dismiss 9/11 conspiracy theorists

* lenin:

"Police officers raided a home in Lancashire on Monday night and uncovered a huge cache of chemicals used to make explosives. Officers say it is the largest haul of such chemicals ever found in this country. One man has already appeared in front of Burnley magistrates charged under the Explosives Substances Act 1883. Another man has also been charged after a raid on his house uncovered rocket launcher and a nuclear biological suit.

You'd have thought this would be national front page news, wouldn't you? After all the hype, at last we have solid evidence of terrorists attempting to perpetrate a murderous outrage on the population - prosecutors say the pair had "some kind of master plan".

Except, of course, that the men charged are not Asian Islamists, but white fascists. Robert Cottage, who has been charged for the explosives haul, stood for the BNP in Colne at the last elections."

* the Editors does Foley. funny.

* tiabbi on the 911 Truthers (via scott):

"Whenever anyone chooses to dismiss 9/11 conspiracy theorists, accusations fly; the Internet screams that you've aided and abetted George Bush. I disagree. To me, the 9/11 Truth movement is, itself, a classic example of the pathology of George Bush's America. Bush has presided over a country that has become hopelessly divided into insoluble, paranoid tribes, one of which happens to be Bush's own government. All of these tribes have things in common; they're insular movements that construct their own reality by cherry-picking the evidence they like from the vast information marketplace, violently disbelieve in the humanity of those outside their ranks, and lavishly praise their own movement mediocrities as great thinkers and achievers. There are as many Thomas Paines in the 9/11 Truth movement as there are Isaac Newtons among the Intelligent Design crowd.

There's not a whole lot of difference, psychologically, between Sean Hannity's followers believing liberals to be the same as terrorists, and 9/11 Truthers believing even the lowest soldier or rank-and-file FAA or NORAD official to be a cold-blooded mass murderer. In both cases you have to be far gone enough into your private world of silly tribal bullshit that the concept of "your fellow citizen" has ceased to have any meaning whatsoever. It may be that America has become too big and complicated for most people to deal with being part of. People are longing for a smaller, stupider reality. Some, like Bush, sell a prepackaged version. Others just make theirs up out of thin air. God help us."

scott's comments are here. he loves talking all about this stuff, so go harass him.

* John Laesch was on Tweety's show. vid