Martin Sheen: 9/11 Questions 'Unanswered,' Building 7 'Very Suspicious'

[William Seger]

36. But I said, "the only known example of a bridge collapsing in a 40 mph wind"

Angers Bridge collapsed during a "powerful thunderstorm," "while a battalion of French soldiers was marching across it," which appears to be the more proximate cause. I can't find anything about Amarube bridge collapsing -- just a story about a train being blown off of it.

So, you do understand why the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed, so you don't have any sympathy for people who claimed it must have been sabotaged? That's good.

I understand why WTC7 collapsed.

> But there's no example of a highrise collapsing due to fire at all...

Um, you're supposed to say, there's no example of a highrise collapsing completely due to fire, since there's at least one example of a highrise collapsing partially due to fire -- the steel part, actually. But even with that qualification, the Windsor Tower fire shoots a gaping hole in your argument.

> So don't try to invert rules here: those disputing the official explanation are the ones who rely on empirical data and historical examples of highrise fires.

Total bullshit. There is exactly zero prior "empirical data" about towers like WTC1 and 2 getting hit by 767s flying flat-out, or buildings constructed like WTC7 sustaining a 7-hour unfought fire. If you don't understand why that matters, I can't help you.

> You guys rely in a extravagant and exotic report defying logic and physics made by a governamental agency and a bunch of "experts" (?) that you claim to represent "the technical community".

And more bullshit. There's nothing "exotic" about the NIST theory, and if you think it defies logic and physics, then I have to infer that you don't know much about either. The building was not designed to withstand thermal expansion or progressive collapse -- that's a fact, Jack, not a matter of subjective opinion.

And yes, FYI, the long list of non-governmental contributors to the NIST report is an excellent representation of the technical and academic communities.

> Well, since "the technical community" does not exist as a factual organization...

Actually, it consists of several "factual organizations" (such as ASCE) who do things like publish peer-reviewed journals (such as the Journal of Engineering Mechanics) and hold technical conferences and otherwise discuss technical issues amongst themselves. If the NIST theory was really an "exotic report defying logic and physics" an engineer could make quite a name for himself by publishing a journal or conference paper proving it. Where is it?

> ...you can't appeal to it as some kind of "authority".

Yes I can.

> I also guess you can not prove that the "experts" and people from NIST who take this fairy tale seriously are indeed more qualified than those who are disputing it.

I can do better than that: I can prove that the NIST theory is evidence-based, logical, and technically sound, whereas its detractors seem to be completely incapable of transforming their speculations into valid technical arguments with either evidence or logic. From that, we might infer which side is the more qualified, but that would be a conclusion rather than a premise.