A double blow to the "truthers"

The Jawa Report has the video of the confession of one of the 9-11 mass murders along with the celebration of his efforts by Osama bin Laden. On top of that the BBC is reporting on a study at Cambridge that proves why the towers collapsed.

The study by a Cambridge University engineer demonstrates that once the collapse of the twin towers began, it was destined to be rapid and total.

One of many conspiracy theories proposes that the buildings came down in a manner consistent with a "controlled demolition".

The new data shows this is not needed to explain the way the towers fell.

Over 2,800 people were killed in the devastating attacks on New York.

After reviewing television footage of the Trade Center's destruction, engineers had proposed the idea of "progressive collapse" to explain the way the twin towers disintegrated on 11 September 2001.

This mode of structural failure describes the way the building fell straight down rather than toppling, with each successive floor crushing the one beneath (an effect called "pancaking").

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"The initiation part has been quantified by many people; but no one had put numbers on the progressive collapse," Dr Seffen told the BBC News website.

Dr Seffen was able to calculate the "residual capacity" of the undamaged building: that is, simply speaking, the ability of the undamaged structure to resist or comply with collapse.

His calculations suggest the residual capacity of the north and south towers was limited, and that once the collapse was set in motion, it would take only nine seconds for the building to go down.

This is just a little longer than a free-falling coin, dropped from the top of either tower, would take to reach the ground.

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The real reason that the "truthers" came up with their ridiculous theory of controlled demolition is because they want to delegitimize the war that resulted from the attack. It is a typical reaction of the anti war left to all wars. They have used our failure to account for Saddam's WMD to delegitimize the war in Iraq, ignoring their own assertions that it existed before the war. These are people who want to prevent the sue of force at all cost and will convince themselves of whatever it takes to delegitimize its use. Its called living in denial.