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Post by echnaton on Jun 9, 2006 17:52:25 GMT -4
Did they even use explosives for controlled demolition back then? I think that what Turbo is saying is that pulling a building is a term used for demolishing a building that Silverstein would have been familiar with from his younger years as he had been working in real estate much of his life. Not necessarily that “pull” was used for explosives. Under this scenario, his saying to “pull it” is just a way of saying to destroy the building. It gets around the obvious problem of using the term “pull” is not a term that is used today for explosive demolition. This however leaves an even more glaring difficulty; that the most apparent interpretation of this conversation is that Silverstein was referring to the fire fighting effort.
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Post by twinstead on Jun 9, 2006 19:55:09 GMT -4
that the most apparent interpretation of this conversation is that Silverstein was referring to the fire fighting effort
Yea, one certainly has to perform some logical gymnastics to deal with that little beauty.
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Post by SpitfireIX on Jun 10, 2006 0:41:20 GMT -4
I have allowed for the possibility of mistaking the time of the conversation - even though all the sources say the time of the call was in the afternoon. That concession still does not explain the comments to mean firefighters or the firefighting effort.
Yet another attempt to create a burden-of-proof confusion. Absent any totally irreconcilable contradiction in his story, the presumption is that Silverstein meant "firefighters or the firefighting effort," as the claim that he meant to demolish the buiding is clearly an extraordinary claim, plus his clarification carries an inherent presumption of accuracy.
Look. We do know that the Fire Chief must have considered the call important. He took his valuable time away from the unprecedented conditions of chaos, confusion, death and destruction, and made a phone call to Silverstein - at least, to inform him that the fires may be uncontrollable. Up to this point we seem to generally agree. But from that point it needs to be looked into what else may have happened, and what was actually meant....
No additional investigation is warranted without substantial evidence suggesting that 7 WTC was actually demolished. Conspiracist handwaving notwithstanding, no such evidence has thus far come to light.
How can we interpret the actual comments to decide which theory is more likely, and which one requires more assumptions than the other to make it feasible?
The number of assumptions required is irrelevant; the fact that your theory requires at least two extraordinary assumptions for which there is no other evidence is controlling.
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Post by gezalenko on Jun 12, 2006 9:05:28 GMT -4
And there's another thing about this "pull" comment, which I think SpitfireIX (and maybe others) has touched on already -
Quote "and I said, you know, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is just pull it.' "
So the word "pull" appears not in some transcript of a telephone conversation, but in the guy's own recollection of what he said, a recollection made some time after the event.
Perhaps he did use exactly those words.
But it's also possible that the actual words used were quite different, but still carrying the same general meaning. Perhaps he actually said - ". . . maybe we should withdraw the firefighting effort". Or perhaps he actually said - ". . . maybe we should initiate the demolition process."
If the latter - Turbonium, you've got a case !
But surely the relevant questions are what did he actually say, and most importantly, what did he mean (and what did the people he was talking to, understand him to mean) ?
It seems to me that - 1) He MAY have used the word "pull" in the original conversation (but he MIGHT not have). 2) The word "pull" MAY be used in the context of controlled demolition, although apparently not usually in quite the detailed context Turbonium needs for his theory to be rock solid. 3) IF he actually used the word "pull" in the original conversation, he MAY have been using it in the context of controlled demolition, but he MAY also have been using it in several other contexts, at least one of which would make more sense than the controlled demolition scenario. He may also have misspoken and simply chosen a word that didn't quite match his intended meaning, because he couldn't bring to mind a better word or phrase in the heat of the moment.
Therefore WTC7 was destroyed by controlled demolition.
This gets more and more crazy the more you think about it !
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jun 12, 2006 11:35:21 GMT -4
Well, when you start with a crazy idea thinking more about it is likely to make it seem crazier.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 12, 2006 20:42:35 GMT -4
This gets more and more crazy the more you think about it !
gezalenko, you have to remember that Turboium, and others like him, has already made up his mind that WTC 7 *WAS* destroyed by controlled demolision. He has done that with little to no real evidence, and so is now attempting to shoehorn anything and everything into that conclusion to make it appear that his prior conclusion is rational. We see exactly the same thing in other threads he is involved in. He makes his mind up, and then looks for data to fit with his conclusion, he doesn't seem to get the idea that investigation starts with hard facts and then applies the story of best fit to them to form a conclusion. It doesn't start with a fixed conclusion and vauge story and then throw out any evidence that doesn't fit and shoehorn any that might with the use of selective quotations and out and out fact manipulation and untruth.
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Post by turbonium on Jun 16, 2006 2:44:56 GMT -4
Well then why bother ringing up at all? If you aren't doing anything, and haven't been for hours, then there's not a lot of point in telling Silverstein you aren't doing anything is there?
Well, they were certainly not idly sitting around (if not, then that would be too outrageous to even think about, so we can ignore that possibility), with nothing to do, for hours before and during the time of the phone call. The entire scene at and around the WTC complex was mass chaos throughout the day and well beyond. The Fire Chief (as well as all the other emergency personnel) were facing a catastrophic situation, unprecedented in size and scale.
So in light of that fact - yes, why indeed would the Fire Chief call up Silverstein? They had firmly decided not to fight the fires hours before the phone call. Furthermore, they had ordered everyone to stay away from the building for safety reasons, again, hours before the phone call. These were the important decisions regarding WTC 7, and they had already been made, and acted on, by noon. There were clearly far more urgent matters to attend to throughout the rest of the day.
So what is important enough to motivate the Fire Chief away from his overwhelming task? A phone call to the lease owner of the WTC complex, apparently, to tell him about how they may not be able to contain the fires in WTC 7. So why would Silverstein suggest they do something they had already done hours earlier? That is, if he suggested pulling the firefighters (or the effort). And how is it possible that the Fire Chief, subsequent to that suggestion, made that decision to pull the firefighters (or effort)? There was no decision to be made about the firefighters (or effort) regarding WTC 7.
Silverstein is giving a firefighting suggestion ("maybe the smartest thing") to the Fire Chief? Sure.
A totally irrelevant suggestion, to boot? Sure.
A totally irrelevant suggestion, then agreed upon after deliberation as "the smartest thing" to do, then implemented....despite needing no implementation? Sure.
"..and then[/u] we watched the building collapse." So the firefighters got out and away from the building just in the nick of time before it completely flattened in about 7 seconds? Sure.
They all got out of there miraculously, thanks to Larry's "smartest" suggestion to the Fire Chief! This should be made into standard procedure for firefighters around the world - when you have no idea what to do during a building fire, call up the owner for the "smartest thing" to do!!
Sure. What's so crazy about all of that?
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Post by twinstead on Jun 16, 2006 5:54:50 GMT -4
Sure. What's so crazy about all of that?
You have to admit turbonium that taken as a whole, there are just as many, dare I say more, crazy and unlikely things to have to have happened for your theory to be correct too.
Unless you completely ignore the rational rebuttals to your own arguments, or think no rebuttals you have read here are rational, you can't deny that.
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Post by gezalenko on Jun 16, 2006 7:23:56 GMT -4
Like I said, the more you think about this theory, the crazier it gets.
Turbonium, you yourself said in post #25 "the building was allowed to burn for hours without intervention." Let's accept that as fact. Why would the conspirators do that ? Phantomwolf has already made this point. If they had it in their power to demolish the building in a controlled way, why would they NOT do it as soon as possible ? Surely they must have been worried that uncontrolled fires might have damaged their carefully prepared explosives and detonators etc. If I was them, I would have done it as soon as the firefighters had withdrawn, or maybe even before, if I was that evil. So WHY did they let it burn for hours, and risk not being able to complete the controlled demolition ? And IF they had some motive for demolishing the building, why not just let it burn down by itself, and destroy the evidence of their demolition preparations ?
If we consider the three options they "could" have had - 1) Controlled demolition as early as possible - achieves complete demolition, but possibly risks being identified as controlled demolition 2) Abandoning the building to be destroyed by fire - destroys evidence of demolition preparations, probably achieves complete demolition but maybe some risk of incomplete demolition 3) Leaving the building to burn for hours, then blowing it up - risks failing to achieve demolition if fire damages detonating equipment, risks leaving evidence if explosions happen incorrectly or fire damages detonating equipment
then option 3 seems the unlikeliest, to me, but this is the one that you claim happened.
In reply #33, you claimed to have resolved this issue in reply #31, but you didn't. You said that fire may cause explosives to fail to detonate properly - fair enough. But you didn't address how fire could disrupt the preparations - by destroying detonators and other equipment - other than by speculating about more and more explosives and detonation sequences being prepared. However much explosives were planted, however many detonation circuits were set up, there must have been a POSSIBILITY that fire would damage them and compromise the demolition effort. Therefore the logical response would have been to detonate as early as possible, while the detonation equipment was least likely to be damaged.
Now, back to the Silverstein conversation. Again, you are playing with words in reply #96, assuming that the words used MUST have had one specific meaning, and one only. Why WOULDN'T Silverstein make a suggestion like that, to withdraw the firefighting effort ? Just because he made that suggestion, does not mean that the Fire Chief had not already made that decision several hours earlier.
Imagine a scenario in which your own house is burning down, and firefighters are on the scene. As long as your family and possessions are inside (or you think they are) then you will be begging the firemen to do everything they can to put out the fire. On the other hand if you know there's no-one else in the house, and there's no risk of the fire spreading, but maybe a risk to firefighters if they keep working, I can quite imagine you might say something along the lines of "Oh to heck with it, we're insured, everybody who can be saved has been saved, there's no point in the firefighters killing themselves to put the fire out now, let's just let it burn". And the fire chief might well agree with you, regardless of what he actually plans to do. This is how I see Silverstein's quote.
Turbonium, in reply #96, you came up with a variant of Occam's razor - "that would be too outrageous to even think about, so we can discount that possibility". How about applying that logic to the Controlled Demolition theory ?
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Post by 3onthetree on Jun 16, 2006 8:48:04 GMT -4
I couldn't give a rats about building 7 but all this SHOUTING is scaring my mouse.
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Post by gezalenko on Jun 16, 2006 11:35:49 GMT -4
If that's my shouting you're talking about, I APOLOGISE ! ;D
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Post by nomuse on Jun 16, 2006 12:45:53 GMT -4
Is there a timeline showing this miraculous seven seconds from phone call to collapse? Or is that being inferred from the construction of the sentence "We made the decision....then we watched it fall?"\
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Post by SpitfireIX on Jun 16, 2006 21:14:21 GMT -4
They had firmly decided not to fight the fires hours before the phone call. Furthermore, they had ordered everyone to stay away from the building for safety reasons, again, hours before the phone call. These were the important decisions regarding WTC 7, and they had already been made, and acted on, by noon. There were clearly far more urgent matters to attend to throughout the rest of the day.
You stated earlier that you were allowing for the possibility that the time was incorrect, yet you now assume that the phone call was "hours" after the decision to abandon the firefighting effort, evidently because you've suddenly realized that doing so is a handy way to prop up your interpretation of Silverstein's remarks
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Post by turbonium on Jun 17, 2006 23:02:48 GMT -4
Is there a timeline showing this miraculous seven seconds from phone call to collapse? Or is that being inferred from the construction of the sentence "We made the decision....then we watched it fall?"
Well, the seven seconds I mentioned was referring to the time it took for the global collapse of the building after initial failure from the lower floors. But the quote..."And they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse.", seem to indicate the events are not only connected, but that they occurred within minutes of each other.
"And they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse." This sentence clearly indicates a sequential continuity of events as he recalls what happened.
Compare this to how the plane impacts and subsequent collapses of the twin towers were invariably reported and later recalled in both the witness accounts and the many media articles. The South Tower collapsed in only 56 minutes (the North Tower in 1 hour 43 minutes). When a report or account is made that recalls these events in a brief summary, do they ever come out anything like this....
"We were only blocks away from the WTC complex. We saw a plane hit the second tower and explode in a huge fireball, and then we watched the building collapse."
No, the events are are never recalled in that fashion, even though the plane hit and subsequent collapse of the South Tower occurred within a mere 56 minutes of each other. A brief witness account would sound roughly like this.....
"We were only blocks away from the WTC complex. We saw a plane hit the South Tower and explode in a huge fireball. We stared at the towers as fire and smoke billowed out of them for an hour or so, and then we saw the South Tower collapse."
Silverstein's demeanor during his account of the collapse is another indicator. If he meant..."And they made that decision to pull the firefighters, and then we watched the building collapse.", it was recalled basically as if it was no big deal.
Put yourself in Silverstein's position. The Fire Chief tells you that the building fires may not be containable. You assume (in your view) that firefighters are making an effort to combat the fires, and suggest to the Fire Chief to pull them out. You also assume he decides to pull them out, and after an unknown time period (even hours later), you see the building collapse in 7 seconds.
Do you not later express relief, or feel thankful or fortunate, that the Fire Chief did (or at least that you think he did) decide to go through with your suggestion? That is, you would not at least say something more like...
"And they made that decision to pull the firefighters, and later on we watched the building collapse. I felt such a sense of relief that so many lives were able to be saved by getting away from the buiilding before it collapsed."
However, if we take "pull it" to mean "pull the building", Silverstein's comments and demeanor make perfect sense. The reason for the phone call makes perfect sense. And the timeline also fits in perfectly.
Would the Fire Chief need to let Silverstein know what the state of the firefighting effort was? No. He could be doing it as a courtesy, but it seems to me highly irregular and unusual for a Fire Chief, with critical duties to perform, to consider a courtesy update anything close to a priority task and responsibility. I've never heard of such a "courtesy call" being either appropriate or common procedure.
Would the Fire Chief could consider it very important to call the leaseowner of the building to say any attempt to fight the fires had been decided against, and to confer with him on the remaining options available for implementation? Yes. The firefighting option was vetoed. The next decision involved getting input from the leaseowner.
Would Silverstein suggest pulling the firefighters? Only if he mistakenly thought they were actually fighting the fires, and was not corrected by the Fire Chief after making that suggestion.
Would Silverstein suggest pulling the building? Yes, if the building had already been wired with explosives, that would be a viable option to consider. The only other option was to continue to keep everyone a safe distance from the building for an undetermined period of time. That would require dedicating significant numbers of rescue personnel to striclty be perimeter guards for an empty building. In other words, a very poor allocation of resources best directed to saving lives and assisting those who are injured or distressed.
Would the Fire Chief decide to pull the firefighters out? No, they were never put in the building in the first place.
Would the Fire Chief notify the appropriate personnel to pull the building? Yes, he would be in the best position, as the head of onsite emergency operations, to tell the demolition crew that the leaseholder had given his go-ahead approval, and that the area was safely cleared. If the demo crew was ready to go, that is the only "decision" left that needed to be made.
Would the building collapse shortly after they decided to pull the firefighters out? No.
Would the building collapse shortly after they decided to pull the building? Yes.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 18, 2006 2:35:41 GMT -4
the seven seconds I mentioned was referring to the time it took for the global collapse of the building after initial failure from the lower floors.
Considering that the Global Collapse didn't even start until 8.2 seconds after the first signs of collapse intiated, I'm not sure how you get that it collapsed in 7 seconds. Even assuming your timing for the Global Collapse to flattened are right, that gives a total collapse time of 15.2 seconds all up, longer than WTC 1 which was many floors higher.
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