Beware the "15 points" Spam

[Sword_Of_Truth]

James Fetzer has sent a response to Worldnet Daily's John Mosely. In addition to admitting that he accused Moseley of being jewish, he throws out the 15 points that have been showing up in a lot of truther internet posts.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51579

I've noticed this in at least three seperate sites posted by ostensibly three seperate people.

1. The impact of the planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed); the planes that hit were very similar to those they were designed to withstand, and they continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects.

2. The melting point of steel at 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit is about 1,000 degrees higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800 degrees under optimal conditions, so the fires cannot have caused the steel to melt, which means that melting steel did not bring the buildings down.

3. UL had certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000 degrees for at least six hours before it would even significantly weaken, where these fires burned too low and too briefly – about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North – to have even caused the steel to weaken, much less melt.

I4. f the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt and total demolition that was observed.

5. There was not enough kinetic energy for the collapse of one floor to bring about the collapse of the next lower floor, even if the impact of the planes and the ensuing fires had been enough to cause the steel to weaken, which means that, even if one floor had collapsed due to the impacts and the fires, that could not have caused lower floors to fall.

6. There was not enough kinetic energy for the collapse of one floor to bring about the pulverization of the next floor, even if the impact of the planes and the ensuing fires had been enough to cause the steel to weaken and one floor to collapse upon another, which required a massive source of energy beyond any that the government has considered.

7. Heavy steel construction buildings like the Twin Towers, built with more than 100,000 tons of steel, are not even capable of "pancake collapse," which can only occur with concrete structures of "lift slab" construction and could not occur in "redundant" welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, as Charles Pagelow has pointed out to me.

8. The destruction of the South Tower in 10 seconds and of the North in 11 is even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken at least 12 seconds – which, as Judy Wood has emphasized, is an astounding result that would have been impossible without extremely powerful explosives.

9. The towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where the floors do not move, a phenomenon that Judy Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the concrete, the official account cannot possibly explain.

10. Pools of molten metal were found at the subbasement levels three, four and five weeks later, an effect that could not have been produced by the plane-impact/jet-fuel-fire/pancake collapse scenario, which, of course, implies that it was not produced by such a cause.

11. WTC-7 came down in a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 p.m. after Larry Silverstein suggested the best thing to do might be to "pull it," displaying all the characteristics of classic controlled demolitions, including a complete, abrupt and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors are all falling at the same time, and so forth, an event so embarrassing to the official account that it is not even mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

12. The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44 feet above the ground; the kind and quantity of debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757!

13. The Pentagon's own videotape does not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O'Reilly admitted when it was shown on "The Factor"; but at 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the 71-foot Pentagon is high and should have been present and visible; it was not, which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757!

14. The aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory – flying at high speed barely above ground level – physically impossible; and if it had come in at an angle instead, it would have created a massive crater; but there is no crater and the government has no way out, which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757!

15. If Flight 93 had come down as advertised, then there would have been a debris field of about a city block in size, but in fact the debris is distributed over an area of about eight square miles, which would be explainable if the plane had been shot down in the air but not if it had crashed as required by the government's official scenario.


Should we put together a 15 points of our own that we can copy & paste in response where ever this crops up?

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

James Fetzer has sent a response to Worldnet Daily's John Mosely. In addition to admitting that he accused Moseley of being jewish, he throws out the 15 points that have been showing up in a lot of truther internet posts.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51579

I've noticed this in at least three seperate sites posted by ostensibly three seperate people.



Should we put together a 15 points of our own that we can copy & paste in response where ever this crops up?

I'll take a stab:

RE 1) It was not solely the planes; it was the planes and the subsequent fires.
RE 2) The steel did not need to melt, only to reach a sufficient temperature for it to start to lose strength ~600C
RE 3) The fires were not "low and brief", they were intense. Additionally, the fireproofing of the steel was damage from the force of the impact.
RE 4) The trusses, and the core experienced failures. Once a small failure occured allowing PE to become KE then large failure would occur quickly.
RE 5) If this were true then no buildings would every completely collapse, even in earthquakes.
RE 6) Um, unsubstantiated bulls hit?
RE 7) Timings show the collapses to be in the range of 10-30 seconds. Freefall in vaccuum would have been ~9.8 seconds iirc.
RE 8) The collapses intiated near, or above, the point of the plane impacts. Buildings contain large amounts of empty space, unlike trees.
RE 9) Reference coal, tire, and other underground fires. Also, buried coals from a campfire remain hot hours/days later.
RE 10) Fire damage, newly released photos showing structurel damage from WTC 1&2 debris. "Pull it" out of context.
RE 11) There is no 11
RE 12) The hole was big enough, reference damage diagram. Reference photos from Moussaoui trial showing bodies, etc
RE 13) Framerate of film, speed of plane, etc
RE 14) Reference FDR information that has been released
RE 15) The debris "8 miles" out was paper and other objects that are easily carried aloft by wind.

This crap is the best Fetzer has to offer?

[Dog Town]

You already know all those answers. As does Doofus! If you paste it I will use.

[ghost707]

Am I supposed to take a document from CT folks who can't count to 11 seriously?

[Sword_Of_Truth]

RE 3) The fires were not "low and brief", they were intense.

Actually, theres an add on to that. When I talked to an engineer buddy of mine, he said that the effect of the impacts was to start the fires across the whole of the affected floors at the same time. As a result, the fires reached full burn within something like ten minutes. Whereas a "normal" fire starting in a wastepaper basked or something like that would have taken the better part of an hour to spread throughout the floor and reach full temperature.

This is the problem with coming up with a response to the fifteen points spam. Leaving things out is the essence of conspiracism. The more they leave out, the better it is for them. This makes it much easier for them to keep thier posts short and concise (for a tinfoiler). While we are faced with having to fill in the blanks that they won't.

How would we make a 15 points response that gets our message across without filling up a whole book?

[defaultdotxbe]

RE 1) It was not solely the planes; it was the planes and the subsequent fires.

to expand on this, the building was a designed to withstand an airliner impact, but was not designed for the rapid spread of fires due to jet fuel (lack of computer modeling abilities)

DeMartino postulated that it could withstand multiple impacts, but this has no basis in the design considerations

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Am I supposed to take a document from CT folks who can't count to 11 seriously?


Damn, that was my fault. The numbers didn't carry over in the cut & paste and I had to add them manually.

[kevin]

Didn't somebody find out that UL does not certify steel?

[defaultdotxbe]

Didn't somebody find out that UL does not certify steel?

and any certifications it did recieve would have been with fireproofing in place, whereas it was knocked off in the WTC

[ghost707]

Damn, that was my fault. The numbers didn't carry over in the cut & paste and I had to add them manually.

Ahh..that's better.

Here is just a quick thought I had some time back arguing against a CT concerning the towers:

Has anyone considered that the towers had been standing for almost 30 years and subject to natural corrosion as well as constant wind forces (swaying) 24hours a day, 365 days a year..I would definitely think that would have an effect on the total strength of the building.

[Gravy]

Didn't somebody find out that UL does not certify steel?
They certify whole building subassemblies, for example a complete wall or floor assembly. Obviously, they don't certify assemblies that have been damaged by airliners. Anyway, according to Shyam Sunder, Head NIST investigator, the conditions in the WTC were far more severe than the test conditions.

[Gravy]

I've received the Jon Moseley email and the global responses. Here's an excerpt from the funniest one:

"Thermite is an explosive specailly designed to destroy buildings made of concrete."

[kevin]

Might be best to handle these one at a time.
1. The impact of the planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed); the planes that hit were very similar to those they were designed to withstand, and they continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects.

since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed);

Frank DeMartini was the construction managerat the World Trade Center on 9/11 2001, not the project manager (the quote implies he oversaw the construction of the WTC). Further he was 49 when he died in the World Trade Center. That made him 14 when construction began and 24 at the end. He was not the construction manager during the construction of the buildings.

Of course you could go by someone that is intimately familiar with the World Trade Center design. Leslie Robertson was the structural engineer responsible for the design. In NOVA's Why The Towers Fell he states:

LESLIE ROBERTSON: We had designed the project for the impact of the largest airplane of its time, the Boeing 707, that is, to take this jet airplane, run it into the building, destroy a lot of structure and still have it stand up.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2907_wtc.html

If you're going to do research, use primary sources....

they continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects.

Who defines what negligible effects are? Just because you can't see an effect doesn't mean nothing occured. The outer faces of the world trade center began bowing because of the number of exterior columns removed. Many interior columns were completely severed by the plane crashing through them. This caused additional forces to be transmitted to the outer columns via the hat truss in the roof. Invisible effects perhaps, negligible no.

Of course the plane through the walls also killed everybody on the planes and on those immediate floors. Not a structural effect, but also not negligible.

[Kent1]

I've received the Jon Moseley email and the global responses. Here's an excerpt from the funniest one:

"Thermite is an explosive specailly designed to destroy buildings made of concrete."

I feel bad, I didn't get one.

[kevin]

I feel bad, I didn't get one.

he only sent one to Gravy because everybody is Gravy. Or is it Gravy is everybody. I forget. Either way he's Agent Smith.

[kevin]

2. The melting point of steel at 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit is about 1,000 degrees higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800 degrees under optimal conditions, so the fires cannot have caused the steel to melt, which means that melting steel did not bring the buildings down.

Excellent point! Next time someone suggests melting steel brought down the World Trade Center I'll be sure to point this out.

Of course the actual temperature of the fires peaked about 800 degrees and that reduces the strength of steel significantly. Add in additional loads from already severed columns and you're starting to build the conditions for progressive failure.

[kevin]

Of course you could go by someone that is intimately familiar with the World Trade Center design. Leslie Robertson was the structural engineer responsible for the design. In NOVA's Why The Towers Fell he states:

I hate it when I forget stuff. Robinson further states:

LESLIE ROBERTSON: With the 707, to the best of my knowledge, the fuel load was not considered in the design. Indeed, I don't know how it could have been considered.

so at best the analysis of a 707 crash was incomplete.

[kevin]

3. UL had certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000 degrees for at least six hours before it would even significantly weaken, where these fires burned too low and too briefly – about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North – to have even caused the steel to weaken, much less melt.

Interesting. Would need proof on the UL listing. Exactly what standard was applied? For example, the standard for FIRE RESISTIVE structural steel only tests up to 1100 degrees. Which standard goes higher, and why is that not considered fire resistive?

http://database.ul.com/cgi-bin/XYV/template/LISEXT/1FRAME/showpage.html?name=CCFZ.GuideInfo&ccnshorttitle=Fire-resistive+Structural+Steel&objid=1077926049&cfgid=1073741824&version=versionless&parent_id=1077926048&sequence=1

Note that the fire resistive structural steel standard was not even created until 12/2005. Well after the construction of the World Trade Centers was completed.

Further the tests for building materials specifically says:
1.6 These requirements do not cover:

1. Accumulation of data as to performance of assemblies constructed with components or lengths other than those tested.
...
4. Simulation of the fire behavior of joints between building elements, such as floor-wall or wall-wall, and like connections.

http://ulstandardsinfonet.ul.com/scopes/scopes.asp?fn=0263.html

As I doubt they built a full length column to test, I wonder what actually was certified. And of course none of the joints were certified either. I wonder if it's possible those failed first?

Finally were the tests with or without fire-proofing installed?

[Gravy]

Here's a summary:
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_fire_resistance_data.htm

[kevin]

Here's a summary:
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_fire_resistance_data.htm

This is what they base their "UL Certified" comment on? What a load of crap.

These tests were conducted in August 2004, not during or prior to construction as would be required for a UL Certification.

further the tests were "on composite concrete-steel trussed floor systems typical of those used in the World Trade Center (WTC)"

a) floor systems, not columns or other structural components
and
b) "typical" of those used, not actual as would be required for a UL Certification

"The tests—which were conducted at Underwriters Laboratories (UL) facilities in Northbrook, Ill., and Toronto, Canada—are part of NIST’s building and fire safety investigation of the WTC disaster on Sept. 11, 2001."

The tests were conducted AT UL labs, not BY UL labs (NIST did the actual testing using UL facilities) as would be required for certification.

"all four WTC floor system fire tests used the standard procedure known as ASTM E119." ASTM E119 prescribes a specific time/temperature rise for a typical building fire. UL itself says that the WTC conditions were not those as specified in the tests.

In recent years, some fire conditions have beein identified as sufficiently different from those represented by the time-temperature curve in ASTM E119, thus meriting an additional time-temperature curve. As a result, several fire test standards, including UL 1709, Rapid Rise Fire Tests of Protection Materials for Structural Steel, specify fire test-chamber temperatures that rise at a quicker rate than those specified in ASTM E119. The time-temperature curve in UL 1709 represents the conditions associated with burning pools of hydrocarbon fuels.

http://www.ul.com/regulators/WTC.pdf

So the tests weren't really even the right tests.

I'm not saying the tests produced no useful data but as the NIST lead investigator says "These tests alone cannot be used to determine the actual performance of the floor systems in the collapse of the WTC towers."

[Christopher7]

Point 11: The 5 sec. video of wtc7 comming straight down is what got me involved in the 'truth' movement. I offer this 4 min video for your consideration.
[I can't post url's so go to google video, search wtc7, look for 4min. 3 sec. video from Rising hill Videos]

[Gravy]

Welcome to the forums, Christopher7.

Here's the URL (you can post urls, just omit the www.)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1643313543353229958

The second clip shows at least a 13.5 second collapse time (until the roof is no longer visible).

[gumboot]

Actually, theres an add on to that. When I talked to an engineer buddy of mine, he said that the effect of the impacts was to start the fires across the whole of the affected floors at the same time. As a result, the fires reached full burn within something like ten minutes. Whereas a "normal" fire starting in a wastepaper basked or something like that would have taken the better part of an hour to spread throughout the floor and reach full temperature.


The other important part of this information is, by the time the fire had spread from the wastepaper basket in corner A to the photocopier in corner B, everything in corner A has been burned, and the fire has gone out there, which means the steel in that part of the building is not exposed to high levels of heat. Even in very bad fires, generally there is a main hot spot at the heart of the fire, and this hot spot progresses through the building as materials are burned up.

In the WTC, the jet fuel resulted in SIMULTANEOUS fires across the ENTIRE area of MULTIPLE floors. This meant all the steel in the impact area was exposed to maximum temperatures AT THE SAME TIME.

Cue collapse.

-Andrew

[Christopher7]

Welcome to the forums, Christopher7.

Here's the URL (you can post urls, just omit the

The second clip shows at least a 13.5 second collapse time (until the roof is no longer visible).

Gravy: Thanx for the welcome and the URL

The time from when all 4 corners and the walls between them (ie the building) started to fall and 'end of collapse" has been estimated at 6.5 sec. (by he who is not held in high esteem here, as i understand it)

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth
Actually, theres an add on to that. When I talked to an engineer buddy of mine, he said that the effect of the impacts was to start the fires across the whole of the affected floors at the same time. As a result, the fires reached full burn within something like ten minutes. Whereas a "normal" fire starting in a wastepaper basked or something like that would have taken the better part of an hour to spread throughout the floor and reach full temperature.


The other important part of this information is, by the time the fire had spread from the wastepaper basket in corner A to the photocopier in corner B, everything in corner A has been burned, and the fire has gone out there, which means the steel in that part of the building is not exposed to high levels of heat. Even in very bad fires, generally there is a main hot spot at the heart of the fire, and this hot spot progresses through the building as materials are burned up.

In the WTC, the jet fuel resulted in SIMULTANEOUS fires across the ENTIRE area of MULTIPLE floors. This meant all the steel in the impact area was exposed to maximum temperatures AT THE SAME TIME.

Cue collapse.

-Andrew

EXACTLY!

It's amazing that it's so simple. This was a fire like no other, a fire of a kind that could only be started by a fully fueled widebody jet. It boggles the mind that the truthers can't understand it.

[Christopher7]

Here's another video of wtc7 side by side with another CD

youtube.com/watch?v=czyNCNhDI

[Matthew Best]

I get "The url contained a malformed video id" from that link.

[kookbreaker]

Here's another video of wtc7 side by side with another CD

youtube.com/watch?v=czyNCNhDI

Your link is no good.

For the record, here is what a real demolition looks like, and more importantly, SOUNDS LIKE:

http://www.break.com/index/landmark_tower_demolition.html

[Mancman]

4. If the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt and total demolition that was observed.

Sheesh. Fezter isn't just nuts, he's a liar too(or a very poor researcher). Gradual increases in perimeter column bowing and gradually failing and sagging of floor trusses is exactly what was observed over the course of the fires.

[Christopher7]

Sorry about the bad link: I'm debating wtc7 on the "9/11 : FDNY....." Thread
Please join me there if you like.

[kevin]

The other important part of this information is, by the time the fire had spread from the wastepaper basket in corner A to the photocopier in corner B, everything in corner A has been burned

This is not necessarily true. It depends on the material in corner A and the material between corner A and B and the transmission method to go from A to B. For example, wastepaper fire sends up burning paper into the air which is propagated to corner B by the HVAC air currents. It lands on the photocopier and smolders. Eventually it may burst into flame while corner A is still burning.

Additionally, Corner A may have an old wood desk (corner offices are for the exec's anyway) that is dense enough to burn very hot and very slowly. It may still be burning when everything around is burnt up.

[kevin]

Gravy: Thanx for the welcome and the URL

The time from when all 4 corners and the walls between them (ie the building) started to fall and 'end of collapse" has been estimated at 6.5 sec. (by he who is not held in high esteem here, as i understand it)

Why would you measure the fall rate this way? If one corner begins falling before the others that is the start of the fall. Not some arbritrary "all 4 corners" started to fall. They're picking the start point that makes the numbers say what they want. Cherry picking...

[gumboot]

This is not necessarily true. It depends on the material in corner A and the material between corner A and B and the transmission method to go from A to B.


Well yes, that's true. But in principle it is accurate. Generally materials that burn for longer burn at lower temperatures.

And certainly an effective transmission method will spread the fire much faster. Such as 10,000 lbs of Jet Fuel, for example...

-Andrew