Prior to Dr. Griffin appearing at the University of Southern Maine a local columnist, Al Diamon, wrote a hit piece which appeared in a local weekly, The Portland Phoenix, a sister publication to the Boston Phoenix. Because Al Diamon's columns appear in several newspapers around Maine, his piece got pretty broad coverage in the state. I write for one of the papers his column appeared in and my editor let me have equal time to present the opposing opinion. The following appears in the Lakes Region Weekly, a weekly serving the communities around the Portland area. At the bottom is a link to a couple of letters to the editor to the Portland Phoenix from Portland writers regarding the hit piece.

http://www.keepmecurrent.com/opinion/columns/article_41dec750-5f78-11df-85bf-001cc4c002e0.html

The Power of High School Physics

As is sometimes said these days, one is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts. In some occupations, such as the case with opinion columnists, myself included, settling on hard, indisputable facts is not always easy. The proof is not always plain, and what facts are known can be interpreted differently. On the other hand, studying and describing natural phenomena, Newton’s observations of gravity and motion, for instance, the observed facts become so well proven they become universally understood laws. .

This might be why I took to loving science when I was a kid. It’s comforting to have something that is so certain. Drop a bowling ball and a pool ball from the top of a building and the acceleration due to gravity will be the same for both balls and they will hit the ground at the same time. It is a fact of nature and not subject to opinion.

A couple of weeks ago Al Diamon, acerbic as ever, in these pages insulted a man who came to Portland and gave a talk on the justification for the war in Afghanistan. A professor emeritus of the philosophy of religion, Dr. David Ray Griffin is very much Al Diamon’s intellectual superior, but that didn’t stop Al from conjuring up his own facts to label Dr. Griffin as an illogical kook. I give you the free falling bowling ball physics lesson because that is one of the certainties that convinces me that of these two men, Al Diamon is the illogical one (you may already think that) and his opinion was completely unencumbered by the physical laws of nature. Let me explain.

When the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) released its report in November 2008 describing the collapse of Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex, it described the complete collapse as due to the failure of one critical column from fire, a first in the history of steel framed buildings. They claim that that one failure set off a chain reaction involving all 82 steel supporting columns in the building. A high school physics teacher, David Chandler, successfully challenged that conclusion by proving the evidence shows otherwise.

Watching the roofline of Building 7 in videos of the collapse (google “Building 7 collapse” to see for yourselves) it is relatively easy to measure the speed at which the intact roofline falls. Instead of a progressive failure of one column, then another, then another, the roofline drops instantly, all together, at the same rate of speed as if you dropped a bowling ball off one corner of the roof. This means that in an instant there was nothing supporting the roofline across the entire building. All 82 supporting columns had to have failed at about the same instant; a progressive collapse doesn’t fit what is plainly seen.

The entire building fell straight down into its own footprint in a manner that news anchor Dan Rather watching it live described as “like a controlled demolition.” Danny Jowenko, a Danish demolitions expert, was asked in a documentary seen on Dutch television to view the videos and give his opinion of what he was seeing, without knowing the building he was looking at. He described aspects of the collapse that led him to say that it was an expertly done demolition job. Without a doubt. You can see in online videos his expression of surprise when told it was WTC Building 7 on September 11, 2001. When NIST was asked if they had looked for evidence of explosive demolition they replied that they hadn’t. They said there was no proof explosives were used (except for the multiple eyewitness accounts they simply ignored) and said it would be a waste of money to look for something they already knew wasn’t there. I’m not kidding.

David Chandler’s simple analysis forced NIST to acknowledge the free fall collapse and to change their report based on what he proved with simple, high school physics. NIST, however, has not explained how that free fall occurred, nor changed the discredited progressive collapse conclusion of the report.

Dr. Griffin supports the physics teacher and an independent, unbiased investigation as to why the building collapsed in free fall and not progressively. The war in Afghanistan, Iraq and the larger war on terror, with the renditions, torture and loss of civil liberties, are all predicated on this event. The free fall collapse of Building 7 proves NIST’s explanation is discredited. The question Dr. Griffin has, and I have, is why can’t the real cause be investigated? So much relies on what actually happened. The space shuttle Challenger disaster was meticulously investigated, but not this. Why?

Al Diamon took liberties to insult a far more accomplished and intelligent man than himself, as well as the movement Dr. Griffin represents. But one thing Al Diamon can’t do is force his opinions on laws of physics. Al may have his opinion of the 9/11 truth movement, but he is not entitled to his own facts about those events.

http://thephoenix.com/Portland/news/101872-open-your-mind-to-9-11-truth/

Keep speaking the truth.