Wednesday, January 24, 2007

And Now For Some "Science"

I finally got around to listening to Fetzer's recent interview of Steven Jones on his radio show. For the most part it is pretty inane, they spend a lot of time talking over each other and basically discussing whose argument less scientific. In this case I think they are both right. This part from Jones, who actually comes off relatively less kooky overall, left my jaw dropping:

Demolitions of buildings using thermite has been, as you pose it, has been done a number of times you see. This is now called thermite arson. And there are a number of buildings that have been destroyed, and it has been proven, that thermite was used to bring down to demolish (unintelligible).

Yeah, sure they have. So you should have no problems naming these buildings and the demolition firms involved.

He later goes on to claim incredibly:

Superthermite is an explosive, it is used routinely now.


Oh really? "Routinely"? Then why is it the only mention of superthermite you could find for your paper was about laboratory research in this area?

Researchers can greatly increase the power of weapons by adding materials known as superthermites that combine nanometals such as nanoaluminum with metal oxides such as iron oxide, according to Steven Son, a project leader in the
Explosives Science and Technology group at Los Alamos.

It later goes on to summarize:

However, researchers aren't permitted to discuss what practical military applications may come from this research.

If the use of this is "routine", one would think you could find an actual example of it existing outside of a laboratory experiment for your "peer reviewed" paper.

19 Comments:

At 24 January, 2007 13:02, Blogger Simon Lazarus said...

Here is a question for us to ponder (and which I have no answer for):

Has just one demoitions company, which takes down buildings for a living, come forward and said that the 9/11 attacks were a "controlled demolition"?

You would think, if the "inside job" were so obvious, that plenty of people in that industry would be lining up behind the Troothers. Are there any we haven't heard of?

Just a note here: last week they blew up some stadium in Connecticut. On Fox News they said it took weeks just to lay out the explosives to bring down a rotten old stadium. How much and how long would it have taken to bring down the WTC towers if this was such an "inside job"?

 
At 24 January, 2007 13:32, Blogger James B. said...

Actually, to his credit (I never thought I would say those words) Fetzer asks Jones how many people and how long it would take to emplace these thousands of thermite devices in the towers. Jones gets rather defensive and argues that it isn't his job to describe how they did it, he is just concerned with the "science".

 
At 24 January, 2007 14:40, Blogger James B. said...

No, that was him. He said he couldn't remember his exact numbers, that was why he wrote it down in a paper!

 
At 24 January, 2007 15:25, Blogger Unknown said...

http://www.controlled-demolition.com/default.asp?reqLocId=7&reqItemId=20030225133807

CDI’s 12 person loading crew took twenty four days to place 4,118 separate charges in 1,100 locations on columns on nine levels of the complex. Over 36,000 ft of detonating cord and 4,512 non-electric delay elements were installed in CDI’s implosion initiation system, some to create the 36 primary implosion sequence and another 216 micro-delays to keep down the detonation overpressure from the 2,728 lb of explosives which would be detonated during the demolition.
keep down the detonation overpressure from the 2,728 lb of explosives which would be detonated during the demolition.

 
At 24 January, 2007 15:39, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jones said: "Demolitions of buildings using thermite has been, as you pose it, has been done a number of times you see. This is now called thermite arson."

Only Jones calls it "thermite arson", because, apparently, he made up the goddamn phrase just for his paper...

 
At 24 January, 2007 16:12, Blogger Alex said...

What an idiot. "Arson" is a criminal act which involves burning down a structure. Therefore, "thermite arson" would be a (criminal) fire started with thermite. What the hell does that have to do with demolition? What he's basically telling us now is that he thinks the towers WERE brought down by fire, but that the fires weren't caused by airplane fuel and office furniture. No-siree, they were caused by someone leaving piles of thermie lying around. Makes sense, eh?

 
At 24 January, 2007 19:21, Blogger Bubbers said...

CDI’s 12 person loading crew took twenty four days to place 4,118 separate charges in 1,100 locations on columns on nine levels of the complex. Over 36,000 ft of detonating cord and 4,512 non-electric delay elements were installed in CDI’s implosion initiation system, some to create the 36 primary implosion sequence and another 216 micro-delays to keep down the detonation overpressure from the 2,728 lb of explosives which would be detonated during the demolition.
keep down the detonation overpressure from the 2,728 lb of explosives which would be detonated during the demolition.
----------------------------------------

Also might want to add that it took them another 7 months just to prep the building.This is one thing that they just don't understand. Even if 40 men could place the charges in a couple of weeks, CDI took 7 months just to prep the hudson building, when they had full run of the building. How long would it take to wire the towers and wtc7 with nobody noticing, and then repair all of the drywall that would have to be stripped to place the charges before everybody came back to work? A damn long time. Why don't they get it?

 
At 24 January, 2007 20:50, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I see Jones as a tragic figure, a lone ranger who is desperate for recognition after his failed experiments with cold fusion.
I think he sees himself as a modern day Galileo, a scientist who is going to prove he is right, and emerge as the great scientist of his day, while all others see him simply as a fool.

 
At 25 January, 2007 02:24, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Surely 'Thermite Arson' would indeed be bringing a building down by fire alone. Which is exactly what I thought the 'Truth' movement was adament didn't and couldn't happen with the World Trade Centre?

 
At 25 January, 2007 06:21, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I will see your super thermite, and raise you with some super duper thermite.

In 1998 I had the pleasure to see what was the Old Hudsons Department store imploded here in Detroit. I believe it still is the tallest such implosion to date.
Hudsons Department store
I took months of preparation, not only rigging explosives but entire sections of the building were remove to make it collapse into its own footprint.

I remember seeing a picture of the inside just before detonation. It was this spider web of yellow detonation cord. Columns wrapped some sort of blanketing with what looked like chain link fencing to hold it in place. Funny that workers at the WTC did not see all this explosive rigging.

 
At 25 January, 2007 06:32, Blogger Unknown said...

good points Bubbers I was trying to be brief
:)

 
At 25 January, 2007 20:36, Blogger Simon Lazarus said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 25 January, 2007 20:36, Blogger Simon Lazarus said...

CDI’s 12 person loading crew took twenty four days to place 4,118 separate charges in 1,100 locations on columns on nine levels of the complex. Over 36,000 ft of detonating cord and 4,512 non-electric delay elements were installed in CDI’s implosion initiation system, some to create the 36 primary implosion sequence and another 216 micro-delays to keep down the detonation overpressure from the 2,728 lb of explosives which would be detonated during the demolition.
keep down the detonation overpressure from the 2,728 lb of explosives which would be detonated during the demolition.


That answers it for me.

Apparently, the numbnuts Troothers believe that George W. Bush is a moron, but he cobbled together a conspiracy so widespread that they were able to plant explosives in one day that it takes experts in the field more than three weeks.

If this doesn't make total shit of the Troothers and their crap of a conspiracy, nothing will.

 
At 25 January, 2007 22:21, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Apparently, the numbnuts Troothers believe that George W. Bush is a moron, but he cobbled together a conspiracy so widespread that they were able to plant explosives in one day"

Well no, cause in NY conspiracy explosive planting is strictly a union job. You have to get the Brotherhood of Evil Henchmen, B.E.H. Local 34 to do the job. And it was a night time job so that time and a half. plus overtime.

 
At 26 January, 2007 06:29, Blogger The Masked Writer said...

I love it! You guys are attacking the explosive device theory by:

1. Comparing past CD buildings that have nothing in common structuraly or otherwise with 1 and 2.
Yet you use that same arguement when discussing the collapse by fire when compared to Madrid and others.

2. You assume the use of explosive devices would be used in the exact same manner as past CD scenarios to achieve a top down collapse of what was once the tallest building in the world.

3. You assume the exact same devices used in CD were used this time around.

4. You deny all of the evidence that points to explosive devices being used that day and discount it as 'falling bodies, transformers, lights popping, etc'.

5. You have no explanation for the cloud of white smoke that rose several stories high from the base of the tower after the explosions were heard.

6. You label Willie R. as a liar, when Bush labeled him as a hero.

7. You deny or lie about the numerous live media reports describing at least 4 huge explosions at ground level.

8. You assume the FBI is wrong or lied when they suspected a truck bomb in the lower levels of the WTC.

9. You ignore the Jeff Skilling and his comments about his own building in 1993 after a truck bomb was used.

10. You rely upon the number of men and time to wire the buidling to prove your point when it has no relevance at all; pretending as if there were no way possible it could happen.

11. You ignore or deny the audio and video recordings of the day.

12. You ignore a past attempt of the terrorists (with an FBI informant amongst them) to blow the building up with a truck bomb in the basement.

And you want to call truther's deniers?

 
At 26 January, 2007 06:50, Blogger The Reverend Schmitt., FCD. said...

1. You should probably stop bandying around 'no steel framed skyscraper ever collapsed due to fire before' then, otherwise we wouldn't have to point out a) the uniqueness of the WTC towers and the singular uniqueness of the attack they faced b) the fact that that claim isn't true and then point to examples.
2. Yes. When there's no evidence of a controlled demolition so that you have to fall back on magical futuristic technology yet to be developed but which can totally plug all the gaps in your hypothesis (complete lack of evidence being the primary one), you probably shouldn't expect to find it convincing.
3. 'exact same' should read 'roughly analogous'.
4. Yes we ignore evidence of explosions by acknowledging there were actually explosions in the buildings, just absolutely no evidence of explosions which had anything to do with causing the building's collapse because of the huge weight of evidence against it, including the fact that the explosions were all incredibly small as seismographs confirm. Well argued.
5. Ooh, source please. Should be fascinating.
6. Willie Rodriguez isn't a liar, he's just wrong. Even heroes can be wrong. Heroes can also be liars (shocking world in which we live I know) but I've seen no reason to think he is.
7. Source please. There obviously weren't four 'huge explosions' or the entire world would have heard them from the dozens of cameras pointed at the WTC towers before their collapse.
8. The FBI weren't 'wrong', they have to investigate different avenues of evidence. Guess what they concluded sparky? Go go empirically based investigation! You keep hanging on to the earlier investigations and suspicions regardless of subsequent evidence my friend.
9. I have no idea who Jeff Skilling is. An engineer on the WTC towers?
10. Still waiting for any evidence it could have my friend. Got any at all?
11. Yes, by continually pointing to them...
...
12. Hey Lazarus? There was an attempt in 1993 to take down the WTC towers. Using a fertiliser-based bomb. In the basement. Did you know that the 2001 collapse initiated at the point of collapse and while you acknowledged this earlier you're now claiming a bomb was set off in the basement? Isn't that interesting?

 
At 26 January, 2007 06:52, Blogger The Reverend Schmitt., FCD. said...

Did you know that the 2001 collapse initiated at the point of collapse

Second 'collapse' should read impact.

 
At 26 January, 2007 10:20, Blogger Alex said...

I gotta disagree with you man, Willie Rodriguez is DEFINITELY a liar. It's clear that the guy is just out to make a name/money for himself.

 
At 26 January, 2007 15:35, Blogger 911_truthiness said...

Guy like SD will never even attempt to answer a simple logic question on 911.

If the towers were rigged to blow then why wait an hour or so to bring them down? What do you WANT more TV cameras on site to film it? more potently embarrassing witnesses to escape and tell stories of explosions?

Hell why wait 8 hours to do WTC 7?

They just don't think.

 

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