Steven Jones Suggests Magic Paint Took Down the Twin Towers

Richard Greene on Air America Radio is continuing his "month of truth" by bringing truther guests on his show. Bizarrely he let Kevin Barrett be in charge of producing last Thursday's, so the panel ended up being him, Richard Gage, Tony Szamboti, Steven Jones and a token debunker nobody has ever heard of named John Brown. Since the host is on their side, apparently he thought 5-1 was a fair ratio. Barrett complains the entire interview that nobody wants to debate him, but consider the source. Kev, you claim that there are no such thing as Islamic suicide bombers in Iraq, threaten anyone who supports the US government with hanging, create a website to post the locations of private individuals, and videotape yourself screaming on street corners in a Guy Fawkes mask. Did you ever consider that people just consider you a nutjob and don't want to debate you? Just put that in your mind there somewhere...

Any, most of the interview is pretty typical. Gage gives his usual speech about how over a hundred first responders reported explosions, and how massive steel beams weighing several tons were tossed 500 feet by explosives into other buildings. Curiously, he still does not address the fact that none of this was picked up the dozens of cameras trained on the buildings. I have always been perplexed about how at the Pentagon, where we have hundreds of witnesses to a plane crashing, a rather clear and obvious event not subject to interpretation, they insist that we need video evidence. At the World Trade Center though, where there is plenty of video evidence, they then ignore it, and insist we must rely on their own nebulous interpretations of what people heard.

Steven Jones of course rants on about his new "peer reviewed" paper, as if this poorly written and pointless letter were the greatest scientific work since Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica. As usual he continues his thermite fetish, which once again takes any form and properties required by its proponent. I am half surprised he did not suggest it as the ultimate Mother's Day gift. He did surprise me with one new claim though:

Jones: Superthermite, in the nano-composite sol gel form, can be painted on the steel columns and that then can be touched off with radio controlled signals. This would not take months.

Greene: How long professor, how long would it take to put enough thermite into a building like that to be able to bring it down?

Jones: In my paper, I estimate, it depends of course on the number, you tell them this is where... they might not even know what they are painting on the columns. They have access through the elevator shafts in the towers. That's where you need to plant the explosives, primarily...

Greene: OK, interesting, John Brown...

Jones: That answer then is it would take weeks, not months.

As someone who once spent a week painting my house, I am a bit mystified at the claim that you could sneak into an elevator shaft, rip out all the gypsum wallboard, and paint the steel beams of two 110 story buildings in a matter of weeks, all without anyone noticing.

And I am looking forward to the YouTube videos of Jones demonstrating this new demolition technique.