The Village Voice is considered "alternative", but it also is considered completely credible, with many journalists having won prestigious journalism prizes for reporting.
Now that the Voice is reporting these issues, can we come out of the dungeon now?
The cover story for today's issue is about unanswered questions re 9/11. Here is an excerpt:
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0549,murphy,70685,6.htmlOpen and Shut
Four years later, we still have ten big questions
by Jarrett Murphy
December 5th, 2005 6:30 PM
photo: Joe Zeff
See also:
Running From the Truth
9-11 Commission dealt with several issues by simply ignoring them
by James Ridgeway
On Monday, December 5, the 9-11 Public Discourse Project—a private group formed by 9-11 Commission members after their official mandate lapsed in 2004—held a wrap-up press briefing in Washington, signaling the last gasp of official inquiries into the attacks four years ago. ...
6. Why did 7 WTC fall?
Seven World Trade Center—where, besides OEM, the CIA, Salomon Smith Barney, and other entities had offices—was the last building to collapse on 9-11. It was also probably
the first steel skyscraper anywhere to collapse solely because of fire. We still don't know why. While NIST has completed its twin towers reports, it has delayed its 7 WTC report twice; it's currently not expected until next spring.
Several 7 WTC tenants, including OEM and the Secret Service, had tanks filled with diesel fuel to power emergency generators. If that fuel leaked and burned, it may have heated the building's steel supports to the point of failure, but
according to FEMA's report on the collapse this "best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence." 7. How did the twin towers fall?
Many
FDNY personnel who saw the south tower collapse reported explosions at the lower levels as the top began collapsing. These reports, as well as "squibs" of smoke seen on video of the collapses, have led to theories that the towers were brought down in controlled explosions. NIST dismisses these notions, claiming that the puffs of smoke were the result of air being forced down by the top of the tower collapsing.
NIST said the towers fell because the planes shook fireproofing loose from the steel superstructure, and the fire heated the floor-supporting trusses so much that they pulled in on support columns that were already holding more than their regular load. But
NIST's computer simulation stops at the point the collapse begins, and does not document exactly how the rest of the buildings crumbled in 10 seconds. The reason for this omission could be the sheer complexity of the computations—even NIST's simplified model took weeks to run on a computer.
Conspiracy theorists aren't the only ones who dispute NIST's version: Some fire scientists also take issue with the institute's methods and conclusions. And the point isn't just historical. The lessons learned from the WTC collapse will inform decisions about the safety of other modern office towers.