In retrospect, I should have just included a statement about my disagreement with information showing why. I have done this before, but was thinking of taking the route of not promoting such sites whatsoever, but the baby with the bathwater adage holds true. It would have been better that Shermer's readers found this site as opposed to a dead link! - John-Michael P. Talboo
911 Truth: Michael Shermer's Amateur Disinformation Attempt Fails (again!)
Steve Weathers
http://911debunkers.blogspot.com
February 4, 2010
[911 Blogger Comment:] How unbelievably ignorant. I love how he speaks in incredibly general terms throughout the article to conceal evidence, such as how he says "All evidence for thermite is thus far inconclusive" without elaborating on said evidence. He doesn't mention the red/gray chips with explosive tendencies and identical chemical signatures. He just says "it's inconclusive". Regardless, pretty much all of his rebuttals have been refuted at some point or another already. This is just more of the same. - Arcterus
Paragraph 1:
Like unsinkable rubber duckies, everytime you push down the fatuous arguments of the 9/11 “truthers,” who believe that the U.S. government was complicit in the attacks on that fateful day in September, they just pop back up. In response to my blog here, 9/11 Truthers Foiled by 12/25 Attack, the “truthers” have fired back with a series of questions for me, not about Al Qaeda and bin Laden taking credit for the Xmas day underwear bomber, or for 7/7, or Lisbon, or the attack on the World Trade Center buildings in the early 1990s, but on specific “anomalies” in the collapse of the WTC buildings, in the mistaken belief that if I cannot address each and every anomaly they believe they have found, then this is proof positive that Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld, and company are guilty. Here is their challenge to me: http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2010/01/response-to-michael-shermer.html
Mr. Shermer this blog has tackled most of the subjects you mention. By all means try to rebunk this nuanced commentary...
Alleged 9/11 Plotters Offer to Confess at Guantánamo - What Does it Mean to the 9/11 Truth Movement?
BBC Propaganda: Is Osama Bin Laden dead or alive?
BBC 7/7 "Documentary": Just a hitpiece, or something more sinister?
The Christmas Underwear Terrorist
Paragraph 2:
The "handful of unexplained anomalies", like bullets dug out of a body at a crime scene, do change the landscape significantly here- as you would expect in any forensic investigation. It's hard science Mr. Shermer shirks. To confabulate this scientific evidence with things such as "creationism and crank theories of physics" is lunacy. Shermer's claim that a "convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry" is necessary to get a good idea of what really happened belies the fact that the official evidence he refers to has been almost entirely debunked. Nevertheless, when multiple lines of forensic evidence all point in one direction- that explosives and thermate incendiary material were used to being down the buildings - then we have to defer to this logic. Shermer needs to understand that "evidence" must be substantiated.
Paragraph 3:
His next attempt is classic 911 debunker obfuscation. Rather than dealing with the fact that Molten Steel was discovered in the rubble pile (and that this was due to thermate incendiary action) we are told that molten steel is not necessary to cause a collapse of the buildings since office fires need only weaken the steel. Apart from the fact that no steel framed high rise structure has ever completely collapsed due to fires, he avoids the point that Molten Steel was present. Hello !!
Paragraph 4:
He resorts to the "buildings were 95 empty space argument..." Well on the atomic level we are also mostly empty space. He avoids basic common sense here.
Paragraph 5:
His idea that the building collapses did not travel straight down through the path of greatest resistance is crazy. The videos all disprove his claims. The tops do tilt slightly but the collapse front below the tilting tops are straight down. Building 7 is a straight down collapse.
Paragraph 6:
"Controlled demolitions are done from the bottom up, not the top down" False. If you search YouTube you will see a number that are done from top and middle down. Controlled demolitions can be arranged in all manner of ways. [This is really like shooting fish in a barrel. Michael Shermer is not a debunker but a clown.]
Paragraph 7:
(Resorting to the lies of a demolition expert): Shermer, your expert witness, from Protec, is discredited by the fact that he lies and misrepresents the evidence.
Claim #1: The collapse of the towers looked exactly like controlled demolitions.
Protec: No they did not. The key to any demolition investigation is in finding out the “where”—the actual point at which the building failed. All photographic evidence shows World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2 failed at the point of impact. Actual implosion demolitions always start with the bottom floors. Photo evidence shows the lower floors of WTC 1 and 2 were intact until destroyed from above.
Counter claim: Not all demolition collapses begin from the bottom floors. The towers demolitions could easily be started at any point in the buildings if they were rigged from top to bottom.
Claim #2: But they fell right down into their own footprint.
Protec: They did not. They followed the path of least resistance and there was a lot of resistance. Buildings of 20 stories or more do not topple over like trees or reinforced towers or smokestacks. Imploding demolitions fall into a footprint because lower stories are removed first. WTC debris was forced out away from the building as the falling mass encountered intact floors.
Counter claim: This is obfuscation. Yes, WTC7 fell into its own footprint. The Twin Towers were blasted having lateral ejections of heavy debris- impossible without explosives.
Claim #3: Explosive charges are seen shooting from several floors just prior to collapse.
Protec: No, air and debris can be seen being violently ejected from the building—a natural and predictable effect of rapid structure collapse.
Counter claim: This point is contentious but rather than due to compressed air or debris shooting out it is likely due to explosive forces. Many of these points of ejection are well below the collapse front.
Claim #4: Witnesses heard explosions.
Protec: All Seismic evidence from many independent sources on 9/11 showed none of the sudden vibration spikes that result from explosive detonations.
Counter claim: Lack of seismic evidence does not negate the fact that explosves were heard. Many people heard explosions. In WTC7 Barry Jennings and Michael Hess were almost killed by an explosion. In other known controlled demolitions the signatures from the explosions do not always register on the seismographs. If the bombs are not directly connected to the ground, but rather to the steel structures, then we see the cutting of the columns rather than their shaking you would need to get a decent signal into the ground.
Claim #5: A heat generating explosive (thermite?) melted steel at ground Zero.Protec: To a man, demolition workers do not report encountering molten steel, cut beams or any evidence of explosions. Claims of detected traces of thermite are at this time inconclusive.
And no, Protec is wrong. The traces of Thermite, found in the rubble, are conclusive.
Claim #6: Ground Zero debris—particularly the large steel columns from towers 1 and 2—were quickly shipped overseas to prevent scrutiny.
Protec: Not according to those who handled the steel. The chain of procession is clearly documented, first at ground Zero by Protec and later at the Fresh Kills site by Yannuzzi Demolition. The time frame (months) before it was shipped to China was normal.
Counter claim - See: WTC Steel Removal - The Expeditious Destruction of the Evidence at Ground Zero
Claim #7: WTC7 was intentionally “pulled down” with explosives. The building owner himself was quoted as saying he decided to “pull it.”
Protec: Building owners do not have authority over emergency personal at a disaster scene. We have never heard “pull it” used to refer to an explosive demolition. Demolition explosive experts anticipated the collapse of WTC7, and also witnessed it from a few hundred feet away and no one heard detonations.
Counter claim - See: Larry Silverstein, WTC 7, and the "Pull it" comment
Plus which explosive demolitions experts at the time anticipated the collapse of the building ? Word on the street was that the building was gonna be coming down. The film of its collapse, showing a freefall period, indicates that this HAD to have been done via explosives.
Claim #8: Steel-frame buildings do not collapse due to fire.
Protec: Many steel-framed buildings have collapsed due to fire.
Counter claim: Nope, Steel framed high rise buildings do not completely collapse due to fires. There are no examples. We have some partial collapses but nothing like the complete symmetrical demolitions we witnessed on 911.
Claim #9: Anyone who denies that explosives were used is ignoring evidence.
Protec: Most of our comments apply to the differences between what people actually saw on 9/11 and what they should have seen had explosives been present. The hundreds of men and women who worked to remove debris from ground zero were some of the countries most experienced and respected demolition veterans. They of all people processed the experience and expertise to recognize evidence of controlled demolition if it existed. None of these people has come forward with suspicions that explosives were used.
Counter claim: Protec and others working on the clean up need to be interviewed and investigated. We have many witnesses on record indicating there was molten steel. We have scientific analysis and pictures of molten steel. Despite the evidence here we have spokespeople, defending the Government account, saying that this is not true.
The differences we see between the Protec expectations and reality can be accounted for via their own denial of evidence and the fact that non-standard techniques were used to bring down these buildings.
Summary:
To believe anything Shermer presents, one must abandon all logic, the Laws of physics, and the evidence of your own eyes. We are witness here to a poor attempt at disinformation.
No one will believe such obvious lies.
Mr. Shermer, you cannot fool all the people all of the time. Facts have a nasty way of sorting things out. You should know better.
Debunkers = Debunked (again) !!
Related Info:
Why James Randi, Michael Shermer and other Pseudoskeptics are NOT real skeptics!
Michael Shermer's Projections
How Pseudoskeptics hijack "Skepticism" to mean its opposite: Disinformation, Mind Control and Suppression
They Are the Ones Who Are Not Skeptics
I have seen the light! [Satire]
Circular Rationalism
JREF Forum posts: "Comprehensive characteristics of the pseudoskeptic"
Debunking Myths on Conspiracy Theories
