1. Everything that explodes is not a bomb.
2. A battery is not a bomb.
3. All explosions do not have equal energy.
4. A battery explosion does not contain the same energy as a bomb.

Do you agree with the above statements?



Yes but if we heated baked beans in the microwave and threw enough of them at some metal suuurely we could get molten metal according to you. If not, why not? Ok, now apply the answer to batteries.

What has “Batteries can explode with enough force to kill” got to do with anything - you think everything that can kill can also create molten metal? I think you will find steel to be a little more durable than the human body.

You realise that internally vaporising copper due to heat build-up is the cause of the explosion, not the result right? There is no evidence that a battery should melt and heat a large external quantity of metal to 1,000^oC.



A large column requires a large thermite charge – I don’t know what’s so surprising.

My story is straight, you just do your best to act dumb when viewing it. There is no reason that large sections of fireproofing outside of the direct impact trajectory were knocked-off. It is plain to see that a thermite unit in direct line of the impact trajectory could be displaced. Wow, all so shocking and wondrous to official story followers I’m sure.



Yes it is unlikely to get a short circuit and the ‘chain reaction’ idea you mentioned stretches the odds to ridiculous lengths. Tell you what, get a battery and throw bits of metal at it. Let me know how many pieces you throw and how long it takes before you get that short circuit. And line other batteries by the side of it and let me know how that ‘chain reaction’ progresses.

Actually this proves you are innumerate to go along with the illiteracy you demonstrated in the NIST case episode. Follow Silverstein’s cash flow slowly and you will see he is never out of pocket: -

+ $861m insurance award
- $489m mortgage repayment
+ $475m liberty bond funding
- $700m new WTC7 build

What I find interesting is that you can nitpick around the facts I raised regarding Silverstein but you cannot dispute them.



I’m not saying firefighters and rescue workers didn’t fall back; I am saying there was no firefighting action at WTC7 so the “it” Silverstein refers to could only be the search/rescue operation in the official story. This doesn’t make sense as, his building or not, the search/rescue operation was not down to him.



You may like not to ignore I followed up with: -

Looking at the above quotes, I’m finding it very unreasonable that the specific smell of explosives, amongst everything else, should have been the only way of detecting their presence. All explosives will not smell the same anyway. No, the only way explosive residues could have been found is to analyse the steel.



What are you gibbering about now – the definition of “on the scene”? The fact is FEMA had equipment setup in advance of 9/11 at a location local to the WTC that went on to become the command center for the search and rescue effort. The very real possibility is that elements within FEMA had foreknowledge of the attacks and used a drill as a pretext for their early arrival.



For god sake most of the victims were in pieces after being crushed in the collapses, could only be identified through DNA matches and you think signs of explosives should be noticeable!



So how often does the event occur in office buildings? What was the source of the sulphur? What was the rate of corrosion? Did it start prior to collapse? Did it contribute to the collapses on 9/11? What is the future risk to high-rise steel framed structures?

We will never have answers to these questions because NIST ignored FEMA’s recommendation.



Where you are having to fall back on batteries, diesel tanks, air pressure, bouncing columns, underground furnaces, exaggerated damage, farfetched coincidences and so on and so on and so on… the single premise of controlled demolition covers all observations.



No, they are politically restricted and working to a preconceived conclusion like every other official story authority.



What do you mean “at last”? I have never said all building fires have the same outcome. I have said all steelwork weakened to the point of collapse should show similar signs of distortion.



What do you mean I “dispute” Gilsanz’ calculations? I have not and could not without even seeing them. I treat Gilsanz’ half-theory with indifference. You are the one championing his work without even seeing it.

I agree with your premise regarding the observers, so am back once again to waiting for you to show that the bowing was perfectly gradual.



The “3 miles” was just to give an extreme example of why your logic regarding the best match at the south wall could be wrong. I agree, from the less important south wall observation it appears the base case underestimated the impact. It is not difficult to understand though, from the most important entry hole observation it appears the severe case overestimated the impact.

Anyhow, you are wrong (shocking ) when you say “no debris reached the south wall” in the base case model. Here is a figure of the base case impact for WTC1 (NCSTAR1-2 pg.270): -



It doesn’t seem necessary to alter so many or so greatly the variables including increase to the airliner speed, weight and failure strain and reduction of the Tower weight and failure strain in order to cause the slightly more severe damage observed to the south façade.

Incidentally, NIST say that neither model showed the landing gear exit the structure as was reality, which itself is an admission that the aircraft angle or trajectory was incorrect somewhere in the simulation.



I just expect the official investigation to get it right and find it indefensible when it produces something blatantly off the mark. When the collapse analysis is based on a model we clearly agree shows damage severity in excess of reality, I think I am entitled to complain. All you are demonstrating is your satisfaction in settling for what is a farce of an ‘investigation’.



And I am saying if the official investigators cannot pull off the collapses without extending the situations past reality, an alternative theory such as controlled demolition must be involved.



Strangely enough, there are hundreds of scholars and academics including structural engineers, mechanical engineers, civil engineers, consulting engineers, aerospace engineers, robotics engineers, electrics design engineers, builders and architects… [breath]… also, mathematicians, physicists, chemists, geophysicists, university lecturers, computer technicians, software engineers, science data analysts, historians, attorneys and MANY more who agree with me.

Then there are firemen, fire experts, WTC occupants, eyewitnesses, family members of 9/11 victims, pilots, demolition experts, ex-government officials, an ex-president even, ex-forces personnel, CIA analysts, news reporters and to some degree 66% of New Yorkers who, polled by Zogby in 2004, called for a full investigation of the still unanswered questions.

Oh, not forgetting hundreds of others in the Patriots Question 9/11 organisation.

So you know what you can do with your “what is your opinion worth” don’t you?

A battery can act like a bomb, and whether it gives more or less energy depends on the relative sizes of battery and bomb.

If you put enough external energy into something, it will certainly melt. If you put even more energy in it vapourises. Batteries have enough internal energy to vapourise metal, so why are you quibbling about melted metal?

Just pointing out that your scenario of a battery just producing enough energy to crack the case and nothing more is way off reality.

Why all this about "external" metal. Batteries contain large amounts of lead, which they can vapourise.

I know you have problems with numerics, but hundreds of kg for one column surprises me. How long a piece of the column do you need to destroy? An explosive CD charge just makes a narrow cut. How much thermite do you need for the whole building?

Who said the damage had to be outside the impact area? You were earlier complaining that I was being unreasonable when I said that a piece of steel you thought should have got hotter was likely still fireproofed because it was outside the impact area. You were also saying that the aircraft were precision guided to hit exactly the right spot. In that case, why was a charge there in the first place?

Go ask someone to let you try that in a USP room. Not just scatter a few bits of metal around, get a heavy piece with sharp edges and drop it on a cable run.

You really don't have any numeracy skills at all, do you?
Before 9/11 he had a $861M building with a $489M mortgage, net worth $322M.
After everything he has a $700M building and a $475M mortgage, net worth $225M.
He is nearly $100M out of pocket.

As his sentence before "pull it" referred to the risk to life, it makes sense to me.

The lack of smell of explosives, the lack of explosions associated with the start of collapse, the lack of any seismic indication of explosives all make it perfectly reasonable to assume that explosives were not there. However, the mention of ballistics tests in the police quote suggests that explosive evidence was looked for even if not found.

"On the scene" were your words, post #939. Now it appears that by "on the scene" you mean somewhere in the same city.
So how close is suspicious? Was FEMA also on hand at the Pentagon? If not, why not?

And how does that stop explosive traces being detectable? Plus he also mentions examining physical evidence, not just human remains.

These questions highlight the need for publicity rather than research.
Sulphur is a common element in rubber and other polymers, and can also be present in cement. Its use in fireproofing materials is an obvious concern. However, the fact that only a relatively small specimen was found in the debris does suggest baking in a hotspot in the rubble pile rather than a widespread occurence during the fire.

The FEMA recommendation has raised the matter, and it was published in a technical journal (JOM). It is not being ignored.

So transferring passengers at secret locations, remotely piloted planes, a hitherto unknown and untested controlled demolition method, a CD prep of an occupied building, a CD system that works after fire and impact and leaves no acoustic or seismic traces are all part of one simple premise, while normal physical processes analysed by standard engineering methods are far-fetched? You really are out of touch with this hypothesis and evidence process.

So now you are accusing all structural engineers wherever in the world of knowingly being manipulated by the US government? You do have a strange idea of what is far-fetched and what isn't.

Then what was that long discussion of the Bankers trust building about? Why bring up the First Interstate?

What about "I still don’t see the point in contacting Gilsanz as he won’t change his mind or be able to clarify his theory anymore than he has done already – that is because it is based on lack of evidence."? If that isn't disputing his work without examining it, what is? Fact is, Gilsanz was a nasty shock to you after all you've said about my theories, so you are trying anything you can think of to discredit him.

Gradual is expected, jerky isn't. The lack of any comment in their quotes suggests nothing unexpected.

I was going by NCSTAR 1-6, fig E-3.

What is being demonstrated here is your double standards. You seem to think that any discrepancy you find in the NIST simulations invalidates the whole process, while various observations that actually could support either hypothesis are cast-iron evidence for CD.

There are a lot of input parameters to the simulations that are not known accurately, of which the aircraft speed and consequent impact energy is the most important. However, NIST's three initial cases, giving a reasonable spread of all the uncertain parameters, obviously bracketed the actual impact which was intermediate between their base and severe cases. They could run hundreds more simulations with small changes to all these parameters without getting an exact match, but the fact that a case which was judged to have reasonable parameters before being run gave a collapse mechanism is sufficient for me, and I should think for most engineers.

Who said it was past reality? I can certainly visualise a case intermediate between A and B which would give the best match to the entry hole and still extend the damage to the south wall. I am sure that it is the less severe damage to floor fireproofing in Case A rather than any other reason that produced the lack of wall bowing and collapse.

Strangely enough, none of them has managed to get their ideas into a technical journal, anywhere in the world. Strangely enough, not many of them are actually structural engineers.

I don't deny that there are unanswered questions, either, but "how did the towers collapse?" isn't one of them.

I disagree – a battery explosion is completely dissimilar to a bomb. A battery is not designed to explode and will not at the speed or level release energy equal to even the smallest of bombs. The reason there are no such things as ‘battery bombs’ in either conventional or unconventional use is because they just would not be effective.



Why does the fact a battery may vaporise a small area of copper, confirm in any way that a large quantity of metal can be heated to 1,000^oC?



I’m beginning to think you are weird… I have never mentioned “energy to crack the case”. I have mentioned that additional energy will cease to be generated once battery components are destroyed, breaking the circuit, if that’s what you mean.



Last you mentioned, the idea was that the molten flow was a lead/aluminium combination. I assumed the aluminium was from the airliner and external to the batteries. If you have changed the story to the molten flow being mostly lead, then I think we have a big problem with the volume observed. Also of course the problem if all the lead is heated, the battery will stop working at 327^oC when the lead melts.



The WTC core columns were pretty damn large so would require large thermite charges. As well it is obviously better to have too much in getting the job done than to fall short. It is very strange for an official story follower to argue there was possibly too much thermite to bring the Towers down.



To state the obvious - thermite charges were at the aircraft impact levels as that is where the controlled demolition was required to initiate.



A cable run? Ah now, as I suggested you should, you are making the theory more specific, though in doing so you have just created additional problems.

A cable will be the weakest link in a short circuit, with thin metal wire melting and breaking the circuit before a full energy release occurs. From your battery link - “What happens if a fully charged lead-acid battery cell is shorted? Hopefully the device shorting the battery becomes hot and melts or vaporizes and clears the short.”

Additionally, by placing the short across cables, rather than in direct contact with the terminals as I thought you were assuming, you have just brought safety measures into play. From Wiki – “Damage from short circuits can be reduced or prevented by employing fuses, circuit breakers, or other overload protection, which disconnect the power in reaction to excessive current.”

First, you made a basic error in your calculation above – check the red figure. For your benefit, shall we ignore the sentence prior to your mistake?

Second, you just ran through Silverstein’s fixed assets and liabilities but completely ignored his cash flow! So, factor in that he has $147m remaining from the insurance award after initial building costs and repayment of his mortgage. Interestingly, adding this to your above workings gives Silverstein a profit/loss balance of $0m. That is if the old WTC7 was indeed worth $861m on the property market, which I have big doubts about. The doubts due to the lower cost of the new WTC7 despite it being a far more modern building and the fact different levels of building insurance can be taken out not necessarily reflective of a structure’s market value. Also, in the vain hope this might sink in, following Silverstein's cash flow rather than money tied up in investments, he is never out of pocket.

Anyhow, as I keep saying, I didn’t start this discussion claiming that Silverstein made this or that much money. So if you would like to stop attempting to attack the strawman and address the actual indisputable points I raised, feel free.



What makes sense to you? That a non-existant firefighting action was withdrawn? Or that Silverstein assists in decisions on the search/rescure operation? Or that Silverstein refers to an action/operation or occurrence as an “it”, usually reserved for objects? None of it makes sense in those contexts.



The bottom line is, as much as you would like to misrepresent history, there was no specific testing for explosives, without which their existence could not possibly be detected and confirmed in the debris pile.



I don’t know about the Pentagon but as the attack there was of a smaller scale, an early setup of equipment may not have been so necessary. In the exact location the search and rescue command center was setup for the WTC could not be any closer and certainly raises suspicion of FEMA individuals’ foreknowledge.



Oh, so if research is/was not required, you must be able to comprehensively answer every question I asked: -

How often does the event occur in office buildings? What was the source of the sulphur? What was the rate of corrosion? Did it start prior to collapse? Did it contribute to the collapses on 9/11? What is the future risk to high-rise steel framed structures?

And I’m not looking for speculation here. I want definitive answers. If you cannot provide them, it would appear a detailed study was required.



I am not referring to the entire inside job which does require many individual events; I am being specific to the observed structural events and anomalies on 9/11 which can all be explained through the single premise of controlled demolition.



Not knowingly… individuals are not usually aware of the conditioning in their own subconscious – a large reason the Big Lie technique works so well.



Other steel framed high-rise building fires…

Bankers Trust + no distortion = no collapse
First Interstate + no distortion = no collapse
One Meridian Plaza + no distortion = no collapse
New York Plaza + no distortion = no collapse
Caracas Tower + no distortion = no collapse
Madrid Building + distortion = partial collapse

Get ready to spot the oddities…

WTC1 + no distortion = complete collapse
WTC2 + no distortion = complete collapse
WTC7 + no distortion = complete collapse

When I say distortion, I am not talking about limited bowing with no confirmed cause; I am talking about severe distortion of steelwork due to fire as seen in the Madrid Building.



I dispute the theory as it is based on lack of evidence and a full explanation, thus why I say it is a half-theory. I cannot dispute the calculations based on the half-theory without seeing them. Though to promote calculations and a model as you do, without having seen them and whilst supporting the half-theory shows your faith in authority again.

As I have said, I am indifferent to Gilsanz, he was one of the original FEMA investigators and his paper basically repeats the NIST theory so there is nothing new here at all.

With the bowing alleged to be a maximum 55 inches, though not visible by eye in any photographic or video evidence, it would be difficult to know how or at what intervals the bowing occurred. Certainly there is no evidence of the bowing having a perfectly linear relationship with the time involved. In addition there is no reason that weakened core columns should cause a jerking movement of the external columns. It would depend on the severity of the loads transferred to the south wall and there is no reason even a sudden increase in loads, provided the south wall had spare load bearing capacity, should cause anything but a gradual movement in intervals.



Oh, your opinion on the debris for Case A not reaching the south wall came from a figure not even showing the debris.



This is not a discrepancy in the NIST report; it is a plain fallacy compared to the reality.



Yes, intermediate between cases – again agreement that Case B NIST used was NOT reality.



Sufficient even when the increase from the expected base case parameters produces a situation that causes damage in the model in excess of reality?



If the actual situation was between Case A & B, then full use of Case B is blatantly beyond reality.



But then, to be fair, I wouldn’t expect someone who gets basic calculations wrong, cannot follow text, concedes thinking to authority figures and makes excuses rather than looking for answers to have too many questions.

Silverstein has also owed $120 million a year in rent in order to retain the right to rebuild. That is more money that has to be considered.
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Larry...n-WTC6dec04.htm

There was no fire-fighting in WTC 7 but there were fire fighters in and around the building checking the structure and inspecting the damage.

Sulphur is also a large ingredient of drywall. I don't suppose there was any of that in the WTC, was there?

The rental you mention is all linked to the Twin Towers lease, not WTC7 that we have been discussing. I agree the costs must still be factored into the wider situation, though until rebuilding is complete it remains to be seen whether Silverstein will invest the full $4.65 billion he was awarded for the Towers. Of course that bigger picture involves raising the prospect of the Towers' asbestos removal problem which may have resulted in costs greater than the buildings themselves. Phew, lucky for Silverstein they came down before having to deal with that problem.

Now, leaving the strawman behind, these points are undeniable, frenat: -

• Silverstein won the lease for the Twin Towers only 6 weeks prior 9/11
• Silverstein attempted to claim double the insurance payout he was due
• All of the insurance award has not been put back into rebuilding
• Prominent individuals have described Silverstein as having a “profit motive”
• Silverstein has strong Israeli connections

So "pull it" was in reference to safety, rescue and monitoring around the building, which Silverstein for some reason had a say in?



That is reasonable speculation but can you be sure of the source? FEMA say, "No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified". FEMA doesn't know but frenat does? Sorry, not good enough. Then of course there are the other questions - How often does the event occur in office buildings? What was the rate of corrosion? Did it start prior to collapse? Did it contribute to the collapses on 9/11? What is the future risk to high-rise steel framed structures?

Do you find it acceptable that NIST completely ignored FEMA's direct recommendation for a detailed study to answer these critical questions?

OK, guilty to that one. I seem to have typed in the wrong number then worked from what I'd just typed rather than my notes. It still makes no difference to the fact that Silverstein has not made the claimed profit.

So the fact that you have signally failed to prove, even on your own calculations, that he made a profit is somehow to be brushed under the carpet? Silverstein's profit seems to be a major factor in the claims made by your side of the argument.

Frenat seems to have answered these points already.

In contrast to your claims, there seems to have been quite a lot of chemical testing of the debris:
http://www.osha.gov/nyc-disaster/summary.html

So FEMA in New York is evidence for collusion, but FEMA not in Washington isn't evidence against? Unfalsifyable theory at work.

Frenat has again beaten me to it.

Even omitting whether the aircraft were remotely guided or not, my list of your unproven hypotheses is still nothing like a "single premise".

On the other hand, engineers have enquiring minds and really, really, like to know the causes of such events. Aerospace engineers are fascinated by the causes of aircraft accidents, and I'm sure that structural engineers are similarly fascinated by the causes of structural collapses. The famous disasters are discussed at length and become material for engineering teaching. This is not an environment where big lies flourish.

What are you on about? There are plenty of pictures of distorted steelwork from the WTC buildings.

It is hardly faith in authority when Gilsanz' calculations just give detail to the more general scenario that I had already adopted, based on my own understanding of engineering possibilities.

He disagrees with you, therefore he is in on the conspiracy?

No evidence? There are several photos of bowing in the NIST report, mostly credited to the police helicopter crews, and there are the crews own verbal reports that I've previously linked:
"New York Police Department aviation units reported an inward bowing of the buildings' columns in the minutes before they collapsed, a signal they were about to fall."
Admit it, you have no explanation for the bowing and you are just frantically spouting words in the hope that they look like sense.

It was a diagram of floor damage, which is the critical factor.

Case B gives a slightly worse entry hole damage that Case A, but it gives a very good match to the observed south wall bowing. Case Q24 has no explanation at all for this.

Since a battery explosion can kill, while a small bomb, eg anti-personel land-mine, might only maim, you do not prove your case. Batteries are not generally used as bombs because they are fairly heavy for the energy they contain and the effects are not that repeatable.

Check the temperatures required to vapourise lead and copper. Now consider the temperatures reached by ordinary office fires. What is the problem?

Yes, that is what I meant, and it seems to be the key to your problem in understanding this matter. Read those links again: how do you think by your interpretation that a battery can vapourise its internal lead plates? The fact is, the energy release in a shorted battery can be very rapid, and it can be more than enough to cause a lot of internal and external damage after the battery is broken, just as the charge in a bomb can be more than enough to cause a lot of damage after the bomb casing is broken. Batteries and bombs are both chemical energy generators.

Read the link again. How do you think the lead can vapourise?
There could well be other elements present besides lead, but batteries being what they are, lead is definitely there. A room full of batteries contains more than enough lead to produce the observed flow. Why do you think the floor had to be strengthened?

The more thermite you need in your theory, the harder it is to place it without being noticed.
Just to remind you, you have still failed to produce any evidence that a thermite charge would work at all in a CD. How does thermite cut a column, anyway?

So your charges were immune to impact and fire, yet one of them gets knocked out of place and the system still works. If the system works without that charge, why was that charge placed? Extra risk for no benefit.

On the one hand you want lots of debris in the room - hundreds of kg of your charge for starters - and on the other you think the batteries would all miraculously escape being shorted. You say that the batteries cannot vapourise large pieces of metal, but that is exactly what you say fell on the batteries. You can only fit so many safety devices, and lots of debris is again going to give plenty of chances for new circuits that by-pass the devices. If there was enough debris in that room to include your thermite charge, there was enough to produce unclearable shorts.

So when Silverstein purchased the WTC lease it was the first time in their history the Twin Towers had changed ownership. That 9/11 occurred only 6 weeks after this notable event is ‘coincidental’ to say the least.



If Silverstein had prior knowledge of the attack it would hardly be prudent of him to take out a whopping over the top insurance policy on the Towers for fear the coincidence mentioned above would turn into outright suspicion. The jury is still out on whether Silverstein will put the entire insurance award back into rebuilding. The point stands that, had he got his own way and his plan had worked out, Silverstein would have received a double payout and been rolling in it.



As you say, the rebuilding is not yet complete so we cannot know how much overall profit/loss Silverstein will eventually make. At this point in time, over 6 years after 9/11, we do know there is still an awful lot of money from the insurance award somewhere that should be in the WTC project but so far has not been reinvested.



The fact that prominent individuals have indicated Silverstein is more interested in his own pocket than the WTC rebuild, shows he had motive if he saw opportunity through the foreknowledge of what was about to happen.



Put basically, the point that Silverstein has strong Israeli connections is important as the after effects of 9/11 were beneficial to Israel.



This is the problem – for the official theory, as you mention above, to be true we have to assume Silverstein was mistaken, had a bad memory and/or consciously reshaped events and of course had bad grammar – “it”. That is effectively taking what was said and reforming it to fit the official story instead of taking the words literally where the truth is staring us in the face that WTC7 was “pulled”.



You strongly hinted you believed the drywall to be the source of the sulphur. The other sources you mention are feasible but you missed from the list that thermate is also a possible cause of the high temperature steel corrosion. I find it unsettling that no detailed analysis was carried out to remove thermate from the list of suspects.



Considering the prime objective of the NIST ‘investigation’ was to find how the Towers collapsed and FEMA suggested a detailed analysis was required to determine whether the steel corrosion contributed to these collapses, I strongly feel it is something NIST should have studied and published the results of.



I don’t care that you don’t care as it has no bearing on me addressing the points you raised. You say you threw the points out there to be rationally and politely discussed which is exactly what I am doing.

The logic you just used is appalling - a pencil in the eye can kill, while a bullet from a gun might only cause a flesh wound – is a writing implement as lethal a weapon then as a firearm?



Well you failed to answer the question I asked of the ‘battery-bomb theory’ and considering the number of times you have highlighted there is a difference between temperature and heat, I am very surprised that you wrote the above.



I am not saying there is no energy once the battery circuit breaks; I am saying it ceases to generate further energy. Once the lead melts at 327^oC the energy/heat build-up will cease and there is no way that large quantities of 1,000^oC lead can be created.

The lead and/or copper can vaporise when a rapid energy transfer to a limited area occurs. The whole battery does not reach these vaporising temperatures though; only a small area, perhaps even only a few molecules vaporising could cause a minor explosion. That is all to say I do not believe a large area, certainly not the entire battery, can reach extreme temperatures. You seem to believe the entire battery melts or vaporises in a ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ fashion – you cannot make a battery disappear from shorting it! If the battery heated in its entirety it would possibly stop working at 100^oC when the electrolyte boiled and leaked or certainly at 327^oC when the lead melted. Small areas may reach extreme temperatures but this does not imply there is anything like enough heat to create large quantities of 1,000^oC molten metal. The cigarette example I gave demonstrates this, where the tip may reach 700^oC but cannot melt through metal.



Just because the molten flow was large it doesn’t mean the actual thermite units were – if you watch video footage it is apparent a large quantity of molten metal can be created from only a small flowerpot of thermite. I think either the columns could be cut into and the thermite placed or, and this is my favourite, a linear thermite cutting charge.



Obviously the planners did not know exactly how the airliner debris would progress through the building so could not predict which core columns would/would not be impacted. This unknown factor would necessitate full or blanket coverage of the relevant core columns with thermite charges. With the units being independent, ie not linked with detcord, the displacement of one charge does not affect the rest, of which with the large area covered it is ensured there will be enough remaining to initiate the collapse.



Either metal falls across the cabling in which case safety measures will disconnect the power or less likely the metal falls across the battery terminals. Neither have a good chance of creating an un-clearable fault, though as a long shot I think it is possible for isolated batteries. Once you introduce the chain-reaction, one short after another idea, the sheer odds here on their own make the theory untenable.

So why not take out at least what it was worth? No reason to go over the top but at least get what it is actually worth. He tried to get way less, had to be talked up and still got less than what it was worth. Still doesn't look like he had any foreknowledge. Even if he doesn't put all the insurance back into rebuilding it still proves nothing except he didn't put all the insurance back into rebuilding.


Just my opinion, but most of your posts that I've seen are neither rational nor polite. Thanks for reminding me why I don't usually post in or follow the 911 threads. Here's a prediction. 50 years from now, this will still be discussed and there will still be nothing decided. The same points will still be brought up and the same arguments from both sides will still be used. Nothing will change.

I didn’t start off this discussion claiming Silverstein made a profit – the points I did raise are standing by with bemused expressions as you attempt beating up on this strawman. What I have shown is that circumstances raising questions surround Silverstein, he is certainly profit driven when it comes to rebuilding, had motive and if he had his way with the double insurance claim he would be very well off, also that following his cash flow at no point is he out of pocket.



Nope, I took the time to look through the link but cannot find a shred of evidence the steelwork was tested for explosives. There appears to have been testing of the air, dust and human remains but even then none of it specific to explosive residues.



Who said FEMA wasn’t already in Washington on 9/11? I said I didn’t know, not that they categorically weren’t. This issue of the FEMA exercise local to the WTC has nothing to do with being unfalsifiable, it just requires the decision to be made that either another coincidence occurred or that an individual had foreknowledge of the attacks. There are only so many coincidences before they become something more. In my opinion the high frequency of ‘coincidences’ surrounding 9/11 conspires to indicate they are not coincidences at all.



So like frenat, you cannot answer the outstanding critical questions FEMA raised regarding the high temperature steel corrosion either.



Engineers are still human and not immune to conditioning and the Big Lie technique leading them to the preconceived conclusion that airliners brought down the Towers. I am sure engineers following the official story think they do know the cause of collapse and indeed the studies carried out will allow them to build safer structures in future. None of this means the correct conclusion was drawn about the WTC collapses and further any engineers not questioning the NIST ‘investigation’ certainly do not have enquiring minds.



There is no evidence of fire distortion to the steelwork prior to collapse. The partial collapse of the Madrid Building shows distortion should be expected prior to collapse and all the other structures I listed show that where distortion does not occur, neither should collapse.



Faith you promote calculations that are not available, faith you trust a model you have not seen, faith you support a theory you cannot explain in any detail.



Wouldn’t you just love it if I said “Yes, Gilsanz is right up there with Dick Cheney!” But no, Gilsanz does not need to be in on the operation at all, being just another conditioned individual, creating a half-theory from a preconceived conclusion.

I absolutely accept there is some evidence for bowing, though not clear is the progression of the bowing. The weakening of core columns through explosives, transferring additional loads to the south wall and causing an increase to the bowing at intervals is perfect sense.



I guess you say floor damage was critical as it is a possible mechanism for the bowing. Without being able to see inside the Towers though, this mechanism is speculation. It is unwise for validation of the cases NIST simulated to be based on speculation. NIST themselves class the bowing and south wall damage as being less important than the impact hole to the model validations. I would actually say floor damage is the least critical factor with both the impact and exit holes, being visible in recorded evidence, most important to validation.



Now we understand the impacts were somewhere between Case A & B. We know that Case A did not initiate collapse in the model whilst Case B did. We know that Case A was an underestimation and Case B was an over estimation of reality. So, next question – what evidence have NIST produced that the actual intermediate situation on 9/11 should initiate collapse?

There is information Silverstein looked at between $1.5b and $5b worth of insurance cover, though I find it better to focus on the $3.5b cover that he actually did take out. As Silverstein paid $3.22b for the lease, it appears his insurance more than covered the costs. What was the actual market value of the WTC site anyway, particularly taking into account the asbestos problem hanging over the Towers? If the full insurance award does not all go back into rebuilding it proves someone is holding a lot of money they are not entitled to, but we will have to wait and see.