>> ^Friesian:

One thing that stuck in my craw about this was his brief mention of how the collapse looked like a controlled demolition, and how he then compared the WTC collapse to an actual controlled demolition.
With my admittedly lacking knowledge, controlled demolitions have explosives throughout the whole building, including the lower floors. When they push the plunger for the controlled demolotion, you can see the explosions on each floor (including the lower floors) as the building starts to come down.
If this was a controlled demolition, disguised with the smoke and mirrors of an aircraft ramming into the side, why did we see no molten steel, smoke or other craziness coming out of the ground or first floor? Or any of the lower floors? AND from the bottom up (as I believe it is done in controlled demolition)?
Finally, even if all it would have taken to collapse the WTC in a manner which made it look like a controlled demolition is some thermite/thermate on the 50th odd floor (sorry, I forget exactly which floor the aircraft hit), isn't that a bit of a gamble on the part of the people behind the "conspiracy"? I mean, you need a pilot who is able to fly a passenger jet directly into the correct floor of a building. To me that sounds like a tough thing to do, hitting a building in exactly the right place while travelling at high speed. A slight cock-up from the pilot and you'd have plane explosion and damage in one place, and then 25 floors below you'd be able to see all this molten steel from the thermite/thermate? Bit of a give away if you ask me.
I dunno - if you're going to go to all these lengths to have a pretense to invade somewhere, surely you'd rely on a plan that didn't have a large chance to be immediately exposed? Maybe I've been ruined by Hollywood's crazy and grandiose schemes, but I'd like to think that the "bad guys" would come up with a better, and more reliable, plan than this?
edit: I feel I should mention that I do think it's odd how the WTC towers collapsed. Without going into the wonderful world of science, it just seems odd that any building hit that high up would collapse straight down—probably a throw-back to my childhood days of building towers with my play bricks and then throwing my toys at it. However, I just can't bring myself to accept that this was a controlled explosion. It just doesn't seem to add up to me, much in the same way that the actual collapse doesn't add up. My internal jury is still out on this one.


The buildings simply obeyed Newtonian mechanics. First you have inertia. It takes A HUGE FORCE with that much mass in play to make it go in any direction. But, guess what, nature is already forcing it to go in one direction--and it's winning. That direction is of course down, due to gravity. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, the building is ALREADY going down, that's why it has to be supported. When it began to pancake the mass continued in it's plane of reference and fell straight down. The structure below was meant to hold it up, but in a pancake scenario the side walls and supports are presented with lateral forces far higher (due to the mass and gravity) than designed to mitigate. With the ONE thing that was meant to hold up the building useless it simply continued all the way down.

Interestingly, the building hit the furthest down collapsed first (even though it was hit last). This lends more credence to gravity being the main player. Massive objects like that do not change direction easily; trust me it's the movies or you're watching very weak structures collapse. If a plane impact barely made it wobble, I doubt you could move it sideways unless you literally designed it to collapse that way. Again, inertia. Just think what it's like trying to push a train off a track. Now imagine pushing a building off a track. Won't happen unless it's designed to.

One thing that stuck in my craw about this was his brief mention of how the collapse looked like a controlled demolition, and how he then compared the WTC collapse to an actual controlled demolition.

With my admittedly lacking knowledge, controlled demolitions have explosives throughout the whole building, including the lower floors. When they push the plunger for the controlled demolotion, you can see the explosions on each floor (including the lower floors) as the building starts to come down.

If this was a controlled demolition, disguised with the smoke and mirrors of an aircraft ramming into the side, why did we see no molten steel, smoke or other craziness coming out of the ground or first floor? Or any of the lower floors? AND from the bottom up (as I believe it is done in controlled demolition)?

Finally, even if all it would have taken to collapse the WTC in a manner which made it look like a controlled demolition is some thermite/thermate on the 50th odd floor (sorry, I forget exactly which floor the aircraft hit), isn't that a bit of a gamble on the part of the people behind the "conspiracy"? I mean, you need a pilot who is able to fly a passenger jet directly into the correct floor of a building. To me that sounds like a tough thing to do, hitting a building in exactly the right place while travelling at high speed. A slight cock-up from the pilot and you'd have plane explosion and damage in one place, and then 25 floors below you'd be able to see all this molten steel from the thermite/thermate? Bit of a give away if you ask me.

I dunno - if you're going to go to all these lengths to have a pretense to invade somewhere, surely you'd rely on a plan that didn't have a large chance to be immediately exposed? Maybe I've been ruined by Hollywood's crazy and grandiose schemes, but I'd like to think that the "bad guys" would come up with a better, and more reliable, plan than this?

edit: I feel I should mention that I do think it's odd how the WTC towers collapsed. Without going into the wonderful world of science, it just seems odd that any building hit that high up would collapse straight down—probably a throw-back to my childhood days of building towers with my play bricks and then throwing my toys at it. However, I just can't bring myself to accept that this was a controlled explosion. It just doesn't seem to add up to me, much in the same way that the actual collapse doesn't add up. My internal jury is still out on this one.

The Teaparty is astroturfing --- ie. fake grassroots funded by .. ta da, rich white people

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tea_Party_movement_funding
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html

Its smoke and mirrors to distract. Its nothing. There is no spoon.

no offense to anyone meant
but on subjects not directly related to the economy or money, its not important, or an indication of the republic working

its just smoke and mirrors, what the "two" parties use to differentiate themselves

the really important stuff, like economics, war, military industrial complex, etc... both parties are exactly the same on the issue... and stuff like this is allowed to happen to make people think they actually have some impact in a society where government is the lackey of corporate interest and greed

i'm sure this is important to alot of people, but don't lose sight of the fact that if your master was willing to throw you that bone, they probably weren't that attached to it in the first place

look over here, but not over here

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^gwiz665:
Degenerating into the dark ages.

They did this in the dark ages?


Yeah,in the dark ages people were kept at a basic operating level of literacy and critical thinking was frowned upon....not unlike today, keeping the masses distracted by inconsequential bullshit like this, while behind the scenes, preparing for more consolidation of power, control, and empire.

Welcome to the double-aughts.

This is not news, it's fucking rhetoric associated with more distracting rhetoric, like why the fuck a health care bill is more important than the leaky southern borders, banks in collusion with the fed to maintain their ability to commit similar future economic smoke and mirrors, or anything else that would move society fast-forward towards consciousness and self-awareness.

Now that we have a new health care plan, I will continue doing my part to see that myself, and my children, and my children's children, understand how to treat their bodies so they won;t need to avail themselves of band-aids in the form of insulin, pig heart valves, or Bariatric surgery to correct years of self-abuse.

Beware all the smoke and mirrors...

you stated about the "thermite babble".
ok...that should be a topic of discussion


I would disagree, it should NOT be a topic of discussion. It deserves as much discussion as questions about Obama's birth certificate. It is a waste of time. I will gladly try to clarify the 'thermite babble' with friends, family and people I meet who believe it, I consider at least attempting that discussion worthwhile. I will avoid listening to hours of video that includes the 'thermite babble', that is relatively worthless.

I consider it akin to refuting the latest cult of the day. I consider watching Scientology's latest video to be relatively worthless. I do however consider discussing Scientology with friends, family and people I meet who don't know it's a scam worthwhile. I've already picked up enough about Hubbard that I really don't see the need for anymore proof for the truth of things. I don't feel a need to spend days and nights going through every piece of teaching anyone in Scientology has ever come out with before rejecting it all as not worth my time and a bad source for useful information. I consider videos that believe in the thermite myth to be in the same category of proven non-utility.


the "conspiracy theory" we were given and the questions therein have never been fully answered by the american government.


I'm not sure which 'conspiracy' you refer to. For certain I agree lots of what happened around 9/11 has not been answered, in particular a lot of what happened immediately after. My previous point though ties into my response here. Videos talking about thermite are one of the poorest places to go looking for those answers. The answer to the biggest question though is clear. Al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The proper response to that is littered with a lot of smoke and mirrors and a century of geo-politics, and I don't see any of the trailers for these videos looking as promising sources for wading through that.


i have no problem with disagreements,but at least digest the material before you critique said material.


Well, I've now watched the two that looked the most worthwhile.

"War Made Easy" didn't provide a single piece of novel information, and was little more than archived news footage with a one sided commentary read by Sean Penn. I learnt nothing as expected and wouldn't reccomend it to anyone. I'd in fact argue against someone not informed about recent history watching it for the very false image that it protrays of recent history taken all by itself without knowing the things the film leaves out.

"Why We Fight" confirms what I said I expected as the high mark of the videos. It includes some new footage and interviews, although the information found in those videos that is new/novel is trivial in nature. The major points and facts it does present are all available in other places, and with better context. More over, it presents an extremely one sided picture and works more strongly as a propaganda piece than as an informative work.

For anyone under the delusion that corruption isn't rampant in American government, this video has important information. There are better sources for that information though, and to be honest no video is likely to persuade people so deluded anyways. In the real world though, one has to actually look beyond the state of America and look also at the geopolitics of the places it is in conflict with. Yes, we all know Cheney is corrupt and his actions have been criminal, that isn't the final word on the Iraq conflict. In many ways, that fact is barely a footnote.

Both videos, as I've said elsewhere, follow the same road to failure as the mainstream media, and the same road to failure they themselves decry. That failure is the oversimplfication of geo-politics and it's causes. Both videos present the problem in American foreign policy as simply being too militaristic, and the solution as simple as reducing military spending or better media coverage of arising conflicts. If only the world where truly that simple. In reality things are vastly more complicated, and there is a wealth of video, interviews, and documentaries that attempt to investigate and reveal the layers of that complexity. These videos though are no where near that world.

Barnanke knows Paul is a formidable person to be dealing with. Paul pokes holes into what is being done and shows that it is all smoke and mirrors. Great job and keep at it. At least someone is looking out for the well being and stability of the USA.. so many are not.

It's obvious you're niether a medical professional nor have ever had acupuncture. So keep trying to make sense by agreeing that it works but not to your satisfaction... how would YOU know?

This sounds pretty plausible to me, rather than the rantings of some random idiot.

It's not based on smoke and mirrors, and spirits and "humours"... but results.. and results are results. Everyone's body is different, and we dont even fully know how it all works yet. I'm not going to get acupuncture but i'm not going to rule it out because you're being a spaz.

----------------------------------


Several processes have been proposed to explain acupuncture's effects, primarily those on pain. Acupuncture points are believed to stimulate the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) to release chemicals into the muscles, spinal cord, and brain. These chemicals either change the experience of pain or release other chemicals, such as hormones, that influence the body's self-regulating systems. The biochemical changes may stimulate the body's natural healing abilities and promote physical and emotional well-being.13 There are three main mechanisms:




Conduction of electromagnetic signals: Western scientists have found evidence that acupuncture points an strategic conductors of electromagnetic signals. Stimulating points along these pathways through acupuncture enables electromagnetic signals to be relayed at it greater rate than under normal conditions. These signals may start the flow of pain-killing biochemicals such as endorphins and of immune system cells to specific sites that are injured or vulnerable to disease.14,15


Activation of opioid systems: research has found that several types of opioids may be released into the central nervous system during acupuncture treatment, thereby reducing pain.16


Changes in brain chemistry sensation, and Involuntary body functions: studies have shown that acupuncture may alter brain chemistry by changing the release of neurotransmitters and neurohormones in a good way. Acupuncture also has been documented to affect the parts of the central nervous system related to sensation and involuntary body functions, such as immune reactions and processes whereby a person's blood pressure, blood flow, and body temperature are regulated.3,17,18
---


It sounds to me like a very refined method of manipulating bio chemistry. I suppose you think meditation and exercise are useless as well. Stay in school.

>> ^nibiyabi:
And how do you think we interpret these signals? With our feet? The blindspot by itself is really just a function of the eye, yes, but our ability to detect a continuous bar when our eye is utterly incapable of doing so could only be thanks to our wonderful pattern-seeking brain.

If you've got a horizontal bar and you cut out a chunk in the middle and then stitch the remaining ends together, what would you expect it to look like? Seems like a stretch to call this #brain to me, but fair enough.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
I dont think magic even exists, but this, like the above mentioned tricks and illusions, has that "wow, thats magic!" feel to it, so I placed it in magic. It also feels mysterious, and I never mentioned Psychology.

I guess I don't feel it's magic because it's not deliberate. It's not sleight of hand or smoke and mirrors or whatever; they're just pointing out an anomaly. They've given it sort of a magic presentation, I'll give you that. In fact, that sort of bothers me.

#mystery is "Videos that deal with unsolved mysteries, crimes, or the unexplained." Don't feel it fits despite the "Woah! How'd that happen?" response it might illicit in some.

You didn't label it psychology but they call it such twice in the video. That, of course, is just ridiculous.

I find this particularly disturbing. And I think a lot of other people do too. I just wish more of the American public cared. I think there is so much smoke and mirrors going on that are distracting most from this kind of stuff. That and the MSM is in the pocket of DC.

You know foreign countries like China are looking at this and are doing what they can to get out of the dollar. Shouldn't be any wonder that China has been building up their gold reserves and is pushing the IMF to sell some more gold so that they can buy it with all those dollar reserves they've got.

People wonder why gold remains so high and it's ineptitude like this that answer the question. Looking at the ExactPrice widget I see gold is at $926.60 right now. Even silver is up. My guess they will remain up until inflation sets in from printing all that money to make up for that missing trillions.

I liked what Peter Grandich had to say about this: "I must say this news and some follow-up research I’ve done in the wee hours scares the living daylight out of me. I’ve been in the trenches for 25 years. I remember the mood immediately after the 1987 stock market crash, sadly after 911 and other terrible events but in all honesty, this display of ineptness and bewilderment by the person in charge of watching the people in charge of the printing press, has taken me to new lows of confidence in my government and our future."

It's smoke and mirrors. "Free" energy that has detailed explanations, but no formula are -always- crackpottery at best, and fraud at worst. Dardik would seem to have a fascination for "wave energy", and a habit of fraudulent claims of their capabilities (for large sums of money).

His medical license was revoked for fraud back in 1995 by the New York Dept of Health. Further support would come from one of his "patients", who was charged $100,000 for this quackery.

http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/Dardik/review.html

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-9377769_ITM

Now it would appear that since he can no longer make money from fraudulent medical practices, he's found another way to try. My prediction: any investor is going to pay his gullibility tax.

Not being a nuclear physicist, I hope that this new process isn't just smoke and mirrors. *engineeering

>> ^Payback:
I should go back and redact my previous post, because I went at it from the angle that what they show in the video was fact, but they claimed it was perpetual motion, which it isn't.
THEY ARE LYING.
1) The machine outside is either being towed, the video is playing backwards, or the contraption is actually moving INTO the wind, not with it.
2) The reason why the treadmill actually proves them WRONG is easier to understand when you realize the air speed of the air inside the room is NOT a factor. The ONLY airspeed you should consider is the airflow past the propeller. The air 1/100,000 inch away from the outer edge of the propeller could be 300mph, and it wouldn't impact this one bit. So...
It is a simple machine.
OUTSIDE:
Air pushes propeller (actually a turbine), which turns elastic band, which turns gears, which turns wheels, which push against the ground.
When you put it on the treadmill...
Ground pushes wheels, to gears, to eleastic, to prop, pushes air.
While on the treadmill, the contraption only generates enough thrust to move it barely to the right, while, if you were to believe THEIR physics, it should move to the right at a velocity equal to the treadmill PLUS an amount because the airflow THROUGH the propeller should be GREATER than the speed of the treadmill. It is obviously moving MUCH slower to the right than the treadmill moves to the left, therefore disproving them. Remember, EVERYTHING not going through the propeller blades ARE NOT CONSIDERED IN THE "WIND MOVING OVER GROUND IS EQUAL TO GROUND MOVING UNDER WIND" FALSEHOOD. ONLY the air through the propellers can be considered. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.


EXACTLY!

Furthermore, wind can not blow into the propeller to make it spin the right direction to provide thrust in the opposite direction the wind is blowing.

There is NO POSSIBLE WAY that this machine is even wind powered at all... just think about it people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propeller

A propeller is not a sail... end of the frickin' discussion

I should go back and redact my previous post, because I went at it from the angle that what they show in the video was fact, but they claimed it was perpetual motion, which it isn't.

THEY ARE LYING.

1) The machine outside is either being towed, the video is playing backwards, or the contraption is actually moving INTO the wind, not with it.

2) The reason why the treadmill actually proves them WRONG is easier to understand when you realize the air speed of the air inside the room is NOT a factor. The ONLY airspeed you should consider is the airflow past the propeller. The air 1/100,000 inch away from the outer edge of the propeller could be 300mph, and it wouldn't impact this one bit. So...

It is a simple machine.

OUTSIDE:

Air pushes propeller (actually a turbine), which turns elastic band, which turns gears, which turns wheels, which push against the ground.

When you put it on the treadmill...

Ground pushes wheels, to gears, to eleastic, to prop, pushes air.

While on the treadmill, the contraption only generates enough thrust to move it barely to the right, while, if you were to believe THEIR physics, it should move to the right at a velocity equal to the treadmill PLUS an amount because the airflow THROUGH the propeller should be GREATER than the speed of the treadmill. It is obviously moving MUCH slower to the right than the treadmill moves to the left, therefore disproving them. Remember, EVERYTHING not going through the propeller blades ARE NOT CONSIDERED IN THE "WIND MOVING OVER GROUND IS EQUAL TO GROUND MOVING UNDER WIND" FALSEHOOD. ONLY the air through the propellers can be considered. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.