Somebody Else's Blog
For The Birds: In a way, I want to condemn and ridicule Twitter. Seriously, how many avenues of expression do people really need? Still, its usefulness during emergencies, like the California wildfires of 2007, is difficult to deny.
Most conspiracy theories aren't theories, at least not if the dictionary definition of the word applies; thefreedictionary.com defines theory as:
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Conspiracy theories remain difficult to disprove due in part to the tenacity of their adherents. This comes as no surprise because anyone who can devise such wild, incredulous tales is bound to be unmoved by rational evidence. And of course, a lot of the most popular conspiracy "theories" fall within the realm of possibility--in, ahem, theory--even if there are no, or very few, facts to support them.
In the case of 9/11 Conspiracies, I can't prove all, or any, of them false, but I do wonder about the motives of whomever the 9/11 conspirators are meant to be. If the September 11 attacks were devised as a ruse to implement the War on Terror, well... where do we start? If these sinister, devious elites are so skilled at creating elaborate hoaxes, why were the participants--or those identified as such--from Saudi Arabia? If it was all a sham to build up public support for attacking either Afghanistan or Iraq, why weren't any of the attackers Iraqi or Afghani? Why didn't they frame Saddam Hussein?
And why, if the government knew about the attacks ahead of time, didn't they allow one of the Twin Towers to be destroyed and shoot down the second plane? That would have made them look far more competent, riding in on their F-16s --white horses-- t0 thwart the terrorists. In such a scenario, they could have gotten the body count they presumably needed to justify war while still salvaging some heroic and telegenic moments.
Some supporters of the 9/11 Conspiracy claim that the collapse of WTC 7 establishes there was something suspicious about the whole affair. Popular Mechanics has already done an excellent job of demonstrating how each of the structures fell, but I think Building 7's destruction hurts more than helps the idea of government collusion. By the time it crashed to the ground, the damage was done. Nothing was to be gained by razing it. A 9/11 conspiracy/cover up is not impossible, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.
The Kennedy Assassination Conspiracies are simply too numerous, varied, and head-spinning to take seriously. President Kennedy's murder was almost undoubtedly a conspiracy--defined as two or more people attempting to execute a criminal act--but besides the obvious, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the nearly as obvious, Jack Ruby, its tentacles are tough to trace. All the chatter about the CIA, the FBI, the KGB, Fidel Castro, and Lyndon Johnson makes for fascinating speculation but it's too unwieldy to unravel in a way that assembles all the strands logically.
As for Barack Obama's birth certificate, this is the realm of the truly desperate. I, for one, would like to know the cost of an airplane ticket from Honolulu to Nairobi circa 1961. How long did the journey take and how many connecting flights were there? What kind of telephone system was in place in Kenya--or for that matter, Hawaii--in the early 1960s? With all this in mind, what are the odds President Obama's mother happened to be in Kenya at the time of his birth while somehow hoodwinking Hawaiian authorities and newspapers into believing she was actually still in Honolulu? Sorry, but no.
The moon landing was genuine too. Claims to the contrary are not theories, they are speculation. Stop hijacking the word "theory" to use as a cover for your absurd ramblings.
I didn't really write this.
Most conspiracy theories aren't theories, at least not if the dictionary definition of the word applies; thefreedictionary.com defines theory as:
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Conspiracy theories remain difficult to disprove due in part to the tenacity of their adherents. This comes as no surprise because anyone who can devise such wild, incredulous tales is bound to be unmoved by rational evidence. And of course, a lot of the most popular conspiracy "theories" fall within the realm of possibility--in, ahem, theory--even if there are no, or very few, facts to support them.
In the case of 9/11 Conspiracies, I can't prove all, or any, of them false, but I do wonder about the motives of whomever the 9/11 conspirators are meant to be. If the September 11 attacks were devised as a ruse to implement the War on Terror, well... where do we start? If these sinister, devious elites are so skilled at creating elaborate hoaxes, why were the participants--or those identified as such--from Saudi Arabia? If it was all a sham to build up public support for attacking either Afghanistan or Iraq, why weren't any of the attackers Iraqi or Afghani? Why didn't they frame Saddam Hussein?
And why, if the government knew about the attacks ahead of time, didn't they allow one of the Twin Towers to be destroyed and shoot down the second plane? That would have made them look far more competent, riding in on their F-16s --white horses-- t0 thwart the terrorists. In such a scenario, they could have gotten the body count they presumably needed to justify war while still salvaging some heroic and telegenic moments.
Some supporters of the 9/11 Conspiracy claim that the collapse of WTC 7 establishes there was something suspicious about the whole affair. Popular Mechanics has already done an excellent job of demonstrating how each of the structures fell, but I think Building 7's destruction hurts more than helps the idea of government collusion. By the time it crashed to the ground, the damage was done. Nothing was to be gained by razing it. A 9/11 conspiracy/cover up is not impossible, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.
The Kennedy Assassination Conspiracies are simply too numerous, varied, and head-spinning to take seriously. President Kennedy's murder was almost undoubtedly a conspiracy--defined as two or more people attempting to execute a criminal act--but besides the obvious, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the nearly as obvious, Jack Ruby, its tentacles are tough to trace. All the chatter about the CIA, the FBI, the KGB, Fidel Castro, and Lyndon Johnson makes for fascinating speculation but it's too unwieldy to unravel in a way that assembles all the strands logically.
As for Barack Obama's birth certificate, this is the realm of the truly desperate. I, for one, would like to know the cost of an airplane ticket from Honolulu to Nairobi circa 1961. How long did the journey take and how many connecting flights were there? What kind of telephone system was in place in Kenya--or for that matter, Hawaii--in the early 1960s? With all this in mind, what are the odds President Obama's mother happened to be in Kenya at the time of his birth while somehow hoodwinking Hawaiian authorities and newspapers into believing she was actually still in Honolulu? Sorry, but no.
The moon landing was genuine too. Claims to the contrary are not theories, they are speculation. Stop hijacking the word "theory" to use as a cover for your absurd ramblings.
I didn't really write this.
posted by DM | 6:00 PM
1 Comments:
Well said on the improbability of Obama's mother having gone to Kenya. Another factor was that Kenya had Yellow Fever at the time, so she would have had to have gotten Yellow fever shots, which are bad for the child during pregnancy.
Less well known is that it would have been impossible for her to have gone to Kenya in 1961 because she did not have a passport. Obama wrote in "Dreams from My Father" that both he and she applied for passports when they were getting ready to go to Indonesia in 1966 or 1967, meaning that she did not have a passport before that time.
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