Bobby, some people are using biodiesel in order to avoid buying petroleum and supporting what they consider to be a war for oil. They suggest that 9-11 was perpetrated by the United States government to create a reason to invade Iraq to hide the the so called real reason, oil.

Bobby, I can understand your dismay. This thread had it's genesis in another thread. Like you, I thought what does this have to do with biodiesel. In any case it evolved and this thread was eventually created by a member of the forum called 'Dual Filter'. DF is presently doing a tour of duty in Iraq.

Hey Joe, you were in touch with DF. Do you have any updates about what is going on? We haven't heard from him in a bit.

In regards to the anti-war issue. Just as different countries may join together as allies to fight a war, there can be different factions that decide on the common decision to commit to war. In my opinion, we could include the military/industrial complex, the interests of Israel, the interests of oil companies, the interests of individual countries to access to natural resources - there are many different groups with different salient interests that may have come together for this war. Most of these groups do not have an 'enemy', just an interest.

However, if individuals are going to participate in war, they usually need something called an enemy. This thing called an enemy is usually demonised as an evil that needs eradication. As obvious as may seem, one of the first questions you need to ask before committing to war, is this question - WHO IS THE ENEMY?

You might think this little question would be so obvious that people could never get it wrong, after all who would start killing a bunch of people if they were not the enemy? Who would want to send their children to a far away place to die in a war where the wrong people were being fought?

Although this question seems to be very basic, it doesn't appear that the answer is all that clear. Why is the "Coalition of the Willing" over in Afghanistan and Iraq killing people? Are they the enemy?

Most people point back to the start of the "War on Terror" as being 9-11. If that is the start of all this warfare, then it is very easy to answer the question, all we need to do is ascertain who committed 9-11 - for those people are the enemy.

Yes Bobby,

While many cynical people think the main reason the USA invaded Iraq was because Iraq has one of the largerst reserves of Oil in the world, the real reason was because a bunch of Saudi Arabians led by a member of one of Saudi Arabia's most wealthy families (apparently living in Afghanistan at the time) crashed planes into the World Trade Center buildings.

As branw so often points out, the "logic is undeniable". The enemy was immediatly apparent.

branw

quote:

If the only energy is potential then as soon as the flour got to the floor it should stay there. That is not what happens though.

That is precisely why I said that the linked essay overestimated the energy of the expansion of the dust. To avoid this error one has to work only on the volume of dust before it reaches the ground. I think the expansion already present looks substantial. And you would have to agree that most of the potential energy of the falling building is consumed in acceleration. I do not agree that activation energy is relevant. Activation energy is a barrier to action that has to be overcome bit by bit but the overall energy required is that needed to reach equilibrium. I also do not agree that the expanson of a gas in a vacuum in relevant as there was no vacuum. The cloud appears to expand rapidly then suddenly stop expanding. It will stop when the pressure of the expanding gases equals atmospheric pressure. That will be equilibrium.

My point was.... If we both agree that there is a gross overestimation in that report, why should we trust the accuracy of the rest of it? If you and I caught it, why didn't the author? Perhaps there are other problems we didn't notice. I'm sure many people have authored reports on this matter. Why not use one without such obvious errors?

branw

You don't seem to be acknowledging that nearly all the potential energy of the building is consumed in accelerating it downwards, proven by the fact that it is coming down nearly in free fall. Therefore there is very little energy left over for anything else, so even if the estimates of the energy required for concrete pulverization and expansion are grossly inaccurate the pure gravity theory appears to fail. If you do not acknowledge this there seems little point in persuing the subject further.

I don't think you want to bring up the subject of acknowledging things as I do not recall that you have acknowledged any points I have made. Except for the hydraulic press of course. It is of my opinion that the calculation is inaccurate. My understanding is that it calculates the energy required if every particle fell to the ground. This is not the case as the rubble pile was many stories high. A significant portion of the material never made it to the ground. Further, potential energy is relative to it's surroundings. The total potential energy of the building is calculated from it's height. By digging a hole underneath the building, you increase the potential energy of the building. To calculate the potential energy, you would have to take into account all basement levels that the building can collapse into as additional height. Also included in the calculation would have to be all contents of the building, furniture, computers, merchandise, paper clips, everything. You have shown me nothing that shows the inclusion of these factors in the potential energy calculation. I will not compromise by logic by accepting points without adequate evidence. I have not said that it isn't accurate, only that I have not seen it's accuracy. If you cannot accept this then you are right, we should drop it because it is no longer rational.


Quote from the report:
"The magnitude of that source cannot be determined with much precision thanks to the secrecy surrounding details of the towers' construction."

Exactly.


Quote from the report:
"However, FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Report gives an estimate: "Construction of WTC 1 resulted in the storage of more than 4 x 10^11 joules of potential energy over the 1,368-foot height of the structure.""

Notice a few things here...

1. Construction resulted in the storage. It does not account for contents, only construction.

2. "over the 1,368-foot height" Does not include basement levels.

3. With all of FEMA's ineptness alluded to on this forum, and as witnessed during the hurricanes, you are willing to accept their estimate? These are government employees. You give them too much credit.


Had the basement levels not provided a huge casm for much if not most of the rubble to fall into, the pile would have been much higher and thus even more material would not have made it to the ground therefore using quite a bit less of the potential energy.


There are way too many factors here not being considered. I think you will agree it would be irresponsible to jump to a conclusion without considering them.

At least there is no pretence of 'bringing Democracy to the Saudis'

WASHINGTON — The United States has raised the prospect of a military invasion of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi oil

Now, to add another dimension, It seems that the documents showing Saddam was trying to procure yellow-cake were forgeries produced in Italy and sent via the British. Quite high level confirmation of this.
regards
dva

Something that hasn't been mentioned in the on-going saga of the collapsing towers. Do all these energy calculations allow for the deceleration effect of every one of the floors as the wreckage comes down ? After all, each floor will act as a resistance to the material falling on it until it too reaches a point where it collapses. Then the acceleration has to start again for the lower level of descending wreckage as it is temporarily brought to a complete halt. The time taken for the failure of each succesive floor will be less than the one above it due to the increasing load.
Would you two agree on this point ?
regards
dva

Maybe next we can work out how you get a 156 foot wide plane through a 30 foot hole.

branw,
Re,
...Above all, I would have expected to find WMDs in Iraq by now, even if my government had to plant them. This would have been a far easier endeavor and it would have saved them a lot of trouble...

If that was going to happen then it had to be done in the first few week or it would have looked too obvious.
dva

The Grasshopper and the Ant
OLD VERSION :
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible
==================================================
MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton stage a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome."
Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.
Tom Daschle & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."
Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single- parent welfare recipients.
The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote Republican

Actually, that is what we are talking about. Neutral beleives that because the building fell in almost the same amount of time as if there were no resistance at all, that explosives must have dealt with the resistance. My position is that the calculations are incorrect because they don't take into account all the factors I have mentioned earlier.

You make an interesting point though, suppose the upper portions of the wreckage never encounter any resistance because the lower levels of falling wreckage have already taken out the intact floors before the top of the building gets there. This would result in near free-fall speed for the top of the building while the center of the building fell slower. If the gap between the very top of the building and the currently collapsing level of the building narrows throughout the collapse, it is evidence to support this.

branw

I don't acknowledge much of what you say because it is plain wrong. You do not properly deal with the potential energy problem and instead confuse yourself with complexities. Lets get the facts straight. It doesn't matter how many paper clips and barrels of lead have been brought into the building after it was built. It doesn't matter how high it is or the depth of the basement. It doesn't matter what the building originally weighed. We don't need to know these numbers. It is all irrelevant because it cancels out. Until you can grasp that you will get nowhere.

It cancels out because the heavier it was the more energy it takes to accelerate it downwards and the more potential energy it has to do it with.

The twin towers came down from the top. I keep asking you to consider only the first part of the fall where nothing had hit the ground. Once things hit the ground it becomes more complex because kinetic energy of the moving material becomes available. Before this happens the physics is simple. One can see that the falling part of the building is surrounded by a large volume of dust. We can see that the concrete is already pulverized. We can see that it is already expanded. The top of the building gets down in nearly free fall time which takes up nearly all the potential energy so where has the energy for the pulverization and expansion that has already occurred come from? It hasn't hit the ground yet.

quote:

Most people point back to the start of the "War on Terror" as being 9-11. If that is the start of all this warfare, then it is very easy to answer the question, all we need to do is ascertain who committed 9-11 - for those people are the enemy.

Absolutely erroneous statement.

While terrorism happened in far off lands the U.S. had little to no involvement in terms of declaring war on terrorists.

The terrorists brought their JIHAD to us, and therefore we will continue to take it back where it actually belongs, in far off lands, their homes.

If you will remember, we declared war on all terrorists as well as those who harbor and assist them. Our declaration was, at the time, supported by both houses of congress. As an American Citizen I expect my elected officials to protect this country from all aggressors, foreign and domestic and therefore I fully support our current military activities around the globe.

We are now at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, if the people of these countries wise up and squelch terrorists from within, we will stop the fighting, at least for now.

I expect this war on terror to continue until we, as a global community, are free from the threat of terror.

Actually, I really don't care about the global community so let me rephrase: We as a united global community.

I also believe that if you are not with us you are against us. Call it arrogant if you want, I call it patriotic.

If I have any input into our war it is that 3000+ Americans did not die in vain on 9-11-01.

dva

You ask about the decelerating effect of each floor hitting the next one. You are perfectly correct. That is what the gravity collapse theory depends upon. Each deceleration could provide the energy needed for pulverization and expansion of the concrete. However, because the top of the building got down in near free fall time we see that there was no significant deceleration. This proves that each floor gave way without putting up significant resistance.

I think your focus on looking for deceleration at each floor is insightful as it makes clear what this argument is all about. It may be easier for people to see the logic when looking at it one floor at a time rather than the whole picture.

Your perspective, looking for deceleration and not finding it, is just the other side of the same coin as looking for the source of pulverization and expansion energy and not finding it.

quote:

We are now at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, if the people of these countries wise up and squelch terrorists from within, we will stop the fighting, at least for now.

The only terrorist in Iraq pre-invasion was Saddam, you know, Rumsfield's old buddy. Afghanistan, now that place was lousy with 'em, CIA trained up ol' BinLaden good to go get the commies, no end game strategy, just lots of cash and hardware.

So if you're taking the the war of terror back to where it came when does Saudi Arabia come under attack? Home to 15 of 19 of the 9/11 crew should be be gettin some lovin' shouldn't they?

Shaking head in disbelief, Glenn

DVA, although the hole and the damage to the front of the Pentagon indicated that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon was smaller than a 757, there was a wide variety of opinions of what did hit the Pentagon.

Those opinions could have been clarified if the FBI had released all the videos of the crash that they had gone around and confiscated (otherwise known as an 'OKC Round-up').

There were theories of missiles, Global Hawk and jet fighters firing rockets, it was all speculation. What was needed was some objective evidence. Well, it took a while to surface, but eventually it did.

We were lucky that the Pentagon was built so well and that virtually all of the aircraft was stopped from entering - including the port side engine. A further lucky break was that someone got a picture of the engine. It is a JT8D, which was used on the 737-100.

JT8D

Likewise, the engine that exited the South Tower and landed in the street has been positively identified as a CFM-56, which comes off the 737-200.

CFM-56

quote:

The only terrorist in Iraq pre-invasion was Saddam

The president of a country is a pretty big terror threat, wouldn't you agree?

N. Korea is a far bigger threat at this point than Saudi. We have US Military in Saudi, and the Saudi Government has been and continues to be an ally.

Kyoto Dragon, of the alleged 19 hijackers, which ones do think should bear the responsibility?

Kamakazi veterans awarded medals