9-11/anomalies/2007-04-04 new articles

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9/11: anomalies: 2007-04-04 new articles

Overview

This is a collection of links to new 9/11 anomalies-related articles which I haven't had time to analyze. They may shed new light on the situation.

Rosie O'Donnell and WTC7

• 2007-03-29 video of Rosie O'Donnell asking a guest to explain the collapse of WTC7
• 2007-03-30 Rosie O'Donnell 9/11 Conspiracy Comments: Popular Mechanics Responds (cited by Jon Sanders article below): apparently part of a blog in support of the Popular Mechanics book Debunking 9/11 Myths
• 2007-04-02 Rosie O'Donnell, Bigfoot, and UFOs by Jon Sanders: starts out ridiculing Rosie, quotes her main points, and then goes on to attack the whole 9/11 conspiracy movement without actually responding to O'Donnell's points; see more detailed response below

unconfirmed links

• http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm is cited by the Popular Science article above, but could not be loaded on 2007-04-04 (server time-out)

Woozle responds to Jon Sanders

Jon Sanders said:

... which is one of the kook fringe's strangest conspiracies. As I point out, it's like believing JFK was shot to cover up that he'd been poisoned.

This is argument by ridicule. The conclusion seems bizarre, but (in the case of WTC7) it's what the evidence points to: the building did not collapse due to damage, but due to some sort of controlled demolition.

The problem with any bizarre conclusion is that a lot of wackos will pick it up and run with it – hence the accretion of a "kook fringe" around this one. Also the very poor level of investigation surrounding the whole 9/11 thing has prevented the emergence of large numbers of facts which might have (in turn) poured cold water on the more wacky theories, or even given us a rational explanation for what happened to WTC7. As it is, there is a mystery.

Jon Sanders continued:

An excerpt: Rosie goes on to say it's "beyond ignorant" and "defies reason" to say WTC No. 7 -- which fell hours after being damaged by falling debris from the other towers, which hit the tower with a force described as equal to "a volcanic eruption"...

This contradicts the other information I have been able to find about WTC7's condition at the time of collapse. That latter information indicated that WTC5 and 6 were heavily damaged by falling debris from WTC 1 and 2, but WTC7 sustained only light damage and some fire. WTC5 and 6 did not collapse and WTC7 did -- many hours later, very suddenly and very cleanly, sagging first in the middle and then collapsing straight down. Saying that it "defies reason" that this should happen seems like an accurate statement to me. (Take a look at the top photo in the Popular Mechanics article Jon sites, for example -- WTC7 seems to have hardly a scratch. I actually hadn't seen that photo before. Obviously the picture underrepresents the damage... but does reinforce the claims that the damage was not heavy, or at least not as heavy as the damage to WTC5 and 6.)

Jon Sanders continued:

wasn't imploded. ... Versions of Rosie's theory inhabit the kook fringes of the Internet. For example, a Google search using the terms Bigfoot UFOs WTC7 yielded 67,400 results. That means there are over 67,000 web pages containing not one or two but all three terms – Bigfoot, UFOs, and WTC7.

This is argument by association. The "kook fringe" effect no more invalidates the central point about the WTC7 collapse than the wacky quasi-religious adaptations of quantum physics prove that quantum physics is bunk.

Jon Sanders continued:

In the theory, the Sept. 11 attacks that caused all the buildings surrounding WTC No. 7 to fall, damaging it (but not enough!), were orchestrated to distract everyone from realizing that the real goal was detonating WTC No. 7. It seems the building collapsed cleanly … too cleanly. Why that building? Look who was in it. (...)

The rest of Jon's article is more or less dedicated to picking holes in the possible *motivations* behind the supposed conspiracy, without any further discussion of the factual matters that have been brought up (other than linking to the PopSci article, for which I'll need to do a more in-depth analysis, as he doesn't summarize any of their points).

Critics of the 9/11 theories always like to pick on the "motivational" explanations that are usually offered as part of the theory, and then claim that weaknesses in the motivational explanations disprove the whole theory.

It should be noted that on the video clip, Rosie said nothing about possible motivations, conspiracies, etc. -- she stuck strictly to the physical facts. Why is Sanders making it sound as though Rosie was arguing motivations for the demolition of WTC7? Why is he even bringing them up as if in answer to Rosie's points, when they at best peripheral to the points she made? The fact that Sanders starts out with ridicule, in the very first aragraph, makes me suspicious of his motives and his integrity.

Now, I'm not at all sold on the idea that the various anomalies surrounding WTC7 (and the other events on 9/11) prove some sort of cover-up has happened. The important issue at this point is what actually happened – did WTC7 truly collapse due to essentially "natural" causes? If so, why did it take so long before starting, why was it so quick once it began, and why did it look so much like a controlled demolition? I think these are questions which anyone would want to know the answers to, even if you accept that no foul play was involved (beyond the initial plane impacts).

The only definite foul play I see is the continual blocking of investigation and the ridicule towards those who keep asking the questions. The questions are good, and the answers have not been.

--Woozle 18:20, 4 April 2007 (EDT)