Jack,

You seem to be someone who is trying to understand this issue, so let me point a few thing out.

"Griffin showed me how to rally my own folk understanding of the physics of medium sized objects and my own common sense in order to evaluate the official explanation of the collapse, which before I'd taken for granted."

This is a number one problem and is how most conspiracy theories work. What they do is try to link a common experience that the reader can relate to with proof of the conspiracy. Unforutantely, this is almost always an error, because the readers experiences are too limited to understand they are being lied to.

Example, Moon Landing conspiracy people often use the fact that pictures on the Moon don't show stars in the background. Because the sky appears dark even during the day on the Moon, they tell you that you should see stars as you do at night on Earth. This sounds believable, because most people haven't experienced being on the Moon, or don't know that much about photography. The simple fact is the Moon is bright and if you have an exposure setting to take a picture of something on the Moon, such as an astronaut, then stars are too dim to appear. Despite this being easy to prove, the "logic" of the no stars appeals to many because it relates to something known.

Same thing with the WTC centers. Comparing medium sized objects with the WTC centers does not give you any understanding of the forces involved with the large objects. It's not as if simply the scale is bigger. Construction methods and even materials are vastly different. The concrete used is not even the same. To the layman's eyes, they look similar but their failure methods are vastly different.

"I next read the classic paper by Prof Steven Jones, which compliments Griffin's paper beautifully by taking a more technical approach to the same broad set of questions."

You need to understand that Steven Jones does not have the technical background to approach this topic. While he is a professor of physics, that has no more bearing than being a professor of biology or history. Jones' specialization is Solar Energy and Fusion. In the latter he was part of Cold Fusion fiasco with Pons and Fleisman and thus he lacks a level of compentency in his own field, much less fields that have nothing to do with his education.

Have you ever seen a magician cut somebody in half or cause someone to leviatate? I'm sure you have, but you don't really think this happened do you? Probably not, because you understand it's "magic." Unfortunately, much of what is written about many topics is no better than street magic, because it's designed to trick the reader into accepting a conclusion rather than creating a proper theory that accounts for all the evidence and is peer reviewed.

Sometimes a magician believes his own tricks are real, and Pons and Fleisman certainly thought their Cold Fusion was real, but that's why we have peer review in scholarly articles, because sometimes even scholars get caught up and fooled by their own research.

You'll notice that no WTC conspiracy articles are supported in peer reviewed journals, that's because the articles fall far short of the standards needed for such publication. It pains me that people trick others into believing such conspiracy claims but I see it all the time.

Somebody who believes the buildings fell at free fall speed, please explain exactly how the laws of physics has changed to make this possible?

On Earth an object will acclerate at 32 feet per second per second ignoring air resistence. Anything that hinders the fall will slow it down.

There is simply no method to make a building fall at or faster than freefall other than blowing the building down from a blast above the building, in otherwords the shock wave of the blast has to provide the accelaration.

It's clear the buildings do not fall at free fall speed, but even if they did this is not proof of a controlled demolition so why do you keep repeating it?

http://www.physics.byu.edu/faculty/jones/rel491/handstext%20and%20figures.htm

Above is one of his articles on his own faculty website.

Now, whether you actually believe that Christ Visited in Ancient America, Jones appaling lack of logic should cause you concern.

As you can see in the article, his basic tenant is "Ancient artwork portraying a deity with deliberate markings on his hands will be found somewhere in the Americas" and this proves Christ's visit.

Of course, this is silly on two basic points. One, Christ wasn't crucified through the hands, but the wrists, so the pictures are not at all representive. Two, it's common in all cultures to have holes in the hands of figures so that they can hold items. In my personal collection I have figures from ancient China, holes in the hands, even GI Joe has holes in the hands for holding weapons, are we supposed to believe that Joe is a picture of Christ?

Also, note that most of his linked artwork that is not a based on a figure in Mayan, and it was common for Mayan royalty to pull ropes and other devices through their hands, tongues, and even pensis' as part of religous ceremony, so it's not unexpected that such artwork should exist.

Someone who believes Jones' work on the WTC please read his work on this and tell me if you think his logic here is sound?