Cast into the outer darkness

You know, in my last few years of commenting on the Internet, I've been called many things.

But an apologist for the Bush Administration? Someone who looks to them to keep us safe, fercrissakes? Not until now.

I've really, really got to stick to reading the stories at Common Dreams and ignore the damn comments threads. Made the mistake of commenting on this article over there by songwriter David Rovics about how a red-faced "9/11 Truther" screamed at him during a performance, and I dared to mention the fact that, while I accept the fact that Bush & Co. were homicidially neglectful before and during, I don't buy the controlled demolition/guided missile/thermite bombs version of what happened that day.

Cripes, you'd think I'd have advocated shopping at (eeeyugh) Wal-Mart.

From "Peacenikk" at April 8, 1:49pm:

Fear is what motivates Jakenewton, Pere Ubu and their ilk. To accept the notion that their government could perpetrate something like 9/11 would necessitate acceptance of the fact their governments are responsible for many more egregious acts and this is simply too terrifying for them so they resist it with everything they’ve got.

The truth will set you free. These people are living in the prisons of their own small minds and will probably blindly believe the rationale for the pending attack on Iran.

Oh, yeah, "fear", sheeyooot, that's why I've never, ever criticized Bush on this blog. I'm afraid of the big men coming and taking my voice away, y'see.

Why, I've uncritically defended the occupation of Iraq, defended the squatter in the White House, supported the new National Security State, even expressed my bovine acceptance of 9/11 and Bush's activities (or lack thereof) that day. Hell, I'll even uncritically repeat government propaganda about Iran.

All this follows, of course, from the fact that I don't accept the "Loose Change"/Alex Jones account of what happened on 9/11.

Well.

I have no frickin' idea why I'm wasting my time with this, but here's an example of one problem I have with The Alternative True Story, from the site of "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth":

Further, the leaseholder of the three buildings, Larry Silverstein, said in 2002 on PBS that on the afternoon of 9/11 he suggested to the NYC fire department commander that they "pull" WTC 7. "Pull" is an industry term that means "demolish," but it normally takes a team of skilled people many weeks to design and implement large demolitions.

Then it should be bleedin' simple to check on who did it, given that the FEMA report cited elsewhere on that same site says that "only a handful of demolition companies in the world" are capable of demolishing a building so it falls within its own "footprint". Is there any evidence that that investigation was done? Or did a small group of secret agents somehow accomplish what it takes a major company "many weeks" to do?

If you have any interest at all in criticisms of the "Truth" account you could do worse than check out Debunking 911, which appears to be a one-stop source for critical examination of the claims of controlled demolition, thermite bombs, and suchlike.

But me? I've been cast into outer darkness, forever denied the shining 9/11 Truth, and there is no hope for my immortal Left-wing soul.



Alas! I am lost!

UPDATE: Here's what was involved in bringing down a building only 1/3 the size of the Towers, according to the company that did it, Controlled Demolitions, Inc.:

CDI had to sever the steel in the columns and create a delay system which could simultaneously control the failure of the building’s 12 different structural configurations, while trying to keep the hundreds of thousands of tons of debris within the 420 ft by 220 ft footprint of the structure. CDI needed structural data to complete its design. Under CDI direction, Homrich/NASDI’s 21 man crew needed three months to investigate the complex and four months to complete preparations for CDI’s implosion design. During that period, the lower two basements of the structure were filled with engineered fill and the perimeter basement walls bermed to 1st basement level with soil to support perimeter walls which would surely have failed under soil and hydrostatic loads once the horizontal support of the Hudson’s internal structure was removed by the implosion.

Double column rows installed in the structure between vertical construction phases, internal brick shear walls, x-bracing, 70 elevators and 10 stairwells created an extremely stiff frame. Columns weighing over 500 lb/ft, having up to 7.25 inch thick laminated steel flanges and 6 inch thick webs, defied commercially available shaped charge technology. CDI analyzed each column, determined the actual load it carried and then used cutting torches to scarf-off steel plates in order to use smaller shaped charges to cut the remaining steel. CDI wanted to keep the charges as small as possible to reduce air over pressure that could break windows in adjacent properties.

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.

I don't know, seems to me that that kind of preparation would have been noticeable before 9/11. Doesn't seem like the kind of thing a small covert group could slap together in a weekend, either.

And from Tim Wilkinson, Lecturer in Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney:

Demolition experts spend weeks inside a derelict building planning an event. Many of the beams are cut through by about 90% so that the explosion only has to break a small bit of steel. In this state the building is highly dangerous, and there is no way such a prepared building could still be running day to day like WTC was.

Q.E.D.

FINAL UPDATE: Cripes, the same people who assert that laws of physics can never, ever be violated (thus the Towers HAD to be a controlled demolition) assert that, with enough black-budget gummint funding, the laws of physics can indeed be cheerily violated!

From "namaste", April 11th (FOUR DAYS after the original article was posted), 2008 2:51 pm:

Think about all of that preparation effort that the nominal (non-covert) controlled demolitions MUST complete, prior to blasting the charges. There is much of an over-design mandated in buildings, that is called “LIVE-LOADing”, which is commonly known as people and furnishings.

Usual controlled demolitions pre-cut much of the steel girders (I recall something like 1/2), and of the few left that can still hold up the building, they zig-zag through those beams so that the shaped CUTTING charges can be more simply sequenced and controlled.

There is much UNKNOWN of the techniques that MUST have been USED during the novel challenges of 911 controlled demolitions, but with billion$ to spend, I doubt anyone could say that it was impossible (except perhaps JAKE)

Pfaugh, yeah, enough spondulix and you'll be violating long-standing principles of engineering and materials science in no time!

Still, it's better than the guy the next day who was claiming WTC 7 was brough down by "mini nukes". Ah, to get all your information on how the world operates from episodes of "24" and Tom Clancy novels...