479 Comments

I've read so much about asbestos, which is just my way of saying there's been so much about the hardships of its victims and there are so many victims and the struggle to find a way to help them and also the new kind of law that was invented to do that: I mean making the manufacturers liable-- all that came out of the asbestos fight-- and after watching the video of Alex Jones and seeing how a liar is impervious to facts along with his lawyers so long as he has a way of coating facts in another lie like Trump also does, I just feel so tired I wonder if there's any solution short of naming every new sewer treatment plant after Trump cabinet members to put me right again.

Expand full comment

Uh huh, nye nye.

Expand full comment

Why the obsession with skyscrapers? There are dozens of examples of lesser buildings; while there are very few skyscraper fires, and none in framed tube buildings. Cherry-picking the evidence proves nothing.

Expand full comment

Jet fuel burns at 800Β° to 1500Β°F depending on various factors one of which is availability of Oxygen. 3,500 gallons of jet fuel to be somewhat precise was in those offices.

Expand full comment

OH, just got a memory out of nowhere. We used a dilution of Picric Acid to etch the polished steel samples. The Picric acid is pretty cool. However when it dries out the crystals are not stable. One night on 3rd shift we 'painted' a section of the hall way that led to the offices. Once it dried and someone walked on it it was like the loudest bowl of Rice Crispies ever, ah, youth, but that was then.

Expand full comment

Never forged a sword but I was a Metallurgical Tech and performed checks for strength, % Carbon, Hardness-brinell, ames, etc. , cut and polished samples to check structure with a Metalagragh- (a cool type microscope)-both as incoming inspection and as a process check. The MFG plant I worked at also a Heat Treat area and ran much the same tests. We had steel, sintered iron (easy to cut, bore, deburr and then you hardened it in the Heat Treat Area, a different set of procedures than the basic heat treat where you get it up to a certain temp for a certain period of time and then do a quinch. I also did failure analysis on returns from the field. For the most part an interesting four years while doing college but that was then.

Expand full comment

The critical temperature for structural steel is easily reached in a building fire. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/ni... End of discussion, as far as I'm concerned. Feel free to invent your own facts if you don't like these.

Expand full comment

CH3(CH2)nCH3n= 8-16: jet fueln=>10,000: polyethylene

Energy content per pound is exactly the same.

Expand full comment

Trump is so full of shit.

I know for an absolute fact that the World Trade Center had plenty of asbestos in it. The elevator shafts in particular were filled with asbestos blown onto structural members. My point of reference is environmental due diligence that was done during the late-1990's.

Expand full comment

They could. Plastic is especially energy-rich, being chemically very similar to jet fuel.

Expand full comment

Come on now - he TOLD you he could kill somebody on Fifth Avenue, and it wouldn't matter.

Expand full comment

Anyone up for a game of lawn darts?https://twitter.com/faithch...

Expand full comment

CFCs are still out there, too. So many chances to win.

Expand full comment

"Ever forge a sword? Because I have." This is the fedora of comments. Bravo.

Expand full comment

Nope. He had a rare lung cancer that you get from asbestos exposure (Mesothelioma).

Expand full comment