I would just like to point out that none of what I wrote attempted to explain the conspiracy part of what happened on 9/11/2001.  I am a former math teacher, current computer programmer and someone who has been interested in and has studied science all my life.  I analyze reality and the information I receive through a prism that was influenced by my intellectual nature and experience.

There are many physical events of the tragedy of 9/11/2001 that, quite glaringly, do not add up or conform to scientific principles consistent with the explanation popularized by the so called main stream media and the government.

The people who “confessed” were tortured into doing so.  Does that not send up a red flag?  It’s my understanding that they also confessed to betting on baseball while coaching the Cincinnati Reds and anything else to avoid being waterboarded again.

heavyrunner, May 26 at 12:09 pm #

“I am not certain how we come to this discussion in a thread dealing with the NYTimes missing its mark re Watergate…...”

and I am still wondering ....

Ah, but the NYT eventually got Judith Miller.  So all’s well that ends well.

“I am not certain how we come to this discussion in a thread dealing with the NYTimes missing its mark re Watergate…...”

The New York Times has failed to investigate the suspicious claims of the official story of what occurred on 9/11/01. 

If the building pancaked, as you assert, why were there no intact floors at the bottom?  There was a pile of pulverized rubble a few stories high.  There were no intact floor modules whatsoever.  The structural engineering and architectural failure anomalies that contradict the official story are rife in their number. 

Why was the site not treated as a crime scene and rules of evidence followed?  No skyscrapers have ever collapsed from fire in history, either before or since.  You would think that a scientific analysis of what happened, with a complete investigation of the evidence, similar to the reconstruction of an aircraft after an accident would have been done to try and discover what happened so that safety measures could be have been taken to prevent future catastrophes of that nature.  Instead, under heavy guard, the steel from the building was sold as scrap and sent to China where it was recycled.  Try that with evidence from just a local automobile accident and see what happens.

Two asymmetrical impacts resulted, supposedly, in two very symmetrical collapses, and one skyscraper, World Trade 7 fell at free fall speed into its own footprint and it was not struck by an aircraft.  Etc.  Too numerous to list here, but the New York Times has not done its job regarding the unexplained physical events of 9/11/2001.

The chairman and Vice Chairman of the 9/11 committee have come out recently and stated that the principal witnesses they were allowed to interview had been tortured before they testified and have all since either recanted or are no longer with us, which leads former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean and former U. S. Representative Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, to question the validity of the conclusions of their commission.

To their credit, the New York Times has allowed Kean and Hamilton to publish their reservations about the Commission and its conclusions on the editorial page of the NYT.  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/02/obstruction/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02kean.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

It brings a chuckle to think that at one (that is once upon a) time, the New York Times was regarded as the paper of record. Well Judith Miller proved that was not the case. As Gore Vidal has said: “it’s a bad newspaper”.

heavyrunner

Admittedly, arguing with conspiracy theorists is a futile endeavor, but the truth is what it is:

Most steel has other metals added to tune its properties, like strength, corrosion resistance, or ease of fabrication. Steel is just the element iron that has been processed to control the amount of carbon. Iron, out of the ground, melts at around 1510 degrees C (2750°F). Steel often melts at around 1370 degrees C (2500°F).

The exhaust gas temperature (EGT) of some aircraft can reach over 900 degree celsius. Keep in mind that the EGT is noticably cooler than the turbine inlet temperature which is cooler than the temperature in the combustion chamber.

Also, if you are referring to 9/11, it does not have to melt the steel. It just has to soften it to point where it can no longer support the structural loads.

Further, the architectural aberrations that comprised the WTC towers lent themselves very well to the pancaking effect we witnessed. If you spend a few moments with a search engine you can find numerous architectural and engineering commentary showing plainly this weakness in the structures.

I am not certain how we come to this discussion in a thread dealing with the NYTimes missing its mark re Watergate…...

The NYTimes only conveys all the news that’s fit to print.  News that disparage a conservative president is not fit.  During the election ALL the media covered up the story, referring to it disparagingly as the “Watergate caper.”

Skyscrapers, such as the World Trade Center Towers, have heavy steel beams that hold them up.  Oil furnaces’ fire chambers are made of steel because oil fires do not burn hot enough to cause steel to lose its structural integrity or melt.  They can last for decades even with the oil fires inside optimized for most efficient and hot combustion.

Something is rotten in Denmark regarding the explanation we have been given for the events on 9/11/2001 that were used to launch wars that have killed millions.

We need a new investigation of those events.