I never realized how much damage the upcoming NIST report had already done to the 9/11 Truth movement until I read about it in the Rocky Mountain News. As the RMN says: "Truthers, over and out".Here's the piece in full with a bit of emphasis; comments to follow.
NIST report credibly explains fall of WTC 7Normally I would object to being called "unhinged" and "loopy", and I would point out that no writer with a credible case would use so many heavily weighted words to slant the piece in his favor. I would strive to point out that if the case were there on its own merits, it would be much better to use the space (and the fleeting moment for which you have the reader's attention) to lay out solid facts rather than disparaging those who clearly don't have those facts. Normally I would mention that such transparent ad hominem attacks carry exactly the same weight as the throwing of shoes.
August 26, 2008
"What about World Trade Center 7?"
That question has always been the trump card for the "9/11 Truthers" - conspiracy buffs who have peddled the mind-boggling theory that the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were an inside job, plotted and even executed by the federal government as a way to justify the war on terror.
The answer to the Truthers' question - how that 47-story building could collapse into a fiery heap when it wasn't hit by a plane - was provided definitively in a report issued last week by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The NIST report is so exhaustive that it should put to rest wild notions, including one suggesting that bombs were planted in the structure and detonated to erase key evidence about the plot.
That said, we're not about to believe for a New York minute that the loopier 9/11 Truthers will accept those findings.
The more level-headed among us have little trouble accepting the uncomplicated (and hence credible) explanation that the 9/11 attacks were devised by Osama bin Laden and fellow jihadists to demonstrate the vulnerability of the "decadent" West to terror attacks.
Not so fast, the Truthers have insisted. What about WTC 7? Why would that structure collapse seven hours after the Twin Towers fell unless it was brought down by a controlled detonation?
The explanation, quite simply: uncontrolled fires, which burned to an intensity hot enough and long enough to compromise the steel girders holding up the structure.
The 66-page report, available at wtc.nist.gov, resulting from a three-year technical investigation, including simulations of the event, noted that the debris from World Trade Center Building 1 ignited fires on at least 10 lower floors of WTC 7. Fires on floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 burned for at least seven hours.
They raged unabated because the building's primary and secondary water source for sprinklers on the bottom 20 floors originated from city water mains - and those water lines were damaged by the impact of the Twin Towers collapse.
Without any way to feed water to sprinklers, fires from office furniture and paper rose to temperatures that caused the steel girders to expand. Temperatures weren't hot enough to melt the girders, but without any relief, over time the expansion compromised their integrity. A girder on the 13th floor lost contact with one of the 81 columns supporting the building. That floor collapsed, taking the eight floors below it.
Then one interior column buckled. When it failed, the 23 other central columns supporting the building soon followed, and the structure could no longer support itself.
"This is the first time that we are aware of that a building taller than about 15 stories has collapsed primarily due to fires," said NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder at a Thursday press conference.
This unprecedented event has highlighted structural vulnerabilities in other skyscrapers. And the report offered 13 recommendations for ways to make those buildings safer - some as minor as redesigning work spaces to prevent fires from spreading from one cubicle to another.
The NIST report might not placate the more unhinged Truthers. But it should prod building owners to take small steps that prevent future tragedies.
But there's nothing normal about this situation, and the RMN editorial staff is right!
I am unhinged!
This is one of the things that have unhinged me:
A building 47 stories tall disintegrating in a grand total of seven seconds! You'd come unhinged too, if you ever opened your mind and considered the ramifications of that event.
Or maybe it was this that unhinged me.
The thing is: You have to be unhinged to entertain mind-boggling theories. And this is a mind-boggling theory indeed -- it's the most mind-boggling theory ever!
And that's not because I'm unhinged: it's because something truly mind-boggling happened that day.
How can your mind not be boggled by the undeniable fact that the news of the collapse of building 7 was broadcast while the building was still standing?
Something mind-boggling is definitely going on here, surely.
The clip above shows Danny Jowenko, a Dutch demolition expert, seeing video of the collapse of WTC 7 for the first time. He doesn't know it was part of the World Trade Center complex; he doesn't know when the building went down. He just sees the video and describes what he's seen. And he's quite clear: It was a controlled demolition, a professional job; they worked hard.
NIST worked hard too -- and that's the problem with a lie like the one they're required to defend: the more ridiculous the lie, the harder it is to prop it up.
It's encouraging to see the Rocky Mountain News helping its readers along the path to truth by suggesting that uncomplicated explanations are credible -- because such is indeed the case here.
There is a very uncomplicated and very credible explanation for all these contradictions -- the very puzzling contradictions between what we know about the day and what the government keeps telling us. And the explanation is this: They're lying to us! They're covering up an enormous crime!
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