WHO'S AFRAID OF THE BIG, BAD PROOF?
Controversial 9/11 Scholar and BYU Professor Steven Jones is Placed on Paid Leave
By Tracy Medley, 9-10-06
What really happened on September 11, 2001? To most Americans this remains an abstract, emotionally complicated question, but for Steven Jones, a professor of Physics at Brigham Young University, it’s a matter of science.
Jones’ reputation and career have been put on the line because of his controversial research concerning the science of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. As of last week, Mr. Jones was placed on paid leave at BYU because of his involvement with Scholars for 9/11 truth, a group for which Jones acts as co-chair.
The group recently began ascribing blame for the attacks to unnamed members of the U.S. government.
Jones raised his original hypothesis last year in a paper entitled, “Why Indeed Did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?” where he asserts that the three towers fell because of pre-positioned demolition charges, not because the buildings were stuck by planes.
Though at that time Mr. Jones kept his opinions about who might be responsible to himself, saying only that science does not support the commonly held theory that the buildings collapsed because they were struck by planes. And in fact, Jones has a point: there have been exactly two buildings in the history of the world reported to have collapsed because of fires resulting from the impact of a plane; they are World Trade Center buildings one and two.
To say nothing of the controversial fall of building seven, which is believed to have collapsed from small fires and “structural damage” caused during the collapses of buildings one and two. Building seven has been a strange sort of muse to Jones’ research and perhaps the most compelling portion of his argument.
So why after remaining so magnanimous in the beginning has Jones decided to champion the hearts of conspiracy theorists everywhere and point the finger at the U.S. government?
After doing more research on materials found at ground zero, Jones found evidence of thermite, which is a compound used by the military for detonations.
According to a recent piece in The Guardian Jones subscribes to the common conspiracy theory that the catalyst for the September 11, 2001 attacks were set into motion a year earlier by the neo-conservative group, Project for a New American Century. The group, which includes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, issued a report in 2000 promoting the global expansion of the U.S. military, economic supremacy and the transformation of the U.S. into a “one-world superpower.” The report goes onto say, "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.”
The group’s purported need for aggression led Jones and the rest of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth to consider the possibility that their own government may have been responsible and they seem to, in some respects have the scientific evidence to back it up. For instance it is a widely tested and known fact that jet fuel does not burn at temperatures hot enough to melt steel; a fact that remains baffling in the case of United Flight 93’s apparent evisceration in a Pennsylvania field. There is also the matter of puffs of smoke which were photographed emitting from lower levels of the towers before their demise, which is something known to occur before a controlled implosion.
As for the mysterious collapse of WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane, Jones and his fellow 9/11 scholars believe there is no other reasonable explanation beyond a premeditated demolition.
As controversial as these theories may be, is it really grounds for Jones to lose his job? Even at BYU where “descent” may very well be taught in “Defense against the dark arts” classes, isn’t there at least some value in his scientific evidence pertaining to the 9/11 attacks? Either for good or bad, Jones has put BYU on the scientific-map and maybe that’s what they’re afraid of. These types of claims would seem cliché coming from a professor at Berkley or Oberlin, but coming from a professor at Brigham Young grabs attention and in some ways lends validity to presumptions otherwise labeled, “fringe.”
For now Brigham Young will conduct an official review of Jones, his work and his involvement with Scholars for 9/11 Truth. The review will be conducted by the school’s administration, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the Physics Department.
Rebuttals for all of Jones’ theories have been released by the State Department and the National Institute of Standards and technology.
Update: After reading the comments I felt I should, perhaps clarify something: I don’t agree with Mr. Jones or the Scholars for 9/11 Truth and I, in no way intended to convey that either for myself or for New West.
The piece is not about my feelings or beliefs about 9/11, but about Steven Jones and his theories and beliefs and whether he should lose his job because of them.
I did dedicate a lot of the piece to describing Mr. Jones’ views on 9/11 because I felt it was important to explain BYU’s sudden shift from allowing Mr. Jones to do his research and maintain his position as a teacher, to a placing him on leave. After all it is his recent espousal of blame that has landed him in trouble, not necessarily his research. So, it was in that spirit that I laid out the volume of material I did.
Looking back (ahh, hindsight), I agree with George that I should have absolutely provided more sufficient links and/or quotes to rebuttals against Mr. Jones’ theories.
I also realize now that I should have put quotes around “PROOF” in the sub-title of the piece, but it was 1 in the morning when I posted the piece and that mishap was quite honestly just an oversight.
I appreciate all of the comments made here. I’m new at this and am quite literally learning as I go along. I strive to give balance to not only my pieces but, my life and am, as ever grateful for the learning experiences, like this one that come my way.
As an offering, I am currently working on a “balance piece” to this one, which I hope will better satisfy my oversights here.
Thank you for reading.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
Add your comment below
When the Mongols marched east and conquered one village after another into Europe they put the women, children, and elderly at the front as they marched to the next settlement. People were relunctant to defend their homes and became divided. They did not react in unity to repel their enemies. When we let our enemies, the conspiracy theorists, and an enabling press use the victims of 9-11 to blame our government and cause divisions amongst us, we only have to look to history to see the outcome.
9/11: Debunking The Myths
GW is my enemy because he is an enemy of democracy.
You're right, I didn't include any quotes for the "array of experts" refuting Jones' claims, but, I did include the fact that both the State Department and National Institute of Standards and technology have issued rebuttals addressing claims made by Jones, therefor giving anyone to opportunity to check them out for themselves.
As for my neglecting to "address the non-conspiracy 'reality,'" well it could be because it has been hashed and rehashed and we still don't have any conclusive answers.
What Craig is suggesting is that all Americans adopt a groupthink attitude regarding the Middle East, with no challenges whatsoever to the groupthink. Reality is not as simple as those on the right or left like to believe. Groupthink is precisely the policy of the so-called Islamo-fascists that Craig and other conservatives constantly complain about, and yet they would impose the same groupthink here in America. I note however that the only people who talk about Islamo-fascism are American fascists who must perceive some competition. As a former military officer with considerable experience in the Middle East, I can tell you that Islamo-fascism is a meaningless term, as there is nothing in Islamic culture that remotely resembles fascism, which is a Western phenomenon that arose in response to Industrialism and Modernism, not much different from Marxism. Both have been proven flawed. It would be more accurate to refer to Islamic fundamentalism, which is not much different from either Christian or Jewish fundamentalism.
BYU's response to Mr. Jones is just one more example of McCarthyism, a determination to blacklist all those who think for themselves, whether they're right or wrong. That's fascism, folks.
At wikipedia I see:
"A thermite reaction is a type of aluminothermic reaction in which aluminium metal is oxidized by the oxide of another metal, most commonly iron oxide."
"The reaction is used for thermite welding, often used to join rails."
"The thermite reaction can take place accidentally in industrial locations where abrasive grinding and cutting wheels are used with ferrous metals"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite
http://www.debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm
That is the purpose of debate--to challenge facts and ideas. BYU's actions, which apparently you support, toward Mr. Jones muzzle debate, not encourage it. Also, I suspect that students are a good deal more sophisticated than people give them credit for. This is censorship, pure and simple, for fear of political backlashes from the right. Censorship alone gives Mr. Jone's claims more credibility than they probably deserve.
Probably a more accurate point point of view is that stupidity, ignorance, and incompetence explain the U.S. government's reponse to 9-11 better than conspiracy. That doesn't mean that the Bush administration hasn't lied repeatedly about things.
Talking about conspiracies, I'm glad you're a mature adult. Perhaps you now recognize that all the claims about environmentalists being involved in conspiracies against Westerners have no validity either. Just a thought.
Robert Hoskins
Jones never taught his theories in class. He has done several lectures and if you've ever seen one, which I'm just going to jump out on a limb and say that you haven't...you would know that like all scientific lectures, Jones does not claim any sort of "fact" other than the scientific impossibilities of commonly held beliefs as to why the towers fell.
Second, your view of "young people" as "vulnerable" dumbbells who would believe BS = Steak seems a rather sad and narrow view. Young and old alike typically understand the difference between wisdom and blind deference.
"Chairman of the BYU department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Miller, is on record stating in an e-mail, "I think without exception, the structural engineering professors in our department are not in agreement with the claims made by Jones in his paper, and they don't think there is accuracy and validity to these claims".
I guess I shouldn't have singled out young people, there are obviously older people who believe this nonesense too.
http://www.911myths.com/WTCTHERM.pdf
Also worth looking at
"first time in history" tower collapse
http://www.debunking911.com/firsttime.htm
WTC building 7 analysis
http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm
I am open to listening to alternatives views, even conspiracy theories and a number of them have real merit but this theory, this presentation doesnt impress me much.
I dont have a problem of him using his free speech.
I think the Guardian article did a better job of putting the conspiracy view in context.
Check this one as long as you think worthwhile out then get back to the rest
I tend to agreew with most of the views in this clip from Chomsky on bottom of page
http://www.debunking911.com/massivect.htm
As far as the "debunking911" website you've repeatedly quoted/linked, what do you suppose makes their theories any more valid than Mr. Jones, other than your agreement with them?
Idiots!!
I understand you envisioned this as a brief story with the focus on what you wanted to write about but it opens such a huge can of worms I believe the refutation of each of the highlights of his case you repeated deserved more coverage than a simple statement of government refutation. But the comment section can function as that and I felt the need to provide a more substantial starting point for the case against.
Folks can proceed as they like from here.
They are civil engineers who work on buildings, and even specifically building collapse forensics while Jones is a nuclear physicist with knowledge of metals and fusion but no expertise directly on building design or collapse.
Honestly it will be a rare person that can evaluate all the scientific claims of each case and sort fact from thoery and better theory from weaker theory. It often comes down to feel as to who to trust more for the layperson.
But knowing that he was comfortable interpreting Mayan art in a way that happens to fit his religious beliefs does make me fairly skeptical of his fit between his beliefs about 911 and the data. But that's just me.
Depends on perspective, political and otherwise. I think this case isnt as obvious but in many ways it is a similar scenario just coming from a different political perspective instead of the traditional left.
Folks in academe will say unusual things on many topics from many angles. I think they have to be strong enough to tolerate it but they can speak back and examine application of suitable standards
on academic work. I have seen many academic works with a conservative or religious bias that seem as slanted as some things from the left side.
The fact that BYU civil engineering seems in disagreement with him over his analysis and the quality of his analysis could "lend validity" to the case against. Or be considered insufficient.
I'd need more support from clear cut building experts to give this case credence.
If that is all he does then the material at debunking911.com seems to go a long way to suggest that we arent forced into a box of "scientific impossibilities of commonly held beliefs".
A key factor with respect to BYU action is whether this work was academic work done within BYU or separate from it. I cant judge that.
If he had done it privately, off the academic field the case would be less open to academic review, just another comspiracy theory advocacy.
"seem to, in some respects have the scientific evidence to back it up"
You seem to go beyond just laying out his case here, but that is a matter of intrepretation too.
Was your review that their scientific evidence was superior to that provided by the government or the debunkers? Or are you just saying he might have a plausible case?
I'll admit I am new to the subject, not an expert, just a skeptic of the conspiracy as not persuasively argued based on what I can tell first look.
what specifically do you suppose makes their theories any more valid... other than you seem perhaps willing to agree with them or give them equal standing? which piece of evidence? Had you compared it in detail to the evidence from the other side?
But I am not trying to talk you out of being skeptical of the government. I have said I dont think you provided a balanced article. The minimal presentation of the refutation case could be viewed a writing choice faced with small space for complicated story, which was your response earlier, but is it correct to say you are strictly neutral on which side is correct or do you lean towards one?
What does this prove other then itself? By itself this point Jones makes does not prove his theory over the government or debunkers theory.
"Building seven has been a strange sort of muse to Jones’ research and perhaps the most compelling portion of his argument. "
"perhaps the most compelling"... it my ears it sounds like you are at least leaning.
"After doing more research on materials found at ground zero, Jones found evidence of thermite, which is a compound used by the military for detonations."
Thermite can be military or civilian, pre-existing or created in the aftermath. You didnt note that so I thought readers should know its presence does prove anything conclusively on its own. But they might be lead down that path without knowing this background.
rhymes with wolf, but beware
>>>>>>>
CLAIM: "We have been lied to," announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. "The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel." The posting is entitled "Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC."
FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength--and that required exposure to much less heat. "I have never seen melted steel in a building fire," says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. "But I've seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks."
"Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F," notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. "And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent." NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.
But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.
"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."
<<<<<<<
All or the wild speculation is addressed by the experts in the PM article.
But I accept that folks won't always agree on which cases may have troubling questions or a plausible case or even sufficient proof to advance. We do need to ask waht if and check.
Still the case for administration lack of due diligence seems like it can be made stronger than active complicity. If a Democratic was the President with a report indicating an Al Qaeda attack was expected on his desk while he was on a month long vacation, it would be the Republicans howling for impeachment.
Willful failure to prevent, an assertion of perhaps "a new Pearl Harbor" to allow response can be asserted and might be an easier case to get support for, though that is controversial and you'd have to have a lot of evidence not just a lifted eery in retrospect new order type quote and speculation to raise it.
Simultaneous al Queda and domestic attacks on the Towers goes further than I am willing to believe.
But I accept that folks won't always agree on which cases may have troubling questions or a plausible case or even sufficient proof to advance. We do need to ask waht if and check.
Still the case for administration lack of due diligence seems like it can be made stronger than active complicity. If a Democratic was the President with a report indicating an Al Qaeda attack was expected on his desk while he was on a month long vacation, it would be the Republicans howling for impeachment.
Willful failure to prevent, an assertion of perhaps "a new Pearl Harbor" to allow response can be asserted and might be an easier case to get support for, though that is controversial and you'd have to have a lot of evidence not just a lifted eery in retrospect new order type quote and speculation to raise it.
Simultaneous al Queda and domestic attacks on the Towers goes further than I am willing to believe. And I think it should be carefullly critiqued as that it isnt either easily accepted or easily dismissed.
We all saw the planes crash into the buildings, we have excerpts from cell phone calls to families by some of the victims. Even the most rabid believer in the conspiracy theory never tries to explain how the president would manage to coordinate blowing up the buildings with terrorists. They want to focus on ridiculous stuff like metals, etc.
"She's just questioning whether he should be punished by the university for his views, controversial as they are. Why are people getting so bent out of shape about this???"
If that was all she wanted to do, she could have summarized his 911 views in a paragrapgh or two and instead of laying them out in 7 of the biggest ones followed by the one sentence govenment rejection. And then spending 3 paragraphs directly on his situation with BYU.
Brief description to 911 theory followed by brief reference to government refutation, then get to her "main topic" fine. Lay out all his major points, I think she should have presented detail related to the refutation /non-conspiracy explanation as well. That would seem far better balanced.
The piece is not about my feelings or beliefs about 9/11, but about Steven Jones and his theories and beliefs and whether he should lose his job because of them.
I did dedicate a lot of the piece to describing Mr. Jones’ views on 9/11 because I felt it was important to explain BYU’s sudden shift from allowing Mr. Jones to do his research and maintain his position as a teacher, to a placing him on leave. After all it is his recent espousal of blame that has landed him in trouble, not necessarily his research. So, it was in that spirit that I laid out the volume of material I did.
Looking back (ahh, hindsight), I agree with George that I should have absolutely provided more sufficient links and/or quotes to rebuttals against Mr. Jones’ theories.
I also realize now that I should have put quotes around “PROOF” in the sub-title of the piece, but it was 1 in the morning when I posted the piece and that mishap was quite honestly just an oversight.
I appreciate all of the comments made here. I’m new at this and am quite literally learning as I go along. I strive to give balance to not only my pieces but, my life and am, as ever grateful for the learning experiences, like this one that come my way.
As an offering, I am currently working on a “balance piece” to this one, which I hope will better satisfy my oversights here.
Thank you for reading.
George
I'll exit.
But one more.
A quick web search shows BYU students receive federal financial aid
and BYU does a small amount of federally funded research and has received grants from the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.
""Whether it's Steve Jones, Ward Churchill, or any other academic that works for a public or private institution and receives his salary from public and private institutional funds, they have to account for their actions when they represent themselves as of a certain employment. When they put forth utter fallacious claptrap that besmirches the reputation of their employer, those academics continued employment gets tossed on the table for review. Nothing stops Jones from resigning his position and selling his conspiracy theory in the market place of ideas. Perhaps the National Enquirer would give him a job.""
So it is a very wide spectrum.
I have no idea if the author believes Jones' weird position or not, but I object to to idea that his employer is not able to maintain some sort of standards. Mr. Jones is entitled to his opinion, he is not entitled to push it off on his students as some sort of fact. That was the what I felt she was trying to get across.
If you really look into Mr. Jones, you'll find that aside from his fringe-ish theories about 9/11, he is not "liberal" at all.
And not to quibble because there's been enough of that around here, but the majority of dyed-in-the-wool "liberals" do not subscribe to Jones' point of view and are, in fact, like you, offended by him.
Also, BYU is a private university and therefore receives no funding from taxpayer dollars.
They have every right to remove Jones if he is in fact "teaching" his 9/11 theories to his students at BYU, though at this time, I've heard no confirmation of that. I know that he gave a lecture on the topic at UVSC at that school's request.
Universities as I understand were founded to be places of learning, challenge and discourse; theories that date back to Aristotle, Socrates and Plato.
The Socratic Method, for instance can certainly be applied here. Having seen Mr. Jones' lecture at UVSC, (which, if you have the time is available on youtube.com) I can tell you that he offered very few absolute answers, but posed many questions, giving way for lively debate and discourse.
Morgan Reynolds who is splitting with Jones, and believes the videos of the planes are fake, is a libertarian with past ties to CATO and current ties to the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
He was former Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor 2001-2002, appointed by George Bush.
For all the heat for liberal theorists who propose alternative understandings of 9-11, the right wing and libertarian theorists are doing it too for their own purposes and need scrutiny too for their statements and motives.
"BYU is a private university and therefore receives no funding from taxpayer dollars. "
I just showed three ways BYU gets federal dollars. I give up.
As you can see there are many comments on this page, I must have missed yours concerning BYU's "public funding."
In fact, I still can't find it....Ok, I just found it. I can see where you're going with that, but I don't really think the terms you've provided (federal student loans and federal grant money for their museums and libraries) as really justifying Marion's p.o.v.
Just my opinion there...and just the fact that BYU is officially considered a private university.
And now, I think it's time for some Coronas and a beach vacation.
http://tinyurl.com/l4lg9
on page 7, BYU got $4million in federal research funding in 1998
http://tinyurl.com/kqxru
federal funding for BYU Center for International Business Education and Research, part of Marriott School of Management
My point being, dig beneath the surface. Given a simple statement like "BYU is a private university and therefore receives no funding from taxpayer dollars" can be checked.
But onward.
Dude, you must read a new and/or different article. You must move on, my friend. I'm not perfect. I have a 9-5 job, in addition to writing for New West, I'm new at this and while I can appreciate your knit-pickery on most levels, you're starting to come off a little condescending.
That said, even after reading the links you provided, I stand by my comment and still must disagree that BYU can be considered a "publically funded university" in the context which Marion implied.
I'm sure I won't have the last word here, but for now I have to move onto something else.
Thanks again for reading.
I could have been briefer and passed on making a few comments but I stand by the bulk of my comments. How was I to know your true position without drawing it out? It wasnt clear to me from the article. That emerged from the dialogue, socratic exchange.
I'll agree with you that in the context of Marion's statement BYU isnt a publically funded university. My notes on federal funding might be seen as trivia, but they might also help to explain context related to BYU's actions in this case, why they felt they needed to be seen exercising institutional control in part of protect access to these funds.
I have been close to giving up on internet discussions. I felt I had to do this one in part to try to prevent the article from being simply cast as blame America. I apologize for appearing condescending. I tried to avoid that but toward the end failed. I promise I wont try to "help" you again or comment on a article of yours again.
Please by no means stop commenting on my or anyone else's articles. I'm extremely glad that we've had this discussion without a doubt. I just felt that we had moved on from the original article and were simply starting to debate issues that weren't necessarily as productive as our earlier convo.
I look forward to your feedback in the future.
I hope your writing proceeds, there needs to be many voices, many discussions.
Even in today's over-enlightened and stupid world where everything is open to free speech, the advocacy of the overthrow of the government is against the law.
Secondly, not all theories deserve the same weight. His theories don't hold up. He isn't an engineer and he is using his weight as a "professor" to add credibility to an otherwise absurd assumption. He should be called on it!
Lastly, in a world where people refuse to research and understand science and reality, we depend on dopey answers and bad research, served as truth on the internet. Save Us!
Did you notice in her reply to George, "This was a brief story about Steven Jones and the fact that his job is at stake because he has dared to raise questions." that she mischaracterizes the issue making Jones out as some kind of victim? Jones wasn't called on the carpet for questions, but for falacious conspiracy assertions that embarrassed his employer.
If it took "pulled teeth" to get me to state my position...then what was your original criticism about? Why does my "position" really matter at all? The story is what it is.
It's obvious that you have some personal issues with Mr. Jones and it would seem with anyone isn't ready to put a rope around his neck.
Peace.
"By Tracy Medley, 9-11-06
George, I can certainly appreciate your preference for the Guardian article, however, you should know that this piece was never intended to be a comprehensive analysis of 9/11 "conspiracy theories" v. the widley held beliefs about 9/11. This was a brief story about Steven Jones and the fact that his job is at stake because he has dared to raise questions."
Tracy, I didn't parapharse your words. I merely 'copied and pasted' what you wrote.
You could have clarified your position after I was first to register my objection. Instead it took a double digit round of further postings.
I apologize for not giving your original comment individual attention, but by the time I actually had time to sit and read the comments...the flaying was already well under way.
So, here's the deal. I think we've all done a fine job of talking this subject into the ground. We are clearly in disagreement about many things and there's nothing wrong with that, but your criticism of me and this article is very well ducumented. You have made your point several times over...so, can we call truce? I'm not perfect...neither are you.
I cannot go back in time and write a new article (and if I could go back in time, you can bet that I would just be making sports bets and living it up on a beach somewhere instead of being here, on the internet) and I have already publically admitted I could/should have done some things differently. I'm not sure why you keep coming back here to give me more, other than the fact that other readers have come to the fore in my defense.
No matter...I'm a busy woman and alas...have got to move on.
So, in that spirit, let's stop trippin' and free up our time for more constructive things.
Take a walk. Have a beer. Take it easy
Feel free to continue your personal attacks upon me with all of your self-righteous condescension. Just try to get your facts straight before making your next accusation.
You've continued to criticize me now for three days. I've gotten your point loud and clear. Everyone has, but I'm not sure what you expect me to do about it now. I have apologized and I've tried to make peace and clear the air, but you simply won't have any of it. That's fine...it is your right, I just don't think it's healthy to continue rampaging over one article that frankly, was never meant to be taken as any sort of analysis in the first place.
I am deeply and honestly sorry for your personal losses, but this tragedy was personal to all of us ...and as Americans we have the right to discourse about it.
I'm sorry if that offends you, that was never my intent.
As far as being "self-righteous" and "condescending"...I didn't mean to be...I was trying to be light-hearted (note the joke about sports bets)...However, I have made absolutly no personal attacks against you nor have I made any accusations...period.
Regarding self-righteous condescension and accusations, I was responding to this:
""By tracy, 9-13-06
Hey Craig, I never said, "because he dared to ask questions" and since you seem to be such a watchdog, you might want to be careful using quotes when you're just paraphrasing people...and not even paraphrasing them accurately. In fact paraphrasing them with your own prejudice and "spin.""
You accused my of misquoting you and misparaphrasing you in my response to Jimi. I quoted you exactly and paraphrased nothing. I added my opinion over your recasting of Jones as some sort of victim and taking your sweet time to clarify your own position in that response to Jimi. Your condescension is revealed in your "watchdog" crack.
I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I'm just thinking that maybe this isn't the forum for what you seem to be really upset about (i.e. "Tracy, I knew people killed in those towers. I did business there. I ate at the Windows on the World. To see conspiracy claptrap posted as if it were valuable analysis on the anniversary of their murders by the terrorists is personal to me. Those victims deserve better"). Maybe you could take up your argument with the conspiracy group in question instead of writing here about it. Tracy has no affiliation with that group or with BYU or Jones. It was just a short little piece about him and his current situation. It seems to me that your beef is with those people who are coming up with these theories, and that's fine, but why not speak to them about it rather than consistently attack Tracy? It's coming across pretty mean-spirited and doesn't seem at all constructive, especially when the rest of us keep reading how often she's trying to call a truce and move on.
For example, in suggesting some merit to the conspiracy theories Tracy writes in her original piece: "For instance it is a widely tested and known fact that jet fuel does not burn at temperatures hot enough to melt steel; a fact that remains baffling in the case of United Flight 93’s apparent evisceration in a Pennsylvania field."
The melting point of steel says nothing about 93 which was made mainly of aluminum. Jet fuel burns suffiently hot to melt aluminum. Also consider what else would burn: the plastic interior material, the passenger seats, the passengers themselves, their clothes, all of the overhead luggage, all of the plastic sheathing on the wirers and cables, and the carpeting. A little digging for the facts would have revealed this.
In the same paragraph Tracy goes on to say: "There is also the matter of puffs of smoke which were photographed emitting from lower levels of the towers before their demise, which is something known to occur before a controlled implosion."
The Popular Mechanics article that I posted the link above deals with that myth. It states:
"FACT: Once each tower began to collapse, the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bore down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor. Unable to absorb the massive energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the building in a chain reaction. Engineers call the process "pancaking," and it does not require an explosion to begin, according to David Biggs, a structural engineer at Ryan-Biggs Associates and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) team that worked on the FEMA report.
Like all office buildings, the WTC towers contained a huge volume of air. As they pancaked, all that air--along with the concrete and other debris pulverized by the force of the collapse--was ejected with enormous energy. "When you have a significant portion of a floor collapsing, it's going to shoot air and concrete dust out the window," NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder tells PM. Those clouds of dust may create the impression of a controlled demolition, Sunder adds, "but it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception."" See here the discussion and the picture: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=4&c=y Just like Tracy's steel aircraft a little digging would have revealed the truth.
"By Chris, 9-11-06
Hey Craig, what about secret prisons? Are they part of the conspiracy too? Oh wait, GW finally admitted to them after denying them.
GW is my enemy because he is an enemy of democracy. "
These type of people seem to start from a "I hate GW" mantra which seems to rise to the level of a religious tenet of faith that colors cirtical thinking. The conspiracy theories seem to be their battle cry. I try not to respond to or engage those people. It is neither sporting nor productive.
But as I said before I see as much 911 conspiracy theories from conservatives and libertarians as from the left.
Sometimes when I am most cynical I wonder if some corporate conservatives and libertarians might be fanning these flames in the background they way they have on race, labor unions, etc thru history.
Claims of secret groups pushing new order can be seen as defense of country, liberty, American way of life and probably mainly that but they might be partly opposition to world government because it might bring world taxes, world labor and environmental laws, etc. too.
So much noise, so many layers.
Most conspiracy theories probably not true or not to any great depth
but it is ones we don't unmask that are most troubling, harmful.
"In science, a valid hypothesis must be based upon data and must be subject to testing."
The obligation to establish the validity of Jones' conspiracy myths rests with him. The experts cited in the Popular Mechanics article , in applying Ockham's Razor, are more deserving of your attention.
This is Jones work, a 48 page easy read. He addresses the counters to his theories and builds a solid case. He uses the official information provided by the government reports to build his points and shows many inconsistency in the government reports.
Tracy Medley's article is the only article that I have found that almost gave Jones a fair and unbiased point of view. Most everyone else portrays him as a crackpot. Please keep in mind Conspiracy Theorist does not = crackpot. Also keep in mind that Jones is has done a very good job at taking in other theories and disproving them, wile the official government report with-holds huge amounts of data from the public and refuses to address many valid points. His work is very scientific with research to back it up. If your looking for an Ockhams's Razor, I doubt you will find a sharper one than Jones's.
I have read the NIST Summary Q&A;, (I don't have the time to read the whole report). And found Jones's work much more compelling than the governments reports.
>>>>>>>
Letter to the Editor
Refuting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
April 09, 2006
Dear Editor,
After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his "Conspiracy Theory" relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).
I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones' (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones' thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.
The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet's fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.
Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones' presentations are very disturbing.
D. Allan Firmage
Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU
<<<<<<<<<<
You're right to put this article out the day before 9/11 smacks of politics, but really that is pretty standard for the left. Hopefully the whole issue will be put to rest and the guy will be done teaching. I can only wonder what else he has been teaching that wasn't to this extreme and no one heard about. Obviously if the author sort of believes him, others have probably listen and believed too despite the ridiculousness of the idea.
Here is the university's published decision: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,645199801,00.html
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Friday, September 8, 2006
Text of BYU statement on Steven Jones
"Physics professor Steven Jones has made numerous statements about the collapse of the World Trade Center. BYU has repeatedly said that it does not endorse assertions made by individual faculty. We are, however, concerned about the increasingly speculative and accusatory nature of these statements by Dr. Jones. Furthermore, BYU remains concerned that Dr. Jones' work on this topic has not been published in appropriate scientific venues. Owing to these issues, as well as others, the university has placed Dr. Jones on leave while we continue to review these matters."
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
First, I do not necessarily agree with all of Prof. Steve Jones’ work on 9-11, although I do not believe 19 Arabs committed this crime.
Here are a few of many dozens of really big obstacles - called facts. These mentally astute figures cannot dismiss these facts without doing some research - if they dare.
1. At least 7 (most probably 9) of the 19 supposed hijackers turned up alive and the FBI did not and cannot confirm the names of the bad guys even today.
2. There is NO evidence of any airline crash at the pentagon - please do the research! the piece of a/c skin, and a motor does not cut it either
3. There were no remains of bodies, parts or aircraft parts found at the supposed airline crash site for Flt 93. - read the on-site Corona's report and folks at the scene.
4. MANY witnesses on the scene, including surviving firemen tell of numerous explosions, just before the towers were ‘pulled.’ and during their demolition. Look at network video of the explosions and jets of white smoke being emitted ahead of / below the towers as they collapsed. Some emissions were a dozen or so floors below the exploding towers.
5. Look at WTC #7 and see the classic techniques used in its demolition. Hear the owner of the towers, including #7 that said he had it ‘pulled.’
6. Many body parts, bones were found on top of other buildings from towers #1 and #2. Wow, body parts flying up on top of adjacent buildings from a gravity only-induced collapse. There must have been a new law of physics enacted on 9-11.
There are many more facts on this subject that seem to have disappeared, forgotten or have been shouted out or down – but never really discredited.
Here’s the ignorant official version of what caused the demise of the towers – I guess not including #7. The planes’ explosions/ fires weakened specific floors and caused a ‘pancake’ collapse. How nice. Jet fuel fires normally burns openly between 260-315 deg C. MAX lab conditions -980 deg. C steel melts at about 1500 deg. C. I saw a news article http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060906/911_Conspiracy_060906/20060910/) confusing the ready and saying that jet fuel burns at 1100 deg. C. It is quite a preposterous claim and a lie. The irresistible force of the floors’ weigh multiplying, accelerated the speed of the collapse etc. again, this is a very outlandish and a very stupid hypothesis/ theory. Only a dim wit would believe such garbage. Have you seen the network video where the top part of tower #2 was separated and learned about 23 deg. before it disintegrated? Have you ever wondered why the core section of each tower was disintegrated, completely? A ‘pancake’ theory would always leave these cores standing intact! Wow, aye. Find some pictures/ videos of earthquake-induced/ ‘pancaked’ collapsed buildings and you will see that the towers did not ‘come down’ that way.
Did you see the explosions and clouds forcing upwards as the towers disintegrated. Of course you did, and you said, pancake collapse, right?
Finally, do you think that BYU authorities pushed for the investigation of Professor Steve Jones’ work? Not, it came from a political source and most probably originated from the D.C area. Do this research and you might find yourself sliding down the rabbit hole like Alice.
The truth can indeed seem stranger than fiction….and it can set your mind free. The question is, do you really want to know the truth, or would you rather maintain the noble title of sheeple?
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=pubs-english&y=2006&m=August&x=20060828133846esnamfuaK0.2676355
http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Sep/16-241966.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=4&c=y
If it's not clear to everyone. Jones took the time, did the work, to prove his theories and disprove others. No one is taking the time to disprove Jones. They just try to discredit Jones. Most of all Jones is doing the right thing by trying to call for an investigation and the release of all of the data that the government is withholding. Thing usually don't pan out with truth when the suspect is the one doing there own investigation.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/929981172
When the towers came down my wifes first comment was "Bush did this". I couldnt bring myself to believe that anyone could find a place in themselves to jusify such an atrocity. Now, I watch the atrocities mount, and our rights erode, lies admitted to and condoned and the step by step plan being implimented. And I see that silencing of descent, especially from acadamia as all part of the plan.
PNAC is worth reading.
9/11, London 7/7/2005, Madrid, Bali.... and many more.
All were highly professional "false flag" terror attacks designed to instill FEAR and to allow endless wars for profit and theft of natural resources while gradually stripping away Americans rights so that one day it may be a crime to speak about Jewish power in America and throughout the world.
PNAC and "Operation Northwoods" both detail what was needed in order to rally the citizens towards war.
It is obvious from the posts here that Damage Control is in effect, but you can only slow down the truth, you cannot stop it.
Peace, Mark
9/11 Deception
http://www.puppstheories.com/forum/index.php?showforum=70
I believe that a few fundamentalist cave dwelling people with a fetish for sleazy strippers, expensive scotch and loose lips, were able to enroll into foreign flight schools, learn to fly terribly, then get past security measures simultaneously at multiple airports... then outwit NORAD and the USAF, manage to fly their hijacked aircraft with surgical precision (twice) into the exact two places that would cause two 110 story skyscrapers to collapse at the spped of gravity, thereby destroying everything involved except one of the hijackers' passport, which thankfully got past the heat and flames that were high enough to melt steel, and subsequently float gently back to earth, unblemished, and managed to land brazenly on the rubble of the WTC.
Thank goodness I'm not a conspiracy theorist, because I'd have a hard time keeping a straight face while trying to sell that one.
Opinion: An idiot.
Darren Kamalu
Also, George, go see a doctor, you posted 20 messages here arguing about things that are not even mentioned in the article. I know you want Israel to survive, but please don't count on murder as a tool. It will only back fire.
I know that discussion will never sway those who are already convinced of their version of conspiracy. I think you and the others make a pretty weak case in my view seemingly full of major errors and things that seem fully refuted, but believe what you want just as I examine the data myself and sort out my own asessment of it.
If you don't accept his FACTS---and prefer to believe the US Government's non-facts----then America has a big problem.
You are not an engineer or scientist----so you are not even aware of the unsoundness of the US Government's "conpiracy theory".
Keep in mind that on Sep 12 the Vice-President of a company that demolishes buildings using explosives made the statement that there is no way that the towers collapsed as they did unless explosives were used. The US government shut him up right away!!!
We should keep in mind that the fires had already gone out when the towers collapse. That is why there was so much smoke and no longer any flame.
People saw explosions shoot out sideways from the WTC building and it was captured on film. But there were no forensic tests on the steel beams to prove that explosives were used,,,because Bush sent the wreckage as quickly as possible to China to be melted down before forensic tests could be run.
Bush's brother was a principal in the company that provided security in the WTC,...and for 36 hours a few days before 911 the WTC electricity was shut down---and that was enough time to install the explosives.
It goes on and on and on---and there are millions of Americans who have the guts to face the fact that "19 Arabs" did NOT do 911.
is that there was no investigation---just a cover-up.
The 911 Commission report did NOT try to find out WHO did 911.
The report already had its answers before the report was even written---just as the Warren Commission did not try to find out who killed JFK---it had all the answers the first day.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
I've seen Jone's paper. I've read the rebuttals and the rebuttals of the rebuttals. I've researched 9/11 extensively for 9 months now and witnessed the media actively covering up the incriminating/suggestive facts and events that contradict the official theory.
Still today 50% of Americans have not seen the footage of the collapse of WTC7. Yet you could not find an American who hasn't seen the collapse of the Twin Towers. There are dozens of structural engineers who have now come out that WTC7 was controlled demolition. Most of them hadn't even looked into it previously. They simply didn't know their was controversy about it. See Jowenko puzzling it out LIVE here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3DRhwRN06I
Its demoralising and destroying our society to have this tyranny continue any further. Michel Chussodovsky,Professor of Economics at Ottawa University did a lecture in 2003 called War and Globalization (see video-google) where he espouses entirely the 9/11 false-flag event and how Al Queda is simply a CIA asset.
The media is the No.1 perpetrator of these lies. Even after the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that there were no links to Al Queda(9/11) and Suddam, 60% of Americans still believe today there was. Only the media are to blame for that discrepancy in public opinion.
Its nauseating to see people still struggling to come to grips with what is so well documented in history time and time again. Such is the junk culture of American psyche. Neil Postman, in his 1985 discourse, Amusings Ourselves to Death, warned us:
"There is no more disturbing consequence of the electronic and graphic revolution than this: that the world as given to us through television seems natural, not bizarre. For the loss of the sense of the strange is a sign of adjustment, and the extent to which we have adjusted is a measure of the extent to which we have changed. Our culture's adjustment to the epistemology of television is by now almost complete; we have so thoroughly accepted its definitions of truth, knowledge and reality that irrelevance seems to us to be filled with import, and incoherence seems eminently sane."
All I can say to you America is go on and protect your Zionist criminals. In the end they will have destroyed America.
However, in his very paper, he cites Christopher Bollyn, who writes for the Holocaust revisionist/denial publication "American Free Press". How could he be so ignorant about his sources?
He takes an early editorial by William Manning, former editor of "Fire Engineering Magazine", out of context in deleting a key sentence that would have made it clear that Manning believed that only fire and plane damage brought down the towers. He apparently has made no effort to contact Manning for his current attitude.
He distorts the color/resolution and misrepresents a photo of a large chunk of debris as being a cooled mass of molten steel, when in fact it is a mass of compacted floors and other debris that is being stored at a hangar, in New York, I presume.
Jones seems to be saying that he never got political until this radio host "tricked" him into it. But I remember watching an earlier presentation he did, I think his second seminar, where he was all over the geo-political motivations he felt were behind the supposed involvement of the government.
My impression is that Jones is more than simply mistaken, I think he is deliberately misleading people. Either that, or he is an incredibly poor researcher and thinker.
Popular Mechanics writes
"FACT: Once each tower began to collapse, the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bore down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor. Unable to absorb the massive energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the building in a chain reaction. Engineers call the process "pancaking," and it does not require an explosion to begin, according to David Biggs, a structural engineer at Ryan-Biggs Associates and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) team that worked on the FEMA report."
Its not "FACT". It is in all entirity a THEORY.
FACT: The buildings collapsed
THEORY: Buildings pancaked with maple syrup
THEORY2: Controlled Demolition.
Which theory best fits the FACTS?
Rather the official report asked the question:
Which facts best fit our theory and lets ignore all the facts that don't!
Wake up America. The world is sick of your ignorant deference to the oligarchs and we will "bring it on" with the IEDs in the middle-east. 27,000 US soldiers not enough maimings for you? How about some more? You want nuclear war? you want to fight until the half the world is dead?
I take great exception to your piece. You fail to include any quotes from the array of experts that have refuted Jones' claims. You do not address the non-conspiracy reality. Here is a link to one such article: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mjc2MjZmOTI2YzM0M2ZjOTUwZWU4YWRiMjRlOTVjZGM=
-------
Craig, that National Review article is a hit piece. Anyone who knows the truth about 911 can see that there is not one refutation of the 911 Truth in that article. There is simply rhetoric. Lots of unsubstantiated rhetoric.
You refer to the patriots as enemies and draw on Mongolian crusades as though they affirm your politik. I can invoke the Mongolian crusade the same way. In my case, YOU are the women and children being used to protect the enemy. The enemy is inside the government and media. If you want civil war in America George you will have one. The truth cannot be buried any longer. Its out now. The only war I see he is a smear campaign, an information war to keep the core sheeple voters in the dark. But then this is not a partisan issue. The criminals are on both sides of congress and have been for a long time.
Controlled demolition is not in itself the hardest proof of conspiracy. If you go watch Everybody Gotta Learn Sometime on video-google you'll see that every aspect of the official story has been discredited. Mohammed Atta is an intersting example. There is the official Atta story and then there are the facts. The facts paint a totally different picture of a drug-running lap-dancing cocaine addicted play-boy CIA patsy NOT a devout jihad muslim. Also go watch http://www.911pressfortruth.com
All likelihood Atta is still alive running drugs for the CIA. We know now that 11 of the 19 hijackers are alive. We know that the original flight manifests didn't contain any of the hijacker's names.
People always demand an explanation for the missing passengers. Well according to the conspiracy 3000 people were murdered in the
controlled demolition. So thus the passengers were murdered as well. Those airliners may have been fitted with a gas to kill everyone and then the planes piloted using Global Hawk remote technology.
The point is, that with all the available facts, the official story is contradicted. We do not have access to the secret service files and further the SS have destroyed most of the incriminating evidence. Look into Able Danger. Look into the 84 Pentagon security camera videos that the FBI seized on 9/11 and have refused to release to the public ever since. Given that 36% of Americans believe in this conspiracy it would serve the interests of the government to appease suspicion by releasing the footage of the Pentagon attack? So why havn't they released any of the footage?
Well there you've just shown how ignorant you are. Jone's was commissioned by the government to investigate the claims of Pons and Fleischmann's experiment.
Jone's concluded that the claims were not repeatable and therefore could not be valid. This is actually Jone's area of expertise in nuclear physics - but "Cold Fusion" as it is known in the mainstream is not the same as what it is known as in the Scientific community.
It just shows you how powerful slander is. Here, the only thing they could find to discredit Jones - an association with cold fusion - is twisted into the opposite of what it is and then used to slander Jone's name.
God help America.
Why don't you all go read Jone's thesus? Scared that you won't understand it? You only need Year 10 Physics knowledge. This is how sad it all is - the fact that the towers were brought down in controlled demolition only requires basic physics to understand and yet 64% of americans still don't understand it.
By the way, the 36% of Americans who understand it are tertiary educated upper-middle class america. Its only the fluoridated sheeple who can't see the trees through the forest.
The fact is the 911 Family Steering Committee (The people who forced the government to finally officially investigate 911 after 440 days - unprecedented delay in the history of American desasters - 440 days later all the evidence had been removed!)
to this day complain that only 30% of their submitted questions were addressed by the 911 Commission Report.
You should go see http://www.911pressfortruth.com
If only you would go watch that film and concentrate you'll see that the official story is a fairytale.
Don't be ashamed of yourself for having supported the mass murder of middle-eastern innocents. We were all lied to and continue to be lied to by this criminal regime in America.
Remember that many Nazi drummer boys didn't realise that Hitler was lying to them too about all his false-flag terrorism.
Look up the history of false-flag terrorism. A democracy is the most vulnerable and likely target of such deception. A dictatorship doesn't have to get the permission of the people to invade other countries.
Rich, where did the latest Osama video come from? The one with him hanging out with the hijackers? We thus infer that this video is five years old at least. Where did it come from? And how come Osama hasn't released his latest video for the fifth anniversary of his conquest? How come Osama doesnt' hold up a newpaper so we know what date it is and that he's still alive?
Do you think maybe the FBI/CIA/Zionist cabal have all these Osama videos in a library and felt they needed to taunt the public for the fifth anniversary to remind us of the bogeyman?
You criticise us for basing our judgements on real evidence. You seem to base all of your opinion these videos yet you've seen what hollywood can do.
Did you know that the FBI have not indicted Osama for 911? Go to http://www.fbi.gov
If these video's are such hard evidence, how come?
You support the mass murder of millions of innocent middle-easterners because of an Osama video?
How do you know that Osama isn't working for Bush? You realise that Bush/Ladin have a long history of Business? You realise that Bin Ladins brother was at the White House on September 10th?
Do you realise that Osama was in Pakistani Military Hospital on the 10th September? You realise that ISI and CIA trained and funded Al Queda since 80s to fight Russia?
When exactly did Osama become the black sheep of the Bin Ladin family? Bush and Ladins still do business.
You really should go do your homework Nazi drummer boy. Grow up!
" By Marion, 9-24-06
One interesting thing that is never taken into consideration by the conspiracy theorists is the fact any conspiracy would have had to be in the planning stages long before 9/11, and that would mean during the previous administration. There simply was not enough time to have taken care of so many details during the time President Bush was in office before the attack."
Its very well accounted for in the conspiracy. Both sides of congress answer to the zionist cabal. What do you think the Bush admin were doing while they weren't in power? Playing with themselves?
"Conspiracy theory is the sophistication of the ignorant"
-Richard Grenier
Both sides use the following quotation, but it is still true,
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free"
-Christ
Think about it!
Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight.
With the exception of the name calling, this is one of the more intelligent conversations on this topic I've encountered.
My opinion is not relevant for now. The contibution I would like to offer is in the form of a question:
Is it physically possible for the entire structure to loose strength simultaneously?
There are debatable points to the extent that jet fuel can replicate the 'Blue Flame' temps necessary to melt steel ( with or without office furniture ), the chemicals found at ground zero that resemble those used in explosives, and the recently released (after the federal gag order was challenged in court and lifted) eyewitness statements and videos of the firefighters and other responders, whom claim to have seen and heard numerous explosions and "crackles" immediately prior to the "FREE_FALL" of the towers.
All of that can be left in the wind without actually proving anything.
BUT, what cannot be debated is: Each of the twin towers peeled like a banana, and "were on the ground in less than 10 seconds.
My non-scientific opinion comes into play here.
To me, it seems highly implausible that the steel beams on (lets just say) floors 5 and 6, were exposed to the necessary temperatures and other contributing factors for a complete and instantaneous FREE FALL.
There it is there folks. Regardless of all the hype, theory and opinion; does science support the possibility of an entire degredation of strenth; SIMULTANEOULY. Not a weakening of the impacted area, resulting in a gradual tipping and thus forcing gravity to pull or push other unimpacted beams to topple. These steel beams are structural steel, tested and certified to withstand the exact circumstance present.
It could well be that the towers fell according to the story given, but my eyes don't believe it. Every beam in the towers would have to loose strength at the same time to allow such a collapse.
Less than 10 seconds folks.
Google : demolition of historic high rise in Texas. Then look at the video of the controlled demolition of the high rise there, and then toggle the footage of the twin towers. Let us know what you see.
Much love my fellow Americans, we've got a lot of work to do.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spain_fire_2005.html