Re: "Let's Roll"

[Doug Pensinger]

Dan wrote:


No, I made it based on his actions and statements concerning the Balkans
immediately after he was elected.  A summation of the administrations
attitude is at

http://www.worldpress.org/0901cover3.htm


Bush wasn't interested in nation buildingboth his statements and his
actions indicated that he thought it was a do-gooder waster of
effort.before 9-11.


The article seems to be based on statements made by Secretary Powell who, 
in retrospect, had about as much influence on the Bush White House as Dan 
Rather.  Were there any statements by Bush or Rumsfeld or Cheney?




Second, if you dig deeper into the Clarke statements as well as
allegations made by Paul O'Niel, you _will_ find a greater interest in
Iraq than in Al Quaeda/Bin Laden prior to 911.


OK, let me accept that he was more interested in Iraq than AQ.  The 
number of public statements he made on the dangers of appeasing North 
Korea were
significantly greater than the number of public statements made about 
Iraq. Yet, I saw no indication that he was preparing the nation for an 
invasion

of North Korea.


Know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, Dan.  Private statements as 
reveiled by administration insiders are much more compelling than public 
statments.



Third, immediately after 911 you not only have Bush telling Clarke to
find an Iraq connection you have Rumsfeld asking aids to come up with 
plans

to strike Iraq _despite_ being told that the terrorists were probably Al
Qaeda and not Iraqi.


How is this inconsistent with him _knowing_ that there must have been a
connection?  Why is this evidence that he planned on invading Iraq before
9-11.  Why couldn't it just be the perspective that it takes the 
resources of a country to mount such an attackand knowing that 
Hussein has

supported other terrorists with cash, him believing that it must have
happened again.


Because it follow that if the projectionn of power into the middle east 
and regime change in Iraq were administration priorities (as illustrated 
in points 1, 2 and 4), then the administration would be anxious to find an 
excuse to invade Iraq.



Well, it was a goal of the Clinton administration to remove Kim from 
power. They thought that this would provide an opportunity to defuse the 
Korean
crisis.  This was after Clinton decided not to bomb the nuclear 
facilities. But, he had no plans to invade.


I know that Bush I had the removal of Hussein as a goal of his policy.
Clinton certainly rattled the saber more in 1998 than Bush did pre-9-11.


So if there had been an incident and Clinton had invaded and then it 
turned out that the incident had absolutely nothing to do with N. Korea 
then Clintons proclivity to unseat Kim would have nothing to do with why 
he invaded???



And finally you have the build up to invasion during which intelligence
was manipulated in a manner that promoted the justification for 
invasion.


Which does not address what was planned before 9-11.


No, but it is a further indicator of the administrations anxiousness to 
invade Iraq.


There were four points that you considered suggesting that the invasion 
of Iraq was a priority before 9-11.  I didn't consider them thus.  I'd be

willing to try to formalize my I also considered negative evidence.

For example, Powell stated that the sanctions were working with Iraq 
early in 2001 and that no military action was needed.


Why is it you think that Powell is a good indicator of what the 
administration was thinking?  Whatever he said had only coincidental 
importance to what the ral Bush insiders were thinking.



You quote Richards stating that Bush was more interested in Iraq than AQ.
He also stated that Bush wasn't very interested in AQdidn't consider
them to be a serious threat.   If the Bush administration had Iraq as a
priority, wouldn't Richards, or Wilkerson, or someone have gotten wind of
that pre 9-11?


I assume you mean Richard Clarke?  This is from a meeting in April of 2001:

"Clarke relates, "I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have 
to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, 
said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking 
about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the 
United States.'


"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the 
United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the 
CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There 
is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."


Clarke went on to add, "There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was 
supporting al Qaeda, ever."


And this is Paul O'Niell, the Secretary of the Treasury and a member of 
the security council:


“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was 
a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going 
after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eigh

Re: "Let's Roll"

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" 
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 7:37 PM
Subject: Re: "Let's Roll"


> Dan Minette wrote:
> >> My concern WRT the conspiracy theories is in the way 3 WTC
> >> buildings
> >> collapsed fairly squarely into thier footprints. It is quite
> >> difficult to *make* this occur (in the sense that work must be done
> >> to garuantee it), yet 3 WTC buildings did just that on their own
> >> and
> >> one was not even hit by a plane. If I have any doubts about the
> >> "rational" explanation it lies there.
> >
> > At the Scientific American site we have this explaination:
> >
> > 
> > Kausel addressed the oft-asked question of why the towers did not
> > tip
> > over like a falling tree. "A tree is solid, whereas building is
> > mostly air or empty space; only about 10 percent is solid material.
> > Since there is no solid stump underneath to force it to the side,
> > the
> > building cannot tip over. It could only collapse upon itself."
> > Robert
> > McNamara said his failure mechanism theory "focuses on the
> > connections that hold the structure together," but he cautioned that
> > "we really need to wait for a detailed investigation, before we
> > decide if we have to up the code ratings for these connections in
> > signature structures 
> >
> > To make it tilt, one side of the building would have to hold for a
> > significantly longer time than the other.  If you watch the video of
> > the south tower (I think it is the south tower), you will see some
> > tilting at the beginning.  After that, its more like a wave in a
> > structure.
> >
> > In essence, by the time the wave got down 20 floors, the forces
> > involved in stopping it were much greater than the design strength
> > of
> > the connections. They broke very quickly...so that even a 50%
> > variation in breaking speed would not cause tilt.
> >
> > I think part of the problem in intuiting this is that our gut level
> > experience is not with this type of collapse with this type of
> > structure.
> >
> > Now, if the bottom collapsed, then we would expect tilt, but not the
> > top.
> >
> One of the towers was hit distinctly off center, yet it collapsed
> almost exactly as its twin.

Most of the civil engineering sites I looked at indicated that the fire was
hot enough to eventually weaken the remaining steel to 10%-20% of its full
strength.

> And what collapsed WTC8?

From

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=5&c=y

we have:



WTC 7 Collapse
CLAIM: Seven hours after the two towers fell, the 47-story WTC 7 collapsed.
According to 911review.org: "The video clearly shows that it was not a
collapse subsequent to a fire, but rather a controlled demolition: amongst
the Internet investigators, the jury is in on this one."

FACT: Many conspiracy theorists point to FEMA's preliminary report, which
said there was relatively light damage to WTC 7 prior to its collapse. With
the benefit of more time and resources, NIST researchers now support the
working hypothesis that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris
than the FEMA report indicated. "The most important thing we found was that
there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7,"
NIST's Sunder tells PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to
the bottom--approximately 10 stories--about 25 percent of the depth of the
building was scooped out." NIST also discovered previously undocumented
damage to WTC 7's upper stories and its southwest corner.

NIST investigators believe a combination of intense fire and severe
structural damage contributed to the collapse, though assigning the exact
proportion requires more research. But NIST's analysis suggests the fall of
WTC 7 was an example of "progressive collapse," a process in which the
failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the
entire building to come down. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or
"kinks," in the building's facade just before the two penthouses
disappeared into the structure, one after the other. The entire building
fell in on itself, with the slumping east side of the structure pulling
down the west side in a diagonal collapse.

According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building's failure:
In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying
exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each
floor. "What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out
just one column on one of the lower floors," Sunder notes, "it could cause
a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down."

There are two other possible contributing factors still under
investigation: First, trusses on the fifth and seventh floors were designed
to transfer loads from one set of columns to another. With columns on the
south face apparently damaged, high stresses would likely have been
communicated to c

Re: "Let's Roll"

[Robert Seeberger]

Dan Minette wrote:
>> My concern WRT the conspiracy theories is in the way 3 WTC 
>> buildings
>> collapsed fairly squarely into thier footprints. It is quite
>> difficult to *make* this occur (in the sense that work must be done
>> to garuantee it), yet 3 WTC buildings did just that on their own 
>> and
>> one was not even hit by a plane. If I have any doubts about the
>> "rational" explanation it lies there.
>
> At the Scientific American site we have this explaination:
>
> 
> Kausel addressed the oft-asked question of why the towers did not 
> tip
> over like a falling tree. "A tree is solid, whereas building is
> mostly air or empty space; only about 10 percent is solid material.
> Since there is no solid stump underneath to force it to the side, 
> the
> building cannot tip over. It could only collapse upon itself." 
> Robert
> McNamara said his failure mechanism theory "focuses on the
> connections that hold the structure together," but he cautioned that
> "we really need to wait for a detailed investigation, before we
> decide if we have to up the code ratings for these connections in
> signature structures 
>
> To make it tilt, one side of the building would have to hold for a
> significantly longer time than the other.  If you watch the video of
> the south tower (I think it is the south tower), you will see some
> tilting at the beginning.  After that, its more like a wave in a
> structure.
>
> In essence, by the time the wave got down 20 floors, the forces
> involved in stopping it were much greater than the design strength 
> of
> the connections. They broke very quickly...so that even a 50%
> variation in breaking speed would not cause tilt.
>
> I think part of the problem in intuiting this is that our gut level
> experience is not with this type of collapse with this type of
> structure.
>
> Now, if the bottom collapsed, then we would expect tilt, but not the
> top.
>
One of the towers was hit distinctly off center, yet it collapsed 
almost exactly as its twin.
And what collapsed WTC8?

(This is a good bit of fun)


xponent
Conspiracy Points And Blunts Maru
rob 


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Re: "Let's Roll"

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" 
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 7:26 PM
Subject: Re: "Let's Roll"


> Dan Minette wrote:
> > Looking at the contention that the nature of the collapse was
> > consistent with demolition instead of desctruction by a shock wave
> > going downwards, we can look at:
> >
> > http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/#northtower
> >
> > The composit ABC vidio shows pretty clearly that the bottom parts of
> > the building do not start to fall until the wave of destruction
> > reaches them. If multiple charges went off, then the collapse would
> > take place near simultaneously.
> >
> > After spending time looking at this, I still cannot see where the
> > alledged holes in the explaination provided by civil engineers is.
> > I'd appreciate a description of why the professional explaination
> > cannot be right.
> >
>
> Dan, I don't deny it, I question it.
> I would have an easier time with the way it collapsed if the buildings
> had toppled onto their neighbors (as awful as that sounds). It is the
> 3 buildings collapsing straight down that boggles my imagination.

I cannot see, given the mechanism of failure, how they would topple.  What
would hold one side of the building up for a significant length of time?
Once I started doing the physics of it in my head, it seemed obvious to
megiven the structure of the building and the nature of the collapse.

And I appreciate that you are not denying it, but simply stating
contradictions with earlier experience.  However,  it did seem to me that
David Land stated that the commonly accepted explanation is just as full of
holes as the conspiracy theoriesand that's what I was addressing with
my comment.


Dan M.

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Re: "Let's Roll"

[Robert Seeberger]

Dan Minette wrote:
> Looking at the contention that the nature of the collapse was
> consistent with demolition instead of desctruction by a shock wave
> going downwards, we can look at:
>
> http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/#northtower
>
> The composit ABC vidio shows pretty clearly that the bottom parts of
> the building do not start to fall until the wave of destruction
> reaches them. If multiple charges went off, then the collapse would
> take place near simultaneously.
>
> After spending time looking at this, I still cannot see where the
> alledged holes in the explaination provided by civil engineers is.
> I'd appreciate a description of why the professional explaination
> cannot be right.
>

Dan, I don't deny it, I question it.
I would have an easier time with the way it collapsed if the buildings 
had toppled onto their neighbors (as awful as that sounds). It is the 
3 buildings collapsing straight down that boggles my imagination.

As it were..building demolition experts *do* *not* explode all 
their charges simultaneously in any case, but rather explode the 
charges so that the collapse is "guided" downward. (And that factoid 
is from watching a documentary on building demolition I saw back in 
the 90s).

As thing stand, I don't believe in the conspiracy theories, but some 
aspects of them remain open questions until sufficient answers appear. 
I just have not seen sufficient evidnce for my particular bugaboo.

xponent
Splashes Maru
rob 


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Re: "Let's Roll"

[Dan Minette]

> My concern WRT the conspiracy theories is in the way 3 WTC buildings
> collapsed fairly squarely into thier footprints. It is quite difficult
> to *make* this occur (in the sense that work must be done to garuantee
> it), yet 3 WTC buildings did just that on their own and one was not
> even hit by a plane. If I have any doubts about the "rational"
> explanation it lies there.

At the Scientific American site we have this explaination:


Kausel addressed the oft-asked question of why the towers did not tip over
like a falling tree. "A tree is solid, whereas building is mostly air or
empty space; only about 10 percent is solid material. Since there is no
solid stump underneath to force it to the side, the building cannot tip
over. It could only collapse upon itself." Robert McNamara said his failure
mechanism theory "focuses on the connections that hold the structure
together," but he cautioned that "we really need to wait for a detailed
investigation, before we decide if we have to up the code ratings for these
connections in signature structures


To make it tilt, one side of the building would have to hold for a
significantly longer time than the other.  If you watch the video of the
south tower (I think it is the south tower), you will see some tilting at
the beginning.  After that, its more like a wave in a structure.

In essence, by the time the wave got down 20 floors, the forces involved in
stopping it were much greater than the design strength of the connections.
They broke very quickly...so that even a 50% variation in breaking speed
would not cause tilt.

I think part of the problem in intuiting this is that our gut level
experience is not with this type of collapse with this type of structure.

Now, if the bottom collapsed, then we would expect tilt, but not the top.

Dan M.

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Re: "Let's Roll"

[Dan Minette]

Looking at the contention that the nature of the collapse was consistent
with demolition instead of desctruction by a shock wave going downwards, we
can look at:

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/#northtower

The composit ABC vidio shows pretty clearly that the bottom parts of the
building do not start to fall until the wave of destruction reaches them.
If multiple charges went off, then the collapse would take place near
simultaneously.

After spending time looking at this, I still cannot see where the alledged
holes in the explaination provided by civil engineers is.  I'd appreciate a
description of why the professional explaination cannot be right.

Dan M.

Dan M.

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Re: "Let's Roll"

[Robert Seeberger]

Horn, John wrote:
>> On Behalf Of Dave Land
>
>> And it's not just that people described the plane hitting the
>> tower as "an explosion", it's the reports -- many of them at
>> the time they happened -- of "there goes another explosion".
>> There are radio recordings of lots of firefighters reported
>> "secondary explosions"
>> throughout the building at various times, and footage of
>> reporters reacting to explosions way after the both planes had hit.
>
> I don't think I was clear enough earlier.  I was actually referring
> to these reports of secondary explosions not the initial explosion
> from the airplane hit.
>
> Again, there probably were lots of things happening that could be
> described in the chaos of the moment as explosions.  But that
> doesn't mean they were caused by bombs preset in the building.  I'm
> not sure that I buy the argument that the average firefighter is
> trained to know the difference between an explosion caused by a bomb
> and by other things.  I'm sure they are trained to know about the
> "normal" fire-related explosions and such.  But nothing about the
> WTC attacks was normal.  It was all outside of their experiences and
> training.  The scale of the damage and the chaos was beyond anything
> I'm sure most, if not all, of them had ever seen.  I don't put a lot
> of creedence in the words someone blurted out over a radio in that
> situation.  As I said in another post, I could imagine someone
> blurting out the first thing that came to mind ("that sounded like a
> bomb") but then internalizing the next part ("no, probably 'caused
> by blah-blah-blah").
>
If you ever had the opportunity to hear 250MCM cables go phase to 
phase, something that certainly if only similarly happened in the WTC 
any number of times, then you would know just how easy it is to hear 
"explosions" during disasterous occurences.

How many battery powered devices would there be in a building like the 
WTC. Ever heard a battery explode? I have. It was 30 feet away and 
sounded like a shotgun going off next to my head. How many little UPS 
units in such an office space? How many exploded due to fire?

I'm sure some of the brighter minds here can think of other mundane 
reasons for explosions and similar sounding events.

My concern WRT the conspiracy theories is in the way 3 WTC buildings 
collapsed fairly squarely into thier footprints. It is quite difficult 
to *make* this occur (in the sense that work must be done to garuantee 
it), yet 3 WTC buildings did just that on their own and one was not 
even hit by a plane. If I have any doubts about the "rational" 
explanation it lies there.


xponent
Pancake Maru
rob 


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Re: The Root of all Evil?

[Robert J. Chassell]

... for example, George Washington may or may not actually have
cut down a cherry tree ... the story tells us something ... about
America ...

Yes, and so you need to judge evidence.  Does the story tell us about
the legend?

This example is still whether the Geo. Washington story is more or
less truthful -- but, as you say, it is not about the `fact' whether
the child cut down a cherry tree.  Its truth is about something else.

To call your best action "post-critical naivete" is misleading.  You
need to be critical in your judgement.  Does the story tell us about
America?  When?  For whom?

If you define factual as meaning `not legendary or mythical', that is
fine, but that definition has nothing to do with judgement.

Good novels are fiction; and if you judge them, they often tell
truths.  But don't think such novels are necessarily accurate in the
same sense of that a history is intended to be accurate.

You may know all this -- but what I heard suggests otherwise.  For me,
your talk about "post-critical naivete" sounds foolish.  We may be
having communications difficulties.

The issue is whether people are `satisfied with inadequate answers' to
legends and myths as well as to simple facts.

Some old questions can be answered, like `what came first, the chicken
or the egg?'.  That is both a legendary question and a question of
simple fact.

I remember the question from when I very young.  At that time, the
question stumped me because I did not know about mutations or genetic
material, only that chickens laid eggs and eggs grew into chickens.
Nowadays, it is hard to imagine that anyone could have been stumped --
the child would parrot the adult -- since if you think in terms of
mutations, you figure that the egg came first, laid by a
proto-chicken.

Other old questions cannot be answered well.  Thus, one famous
question is `is there life after the end of life?'  If you say that
the second meaning of the word `life' is different from the first
meaning of the word, then without any trouble or judgment, you can say
yes, no, or maybe.  (I was taught this; I think this is the usual
form, with the phrase `the end of life' shortened to the word
`death'.)  On the other hand, if the word's meaning is intended to
remain consistent, then you can only say no.

(By the way, I remember being taught the story of Geo. Washington and
the Cherry Tree in school.  But rather than focus on his honesty, I
remember focusing more on his having cut down the tree -- we cut down
and sold Christmas trees, and cutting down the wrong tree was
definitely a mistake.  Should the young George Washington have cut
down a different tree?)

-- 
Robert J. Chassell 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com  http://www.teak.cc
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Re: "Let's Roll"

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Horn, John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" 
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 9:25 AM
Subject: RE: "Let's Roll"


> On Behalf Of Dave Land

> And it's not just that people described the plane hitting the
> tower as "an explosion", it's the reports -- many of them at
> the time they happened -- of "there goes another explosion".
> There are radio recordings of lots of firefighters reported
> "secondary explosions"
> throughout the building at various times, and footage of
> reporters reacting to explosions way after the both planes had
hit.

I don't think I was clear enough earlier.  I was actually referring
to these reports of secondary explosions not the initial explosion
from the airplane hit.

>Again, there probably were lots of things happening that could be
>described in the chaos of the moment as explosions.  But that
>doesn't mean they were caused by bombs preset in the building.  I'm
>not sure that I buy the argument that the average firefighter is
>trained to know the difference between an explosion caused by a bomb
>and by other things.  I'm sure they are trained to know about the
>"normal" fire-related explosions and such.  But nothing about the
>WTC attacks was normal.  It was all outside of their experiences and
>training.  The scale of the damage and the chaos was beyond anything
>I'm sure most, if not all, of them had ever seen.

To add to this argument, I'll quote from one of ( the scientific American
site) the technical web sites I listed:



Others have pointed out the possibility that the aviation fuel fires burned
sufficiently hot to melt and ignite the airliners' aluminum airframe
structures. Aluminum, a pyrophoric metal, could have added to the
conflagrations. Hot molten aluminum, suggests one well-informed
correspondent, could have seeped down into the floor systems, doing
significant damage. "Aluminum melts into burning 'goblet puddles' that
would pool around depressions, [such as] beam joints, service openings in
the floor, stair wells and so forth...The goblets are white hot, burning at
an estimated 1800 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the water of
hydration in the concrete is vaporized and consumed by the aluminum. This
evolves hydrogen gas that burns. Aluminum burning in concrete produces a
calcium oxide/silicate slag covered by a white aluminum oxide ash, all of
which serve to insulate and contain the aluminum puddle.


Such a scenario is consistent with multiple explosions.  Indeed, since
aluminum, iron, and oxygen are the prime components in thermite...and I
know from trying to find cast aluminum blocks that the melting and the
flash point of aluminum are close, one has the potential for lots of
explosions with the hot materials at hand.

Second, the amount of kinetic energy produced by each collapse was truly
amazing: a trillion joules.  To put it in perspective, using the specific
heat of stainless steel at 25C, this is enough to heat 2000 metric tons of
steel from 0C to 1000C.

Dan M.


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Technique

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Doug Pensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" 
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 9:50 PM
Subject: Re: "Let's Roll"


> Dan  wrote:
>
> > The reason I bring these examples up is that they help illustrate the
> > main points that I hope we can agree upon before considering the issue.
> >
> > The first is that we should accept the same technique to evaluate
> > arguments supporting positions that we tend to favor as we do those
> > positions we tend to oppose.  We've discussed the bias we all have
> > before on this list.  I
> > have found, both professionally and personally, that reliance on
> > technique is one of the best ways to counter this tendency.  Feynman's
> > comment that
> > "science is one of the best ways we have of not fooling ourselves"
> > relates to this.  Many times I have used technique to arrive at
> > conclusions, and
> > then said "oh shit" after I arrived at my conclusions.  The rigorous
use
> > of technique was my guard against lying to myself.  After 25 years of
> > success using these techniques, they are fairly well ingrained in me.
>
> Then why don't you use technique when examining The Bush administration's
> motivation for the invasion of Iraq?

After thinking about it overnight, I arrived at the conclusion that we have
fundamentally different understandings of technique.  Let me give an
example.  You quoted a website that stated that Bush called the
Constitution "just a piece of paper."  The website owner stated that he
heard this from two high ranked government officials.

You considered this very solid evidence.  I wouldn't, but I would consider
a report in the Washington Post solid evidence.

My reasoning is as follows.  If we generalize your statement, it would be:

"reports given in websites that are attributed to unnamed but well placed
sources are usually reliable."

If we accept this as a general rule, then my general rule would rquire us
to  accept the same type of reports from conservative as well as liberal
websites.  Living where I do, I've listened to references to multiple
conservative sources for all sorts of claims about the evil left that
strain my credibility.  So, I take a report within a website with a grain
of salt.

But, the Washington Post has a pretty good track record.  It isn't perfect,
to be sure.  But it is good.  I'll give an example of this from Watergate.
They went with a single sourced report once, and were burnt because it was
false.  That was a hit on their credibility.  Deep Throat told them that
they couldn't afford to make these types of mistakes...one more and it was
over.

Websites do not have this type of reputation to lose.  Thus, I can trust
reports in the Washington Post while not trusting websites.  I also, due to
track records, trust the Washington Post more than the Washington Times.

I know conservatives who admit that the Washington Post has good news
standards.  If a leak is reported there, they attribute solid weight to it.
That is worth a lot to a paper who's market is high end (as opposed to the
low end papers like the New York Post).

I'll agree that, if you quote the Washington Post and my source is a
website, say from an ex-reporter that you have not come to trust from
knowing his work, then your source is better than mine.  Now, some websites
are exceptions (e.g. the NY Times website is a good source compared to the
Washington Post paper), but I think that we can reasonably discuss this and
arrive at rules of thumb for weighing sources that are not dependant on the
political views that are supported by the statements at the source.

Dan M.

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RE: "Let's Roll"

[Horn, John]

> On Behalf Of Dave Land

> And it's not just that people described the plane hitting the 
> tower as "an explosion", it's the reports -- many of them at 
> the time they happened -- of "there goes another explosion". 
> There are radio recordings of lots of firefighters reported 
> "secondary explosions"  
> throughout the building at various times, and footage of 
> reporters reacting to explosions way after the both planes had
hit.

I don't think I was clear enough earlier.  I was actually referring
to these reports of secondary explosions not the initial explosion
from the airplane hit.

Again, there probably were lots of things happening that could be
described in the chaos of the moment as explosions.  But that
doesn't mean they were caused by bombs preset in the building.  I'm
not sure that I buy the argument that the average firefighter is
trained to know the difference between an explosion caused by a bomb
and by other things.  I'm sure they are trained to know about the
"normal" fire-related explosions and such.  But nothing about the
WTC attacks was normal.  It was all outside of their experiences and
training.  The scale of the damage and the chaos was beyond anything
I'm sure most, if not all, of them had ever seen.  I don't put a lot
of creedence in the words someone blurted out over a radio in that
situation.  As I said in another post, I could imagine someone
blurting out the first thing that came to mind ("that sounded like a
bomb") but then internalizing the next part ("no, probably 'caused
by blah-blah-blah").

 - jmh
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RE: "Let's Roll"

[Horn, John]

> n Behalf Of Julia Thompson

> And then there's the question, is it a firecracker or a gun?  
> If you hear enough of both, you learn to tell the difference 
> in sound.  Or so I've been told by someone who lived on a 
> really bad street in DC for a year.

But could that person tell the difference after several hours of
dealing with the worst terrorist incident on US soil?  If they
happened to have a radio with them, is it quite possible they might
say "that sounded like a gunshot" outloud and then think later to
themselves, "no, more likely a firecracker".

  - jmh
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shepherd

[The Fool]

<>

Bush is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international
Disgrace for his ego's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution
And war, I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control,
they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the
Presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall
follow me all the days of thy term.
And my jobless children shall dwell in my basement
forever. 
Amen

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