The clean cuts you mention, Ron, could have been caused by shaped charges. I'm suggesting that thermite was used, and shaped charges, as can be done in a professional building demolition. I don't think there were any materials in there that could have produced a hot enough fire to either melt steel beams or cause them to bend and collapse. If the impact of the aircraft was what was required to weaken the structures enough to cause a collapse, then what made building 7 fall down? No plane hit it. It suffered little collateral structural damage from debris. If the fire was hot enough to cause buildings 1, 2, and 7 to collapse from heat damage to the beams, then what made buildings 5 and 6 not fall down (they both got burned out in much more extensive, widespread and long-lasting fires than what affected buildings 1, 2, and 7...they also both suffered far greater structural damage from falling debris than building 7 did...but they did not collapse.

Ron - "You were correct though - it is easy for two people to look at one picture and draw different conclusions. That doesn't mean that both people are correct."

No, Ron, it means either that (1) one person is right and the other wrong...or....it means that (2) they're BOTH wrong! (grin) ...and there is yet another possibility that they have both missed. I'm humble enough to consider alternative 2, believe me. How about you?

What if we are both mistaken in a number of respects? I think it's a distinct possibility.

Regarding the workers in the buildings: there were a lot of unoccupied areas in those buildings, whole floors that were vacant at different levels. There was also a lot of heavy work heard not long prior to 911 that was being done on some of those floors, heard by people working in the office floors below. What was that work? Nobody seems to know.

Bee-dub, I've seen the temperature charts. Jet fuel cannot burn anywhere near the temperature needed to bend and melt steel beams. It burns with a red-orange flame. That's not a fire that will melt steel. You need blast furnace temperatures to melt steel. That can only be achieved in a controlled setup with an oxygen feed, as far as I know. The fires in the WTC weren't what you call superhot fires, because they burned very smoky, and with red-orange flames. That indicates a fire that is relatively speaking not very hot (as fires go) and that is lacking enough oxygen to burn cleanly. Such a fire will not melt or bend large steel beams.

The big highrise in Spain burned for 24 hours, very hot, very big raging fire right to the top of the building...its steel structure did not fail. The fire stopped when it simply had nothing combustible left to burn, and the building was still standing afterward.

Buildings 5 and 6 burned very extensively, and they did not fall.

You see, how people interpret all this is quite predictable. Those who think there was no controlled demolition interpret it all to support their position. Those who think, as I do, that there was a controlled demolition interpret it to support their position.

That's how the human brain generally works. If it has a definite bias already (and that's usually the case), it interprets   available data to support its bias. It rationalizes and sifts through all the info to find anything that will support its argument. It discounts or reinterprets things that appear to threaten its argument. It is primarily subjective, not objective. I admit to being like that (as are 99.995% of the rest of humanity), and I would sure appreciate if a few other people were forthright and honest enough about themselves to also admit it.....but I guess that might be asking a wee bit too much, eh? ;-)

You know, I go out of my way on this forum to be fair when I say things like that. I freely admit to my own fallibility. Who else here has the guts to do that? Would you all rather be dead than admit sometime that you could be wrong about something? If so, you are in good company, because that is the psychology that has sent uncountable millions of people out to kill and die in a thousand wars that need never have been fought. Just NEVER admit you might be wrong, and unleash the dogs of war. That's what presidents normally do, right?