Revelations that suspected terrorist Jose Padilla was going to use gas lines to bomb NYC apartment buildings are perfect for making New Yorkers and others go crazy with fear. While the feds are figuring out what Padilla's role as a terrorist and his ties to Al-Qaeda are, the Department of Justice does say that Padilla was asked to use buildings in New York, Washington or Florida as bombs. Thankfully, the Times talks to experts about why a plan of renting apartments, sealing them with gas, and then igniting them would not result in a building's collapse - mainly because buildings are too structurally sound. The co-author Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail, Matthys Levy, even says, "I think it's a nutty idea, frankly, an act of desperation. It's just not good from a technical point of view." Um, Mr. Levy, "nutty" and "act of desperation" aren't really a part of terrorists or other criminals' idea filtering process. In fact, Gothamist would venture to say terrorists like "nutty" and "desperate."
