Your post #1140 regarding the WTC: at the time the buildings came down, I had many years of heavy industry construction under my belt...a lot of it with structural steel.
That infamous day I ran home for lunch, slammed on the TV and saw the vids of one of the towers collapsing.
Other than the sheer horror of something of this scale happening at all, I was just as shocked at HOW the tower fell. The best way to describe the action was it “accordion-ed” down on itself, the collapse was fast, and the rate of collapsed accelerated. The entire motion was just damned odd. My gut and just being around “stuff” for years screamed something was not square.
I went back to the office dumbfounded., and raced to the room where our resident structural engineer/detailer worked.
“Rob, you need to see that. Iron just does not spooge down on itself in that manner unless it had “help”.”
The following day after he had seen vids, he pretty much agreed with my senses.
Thanks for that. I’ve had quite a few people with engineering, construction etc. post the same. So I’m pretty comfortable with thinking it was something other than just the planes.
IIRC, shortly after Silverstein leased the buildings, there was some sort of condemnation or order to replace the asbestos. That guy convinced the court that it was not just one terrorist attack, but two. So he got twice the amount of insurance. He had only put up a small amount of money for the lease (compared to the value).
However, he had insured it for the entire value of the real estate. In addition, he got Federal Dollars. So who benefited, well he and others.