United 93 and 9/11 Conspiracies
I saw a movie today. A pretty good movie and there seem to be few and far between that fit in the good movie category now days. Although this one came and went fairly quietly, there was some debate about it but I think it was a good movie for its subject matter. I saw today United 93. The whole time I was thinking about what was coming. I knew what was coming; I had seen it with my own eyes (through a TV) nearly 5 years ago. All the emotions and memories came rushing back. It is a powerful movie but also very informative. I like how it portrayed the FAA and the Military. It did show how unprepared they were but also how unprepared the ATCs (Air Traffic Controllers) or anybody was. How could you be prepared for such an attack? One part I remember was the movie depicting some people who were on United 93 praying the “our father” while the Muslim terrorists were praying as well. It was an interesting juxtaposition of people’s faith and how some can mangle and/or misunderstand their religion. The portrayal of the passengers of United 93 was moving most of all. From their despair to their courage, it was very moving. Overall I thought it was an excellent movie and you should see it today.
I also heard about this article today. There is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who believes in a 9/11 conspiracy and he claims to be a fair teacher in the matter. I can not believe at a public or even private university this professor is allowed to teach. Now I have heard of groups of people believing there to be a conspiracy behind 9/11 claiming the government (aka the Bush administration) has masterfully orchestrated these attacks), and I believe they have every right to claim that and share their beliefs. But, to have this taught in a university setting? Is this right? Am I wrong here? What if a Judaic studies professor decided to teach that the Holocaust never happened? That it was all made up. Would he still be allowed to teach? What about an evolutionary biologist who mentions intelligent design or any other theory of evolution other than Darwin’s theory? I doubt those professors would still have a job yet this one does in the name of academic freedom…It seems to me he can do this outside of class time all he wants but to teach it, that is something else. I am just in disbelief.
Comments
Posted by: Gyrmancer
Posted on: July 12, 2006 12:04 AM
First, just because he believes that the government was responsible for 9/11, that doesn't mean he's teaching that to his students. And second, if he does include his theories in his teaching, then that would give his students a great opportunity to use their critical thinking skills to analyze his theories and compare them to mainstream views.
Posted by: John
Posted on: July 12, 2006 12:12 AM
He is teaching it. He has five assigned readings I believe two of which cover the conspiracy theories and three that don't (they cover the "offical story")I believe. I will have to check that in another article I have read. You are right about critical thinking but then why can we not include all outlandish theories in all classes like I have stated?
Posted by: Gregory Szorc
Posted on: July 12, 2006 01:18 AM
The professor needs to go back and to the left. Back and to the left. Back and to the left. Back and to the left...
Posted by: kelly
Posted on: July 12, 2006 05:02 PM
The days after 9/11 I would never have thought any american could ever be involved in anyway with such a horrible thing. But one day I got into a conversation with a friend of mine who works with explosive demolition. He said if you watched the video of the twin towers collapsing you can see smaller explosions on the floors below them as the building collapsed. He said the 3 buildings that collapsed all came straight down as if intentionally brought down by explosives. ( I searched skysraper fires even the one in spain a few years ago , and never in the history of these buildings before and after 9/11 have any of them collapsed entirely from a fire. The towers went down only a few minutes )
After this I started to look online for more info and was amazed at what I learned. I'll give you just a few :
1) The man who owned the third smaller building that collapsed said that his building was damaged and the fire department told him that they were going to take the building down for safety reasons ( TNT the sucker ) Then later that day on 9/11 with the fire departments man power severely depleted ( because they died ) were supposedly able to set up these explosives and drop the building in a matter of hours. When I asked my friend who is an expert on this he said that it would take days but realisticaly weeks to properly set up the explosives to drop a large building like that. The depleted fire department did it in hours. Oh and 2 months earlier the owner took out a record 3.5 billion dollar ins. policy out on it.
2) Another frind of mines brother is in the military and he is in charge of security at on of the airbases in new york....where I live, and he said the the supposed plan that crashed was shot down. I asked him how he knew, he said it was one of their planes that shot it down.
3( A fact also is that the military was , on the morning of 9/11 running a sreal simulation of a terror attack on the twin towers and the pentagon. This is a fact and what are the odds that it was on the same day as the real attacks. Imposible.
4) Another fact. A few months before 9/11 Dick Cheney took away the power of any military general to shoot down any aircraft that threatens american soil . This has been legal for a general to do for over 50 years now just before attack the power was taken away.
5) Norad on 9/11 was literally told to shut down for the drills that were going to take place and were basically in the dark for almost 1 hour and 15 minutes after first attack.
6) I reveiwed pictures of the trapped people in the buildings and in one of the buildings the fire was not only almost completely out but thee were many people standing in the damaged areas where the plane crashed through standing and waiving for help to come. The government says the buildings collapsed because the fire was so hot that it melted the steel supports. How can those people be standing there. The designer of the twin towers said the building was built to withstand winds over 150 mph and not one 747 crash into but two and the building should still be strong enough to not collapse.
I can go on all day about how the goverment has gone out of their way to keep things from the people and people who hide things have secrets. Easy enough. Be happy to here any feedback . Please be nice .
Posted by: Brian Gray
Posted on: July 12, 2006 05:21 PM
Kelly, how many of the fires you studied involved jet fuel, specifically planes almost full on fuel? I think that was the one variable that is not well understood.
Posted by: John
Posted on: July 12, 2006 05:26 PM
I am very open minded about all sides of a story yet there is still insurmountable evidence against your theory. The fact of the matter is who flew the planes into the buildings? Who took responsibility for doing so? Also does the fire dept really implode buildings? I would assume it would be the city engineers and maybe the police’s bomb squad who would have the expertise to accomplish that job. I have to highly doubt that a firefighter would have the knowledge or background to implode a building. If a plane was shot down where is the debris? How did no one see it? I mean you can not just neatly clean up thousands of pieces of debris some that have to be fairly large in size. I do not recall the designer claiming that the building could withstand two 747s flying into the building. If you could tell me where I could find that out and if you could also provide some reliable references that I could read for myself and check your facts I would be willing to form an opinion of my own.
Posted by:
Posted on: July 15, 2006 07:41 AM
There is a video on how the Twin Towers were built. You ought to check out the structure was created, floor by floor, and there was a definite weakeness when the planes hit. The way the floor pancaked themselves as it came out was similar to a controlled demolition.
Posted by: Toby
Posted on: July 17, 2006 02:53 PM
Kelly, I can't really speak on what your 'friends in high places' might know, but the engineering is pretty clear here.
Construction on the WTC began in 1966, meaning that designs had long been in the works.
The building was designed while 747's were only in a conceptual phase at best. It was designed to withstand the impact of the predecessors of the 747, but the 747 represented an incredibly significant increase in both airplane mass and fuel storage. No designer of buildings at this point had ever had to consider a 90,000L molotov cocktail. You are probably right about the building being able to withstand the impact of two, or even 4 747's, but this is because it takes an enormous impulse to drive a 500,000T structure the 100 feet necessary to push the center of gravity past the support base. Regardless, this sort of impact would cause the building to fall over sideways, not straight down.
What brought the WTC down was not solely the softening (not melting) of steel from the fire, but more accurately the non-uniform softening of steel within the redundant support structure of the exterior. The floors of the WTC were each essentially a sort of bridge between the central support column and the exterior support columns (the exterior supports formed a sort of skin around the structure). These perimeter supports were joined to the central column on each floor by trusses secured with angle brackets at each end.
The non-uniform softening created structural twisting that broke the angle brackets free on the most fire-affected floors. The fall of the concrete slabs from these floors impacted on the ones below. The impacts exceeded the tolerances of the ones below and a chain reaction began.
Most high-rise buildings are designed to retain structural integrity for about three hours after a fire has broken out (even if the sprinkler system fails). The WTC collapsed after about 1-2 hours because the fire of 90,000L of jet fuel was set and spread instantly. Unlike a normal fire, there was no development time.
Additionally, more fuel does not mean a hotter fire, merely a bigger one. That would explain why people were seen in and around the most affected areas. The fires in the WTC did not likely exceed 650C. This is due to the fact that this was an air-burning fire (not oxygen burning), and that the flame was too fuel rich to maximise combustion (hence the sooting and black smoke; that was excess fuel). These temperatures will soften, not melt steel. Uneven softening leads to twisting, twisting to failure, and failure leads straight to the ground. The buildings inertia was too great for it to fall in any other way.
And with reference to the main thread, the professor can teach anything he wants. More power to him if he has a major institution funding him. But you're pretty naive if you think just because its in school it must be fact. Moreover, how are you ever going to learn anything new or think in any different way if you disqualify an argument before you attempt to understand its points. It might be 'way out there' but he certainly accomplished the most important thing; he got you and others to think critically.
Posted by: TJ
Posted on: July 17, 2006 05:41 PM
Watch this movie:
http://www.loosechange911.com/
The narration is quite biased, too quick to conclude things, and blantatly wrong at times, but the empirical evidence presented is still undeniable. Watch it.
Posted by: Brian Gray
Posted on: July 17, 2006 10:52 PM
I recommend you look at some of the counter arguments (from wikipedia, someone's viewer guide, or alternative video) to the Loose Change video as well. They all show that it depends on your view point and how events are grouped together.
Posted by: John
Posted on: July 18, 2006 03:39 AM
I still contend Toby that if a professor was to teach intelligent design or the holocaust never happened this professor would not be teaching. Why is he been given leeway here on this topic while other professors are not able to teach their own theories? How come all “way out there” theories that professors believe are not taught then? He can not possibly be the only one who holds one. Professors do not always teach their beliefs because they know it will get them fired. They stick to teaching what the “official” truth, the theory most commonly agreed upon that is supported by the evidence and the scientific method.
Posted by: Ben Mcl
Posted on: July 18, 2006 07:53 AM
The professor is an employee. He is accountable to his supervisors for the content of his course. If they feel that the conspiracy is not a valuable use of limited class time so-be it.
Nothing stops this Prof from writing books of conspiracy stuff for tinfoil hatters, etc.
Posted by: wellwisher
Posted on: October 26, 2006 03:38 AM
All Natural hemorrhoids treatment, hemorrhoids remedy, hemorrhoids cure
Posted by: Dawn
Posted on: January 21, 2007 07:49 PM
He may be an employee, but unfortunately the state tenure laws do not allow his butt to be fired. That's the problem with tenure, these professors get into a place and just spouting off anything. If they operated like anyone else with a job, then you'd see the level of teaching increase.
Dawn