on 9/11 is “completely nutball”? Seems a lot of people thoughtlessly say that about anarcho-capitalism.
Ever since my article on Morgan Reynolds’ site, I highly suspect the whole LewRockwell crowd is avoiding 9/11 like the proverbial plague. The government has myriad ways to punish those who speak out. I suppose I can’t blame you.
But if you ever would like to actually look into 9/11, I can assure you the case for an inside job is overwhelming. You must be very careful. There is plenty of limited-hangout government propaganda posing as 9/11 truth. When “debunkers” counter this propaganda, while avoiding the real evidence, it is very frustrating. This is quite like when people purport to criticize “anarchism”, but avoid discussing Rothbardian Hoppean anarcho-capitalism, and instead lump it all together with left-wing anarchy. It’s a strawman tactic.
9/11 truth is the golden opportunity for libertarians. Why all you guys avoid it is a very, very interesting subject in itself. Is it possible have a “warm and comfortable berth in the state apparatus”?
-Ace Baker
Don’t you think this subject deserves an answer, Mr. Kinsella?
Why would it be that Austro-libertarians, the very people who have presented the intellectual foundation for the stateless society, avoid the very subject (9/11) that would convince great masses of people that government is harmful and unnecessary?
It must be either:
a) You don’t really believe your own economic theory
or
b) You fear some kind of retaliation from the all-powerful state.
I say it’s b.
-Ace Baker
They’re just scared to point the finger of blame where it belongs – it’s much safer to blame the government.
Huh? Who’s “they”?
Are you saying you think “Al-queda” did 9/11? How absurd! The towers were obviously blown up, there was nothing left of them.
“THEY” are you bunch of hippy 9/11 “truthers” with obviously nothing better to do. You all seem so sure of yourselves in your self-righteous indignation and faux “outrage” at the U.S. government. As I stated previously, I’m sure you feel much safer blaming the government, rather than pointing the finger where it belongs. Yes, al-qaeda is solely responsible for 9/11, and if any of you so-called “truthers” had any balls, you would stand up for your country and our way of life in the face of this threat, and call islam out for the vile, hateful ideology it is.
So, “Steve”, do you have any substantive critique of the various points of evidence I have presented in this thread?
Well, “Ace,” what you call points of “evidence” I call mindless speculation. I’m not interested in debating your crazy theories but let me ask you: have you ever even SEEN a Boeing 767? It makes perfect sense to me and every other sane person that a 767 traveling at almost 500 mph and loaded with 10,000 gallons of jet fuel could be the sole source of the destruction of 9/11. Sheesh. Mushroom clouds? Controlled demolition? You can’t be serious.
Well, “Steve”, your attempt at substantive response I call “vacuous trolling in support of mass murder”.
Each floor had a 1-acre area of corrugated steel deck, which appear to have been turned into dust. If the buildings fell down, we’d have a stack of 107 acre-sized floors, per tower. Do yo have any evidence for the survival of floor assemblies?
Why do you keep putting my name in quotations? You must think I’m part of the conspiracy and not using my real name or something. I have all the evidence I need – terrorists had been trying to blow up those towers for years and they finally succeeded on 9/11. Alone. I think you people should move on to the reasons why you see conspiracy here in the first place, and I believe it’s because deep down you know who caused this disaster and, like the rest of us, are deeply disturbed and angered by it. You may feel brave and noble in your intentions and your actions by blaming these events on the government, but in reality, it is immensely safer than calling out islam and demanding that muslims hold themselves and their perverted ideology accountable for the atrocities committed in the name of islam.
Why do you keep avoiding a discussion of the facts I present? You must be aware of the compelling evidence for explosive demolition, hence the avoidance of using your real name or something. I have all the evidence I need – the U.S. govern-media had been trying to justify a middle east war for years and they finally succeeded on 9/11. Alone. I think you people should move on to the reasons why governments conduct false flag operations in the first place, and I understand it’s because they profit immensely from war and I, like any moral person, am deeply disturbed and angered by it. You may feel brave and noble in your intentions and your actions by blaming these events on “terrorists”, but in reality, it is immensely safer than calling out government and their perverted ideology accountable for the atrocities committed in the name of statism.
Simply because you have yet to present a single fact and your posts have degenerated into rambling gibberish. Do you honestly believe that the ultra-incompetent US government was able to pull off the largest coverup in history? That they were able to pre-wire the twin towers and building 7 ahead of time in some sort of “controlled demolition?” Until you “truthers” can come up with some hard evidence or even ONE witness who will admit to pre-wiring these buildings to implode, your cause will remain, appropriately, a laughingstock. I think you would do well to remember the words of Edmund Burke: “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” It’s okay to fear terrorism, but you “truthers” have taken it way too far.
Read upthread for plenty of facts and evidence.
WTC7 imploded, the twin towers exploded. Almost none of the mass of the towers landed in the footprint, which in and of itself proves demolition.
The U.S. government is incompetent? They have satellites that can read your license plate from space. They have floating mobile airbases. They have military bases in 130+ foreign territories.
Can’t keep a secret? Really? Then list the accomplishments of the NSA. As far as I can tell, the NSA has 30,000 people keeping big secrets for decades on end. Ditto the CIA.
Oh my God. It just gets better and better with you. The last word’s all yours – this is the last bit of space on Mr. Kinsella’s site I’ll be wasting. Good luck to you, sir.
Not one substantive comment from “Steve”. C’mon perps, you can do better than this.
Two Words: “Building Seven”
As we see in the above exchange, people like “Steve” will never address the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. Obviously in such a debate, anyone refusing to acknowledge this massive elephant in the room has zero credibility.
You’re right Mike. I’m frustrated with the whole Austro-libertarian crowd. If ever there was an opportunity to convince large numbers of people that there is something wrong with huge government, 9/11 is it. I’d like to develop a theory that explains the silence of the Lew Rockwell scholars.
As far as developing a theory explaining the pathetic nature of the Lew Rockwell crowd in regards to 9-11, I have already done it.
“They are cowards.”
Yes, they’re afraid. But afraid of what, exactly?
Mainly they are afraid of losing their cushy jobs. This exchange I had with Walter Block says it all:
Dear Walter,
Did I read you right? You only work 2.5 hours per week?
You wrote:
“I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30–10:45am. Other than those times, I am pretty free…”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block136.html
That is awesome! How do I get a gig like that?
Thanks,
Mike
Dear Mike:
Get a phd. Become a professor, then get an endowed chair.
Best regards,
Walter E. Block, Ph.D.
Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics
Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business
Loyola University New Orleans
Dear Walter,
How about a little 9-11 truth? With a secure position like you have with your tenure and endowed chair you could publically speak some real truth to power.
– Mike
Dear Mike:
I haven’t the expertise for that.
Best regards,
Walter E. Block, Ph.D.
Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics
Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business
Loyola University New Orleans
Dear Walter,
As a prominent “Ph.D, Eminent Scholar” with an “Endowed Chair” at a major university do you have enough expertise in critical thinking to weigh in on the likelihood of a terrorist’s paper passport surviving the same explosion that vaporized the plane’s titanium black box.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-16-Sun-2001/news/17011253.html
– Mike
Dear Mike:
I don’t want to spread myself too thin. I try to confine myself to economcis.
Best regards,
Walter E. Block, Ph.D.
Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics
Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business
Loyola University New Orleans
Walter,
I understand that you must be careful not to spread yourself too thin. Your grueling 2.5 hour per week work schedule probably leaves no time at all to spend looking into the details of the most important event of our lives.
Murray Rothbard must be rolling in his grave. He would never have avoided commenting on the lies of 9-11 and he certainly would never have given such a pathetic, cowardly excuse as “I try to confine myself to economics.”
Silence = Consent
– Mike
Standing Ovation! Great dialog with Walter Block. I said the same thing about Rothbard, in my 2006 open letter to the Austro Libertarians:
http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911&subpage1=libertarian_opportunity
I had a brief email exchange with Robert Higgs, and he said 9/11 “didn’t have the earmarks of a government operation”. The guy who wrote “Crises and Leviathan” and explained how war is always used to justify the expansion of the state, somehow thinks 9/11 doesn’t fit the bill. Higgs has even lectured on 9/11 specifically, noting the various expansions of the surveillance state and the warfare state, based on 9/11, yet won’t put 2 and 2 together.
These guys know, and they are silent, or publishing hit pieces like this one on Kinsella’s blog. Shame.
Mike, Ace – If that is your passion, please gain some credentials in some field and present a scientific paper. Otherwise, these people have their own passions and don’t feel the need to go down another rabbit hole to realize that the govt covers things up and causes intentional trouble.
Let’s focus on reducing the power of the State , including the power to keep secrets, then worry about opening the X-files. Until the State has given up the monopoly on truth, it doesn’t matter what really happened.
iawai – Read Rothbard, Walter Block on credentialism and licensing. It’s a major tool in State control of information. “Court intellectuals” and all that.
Plenty of scientific work has been done proving the twin tower demolitions. Here’s an easy one: Less than 5% of the mass of the towers landed in their footprint. This is irrefutable proof of explosive demolition, because without mass in the footprint, there is nothing to cause a gravity collapse. The most generous calculations say that >80% of mass must stay in the footprint for gravity collapse.
Here is a scholarly treatise on another interesting aspect of 9/11, the airplane videos:
http://911composites.wiki-site.com/
iawai said, “Let’s focus on reducing the power of the State”
I agree 100%. The State can only function with the consent of the people. Expose the government as a cabal of mass murdering criminals and the people will withdraw their consent.
The 9-11 truth movement has already proven to be the greatest recruiting tool for the liberty movement. Ron Paul has publically stated that over half of his supporters have come from the truther community.
Ace, about your comment about Austrians and anarcho-capitalists, consider the logical fallacy being employed*:
You are assuming identity of the whole because of similarity of a single part. This is actually a combination of two fallacies but we need not go into the specifics here. It is sufficient to show via an analogy why assuming identity from one similarity is fallacious:
The KKK opposes most if not all government intervention. Radical right-wing christian militias do as well. As do anarchists of most flavors. So if we applied your fallacy to these facts, we would have to conclude that anyone who opposes government intervention is a racist right wing militia conspiracy nut.
I oppose all government intervention, even the very existence of any government. Yet I am not racist. I am not part of any militia, right-wing or otherwise. I am not a christian. And I am most certainly not a conspiracy nut.
The purpose of this last paragraph is simply to show that while your conclusion necessitates all X are Y, I have shown you an X that is not Y. This in turn proves that your argument is fallacious.
Others have already thoroughly addressed the issues concerning the conspiracy theory and the absence of science already, so consider my own remarks to be merely about the fallacious argument mentioned.
And no, I won’t be sucked into denying reality and coming up with incredibly complex massive conspiracies for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Sure we should condemn the government and all of those in it, but we do not need to make up anything in order to do it: they do plenty of actual verifiable evil.
Storm – I have no idea what you’re talking about. You seem to suggest I’ve employed the fallacy of composition, but you haven’t said how.
I’m mad because the vast majority of austro-libertarians, the very intellectuals who have correctly laid the groundwork for the stateless society, choose to support the official government story of 9/11, despite overwhelming scientific evidence for demolitions. Goodness, those towers were blown into microscopic dust.
What’s next, libertarians supporting the Fed? Government Health Care?
Truthers are insane.
Why do you say truthers are insane, Mr. Kinsella?
You think? 😉
The funniest thing about the ‘truthers’ is that the idea of ‘the government did it’ came out about the time the dust was beginning to lift. OR maybe even by the time the second plane hit.
It IS truly an insane meme.
Damn you 9/11 truthers. your wrong and even if you were right the accusations you make are outrageous.no one’s going to take you seriously after insults like that.
Ace, Er… My entire post is an explanation of one of the fallacies (with an allusion to another) so your claim is self-defeating. Either I offered it and that is what you are complaining about, so your claim is false, or else I did not offer it and you are not complaining about it, and thus it still stands.
As for “the overwhelming scientific evidence” I cannot help but be reminded of the algores, and the other “global cooling… er.. global warming.. er.. I mean climate change.. yeah climate change” folks.. They too keep on claiming that all of the evidence is on their side, but never can produce any reliable SCIENTIFIC evidence at all.
As I said before, the government does enough wrong, unjust, out right dishonest and illegal that there is no need to fabricate massive complicated bizarre conspiracy theories.
Er, “Storm”, you’ve offered irrelevant nonsense. Why don’t you try responding to the evidence and arguments I’ve provided in the posts above?
For example, very little of the mass of the towers landed in the footprint. This is conclusive proof of explosive demolition. Do you disagree with either the data or the conclusion? Why? Be specific.
Data. How much of the mass? That would be a start.
Second, how much of the mass should have been on the footprint if the official story were correct, and how much should be on the footprint if your story were correct.
Reference to generally recognized formulas, calculations, and benchmarks.
Thank you.
First, be aware that NIST did not model the “collapses”. After 10,000 pages, they stopped their “investigation” at the time the tops of the towers began to come down.
The generally accepted benchmark would be an engineering simulation done in ANSYS UNIDYN software. This has not been done for the twin towers, and note that I have offered to fund such a simulation up to $100,000, with no takers.
Frank Greening/Zdenek Bazant have created the only model attempting to show a gravity collapse possible. It’s a simple “upper block falls down one story, breaks the floor below, that mass is added to the upper block, next” model.
And according to Greening-Bazant, no more than 20% of the mass can go outside the footprint.
The best/only data to determine how much mass stayed in the footprint are the videos and photos of ground zero. They show zero floors, <5% of core and perimeter columns in the footprint. 107 acre-sized corrugated steel floor pans, filled with steel-reinforced concrete, per tower, gone.
About 20% of the core and perimiter columns are visible in the photos, and they are outside the footprint. The rest of the steel, all of the concrete, the elevators, the people, the toilets, the plumbing, the file cabinets, the carpet, etc. was all rendered into extremely fine powder, and spread over lower Manhattan inches deep.
Oh, yes: references & credentials. Can’t follow up on the vague descriptions you provide. Also, references to pertinent literature with comparable data. And, the model data, too. Data sets & description of the software. That would be a nice start.
Two major problems (which I choose to mention)
First: I already pointed out that others have handled more than sufficiently the scientific debunking of your position and claims, and thus focused my own comments on one of the tangential fallacies of your claims about anarchists.
Second: the burden of proof is yours alone. That burden has not been taken up by you.
As I said before, the government does enough wrong, unjust, out right dishonest and illegal that there is no need to fabricate massive complicated bizarre conspiracy theories.
The massive complicated bizarre conspiracy theory is the one about 19 magical suicidal hijackers and the self-disintegrating towers.
My contention here with regard to Austro-libertarians is that, while presenting the correct anti-state economic theory, they nonetheless enjoy the “warm and privileged berth” in the state apparatus, as Rothbard warned. Austrianism is allowed to exist as a tiny alternative to “mainstream” economics, for the purpose of convincing the masses that choice exists.
Oh, that’s funny. I would rather argue that troofers are given a lot of indulgence by the state, because they provide the best excuse to dismiss all radical ideas equally.
Upthread I presented many data points with links. If any of you should like to substantively address these points, that would be interesting.
I provided some follow-up questions, since you actually did not provide any real data or references.
Ace, you are going to find that you have an even more difficult time proving this stronger claim than you had with the weaker claim. In fact, once again using myself as an example, you will not find any privilege whatsoever. Then too you will be quite challenged to reconcile this new bold claim with the former.
Perhaps the problems you are having all boil down to problems of comprehension such as the one demonstrated in your first post, and corrected by Mr Kinsella.
Wow Stephen, you really had hair man. That’s awesome. 😀
Very interesting read through the above exchange of views seven years ago.
With the benefit of hindsight, one cannot help but be struck by what utter cunts Storm, Dietwald, and Marco are.
Whoever Ace Baker is, he lays out his views clearly, consistently, and rigorously. All power to the man.
And i just read it today, 14 nov 18. Ace….. You nailed it and them. Masterful.