My favourite link on this subject is this one from the Journal of Materials.

But what would structural engineers and materials scientists know about architectural failure, compared to a physicist focusing on fusion?

I mean, Connect the Dots, people!

While I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Skull and Bones Society, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, or the Council on Foreign Relations, nor have I ever committed any act of "sodomy" in the Biblical sense, nor even in the sense as the term was defined during the early years of America's history -- I do firmly hold to the conviction that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by planes crashing into them, which had been hijacked by totalitarian Muslims.

I further believe that theories to the contrary are part of a cover-up to divert attention from the real enemy. The Conspiracy manufactures its own phony "conspiracy theories" (e.g., "The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion").

To see who is the chief sponsor of terrorism, you can spell it with 2 letters: U.N.

Assuming that the world trade center and the pentagon were actually demolished by controled demolition, this would require extensive planning and a comparatively large number of co-conspirators. How many dozens? I would guess that the magnitude would be nearer a hundred. Are we to believe that all of the conspirators have stayed silent? How many were involved in the Watergate break in? Five, plus or minus? They couldn't keep their mouths shut. No matter how you slice it, the BushHalliburtonCheney Cartel couldn't have pulled this off. Remember, George W. Bush is an idiot -ask anyone.

Sorry, this doesn't doesn't even pass the hoho test.

Oh, brother.

Just when I thought their might be hope for humans.

there, too.

My reply to that last comment is unprintable. I think the referred site is spam (but I can't read Chinese characters), so I've simply deleted the comment.

BTW, this spam is driving me crazy, and it's taken me an hour to leave a comment, because the spam once again made MT Blacklist block my own URL (classicalvalues.com!). It also blocked 76 comments, in the past few hours, so my apologies to legitimate commenters. (I AM SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME WITH SPAM AND I DON'T LIKE IT. It's not why I started blogging.)

Anyway, that tms.org site Sigivald provided is great! Easy to understand, common sense explanation, and I liked this conclusion:

As scientists and engineers, we must not succumb to speculative thinking when a tragedy such as this occurs. Quantitative reasoning can help sort fact from fiction, and can help us learn from this unfortunate disaster.

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

I think there's hope for humanity; it's just elusive, and it isn't as exciting as the sound byte.

As to conspiracies, Benjamin Franklin said "Three men can keep a secret -- if two of them are dead."

Steven I think you're right about the manufacturers of conspiracy theories. But they're really not operating in secret -- and most of them don't even hide their agenda.

As I see it, there are two possibilities here:

Prof. Jones is wrong, and Islamic nutjobs hijacked four planes with the goal of causing damage. Two of those planes struck the two main World Trade Center towers, causing them--and subsequently WTC 7--to collapse.

or

Prof. Jones is right, and Islamic nutjobs hijacked four planes with the goal of causing damage. Two of those planes struck the two main World Trade Center towers. Shadowy personages with unknown agendas either knew that they were coming and meticulously wired up the three buildings with carefully-placed charges to cause the buildings to implode, or the buildings had been wired up previously to take advantage of an unexpected plane striking the building. After allowing the people to leave the towers, the masterminds behind the planted charges blew up the buildings. They were so cunning that they were even able to detonate charges in locations above where the planes hit, which had been on fire for an hour.

I do believe that Occam had something to say about how to choose when simple and highly complex answers are presented.

Eric wrote:
"Steven I think you're right about the manufacturers of conspiracy theories. But they're really not operating in secret -- and most of them don't even hide their agenda."

Conspiracy may not be the right word here. Secrecy is not the most essential element. Al Qaida does not hide its goals, the destruction of the West and the forced conversion of the world to Islam. And its nihilist sycophants on the campuses are getting more brazen every day.

Nevertheless, I do not believe that 9/11 and all the other terrorist atrocities since are either isolated incidents not spontaneous uprisings of the oppressed masses. I believe that they are orchestrated by men of wealth, intellect, and influence, most notably bin Laden himself.

I do believe in the existence of conspiracies. I believe that men act intentionally, often in concert, and often for evil ends. A group of poor Italian immigrants in the slums formed a formidable criminal organization known as La Cosa Nostra. Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, rose to power from obscure origins.

Why, then, could not intellectuals in America, born into affluence, educated in the most prestigious universities, exercising great influence over the minds of many, particularly the young, not dream the same dream? Why could not a millionaire or a billionaire dream the same dream? Why would not such men, acting in concert, with billions of dollars at their disposal, controlling tax-free foundations, universities, mass media, church councils, and the like, attempt to make their dream come true? And on a larger scale and by subtler means than did the above-named gagsters and dictators?

I'm thinking of such men as Alger Hiss, Owen Lattimore, Averell Harriman, Cyrus Eaton, and many others. I'm thinking of the long record of "The Walter Duranty Times" in building up first Stalin, then Mao, then Castro, then Ho Chi Minh, and on and on. The current cult of Ernesto "Che" Guevara is obviously deliberately manufactured by certain Communist intellectuals.

Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, "Che" Guevara, were among the first in a long line of Communist "wars of national liberation" following the doctrines of Lenin. The first Muslim to join this was Ahmed Ben Bella and his terrorist National Liberation Front in Algeria in the early 1960s. Today, that terror has spread to France itself. Communists have been in cahoots with totalitarian Muslims for a long time, e.g., Arafat. Al Qaida is the offspring of this whole movement.

None of this is accidental nor merely spontaneous uprisings of the deprived wretched of the earth. And it is all aided and abetted by intellectuals in our universities and mass media. Call it "conspiracy" or not as you choose.