Ah, I don’t visit Great Debates(which is where I assume this stuff comes out), so I don’t always know about fringe believing Dopers. 
So what is your thoughts on the matter?
Even if you cut corners you are going to need a lot of explosives and a lot of prep work to demolish a building, especially one as big as the WTC towers. Have a look at a explosive demo site sometime and see how much demolition they do even before they attach the explosives - then tell me, with cites how to shortcut such a process without using even more explosives, and how such a thing was done without anyone noticing.
Depends on what you mean by ‘totally surprised’. There were a lot if indicators, but no direct clues. Plus the various agencies were not talking to each other.
Why is it so hard to believe? A child’s letter from the plane was also recovered
and that was much less durable than a heavily laminated passport.
As for the ‘convenience’ - for who? It was mentioned in the 911 Commission but it was hardly the only evidence we have as to who was on the plane. It was hardly needed, frankly.
It helped, certainly, but it was hardly everything. There were terrorists on four planes and only one set of luggage. There was a lot more investigation that you are asserting here.
Because for the allegations of ‘explosives’ or ‘no plane at the Pentagon’ you need to have the co-operation of entire federal and local agencies. Those numbers add up quickly and you cannot dismiss them with some handwaving comments.
What, exactly, do you mean by this?
It’s probably better not to feed the “9/11 conspiracy” machine here, actually.
I first saw the OP’s video a couple year’s ago. I understand why they didn’t release it immediately. Very tragic and somehow personal.
I’m curious about that, too - it doesn’t make much sense to me.
Don’t bother asking a twoofer–anyone who seriously uses the phrase “the official account” or “the official story” in regards to the 9/11 Commission Report is a twoofer no matter how hard they try to deny–to explain anything. As I’ve said elsewhere: getting a typical twoofer to outline what, exactly, they think happened is like getting a pig to outline how they feel about the next election.
Whew. I thought it was just me who couldn’t make sense of that. It’s English all right, but impossible to decipher.
Processing…processing…Oh, you mean the…wait, no, that doesn’t make any sense…processing…um, what on earth are you even trying to assert here? I mean, not “I doubt you,” I mean “I can’t even understand what idea you are trying to convey here.” You can’t just randomly put words in a line and use that to express doubt about the official account – you have to have some kind of intelligible idea, AND then string together language that conveys the idea to a reader. I can’t agree or disagree with this as it stands, because it’s just some phrases stuck together that don’t appear to make any sense. Expand on this (intelligibly!) if you seriously expect a response.
Unfortunately, I am constantly bombarded by the opinions of pigs regarding the next election.
Well, I’m not sure I’d believe a guy who’s drinking at 9 in the morning. 
It’s quite a simple concept. If gravity and the weight of the weakened structure above the crash sites were enough to overcome any resistance from the undamaged structure below, there shouldn’t have been anything left standing. Yes, no?
This leads me to wonder whether some sort of explosive device could have been placed well below the crash zones - say somewhere in the middle third of the buildings core’s? As the building starts to crumble, amid the noise, would small explosions in the tower’s cores have really been noticed? If I recall correctly, there were plenty of explosive-like sounds prior to the collapses, so how do we know none of these were the effects of explosives placed specifically?
So, I’m suggesting that had the cores not been deliberately weakened, there would have been even more of the cores left standing.
Simple concept? I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Thousands of gallons of jet fuel was released into the buildings and the ensuing fire melted structural components almost all the way to the ground. There was very little in the way of “undamaged structure below.”
I think the physics of the situation as we understand them are sufficient to cause the results we saw - I don’t think we need any more explosives added in. You have to remember that gravity and resistance aren’t the only physics at work here - there is also the added energy of heavy floors falling onto floors below them. Have someone place their hand on the side of your face, then have them slap you as hard as they can - that’s the difference in energy.
(I hope I’m explaining this right - high school physics was a long time ago.)
Among the tropes “truthers” repeat is that “Steel doesn’t melt.” (Rosie O’Donnell) and “Big buildings don’t just collapse.” (Lots of people I’ve talked to.)
Of course steel melts – they don’t find it in the shape of parts and girders in the ground. And of course buildings collapse – almost every building that has ever been built has collapsed after a certain amount of time passes, unless demolished. People who assume that the WTC wasn’t an act of daring, balancing vast weight at previously-unknown heights using new engineering methods – are just showing a poor understanding of physics and engineering. The WTC was one of the few things ever built that high and that heavy because such things are hard to make without collapsing on their own. That it didn’t come down on its own is the amazing part.
Similarly, LOTS of composite things in the world fall apart partially as they come undone. It’s not at all unusual for a brick facing to fall off a steel structure, for example, or a mast to come down, or a window to pop out of its frame, or a balcony to collapse, and sometimes the rest of the structure follows. It would be weird if everything fell at once, to my way of thinking.
But let’s face facts – you didn’t believe the aircraft attacks brought down the towers when you DID think they all fell as one mass. Now that you see that part of the structure separated from the core on the way down, you cite THAT as evidence for the same belief you previously had.
Your belief has nothing to do with what you are seeing on video or your understanding of physics or construction. It comes from something else and is not subject to being changed by this new, different view.
.
Have you ever seen a diagram of how the WTC was built? It was a very innovative concept and a one of a kind structure. The WTC consisted of a strong, reinforced concrete core at the center of the building which contained the elevators, staircases, and all of the utilities needed to run the building. Each of floors of the WTC rested on brackets attached to the core, and another set of brackets attached to the exterier wall. In most buildings the exterier wall is simply a facade which provides very little structural support. In the WTC the exterier wall was an essential part of the structural support of the towers - this is the reason why the windows were so narrow. The advantage to this design was that each floor was wide open so designers didn’t need to work around structural members when building new offices.
When the planes hit, the hot fires softened - not melted - the supporting brackets for the floors near the crash site. When the weight of one of the floors exceeded the remaining strength of the brackets supporting it, it collapsed onto the floor below it causing it to collapse as well. This is the “pancake” effect you undoubtedly heard about in the news. The exterior wall was supported latterally (side to side) by the interior floors - when the floors collapsed the exterior wall fell away which is very clearly visible on all of the videos of the collapse.
Once you realize how the interior core was independent of the floors around them you can see why it could remain standing for part of the collapse. But with so much material coming down the core was inevitably damaged lower down. When it was unable to hold up the weight of the structure above, it collapsed as well - just as this video shows.
This leads to my next question for you - why would it be so important for the government to place explosives in the core to ensure that it came down as well? The core contained no office space. If the core had somehow remained standing, the psychological end result would still have been exactly the same. We would have had the same number of deaths, and we would have still gone to war exactly we did.
Who said “any”? That’s a fair stretch. Isn’t part of the skill of *actual *building demolition learning how/where to place charges to avoid partial collapses? There’s absolutely no basis for insisting that the general collapse was necessarily strong enough to overcome any resistance from lower, undamaged structures.
Even still, the weight did overcome the resistance (the resistance being futile, after all) within a few seconds.
Looks like ivan is turning it into a debate – surprise, surprise – so I’ll let the GD folks have this one.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
Look at what you did twickster!
I thought these discussions were as dead as the dodo. Oh well, back to one of my favorite pet issues.
If you launch the lemmings at supersonic speeds he’ll never hear them at all.
Well, that’s the thing with planned demolitions. You have to be careful, because what if you blow the building, and it only collapses partway? Then you’ve got a precariously balanced structure, but it isn’t safe to go in and add more explosives, and there isn’t any safe way to complete the demolition.
Except, if you’re a terrorist, why should you care? A halfway demolished building is BETTER, because it’s going to be unsafe to demolish it further, and it stands there ruined for everyone to see rather than being a pile of rubble.
The thing that I can’t understand is the how someone could believe that some Illuminatus is sitting there watching the buildings after the crashes, and just as the buildings start to collapse on their own he presses the buttons to activate the explosives. Seriously? What kind of a fucking plan is that?
You know, certain kinds of truther speculation might make sense. Like, who exactly were the terrorists on the plane, who controlled them, who looked the other way as they went about their business. But the scenario of planting explosives, and then flying the planes into the towers anyway is just so fucking stupid I can’t believe anyone believes it.
Oh wait, the truthers don’t actually believe it. They’re just asking questions. They don’t know what happened, they just don’t believe the Official Story. No need to actually try to figure out what happened and why, all you need is to believe that since people in a position of trust are capable of evil things, therefore what happened on 9/11 must have been the result of people in a position of trust doing evil things. Anything else would be naive!