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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Senate Dunk It Or Debunk It! Now disc: The Oak Island Money Pit

Discussion in 'Archive: The Senate Floor' started by SuperWatto, Nov 10, 2012.

  1. Violent Violet Menace

    Violent Violet Menace Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2004
    I wasn't suggesting it's the same. I was just reminded of it by your comment about flightless island land birds.
     
  2. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    Fair enough.

    It would be cool to see something like the Dodo or the Moa live again, but their habitats have adapted to manage without them now and restoring them would serve little purpose especially on islands where they may well have died out eventually anyway.
     
  3. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    Ah, Tasmania. You know Watto that Tasmania is named after a Dutchman? Well for that matter the whole place used to be called New Holland.

    I think the Tasmanian tiger is most likely extinct but I can't discount completely the recent history of recorded sightings, as much of Tasmania is rugged bushland and unspoiled. The city areas are very small and so it is quite possible that tassie tigers could be living in remote parts without anyone seeing them. The reason for the extinction (or near extinction) is quite simply that they were hunted to extinction by the early settlers who were offered a bounty from the pasturalists. There have been sightings recorded from this year:

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...n-tiger-spotting/story-fn7x8me2-1226338916095

    But, the reliability of the sighting is up for debate. I suspect that many of these Tasmanian tiger 'hunters' are on the payroll of the Tasmanian trourist office in an attempt to keep the legend alive for the tourists. Actual scientists who conduct field trips and collect poo, examine tracks etc haven't confirmed the existence of a tasmanian tiger for decades.

    The 1973 footgage (second link) is the most compelling evidence.

    - Today Show feature (including some footage)

    - 1973 footage

    - more footage this time in Spanish!

    All in all, I still have a shred of hope that there are a few of these creatures still alive - I can't completely dismiss the sightings and video footage and it is plausible that a small number might be able to exist without being seen.
     
  4. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    Anything is possible I suppose, after all the Coelacanth was found by a fisherman who hauled it out of the sea in the 1930s and that was believed to have been extinct for 65million years.
     
  5. SuperWatto

    SuperWatto Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 19, 2000
    The Coelacanth, now that's a creepy animal.

    Thanks for the footage, Hoth!
    Kinda compelling.

    Do you happen to know anything about that jaw?
     
  6. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    You can the famous jaw extending in the video footage of the Thylacine

     
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  7. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

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    Mar 12, 2005
    Apparently, their jaws are what scientists are linking its extinction to. Although they're ferocious looking, they were pretty weak, I guess,

    Using a thylacine skull and advanced computer modelling techniques, the research team simulated its hunting actions, such as biting, tearing and pulling. They then determined areas of stress in the skull, using the same software as engineers testing for weak spots in structures, and compared this to the skulls of a Tasmanian devil and a spotted-tailed quoll.
    “The thylacine had a much higher level of stress in the skull,” said Ms Attard. “It pretty much lit up with high levels of stress.” The stresses on the skull from the simulations of biting struggling prey enabled the researchers to predict the likely body size of the thylacine’s prey. In spite of the thylacine’s 30 kilogram body mass and carnivorous diet, its weak jaws limited it to small, agile prey, such as possums and bandicoots.
    http://scienceillustrated.com.au/blog/nature/thylacines-jaws-linked-to-its-extinction/
     
  8. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    That being said, a sheep in a pen with nowhere to go may have been something a Thylacine could take down. Clearly land owners considered a threat to their livestock which is why they killed them.

    Seems similar to the Sabre-toothed cat which was adapted to life as a long-grass short distance predator. With the end of the Ice Age and habitat becoming much wider and more open, it was no longer able to hunt as it once did so it died out.

    Giant Pandas have a problem in being an animal poorly suited to the diet they have, that too may contribute to their own demise since they are so heavily specialised and seem unable to adapt easily.
     
  9. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    As far as I am aware sheep were introduced into Tasmania by the early settlers and theThylacine had thrived well before European settlement, so it must have been preying on smaller animals anyway. The settlers also introduced rabbits which the Thylacine would have no problem with. Unfortunately their jaw didn't stop bullets.
     
  10. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    Oh, the thylacine was a great predator, but it was pushed out of mainland Australia, I believe, when the first people to Australia introduced a new predator, the dingo. It never reached Tasmania, however, and so Tasmania maintained a more pristine ecology, so to speak. It was only European settlers that posed a threat to it there.

    Now, of course, it helps to get an idea of just what Tasmania is like in population.... and I think density does that best. There are about 7 people per square km on what is the 26th largest island. That density puts it somewhere between the density of Idaho and Nebraska (or between Iceland and Russia). The island itself is about the size of West Virginia or the European Georgia. So this isn't just a tiny little island, it's a fairly big land mass, all told. Almost 40% of it is located in nature reserves. When it comes to anything being in Tasmania, there's a lot of space it could be to not be found.
     
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  11. jp-30

    jp-30 Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Dec 14, 2000
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takahē
     
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  12. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 18, 2002
    i think "takahe" was a lyric in a haka i learned. irc you'd scream it right when you hit your chest but before scraping your nails diagonally and cross-ways down your torso
     
  13. jp-30

    jp-30 Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Dec 14, 2000
    Yeah, anyway...
     
  14. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    The Lazarus Taxon is a great thing, but for bigger island-based species it seems less likely especially on small islands. The Takahē is small, even harder to find in New Zealand than a giant bird like the Moa which would easily stand out. The Thylacine would be the same in Tasmania, it would be great to find some but there would surely have been far more conclusive evidence than blurry recorded footage by now.
     
  15. SuperWatto

    SuperWatto Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 19, 2000
    Alright, we'll store the thylacine away for future discussion, since everybody is so eager to talk about it. Let's tackle the big one. The conspiracy of conspiracies. The event of which one in five people doesn't trust the official reading. The one people claimed Nostradamus predicted. An attack that made people see Satan's face in the dust clouds, and Satanic wizardry in Wingdings.

    I can't take on the whole thing, too much happened that day. I'll keep it simple, and focus on the one thing people wonder about most:

    What Happened To WTC7?

    [​IMG]
    still pretty big


    According to the FEMA report on the collapse in 2002, the main cause for its collapse was fire. The building had been hit by debris from the North Tower, but that wasn't what caused the collapse. The NIST report from 2008 said the same thing. First skyscraper ever to be brought down by uncontrolled fire.

    The NIST report also said controlled demolition was unlikely.
    From Wiki:
    The window breakage pattern and blast sounds that would have resulted from the use of explosives were not observed. The suggestion that an incendiary material such as thermite was used instead of explosives was considered unlikely by NIST because of observations of the fire and the building's structural response to the fire, and because it is unlikely the necessary quantity of material could have been planted without discovery.


    Note: they don't rule it out!

    From WTC7.net:
    Being the only such building in history in which fire is blamed for total collapse, Building 7's remains warranted the most painstaking examination, documentation, and analysis.
    Building 7's rubble pile was at least as important as any archeological dig. It contained all the clues to one of the largest structural failures in history. Without understanding the cause of the collapse, all skyscrapers become suspect, with profound implications for the safety of occupants and for the ethics of sending emergency personnel into burning buildings to save people and fight fires.

    There was no legitimate reason not to dismantle the rubble pile carefully, documenting the position of each piece of steel and moving it to a warehouse for further study. No one was thought buried in the pile, since, unlike the Twin Towers, Building 7 had been evacuated hours before the collapse. The pile was so well confined to the building's footprint that the adjacent streets could have been cleared without disturbing it.

    Yet, despite the paramount importance of the remains, they were hauled away and melted down as quickly as possible. The steel was sold to scrap metal vendors and most of it was soon on ships bound for China and India. Some of the smaller pieces and a few token large pieces of steel marked 'save' were allowed to be inspected at Fresh Kills landfill by FEMA's BPAT volunteers.

    Why did the government rapidly recycle the steel from the largest and most mysterious engineering failure in world history, and why has the media remained silent?
     
  16. DarthBoba

    DarthBoba Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2000
    Revolting, TBH. Theories about things like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are fun and, I think, fill an important role in a human need for things to wonder about, but making crap up about a situation that directly led to the deaths of 3,000 people and two major wars is just beyond the pale.
     
  17. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    WTC7 involved no deaths, so to attack it as off topic because it led to the deaths of 3000 simply isn't true. As to the wars.... Vietnam really got rolling with the Gulf of Tonkin incident that didn't really happen. The Spanish-American War was triggered by the Maine sinking in Havana, however evidence strongly suggests that it was an onboard explosion of munitions rather than being sunk by an outside force. Trumping up an event in order to justify a war is far from out of the ordinary, and dismissing something as unable to be questioned because of how serious the effects of it were seems to skip over that falsified events can have huge consequences.

    Beyond that, 9/11 isn't the direct reason why we went into Iraq, either. And there was a lot that could've happened between 9/11 in 2001 and spring of 2003 that would have meant Iraq wouldn't have been invaded.
     
  18. DarthBoba

    DarthBoba Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2000
    I'm not attacking it as off-topic. I'm attacking the notion that any conspiracy theory (all of which have been shot down in flames repeatedly) about an event as horrific as 9/11 is loathsome. It's not in the same category as the sinking of the Maine or the Gulf Of Tonkin incident because it's been proven that both of those got manipulated; 9/11 conspirators OTOH invariably go back to ridiculous claims that you can't melt structural steel and that the government was involved somehow.
     
  19. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    Even then, though, my point is that it shouldn't be treated as someone people can't question, and that is what's going on here. I mean, both the Maine and the Gulf of Tonkin had times where those weren't treated as manipulated situations. These ideas/questioning shouldn't be dismissed based off the seriousness of the event, but on the evidence.
     
  20. Blue_Jedi33

    Blue_Jedi33 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 12, 2003
    I really appreciate you allowing this Lowbacca_1977, there was a time when this was totally off limits in the Senate.
    I find this to be a very painful subject to think about, the implications are almost too scary to accept.

    WTC7 begs for questions to be answered, if and when you can answer them, it is a rabbit hole that goes very deep.
    I have spent entirely too much time studying this topic since 2006, when I first discovered things were not as I had always believed about 9/11.
    It was WTC7 very existence that I discovered that year.
    Because like many, I had never even heard about it, even though I had spent many hours watching and reading about 9/11.

    This under 3 minute video is a real eye opener, sorry it is not in English, but it has subtitles
    Here is the curious thing, the person in this video is known to state that WTC1 & WTC2 were NOT controlled demolitions, but WTC7 was !



    Then this expert dies in car crash, shortly after this interview was widely distributed.
    Makes you wonder.
     
  21. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Indeed. Was he drunk when he made this stupid theory, as well as when he got in the car?
     
  22. Lord Vivec

    Lord Vivec Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2006
    Why on Earth would they demolish WTC 7 while 1 and 2 were being hit?
     
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  23. Narutakikun

    Narutakikun Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2012
    I have an honest question for all 9/11 conspiracy theorists. And I genuinely mean it, so please do answer:

    So let's say that somehow you could undeniably, irrefutably prove that the 9/11 conspiracy theories are right, and that it was all one big government inside job. Then what? I guess you could throw George W. Bush in jail, but he's been out of office for years now, so what would that really change? Obama would simply blame everything on his predecessor, fire or jail a few career people at the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon, and then keep on trucking with what he's been doing - NDAA, drone strikes, and all. The war in Iraq is over. Bin Laden's met his fate. Afghanistan is lost no matter what, and anyhow has wide bipartisan support to keep grinding on until we run out of cash. Unless you could prove that Israel was actually behind it (and you don't even seem to be trying to assert that), the government won't stop slavishly supporting Israel - not as long as the technically-legal bribes from The Lobby keep flowing.

    So what exactly do you expect will happen if you ever actually manage to prove this? Other than throwing a few has-been ex-politicians in jail?
     
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  24. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    No, no it really doesn't. A car crash is a horrendously inefficient means of disposing of one's enemies, and frankly, why bother killing someone after they've "exposed" the "critical information"?
     
  25. Condition2SQ

    Condition2SQ Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 5, 2012
    My favorite part of this theory is the fuss people make over Larry Silverstein using the phrase "pull it" with regards to WTC7 in an interview. So not only was he complicit in the plot, he was remarkably candid about it to the media, too.