NIST Interim Report on World Trade Center Collapses

wtc.nist.gov

Sorry to have disappeared on you guys again - my ethernet cable bit the dust this time.

You may not be aware that I confound 9/11 conspiracy theorists with the truth over on Democratic Underground. I don't like to advertise that here much, because this is a different gig. But when something this big happens in this field, I'll let you know about it.

There are many crazy ideas floating around about the collapse of the Twin Towers, along with Building 7 that day. We're talking small-nukes-in-the-basement and substituted-Flight-175-with-missile-pod-installed-underneath-shooting-flamethrowing-missiles-one-third-of-a-second-before-impacting-the-South-Tower type of theories. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has almost completed a two year study on the collapses and released an interim report on Friday. It's very comprehensive and should help people with genuine questions.

Those members of the conspiracy-industrial complex, however, couldn't be more displeased with this scientific study of the collapses. For that reason alone, you should check it out. I'm certain that this study is going to get the highest honor that I personally can bestow on any human endeavor: the newly concieved Lawrence David Kusche Award for acheivement in human rationality. Kuschies for short.

The made-up-as-I-type award is named in honor of Lawrence David Kusche, who wrote an incredible book. It's called The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved! I read this book as a kid, punch drunk on the amazing disappearances of boats and planes in the Bermuda Triangle. Kusche's methodical investigation into every story ever told about the Bermuda Triangle gave my brain an incredible jolt of reality. It seems that all those disappearences into broad daylight and calm seas? It turns out that 98% of them actually happened at night during storms!

The same human instinct that created all of those stories about the Bermuda Triangle is busy at work around the events of 9/11. The most famous revisionist take on that tragic day is a denial that Flight 77 actually hit the Pentagon. Though this NIST report doesn't approach the Washington crash at all, it does a lot in quelling the growing cloud of chattering about the New York events.

Not that this will stop the CTers from babbling about missile pods and controlled demolitions, not at all! There's too much money to be made from too many fools. But it's nice to have a sensible place to point when someone with real questions wants some answers. The NIST study is one such place.