20060831

911 Conspiracy

While visiting Boris Epstein's blog Building a Pyramid I came across where Boris had linked to a PDF file (see here) of a paper written by Brent Blanchard that reports on an analysis by demolition experts as to whether explosives could have caused or contributed to the collapse of WTC towers 1,2 and 7.

First let me praise Boris for providing the link. While Boris is what I would call a conspiracy theory advocate, he evidently is willing to entertain arguments that run counter to his opinion. In other words, he still maintains an open mind. He even helps publicize such arguments and opinions. I think this proves that Boris is, in fact, a truth seeker.

Back to Brent Blanchard's article. Brent reports that demolition experts, experts that are involved in hands on demolition of buildings, have examined the evidence and have reached the conclusion that explosives are not part of the explanation for why the towers collapsed. These experts did not attempt to explain what could have caused the collapse, they stick to their area of expertise, building demolition, and do not attempt to offer an opinion on areas beyond their expertise.

While I am not an expert on much of anything, certainly not this area, I still wish to apply a dose of common sense, with just a smidge of knowledge thrown in, towards trying to understand how it could have been possible for the impact of the airliners and subsequent fires to explain the collapses. I would not delve into this area if true experts were willing to take this on, however I have yet to be exposed to where any real expert tries to explain what happened. Since the experts are unwilling to explain it, I am going to take it on myself. Any real expert who has opinion on the subject is encouraged to jump in and correct me if my reasoning is incorrect.

Conspiracy theory advocates ask how it is possible for the steel girders within the buildings from only a jetfuel fueled fire to cause the collapse since the fires should not have gotten hot enough to melt steel. They explain that even if some girders were severed or weakened by the impact, the buildings were overengineered so that those remaining should have been sufficient to support the weight of the floors above. I wish to theorize that the fires would not have had to be hot enough to melt steel to explain the collapse.

First let me explain what I personally witnessed as to what happens to steel when exposed to jet fuel fires. I can not get too specific about the details, since specific details are probably classified. Please forgive me like starting to sound like our President George Dubyah Bush when it comes to classified information: "I know a secret I can't tell. If you knew the secrets I knew you would think like me." However I do not want to risk being thrown in jail in order to make a point by exposing classified details.

I am a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer. On one of the warships I served, we once had a fire that could nearly be classified as a conflagration. The fire started off being fueled by 55 gallon drums of mogas (ordinary gasoline) however the mogas fire caused a JP5 (jetfuel) pipeline to rupture resulting in an even larger fire. The ship's Damage Control Team responded to the fire quickly and professionally, extinguishing the fire in an amazingly rapid amount of time after it was discovered.

Now this fire did not last anywhere near the time the fires from the jetliner crashes into WTC towers 1 and 2. Let me explain things as I understand them. The mogas fire was hot enough to rupture the JP5 pipeline. The fire did not get hot enough to cause the JP5 pipe to melt, however the heat was enough to cause the pipe to expand to the point that fittings gave way due to the pressure that was created as the pipe expanded due to the heat it was subjected to.

The combined mogas and JP5 fire was hot enough that it caused high strength steel bulkheads, decks, beams and hatches in the immediate area to warp and buckle.

Now, taking this occurrence into account, what could be the explanation for the collapse of the World Trade Center towers?

Jetliners flew into the WTC towers 1 and 2. The impact itself might have severed or weakened some of the steel girders in the towers at the point of impact. Certainly the impact would have been enough to knock loose some of the fireproof protective coatings on the girders, directly exposing them to the heat of the jetfuel fires from the ruptured fuel tanks of the jetliners. The damage from the impact alone is not enough to explain the collapse, or else the towers would have collapsed at the moment of impact.

When the jetliners flew into the buildings their fuel tanks ruptured with jetfuel feeding the resultant fire. Jetfuel would not have been spread equally throughout the floor impacted. It would have been most heavily distributed from the point of impact to where the forward momentum of the fuel tanks was stopped. There would have been some spread of the liquid fuel beyond this path, however the fire would have been hottest and most intense at these locations. Following gravity, much of the spread of the fuel might have been downward to areas immediately below.

Fires evidently spread throughout the immediate area, however the fires probably would have been most intense and hottest in areas with plentiful amounts of jetfuel feeding the fire.

When heated, steel expands. Steel girders where the heat was most intense would have expanded to a greater degree than would have steel girders that were further from the center of the inferno. Steel girders that lost their protective insulation of fire proofing would have also expanded to a greater degree and sooner then girders where the fireproof coating remained intact.

As these girders started expanding due to the heat they were subjected to, interesting things would have been happening. Expanded girders, already weakened by the heat, would have been taking on increasing shares of the combined weight burden the entire girder system was designed to bear. As the burden they took on exceeded their design limits, these girders would have started to warp and buckle. After they warped, they were unable to contribute to the overall designed system of weight sharing because this buckling compromised their designed structural integrity. To understand how warping and buckling could do this, you need to understand that an I beam or even a piece of channel iron is able to support much greater weight then a piece of flat iron of similar thickness. Bend the I beam out of shape and it is no better then a piece of flat iron.

After the first girder warped and failed, greater shares of the weight burden were passed on to the remaining girders. As the fire continued to burn, other girders continued to expand, and by this expansion, started taking on weight burdens beyond their design limits until they too warped and failed. After this process had weakened enough girders, the remnants of the system were unable to support the combined weight of the floors above and suddenly... well, we have all seen videos of the results.

That WTC 7 also collapsed is explained by the storage of diesel fuel within the building for emergency generators that fueled that fire that engulfed that building.

I feel the conclusion I have reached is a rational and logical explanation for why the towers collapsed. Yes, a fire fueled by jetfuel is enough to compromise the integrity of the weight support structure of the towers, even allowing for overdesign.

Again, I encourage experts in the field to correct me in any area where my understanding is limited. All I will say is that if the experts were doing their jobs, it wouldn't be necessary for an ignorant truck driver to explain things. Shame on them.

20060830

James Webb for Senate

James Webb won the primary to serve as the Democrat candidate for the Virginia Senate seat now held by incumbent Republican George Allen.

First let me explain my own position on this. Some time back, I decided I wanted to run George Allen out of office. When I wrote the man as one of his constituents, the replies I got back, if I even received a reply, just pissed me off. I made up my mind that if the Democrats nominated anyone reasonable to run against him, that person was going to get my vote.

Well look what happened. The Democrats nominated James Webb. James Webb served as Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. James Webb is probably the ONLY Secretary of the Navy I can remember serving under by name. His leadership was dynamic. This guy continued to serve as a junior officer (a pilot) in the Naval Reserve while he served as Secretary of the Navy. I never did figure out who saluted who when the "junior officer" who also happened to be Secretary of the Navy landed his jet on the aircraft carrier and happened to run into the Airwing Commander. I was only fairly sure that both of them grinned as they saluted.

Those were the days of the expansion of the Navy. Once again you could be proud to be wearing the uniform serving as a warrior for your nation and the US Navy had at its helm a young man by the name of James Webb. This followed the dark days immediately after the Vietnam War when those serving were spit upon.

Now James Webb wants to be a Senator. From my experience, he served as a fine Secretary of the Navy. He inspired those under him reaching down to the lowest ranking members of the Navy while he was still young. What might not be possible now that he has some of the wisdom that comes with age and experience?

Now I do not want to mislead anyone. If you are expecting James Webb to be a bleeding heart liberal only because he represents the Democrat Party you better think again. James Webb was (perhaps still is) a Reagan Republican. He endorsed George Allen in his successful race against incumbent Democrat Senator Chuck Robb. I have heard James split with the Republican Party due to his opposition to the Iraq War.

I am tempted to state that if you vote for James Webb, you are voting for George Allen "light". However, rather then comparing James Webb to his opponent, let us compare him to Virginia's other Senator John Warner. James Webb might more closely be compared to Republican Senator Warner. James Webb might be conservative, but he, like John Warner, is still willing to engage in civil discourse with the liberals. What do I base this conclusion on you ask? Conservative James Webb won the endorsement of John Kerry in the primary runup.

Now let me engage in some mudslinging. What did George Allen do to piss me off so bad I want to run him out of office? Well in my last letter to him (to which I did not receive a reply) I warned him that he was starting to sound like a cheer leader for the most right wing extremists of the Republican Party. He had/has Presidential aspirations, and he felt in order to win the Republican primary he had to swing far right. Well in his swing he may have hit a home run as far as the extremists are concerned, but in the viewpoint of this moderate he whiffed.

I wrote him time and again. Strike one I called as I read his reply. Then came strike two and finally strike three. Well, he has lost my vote. If he wants to pander to the extreme right wing of the national Republican Party instead of representing Virginia then I say let him do so, but let us throw him out the office where he is supposed to be representing the people of Virginia while he does it. If the national audience wants to vote for him, fine, let him serve as their President, however in my judgment he is not fit to represent the people of Virginia.

If James Webb is successful in his run for the Senate, I will advise him in advance to look towards the service of John Warner. John Warner might be a Republican, but he is an "old school" Republican. Perhaps the two of you working together can show that "old school" Republicans and "new school" Democrats can lead our nation. We have got to try something new. Our current course is leading to disaster.

Oh, by the way, any man who opposed the Iraq war BEFORE we got into it displayed... well what would you call it? I call it wisdom. We need some of that in Washington.

Global Warming - Alternative Theory

In the past I have discussed how it is possible that increased solar activity could be responsible for global warming. (See here) a Timesonline (London) piece written by Tim Hames that discusses this possibility in a reasonable and rational manner.

Tim Hames reports:
In 2003 a team from Columbia University reported that the Sun's heat had increased by 0.05 per cent a decade since the 1970s, the point when completely reliable data started to be collected. This would be enough to have a big influence on the Earth's climate if it were a trend that had continued for many decades. The Columbia team believed that the pattern could be traced back to the mid-19th century at the very least. Others, working with carbon data material, insist that the Sun has been more vigorous in the past six decades than at any time in 8,000 years.
I have also heard a discussion on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) where it was put forth that as recently as 5,000 years ago much of America's Great Plains were desert due to lack of rainfall for a prolonged period of time. Certainly our understanding of our planet's history includes massive climate fluctuations that can not be blamed on human activity. I for one am still going to be open to arguments that something besides greenhouse gases could explain the obvious global warming we are experiencing. I am grateful that next month (as Tim Hames reports) NASA will launch the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (Stereo) that could aid us in exploring whether increased solar activity is the true culprit behind global warming.

20060829

Thomas Jefferson

Some months back I wrote about how I doubted Thomas Jefferson was a Christian.

While I was on the road this time out, I received an education. It seems that at least at one point in his life, Thomas Jefferson did claim to be a Christian.

Now where was I educated on this? On a Christian radio program where the preacher was preaching to anyone listening that America was founded on Christian values. You know how they preach... they say "It's freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion."

So I just finished revisiting the subject. While I will no longer try say that Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian (since at one point he did claim to be), I will state that if he were alive today he probably would not be welcomed at modern Evangelical church services as anything more then another heathen that needs to be saved.

The preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that:

1. While Thomas Jefferson believed in God, he did not believe that Jesus was God.

2. While Thomas Jefferson seemed to hold an admiration for the teachings of Jesus, he felt the teachings of Jesus as represented in the Bible must have been corrupted. Thomas Jefferson did not believe the Bible was infallible.

3. In one letter to John Adams he seemed to entertain the possibility that Jesus might have been at least slightly insane.

Now, I wonder if the Evangelical preacher who was trying to teach that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian is unaware of these facts or just conveniently chooses to ignore them while he preaches to his congregation. If the preacher is uninformed, he needs to educate himself further before he again attempts to preach on the subject. If he is aware of these facts, but chooses to ignore them, he is guilty of intentionally withholding the truth from his flock.

One thing I am fairly certain of. If the preacher laid out all the known facts about the subject in front of his flock, the majority of his flock would come to the conclusion that Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian, at least not a Christian within their definition of the term.

I did not provide any links to bolster my point because it is all too easy for anyone interested to find relevant material on their own. If you are interested in the subject, might I suggest you start your explorations at Google using "Thomas Jefferson religion Christianity" as the search criteria and sample some of the hits Google provides.

20060814

Israeli Propaganda?

I am on the Haaretz mailing list. From one of their recent mailings I received a link to an aish.com video that presents the Lebanon/Israel conflict from an Israeli perspective (see here).

I will not condemn Israel for attempting to get her side of the story out. I think this video is informative and educational, however it is entirely too one sided. There are many complexities to the issues the video explores.

Example 1: The video asks why Lebanese civilians are dying. It then answers that it is because Hezbollah uses the Lebanese people as human shields. I ask: Why then were cluster bombs used in areas where civilians were concentrated if Israel truly was trying to limit civilian casualties? From what I have heard, cluster bombs even landed in the parking lots of hospitals.

Example 2: Israel dropped leaflets warning the Lebanese civilian population to flee. I counter with: Did you really expect them to flee? Israeli aircraft were bombing vehicles on the highways. Reports were that even Red Cross vehicles with red crosses painted on top were attacked. Is it any wonder that many civilians chose to hunker down hoping for some protection from concrete buildings rather then risk travel on the roadway where they were an open target?

Example 3: The video states that, according to the United Nations, Israel withdrew from every square inch of Lebanon in 2000. This is a powerful argument and is entirely truthful. However left unstated is the dispute over Sheba Farms. While Sheba Farms was taken from Syria during the 1967 war, and while the United Nations only recognizes Sheba Farms as Syrian territory occupied by Israel, Syria has renounced sovereignty to Sheba Farms pointing to it now being part of Lebanon. However I will point to a conclusion I have reached about Sheba Farms. Even if Israel agrees to give up Sheba Farms to Lebanon as part of the solution to the current conflict, this is not going to lead to Hezbollah agreeing to lay down their weapons and live in peace with Israel. Hezbollah's goal is the destruction of Israel, not the liberation of Sheba Farms.

I will admit to siding with Israel on the current conflict. However I do not think that some of the criticisms of Israeli action are completely void of merit.

20060801

On the road again...

I am trying to return to the road again today.

However my laptop crapped out on me while I was out last time, so this time home I had to buy a new one. The new one comes with Wifi capability, so there is at least some chance I might be able to find an occasional free Wifi hotspot when I stop at night.