Showing posts with label 9/11 debunker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 9/11 debunker. Show all posts

Friday, September 24, 2010

K.T. Penn Exposed

I have had my fair share of irritating debates with debunkers, but this is one for the books. K.T. Penn, a man who has written a book titled Lifting Up the Couch Cushions: Exposing the Loose Change, has some of the oddest beliefs about 9/11 I have ever heard. Mr. Penn is known as "loosechangeexposed" on Youtube, and after commenting on my first video aimed at refuting his claims, he grew increasingly irritated and insisted that I had refuted nothing. Ultimately, he challenged me to make a response video to one particular Youtube video of his. Before jumping into that, let's take a look at some of this man's beliefs about 9/11. We've seen debunkers make some pretty questionable claims, but these claims are nothing short of extraordinary, especially by debunker standards.

Here are claims from a site advertising his book:

K.T. Penn believes Saddam Hussein masterminded the 9/11 attacks.

He believes his book will be included in the 9/11 Commission Report and taught in schools.

He believes the theory that Flight 77's wings folded back as it hit the Pentagon, allowing it to enter the building.

Some claims he made to me on Youtube:

He believes he is smarter than the 1300 architects and engineers for 9/11 truth.

He believes that I am apparently a "foreign douche."

And probably his oddest belief of all:



Anyway, here's the video he challenged me to refute. It supposedly proves what caused the damage on the lobby floor of the North Tower.



Now, I acknowledge that the issue of the lobby damage is controversial, but Mr. Penn's theory is completely wrong. I tried to post a link on the video in the comments section that refuted his claim, but...

Here's the picture I tried to link him to:



No matter how many times I sent him this picture, he still didn't believe me and claimed I had to make a video response. Well, I did just that.



Surprise surprise, he still doesn't believe me. I informed him I was done discussing the issue, as there are obviously more logical people I could be debating with. Hopefully no one will be stupid enough to be buying his book, but you never know. One odd thing I noticed though. For some reason, K.T. Penn apparently charges more money for a used book than a new one.



WTF?

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Actually, no Mr. Nobles...

I think it's time to correct you on a few issues.

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Joseph Nobles posted a response to my debunking of his posts on the thermal conductivity of the WTC steel and the corroded steel samples. And on Tuesday, he posted a request to me that I correct myself.

I'll be doing some correcting, but not of me.

Mr. Nobles claims that Kevin Ryan cherrypicked information in his critique of NIST's WTC 7 report.




Well obviously this upset me quite a bit. How dare Kevin Ryan cherrypick his info and trick me like that. Fortunately, I managed to get a message from Kevin Ryan about this issue. Here is what he wrote:

"If the question here is referring to my "Bush Science Reaches Its Peak" article on the WTC 7 report, and I think it is, then note that I did not say that NIST didn't "include a factor of thermal conductivity" in its model. You only have to read the article to see that the NIST manipulation I referred to had the set the thermal conductivity to zero, which is quite different than omitting it altogether. The fact that NIST set the thermal conductivity to zero in that instance is very clear and supported by the references given in my paper. As an analogy, if someone sets your thermostat to zero, that doesn't mean there is no temperature in your home, correct? Even if they set it to zero Kelvin (absolute zero), temperature would still be a factor (quite a substantial factor for you actually)."

So yes Mr. Nobles, NIST did include thermal conductivity as a factor. But because they set the conductivity to zero or near zero, they might as well have not included it at all.

Further distortions in the NIST report on thermal conductivity are also noted by Jim Hoffman in his critique of the NIST's report on the Twin Towers.

"NIST apparently ignored thermal conduction within its model of the steel structure. Since steel is a good conductor of heat, and the steel in the Twin Towers' structures was well connected, their massive steel structures would have drawn heat away from the parts that were exposed to fire. The Report describes a model of "The Fire-Structure Interface", and describes the computation of heat transfer between the air and the steel structure, but it does not mention the conduction of heat along spans of the steel structure.(p 131-2/181-2) The suspicion that NIST simply ignored the conduction of heat within the steel is corroborated by the Report's disclosure that they used heat transfer tests on isolated steel elements to calibrate their model.(p 134/184)"

As for the corroded steel, Mr. Nobles barely offered any reasonable response at all.



That's the problem Mr. Nobles. You claim that it was corroded after the collapse. But as I already pointed out, the people who actually examined the steel stated that it is "possible that the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure."

Mr. Nobles continually makes the argument that since whatever corroded the steel only approached 1000°C, it could not have been thermate, since thermate burns much hotter. What Mr. Nobles doesn't realize is that thermate can be formulated to burn at varying temperatures based on the quantity of the elements in it. A calculation for how the eutectic mixture could have approached 1000°C has been worked out by Jerry Lobdill in discussing the molten metal flowing out of WTC 2:

"Now consider the problem of the molten metal flowing from the 82nd floor of WTC 2. Some have suggested that this metal was the eutectic mixture of Fe and S. Let’s discuss that possibility. We assume that the steel that is cut from the columns is essentially pure Fe. It is melted and mixes with the thermate reaction products and then flows away by gravity. As the mixture cools, if the original molten mix was at S less than 31.4%, Fe begins to crystallize out. This increases the S% in the remaining mix. As the cooling continues, the S% increases until it reaches 31.4%, and this remaining molten eutectic mixture solidifies at 994 C (or 988 C, depending on which measurement you believe). So unless the original S% was 31.4%, the molten mass is crystallizing out solidified Fe as it flows downhill and cools. When, in the cooling process, the molten mass reaches the eutectic composition, it also reaches the eutectic temperature. At that temperature the remaining liquid gives up its latent heat of fusion and crystallizes as a microscopically heterogeneous solid with a (macroscopically) 31.4% S, 68.6% Fe composition. Once all the material has solidified the entire mass resumes cooling. We thus have a plausible explanation of why the material flowing from WTC 2 was orange-hot liquid (~1000 C)."

There are clearly many variations of thermite, thermate, and other incendiaries that can be formulated to reach higher and lower temperatures, as pointed out by Dr. Steven Jones.

"Of course, there is a straightforward way to achieve 1000°C temperatures (and well above) in the presence of sulfur, and that is to use thermate."

At the end of Mr. Nobles' response he offers a very obvious non-response to my other points.



First of all, yes, I did have to point out to you that the steel came from Building 7. Your first post on the topic mentioned nothing about Jonathan Barnetts's statement.

I responded to this post (a response that I know you read), and quoted Jonathan Barnett as saying that:

"They didn't use this particular type of steel in Towers 1 or Towers 2, so that's why we know its pedigree."

And in your post written after mine, you then included his quote.

You can call the fact that I had to point this information out to you as an "incredible assertion," but it's the truth.

Mr. Nobles is apparently unimpressed by Jonathan Cole's experiment, but others aren't, and that includes debunkers.

"I'm out of town most of the time of late so I have not been doing much 911 research these days. However, I did have a look at the video. I must say that I'm very impressed with Mr. Cole's experiment - nice job! It certainly looks convincing with regard to how the experiment was carried out and I'm very happy to see someone test something I suggested a few years ago.

I am prepared to admit that my initial proposal as to how steel was sulfided during the 911 events needs to be modified. Certainly it looks like diesel fuel, gypsum, concrete and aluminum alone are not going to do it ....."

-Dr. Frank Greening

Dr. Greening has suggested other natural causes of the sulfidation, but he acknowledges that his previous theories have been refuted.

This is the point I keep trying to get across to Mr. Nobles. If nothing natural inside the building could have corroded the steel, then obviously something unnatural must have been placed inside the building to cause it. Debunkers have presented several explanations for the corrosion of the steel. Well, the explanations have been put to the test. The experiment has been done. The burden of proof is now on the debunkers to show that something natural could have melted and corroded the steel.

Well, I corrected the errors Mr. Nobles, just like you wanted. But of course, it turned out I wasn't the one needing correcting.

Side note: Special thanks to John-Michael Talboo and all his contacts for their help.

Update:

Joseph Nobles has responded to the above (sort of). He still insists that NIST adequately included thermal conductivity in their reports. I still see evidence of fraud in the reports, but this matter could be completely resolved if NIST would release their modeling data for review. And he ignored my sections on the eutectic steel, except for his claim that I didn't correct him about where the steel came from. Decide for yourself:



Mr. Nobles' response ends with the following:



Ignore me all you want Mr. Nobles. It does seem to be the debunker way these days.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Controlled Demolition Expert Mark Loizeaux Produces Signed Confession Regarding Destruction of WTC Buildings on 9/11!

A reader writes:

Hi, I'm a great fan of your work.

Recently, a debunker offered a unique criticism of the thermite issue that I've never seen before. I'd really appreciate if you could address and debunk his criticism. That would really help the truth movement.

Without further ado, here is a link to the criticism: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=4607894#post4607894

the debunker added - "And something not mentioned there is that he did not test the combustion of the substance in an inert atmosphere. Thermite has its own oxidizer, so test it in a oxygen free environment and it might help to prove that it is indeed thermite. Why don't you ask them why they refuse to run this simple test?"

I would really appreciate it if you could address these concerns. Thank you."
Thanks for the compliment. I wrote one of the authors of the paper and shared your comment with him, here is his reply:

We ran the test the way we did because the literature described a previous test of nanothermite that was run in an ordinary atmosphere. If we had run it in an inert atmosphere, we would not have been able to compare apples to apples in terms of the energy released.

We agree that the test you are describing should be run by someone. We did our study on a shoestring budget as pro bono work, and there are many tests that we have not been able to run yet. It would be nice if others would pick up the ball and do some tests rather than continuing to ask us to do everything. I'm not saying that every one of our critics should perform such tests, but those who have the qualifications and the interest in the topic should consider investing a little more than they have been investing so far to get to the bottom of what really happened on 9/11.

Also, some people seem to think that it is up to us to answer every possible question about the topic of our paper before one single part of it will be taken seriously. When will the data that we DID provide either be explained differently in a manner that has scientific integrity, or else be accepted for what it is, and a new investigation following proper procedures be initiated? Some people will never believe us no matter how many tests are run. They wouldn't believe in the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center even if Mark Loizeaux produced a signed confession. - Gregg Roberts, 911research.wtc7.net, ae911truth.org
Note: Mark Loizeaux is quoted as saying, "I'd make a great terrorist," but he didn't really sign a confession statement. :)

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A response to the nuttier response to David Chandler's nutty claims.

A debunker has posted a video in response to David Chandler's recent video "South Tower Smoking Guns".

My take:

The first point I agree with, it probably was just smoke escaping, but their response to Chandler's second smoking gun only focuses on the trail aspect, and not the much more damning fact that the object is falling faster than freefall, as if it was launched downwards. A much more obvious downward ejection can be seen in photographs and videos of the north tower's destruction...

You see that big piece of steel on the right hand side of the picture that's lined up with the roof of Tower 7? In certain videos of the north tower's destruction you can see that it "falls" much faster than the other falling material. The only explanation for this is that the piece had to have been launched downwards by some kind of explosive force.

Included are video clips of the ABC Balzac-Vitry demolition, used to demonstrate how a crushdown is possible. However, although the maker asserts that "Both the upper and lower sections of the buildings [sic] are disintegrated by the buildings [sic] own gravitational energy", they do not show an image of what that building looked like afterwards...

So much for "disintegrated"! Those videos don't debunk anything. In fact they actually demonstrate that a block of falling floors will slow down after colliding with lower floors. Something which Chandler and others have proved didn't happen in the case of the North tower.

As for the projectile, I'm not convinced by it either. I am however now highly intrigued by this missile-like projectile, launched from the collapsing North tower, that hits Building 7.

http://rapidshare.com/files/270158025/NTWTC7HIT.mpg

Related Info:

Click here to see a recent debate on this blog with the same so-called debunker.

South Tower: Exploding Projectile

STEVEN E. JONES: NANOTHERMITE (new DVD) - Watch it online now