By Michael Kennedy
Last week, Rosie O’Donnell vocalized even more of her opinions riddled in idiocy.
Speaking on ABC’s “The View,” she said, “I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7-building 7, which collapsed in on itself, it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center 7. World Trade 1 and 2 got hit by planes…7, miraculously-the first time in history-steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible.”
To some of those who watch “The View,” O’Donnell may appear to be making a valid argument here, until one realizes that she is making a “straw man” argument, attributing a false position to her opposition (the rational).
Because, actually, the physicists and demolition experts have spoken.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology released an authoritative report regarding the collapse of the Two Towers of the World Trade Center, consisting of 10,000 pages and 1,200 first-person interviews.
Nowhere in the 10,000 pages does the NIST claim that steel was melted.
Rather, they assert that the steel was softened to 10 percent of its original strength at temperatures of 1,000 degrees C.
If the steel in the North and South towers didn’t melt, and they were, as O’Donnell correctly affirms, hit by airplanes, the steel in WTC7 didn’t melt.
“After further studies, the [NIST] told Popular Mechanics that debris from the 110-floor North Tower hit WTC7 with the force of a volcanic eruption.
Nearly a quarter of the building was carved away over the bottom 10 stories on its south face, and significant damage was visible up to the 18th floor.”
The face of WTC7 was only 350 feet from the north face of the North Tower.
It’s not improbable that debris hitting a building with the “force of a volcano” could cause the collapse of a building, a building which was built on top of a Con Edison substation, meaning that unusually high loads were already being placed on the supports.
Conspiracy theories are all well and good if you’re a whacko sitting on the grassy knoll, hawking your books; no one takes you seriously anyway.
If you’re a celebrity, in the public eye, on international television, you should be held to a higher standard, one where logic and rationality actually apply.
O’Donnell is a comedian, and a college dropout.
Keep to the comedy, Rosie, leave the physics to the physicists and the conspiracy theories to the pinkos.
Michael Kennedy is a freshman majoring in computer engineering and computer science. E-mail him at opinion@louisvillecardinal.com.
