One would presume PBS is a reputable source, and it is from a PBS docu called " America Rebuilds" that this video clip comes. - Lev (5th March 06)
I have removed this from the article, as this lacks proper citations from a reputable source. Furthermore, links to .wmv files are inappropriate (see Wikipedia External links policies).
There is also controversy surrounding a statement Silverstein made after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. When questioned about 7 World Trade Center, the 47-story steel frame building which collapsed many hours after the initial attacks, Silverstein responded, "I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse." [1] It has been speculated that the phrase "pull it" may imply a controlled demolition. Eric Hufschmid's 'Painful Deceptions' have since used this as evidence to support their claims of government and corporate complicity in the attacks. Alex Jones also features this statement prominently in Martial Law: 9/11 Rise of the Police State.
- Aude ( talk | contribs) 20:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Since there was no discussion on the issues Kmf184 and I have raised I have pulled the speculation that Silverstein engaged in conspiracy with FDNY to destroy 7 WTC. patsw 05:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that 'controversy' is a leading description--it assumes that there is a current debate. This is worthy of inclusion, in my mind, because the conspiracy theory received coverage in legitimate media sources
[2]
[3] (search text for 'Silverstein' for applicable quotes), in part for the persistence of the theory
[4], in part because the State Department issued a formal 'conspiracy theory rebuttal' including these allegations
[5] and in part because the controlled demolition theory was used by the insurers of WTC building 7 in court
[6] (search for 'a lawyer for the insurance companies), and of course the
original quote. Regarding the legitimacy questions listed above, I think that in part by listing it as a conspiracy theory, the criteria for inclusion is more along the lines of 'newsworthiness' rather than proof as is the case. The
JFK article seems to me to be a reasonable model and of course those theories have had much more research done on them.
To answer the reasonable questions about inclusion listed above:
Please respond to the specific points listed above. The fact that the argument covered by PBS, CNN and that his spokesperson felt the need to make a public statement regarding the claim raise this to the point of wikiworthiness.
In reference to the addition of the WP:BLP tag on 'unsourced or poorly sourced negative material': Jimbo stated that 'there seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag'. The claim that the destruction was a 'controlled demolition' is not poorly sourced nor 'pseudo information' for reasons I just stated here and in the longer comment above. A similar case is the mention of criticisms of political leaders such as with the rape and sexual assault allegations against Bill Clinton [8]. In this case, the fact that the allegations were newsworthy and that at the time it looked like the cases could go to court is enough for their inclusion despite being 'fringe theories' in the sense that the allegations were made by two individuals.
Question of undue bias: the applicable policy is "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all". At the least, the fact that these allegations were made in court by major insurance companies, in my opinion, raises them above the level of a 'tiny-minority view'.
Adding information to a bio in a 'criticism' or 'conspiracy theory' section makes it clear that these are unproven yet notable claims, the approach I've attempted to copy in adding the 'controlled demolition' theory section. I've readded the section, sourcing it only based on government press statements and major news sources. Antonrojo 14:37, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
"Pull it" has been repeatedly misused by conspiracy theorists...it's hogwash and preposterous on it's face to have two words here that this guy said just to help conspiracy theorist cruft look credible.-- MONGO 19:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't doubt that it is. Why a main conspirator would admit that on TV despite all he had to gain from the conspiracy is beyond me. As I stated above, what is most important question is whether people who visit this article are looking for information on the alleged conspiracy. I did a little 'research' into the question and found the following google hit counts:
If these results are accepted as an indication of public opinion related to Silverstein, it appears that a lot of people associate him and his lease on the building with the conspiracy (in fact almost as many that mention that he is the leaseholder) and that by extension it deserves mention in the article, at least to debunk the myth. Suggestions to improve my cutting edge research methods are welcome. Antonrojo 16:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I've added the reference template and highlighted the statements that I feel need references. Since this article is closely related to 9/11 conspiracy theories I feel that references are highly desirable - they may be easy to find, but they should be explicitly stated. James Kemp 18:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I took out the citations note and deleted the points which called for references but had none. - 198.207.168.65 01:11, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
No one has a public domain image of the guy? Surely someone will loan their image to Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nog64 ( talk • contribs)
"7 World Trade Center is said to have caught fire when debris fell from the North Tower. The building collapsed shortly after 5 p.m. -- 8 hours after the attack."
I have read numerous timelines (including CNN's archived on 12Sep2001) that said "reports of fires in WTC7" occurred around 70 minutes before it collapsed, i.e. 6+ hours AFTER the North and South towers collapsed... Kinda strange for it to not catch fire until so long a time it got hit by "debris" isn't it? :-\
Okay, some information re. the timing and INTENSITY of the WTC7 fires can be found here, in the FEMA report (2002) with highlights... http://killtown.911review.org/wtc7/archive/fema_403.html#5.5.3
This citation does not belong in the article for several reasons. First, the assumption seems to be that Silverstein was quoting a firechief when he said 'pull it' regarding WTC 7. That isn't the case and here is Silverstein's quote:
I could similarly cite statements from builders about how they often use (or don't use) the term to mean controlled demolition and I don't think these citation would belong in the article either since they are speculative. Antonrojo 22:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
This is the relevant section of 'undue weight': "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." Evidence seems to show that the holders of this belief are not an 'extremely small' group. To restate an earlier point, it appears that many people associate Silverstein with a 'controlled demolition' conspiracy, and based on these google hit counts almost as many as mention his lease on the WTC:
1. lease "world trade" "larry silverstein" = 45k 2. "controlled demolition" "larry silverstein" = 39k 3. "pull it" "larry silverstein"= 23k 4. "loose change" "larry silverstein" = 17k hits
Also, a recent CNN article lists a webpoll showing that 69% of voters believe that 'alternative theories' for the WTC bombing are credible. This is not an uncommon belief, even if you and I think it is ridiculous and since Silverman leased the WTC shortly before the attacks, and to a lesser extent because of the 'pull it' quote he is often referenced in these theories.
Undue weight does not refer to the validity of a statement but to how common the belief is. Antonrojo 03:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
As for lack of support for the term "pull" being used to describe planned demolition, or of the actions involved in a successful demolition, the physical forces used to do such, the employees of one company, Controlled Demolition Inc., which was involved in the Ground Zero clean-up efforts["(CDI) appeared to be key player in the expedient removal and recycling of the steel. CDI was retained by Tully Construction Co. Inc, one of the site's four cleanup management contractors. On September 22, 2001, CDI submitted a 25-page "preliminary" document to New York City's Department of Design and Construction, which approved the plan." (taken verbatim from http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/groundzero/players.html)], have used the term "pull" in a number of varying settings and manners to refer to and describe the action(s) involved in achieving a planned demolition--refer to [12] for full quotes by CDI employees about the term "pull" in relation to demolition and sources where these quotes were excerpted from. The references of "pull" being used in a variety of demolition settings and instances solidly establish the term "pull" in industry parlance and support the inclusion of the sentence or sentences referring to "pull" as a term integral to planned demolition in the Wikipedia section on Larry Silverstein. Chris (Aug. 20, 2006)
This is the Larry Silverstein quote. The PBS documentary has excellent sound quality and the words that Mr. Silverstein uses are clear and precise:
This is extremely incriminating as to his culpability in the WTC 7 collapse. First, if he is using the Fire Department jargon of "pull it" meaning to leave the building then what does that imply? To let it the building burn uncontrollably? Or to take a break until the safety of the building can be assessed and then return to finish putting out the fire? Second, the last sentence seems to use the word "pull" in the demolition sense. His statement is And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse. He does not say .. they made the decision to pull and all the firefighters got out of the building safely.
One scenario I can imagine as happening is that Mr. Silverstein knew of the demolition charges in WTC 7 and had as a result talked to demolition experts about what was going to happen on 9/11. Maybe during that conversation one of the experts used the term "pull it" to mean bring the building down. Now on 9/11, a lot is happening, Mr. Silverstein has seen two buildings come down already. He knows that building 7 is about to come down. He is talking to the Fire Department Chief and maybe he wants to save those firefighters in the building. He brings this issue up with the commander and the commander says, "Okay, we should just pull it". Mr. Silverstein is startled. Then he realizes the term "pull it" means something else.
Now Mr. Silverstein is in front of the camera in a PBS special. He is perhaps slightly nervous as anyone would be. They ask him about the building and it's collapse. Mr. Silverstein is not young and he has been through a lot. Maybe he gets the two terms mixed up when he is talking extemporaneously in front of the camera. But the fact is he knows both of the definitions to the term "pull", to bring a building down and (just recently) to bring the firefighers out. The last sentence he uses shows his guilt. And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse. This statement implies cause and effect.
His lawyer tried to spin Mr. Silverstein's statement as a misunderstanding. But the way building 7 fell down has been immortalized in video. The firefighters left the building and then the building falls as though in a controlled demolition (at "free fall" speed and straight down into its own footprint, not falling as a tree would: towards the direction of the damage on its side). Demosfoni 15:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, while denial is a great coping strategy, acknowledging reality also means recognizing that "pulling it" has absolutely nothing with "pulling" firefighters out for no reason from a building that had not been exposed to kerosene or plane impacts and had absolutely positively no reason at all to descend to the streets of Manhattan within seven seconds without explosives inside.
After all, Silverstein is intensely wealthy, made the comment when the public was still in too much of a traumatized, foaming at the mouth righteous anger/nervous breakdown for anyone to think too critically about the final, cementing version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.207.132.70 ( talk) 10:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
It think the narrow focus of the section on the 'pull it' quote in the Silverstein keeps the section trimmed down and that we should lead people to the 9/11 conspiracies article so they can read the whole range of opinions and evidence themselves.
Just as journalists strive to show both sides of the story, if we want to make a strong argument against the theory, we'd need to present multiple opinions and sources of evidence. The relevant section of the Implosionworld paper, is their second point under 'Assertion #7' which states that 'pull it' is used in demolition only to describe the act of physically pulling down a building.
If we did decide to include the article despite the reasons above, does it disprove the theory of controlled demolition? I don't think it does.
They provide a mix of 'common sense' evidence (see point 1 in section 7) and scientific/industry evidence which is not supported by references, statistics, etc. and the 'pull it' section concludes 'all that we can offer is that...available data does not rule out the possibility of the building collapsing as a direct result of the structural conditions detailed above' which acknowledges that proving or disproving the conspiracy would require stronger evidence. The evidence isn't strong enough to say that they 'refute' or disprove the theory.
I found a lot of information about the website and the company behind it that I'm leaving out and probably isn't relevant for the reasons listed above--no doubt the company behind the site has significant experience with demolition and their is little evidence that the website is the 'main news source' for demolition (see for example who links to them...and I'm not sure what to make of their 'forums'). The paper provides one interpretation of the 'pull it' quote, and more broadly the controlled demolition theory, which is not definitive. Antonrojo 19:38, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
This strikes me as similar to debating whether a new religious organization should be called a 'cult' v. 'new religious movement'. Often both terms are technically correct and the choice comes down to the bias of the author. Technically, the theory is a conspiracy theory and personally I didn't think it was a pejorative term because it is used by people who hold these theories--for example search for the term conspiracy here where the author, who supports 'alternate theories' for 9/11 uses the term in both senses. Personally, I think the most common term should be used provided it isn't overly biased and here a few related google hit counts:
Antonrojo 16:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I asked these questions back in January 2006, I see that there weren't answers here or in the article:
This report states that "manual firefighting activities were stopped fairly early in the day" which may or may not conflict with Silverstein's "pull it" quote. If we can find legit sources that state that no firefighters were in the building, then it belongs in this article since users are unlikely to track down the information in the 9/11 Conspiracy article. It's possible that this could also mean that firefighters were in the building doing rescue and crowd control duties, so a second source is needed to confirm this assertion. I'll look for evidence that confirms or refutes this interpretation. Antonrojo 13:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Can some one tell me why this post below was removed?..I am new poster...I rewrote the information and included the source Vol. 9, No. 2021 - The American Reporter http://www.dswcc.com/HPK/The%20American%20Reporter%20Vol_%209,%20No_%202021%20-%20January%2020,%202003.htm I think this information fits into page about Larry Silverstein well...99% of the people in the world only know of Larry Silverstein because of 911....Sep,8,2006
Mr. Silverstein changed the company responsible for the security of the complex. The new security company he hired was Securacom (now Stratasec). George W. Bush's brother, Marvin Bush, was on its board of directors, and Marvin’s cousin, Wirt Walker III, was its CEO. Acc Securacom provide electronic security for the World Trade Center, it also covered Dulles International Airport and United Airlines — two important players in the 9/11 attacks. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fffforest ( talk • contribs) .
Thanks for your help and ideas..Posting has a bit of a steep learning curve.I hope to learn how to post correctly..Forest Sep,8,06
If you misplaced a reference in the article, here it is: 15 Vol. 9, No. 2021 - The American Reporter - January 20, 2003
To add a reference, use this format after the text you are annotating: <ref>[This is the URL] This is the title </ref> Antonrojo 18:53, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Please do not remove this, MONGO stated it belongs here since its based on the article, and that he will only answer it here.
You enacted a policy in your reversion, please explain what you feel is a BLP violation. This way I can ask some other non involved admins to weigh in. Thank you. --
Nuclear
Zer0
13:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Silverstein Properties is pretty much a stub, with all of the relevant information already covered here. Although it might be preferable to pull out the Properties info and move it to that article, the easier route would be to redirect Silverstein Properties to here. 24.6.65.83 11:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
One would presume PBS is a reputable source, and it is from a PBS docu called " America Rebuilds" that this video clip comes. - Lev (5th March 06)
I have removed this from the article, as this lacks proper citations from a reputable source. Furthermore, links to .wmv files are inappropriate (see Wikipedia External links policies).
There is also controversy surrounding a statement Silverstein made after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. When questioned about 7 World Trade Center, the 47-story steel frame building which collapsed many hours after the initial attacks, Silverstein responded, "I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse." [1] It has been speculated that the phrase "pull it" may imply a controlled demolition. Eric Hufschmid's 'Painful Deceptions' have since used this as evidence to support their claims of government and corporate complicity in the attacks. Alex Jones also features this statement prominently in Martial Law: 9/11 Rise of the Police State.
- Aude ( talk | contribs) 20:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Since there was no discussion on the issues Kmf184 and I have raised I have pulled the speculation that Silverstein engaged in conspiracy with FDNY to destroy 7 WTC. patsw 05:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that 'controversy' is a leading description--it assumes that there is a current debate. This is worthy of inclusion, in my mind, because the conspiracy theory received coverage in legitimate media sources
[2]
[3] (search text for 'Silverstein' for applicable quotes), in part for the persistence of the theory
[4], in part because the State Department issued a formal 'conspiracy theory rebuttal' including these allegations
[5] and in part because the controlled demolition theory was used by the insurers of WTC building 7 in court
[6] (search for 'a lawyer for the insurance companies), and of course the
original quote. Regarding the legitimacy questions listed above, I think that in part by listing it as a conspiracy theory, the criteria for inclusion is more along the lines of 'newsworthiness' rather than proof as is the case. The
JFK article seems to me to be a reasonable model and of course those theories have had much more research done on them.
To answer the reasonable questions about inclusion listed above:
Please respond to the specific points listed above. The fact that the argument covered by PBS, CNN and that his spokesperson felt the need to make a public statement regarding the claim raise this to the point of wikiworthiness.
In reference to the addition of the WP:BLP tag on 'unsourced or poorly sourced negative material': Jimbo stated that 'there seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag'. The claim that the destruction was a 'controlled demolition' is not poorly sourced nor 'pseudo information' for reasons I just stated here and in the longer comment above. A similar case is the mention of criticisms of political leaders such as with the rape and sexual assault allegations against Bill Clinton [8]. In this case, the fact that the allegations were newsworthy and that at the time it looked like the cases could go to court is enough for their inclusion despite being 'fringe theories' in the sense that the allegations were made by two individuals.
Question of undue bias: the applicable policy is "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all". At the least, the fact that these allegations were made in court by major insurance companies, in my opinion, raises them above the level of a 'tiny-minority view'.
Adding information to a bio in a 'criticism' or 'conspiracy theory' section makes it clear that these are unproven yet notable claims, the approach I've attempted to copy in adding the 'controlled demolition' theory section. I've readded the section, sourcing it only based on government press statements and major news sources. Antonrojo 14:37, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
"Pull it" has been repeatedly misused by conspiracy theorists...it's hogwash and preposterous on it's face to have two words here that this guy said just to help conspiracy theorist cruft look credible.-- MONGO 19:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't doubt that it is. Why a main conspirator would admit that on TV despite all he had to gain from the conspiracy is beyond me. As I stated above, what is most important question is whether people who visit this article are looking for information on the alleged conspiracy. I did a little 'research' into the question and found the following google hit counts:
If these results are accepted as an indication of public opinion related to Silverstein, it appears that a lot of people associate him and his lease on the building with the conspiracy (in fact almost as many that mention that he is the leaseholder) and that by extension it deserves mention in the article, at least to debunk the myth. Suggestions to improve my cutting edge research methods are welcome. Antonrojo 16:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I've added the reference template and highlighted the statements that I feel need references. Since this article is closely related to 9/11 conspiracy theories I feel that references are highly desirable - they may be easy to find, but they should be explicitly stated. James Kemp 18:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I took out the citations note and deleted the points which called for references but had none. - 198.207.168.65 01:11, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
No one has a public domain image of the guy? Surely someone will loan their image to Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nog64 ( talk • contribs)
"7 World Trade Center is said to have caught fire when debris fell from the North Tower. The building collapsed shortly after 5 p.m. -- 8 hours after the attack."
I have read numerous timelines (including CNN's archived on 12Sep2001) that said "reports of fires in WTC7" occurred around 70 minutes before it collapsed, i.e. 6+ hours AFTER the North and South towers collapsed... Kinda strange for it to not catch fire until so long a time it got hit by "debris" isn't it? :-\
Okay, some information re. the timing and INTENSITY of the WTC7 fires can be found here, in the FEMA report (2002) with highlights... http://killtown.911review.org/wtc7/archive/fema_403.html#5.5.3
This citation does not belong in the article for several reasons. First, the assumption seems to be that Silverstein was quoting a firechief when he said 'pull it' regarding WTC 7. That isn't the case and here is Silverstein's quote:
I could similarly cite statements from builders about how they often use (or don't use) the term to mean controlled demolition and I don't think these citation would belong in the article either since they are speculative. Antonrojo 22:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
This is the relevant section of 'undue weight': "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." Evidence seems to show that the holders of this belief are not an 'extremely small' group. To restate an earlier point, it appears that many people associate Silverstein with a 'controlled demolition' conspiracy, and based on these google hit counts almost as many as mention his lease on the WTC:
1. lease "world trade" "larry silverstein" = 45k 2. "controlled demolition" "larry silverstein" = 39k 3. "pull it" "larry silverstein"= 23k 4. "loose change" "larry silverstein" = 17k hits
Also, a recent CNN article lists a webpoll showing that 69% of voters believe that 'alternative theories' for the WTC bombing are credible. This is not an uncommon belief, even if you and I think it is ridiculous and since Silverman leased the WTC shortly before the attacks, and to a lesser extent because of the 'pull it' quote he is often referenced in these theories.
Undue weight does not refer to the validity of a statement but to how common the belief is. Antonrojo 03:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
As for lack of support for the term "pull" being used to describe planned demolition, or of the actions involved in a successful demolition, the physical forces used to do such, the employees of one company, Controlled Demolition Inc., which was involved in the Ground Zero clean-up efforts["(CDI) appeared to be key player in the expedient removal and recycling of the steel. CDI was retained by Tully Construction Co. Inc, one of the site's four cleanup management contractors. On September 22, 2001, CDI submitted a 25-page "preliminary" document to New York City's Department of Design and Construction, which approved the plan." (taken verbatim from http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/groundzero/players.html)], have used the term "pull" in a number of varying settings and manners to refer to and describe the action(s) involved in achieving a planned demolition--refer to [12] for full quotes by CDI employees about the term "pull" in relation to demolition and sources where these quotes were excerpted from. The references of "pull" being used in a variety of demolition settings and instances solidly establish the term "pull" in industry parlance and support the inclusion of the sentence or sentences referring to "pull" as a term integral to planned demolition in the Wikipedia section on Larry Silverstein. Chris (Aug. 20, 2006)
This is the Larry Silverstein quote. The PBS documentary has excellent sound quality and the words that Mr. Silverstein uses are clear and precise:
This is extremely incriminating as to his culpability in the WTC 7 collapse. First, if he is using the Fire Department jargon of "pull it" meaning to leave the building then what does that imply? To let it the building burn uncontrollably? Or to take a break until the safety of the building can be assessed and then return to finish putting out the fire? Second, the last sentence seems to use the word "pull" in the demolition sense. His statement is And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse. He does not say .. they made the decision to pull and all the firefighters got out of the building safely.
One scenario I can imagine as happening is that Mr. Silverstein knew of the demolition charges in WTC 7 and had as a result talked to demolition experts about what was going to happen on 9/11. Maybe during that conversation one of the experts used the term "pull it" to mean bring the building down. Now on 9/11, a lot is happening, Mr. Silverstein has seen two buildings come down already. He knows that building 7 is about to come down. He is talking to the Fire Department Chief and maybe he wants to save those firefighters in the building. He brings this issue up with the commander and the commander says, "Okay, we should just pull it". Mr. Silverstein is startled. Then he realizes the term "pull it" means something else.
Now Mr. Silverstein is in front of the camera in a PBS special. He is perhaps slightly nervous as anyone would be. They ask him about the building and it's collapse. Mr. Silverstein is not young and he has been through a lot. Maybe he gets the two terms mixed up when he is talking extemporaneously in front of the camera. But the fact is he knows both of the definitions to the term "pull", to bring a building down and (just recently) to bring the firefighers out. The last sentence he uses shows his guilt. And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse. This statement implies cause and effect.
His lawyer tried to spin Mr. Silverstein's statement as a misunderstanding. But the way building 7 fell down has been immortalized in video. The firefighters left the building and then the building falls as though in a controlled demolition (at "free fall" speed and straight down into its own footprint, not falling as a tree would: towards the direction of the damage on its side). Demosfoni 15:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, while denial is a great coping strategy, acknowledging reality also means recognizing that "pulling it" has absolutely nothing with "pulling" firefighters out for no reason from a building that had not been exposed to kerosene or plane impacts and had absolutely positively no reason at all to descend to the streets of Manhattan within seven seconds without explosives inside.
After all, Silverstein is intensely wealthy, made the comment when the public was still in too much of a traumatized, foaming at the mouth righteous anger/nervous breakdown for anyone to think too critically about the final, cementing version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.207.132.70 ( talk) 10:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
It think the narrow focus of the section on the 'pull it' quote in the Silverstein keeps the section trimmed down and that we should lead people to the 9/11 conspiracies article so they can read the whole range of opinions and evidence themselves.
Just as journalists strive to show both sides of the story, if we want to make a strong argument against the theory, we'd need to present multiple opinions and sources of evidence. The relevant section of the Implosionworld paper, is their second point under 'Assertion #7' which states that 'pull it' is used in demolition only to describe the act of physically pulling down a building.
If we did decide to include the article despite the reasons above, does it disprove the theory of controlled demolition? I don't think it does.
They provide a mix of 'common sense' evidence (see point 1 in section 7) and scientific/industry evidence which is not supported by references, statistics, etc. and the 'pull it' section concludes 'all that we can offer is that...available data does not rule out the possibility of the building collapsing as a direct result of the structural conditions detailed above' which acknowledges that proving or disproving the conspiracy would require stronger evidence. The evidence isn't strong enough to say that they 'refute' or disprove the theory.
I found a lot of information about the website and the company behind it that I'm leaving out and probably isn't relevant for the reasons listed above--no doubt the company behind the site has significant experience with demolition and their is little evidence that the website is the 'main news source' for demolition (see for example who links to them...and I'm not sure what to make of their 'forums'). The paper provides one interpretation of the 'pull it' quote, and more broadly the controlled demolition theory, which is not definitive. Antonrojo 19:38, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
This strikes me as similar to debating whether a new religious organization should be called a 'cult' v. 'new religious movement'. Often both terms are technically correct and the choice comes down to the bias of the author. Technically, the theory is a conspiracy theory and personally I didn't think it was a pejorative term because it is used by people who hold these theories--for example search for the term conspiracy here where the author, who supports 'alternate theories' for 9/11 uses the term in both senses. Personally, I think the most common term should be used provided it isn't overly biased and here a few related google hit counts:
Antonrojo 16:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I asked these questions back in January 2006, I see that there weren't answers here or in the article:
This report states that "manual firefighting activities were stopped fairly early in the day" which may or may not conflict with Silverstein's "pull it" quote. If we can find legit sources that state that no firefighters were in the building, then it belongs in this article since users are unlikely to track down the information in the 9/11 Conspiracy article. It's possible that this could also mean that firefighters were in the building doing rescue and crowd control duties, so a second source is needed to confirm this assertion. I'll look for evidence that confirms or refutes this interpretation. Antonrojo 13:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Can some one tell me why this post below was removed?..I am new poster...I rewrote the information and included the source Vol. 9, No. 2021 - The American Reporter http://www.dswcc.com/HPK/The%20American%20Reporter%20Vol_%209,%20No_%202021%20-%20January%2020,%202003.htm I think this information fits into page about Larry Silverstein well...99% of the people in the world only know of Larry Silverstein because of 911....Sep,8,2006
Mr. Silverstein changed the company responsible for the security of the complex. The new security company he hired was Securacom (now Stratasec). George W. Bush's brother, Marvin Bush, was on its board of directors, and Marvin’s cousin, Wirt Walker III, was its CEO. Acc Securacom provide electronic security for the World Trade Center, it also covered Dulles International Airport and United Airlines — two important players in the 9/11 attacks. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fffforest ( talk • contribs) .
Thanks for your help and ideas..Posting has a bit of a steep learning curve.I hope to learn how to post correctly..Forest Sep,8,06
If you misplaced a reference in the article, here it is: 15 Vol. 9, No. 2021 - The American Reporter - January 20, 2003
To add a reference, use this format after the text you are annotating: <ref>[This is the URL] This is the title </ref> Antonrojo 18:53, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Please do not remove this, MONGO stated it belongs here since its based on the article, and that he will only answer it here.
You enacted a policy in your reversion, please explain what you feel is a BLP violation. This way I can ask some other non involved admins to weigh in. Thank you. --
Nuclear
Zer0
13:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Silverstein Properties is pretty much a stub, with all of the relevant information already covered here. Although it might be preferable to pull out the Properties info and move it to that article, the easier route would be to redirect Silverstein Properties to here. 24.6.65.83 11:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)