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A helpful public service announcement to all members of Islamic terrorist cells operating in the UK I just came across an article describing why the recent bombs in the UK set by Islamic terrorists failed to detonate… presumably this must have come from some member of the British security services or some other part of the government with access to that information.
It seems to me that this is tantamount to saying “Attention all members of Islamic Terrorist cells operating in the UK: the reason your bombs did not go off and kill hundreds of British civilians is that a medical syringe used as part of the firing mechanism caused a malfunction. We hope this helps you to ensure that the next time you do this, you are more successful in your attempted mass murder. So remember, pay particular attention to that element of the design of your bombs.”
Can the person responsible for releasing this to a media company please be found, fired and then put on trial for aiding the enemy (and possibly violations of the Official Secrets Act). Please do this as quickly as possible please.
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How libertarian of you, Perry… Very disappointing.
Sigh,
Much as I think the guy who did this is an idiot, I gotta agree with Otter.
Sue him instead.
Otter, should libertarians act as idiots?
Let us just be thankful the statement wasn’t followed by a debriefing session.
The terrorist operation was compromised when the Jayson Blair Times accidentally revealed the terrorists’ troop movements, mistakenly thinking they were US Troops. The Times apologized for this error with a retraction, on page 37 of course.
Anyway, I would consider it an honor and a privilege if you would add my blog “The Tygrrrr Express” http://www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com if you feel the quality is high.
I learned of your website through the Rottweiler’s website, since I like his humor.
Happy 4th!
eric
P.S. If I already asked you, my bad in advance.
At least sack the fool. I think jailing him might be a bit much however. It does amaze what details they release sometimes…does any have any common sense involved?
Well, does anybody know this is accurate? Because, you see the security service I’d be in charge of might occasionally be tempted to leak the odd red herring. Whether or not it would be red enough to go off in the wannabe Jihadi’s lock-up garage while he was entering that delicious “tinkering” phase is an exercise I leave to the reader.
None of this alas takes more than a state-school education to master. When I first heard it was propane gas I thought it was the revenge of Margaret Beckett. I think she has a PhD in metallurgy, wso I assume she would’ve got it right.
It is an utterly implausible trigger mechanism so I think revealing that “it failed to work” is scarcely a security threat to anyone. Perhaps doing so has a slightly protective effect on public safety since it might divert further twits into attempts to perfect it. If it isn’t an invention of one of those imaginitive journalists of sensation who tout themselves as “terror experts” – and who seem to work very largely for The Times in this country – Nick M’s suggestion is a good one.
What Nick M said, hasn’t anyone ever heard of disinformation before?
I read an account of the Crimean war where the reporter for the London Times was apparently very enthusiastic about reporting British troop movements, problems with supply and logistics, etc. The general in command went nuts trying to put a stop to this, but to no avail, daily reports of British positions, strengths and weaknesses continued to flow from the correspondent.
Apparently it had gotten so bad that the Czar of Russia is reported to have quipped, “Spies? I have no need of spies; I read the Times”.
So I guess you can take heart in the fact that this isn’t without precedent.
I’ve never understood the “lock ’em in prison and throw away the key” sentiment that gets thrown around all too frequently. It’s disgustingly common as a remnant of the pitchforks and torches era of irrationality.
Maybe public disclosure and free press still have a place in society. Maybe there were some important issues to be discussed so people better understand the skill level of the terrorists, as the public seemed rather lucky to have escaped injury this time. Maybe the piece was inappropriate and the editor authorizing its’ publication should be privately chastised or even disciplined as his superiors warrant.
Prison is not the answer to everything.
So libertarians should have no problem with revealing technical information of use to terrorists trying to slaughter civilians in Britain? Is that what you are saying? If not, what are you saying?
I’d definately be with Nick M on this if I believed that our current crop of Intellegence officers had that much imagination.
They certainly used to.
Remember the story of why Koncordski smacked into the side of a mountain? It was built with stolen plans with a few deliberate and fatal mistakes inserted.
Then there was the fake Bristol they built during the war. Built in fields to the North of Bristol, it was set up to look like Bristol from x thousand feet at night, with searchlights and flak etc but was mainly open fields.
It worked too. The Germans often bombed empty Gloucestershire fields rather than Bristol Docks.
RAB,
I see no reason why the lads and lasses at MI-x shouldn’t be as smart as they always have been.
Right, I shall say this only once. The Tu-144 was not a crude copy of Concorde. It was significantly faster, significantly bigger (150 passengers rather than 100) and very different aerodynamically. OK, just like Concorde it looked like a paper dart. Of course it did. But Concorde had an ogival delta planform and the Tu-144 had a double delta planform. Concorde had widely spaced turbojets and the Russian “copy” had them much more centrally placed. If the Russkies copied anything, they copied the XB-70 Valkyrie. Give the Tu-144 drooping wing-tips and that whole comression lift thang and you got yourself a Valkyrie. BTW, my favouritist airplane of all time and there’s one left in Dayton, Ohio. I’ve seen two SR-71s and that’s enough. I remember the expression on my wife’s face when she saw one. “They can’t build things like that yet!” she said. She also opinined that it was the most “sinister” looking thing she’d ever seen. Built, operated, retired.
And my understanding is that the Tu-144 crashed into a suburb of Paris and not a “mountain”. Possibly whilst being pursued in bad weather by a Mirage recce jet.
I didn’t know about moving Bristol but I know that Jasper Maskelyne moved Cairo (or was it Alexandria?) several miles to flummox the Krauts.
We must’ve fallen very low if we can’t run a disinformation campaign against a bunch of goat fellators.
Firstly I do not recall Perry’s article saying “THROW AWAY THE KEY”, just put them on trial.
But as you brought the subject up, I take it you disagree with long sentences for murder, rape, kidnapping, aiding the enemy in time of war, arson, I assume? And do you really not understand why some people do want severe punishments for some crimes?
So presumably in World War Two you would have no problem with the press reporting the number of dud bombs dropped on London by the Luftwaffe and giving some clues why they failed to detonate? After all, we must always have public disclosure, right? How about reporting UK troop movements? Are you ok with reporting the names of western spies in various Arab capitals? Is that what you really think?
My favourate story in the “let them have the stuff, but with a few changes…” field is the computer system the Americans (with the personal approval of President Reagan) allowed Soviet intelligence (I can not remember if it was the K.G.B. of the G.R.U.) to steal.
The system had been modified to have a few bugs in it – bugs that would only come into operation when the system had been running for awhile.
The Soviets used to system to control a gas pipeline network. It was assumed that when the system started to fail the Soviets would shut everything down – which would cost them a lot of time and resources.
However, the Soviets did not shut the transport system down – they continued to try and run the thing even with the computer control falling to bits.
I am told that eventual explosion was seen from space.
I only do it you know, to let you bleedin experts strut your stuff!!
Surely the person who released this information did a ‘good’ thing in so far as the authoritarian state is concerned. Telling terrorists where they went wrong, in order that next time they should get it right, can only help to lead to more draconian civil rights abuses in order to demonstrate how much this government needs to protect us.
Hmm, the information revealed in the article is that the syringe failed, not how it failed. Just knowing which part didn’t work is not very helpful, since the logical response is to redesign the firing mechanism which is just as likely to introduce a new fault. Revealing this in a world where you can download gigabytes of bomb recipes (and more pertinent, initiator designs) online does not amount to much.
The curious thing is the lack of practical empiricism among terrorists. If I were up to an evil plot I would test, test and test the components until I knew the plot had a very high chance of working. But this does thankfully not happen. Why? Is the terrorist mindset consistently against trial and error or urging rapid action at the expense of testing? That people with medical training choose uncertain methods outside their own field to achieve their aims and the paucity of middle-tech attacks despite numerous clear, unguarded targets seems to support this.
Nick M seems to be perpetrating some disinformation, although I liked the bit about the goat fellators.
Lot of esoteric stuff about wing planforms but Nick the Concordski crashed at the Paris airshow while trying to copy an aerobatic manoevre just done by the Concorde. It broke up while doing the stunt, crashed with all the crew. There had been rumours of other crashes in service within the USSR. Anyway after the Paris show there was no further development.
JR
Sorry but that is not very sensible. How can it not be helpful to know which bit failed? No information of that sort should be available right after an attack. I am astonished some people cannot understand that as it strikes me as elementary.
The most disturbing thing I ever saw in a newspaper was an article about the Unabomber in the Wll Stret Journal. They revealed, with drawings good enough for me to take to the machine shop 50 feet from where I was sitting, how he had solved the problem of attatching the caps to pipe bombs without the friction of screwing the caps on setting them off.
At least, we now know that we can charge them with theft of NHS (government) property. I believe Sharia law takes a dim view of that sort of behaviour.
Perhaps those commenters who sanction the disclosure of potentially dangerous information as free speech, would like to submit their full names, addresses, children’s schools and personal financial details (with pin numbers), on this site.
I wait, more in hope than expectation…
Monty
From Wiki:
In the Pacific, Japanese depth charge attacks initially proved fairly unsuccessful against U.S. and Russian subs. Unless caught in shallow water, a U.S. submarine commander could normally dive to a deeper depth in order to escape destruction.
The deficiencies of Japanese depth-charge tactics were revealed in a press conference held by U.S. Congressman Andrew J. May, a member of the House Military Affairs Committee who had visited the Pacific theater and received many intelligence and operational briefings. At the press conference, May revealed that American submarines had a high survivability rate because Japanese depth charges were fused to explode at too shallow a depth.
Various press associations sent this leaked news story over their wires, compounding the danger, and many newspapers (including one in Honolulu, Hawaii), thoughtlessly published it. Soon, Japanese forces were resetting their depth charges to explode at a more effective average depth of 250 feet. Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of the U.S. submarine fleet in the Pacific, later estimated that May’s revelation cost the United States Navy as many as ten submarines and 800 crewmen lost in action.
I once heard that Max Hastings helpfully wrote that the Argie bombs in the Falklands war often did not go off on impact, prompting a doubtlessly grateful Argentine airforce to check all their bombs thereafter.
I’m amazed that anyone here gives so much cred to the stories of the so-called failed bomb attacks of last week. It seems incredible to me that a determined terrorist would permit his chief weapon to be towed away for a parking infringement. Then another would park a car with bomb in the middle of the night in a street that is very busy during the day.
And while I’m at it I don’t appreciate all this neocon bullshit justification for a war that I don’t want to pay for. You want the war to be funded. You pay for it.
Anders,
You have demonstrated an engineering mindset here, but doctors are not trained engineers.
When it comes to making bits of equipment work I test, and test, and test again because I have been kicked in the teeth by my assumptions too many times in the past.
These guys clearly haven’t, so they assume their mechanism will work. Just like every other non engineer I know.
So it seems N/A is yet another fruit loop moonbat conspiracy theorist. The UK government circa 2007 could not keep a secret if the very survival of the damn nation depended on it, so the idea these inept twits carefully orchestrated these attacks for some nefarious purpose indicated N/A knows jack shit about the UK.
John Rippengal,
Er… not exactly. The 144 almost certainly went down after a close encounter with a Mirage spyplane. They almost collided in cloud and to avoid the impact the Tupe had to pull a very big turn – a turn it wasn’t certified for though Concorde was. The mess was covered-up because the French didn’t want it out that they’d managed to kill several French civilians on the ground while carrying out cack-handed espionage. The Russians didn’t want it known that the Tu-144 was not capable of all the stunts Concorde could do (even though it was in the most unusual of circumstances) so it was all covered up.
Chris Harper,
Well, yes. That’s the engineering way. But when you’re trying to blow yourself to glory how many trial runs do you get? For sure, you can prove concept and you can test sub-systems but the full thing? That’s a one shot deal. Assume it only partially goes off… Well, that’s almost certainly you subtracted from life’s rich tapestry. That joke Jihadi in Glasgow managed to give himself 90% burns.
Perry,
So a syringe failed? So what? I (a) still think our intelligence services are intelligent enough to put out disinformation and (b) doesn’t it seem just a little cute that a syringe failed in a plot carried out by doctors. And finally (c) if I were to build a bomb I very much doubt I’d have a syringe in it in the first place. A large enough current through a resistor such as wire wool ought to do the trick.
Tim Newman,
Absolutely right. The Argentine Mk 82 500lb bombs weren’t fuzing in time because the Skyhawks were coming in very low. One of them managed to skip a bomb clear over a RN frigate like a stone on a lake. Another twanged the antennae of a ship. One Skyhawk was downed by a HK Chinese chef on a fleet auxiliary vessel with a rifle. The old magic BB. So, after that report from Max Hastings, the Argentinians removed the arming delay on their Mk 82s and they became pure “explode on contact” weapons. My primary school headmaster held a special assembly when he heard that one of his former pupils had coaxed an unexploded bomb out of his ship and on to a life-raft lined with Rice Krispies. Won a bloody medal he did. Subsequent Argentinian bombing was more effective, alas. I suppose you know that the Exocet that did for Sheffield didn’t explode? The kinetic energy just demolished the engine room and the still burning sustainer set the Aluminium superstructure aflame.
A doctor, a lawyer and an engineer were sentenced to death in a 3rd world country.
The doctor, asked for last words, said ” I’d like a second opinion”, the lever was pulled, but the blade didn’t drop. In accordance with their law, the doctor was set free.
The lawyer said “So many billing hours lost”, the lever was pulled, again no blade so he walked.
The engineer looked at the assembly and said “If you oil that linkage this thing will work.”
If MI-6 and the CIA were as all-powerful and bloodthirsty as the Left believes, a lot more “journalists” would have accidents while going down the stairs and walking across the street.
So what? Why helpfully tell them which bit of their design let them down? You did not build the bomb, they did and they used a syringe as part of the mechanism.
A couple of points:
-Being in favour of some harsh application of the Law does not make you any less Libertarian: the Rule of Law is one of the tenets of Libertarianism; that is one of its differences with Anarchism.
-I *personally* find the story about the paramedics crew that “found” the car-bomb in Haymarket a bit too lucky. I have no proof, but I would not have any problem in believing that the security services knew all along and asked the paramedics: “Look guys, we have this lot infiltrated, but we do not want them knowing, so we need you to fake you found the bomb by luck. You get to be heroes and we get to spy on these lot for a bit longer: deal?” I repeat, I have no proof of this, and if the paramedics (and us) were that lucky, then I apologise, but it is just too damn improbable; either that or these terrorists were THAT incompetent (that is what you get working for the NHS)! After all, we are not talking about the CIA or similar, but of the guys that broke the enemy codes succesively in TWO World Wars and the enemy did not know until afterwards.
Given the slapstick-comedy incompetence of these latest terrorists, I expect that somebody in the security services was motivated by pity to give them a hint, if only so they have a sporting chance.
Perry,
Do we know there was even a syringe as part of the bomb? That in itself could be disinformation. I certainly hope so. I mean if we’re sending a bunch of fanatics back to syringe dynamics 101 and it’s completely and utterly irrelevant then I shall spin on my chair in joy.
As I said before the intel service I would be boss of would play the cards from the bottom of a stacked deck. I mean, that’s what we pay ’em for right?
Julian,
There is an Israeli website (I forget the URL) which shows X-Rays of the victims of terrorist attacks. You seen an X-Ray of a severed limb? Or the utterly hilarious one of a 23 jewel mechanical movement watch lodged in some poor sod’s neck? Now that ain’t fun but what really isn’t fun is to specualate on where that watch came from. Somehow I suspect it’s original owner no longer had a wrist to put it on. Somehow I suspect he (and it was a man’s watch) was splattered over the insides of an Israeli bus.
These idiots might have been joke jihadis but we’re not exactly hailing Mohammed Atta as the new Einstein are we? I have a box-cutter. I could slit the throats of flight attendants. I suspect with a little training I could pilot a 767 into certain very large buildings. This is not even remotely an issue of competence. This is an issue of ideology. There is a very simple reason why Nick M hasn’t been responsible for a terrorist outrage. I’m a bright lad with a science education to (almost) PhD level so with a bit a tinkering in the shed hell, yeah I could do it, but I don’t. I don’t because I don’t see how I could advance my agnosticism by blowing folk to kibbles and bits (and in any case don’t people on public transport suffer enough) and I don’t because killing and maiming is just plain evil. Just plain evil.
Julian, there is nothing funny about terrorism. Do you have a wife, girlfriend, children? Wouldn’t it be hilarious if they were maimed at random because of what some bloke in a sandy shit-hole said 1400 years ago? Or indeed if I was doing it in the name of another beardy chap from C19th Germany?
This is serious. This is not a joke. And those “slags dancing” are my friends and family.
Extraordinary. was this the same abc news gathering organisation that printed, circulated Met Forensic X ray prints of an alleged nail bomb which now bear the copyright imprimatur of that organisation and which evidently have not been asked to cease and desist ?
No credence can be attached to this “leaked” information whatever.
Surrendering some of my precious blood this week for testing, I asked the phlebotomist about the competence of the doctors in making a bomb … “Doctors !” she snarled …” ..they have everything but common sense”.
If you believe a word of this story you have less common sense than the “bombers”.
Some body is making a speciality of “bombs” that don’t explode…the Flower Power six jury are still out, and are faced with indictments that have dropped the conspiracy to cause explosions but are faced with conspiracy to murder.
How you conspire to murder with bombs designed not to explode must be a bit of a struggle for them .. hence their delay in reaching a verdict.
Yes yes yes, and the Twin Towers were brought down by a controlled demolition. Tell us all about that, too, along with some more of your fascinating blood-donating anecdotes. We’re so interested. No, really, we are…*yawn* golly, is that the time?
Rough descriptions of how to make bombs are so easy to come by, that the failure of the paramilitary wing of the NHS to do the job properly proves that they wouldn’t be helped by them.
Based on the limited descriptions I have seen of the devices – including this abc one – it seems impossible that they could ever have exploded: the disclosed contents of the car simply do not constitute an explosive. The only thing that a “successful” triggering of the device could have produced was a fiercely burning car. With nails in it.
I really want to know whether that is the case. It is important to me as a citizen. If we do not get a complete report by the police of what the device was, but are fobbed off by vague assurances that it was “potentially viable” (which means nothing at all), then we absolutely cannot be expected to approve any policy or government action purporting to be motivated by it.
“Yes yes yes, and the Twin Towers were brought down by a controlled demolition.”
You have a credible alternative theory ? .. perhaps even one for the collapse of WTC 7 ?
Relieve the tedium by telling us all how it happened ..
Ziz, the notion a western power could keep secret all the things they would need to in order to actually cover up that the CIA/FBI/Halliburton/the Illuminati/the Massed Bands of the Gordon Highlanders or whoever were actually behind 9/11 suggests you really do not know much about the sheer bureaucratic ineptitude of large organisations.
Quite apart from all the other evidence, one key indication that Al Qaeda did it was that they said they did it. Like 99% of all conspiracy theories, yours is a load of cobblers.
“The kinetic energy just demolished the engine room and the still burning sustainer set the Aluminium superstructure aflame.”
Sheffield superstucture was made of Steel.
I’m coming in with this late, but ….
In my days on the fringes of journalism I discovered that a certain amount of coverage of high profile crimes is disinformation.
A hint: In (US) journalism attribution is everything. The journalist isn’t reporting that the victim was bound with duct tape, they’re reporting that a police spokesman said that. IME UK journalism is sloppy about things like attribution but it might be worth looking at the article from that viewpoint. Is the author claiming personal knowledge or reporting what others have said?
Disinformation serves several purposes, it gives the public something to read and more importantly it helps weed out the nut-cases who like to confess to crimes they didn’t commit. It also helps to weed out shucksters hoping for reward money. I wouldn’t be surprised if press disinformation helped catch the human scum trying to bilk the parents of that girl abducted in Portugal out of reward money.
In this case I wouldn’t be the slightest bit suprised if there was no syringe at all and law enforcement officials are chuckling to themselves at the thought of wanna-be jihadis trying to perfect unexplodable devices (or laying bait and seeing if any jihadis bite).
Perry,
What kinda a creep joint you running here. We have Troofers!
I’m staggered such wankers still exist. I’ve been on 767s many times and they’re kinda not small. Just do the 1/2mv^2 calculation for one hitting something at 450 knots. Then factor in that it’s fuel tanks were nearly full.
ziz,
OK, if the official explanation of the collapse of WTC 7 doesn’t suit you then I suggest an experiment. I take 200 tons of Al/Mg/Cu/plastics and people (incorporating 80,000 litres of kerosine) and hammer it at 230 metres per second into a building adjacent to your home. Question is, are you going to be alive to call the insurance?
lucklady,
You’re right! The Sheffield was all steel. Thanks for calling me on that.
I agree with reasonable sentences. It’s just as much a semantic approach as “long” …and I really doubt we’re all that far apart on terms (numbers, not characters) for the aforementioned crimes.
I do think ‘aiding the enemy’ could benefit from some clarification, in order to ensure that worthwhile events are punished and prevent abuse by radical zealots at home.
More than any of that, I long for the day when the prison-loving mobs stop salivating long enough to re-examine many other issues like why copyright infringement now carries penalties in the same range as these violent, heinous crimes you mentioned, possession of marijuana as relative to the same crimes mentioned, and so forth.
Prison is not the answer to everything. Lock ’em up and throw away the key should not be applied across the board.
Of course, I do. I’m happy to help you set down that reactionary meme and make sure we avoid a strawman debate.
Frankly, the best way to answer this sweeping characterization of reality is to remind you that no one is in a World War II environment and, as such, this analogy is incomprehensible at best and offensive to veterans at worst.
I thought there wasn’t an official explanation for the collapse of WTC7?
Uh yeah…though I wouldn’t call it “alternative”. I’d call it pretty bloody obvious. To wit, two fucking passenger jets laden with avgas flew into the Twin Towers, causing them to collapse and subsequently inflict catastrophic damage to nearby buildings. Did you miss that part of the media coverage, you twat?
Nick M’s dead right. Bunch of wankers, one and all, these troofers.
I would never have thought of a syringe as part of a bomb, but now it has been suggested, I can think of a very effective way to use one, combined with some other medical equipment, and I am neither an engineer or a doctor (although said equipment is probably obselete now).
As for the gas cylinders not constituting a bomb, does no-one remember the appalling deaths on a Spanish camp site after a lorry caught fire, detonating gas cylinders across the site?
Kames Waterton – your argument “I’d call it pretty bloody obvious. To wit, two fucking passenger jets laden with avgas flew into the Twin Towers, causing them to collapse and subsequently inflict catastrophic damage to nearby buildings” whilst it has the benfit of brevity, lacks the sound, rational, realistic and scientific assessment of what happened to be considered seriously – well to this twat at least.
As an avid student of the media coverage of that day you may have noticed many other events happened, or were claimed to happen from impossible mobile phone conversations to the previously (and since) unkown vaourisation of a complete modern passenger plane with it’s passengers.
There are many questions that arise of events, before that day, upon it and subsequently for which no rational explanations have been possible. … often because evidence has been destroyed, (tapes of air traffic controllers) gone missing ( large parts – undercarriage, engine from WTC site) or witnesses have been silenced / gagged firefighters etc.,
There are of course many barmy people who have explanations of events surrounding 9/11 about on the level of the Angel of Mons, there are however increasing numbers of modest, rigorous, academics and scientists who keep raising (so far) insoluble questions.
To date, in my view there is no, as it were Unifying Theory to explain everything that happened on that day that is credible from either the “Official” camp or the sceptics.
There are however events that are claimed to have happened that do not conform to the Laws of Physics ,(as I understand them).
Nick M, would that I could justify the term wanker – your freshness of expressiion belies a youth, which evidently still retains the vigour and energy to sustain the phyical act .. but I have to doubt if you have the required abilty to combine it with the mental capacity to sustain the event to a climax.
Denied self abuse , you seek only to abuse others.
Might I suggest a modest course of instruction in science and logic so that you can present an argument that transcends …”I’d call it pretty bloody obvious. To wit, two fucking passenger jets laden with avgas flew into the Twin Towers, causing them to collapse and subsequently inflict catastrophic damage to nearby buildings”
Yoy never know, it might help you find a girl friend.
See the way you get rid of zits is to let them swell up till they are a throbbing yellow pustule…
Then gently squeeze…
Nick. Be gentle with him 😉
ziz,
I suggest you study something more useful than “media coverage”.
If you do, you’ll find out that the WTC was built with a method of construction where all of the columns bearing the vertical load were in the outer wall and in the core. Tying these two components together were lightweight steel trusses sprayed with fire ‘proofing’. The impact of the aircraft dislodged substantial amounts of the insulation, permitting the subsequent fire to cause the trusses to reach temperatures high enough to cause them to fail.
This, combined with the number of bearing columns in the outer walls that were severed, permitted the buildings to collapse after the fire had burned long and hot enough to compromise the lateral supports.
I’m not even an engineer and I could see what was going to happen. I’m sure there are plenty of engineers on this site that could explain it to you with numbers if you can understand them.
And the energy involved with that mass and avgas is really really large. There have been loads of engineering studies showing exactly how it worked, but to be honest I cannot be bothered debating with a conspiracy theorist so find the links yourself.
BTW, I used to work in the WTC and I do not find it hard to believe at all.
“There have been loads of engineering studies showing exactly how it worked, …”
To save us time , just point us to one such study – which evidently must negate all the arguments of the designers and builders who say that the WTC was designed to withstand a 707 which is + or- a 757 (ish).
Thomas Eagar, an MIT professor of materials engineering , says that the impact of the airplanes would not have been significant, because “the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure”
Having done that provide a theory of the 8 second collapse of WTC 7 which doesn’t involved planned demolition … then how 2 planes vapourise (including 3 ton titanium engines) .. then how mobile phones worked on planes at 25,000 feet at 530 mph …etc.,
You worked in the WTC – clearing tables in the rooftop restaurant ?
Quite so people. Some supports were broken and the heat eventually weakened the steel in the others (the steel was not covered in asbestos, as the plans originally called for, because of “health and safety” regulations).
However, the book shops are full of 9/11 “truth movement” stuff, just as they are other leftist stuff.
“Because that is what sells Paul” – is it?
Then explain what I overheard one member of staff say to another when I was last in “Waterstones” in Kettering on Saturday (my birthday – I went in to see if it there was any book worth buying, there was not).
“He is the only person who comes in here, and he never buys anything”.
No doubt when the place closes the “ignorant public” will be blamed. The powers that be in the company will never consider the possibility that if their shops were not full of leftist crap they might do better.
Having been general I will be specific.
Clue for a book shop in Kettering. Put a few copies of “Old Kettering and its Defenders” (how the town was ruined) in the local history section – not just stupid picture books.
Commodity broker actually. Insulting the management gets you banned from this here private property too.
ziz, darling,
I personally couldn’t give a toss if Perry brokered Gawd knows what, or if he cleaned the bogs. They’re all Good honest work and there’s nowt wrong with that.
No, luv they don’t go along with the laws of physics as you understand them. That my dear is because you don’t understand the laws of physics. I on the otherhand do to a reasonable extent – Nottingham, London, Leeds – Physics, Astrophysics and Applied Math all the way- seven years. It’s really, really simple. Last time I flew from Atlanta to Gatwick I was on a 767. As I said before do the math. It’s 1/2mv^2 at 200,000kg at 230m/s . I dare say that might discomboluate your day too. Especially considering there was also 80,000 litres of kerosine on board. That’s a hell of a lot of kerosine. I mean d’ya think you get up to 300 people from Boston to LA in a carbon neutral manner? You ought to see my BBQ after I’ve chucked some petrol on it. Then imagine that multiplied by 80,000. We are talking big badda-boom.
Now you (and other readers) are possibly wondering why I’m calling you “luv” and “dear” in the deprecating manner. Well, I don’t normally do that but in your case I’ll make an exception. You mentioned my sexual capacity. I will do you the honour of not discussing yours in public. My sexual capacity is in anycase strictly a topic for me and my wife.
Not that it is subject for insult to have worked at the WTC rooftop restaurant (Windows on the World, IIRC), but ziz’s intent is quite clear. I’m glad that being libertarian doesn’t mean you can’t have standards.
Ziz, when Pam Am Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland, the (fuel laden) wings of the 747 landed on the village of Lockerbie. The ensuing inferno completely vapourized the wing section – save for a few screws.
OMG how is this possible, ziz?!?!? Was the Lockerbie disaster the work of the CIA/Karl Rove/Zionists/Halliburton-Dick Cheney/Ronald McDonald, too???
Good riddance.
Damn smite control – look! There’s the loony-toon conspiracy theorist over there, matey! *points at ziz*
Perry, Islamic terror cells are tax-payers also! Good to hear that the media is catering for all tastes, and not being exclusive!
No-one has really addressed the point about WTC7 and its collapse. Is it not the case that there is at present no “official” explanation for why it came down?
So what, John K? And you need an official explanation for – what? Validation purposes? I believe there are a few contending sane explanations as to why WTC7 collapsed. I also think there are a few nutty theories, similar to those that Nick M’s “dear ziz” is so fond of.
What theory are you trying to forward, John K?
Nick was gentle with him.
then how mobile phones worked on planes at 25,000 feet at 530 mph …etc.,
Ooh, ooh, I know this one!
Because 25,000 feet is, umm, mumble, mumble, under 5 miles and mobile phone Base Station controllers work over greater distances than that.
As this was 2001 most of the people would be using CDMA devices rather than GSM, and the network topography of CDMA is based on the call mult-plexing through many base stations simultaneously. Making a call at 500mph from 5 miles away is a piece of cake.
This will have been playing merry hell with the network on the ground though, which is one of the myriad reasons why it isn’t allowed yet.
It’s pretty technically feasible.
The other thing you’re missing is that in all the simulations the fire retarding cover for the steelwork vanished pretty quick and a lot of structural steel melted.
My gut feeling (as a former engineer) is that the first tower could have probably survived the impact. It was the angle of the impact on the second tower which brought that down and then it was only a matter of time for the first one.
I’m not trying to forward any theory, but I take it you accept that there is no official explanation for why WTC7 collapsed? I’d be interested to know how and why a 47 storey building that had not suffered major damage collapsed that day.
At 37.5 million dollars in year 2000, it was the highest grossing restaurant in the US. I’m not sure, Perry. At the price of real estate up there, could somebody from the comparatively mellow world of commodities have even kept up with the pace of the r/t’s on the tables? But the commissions were probably pretty good. 🙂
Er, Nick? A quick tally says you put a litre of kerosine on your BBQ. Anybody else I’d say that was a math error. But from knowing you for a while, I think it’s probably correct.
John K, one of my guesses is that (being a big city managed and supervised construction project) the engineering specifications for substantial parts of the WTC project were unofficially re-written by guys who share the middle name “the”. With appropriate savings diversions, of course.
Also,
And having felt an amazing thump through the ground on occasion while felling trees, I imagine the localized shock from the towers was significant enough to test nearby structures rather strongly. Also, remember that entire area is hydric and that alone would have a huge effect on the potential energy transfer to the caisson(s?), etc. That fact that FEMA could not find the solution should come as no surprise to anybody, but it is possible that even the presently ongoing NIST study is not fully accounting for the possible intense strains caused by an initial shock wave from the two towers damaging the load distribution tolerances.
This, combined with the far more extensive damage than FEMA presumed and the probable damage to fire retardant insulation during the preceding towers collapses and the length of time the fires burned unextinguished, could very reasonably be expected to overload one or more structural components to the point of failure. Even a small amount of bridging caused by support failure would induce huge (but invisible to the eye) overloads on neighboring supports and/or horizontal deflections in the the area of the bridging.
Certainly there are many good reasons to presume ‘natural’ causes and many good reasons to doubt other causes.
It is open to anyone to presume or reasonably expect that something may probably have happened, but the fact is that the US government bodies looking into this cannot account for the failure of WTC7.
WTC7 was over 500 feet tall, and in most cities would have been one of the landmark buildings, but of course it was overshadowed in New York by WTC 1 and 2. Looking at a plan I notice that WTC7 was largely shielded from the twin towers by WTC 5 and 6, which were right next to them. These buildings appear to have survived, and yet WTC7, which was behind them, collapsed. Obviously there must be a reason for this, but it seems the experts cannot work it out yet.
John, your fishing in the bathtub. Building 6 was about 1/10 the height of building 7 and about maybe 1/25 the height of Tower 1. Building 6 was basically a speed bump between the other two(three) buildings.
You are also ignoring the fact that building 7 was balanced on an almost twenty year old foundation that was intended for a building of much smaller area.
If there is any cover up to be looked for, it is into why WTC7 was ever built the way it was. But I imagine a lot of non-terrorists might have a stake in keeping that discussion from happening.
John K:
Are you implying something sinister happened to WTC7? In the context of this thread, it would appear as though you are.
Okay, so FEMA can’t work out the cause of failure. Even if you aren’t sure as to exactly how WTC7 collapsed, wouldn’t you assume that the building collapse was primarily linked to the fact that two 100+ storey buildings were uncontrollably demolished nearby?
I am simply pointing out that it has not been possible to establish why a 47 storey building collapsed. Clearly, the fact that fires had been burning for a few hours cannot explain why this building collapsed, or else the federal government would have said so. Equally, it is a fact that the footings for the building were meant for a smaller building, but again, if that were the explanation, the federal government would have made it.
I think a lot of speculation started when the building’s owner was quoted as saying they made a decision to “pull” it. He now says that what he meant by that was to pull the firemen out, rather than pull the building down. I don’t know which is true, but I do know that all three buildings which collapsed that day seem to have fallen into their own footprint to a remarkable degree. It does make one wonder why demolition companies spend months planning and precisely placing explosives to bring such buildings down, when it appears setting them on fire does the same job in a few hours. Seems odd to me, and since there is no official explantion of why WTC7 came down, then I shall continue to wonder. The feds haven’t even come up with a magic bullet to explain this one.
Mid,
No, I don’t put any kerosine on the BBQ. I use a smaller quantity of BBQ lighter fluid. I was just keeping it simple.
And there’s nothing mathematical about putting the heat to the meat. Apart from the weather forecast.
“Fishing in the bathtub” – must use that one.
James,
Something extremely sinister happened to WTC7? It was destroyed as the result of actions of a bunch of complete nutters in the name of a deranged ideology. I’d call that “sinister”.
John K,
And no, said nutters weren’t neo-cons. Can we wield Occam’s razor here? What did you see happening? You saw the planes, you saw some very big explosions and the collapse of a staggeringly large quantity of ferro-concrete in close proximity to WTC7. That seems the simplest explanation. The fact that the exact mechanism is perhaps not understood entirely in full detail doesn’t mean there was some three letter agency involved too.
The only Troofer theory that holds the slightest water is that Atta et al were patsies for the CIA. And it only holds any water because it is conceivably possible .
Occam’s razor might come in handy on a Saturday night in Glasgow, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of debate.
With regard to WTC7, the fact that the owner was quoted as saying the building had to be “pulled”, and is now trying to weasel his way out of the statement, and the fact that the federal agencies cannot explain the building’s collapse does make me wonder what exactly happened.
I agree with you. It would not be the first time a government allowed itself to be attacked to further its longer term aims. Pearl Harbor springs to mind, FDR didn’t have a clue that one was coming did he?
Is that “pulled down because it has become unsafe due to the shock of a zillion tonnes of WTC collapsing nearby” kind of ‘pulled’?
So FDR thought “Right, lets get into this war. You know what guys? Let’s make our opening move allowing the enemy to destroy a really big chunk of the Pacific Fleet!”.
This really is loony toon territory and with all due respect you really need to take your conspiracy theories elsewhere as this is like allowing a flat earther in a geology forum. Hint, this is not a request.
I don’t know, because now he says he meant that the firemen should be pulled out. He’s certainly not admitting the building was pulled down. As I said, the fact is that the feds from FEMA et al can’t explain why this one came down, and they appear not to be trying.
I think that’s a rather silly parody of his thinking on this matter. He knew the USA needed to get into the war, and equally he knew there would be no political consensus to do so unless they were attacked first. During 1940 and 1941 he continually upped the ante against Japan, stopping trade in iron and steel, and then imposing an oil embargo. Those were his opening moves. The Japanese were faced with the prospect of either pulling out of China, or seizing the oil and other resources they needed. Given the militarist nature of the Japanese government, they were never likely to back down over China, so war was the most likely outcome. FDR knew this and planned for it. It was no coincidence that a massive expansion of the US Navy began in 1940, which is why new ships were coming on stream in 1942/3 rather than 1943/4.
Pearl Harbor is sometimes presented as a bolt from the blue, which it was not. FDR knew that if he pushed the Japanese hard enough they would probably have to fight. The broad stroke of FDR’s policy is clear to see. When the oil embargo was imposed, war with Japan became a near certainty.
John K,
Perry said what I wanted to say about “pulled”
I just knew by using the word “conceivable” that by giving you a nanometer you’d take a parsec. I hoped you wouldn’t but I just knew you would, knew deep down. I meant conceivable in the same way that it’s conceivable that I could win the 1500m at Beijing next year.
Occam’s razor isn’t the be-all and end-all, merely the tool I selected this time. Let’s have another slash at it. Just because something hasn’t been explained is no reason to suggest outrageously absurd explanations such as very large, very busy buildings in the middle of a very busy city being rigged with large quantities of explosives while not one of the tens of thousands of people who worked there noticed a thing.
Unless of course it was only the Jews using their dastardly Hebraic powers who noticed? And everyone knows they all phoned in sick that day.
I’m surprised Perry even bothered calling you on Pearl Harbor.
If you can find where I made any such suggestion I would be interested. I have pointed out that the US government has no official explanation of why WTC7 collapsed, and that is a statement of fact. They don’t know why it came down, and neither do I.
So am I since his comment was silly. Japan had invaded China, and needed iron, steel and oil, the very things which FDR embargoed. He knew the Japanese would either have to back down or seize these materials by an act of war, it’s a fairly straightforward equation. I don’t think FDR wasted much time wondering why the Japanese had attacked the USA.
I’m not going to bother commenting on that.
Wrong. War with Japan (i.e. the strategic matter) was not a bolt from the blue, the actually attack on Pearl Harbor (i.e. the tactical matter) was when it happened.
Attacking Dutch Indonesia and Malaya was to “seize these materials”, attacking the USA was not (unless they intended to seize Texas…rotaruck with that). But in any case, it was no conspiracy, it was FDR’s policy there for all to see (he hardly made a secret of his views).
Actually this issue is where Rothbard was talking out of his arse even more than usual: FDR ‘provoked’ Japan by refusing to supply the means for their war machine to create the co-prosperity sphere. I wonder if China had had the wherewithal to interdict US shipments of oil etc. to Japan (for examples, with submarines) when it attacked China, would Rothbard have said the USA ‘provoked’ war with China by supplying the aggressor?
That’s a somewhat semantic point. Pearl Harbor is often presented out of context, as if the Japanese attacked for no reason. They did have a reason, although it was not a good one by our standards.
I think the Americans were more likely expecting an attack on the Philippines rather than Pearl Harbor, but that would have been enough to get the USA into the war.
In any event, FDR knew that the oil embargo would very likely lead to war with Japan, but he also knew that accepting a Japanese first strike was the price that would have to be paid. As far as I know he never actually spelled that out in any of his fireside chats for obvious reasons, but he knew what he was doing.
Okay, fine. Why keep banging on about it? Let me ask you a question – do you or do you not think the primary reason for WTC7’s collapse was due to damage caused by the destruction of WTC 1 & 2?
(even if you don’t understand the exact mechanics behind the structural failure of WTC7)
I mention it as a fact, which seems to cause some people a problem.
I’m not a structural engineer. One would think the collapse of WTC 1 and 2 must have been a factor, equally I do not know how badly damaged WTC7 was by this or the subsequent fire. If the federal government’s experts cannot come up with an answer, then I’m not going to try.
As I tried to point out above, the asbestos was not even on the steel supports – “health and safety” regulations forbad it whilst the twin towers were being built.
The fire resisting panels they put up instead of asbestos covering just fell off – due to the impact.
But is useless to argue with such people.
Perry – as I have pointed out before (and will now shamelessly do so again) the reason that these people think they can get away with the “Uncle Sam did it really” stuff is because it is not just the left that is pushing this line.
Even back in 2001 people like David Gordon (and other leading lights of the Rothbardian wing of American libertarianism) were saying things like “As the official account has it” or “Once more, I assume for the purpose of argument the veracity of the official story” (first article “Can the State Justly Kill Innocents” in “The Mises Review” Volume 7, Number 4, Winter 2001 – Dr Gordon uses a review of an old book by Elizabeth Anscombe to compare the campaign against the Taliban to the atomic bombing of Japanese cities).
In short not all the bad guys are on the left. And by going along with the left “our” bad guys give the left more juice.
Ron Paul’s (not a bad guy, but someone who is being fed stuff by people who are) “we gave them the gas” (Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds – comment made in post Fox debate interview) and 9/11 as “blowback” (the debate itself) for having wickedly “bombed Iraq for ten years” (i.e. taken out some anti aircraft sites, which had fired at allied aircraft in violation of the 1991 ceasefire agreement, in order to try and continue the anti genocide air patrols in the north and south of Iraq).
All this stuff does not come from nowhere – there is a whole subculture out there.
Accept on the libertarian side (the Rothbardian libertarian side) it masks itself under the line “we do not hate America – we just hate the government”.
P.S. As you most likely know the Rothbardians also blame wicked Uncle Sam for Pearl Harbour (and for World War II in general – although Rothbard always used to add that it was the British who were really to blame).
We are back to “left and right join hands” of the 1960’s and (as then) the people who will gain will be the left. But they may gain a lot more this time.
The 60s had men like Frank Meyer (to push back against Rothbard) – who do we have?
You do realise that WTC7 was not the twin towers? I am sure FEMA et al will have taken into account such matters with regard to WTC7, as well as structural damage and fires. It seems they still can’t find a way to account for it falling down the way it did. It neither proves nor disproves anything in itself, it’s just a fact, but it seems to offend some people.
John, do you have any idea who FEMA is? I would not trust their answer if they had one. The most recent and ongoing investigation is by NIST, another (hopefully more compentent) government bureaucracy. Here is the status of their study.
They don’t mention it in this short page, but those floors 5 – 7, IIRC, are the floors where the original designers put all the adaptations necessary to fit this too-big-for-its-foundation building onto the much smaller, nearly 20 year old foundation caisson that was designed for a building with a smaller foot print.
Further more, they expressly state they have “found no evidence of a blast or controlled demolition event” and are only investigating demolition as a hypothetical exercise. If you know anything at all about engineering, you know that building an accurate model for running simulations is the hard part. So once it’s been done, you use it for everything you can including events that didn’t happen but might in the future in similar buildings.
I personally believe their interest in the effect of explosives on the model is driven not by suspicions regarding this building, but by the history of terrorist acts including the first WTC attack and the Murra building attack in Oklahoma City.
Their job is to write the standards. Whether or not you think construction standards are something government agencies should be doing is not relevant, it is their job to collect the knowledge needed to write terrorism resistant building specifications.
One thing I think FEMA neglected to give adequate weight to is the hydraulic shock wave caused by many dozens of pancaked floors (WTC 1&2) hitting the bottom of their basements as a single solid mass. Confined in the basement on or near bedrock, the energy would have to dissipate into the surrounding hydric soils were it would probably have gone right under the light weight building 6 and hit 7’s caisson very hard.
But I will quite contentedly wait for NIST’s full report and to hear what outside engineers have to say about it.
Get your hand off it, John K. I think we all know precisely what you’re driving at when you say you’re “just stating a fact” – and stating it over and over and over again. You’re running the same line as that “ziz” character above – just more duplicitously.
As you say, so far there is no report to comment on. It seems to be taking a while doesn’t it?
How nice to have a mind reader comment here. Is there an official explanation for WTC7’s demise? No there is not. So do you accept the official account? You can’t, because there isn’t one.
This conspiracy theory bollocks is really idiotic. It is no more worth debating that Creation ‘science’ or Flat Earth Theory. Take it somewhere else as this is a complete waste of time and pixels.
This as an ex cathedra statement from the owner of this blog.
John, I may have missed some of your previous comments, so forgive me if I ask: is there a point you are trying to make other than the lack of an official report, and if so, what is it?
Ooops, Perry seems to have lost his patience before I did.