On the one hand, knocking down large skyscrapers with explosives is actually pretty easy, if you don't care if the demolition is "controlled." A chunk of shaped plastic explosive slapped up against most of the girders, a bit of detonation cord, some more placed against the center concrete core, and the whole thing comes down simple and fast. Six operatives per building, a half hour to slap the charges into place (a few hundred pounds, at most), and there ya go.

On the other hand, if someone decided to do that, the process would have been over in *seconds* instead of the long delay we saw live on TV.

If you're creating a fait accompli, all you'd need to do would be to drop the buildings (killing many more people). A super-complicated conspiracy plot with faked plane flights (and all of the witnesses you'd have to bribe or threaten) would be, well, really damned stupid.

When is the last time anyone saw the 9/11 footage on TV, anyway?

One might almost be tempted to think that the media, in general, would prefer it if we all simply forgot what happened that day.

Uh... ahem....

He's an Aggie. What would you expect?

In a related story, ALCOA (AA) stock finished the day unchanged, at $27.27 but is expected to rise in the coming weeks. Strong competition from generic brands is beginning to slump as more and more moonbats are beginning to believe that the cheaper brands are not nearly as effective at blocking the mind control rays as Reynolds Wrap®.

Scientific American did a quick-but-good piece debunking the conspiracy theorist claims that 9/11 couldn't have happened exactly how it obviously happened. For the article, "Fahrenheit 2777" follow:
http://www.sciam.com/linktous.cfm?articleID=000DA0E2-1E15-128A-9E1583414B7F0000&chanID=sa006

Exactly what does an economist know about structural engineering?

Take the blinders off of your eyes!!!1!

It was the New York Poster Vendors' Guild and their Sorta Rapid Demolition Force that took out the World Trade Center to visibly alter the New York Skyline so its members could sell more posters.

Airplanes....I didn't see no friggin airplanes....please don't muddle this story with FACTS.

I've read this guy's stuff, and the theory that Building 7 was brought down by demolition is actually pretty convincing. It was the 40-something story building across the street, with no structural damage, and only a couple of tiny fires on one of the upper floors. It came down 8 hours later.

It also came down from below, not the top-down collapse we all saw with the towers. It came down fully contained inside its original footprint, just like a demolition.

They even claim that the guy who owns the management company (I can't get a straight answer on his actual job title and function) admitted in some documentary that they made the decision to "pull" that building. I couldn't find that documentary, so I have no idea if that's true or not.

The real problem is when they jump from Building 7 to "there were no planes." That's one hell of a conspiracy if it would fool dozens of video cameras and maybe a hundred photographers who were on the scene for the second hit (not to mention one or two that happened to catch the first one).

Can't wait to see what the moonbats over at DU are saying about this!

Exactly what does an economist know about structural engineering?

If he's in the BUsh administration and he has a wacky theory that proves that Bush is evil, he knows a lot.

The electrons expended posting this idiot's story and the comments about it (including this one) are a waste of time, energy, and oxygen.

I guess with he being an economist he is used to spouting off garbage about something he can neither control or understand.

Most conspiracy theorists pop up when they miss their lithium dose.

More proof that total nuts are educating our children.

Please....make the moonbats stop.

Please.

Now, the only thing I know about structural demolition comes from watching National Geographic and Discovery, but, don't y'all think someone might have noticed all these guys walking around with demolitions and primer cord, wiring things up? I do. Especially with the perfect way they fell almost straight down.

And, I agree with Maggie. Mentioning airplanes ruins a perfectly good conspiracy theory for the left. Some of whom believe that no atomic bombs were exploded in Japan.

Set aside the fire science and the engineering that backs up the collapse due to fire. Let's examine the demolition theory.

We've all seen buildings demolished on TV. Discovery Channel and History Channel run them all the time. It takes days of prep, tons of interior demolition prior to the planting of the explosives, and lots and lots of people. None of which was evident in any of the WTC collapses. Nobody planted explosives. Nobody removed interior partitions. Nobody altered structural elements.

What we saw on September 11 was a series of catastrophic failures due to the unique nature of the attack and the unique nature of the buildings involved. Wishing it were different is understandable, but it won't change the facts.

And, lest we forget, thanks to the heroics of a great many people, about 20,000 people survived the attacks and escaped the collapses.

Please understand that Dr. Reynolds does NOT have an office on campus, despite what the article claims. His only tie to Texas A&M is the title of M. professor emeritus.

Here is the response Texas A&M President Robert Gates issued June 14:

"The American people know what they saw with their own eyes on September 11, 2001. To suggest any kind of government conspiracy in the events of that day goes beyond the pale."

Please understand that Dr. Reynolds does NOT have an office on campus, despite what the article claims. His only tie to Texas A&M is the title of professor emeritus.

Here is the response Texas A&M President Robert M. Gates issued June 14:

"The American people know what they saw with their own eyes on September 11, 2001. To suggest any kind of government conspiracy in the events of that day goes beyond the pale."

It's easy to see why the Democrats didn't filibuster THIS guy.

In a related story, ALCOA (AA) stock finished the day unchanged, at $27.27 but is expected to rise in the coming weeks. Strong competition from generic brands is beginning to slump as more and more moonbats are beginning to believe that the cheaper brands are not nearly as effective at blocking the mind control rays as Reynolds Wrap®.

Ha ha! Little do they realize that this is in fact exactly how we transmit the mind control rays! Reynolds Wrap® is in fact a deviously complicated large-scale multi-layer transmitter circuit produced by CIA-developed molecular-beam epitaxy processes. They used to make it in the darkrooms of Los Angeles photographers, using secret agents who hid their identity by posing as papparazzi photographers, but ever since one of those damn fools went and ran his car into Linsey Lohan, that cover has been blown. Now they produce it aboard secret Space Shuttle flights that have been flying for the past two years while the Shuttles were "officially" grounded (what, do you really think Columbia was an accident?). The Hubble Space "Telescope" is in fact a giant electron gun, powered by upper-atmosphere ozone, which produces the circuits. The CIA built it for just such an eventuality. (The concern over the ozone layer started about the time that HST was launched. Coincidence? I think not. Where do you think the stuff's been going? And why doesn't the government tell the real truth about global warming? Now you know.)

The beauty of Reynolds Wrap® is that every square millimeter is its own RF generator and transmitter. You can cut it, mangle it, put it in the oven on top of a burned turkey, whatever; it keeps on working. The power source is the moonbats themselves. The irony is that the powerful brain waves resulting from their very highly developed intelligence and nuance gets turned against them. The Reynolds Wrap® rectifies these waves, adds in a little extra voltage produced by the galvanic reaction with their feverishly sweaty foreheads (they worry a lot, you know), and transforms this into the ultra-secret mind control rays. The great thing is, they put the stuff right on their heads! High power isn't needed, and the foil itself serves as a shield making the rays undetectable to outside instrumentation.

Now don't y'all go telling any of this. It's top secret, you know.

Er... It seems to me that everybody here has missed the obvious point:

"In fact, the government has failed to produce significant wreckage from any of the four alleged airliners that fateful day."

This claim is simply not true. Pretty much all of Flight 93 was recovered in Pennsylvania, and they found the black boxes from the plane that hit the Pentagon.

Given that his premise is a simple, flat out lie, the rest of the argument isn't even worth paying attention to.

Cousin Dave

Thanks, I needed a good laugh today.

Of course the moonbats won't realize its a joke, even after reading this. Such would require far more intelligence than they cumulatively possess.

Mentioning airplanes ruins a perfectly good conspiracy theory for the left. Some of whom believe that no atomic bombs were exploded in Japan.

The left has no monopoly on nutty conspiracy theories (and who the hell doesn't think the bombs were dropped on Japan?). Check out Bob Dole's former chief of staff's website detailing his lawsuit against Bush for planning the WTC attacks (apparently using remote controlled airplanes. Who knows what supposedly happened to the people on those flights). They say that charges had been installed by the owners on all of the WTC buildings well before the attacks, or some such crap.

True, the left doesn't have a monopoly on conspiracy theories, but which parties followers are bringing out the vast majority of them? From theft of the 2000 elections, to Bush causing 9/11, to all the conspiracies about iraq, to theft of the 2004 elections, and from there how they all break down into little theories.

A couple months ago I was astounded by a thread on the Liberty Forum about how the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima never happened. And that is strictly a libbie site. Read the DU, it is all conspiracy, 58K+ lefties gone wild.

True, the left doesn't have a monopoly on conspiracy theories, but which parties followers are bringing out the vast majority of them?

Well, certainly not the Democrats. Or the Republicans for that matter. Most of the conspiracy theories I see (especially concerning 9-11) are from people who think both parties are in on the vast conspiracy, and don't affiliate with any of them. They tend to be anarchists or whatever, but not democrats. Clinton, Bush, Kerry, they're all supposedly in on it. And it's all run by the Illuminati. It's silly to listen to these people for anything other than humor value, and to taint all liberals by association is wrongheaded.

Anyway, go back a bit. The moon landing, the OK City bombing, Pearl Harbor, Black Helicopters, Area 51, and on and on. These are not really conspiracy theories of the left, and they're certainly not partisan conspiracies. They are the theories of nutjobs. No political affiliation is safe from nutjobs.

Btw visiting an asylum (DU) and concluding that all people are crazy is fallacious reasoning. There are lots of sites full of so-called right-wing people spouting conspiracies too (the UN plan for New World Order, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, chip implants, Holocaust denial, Vince Foster, and on and on). You just don't visit those as you are only interested in dumb things left-wingers say.

You just don't visit those as you are only interested in dumb things left-wingers say.

I find enough dumb things left-wingers say, in news reports of a Howard Dean speech. ;-)

Mantis, I visit the DU for 3 reasons: first, to see where lefties are getting their material for the political forum I frequent, 2nd, to see what has their panties in a wad, and 3rd, because they are amusing. You can hardly take them serious. Same thing with Move On, Commen Sense, Johnkerry.com, and alot of the liberal blogs.

Now, you may be seeing the conspiracies coming from, as you stated "people who think both parties are in on the vast conspiracy, and don't affiliate with any of them." I won't debate that, I just haven't seen it. Not to say it isn't there. But what I see is people who voted democratic this past election as being the majority of folks with all sorts of crazy theories.

I think we all know what he's thinking: It was the Joooooooooooooooooos!!

You just don't visit those as you are only interested in dumb things left-wingers say.

A valid point. But, for right now at least, the left seems to be mainstreaming the paranoid ramblings of their asylum's inmates a lot more readily than the right.

In my ramblings around the blogosphere and political sites, I have rarely come across any serious conspiracy theories like the lefties have. Who was claiming rampant and widespread fraud? The left, who was claiming this only happened from the right. Those on the right tended to take the view that there was probably fraud from both sides, and would hold their water until there was viable proof.

That proof was found in Washington, and was immediately dismissed by the Left.

So, inorder to make this guy's theory "work," that'd mean that there are several islands in the South Pacific, Caribbean and perhaps Northern Canada where the full crew and passengers, from the two airplanes involved with the Twin Towers' collisions, are now enjoying a lot of drinks with little paper umbrellas in them in hammocks by the sea, at taxpayer (or perhaps "the conspiracy's") expense?

I'm curious just how much they had to pay all of those persons inorder for them to never, ever contact anyone who knows them again, or who they know, for that matter: wives, husbands, parents, children, debtors, employers, employees...

That's a very big ticket for a very big silence. All that plus room and board for the rest of their lives...so did Rove do that? Bush? Perhaps they involved John Ashcroft just to make sure, who knows.

Seriously, about that smaller building, I, too, read/heard someone state that they'd made the decision to bring a building down intentionally AFTER the Towers collapsed, due to the damage caused and the instability that remained afterward in that adjacent building. Just can't remember who expressed that, but it was within the context of Ground Zero and the work there to clear the area.

I GUESS there's a slight possibility that THAT's what this guy was POSSIBLY referring to, but he's sure not being clear about it if so.

I hope that most will recognize fantasy when they read it.

About the idea that no wreckage from the two planes involved was ever found, I DO recall seeing many print photos and video footage that showed one of the plane engines sitting on a Manhattan street. Among other things...

The most awful was reading that tied hands were found with other human remains on the roofs of buildings that were in the forward flight path, after the Towers, among other things.

So, all those hours over all those months of that impact footage -- which I also watched LIVE on television, by the way, the last part of it as with also the towers collapsing -- was fake?

As in, not.

Does this guy ALSO talk at times about "Zionists" and "the Illuminati"? I bet he does.

Lefties are funny people who will believe anything in order to smear Bush and "neo-cons."

I can't find anything in Reynold's CV that qualifies him to make these claims. He is not an engineer, a demolition expert, or even a crime scene investigator. It makes me wonder this about the UPI: Do you have to report every crackpot statement? Wouldn't it have been better to have investigated just a little, tiny bit, and then either proved or disproved this outlandish report? Imagine. You UPI reporters would have been legends. Now you're just legendary...for laziness. File this story with the alien baby and lobster boy reports.

This is just like the French claim back shortly after 9/11 that no plane actually flew into the Pentagon.

Basically, some dumbass thinking that just because people listened to him in the past, they will listen to him now, even though he is talking about something he knows absolutely nothing about. Pointing and laughing is the only appropriate way to handle it...

Yes, what Linoge writes (^^). It was within a matter of days after the events of 09/11 that a hugely expansive website by some French person or persons appeared, with photos and graphs and drawings and extensive commentary as to how the "lawn" at the Pentagon was humourously described as "astroturf" -- alleging that there were no marks on the grass lawn at the Pentagon so there couldn't possibly have been a plane collided with the building and they concluded that that event was caused by...a...missile...fired...by...the...Illunimati...and...Zionists...and...NeoCons...at...the....Pentagon...Americans killing Americans "just because" or something horrid as they alleged.

They had an animation of a drawn missile being shot a few feet over the ground, just above the grass (not touching the ground but skimming over it) that they then alleged via their animation destructed the Pentagon.

And then alleged that the passengers on the plane that did destruct (so they say it didn't allegedly by comparison), they then wrote extensively how all those passengers and crew had been given new identities and sent to live elsewhere under cover by some evil group of Americans....

So, I think that this idea as to the Towers is the same thing, inspired by the same cultist disturbing concepts.

I always marvelled that whoever authored that noticably French website (about the Pentagon impact), that they got all that information up and so quickly on the internet after the actual events. It seemed and still does oddly self implicating by whoever authored the site. As if they were ready ahead of time with "clean Pantagon lawn" photos and such.

HERE it is. I in no way endorse or intend to promote this foolish and actually quite stupid website, but at least the site evidences the extensiveness of delusions that some in France (and elsewhere, among the Left) embody.

It's a sad commentary about the worst form of indifference to human suffering I've yet to ever see or read.

And, this page from that site seems to be the literal inspiration for Morgan Reynolds' excess. He appears to have, quite literally, swallowed some stupid pill from the website.

using the "he can't know anything, he's just an economist" thought process:

what would former treasury secretary paul o'neill know about secretly planning a war in iraq?

he was just an economist...