We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Confirming one’s suspicions David Shayler, the ex-M15 spook, always struck me as being only 90 cents to the dollar. I bumped into this character a few years ago at a bash hosted by Privacy International, a perfectly sensible campaigning group. This item if it is true (via the Register), suggests I am right about the dark-haired one.
Methinks M needs to tighten up the recruitment criteria.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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JP – I think you forgot the link. I assume you meant to link to Mr Shayler’s “outdoes David Icke” moment on More4.
Also, Shayler was MI-5 so M (SIS – commonly MI-6) wouldn’t have anything to do with it. And it’s C anyway.
Sorry for the pedantry
He’s been associated with the “9/11 Truth movement” and its assorted conspiracy nutteries for a long while.
Link fixed.
guy:
I have always accepted that there are perfectly rational enginering/structural explanations for the collapse of the WTC buildings and damage to the pentagon.
What I’m not sure about is what to make of:
http://cryptome.org/reynolds-v-saic.pdf
Is this no more than a most elaborate spoof which must have taken an enormous effort to compile?
Freeman:
More info at Dr Reynolds’ “No More Games” website. It would appear he’s a Loose Change affiliate.
Cheers
meaning what? what use is that remark without a little explanation?
I think he means that he is not a thinker of Note.
Bank or otherwise.
To believe in the Twin Towers conspiracy theory, (I can link to yours J.M. but not yours Freeman)
I am expected to believe that the buildings were actually BUILT to BE Destroyed!!!!
Have any of you met any civil engineers or indeed the domestic kind?
I dont think so!
Things fall down soon enough. But not through malice but incompetence.
The World Trade Centre twin towers were badly designed – but it was not a dark plot, it was modern architecture.
Some people never learn. For example, on the front cover of last week’s “Newsweek” was a supposedly good news story about the “grim” city of Peking (sorry “Beijing”) was being turned into a lot of “modern” (i.e. mid 20th century modern movement) towers.
So lots of historic and attractive houses and other buildings are being destroyed in order to put up towers whose only virtue is that their basic design means that they will fall down in a few decades (even if nothing hits them).
It is enough to turn me into a reactionary – if I was not a black hearted reactionary already.
As for the twin towers – actually they badly designed even by modern standards.
You see “floor space” had to maximised (regardless of anything else). So all the weight was taken on the exterior skin frame, the central core (round the stairwells) was made of material so weak you could put your fist through it (no I am not making that up).
To be fair (not that I feel like being fair) the steel skin frame was supposed to be covered in asbestos in case of fire – but because of “health and safety” regulations in the early 1970’s they did not bother with most of the asbestos.
The builders put some panels up instead (which would, supposedly, protect the steel in the event of fire) – of course they fell off when the aircraft hit the towers. And then – well heat does bad things to metal.
I saw the Twin Towers in ’96 and they were magnificent. These towers are our culture’s contribution just as the Pyramids were ancient Egypt’s contribution and Europe’s great Cathedrals the contribution of our own ancestors. Sorry Paul, you are a black-hearted reactionary.
As to the build quality I cannot comment specifically but I suspect it’s pretty high with these major long-term capital investments. The weight of WTC 1 & 2 was not taken by the skin. It was taken by the internal frame which may’ve extended to the skin of course. This is the way they’ve been building them for over 100 years.
It was not a “dark plot” (well not in the troofer sense) and it was not modern architecture, it was 19 nutcases flying 150 ton aircraft carrying maybe 20000 gallons of avgas at the best part of 400 knots into each tower. That would wreck pretty much anything either ancient or modern.
Yes Nick. But unfortunately, Paul is right about being able to punch through the walls of the inner structure. For reasons not quite clear, they wrapped it all in drywall, AKA gypsum board. That’s right. Cardboard and chalk. While I’m not sure I would chance my fist on a double layer of fire retardant chalk and cardboard, I’m quite confidant a good kick or two would do it. This is one (the?) reason the people above the impact zones were trapped and also no doubt contributed to the spread of the fire. All elevators and staircases were effectively destroyed at that level even though I think at least one of the flights missed that area and went through a corner of the tower.
Also, there were some distinctly new structural methods used for these towers, one of them was to take all of the columns that ordinarily are distributed through the building, and put them all in the core and in the outside skin. That is why the windows in WTC were so narrow. Between these two sets of columns ran steel trusses supporting the floors. It’s actually a perfectly reasonable design but the steel trusses were sprayed with a fire retardant that broke off when the impact happened. That allowed them to soften from the heat and sag, pulling in the outside columns. You could create a similar situation by standing on one of the older stronger soda cans, and making a slight dent in the side with your other foot. When you do, its ability to support your weight suddenly fails catastrophically.
Cardboard and chalk. Fragile fire retardant. And an unanticipated need for something better.
But your last paragraph says what really matters.
I read somewhere that the towers were constructed with minimal concrete because the Mob had a monopoly over the NYC concrete industry at the time and the WTC developers didn’t want to deal with them. Anyone know the veracity of this tale?
(Sorry for the o/t comment)
You’re not being pedantic Nick.
I also hate this crap about “the secret service, MI5”.
It started with journalists who actually did know better, trying to sound ‘in on it’ by deliberately getting it wrong like some pathetic fairly secret disinformation plot.
It’s just plain, bad, incompetent journalism.
Same thing applies to Althorp/Althrop, and all ‘Royal’ correspondents.
Don’t ever let me catch them in America.