Saturday, March 31, 2007

Debunking Rosie O'Donnell's Stupidity

“I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7—building 7, which collapsed in on itself—it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center 7. World Trade [Center] 1 and 2 got hit by planes—7, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible.”
- Rosie O'Donnell, from "The View"

Once again we are subjected to the half-baked opinions of an actress, presented as unassailable facts. How does this arrogant, ignorant woman even get time in front of a camera anymore? The facts do not support her. Do the facts even matter anymore? I think so, and fortunately I'm not the only one.

Some good news for us, from Tammy Bruce:

Popular Mechanics Responds to Rosie's 9/11 Conspiracy Meltdown
On Tammy Radio today I commented on Rosie O'Donnell's delusions about September 11th and her assertions that it was an American government conspiracy. This after her similar paranoid/conspiracy rant about the Iranian hostage taking of the British sailors either being faked or arranged by us, the British, or maybe Martians. All she knows is someone is setting up the gentle, compassionate and 'ethical' Iranians.

Other than the mental health issues in question, the bizarre claims of conspiracy surrounding 9-11 have been addressed over the years by a number of respected scientists, researchers and engineers, including the editors of Popular Mechanics. They now respond to Rosie's delusions on their blog, and deconstruct her wild accusations, one by one.

Tammy also goes on to tell us about the book Published by Popular Mechanics, called:

"Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts".

See the rest of Tammy's post for more about the book, and a link to an article about the Conspiracy Industry, by one of the editors at Popular Mechanics.


As for Rosie's claim about melting steel, she's right! The steel did not melt, the fire would not have done so. Unfortunately, she stopped there. What she failed to understand was that it didn't have to melt for a collapse to occur.



Some excerpts from the Popular Mechanics Rosie Rebuttal article:

[...] Towers 1 and 7 were approximately 300 ft. apart, and pictures like the ones here and here [see article for hyper-links] offer a clear visual of how small that distance is for structures that large. After further studies, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) told PM that debris from the 110-floor North Tower hit WTC7 with the force of a volcanic eruption. Nearly a quarter of the building was carved away over the bottom 10 stories on its south face, and significant damage was visible up to the 18th floor [...]

Tower 7 housed the city’s emergency command center, so there were a number of fuel tanks located throughout the building—including two 6000-gal. tanks in the basement that fed some generators in the building by pressurized lines. “Our working hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time,” according to Sunder. Steel melts at about 2,750 degrees Fahrenheit—but it loses strength at temperatures as low as 400 F. When temperatures break 1000 degrees F, steel loses nearly 50 percent of its strength. It is unknown what temperatures were reached inside WTC7, but fires in the building raged for seven hours before the collapse. [...]

(Bold emphasis mine) Tower 7 sustained severe damage to it's lowest 10 floors. Add to that fire, fed by ruptured pressurized fuel lines, which WEAKENED the stress capacity of the already over-burdened remaining support beams ... it isn't hard to understand. But it does require actually reading something other than just conspiracy theory. Rosie ought to try it sometime.

The article is filled with lots of details, and also examines and debunks the clandestine demolition theory too. It's easy to understand and should be of great interest to anyone who actually cares about FACTS.



I worked in high-rise security for 12 years. I participated in annual Life Safety seminars, where scenarios like the impact of a plane were examined. Depending on the size of the plane, it's speed, it's fuel load and where it impacted the building, it could precipitate the collapse of a building. ANY massive damage to a large building, in the right location, combined with a raging fire, could do the same thing. This kind of knowledge has been around since long before 9-11. In fact the 9-11 hijacker's tapped that knowledge and decided to deliberately use it as a weapon.

To have to hear an ignoramus like Rosie spouting off at length on national TV about her conspiracy theory nonsense, when the information that proves her wrong is so abundantly and easily available, is appalling and beyond excuse. Barbara Walters, who is supposed to be a journalist, should be ashamed of herself for allowing it to go unchallenged. What's going to be next on The View... Holocaust denial? Sheesh!


Related Links:

LMC's The Anti-View
(has video link, also has contact information for sending complaints to ABC).

Highrise Security and our post 9-11 reality
What I understand about 9-11, based on my own experience in high-rise security.
     

7 comments:

Kat said...

My favorite part was the "first time in history that fire ever melted steel" comment.

Does she not know that steel is made by SMELTING iron ore and various other metals in high temperatures? Or that you can reshape "swords into plowshares" with high temperature forges?

She obviously has never seen a fire destory and collapse any building over two stories (which usually have steel I beams). Maybe she should watch the news?

Of course, the biggest dufus part of it is that steel begins to melt at 1,200 degrees farhenheit and a common, furnished house will burn at 4,000 degrees F at its peak.

She could also watch the discovery channel to get this information. Apparently, she is too busy watching her own lips move in the mirror (unfortunately, so are a number of her "viewers")

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this post Chas!! Impressive photos (whoever thought a "rose" could be so ugly!) - great links and research!

Anonymous said...

Kat, where do you get your dis-info on steel melting/ you are off by 1200 F http://www.engineersedge.com/properties_of_metals.htm
a house fire does not get much over 600f. NIST figures the fires were lower than 600F. Read the report.

Mark Gauthier said...

I never thought about it like that.

Thank you,

Mark

Anonymous said...

Keep pushing the Propaganda. What Rosie meant was never before in history has a steel structured building ever fallen from fire and on 911 we are supposed to believe it happen 3 times. Not only that but they fell into their own imprint. Defies the laws of physics and the nature of steel as we know it.When something falls over physics tells us it takes the path of least resistance and in this case all three buildings fell straight down in the path of greatest resistance. I would say Rosie is much closer to the truth then the news on this site.

Chas said...

Propaganda? No wonder you post anonymously.

Ok, I'll shoot the fish in the barrel:

1.) never before in history has a steel structured building ever fallen from fire

They didn't collapse from fire. They collapsed from severe structural damage which put extreme stress on the remaining supporting beams, which were then softened (and thus were weakened) by fire, triggering the collapse.

2.) When something falls over physics tells us it takes the path of least resistance

Falling straight down IS the path of least resistance.

When the support structures in the damaged areas collapsed, the entire weight of the upper structure fell onto the floor below it. You seem to think that the structure below should have been able to withstand the weight, causing the upper portion to fall off sideways.

NO office building structure would withstand that kind of weigh falling on top of it. The floor below would be pulverized by the weight, leading to the collapse onto the floor below it, and the one below that, etc. That is exactly what we saw happen.

That kind of collapse is called "pancaking". It's well documented, and a great deal of thought goes into ways to prevent or delay it, but that's not always possible.

I worked in high-rise security for 12 years. We used to hold annual life-safety seminars for tenants, where they could ask questions. Someone would often ask, what would happen if an airplane hit the building?

The answer was, that it would depend on the size of the plane, where it hit, and the size of the resulting explosion and the damage it caused. The tenant was informed that if it was a large plane like a commercial airliner, and it penetrated to the center of the building and exploded, it would likely cause a "pancake" collapse of the building. The collapse might be immediate or delayed, depending on how high up or down the plane struck the building. The lower it hit, the sooner the collapse.

The tenants were also told that it was an extremely unlikely scenario, as such planes were not allowed to fly near skyscrapers. Back then, no one imagined that someone might do it deliberately. We now know differently.

The way the buildings collapsed is not hard to understand, if you make the effort. I can't say the same for all the elaborate conspiracy theories with more holes than Swiss cheese.

Rosie can be a very entertaining comedian and actress, but in other areas she can be out of her depth. This is one of them.

Anonymous said...

Let’s just face some simple facts.

Skyscrapers MUST hold themselves up. They must also sway in the wind. The people who design skyscrapers MUST figure out how much steel and how much concrete they are going to put on every level before they even dig the hole for the foundation.

After EIGHT YEARS why don’t we have a table specifying the TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE that were on every level of the WTC? The NIST report does not even specify the TOTAL for the concrete. The total for the steel is in three places. So even if the planes did it that 10,000 page report is CRAP!

Conspiracies are irrelevant. The Truth Movement should be marching on all of the engineering schools in the country.

Watch that Purdue simulation. If a 150 ton airliner crashes near the top of a skyscraper at 440 mph isn’t the building going to sway? Didn’t the survivors report the building “moving like a wave”? So why do the core columns in the Purdue video remain perfectly still as the plane comes in?

That is the trouble with computer simulations. If they are good, they are very good. But if they have a defect either accidental or deliberate they can be REALLY STUPID once you figure out the flaws.

The distribution of steel and concrete is going to affect the sway of a skyscraper whether it is from the wind or an airliner.

ROFL