I understand the questions posed by the various conspiracy theorists.  The questions are serious and needed to be asked.  But not over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and...

There are mountains of documents about, for instance, WTC7.  They're available for free on the web.  While a lot of people have attacked FEMA's report (with no real substance in those attacks other than the typical "well it must be true because what they said is a lie"), no one who doesn't want to be laughed out of town is attacking the NIST's report.

There were no explosives.  The collapse of WTC7 was a result of jet airplanes crashing high up in the towers.

by AnEngineer on 06/10/2009 06:55:33 PM EST

[ Parent ]
http://www.journalof911stud ies.com/volume/2007/LeggeVe rticalCollapseWTC7_6.pdf

The guy references the NIST report, so it's not like he's avoiding it at all.  I am not pretending to have answers, I'm just not sure I buy all the official explanations.  You also have to remember the democrats at the time were WEAK, and complicit, so the farther we get away from the incident, the harder it is to challenge any aspect of the "conclusive" result without sounding like a conspiracy theorist.  To accept a conclusive result from any recent administration without question , including the Obama adminstration, would be folly.  

Chris

by chrisandyasemin on 06/10/2009 09:34:06 PM EST

[ Parent ]
But at some point you have to trust someone or you'll go nuts.  I trust the NIST.  I've relied on their work for years, and they've earned my trust.

You're talking about one guy versus thousands.  (Okay, sure, there's more than one guy who will take something out of context and claim that it says the opposite of what it does, but they're still a minority.)

The guy admits in his first paragraph that he's catering to people who don't care about calculations, can't do them, and aren't interested in them.  Then he admits that he's going to use less than rigorous methods to "prove" that explosives caused WTC7 to collapse.

He has found his niche of gullible people who are willing to let him make a living with this crap.  Some people will lend frauds like him credibility even when he tells you exactly how he's going to defraud you, and then he does it.  People have learned to not trust their government, leaving a gaping hole that snake-oil salesmen can fill.

But please trust the rigor.  Trust the peer reviews.  Thousands of qualified engineers and scientists have reviewed the NIST's report and find it credible, and none of them care what this Australian thinks.  If the NIST's report was not credible or had missed something important, there would be hell to pay from its constituents, and someone would get run out of town on a rail.

You just don't fuck with engineers.

by AnEngineer on 06/10/2009 10:05:40 PM EST

[ Parent ]
I didn't say I bought what that guy was selling either...My whole reasoning for questioning official "engineer" statements is because in the initial days following 9/11, legitimate engineers were coming out saying that the structural failures weren't possible, and then later "retracted" their statements.  It's not that I don't think the NIST is the most credible source on the subject, it's just at this point there are too many things that have happened to ignore, that's all I'm saying.  I won't go nuts because I don't obsess over it.  When the conversation comes up, I talk, but I'm never the one bringing it up.  I trust the NIST, I just don't trust Dick Cheney, or the CIA.  They have proven themselves to be liars.

Chris  

by chrisandyasemin on 06/10/2009 10:21:25 PM EST

[ Parent ]
"...in the initial days following 9/11..."

Personally, I was in shock for days afterwards.  I'm glad that I didn't have to make any decisions about national security at that time, or I might have used nuclear weapons.

And I agree: Dick Cheney is a lying sack of shit, and the CIA continues to disinform or misinform the American public to this day.  I mean, how many times are they going to change their story about what they told Pelosi?  It looks like they're conducting operations against their own country!

by AnEngineer on 06/10/2009 10:44:46 PM EST

[ Parent ]