--- Jed Rothwell wrote: > Because Steve Jones has turned his back on rationality, he rushes to embrace things like the 9/11 conspiracy theories, which are every bit as daft as his notions about cold fusion. To paraphrase Lord Chesterfield's remark about God, a man who stops believing in experimental evidence will believe any damn thing.
I'm not sure who is turning their back on rationality here; and ignoring this good advice from the Peerage. Apparently you are unaware that the very kind of experimental evidence - that you claim to respect so dearly - was absolutely and totally ignored by NIST in favor of a computer simulation? And that Sunder was the chief author of the previous whitewash? Since when do we let the authors of highly suspicious reports investigate themselves? Steve Jones, no matter what his incorrect opinions may be on LENR- found ample chemical evidence from the WTC site and analyzed it under laboratory conditions. He found evidence of Themate !! -- which the politically-appointed top staff at NIST refused to even consider adequately or request samples of from him. Why? Instead they throw up a diversionary screen with lots of fancy and meaningless computer simulations and a massive coordinated PR campaign which was obviously paid-for, since much of it preceded the announcement and was not normal News reporting.. Apparently you are unaware that the top dozen or more of the staff at NIST are political appointments ? Claim of Steven Jones: The way the building fell, and the chemical analysis of the debris was caused at least in part by thermate. (Thermate is thermite mixed with sulfur and sometimes other chemicals, which produces brief but intense and highly localized incendiary effects and with LITTLE commensurate sound.) At the NIST report and press conference: Sunder said that his team investigated these hypothetical causes and ruled them out. "We asked ourselves what is the minimum amount of charge we could use to bring the building down," he said. COMMENT: Sunder specifically said "charge" which is not the way thermate is used. It is more of a slow burn than an explosive charge -- but there is some loud sound, which is muffled by the building, but no huge shock wave like a charge of TNT. We have all seen these controlled demolitions televised before. Apparently the Sunder group was considering only a TNT charge and NOT paying enough attention to thermate being the cause when they say: "And we found that even the smallest charge would release an extremely loud sound heard half a mile away." There were no reports of such a sound; COMMENT: Actually there are many reports from reputable News Agencies AND directly from the NY Fire Department itself, and in one of their reports, of a loud series of muffled explosions preceding the event; and apparently most of these reports were ignored and NOT even investigated with the courtesy of a simple phone call from Sunder's staff. SS: "numerous observers and video recordings found the collapse to be relatively quiet" COMMENT: "relatively" is the key word here. There were explosions. There can be no denial of that fact that there were explosions. The explosions where not of the "charge" variety like TNT. This is exactly the way themate operates. It is almost always described as a "muffled explosion." Why - if anyone can remotely believe that the Bush administration wanted to honestly answer all of the questions - did they assign the very agency to do it - which had not done a good job initially ? and why did they not contact Steven Jones for a sample of the material which his lab says is thermate? Sunder said: "To apply thermite to a large steel column, approximately 0.13 lb of thermite would be needed to heat and melt each pound of steel. [true] "For a steel column that weighs approximately 1,000 lbs. per foot, at least 100 lbs. of thermite would need to be placed around the column..." WRONG!! This guy is now exposed as being FAR removed from a demolition expert. The correct answer, at least from the European experts, is that less than 10 pounds per column would be needed at the minimum level, even if more would have been used in a situation where there was a demolition contract to bring it down. SS: "....ignited, and remain in contact with the vertical steel surface as the thermite reaction took place. This is for one column ... presumably, more than one column would have been prepared with thermite, if this approach were to be used." That much is true. NIST concluded that it was "unlikely that hundreds of lbs. of thermite, or more, could have been carried into WTC 7 and placed around columns without being detected" IOW they "concluded" based on what evidence? and without analyzing chemical samples that this was just "too hard" to do that day. So much for the scientific method. This is NOT science ! And who said that it had to have been moved in that day? Sunder did not address the fact that workmen of all varieties have easy access from the many basement levels, and that the city had actually issued a demolition permit for that building years earlier. Too inflammatory to bring that detail up, one supposes? It is very easy to shoot down a straw-man argument that you intentionally invent for target practiced - which is essentially all that NIST accomplished with this PR report. And that is all it is: PR - not science. This story could be far from over ! unless, of course, McCain wins in November. Then it is over. If McCain does not win, you may see Dr Sunder's name, along with Larry A. Silverstein, at the top of the extensive list of Bush's Presidential Pardons. Many of us suspect that at least one reputable News agency will soon (maybe today) put together a montage of footage and interviews from 9/11 which will demonstrate and exposes the lie about "no explosions." Jones (no relation to Steven)
