Yes, I decided to take a little break. The news was boring. The timing was right. 2010 needed to be put to rest in a relaxing way. I can say that I didn't have too bad of a year. I suppose a few things could have been better but, overall, I can't complain.
So, what was I doing while I was away from my blog? I was arguing. I was arguing on Facebook with a bunch of people who refer to themselves as "truthers," which is interesting since they deal with practically everything but the truth.
I am not surprised by people who are skeptical. I have great respect for people that question things. Certainly, I would never advocate believing everything the government tells us. I think anyone can understand that there are some things that the government needs to keep from its citizens. On the other hand, one should not be so skeptical that they push out all rational thought, to the point where they impede themselves from learning, or opening themselves up to new information.
I have a soft spot in my heart for many of these folks, because, I too, used to listen to Alex Jones, and William Cooper. Back then, we didn't have a name of "truthers." There was no name for any of us. Also, originally, I didn't hear about the explosives being planted in the buildings until much later. I watched all of the videos and went on the websites, like inforwars. Wow! I was truly convinced but, I wanted more information.
It basically started when I decided to do some research on the sources that Alex Jones was using and, one source after the next proved that Alex Jones was not telling us what those documents REALLY said. He also would misquote people or, take their words out of context.
It was around this time that I was going back to school and learning things about chemistry and physics. The theory had changed to include explosives and, once that happened, I totally stopped listening to all the nonsense. There are so many problems with making these silly assertions, I finally had enough.
At first I thought maybe Alex Jones really believes what he says and, maybe he's just a lousy researcher but, as the years have gone by, I am 100 percent convinced that him and his ilk are propagandists-- the Tokyo Rose of our time. He is a tool of the left-wing socialists, placed in the public eye to divide us, to prey upon the anti-science, anti-thinkers of our culture.
Let's just start with ONE example of how Alex Jones and the truther movement distort information, making it seem like it's plausible.
Molten Steel. This is one of the first things you will hear these truthers throw at you. They use the same tactics of kids on a playground -- ask questions that are completely absurd and, believe that the fact you asked something, makes it true. They will claim that molten steel was found at the WTC site.
Indeed, there was molten metal but, why do we assume it's steel? We know that much of the temperatures of the fires at the WTC, did not go near the temps that are required to melt steel.
Steel is a homogeneous mixture of iron and carbon, and sometimes alloys can include: manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten. As steel is heated, it will change structure, there are also variances in steel depending on how much carbon is present. You can read about this all over, but, bottom line is, approximate melting temperature of steel is 2750 F. However, keep in mind that all metals expand when heated. So, they have this factor that is called the expansion coefficient. The idea behind this is just stating that when a metal is heated, the elements become excited and vibrate. These vibrations create space between the atoms and slowly expand out.
Now, please keep in mind, I am trying to keep this as simple as possible and will provide you with all the links you need but, I just want to put this into a simplistic idea. If you have a pickle jar, the lid is tin, and you can't open it, you just simply run it under some hot water. Why? Well, it temporarily expands the lid, in the slightest way, making it easier to open. Why does it do this? Well, as I explained before, when any metal is heated, it will expand slightly. It cools and will go right back to the original shape. So, you see, you didn't melt the tin, you just expanded it a little.
This is what happened with steel but, at much greater temperatures. The metal expanded, it cooled, it expanded, it got more and more heat from all the various elements and, eventually, the structure gave way. In fact, because of the fireproofing and the way the buildings were designed, it is a miracle that the buildings stood up as long as they did!
Now, getting back to the molten metal that we are told is steel by the conspiracy theorists. What else was at the WTC? What were the planes made of? Why they were made of aluminum. Not only was the aluminum light but, much of it would have melted almost instantly due to the friction that was experienced when the planes hit the buildings.
Take your hand and rub it back and forth on your pants. Do you feel the heat? This is heat produced by friction. Eventually, you will feel lots of heat. Now, can you imagine how much heat was produced when the plane hit the building going 500 mph? That would be some incredible heat from just the friction alone. Certainly we KNOW that we will find molten aluminum at the WTC site. How could we not? So, when a conspiracy theorist tells you, "look it's molten steel." One has to question what's more logical-- the aluminum that we KNOW was present and would melt at the temperatures of the fire or, the steel that we know the fires, overall, probably weren't able to totally melt?
Just to note it has been reported that there were many pocket of heat that were at the WTC that may have been able to melt some steel but, it is more likely the molten metal the conspiracy theorists are showing you is not at all steel but, aluminum.
Remember too, that hot, liquid aluminum exposed to water and oxygen (from the oxygen tanks in the airplanes), would have resulted in explosions.
Of course the conspiracy theorists make no mention of any of these various things, leaving the readers into thinking that there is something more to the story, that the government is lying to us, that something nefarious is going on, etc. When all along, the truth is very simple. The molten metal is aluminum. The steel lost it's structure from the heat and gave way.
There is much more at this
link.
What I believe is mostly missing from the conspirators analysis of events, concerns their lack of understanding about science and how to interpret information. They are very limited in their views, in that they seem to believe or "jump on" the first explanation given to them about something and, afterwords work hard to shut out opposing explanations. What also is lacking is their understanding of logic. It is because, they are working up to a final conclusion, that there is some mass conspiracy, they only allow commentary that allows for the conclusion they have in mind.
Science is not supposed to be about proving an end point that you want. Science is about following a logical path and, where it leads you, for good or bad. Many times, their ideas have been thoroughly debunked but, instead of admitting it's probably not part of a conspiracy, they simply change the story to keep the conspiracy as the end point.
They also do not understand that even in controlled laboratory experiments, the scientists will always find side-reactions, inconsistencies, and a number of various things that were never anticipated occur. Another problem I see, is they appear to explain things as if they occurred in a vacuum. They try and make comparisons to other buildings that were caught on fire -- buildings that were not hit by airplanes and had thousands of pounds of jet-fuel burn inside them, buildings that were constructed completely different, etc. They consistently make these comparisons only dealing with ONE variant, ignoring all other aspects.
The fact is, you cannot do that. You have to understand that this was not only random, we really have no comparable sources for this type of event anywhere. What happened at WTC is the benchmark for this type of incident. It is very important that the information is thoroughly vetted.
To say that there was some conspiracy, it would require: many people in all levels of the government being involved, the firemen, many policeman, I was also informed that anyone who doesn't agree with their movement works for the government (yes, they all repeat this line and, anyone like Popular Mechanics-- they were also paid by the government), the insurance companies underwriters and agents, an extensive demolition team, countless airline employees, all of the press --Fox- CNN-MSNBC-all the alphabet channels, and goodness knows who else...all these people would have to be involved in this massive cover-up.
Does that make more sense to you than, hijackers taking over the planes and crashing them into the Pentagon and WTC?
Here are all the links you'll ever need!
On those pages, you will find even MORE links and MORE information to help arm you with the real science, and not people that are trying to sell a book, or give you half-truths.
