A conversation about 9/11 between myself and a friend of mine on Facebook.

[Professor8000]

Windsor Tower in Madrid, Spain burned for 20+ hours and never collapsed.

No steel frame structure has ever collapsed due to fire, before or after 9/11. On 9/11, 3 collapsed, due to "structural failure from fires".
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My friend: And the integrity of the buildings was compromised by the impact of a plane.

Me: The only parts of the plane that could have damaged the building significantly were the titanium engines. However, the planes did not sever the central support beams on every floor, which is the only thing that can allow a building to fall at freefall speeds. Building 9 was never hit with a plane and had a design similar to the Windsor building, and was actually reinforced. It was never struck with debris from the first two towers. Reporters were saying that it collapsed 10 minutes before it came down. Fire personnel were recorded saying that they were going to bring the building down. The one guy that witnessed the explosions inside building 9 and was willing to testify died of a heart attack.

Her: Dumb.

Me: I see I have won the argument.

Her: Hahah, have you? You really, REALLY think the gov't planned on killing 3,000 Americans? If you HONESTLY believed that, why the fuck are you still living in America? Better get out before they get you next, right?

Me: There are several problems with your side of the argument. First, you refute nothing I have said. Second, you attribute things to me which I have not said. Third, an ad hominem attack is the same as conceding the argument to the other person. Fourth, your application of the "love it or leave it" response is flawed at its most basic level. You are implying that loving my country is the same as loving and trusting the actions of my government, when it is totally unrelated. You somehow believe that it is unpatriotic to mistrust and challenge the actions of one's own government. It was our founding fathers that believed that that act of mistrust was the single most patriotic thing you could do. "Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
Thomas Jefferson


A couple of minutes later, she deleted her comments.

 

[ninepointfive]

it's building 7 - otherwise great work!

 

[Professor8000]

it's building 7 - otherwise great work!

Damn, you're right.

 

[ninepointfive]

that's a really good picture to keep around for these debates - it's one thing to have a wall of text, and another to have a great image to go with it!

 

[mz10]

Even if I did believe 9-11 was an inside job (I don't), it baffles me the amount of time people spend on it. How about we focus on dismantling big government today, instead of going on about something that happened 10 years ago.

 

[ninepointfive]

Even if I did believe 9-11 was an inside job (I don't), it baffles me the amount of time people spend on it. How about we focus on dismantling big government today, instead of going on about something that happened 10 years ago.

The lies and inconsistencies of that one day alone also contribute to the same goal.

 

[BlackTerrel]

Even if I did believe 9-11 was an inside job (I don't), it baffles me the amount of time people spend on it. How about we focus on dismantling big government today, instead of going on about something that happened 10 years ago.

I don't believe 9/11 was an inside job but if I did I would talk about it a lot - it would be the biggest crime of the modern era.

That said - I think "truthers" just want to think they're smarter than everyone else.

 

[TheGrinch]

That was one of the greatest counters I've ever seen. Even those who disagree (not that I do) have to give you props for that.

 

[specsaregood]

Is she hot?

 

[mz10]

I don't believe 9/11 was an inside job but if I did I would talk about it a lot - it would be the biggest crime of the modern era.

Actually I take back what I said. If I believed the U.S. government killed 3,000 of its own people, I would leave this country immediately and never return. That would put Bush in a league with some of the worst military dictators ever on this planet (and as much as I despise Bush, he is not Josef Stalin or Omar al-Bashir).

 

[Feelgood]

FFS another Truther? This gets old...

 

[FrancisMarion]

Are you a structural engineer? I'd love to see a sketch of your central supporting beams.

Your first statement is dumb. I'll tell you why.

-At 500 miles an hour a toothpick can do some damage. Think momentum. More on momentum in a second.
-As far as no steel structure collapsing because of fire. Well that's bullshit. How do you think steel if forged? What is forging? Its plastic deformation, and this plastic deformation is helped by heat.....
-Finally if you have the mass of, lets say two stories of glass, concrete, and steel above a story that's structural integrity has been compromised then you have the mass of those two stories, combined with the velocity of them falling creating enough momentum to then collapse all below. Its pretty much common ingenuity that you cant build a building that holds falling floors up. It goes against physics. And if you could, it would not function for anything else except that purpose.

WTC was not designed or engineered to withstand high speed impacts from 747's loaded with jet fuel.

 

[specsaregood]

Well then, this thread is just an example of why we won't be outbreeding the socialists.

 

[Professor8000]

Are you a structural engineer? I'd love to see a sketch of your central supporting beams.

Your first statement is dumb. I'll tell you why.

-At 500 miles an hour a toothpick can do some damage. Think momentum. More on momentum in a second.
-As far as no steel structure collapsing because of fire. Well that's bullshit. How do you think steel if forged? What is forging? Its plastic deformation, and this plastic deformation is helped by heat.....
-Finally if you have the mass of, lets say two stories of glass, concrete, and steel above a story that's structural integrity has been compromised then you have the mass of those two stories, combined with the velocity of them falling creating enough momentum to then collapse all below. Its pretty much common ingenuity that you cant build a building that holds falling floors up. It goes against physics. And if you could, it would not function for anything else except that purpose.

WTC was not designed or engineered to withstand high speed impacts from 747's loaded with jet fuel.

Like many modern structures and buildings, the WTC Towers were over-designed to withstand weight distribution in the event of structural damage. According to calculations made by the engineers who helped with the design of the Twin Towers, “all the columns on one side of a Tower could be cut, as well as the two corners and some of the columns on each adjacent side, and the building would still be strong enough to withstand a 100-mile-per-hour wind.”[5] As well, “Live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs.”

One of these hypothetical examples was put to the test in the 1993 WTC bombing. This attack prompted more discussions about the safety of the WTC towers. In response to these concerns, WTC building designer John Skilling explained that they “looked at every possible thing we could think of that could happen to the buildings, even to the extent of an airplane hitting the side… A previous analysis carried out early in 1964, calculated that the towers would handle the impact of a 707 traveling at 600 mph without collapsing.”[8]

This statement indicates that the designers considered Boeing 707 airplane impact speeds of 600 mph. It seems likely that the designers considered this impact speed for the reason that the cruse speed of a Boeing 707 is 607 mph.[9] In comparison, both of the planes that hit the WTC Towers on 9/11 were Boeing 767’s. The FEMA report indicates that Flight 11 flew at a speed of 470 mph into the North Tower, and the second plane flew at a speed of 590 mph into the South Tower.[10] Not only were these speeds anticipated by the building designers, the Boeing 707 is similar in size to the ones flown into the towers on 9/11. According to Jim Hoffman, the planes used on 9/11 were “only slightly larger than 707s and DC 8s, the types of jetliners whose impacts the World Trade Center's designers anticipated.”[11]

...

 

[fr33]

Man you shouldn't post someone's picture on a forum unless you have permission. Just bad ethics IMO.

Her argument about impact isn't something I easily discount. Truthers can't prove what happened. They can only cast reasonable doubt on the official story.

 

[Professor8000]

Even if I did believe 9-11 was an inside job (I don't), it baffles me the amount of time people spend on it. How about we focus on dismantling big government today, instead of going on about something that happened 10 years ago.

I'm pissed off that I was lied to. I'm pissed off that 3000 people were killed in an act of Terrorism. I'm pissed off that the lies persuaded me into supporting two wars that racked up a civilian death toll of around 1 million. And most of all, I'm pissed off that everyone accepts what they are told and demonize people who call for a serious investigation of the facts.

I'll quote this again in case you didn't see it the first time. "Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
Thomas Jefferson

 

[Professor8000]

Man you shouldn't post someone's picture on a forum unless you have permission. Just bad ethics IMO.

Her argument about impact isn't something I easily discount. Truthers can't prove what happened. They can only cast reasonable doubt on the official story.

One should not make publicly available, photos they do not wish the public to see.

 

[donnay]

Even if I did believe 9-11 was an inside job (I don't), it baffles me the amount of time people spend on it. How about we focus on dismantling big government today, instead of going on about something that happened 10 years ago.

Because what you don't understand is Government got bigger because of 9/11.

 

[Professor8000]

Well then, this thread is just an example of why we won't be outbreeding the socialists.

You should see my girlfriend.

 

[FrancisMarion]

I can copy and paste wikipedia crap all day.

Safety concerns regarding aircraft impacts

The structural engineers working on the World Trade Center considered the possibility that an aircraft could crash into the building. In July 1945, a B-25 bomber that was lost in the fog had crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building. A year later, another airplane nearly crashed into the 40 Wall Street building, and there was another near-miss at the Empire State Building.[8] Leslie Robertson, one of the chief engineers working on the design of the World Trade Center, has since claimed to have personally considered the scenario of the impact of a jet airliner—a Boeing 707—which might be lost in the fog and flying at relatively low speeds, seeking to land at JFK Airport or Newark Airport. However, Robertson has provided no documentation for his opinion.[8][9]

NIST found a three-page white paper that mentioned another aircraft-impact analysis, involving impact of a Boeing 707 at 600 miles per hour (970 km/h), but the original documentation of the study, which was part of the building's 1,200-page structural analysis, was lost when the Port Authority offices were destroyed in the collapse of the WTC 1; the copy was lost in WTC 7.[10] In 1993, John Skilling, lead structural engineer for the WTC, recalled doing the analysis, and remarked, "Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed," he said. "The building structure would still be there."[11] In its report, NIST stated that the technical ability to perform a rigorous simulation of aircraft impact and ensuing fires is a recent development, and that the technical capability for such analysis would have been quite limited in the 1960s.[12][note 1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center

"Able to withstand an airplane crash" sounds like one of those sales "gimmicks" to me. Way to many variables.