Propagating Nukes
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Dedicated to fighting authoritarianism, bigotry, greed, corruption, climate change denial, white supremacy, racism, stupidity and general evil, as well as the exploration of interesting ideas and conspiracy theories including 9/11, UFOs, ET's, the paranormal and the general unknown.
I never claimed otherwise:
OAKLAND, Calif. - A stretch of highway near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed Sunday after a gasoline tanker crashed and burst into flames, leaving one of the nation's busiest spans in a state of near paralysis.
Officials said traffic could be disrupted for months. Flames shot 200 feet in the air and the heat was intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns. No other injuries were reported.
Impeach Photos and Videos With Witness Testimony?
Yes, that's what conspiracy theorists will try to do. Faced with photos and videos showing that no real Boeing 767-200 hit the WTC, they will marshal witnesses whose accounts conflict with the photos and videos. They will then insist that the photos and videos show a real Boeing 767 when that simply is not the case.
How reliable is witness testimony?
Recently, an expert spoke. As the chief staff person for the Board of Review, he had an intimate familiarity with the World Trade Center attack witnesses, many of whom he had interviewed. His conclusion about witness testimony was as follows:The last thing I wanted to mention, just in terms of how we understand the evidence and how we deal with what we have is what I will call is the profound underscore profound unreliability of eyewitness testimony. You just cannot believe it. And I can tell you something else that is even worse than eyewitness testimony and that is 5 year old eyewitness testimony.
I have taken the depositions of several people who were involved in phases of the ground zero clean up who witnessed various things and they are profoundly unreliable.
Likewise, a recent report stressed the problems with witness testimony:Finally, a significant problem that is well known to trial lawyers, judges, and psychologists, is the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Witnesses frequently, and inaccurately, believe that they have a vivid recollection of events. Psychologists and scholars have long-since demonstrated the serious unreliability of people's recollections of what they hear and see. One illustration of this was an interview statement made by one of the firemen who went to the Trade center on 9/11. He explained that he was witnessed the 2nd plane hit the south tower. Of course, he was only watching it on TV, like most Americans. The inaccuracy of his recollection probably says little about the quality of his memory, but it is revealing of how the mind works and how cautious one must be when attempting to evaluate eyewitness testimony.
The deposition transcripts and other video evidence that were released by the Review Board should be evaluated cautiously by the public. Often the witnesses contradict not only each other, but sometimes themselves. For events that transpired over 5 years ago, all persons are likely to have failures of memory. It would be more prudent to weigh all of the evidence, with due concern for human error, rather than take single statements as "proof" for one theory or another.
Ex-CIA director George Tenet has lashed out against the Bush administration in an interview broadcast on CBS' 60 Minutes, accusing it of distorting his pre-Iraq War claim that the existence of weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk."
Tenet, who called the administration's distortion "disingenuous and dishonorable," says it has resulted in the ruining of his career and reputation.
"The phrase 'slam dunk' didn't refer to whether Saddam Hussein actually had WMDs," Tenet says, according to a CBS News report. "He says he was talking about what information could be used to make that case when he uttered those words. 'We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant,'" Tenet explained.
"It's the most despicable thing that ever happened to me," the former CIA director is quoted as saying. "You don't do this. You don't throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection. Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me."
Tenet goes on to sharply criticize President Bush for basing his decision to go to war on the "slam dunk" statement, as well as Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for continuing to use it as a talking point.
"And the hardest part of all this has been just listening to this for almost three years, listening to the vice president go on Meet the Press on the fifth year [anniversary] of 9/11 and say, 'Well, George Tenet said slam dunk' as if he needed me to say 'slam dunk' to go to war with Iraq," Tenet was quoted.
Rather was the first network television journalist to report that U.S. President John F. Kennedy died in the November 22, 1963 shooting in Dallas. He was also one of the first to see the Zapruder film taken by an eyewitness to the passing Dallas motorcade and reported that JFK's head went "violently forward" when he was hit.
Within hours of Pat Tillman's death, the Army went into information-lockdown mode, cutting off phone and Internet connections at a base in Afghanistan, posting guards on a wounded platoon mate, and ordering a sergeant to burn Tillman's uniform.
Directed-energy weapon
“ I have not thought it hazardous to predict, that wars in the future will be waged by electrical means. ”
—Nikola Tesla, 1915, [58]
Later in life, Tesla made some remarkable claims concerning a "teleforce" weapon[59] The press called it a "peace ray" or death ray.[60][61] In total, the components and methods included:[62][63]
--An apparatus for producing manifestations of energy in free air instead of in a high vacuum as in the past. This, according to Tesla in 1934, was accomplished.
--A mechanism for generating tremendous electrical force. This, according to Tesla, was also accomplished.
--A means of intensifying and amplifying the force developed by the second mechanism.
--A new method for producing a tremendous electrical repelling force. This would be the projector, or gun, of the invention.
Tesla worked on plans for a directed-energy weapon between the early 1900s till the time of his death. In 1937, Tesla composed a treatise entitled "The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media" concerning charged particle beams.[64] Tesla published the document in an attempt to expound on the technical description of a "superweapon that would put an end to all war". This treatise of the particle beam is currently in the Nikola Tesla Museum archive in Belgrade. It described an open ended vacuum tube with a gas jet seal that allowed particles to exit, a method of charging particles to millions of volts, and a method of creating and directing nondispersive particle streams (through electrostatic repulsion).[65]
Records of his indicate that it was based on a narrow stream of atomic clusters of liquid mercury or tungsten accelerated via high voltage (by means akin to his magnifying transformer). Tesla gave the following description concerning the particle gun's operation:“ [The nozzle would] send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 200 miles from a defending nation's border and will cause armies to drop dead in their tracks.[66] ”
The weapon could be used against ground based infantry or for antiaircraft purposes.[67]
Tesla tried to interest the US War Department in the device.[68] He also offered this invention to European countries.[69] None of the governments purchased a contract to build the device. He was unable to act on his plans.[70]
Tuesday's drill will simulate the release of poison gas from an exploding terrorist lab in the aftermath of a major earthquake.
(snip)
On Wednesday, first responders will deal with a simulated chemical attack over the Hollywood Hills and a simulated attack on a cruise ship, which will be portrayed by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter.
The final day of exercises will be conducted at Universal Studios, where teams will handle a simulated crash between two airliners.
Joseph Cacioppo, a surgeon at Montgomery Regional Hospital who treated some of the injured, said on CNN that the injuries showed that the gunman was “brutal.” None of the injured that he treated had “less than three to four wounds in them,” he said.
"NPR is on right now and I'm listening about the shootings in Virginia. Seems most of them took place in the engineering department. They were interviewing a Professor Hendricks; an assistant professor from that department and the interviewer asked him if he could think of any political motivation for the shootings, if anything controversial was studied there and he said "oh heavens no!" and then he was asked what they study and he said fluid mechanics, and how airplanes fly..."
Tech faculty members seem glad to have guidelines. One is Wing Ng, an endowed professor of mechanical engineering. He has a 2-year-old research development business called Technology in Blacksburg — Techsburg for short — that employs 15 people, mostly students and former students. It’s best known for the miniature remote control airplane he developed for military and rescue reconnaissance. "I feel that my business adds depth and credibility to my teaching role. I am a practicing engineer as well as a researcher," Ng says.It's not yet clear if Ng was a victim.
Among the dead in Monday's shooting were professors Liviu Librescu and Kevin Granata, said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department. Librescu, an Israeli, was born in Romania and was known internationally for his research in aeronautical engineering, Puri wrote in an e-mail to the Associated Press.
At least 22 people were killed today, some of them students, and about two dozen more injured during shootings at Virginia Tech, some of them in a classroom, the police said.
Report: France told CIA about plans to hijack planes prior to 9/11
By Reuters
French secret services produced nine reports between September 2000 and August 2001 looking at the Al-Qaida threat to the United States, and knew it planned to hijack an aircraft, the French daily Le Monde said on Monday.
The newspaper said it had obtained 328 pages of classified documents that showed foreign agents had infiltrated Osama bin Laden's network and were carefully tracking its moves. One document prepared in January 2001 was entitled "Plan to hijack an aircraft by Islamic radicals", and said the operation had been discussed in Kabul at the start of 2000 by Al-Qaida, Taliban and Chechen militants. The hijack was meant to happen between March and September 2000 but the planners put it back "because of differences of opinion, particularly over the date, objective and participants," Le Monde said, citing the report.
(snip)
Le Monde said the French report of January 2001 had been handed over to a CIA operative in Paris, but that no mention of it had ever been made in the official U.S. Sept. 11 Commission, which produced its findings in July 2004.
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Televised images of the attacks on the World Trade Center suggest that explosives devices caused the collapse of both towers, a New Mexico Tech explosion expert said Tuesday. The collapse of the buildings appears "too methodical" to be a chance result of airplanes colliding with the structures, said Van Romero, vice president for research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. "My opinion is, based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit the World Trade Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse," Romero said. Romero is a former director of the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center at Tech, which studies explosive materials and the effects of explosions on buildings, aircraft and other structure.
Romero said he based his opinion on video aired on national television broadcasts. Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish old structures. "It would be difficult for something from the plane to trigger an event like that," Romero said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. Romero said he and another Tech administrator were on a Washington-area subway when an airplane struck the Pentagon. He said he and Denny Peterson, vice president for administration and finance, were en route to an office building near the Pentagon to discuss defense-funded research programs at Tech.
A New Mexico explosives expert says he now believes there were no explosives in the World Trade Center towers, contrary to comments he made the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. "Certainly the fire is what caused the building to fail," said Van Romero, a vice president at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
Silverstein, Port, workers guarantee insurance fight
By Josh Rogers
About 300 construction workers rallied Monday with World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority against two holdout insurance companies whom they say owe $800 million to rebuild ground zero.
“Pay up now,” the workers chanted outside the Hilton New York in Midtown as the National Association of Insurance Commissioners met inside. Truckers driving by honked their horns in support.
Silverstein and the Port, which owns the site, have reached agreements with many of their insurers. Most of the speakers at the rally pointed out that the two worst holdouts are foreign-based firms — Allianz of Germany and Royal & Sun Alliance of England. U.S. Rep. Anthony Wiener, a 2005 mayoral candidate who’s expected to run again in 2009, called for a state investigation into the insurance firms at the rally, organized by the Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York.
Silverstein told the crowd that the C.E.O.’s of both firms were co-signers of ads in 2001 saying: “Insurance will be a foundation upon which we will recover and rebuild. You can depend upon us to facilitate claims …with compassion and to meet our responsibilities.”
The firms also promised to “fulfill the hopes and prayers of those who have been taken from us.”
“Where I come from in New York City, we call that chutzpah,” Silverstein said to cheers. He said whether it’s small business owners in Lower Manhattan, or Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans and Mississippi, insurance companies always delay making payments as long as they can.
He said the firms are collecting 9 percent interest on the $800 million. “The float amounts to a huge amount of money,” he told reporters.
Allianz released a “fact sheet” challenging many of the claims of Silverstein and the Port. One apparent area of agreement between the Port and Allianz, though, is that the firm is not required to make any payments now.
The Port’s counsel testified at an Assembly hearing last year that the insurance payments to rebuild were voluntary. Anthony Shorris, the Port’s new executive director, said on Monday that the firms should “do the right thing,” the precise phrase Kenneth Ringler, his predecessor, used last year.
Allianz claims its obligation to pay will begin when all five W.T.C. towers are built. Construction on the Freedom Tower is underway but the Port has not yet prepared three Church St. sites for construction and there is no design yet for the fifth site on Liberty St., where someday a bus garage and tower are expected to replace the damaged former Deutsche Bank building still overlooking the site.
When 16 insurance companies were threatening to stop payments last year, Silverstein said construction could stop in a month if they followed through with the threat. He did not say Monday whether it was a matter of months or years before W.T.C. construction would halt if he did not get the $800 million from Allianz and Royal.
He has received just over half the $4.6 billion he has won from the insurance companies and $3.3 billion in tax-free Liberty Bonds have been dedicated to the W.T.C.
The Port and Silverstein will divide the insurance money under an agreement reached last fall, whereby the Port got the development rights to the Freedom Tower and Tower 5 on Liberty St. Allianz and Royal contend the new agreement changes their obligations.
Silverstein originally sought $7 billion in insurance payments based on the legal theory that the plane attacks on the Twin Towers represented two separate occurrences. He won that argument on 10 of his 26 polices, including three owned by Allianz and Royal or their affiliates.
Royal recently sold off its American subsidiary, now called Arrowpoint Capital. Silverstein and the Port are challenging the sale and filed a lawsuit last month. Arrowpoint and Royal did not respond to a request for comment.
Relations with other firms, however, are going better. Silverstein announced an agreement Wednesday with TIG insurance, which will pay him and the Port $12.535 million. The firm, which lost on the two-occurrence question, had already paid Silverstein $9.1 million and agreed to pay the second $9.1 million and 90 percent of the interest Silverstein claimed.
Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude toward peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives--as many of you who are graduating today will have a unique opportunity to do, by serving without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National Service Corps here at home.
But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because the freedom is incomplete.
It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of government--local, State, and National--to provide and protect that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within their authority. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch at all levels, wherever that authority is not now adequate, to make it adequate. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all sections of this country to respect the rights of all others and to respect the law of the land.
All this is not unrelated to world peace. "When a man's ways please the Lord," the Scriptures tell us, "he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights--the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation--the right to breathe air as nature provided it--the right of future generations to a healthy existence?
While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can--if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers--offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.
The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough--more than enough--of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on--not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.
BAGHDAD: Arms believed to have been manufactured in Iran as recently as last year have turned up in Sunni-majority areas as well as in the hands of Shiite extremists, a U.S. general said during a news conference Wednesday.
The officer, Major General William Caldwell, said the United States also had information from detainees that Iranian intelligence operatives had given support to Sunni insurgents and that surrogates for Iranian intelligence were training Shiite extremists in Iran.
"We have in fact found some cases recently where Iranian intelligence sources have provided to Sunni insurgent groups some support," said Caldwell, who sat near a table crowded with weapons that he said the military believed had been largely manufactured in Iran.
US troops will now serve up to 15 months in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of the usual 12-month tours under new Defence Department rules.
On March 9, Army Spc. Thomas Smith was ordered to board a plane from Fort Benning, Ga., to deploy back to Iraq, even though he was known to be suffering from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder from a previous tour there. Only weeks prior, military doctors determined that Smith should not be allowed around weapons because of his PTSD symptoms, which included bouts of sudden, extreme anger. Smith's medical records, obtained by Salon, also show that doctors had "highly recommended" that Smith not be deployed because of his condition.
Obviously there were superheated gases at the flash points of the nukes. These would have helped to vaporize or destroy things. But you seem to be using them for explaining things that are much better explained by EMPs and where IMO there probably were not any superheated gases. If Ondrovic is right there and sees cars catch fire or explode, and she is not harmed per se, I don't see the case for superheated gases--rather against that. [I think she ultimately says she was thrown to the ground by an exploded car door--IMO the result of EMP and rapid expansion of the car door and resultant "pop-off."] I am not sure you totally grasp how EMPs affect only metals and not people and paper. The EMP induces a large current in metals which becomes sudden, intense heat. The burning off of paint on cars is the first thing to happen, and is evident IMO. The heat could also make any contacted gasoline or fabrics etc catch fire. Vehicle size, angle, nearness etc. are relevant parameters RE EMPs. Superheated gases would fry a person, or fatally collpase their lungs if breathed in, (and also damage the outside of nearby bldgs--not seen). Neither happened to Ondrovic. Just some asthma or resp. distress from the toxins/smoke she breathed in, as many in lower Manhattan experienced. Superheated gases probably were only within a small radius of the blast and were "used up" in doing their job of taking down the bldgs.
A gratuitous fabrication in a story when the truth would have served just fine.
The nuclear theory fails because an explosion powerful enough to turn most of each tower to dust would have seriously damaged the bathtub, probably flooded lower Manhattan, and spiked a high Richter reading. It violates a number of data points, including the observed top-down disintegration. And if a nuke were at the top, it could not progressively destroy lower floors and there were only a few steel beams tossed onto adjacent buildings and none above the 20th floor. Lots of aluminum cladding was tossed onto neighboring buildings’ roofs but no steel beams. How could a nuke be so selective? It could not. Nor can a nuke explain the toasted cars.
Lots of aluminum cladding was tossed onto neighboring buildings’ roofs but no steel beams. How could a nuke be so selective? It could not.This is not a convincing argument against nukes, as this selectivity argument is not well substantiated. Importantly, aluminum cladding is lighter than steel, and is knocked off the steel columns relaitvely easily. Thus, it will get blown off the steel columns and fly further than the steel columns. Finding aluminum cladding on nearby rooftops is not particularly surprising. The fact is, in the videos, we SEE outer steel facade columns being blown down, with a wave of cladding ahead of them.
I am rolling on the floor here. Here we have arguably the number one Moonbat in the world, the leading Idiot of a village of idiots, the lunatic who can [sic?] even explain herself when interviewed by ANOTHER moonbat, the moron who believes an energy beam laser Destructo ray, whose energy source she can't explain even if there WAS enough energy to accomplish what she claims in her fervent mind, was the reason for this, is accusing NIST of projecting information that is wrong.
THAT has got to be the tip...the very apex...the summit of complete insanity. Those NIST scientists and engineers will eat her alive - IF they even care to respond. Its [sic] been my experince [sic] that professional organizations such as NIST does [sic] not respond to idiots and lunatics.