The claim that Gross denies the existence of any molten material is straightforwardly and demonstrably false. Those asking the questions in the video specifically make claims as to the existence of molten steel. Gross explains that he's seen no evidence for the existence of molten steel. As jwray has pointed out, the most parsimonious explanation is that the fire fighters actually witnessed molten aluminum.

Lastly, once again, Constitutional_Patriot is committing the argument from ignorance fallacy. He's claiming that because one can never be absolutely certain that there wasn't a conspiracy, it's reasonable to assume that there was. Further, as far as I'm aware, the claim that the fire fighters are now "under a gag order" is simply a lie.

I'll point this out again: I'm not claiming that because the government (or anyone else, for that matter) says the attacks were carried out by nineteen Islamic fundamentalists, any other theory is necessarily wrong. I'm saying that the attacks were carried out by nineteen Islamic fundamentalists because there's overwhelming evidence to support the idea and absolutely no compelling evidence either to exonerate them or to implicate (other al Qaeda members, etc. notwithstanding) anyone else.

I'm neither interested in your ridiculous lizard-fantasies nor in indulging you in your seemingly pathological narcissism. So, do you actually have any evidence or do you not?

From the second quotation, one might well be forgiven for assuming that the paper in question drew stronger conclusions than it actually did. In reality, it was far more reserved. Here are some further quotations qualifying the issue:

Despite the views expressed by the popular media, leading academics, and option market professionals, there is reason to question the decisiveness of the evidence that terrorists traded in the option market ahead of the September 11 attacks...

On the basis of the statements made about the links between option market activity and terrorism shortly after September 11, it would have been tempting to infer from this put-call ratio that terrorism probably was the cause of the November 12 crash. Subsequently, however, terrorism was all but ruled out...

[T]he article notes that the heaviest trading in the AMR options did not occur in the cheapest, shortest-dated puts, which would have provided the largest profits to someone who knew of the coming attacks. Furthermore, an analyst had issued a "sell" recommendation on AMR during the previous week, which may have led investors to buy AMR puts. Similarly, the stock price of UAL had recently declined enough to concern technical traders who may have increased their put buying, and UAL options are heavily traded by institutions hedging their stock positions. Finally, traders making markets in the options did not raise the ask price at the time the orders arrived as they would have if they believed that the orders were based on adverse nonpublic information.

Your first quotation is taken from a passage that explains that the supposedly suspicious trading activity was thoroughly investigated and found, ultimately, to be innocuous. In light of this, it's difficult to see how it could do anything other than refute the argument for foreknowledge-based trading. Here's the quotation in more context:

Highly publicized allegations of insider trading in advance of 9/11 generally rest on reports of unusual pre-9/11 trading activity in companies whose stock plummeted after the attacks. Some unusual trading did in fact occur, but each such trade proved to have an innocuous explanation. For example, the volume of put options- investments that pay off only when a stock drops in price-surged in the parent companies of United Airlines on September 6 and American Airlines on September 10-highly suspicious trading on its face. Yet, further investigation has revealed that the trading had no connection with 9/11. A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, which recommended these trades.

I'm not claiming that people shouldn't form alternative hypotheses or question the official account of the attacks. If the validities of these inquiries are not borne out by the evidence, however, then it would seem decidedly irrational to persist with them.

I'm not sure what you mean when you mention "the insider trading thing."

Even if what you say about photographs having been screened before being released to the public is true (some evidence for this claim would be appreciated), it doesn't constitute evidence of thermite. The lack of evidence is not itself evidence. Further, the National Institute of Standards and Technology was charged with carrying out the final, authorized investigation of the collapses. They have not complained of insufficient access to the evidence. Lastly, I'm not saying there is no conspiracy because I have complete trust in the government. (In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.) I'm saying that it's irrational to believe that there was a conspiracy because there's absolutely nothing in the way of compelling evidence.

Constitutional_Patriot, consider the following thought experiment:

On your way to work one morning you drive passed a row of ten trees. There's a tree-felling operation underway. Five of the trees have already been felled. One of the loggers is busy cutting a sixth down with his chainsaw. Later that day, on your way back from work, you notice that all the trees have gone and only stumps and sawdust remain. On closer investigation, you notice that all of the stumps show similar cutting effects to the one you saw being cut with a chainsaw.

Here are two of many possible explanations for what has happened:

A: Even though you didn't see it happen or document it in any way, the loggers cut down all of the remaining trees with chainsaws and transported them away.

B: Some other unseen device was used to cut the remaining trees down -- a device that, usually, would simply never be used for logging purposes. This device was used to fell the trees as part of a nefarious conspiracy.

Which of those explanations do you consider the most rational -- which of those explanations is the only one that is sane?

So, we have photographic evidence that columns were being cut with oxyacetylene torches during the clean-up operation. We also have photographic evidence that cutting metal with oxyacetylene torches results in the exact same cutting effects as those depicted in the pictures that you claim to be evidence of thermite. But because we don't have any photographic evidence specifically of those interior columns being cut with touches, you're claiming it's more rational (or at least not irrational) to believe they were cut by thermite during a controlled demolition. Also, I would have thought that the "other halves" of the columns are not still in the pictures because they have been transported away. That was the reason for them having been cut, after all.

Further, you seem to be implying that the photograph in question was supposed to have been officially repressed, but has somehow slipped though the net. In fact, it's been taken from a publically-available collection of hundreds of photographs which document the clean-up operation.

It's disappointing (if, by now, not entirely surprising) to see Choggie recycling the same old lies he's previously seen refuted. Demolition companies simply do not use thermite to cut large support beams (or anything else for that matter). Yes, the beams shown in the video (and in the supposedly leaked photographs he mentions) have been cut -- by oxyacetylene torches during the clean-up efforts. Have a look at the following photograph:

Clean-up workers cutting columns with oxyacetylene torches. Take special note of the incisions halfway up the column on the right.

Do you actually have any evidence that 9/11 was a conspiracy or do you not?

Well, you now seem to be under the impression that the perpetrators are currently dead. That's slightly encouraging. So, do you actually have any evidence that 9/11 was a conspiracy or do you not?

Firstly -- and I'm sure I shouldn't need to point this out -- Bluecliff specifically asked me for my opinion on Silverstein's use of the term "pull it." So, to say that by informing him of it I'm "missing the point" is really quite surreal.

Secondly, and quiet clearly, I didn't claim that a demolition was carried out "after the fires" or, for that matter, at any other time. I was pointing out that if by "pull it" Silverstein really had meant "blow it up," it would imply that the Fire Department had made a decision to carry out a nefarious demolition.

Secondly, and most importantly:

Quite plainly, I've never claimed that the 9/11 Commission Report (or the official account of the attacks generally) is anything like perfect. In fact, I've alluded to its shortcomings in one of my previous posts. None of this, however, gives us epistemological carte blanche to make unsubstantiated claims about controlled demolitions and bogus plane crashes. I'm not claiming that because the 9/11 Commission Report says the attacks were carried out by nineteen Islamic fundamentalists, any other theory is necessarily wrong. I'm saying that the attacks were carried out by nineteen Islamic fundamentalists because there's overwhelming evidence to support the idea and absolutely no compelling evidence either to exonerate them or to implicate (other al Qaeda members, etc. notwithstanding) anyone else.

Analogously, Evolutionary Biologists, to their credit, are the first to admit that their theories are incomplete and likely (in at least some small part) to be erroneous and that to reject any conflicting evidence automatically would be imprudent. That alone doesn't mean, however, that Intelligent Design theories and their ilk are compelling alternatives; it doesn't mean it's rational to assume that there's a vastly intricate, unseen force behind our biology -- just as it isn't rational to assume there are vastly intricate, unseen forces behind 9/11.

Finally, a word of advice:

The conspiracy theorists -- the documentary makers, the bloggers and suchlike -- are out to hoodwink and deceive you -- to trick you into accepting a false conclusion that will drastically affect some of the most important aspects of your life -- your voting habits, your politics and even your lifestyle itself. So, ask difficult questions; do your own research; do not take what you're told at face value.

1. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.

2. Eventually they told us we had the story right, they had it wrong, it took a while to get to that point, but we eventually got here. Did they lie to us or was it inadvertent? We are not a law enforcement agency, we did not have that kind of authority, going back to the mandate again. All of us had our suspicions here, but we simply did not have the staff and we were right up against the deadline when this came out, that we didn't have the time to say that these officials had willfully and intentionally lied.

On second thoughts, Constitutional_Patriot, it's probably worth addressing this issue now as it raises an important overarching point.

Firstly though, some specifics:

While they indeed had sincere reservations about how it was formed, funded and so forth, neither Hamilton nor Keane believe that the 9/11 Commission was ultimately unsuccessful. In fact, the opposite is true. The following is a quotation from their book Without Precedent:

Both of us [Hamilton and Keane] were aware of grumbling around Washington that the 9/11 Commission was doomed--if not designed--to fail: the commission would splinter down partisan lines; lose its credibility by leaking classified information; be denied the necessary access to do its job; or alienate the 9/11 families who had fought on behalf of its creation. What we could not have anticipated were the remarkable people and circumstances that would coalesce within and around the 9/11 Commission over the coming twenty months to enable our success.