You know what, I'm going to go with a magazine which prides itself on being fairly objective, and fairly scientific in their approach of things.
That's right. I'll go with Popular Mechanics who just issued a complete special report on their findings.
Here's the link. Where saner heads reside.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=5
[SIZE=+4]Popular Mechanics' Assault on 9/11 Truth [/SIZE]
[SIZE=+2] by Jim Hoffman [/SIZE]
The eye-catching headline on the issue's cover is "9/11 LIES", with "DEBUNKING" and "Conspiracy Theorists" being much smaller. Is this a subconscious appeal to peoples' suspicions that the official story is a lie? The Hearst-owned
Popular Mechanics (
PM) targeted the 9/11 Truth Movement (without ever acknowledging it by that name) with a cover story in its March 2005 edition. [1] Sandwiched between ads and features for monster trucks, NASCAR paraphernalia, and off-road racing are twelve dense and brilliantly designed pages purporting to debunk the myths of 9/11, which it proclaims can't stand up to the hard facts.
The article's approach is to identify and attack a series of claims which it asserts represent the whole of 9/11 skepticism. In each case
PM describes a conspiracy theorist claim in a paragraph labeled CLAIM and follows it with several paragraphs of debunking labeled FACT. In this critique we examine each of
PM's claims in three parts:
PM'S PURPORTED CLAIM:, which excerpts the key elements of
PM's CLAIM paragraph;
PM'S COUNTER CLAIM, which summarizes
PM's debunking of that claim; and
OUR REBUTTAL, which provides our analysis of
PM's argument.
PM gives the false impression that these claims, several of which are clearly absurd, represent the breadth of challenges to the official account of the flights, the World Trade Center attack, and the Pentagon attack. Thus it purports to debunk conspiracy theorists' physical-evidence based claims, without even acknowledging that there are other grounds on which to question the official story. Indeed many 9/11 researchers don't even address the physical evidence, preferring instead to focus on who had the the means, motive, and opportunity to carry out the attack. Some of this evidence is summarized at the end of this critique. While ignoring these and many other facts belying the official story,
PM attacks a mere 16 claims of its choosing, which it asserts are the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11.
PM groups these claims into four topics, each of which is given a richly-illustrated two- or four-page spread. Since nearly all the physical-evidence-based challenges to the official story fall within one or another of these topics, the article gives the impression that it addresses the breadth of these challenges. However, for each topic, the article presents specious claims to divert the reader from understanding the issue. For example, the topic devoted to attacking the Twin Towers' demolition presents three red-herring claims and carefully avoids the most compelling arguments that we (so-called conspiracy theorists) advance to prove that the towers collapsed due to controlled demolitions. [2]
The article brackets its distortion of the issues highlighted by 9/11 skeptics with smears against the skeptics themselves, whom it dehumanizes and accuses of disgracing the memories of the victims, and repeatedly accuses of harassing individuals who responded to the attack. More importantly, it misrepresents skeptics' views by implying that the skeptics' community is an undifferentiated army that wholly embraces the article's sixteen poisonous claims, which it asserts are at the root of virtually every 9/11 alternative scenario . In fact, much of the 9/11 truth community has been working to expose many of these claims as disinformation (or straw men).
(WHAT IS A STRAW MAN ARGUMENT?) According to Wikipedia, a free on-line encyclopedia, in the rhetorical context,
straw man describes a point of view or creates a bogus claim that can be easily defeated in an argument. The
straw man technique does not debate the facts head on, but rather detours around them in order to make the opposing view unbelievable.
The
Popular Mechanics article repeatedly uses the
straw man technique by setting up, then disproving, false claims which it asserts are accepted by most or all 9/11 skeptics. In doing so,
PM conceals the painstaking work of the 9/11 Truth Movement, replacing it with a lurid caricature.
The article is perhaps the best example of how the
straw man technique has been used to target the 9/11 Truth Movement, but the strategy is not new. We believe that some "researchers" have (wittingly or unwittingly) set up certain claims that are easily knocked down by our critics.
For example, the idea that holograms, not airplanes, were used to attack the World Trade Center towers, is clearly a bogus claim that 99.9% of all people would call absurd, preposterous and/or outrageous, thereby, turning off the inquisitive neophyte truth seeker from further investigation into what really happened. Persons who surreptitiously set up dummy targets, which can then be knocked down, are guilty of using this
straw man tactic. The increasing use of this technique in attacking the 911 Truth Movement is, we believe, an indication of our success in assembling a compelling and meticulously documented case disproving the Official Story. The
Popular Mechanics article is a case study in how this deceptive technique is used.
read all about the debunking here :
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/gopm/indexg.html
I'll read your link.... 
