I was surprised to read the author's remarks about the "supposed evidence" cited by 911 Truth advocates, and his further assertion that those who question the official government accounts of that event as being predominantly far-left Bush-haters. Neither of those characterizations squares with what I have seen over the past seven years.

While some of the theories put forward may indeed be nothing more than wild speculation, most of the doubts about 911 come from hard, empirical evidence available in the public domain, and among the questioners are current and former military personnel who certainly do not fit the "far left" category employed in the article.

The article itself is interesting, but with regard to the 911 references: the author has clearly not done his homework.

The author has not done his homework.

Check this poll out:

According to the new New York Times/CBS News poll, only 16% of Americans think the government is telling the truth about 9/11 and the intelligence prior to the attacks:

"Do you think members of the Bush Administration are telling the truth, are mostly telling the truth but hiding something, or are they mostly lying?

Telling the truth 16%

Hiding something 53%

Mostly lying 28%

Not sure 3%"

The 84% figure mirrors other recent polls on the same issue. A Canadian Poll put the figure at 85%. A CNN poll had the figure at 89%. Over 80% supported the stance of Charlie Sheen when he went public with his opinions on 9/11 as an inside job.

THE AUTHOR IS OBVIOUSLY A HACK!

Below is a link where Architects and Engineers have signed a petition to Congress to investigate these crimes of 911.

The AE911Truth Petition: TO THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND
OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Please Take Notice That:

On Behalf of the People of the United States of America, the undersigned Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and affiliates hereby petition for, and demand, a truly independent investigation with subpoena power in order to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 - specifically the collapses of the World Trade Center Towers and Building 7. We believe there is sufficient doubt about the official story and therefore the 9/11 investigation must be re-opened and must include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that might have been the actual cause of the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and Building 7.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

<link>

If engineers and Architects are screaming from the rafters that the physics do not add up, then the rest of us should listen.

I am no expert, but I do know that hydrocarbon fires do not melt steel. Also, a building with 20x safety factor should be able to withstand fire without collasping completely and certainly would not collapse in under 12 seconds or at the speed of gravity. It would encounter some resistance from the lower floors.

Since when does fire toss I-beam weighing tons 500 feet horizontally.

You can see the squibs or the premature demolitions going off in the videos for christ sake.

The author is in complete and utter denial or he is ignorant.

No building in history has ever completely collasped at free fall speeds due to fire but on that day three came down that way? That is the official conspiracy theory and I am not buying it.

A safety factor of 20? Who looked at the analyses of these buildings? You?

20 seems a tad high. Actually very high. Project concerned with safety, from my recollection, typically have safety factors of about 2.

What is an appropriate delay time caused by the underlying floors when exposed to the impact force from the floors above?

Sir- I am a mechanical engineer who specializes in solar systems for commercial buildings.

I can assure you, a 20x safety factor on building loads is not even conservative.

Remember, an architect has to account for snow, wind loads and ice.

As am I, which is why I called you on it, and your assurance isn't reassuring at all. Admittedly, I am not a practicing structural engineer specializing in steel high-rises, but from the sound of it, neither are you.

Maybe we aren't comparing apples to apples. From what I recall, the safety factor is the ratio of the designed failure load and the maximum allowable load. A Safety factor of 20 would require that the structure can support 20 times the allowable load before failure.

Yes, I do not design, but I am a submarine officer. I've seen the design studies comparing our allowable operating limits and the projected failure points. It's required reading, and I can recall nowhere in the nuke plant where our operating loads are only 1/20th of the designed failure loads. And it seems from damn near every engineer I speak to seems to think that our plants are overengineered like none other.

I would expect that snow, wind, ice would be accounted for in the allowable load. It seems reasonable that loads which will regularly be applied to the structure would be taken into account before applying the safety factor. I'm not saying that every load is considered in its utmost extreme (the highest ever snow fall, category 5 hurricane winds, building packed to the gills) at the same time, put since people and gear in the building can easily be seen to exert a different type of load on the structure than wind will exert, they should be considered together, rather than hiding wind loading behind a safety factor without reference to other structures..

Yes, a nuclear sub isn't a high-rise, but solar systems are either. I briefly looked online to see if I could find reliable, and repeated instances of building materials with high safety factors. IIRC, most building materials were around 2. Wiki claims a factor of 2 for buildings.

And, my gut tells me that there will be a limit to the safety factor as the increased weight from the structural material will reach a point where more structure is applied only to support more structure. If someone where to ask me if a safety factor of 20 was even possible in this application, I'd say I don't know, but don't think so. 2?3?5? Definitely seems probable.

So, again, where did this 20 come from?