Amskeptic wrote:Lanval wrote:
Your questions have been answered in detail by thoughtful people who spent a long time working towards those conclusions.
You reject them because they don't fit your preferred answer.
At least I have the quality of being able to accept answers I don't like.
Fin
I have studiously and carefully communicated that
I don't have answers.
I have unanswered questions.
Colin
When you call me a "captive of the conventional truth" you assert, by definition that you are working with an alternative answer. If a truth is deemed "conventional" it demands that there also be an "unconventional" truth. Here, where I've claimed the answers are given, your language implies that those answers are incorrect; elsewise you would have merely said I was a "captive of the truth" ~ a statement that would have been true.
To suggest that I am a "captive" (def, 2nd meaning: ": held under control of another but having the appearance of independence; especially : owned or controlled by another concern and operated for its needs rather than for an open market <a captive mine>") is to claim that I cannot think for myself. Insulting at best, wrong at worst, and you are at your worst here.
I would think you would know better than to play fast and loose with your language when talking with me; your language betrays your true thinking ~ you believe there is an alternative belief that I am ignoring.
My response to that is this: The truth is a harsh mistress; it cares neither for our beliefs nor our desires. We must do our best to set aside those things (as you have not) and deal with what we have. The reason I quoted the
actual words of William of Ockham is that he does NOT say what people think he said; he says (I quote the original Latin) "Posit nothing that is not required". So if we don't
need a conspiracy to account for an account, then the conspiracy (or if you like, "questions") must be disallowed until it is demanded.
Allow me two examples:
1. To argue that there is a compelling argument in the notion that the building collapse in the direction of gravity is problematic is ridiculous on the face of it. Yes, the direction against gravity is the direction in which the building is the strongest; this is true. But why? Because gravity is the building's most dangerous enemy; gravity draws the building down, eternally, at 14lbs p/sq inch. Nothing weakens this force; but fire, and damage from falling debris
can damage the building, right? And that damage weakens the capacity of the structure to resist gravity.
Contrary to your assertion, the building
should fall in the direction of it's greatest strength. No demolition is required, no questions are unanswered here.
2. Various conspiracy mongers argue that the recent purchase of the building, and the new owners purchase of insurance covering terrorist attacks suggests he knew something was coming.
Such people ignore an obvious, conspiracy free, answer:
Remember that the WTC had been attacked by terrorists before? Here's the link for those who don't remember or want more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World ... er_bombing. Why would anyone be surprised after then? There was a history of terrorists attacking the WTC. The purchase of insurance suggests not that the owner knew the future, but that he knew the past.
So I ask you: Which is more likely? An owner with an inside scoop on the future destruction of his new building, or an owner who looked at what happened a few years before, and acted prudently on that information? Doesn't the second answer pretty much exclude the
need for the first?
You've asked about the collapse; it's been explained in considerable detail. The short answer is that the fire suppression systems were inadequate to the task; the ability of the firefighters to operate safely, and their occupation with the WTC proper, allowed the fire to burn. The key component is described here:
"NIST determined that diesel fuel did not play an important role, nor did the structural damage from the collapse of the twin towers, nor did the transfer elements (trusses, girders, and cantilever overhangs). But the lack of water to fight the fire was an important factor. The fires burned out of control during the afternoon, causing floor beams near Column 79 to expand and push a key girder off its seat, triggering the floors to fail around column 79 on Floors 8 to 14. With a loss of lateral support across nine floors, Column 79 soon buckled – pulling the East penthouse and nearby columns down with it. With the buckling of these critical columns, the collapse then progressed east-to-west across the core, ultimately overloading the perimeter support, which buckled between Floors 7 and 17, causing the entire building above to fall downward as a single unit. The fires, fueled by office contents, along with the lack of water, were the key reasons for the collapse"
Who makes this claim? These guys: "the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was authorized to lead an investigation into the structural failure and collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers and 7 World Trade Center.[40] The investigation, led by Dr S. Shyam Sunder, drew not only upon in-house technical expertise, but also upon the knowledge of several outside private institutions, including the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (SEI/ASCE), the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY)"
So basically your answer to all of those experts is: "You're lying or ignorant".
I don't find you particularly patient with people who question your expertise, and rightly so. Why are you so willing to:
1. Argue these men don't understand the situation?
2. Missed obvious clues?
3. Are untrustworthy?
Your mind is better than this, Colin. Why you concern yourself with this sort of thing is beyond me... particularly when I know that you are aware of how the Iraq war was used to enrich Cheney's Halliburton buddies with overpriced, no-bid contracts. And so on. There are so many things out in the open, right here in front of us, not conspiracies but real, in-your-face problems that need, no demand our attention, yet you focus on asking questions that assume a whole range of experts are liars or incompetent. If there's any conspiracy, if there are any questions here, I think those questions are this:
"Is the idea of the conspiracy itself a conspiracy designed to draw our attention away from the outright theft and dismantling of the American republic going on right out in the open, in front of us? Is getting the minds of people like you focused on something that doesn't exist, and can never be disproven a way of getting people like you to NOT pay attention to the real tricks they play: keeping taxes on the wealthy low; exploiting the resources of the people while paying little or nothing; eviscerating the concept of the middle class; denying even basic healthcare to a vast swath of the American people?"
That's where I think you should have a question.
Mike
