blamebrampton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blamebrampton) wrote2011-09-10 12:47 am
blamebrampton) wrote2011-09-10 12:47 am
9/11 conspiracy theorists make me very cross, and other bits ...
Am still improving on the flu front, damn post-viral cough still sticking around, but I am definitely winning the battle! However, so snowed under with catching up on work that I've been hopeless on LJ and will continue to be spotty for a bit. I have about 42 tabs open of things I must read, about a third of them from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wemyss and 17catherines ... Sunday looks hopeful as a reading day!
It being the week before September 11 and the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the US, there have been a lot of stories in the news. Most of these are, as they can only be, heartbreaking, and the sort of thing that makes you want to reach out to the nearest stranger and just do something in the name of human sympathy.
And yet in the comments threads below (for I have turned into one of those people who Takes Their Papers Online), there are a staggering number of people declaring that the whole thing was a government plot and the attacks were all staged.
Which I find infuriating. I can only imagine what it must be like for the average sensible American. But I have a proposed solution.
Buzz Aldrin.
For those who have no idea what I am talking about (cut to the last 15 seconds if you want the short version):
If it were made law that Buzz Aldrin could punch every conspiracy nut who flies in the face of overwhelming evidence, the world would be a better place. I know that violence is not the solution, but he's 81, so he's very unlikely to really hurt anyone, and he's an old-fashioned gentleman, so women and children will just be given a Disappointed Look. Plus it will keep an American Treasure fit in his ninth decade! He may have to give himself a little jab over his thoughts on climate change, but he's an engineer, and engineers and geologists are the most likely to be wacky there. And at least he's of the genuine 'Eh, I'm not convinced' rather than the nutty 'It's a Scientists' Plot' set.
The next time I read 'Actually, the CIA ...' over the next few days, I am going to imagine Buzz wading in, and feel a bit better about things.
In good work news, final sales figures from my last issue brought Rare But Solid Praise from the Powers That Be, which is good news as it means I may have a next issue. Given that print is allegedly dead, this is never a certain thing. But I have the Best Ever Knitting Extract in the process of being sorted for Winter 2012, so I will cry if it doesn't go ahead. And I have both Australia and New Zealand in the office Rugby World Cup sweep, and drew South Africa for my friend. One of my work besties has England, so fingers crossed! (And sorry in advance to both Australia and New Zealand for jinxing them.)
wemyss and 17catherines ... Sunday looks hopeful as a reading day!It being the week before September 11 and the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the US, there have been a lot of stories in the news. Most of these are, as they can only be, heartbreaking, and the sort of thing that makes you want to reach out to the nearest stranger and just do something in the name of human sympathy.
And yet in the comments threads below (for I have turned into one of those people who Takes Their Papers Online), there are a staggering number of people declaring that the whole thing was a government plot and the attacks were all staged.
Which I find infuriating. I can only imagine what it must be like for the average sensible American. But I have a proposed solution.
Buzz Aldrin.
For those who have no idea what I am talking about (cut to the last 15 seconds if you want the short version):
If it were made law that Buzz Aldrin could punch every conspiracy nut who flies in the face of overwhelming evidence, the world would be a better place. I know that violence is not the solution, but he's 81, so he's very unlikely to really hurt anyone, and he's an old-fashioned gentleman, so women and children will just be given a Disappointed Look. Plus it will keep an American Treasure fit in his ninth decade! He may have to give himself a little jab over his thoughts on climate change, but he's an engineer, and engineers and geologists are the most likely to be wacky there. And at least he's of the genuine 'Eh, I'm not convinced' rather than the nutty 'It's a Scientists' Plot' set.
The next time I read 'Actually, the CIA ...' over the next few days, I am going to imagine Buzz wading in, and feel a bit better about things.
In good work news, final sales figures from my last issue brought Rare But Solid Praise from the Powers That Be, which is good news as it means I may have a next issue. Given that print is allegedly dead, this is never a certain thing. But I have the Best Ever Knitting Extract in the process of being sorted for Winter 2012, so I will cry if it doesn't go ahead. And I have both Australia and New Zealand in the office Rugby World Cup sweep, and drew South Africa for my friend. One of my work besties has England, so fingers crossed! (And sorry in advance to both Australia and New Zealand for jinxing them.)
Re: the twin towers, of course not...
That's something that is often said, but it's not actually true. There have been several others. Indeed, (admittedly much smaller) steel-framed buildings essentially melted during the Victorian bushfires the other year, and there was a high-rise steel-framed building in Madrid that partially collapsed due to fire alone without any other damage, since 9/11.
Having read engineering reports on that collapse, the fact that the fire was at the bottom of the building, with all that load above it and the structural stability of that load damaged thanks to the damage from the North Tower, the way that it fell is exactly as the engineering and the maths say that it will fall under such extreme conditions.
People who believe it must have been a controlled demolition because they do not expect the materials to respond the way they did are often basing that belief on the materials working optimally, but we know that was not the case. The fireproofing was compromised, and in the case of WTC7, there was effectively no emergency response once the building was empty, something that is pretty much unheard of in other high-rise fires in the modern world.
Shaym Sunder's reports on the collapses on 9/11 have been open to immense scrutiny from other engineers, mathematicians and other materials scientists able to model accurate recreations of the events have agreed with his conclusions.
I am not an engineer, but I know enough engineers and scientists to know that you cannot convince that many of them to commit fraud in concert. They are, as the Americans would say, ornery buggers!
Re: the twin towers, of course not...
Now I write this as being someone who took Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto.
I'm watching this now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b74naeawdCs&feature=player_embedded#!