kimmy

Ok, I'm curious. If the whole thing is a plot by the international bankers and their puppets... what do they get out of this? If the ultimate goal is to round up Americans and put them in detention centers, why? Why impoverish and imprison the very people that make them rich? This is quite baffling. -k

Do you have a point? -k

Even if it started tipping, it doesn't tip very fast because there's not enough net force in any one direction to send it that way very fast. You don't have a believable explanation for how the thousands of tons of falling mass would get pushed over far enough to fall through the air. All of these ideas about tipping being the logical outcome are based on peoples' experience seeing trees sawed on one side, or on building stuff out of Lego blocks or Jungo Stix. It ignores the fact that unlike trees or Legos or Jungo Stix, the girders in the WTC were being subjected to enough force to compress and distort them. Your experience regarding chainsawed trees and Lego blocks and Jungo Stix is useless in this context. Pure conjecture. I've read this over and over and still haven't figured out what you're trying to say, but whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it's pure conjecture. You guys (yourself, blackasoil, and members of the Truthies) keep offering up nuggets about how "it's obvious" that such and such would have happened, because of such and such law of physics. "It's obvious that mass meeting mass would have slowed down the collapse." Conservation of momentum shows that the effect is minimal. "It's obvious that it would have tipped over!" Why? Where's the force required to accelerate the mass laterally? And of course when this stuff is pointed out, the focus always shifts. "Look at all the pieces being exploded upward!" ... uh? I guess you need Truthie-Vision Goggles to see them? I can hardly wait til we start hearing about the Second Law of Thermodynamics again. Have you got that one straightened out yet? like what? -k

blah blah blahPancaking or no pancaking, the math works out the same: the law of conservation of momentum shows that the stationary mass encountered by the moving mass doesn't slow the collapse by more than a few percent. The collapse wasn't at free-fall rate. If objects could just freely find the path of least resistance in following gravity, coffee cups would spontaneously fall off of tables, books would fall off of shelves, your monitor would fall off your desk, and so on. Why doesn't happen? It's because to fall off the desk, my coffee cup would have to slide horizontally against the resistance of friction. It is the same with the falling section of building. Before the building gets to fall through the air, the center of mass would have to move 32 meters to any one side. How does it get there? ooh, ooh, the assymetric damage makes one side weaker, so it exerts less upward force, and the difference between the sides is what makes it go one direction. Except that the truss design of the tower shifts load to the remaining walls to reduce this difference. Also, the three largely intact walls would resist any attempt by the tower to lean to one side, through the mechanism of tension. Also, as Riverwind keeps trying to tell you, the puvot-point in the system isn't strong enough to support all this leverage. Also, the assymetric damage is high on the tower and not far below the center of mass of the portion as it starts to fall, so the assymetric damage is only a factor during the initial moments of the collapse, after which the falling mass has already passed the area of assymetric damage and any horizontal velocity it had acquired during the early portion would be far outweighed by the vertical velocity it acquires as it's accelerating downward. -k

Yes it will, and again demonstrates your lack of knowledge of the science. The towers collapsed from the top which would not have created a "supertanker collidong with a sailboat scenario" .. in fact it would have been the other way around. The top 25 floors of the building falling onto the floor below them would only be slowed minimally by the added mass. Anybody who successfully completed junior highschool should be able to see why, but let's review anyway: Conservation of momentum says: m1*v1 = m2 * v2 m1 = mass of 25 floors of building; v1 = velocity before impact with the floor below them. m2 = mass of 26 floors of building; v2 = velocity after impact. Solving for v2/v1 shows that the added mass slows the downward avalanche by only 3.9%. The perimeter columns of the WTC do not support the vertical load, they resist lateral forces such as wind. The fact that one side of the perimeter columns was damaged while the others were not doesn't affect the direction the tower falls. The center column is the one which carried the vertical load. If it was damaged enough to prevent it from supporting the weight, then the building falls, and it falls downward. And the perimeter columns (remember, the ones that prevent lateral forces from tipping the building over) act to *ensure* that the building doesn't go sideways as it comes down. -k

Height of Pentagon: 77 ft 3.5 in (24 m) Height of 757: 44 ft 6 in I suspect that's while standing on landing-gear and includes the height of the tail. The diameter of the fuselage would be considerably less than 44 feet. Or they may have been cut after the fact by rescuers. It's clear that those photos were taken while recovery efforts were still underway. The fact that even the "big-name" truthies (if that's not an oxymoron...) aren't focused on these "cut beams" anymore leads me to suspect that they've already been discredited, probably for the reason you mention. Haven't you heard about his official capacity with US Congress? blackascoal is a congressman, in the same sense that PolyNewb is an applied physicist, Fetzer is a theoretical scientist, Hoffman has been published in Scientific American, etc etc. Hey, BD, what are your super qualifications? I've decided that I'm to go with "experienced logistics and deployment expert" (by which I mean, I deploy food and beverages to customers and determine the most efficient logistics for getting their orders from the kitchen to their tables.) How about yourself? -k

Watch the movie "From Hell," starring Johnny Depp, and all will be revealed to you. -k

You did? Wait, when did that happen? -k

You need to have more faith in your own culture and religion: pop. Give those kids television and you have instantly won the battle. An imam is not attractive. Elvis Presley came into our culture condemned as promoting The Devil's music and died as The King. Viva la Populacion! The kids might have made Elvis "the King", but I don't know that the generation that was raised with more traditional music ever warmed up to him. Kind of like people my age felt that Kurt Cobain was a revolutionary while people who grew up on Aerosmith and Springsteen and Dire Straits felt that Kurt Cobain was a hollering idiot. When Muslims come to Canada from countries where conservative values are the norm and the view that western culture is the immoral filth, I doubt that they'll change their minds. Their kids will probably feel differently, but they themselves, no. Is pop culture really that compelling? I'm not sure... it doesn't even seem like people who've been raised on it find it very appealing. -k

Prove it. Show me your evidence that this was produced by a real church. I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes. All of this might be true. However, in this instance I believe the intent was comedy, not any malice against the NFB. In fact, I'd suggest that this parody of the Hinterland Who's Who vignette seems to be a tribute to the lasting appeal and widespread recognizeability of the original vignettes. This website affirms that for Canadians of a certain age, the Hinterland Who's Who vignettes are well remembered and widely cherished: Parodies? Indeed. This page from the same site compiles a number of other parodies of the Hinterland Who's Who vignettes: http://www.hww.ca/media.asp?mcid=4 Funny, they don't seem particularly offended that the vignettes have been parodied. Because it begins with what seems to be genuine content, then subtly moves to an absurd conclusion, all while maintaining the deadpan seriousness and calm demeanor of the classic "Hinterland Who's Who" NFB vignettes which it references. It transfers widely held stereotypical behaviors of chronic substance abusers to insects, to humorous effect. -k {ps, ask Black Dog to explain the "knock-knock" joke for you.}

Why do you think that a real church made this? And why don't you recognize that this is just a parody for comic purposes, not an attack on the NFB itself? -k

Earlier you said you weren't afraid of speech that's out in the open, and mocked the idea of sending "spies into churches with mini-cameras or audio recorders hidden on the end of our umbrellas and charge clerics with promoting hate and violence!" ..."like the commies do!" But, you argue that this information *is* out in the open, because we *do* have the "commie spy trick". On the one hand you take comfort in the security that comes from this information, but on the other you sneer at the means by which the information is obtained. At any rate, I've got no sympathy for the imams that were exposed or the mosques that were embarrassed. I believe that if you're going to regret getting caught doing something, you ought to ask yourself whether you should really be doing it in the first place. As I mentioned, though, more Muslims come to Canada each year from countries where hardline views are the norm. As long as that continues, these hardline imams will always have an audience. More progressive, more Canadianized Muslims might move on to more progressive mosques, but there'll be newcomers to take their place. -k

Oh, come on. Who hasn't mistaken loudspeakers for thermite or C4 from time to time? -k

I doubt it was actually created by an actual church. I suspect "First Church of Christ, Filmmaker" was intended as a gag or something. If by some chance this was created by a church group, perhaps the message was something along the lines of "drugs are bad, mmmkay?" -k {lighten up. It was hilarious. }

That's pretty funny. Reminds me of this guy I heard about, he's Canadian but he's practically illiterate and seems kind of dumb, but he's always talking about his 136 IQ. He keeps saying how there's no jobs but what he means is that there's no entry-level white-collar jobs that pay $55,000 a year, and he keeps ranting about how it's the immigrants fault that he can't find a job like that. Isn't that hilarious? -k

I think that what Dobbins was trying to say is that we already have threads for Mosque discussion, and that this thread could be merged into one of those. -k

No, I do not speak Arabic. Big deal. The argument is feeble because radical Muslims are not the only people who speak Arabic. Our commie-spy strategy can still work. We will just have to outsource leg-work. A couple of years ago, August posted an article by a Quebec journalist who attempted to do just this sort of investigation and was unable to find anyone to "outsource the leg-work" to. I shall attempt to find that thread. However, I find it puzzling that you disagree with the claim that what goes on in mosques is hidden from Canadian society at large. Agreed. I will not dispute that Fred Phelps has much less influence than big city Muslim clerics. I insist that within a few generations, the radical-anti-West Muslim clerics will see their congregations dwindle and the problem will solve itself. I don't mean to sound like mikedavid00000, but I have to point out that we continue to accept immigrants from countries where hard-core Islam is the norm, and will no doubt continue to accept immigrants from these places. The children or grandchildren of today's first-generation Muslims will likely become Canadianized. But the Muslims who arrive in Canada next year, and in 5 years, and in 10 or 20 years, will still be ready audiences for these hard-line clerics. To me, it seems like a crucial step in the process is for Canadian Muslims, the ones who've become comfortable with our multi-cultural and tolerant society, to put its foot down. If "whitey" runs around filing hate-speech charges when some Imam opens his yap and says something stupid, that's counter-productive: it makes it seem like Muslims are being persecuted and just makes these nutjob clerics more appealing to the angry young men. Canadian Muslims, the regular folks kind that we both agree constitute the silent majority in this country, are the ones who can change things. They can tell hardline clerics "not in our mosque," they can help new Canadians reconsile their religion with Canadian values and help them integrate, and they can provide a more constructive outlet for the angry young people to express their frustrations. I'm sure this stuff already happens to some extent, but obviously not all is well and more needs to be done, and I believe that the ones who have the real ability to make a difference is the Canadianized Muslims that we agree make up the silent majority of Muslims in this country. -k

? Sorry, I missed the show. (not by accident, actually.) Can you explain the gag, and why the Liberals need to pray for an NDP meltdown? I'm quite confused. -k

I watched that for a bit following Mosque, and I thought what I saw of it was pretty cool, actually. I don't know the story or any of the characters and I can't speak to the writing or acting, but I was really surprised at the unconventional stylistic feel of the show. The NBC show, "Friday Night Lights", is similar in that respect: unconventional camera angles and photography, steadi-cam and hand-held-looking footage, no background music, it has an almost documentary feel. The subject matter of the show might sound like standard fare, but the stylistic aspects are highly unconventional. And guess what... it's low rated. Viewers tuned in, found the style to be jarring and unsettling and scary, and said "I'd rather watch Dancing With The Stars". It's a pretty good show, but as they say in the comedy business, it's "too hip for the room." So, that's probably why Intelligence is on CBC: because another network wouldn't have picked it up; the viewers would have tuned out because it's too different and too scary. Perhaps compared to the best shows or movies it might have been dreadful, but let's compare apples to apples. And in comparison to the (admittedly low) standard of the sit-com genre, Mosque wasn't bad. The creator of the show said that she didn't want to make a political statement, she just wanted to make a sit-com... and I think they've an ok job of that. It isn't a classic, but few sit-coms are. -k

There are good TV actors. None of them appear to be on this show, but for a small made-in-Saskatchewan production, I don't consider that to be too surprising. I agree, some of the jokes and gags were cute. (I liked when the cafe owner gets fed up of the transplanted Torontonian complaining about the lack of cappuccino, so she slams a scoop of ice-cream into his coffee and says "There is your cappuccino.") I do somewhat feel that most of the white folk (the prairie-dwellers, including the convert wife, as well as the Toronto airport security) look to be ... well, pretty dumb. Only Father McGee and the mayor seemed to be anything more than a mid-grade idiot. I guess a mitigating factor is that most of the brown-people seemed to be mid-grade idiots as well, so it's tough to take it as a racist statement. Sit-coms need idiots. -k

Why is it feeble? Do you speak Arabic? How many Canadians outside the Muslim community speak Arabic? We don't really hear about anything that's said in Arabic unless someone volunteers the information. And volunteers aren't always very forthcoming. Where did you get that idea? Many first-generation Canadian Muslims rely on their fellow Muslims for community, and feel untrusted by and untrusting of Canadians outside of their communities, and as a result fear being shunned or rejected by the Muslim community. And many first-generation Canadian Muslims are from countries and cultures where questioning their imam was unthinkable and intolerable. This claim was made over and over by progressives within the Muslim community as a reason why Sharia tribunals should not be given legal status in Ontario, and if it applied to that situation, it certainly applies to this one as well. Muslims who are more established in Canada would undoubtedly be more willing to speak out, but then again, Muslims who are more established in Canada would be less likely to be in a dingy mosque listening to some Saudi nut-job in the first place. -- and I could look at the rants in tons of other churches of other faiths. Should we start boogeymanizing Fred Phelps now? No. We laugh at him despite the fact that he advocates violence. Ok, so let's see these hard-line clerics exposed so that we can ridicule them just like Phelps. Sure, and the Muslims that I have known are much the same. By and large I think they are pretty normal people, and I don't think the radical clerics are representative of the community. However, there are differences between Fred Phelps and Sheikh Feiz et al. Phelps and his clan live at a walled compound in the middle of nowhere, while these clerics have the podium in mosques in the biggest cities in their respective countries. Fred Phelps has very little opportunity for converts outside of his own degenerate, inbred family, while these clerics have access to angry, frustrated young men who feel persecuted and targetted by society at large and are open to radical ideas. -k

That's a totally unrealistic scenario. Cancelled due to low ratings? That would imply that CBC actually cares whether anybody's watching. Also, I'll mention that "low" ratings would be a smash hit by CBC TV's standards, as most of their programmes gather ratings ranging from "disasterous" to merely "dismal". "Low" would be something for them to celebrate. Rick Mercer gets "low" ratings, and he's the biggest star on the whole freakin' network. The execs at CBC would wet their pants in excitement at having a low-rated sitcom; most of their other attempts at sit-coms have been viewed by too few people to generate statistically reliable ratings information. -k

$900k? That's absurd. When has the government ever managed to do anything for less than $1 million? They should have said it'll cost $1.2 million, just to make it sound like a regular government project. -k

I know, but I thought this was the "reminisce about crappy Canadian TV shows" thread. -k

I grabbed one at random. Though it intends to show the resemblance between the tower’s collapse and a controlled demolition, it succeeds in doing the opposite.Most CDs start with the base of the building. The WTC towers fall starts at the top. In most CDs, the explosives' detonation precedes the collapse. In the WTC, the towers are falling before the "squibs" appear (which is inconsistent with CD, but consistent with the pancake theory). I can see how to the uninitated or the willfully ignorant, the WTC towers' fall would look like CD. But no one who stops for five seconds to think about it would believe that to be the case. Great video, and one that makes your point superbly. I think, however, that amongst the "truthies", the notion that a natural collapse would look like a tree that's been chainsawed on one side tipping over is hopelessly ingrained. -k