I've had enough

I really, really need to put some focus on stuff that matters. And stop all the shilly-shally on stuff that's entirely bogus. Before I get to the point, there's something else on my mind.

I don't have comments enabled on this blog. I was asked the other day about it, somebody told me I really needed to have something -- said they noticed they couldn't comment and explained that "you can just send email" isn't always a reasonable answer. We talked it out and I think I'll put some comment feature up there soon, though I'm decided that it won't be a public discussion forum sort of thing -- instead if somebody takes the time to authenticate on my site they will be able to fill out a handy text box and leave me a message. As I type this, oh yeah all I need to do is have a feedback form, so easy! The feature I plan to code won't be especially easy but it'll be neat one day.

The other thing was about blogging about some controversial subject, or deciding not to do so. I'm on record as saying it seems really reasonable to me to skip such an effort. I'd say the best possible outcome is a slew of "hey Rob, I saw you took a stand and I really agree with you -- good job" emails. At worst, flames from people you really care about and have to respond to. It's better to talk about cheese sandwiches, isn't it?

OK wow look at me ramble. I must be getting up the nerve to say something :)

More than a year ago I caught the 9/11 conspiracy meme. I spent a lot of time looking into it and walked away being unconvinced, but more importantly really wondering why I would put so much attention on the matter. I wasn't certain then, and am not certain now. I can state one thing for sure -- I'm not willing to invest any real effort to do my own research. With that as a given, what am I left with?

Reading vast amounts of other people's webpages and watching silly videos and reading forum postings and comments and the like. [I'll leave that sentence drafted but am not going to make each word a hyperlink to one of the many features; if you've started into the topic you know what I mean, there are SO many pages devoted to the subject].

I realize some of why I'm disgusted and done tonite is from watching that horrible video some guy made which shows the towers burning and is simply a 911 recording of some poor bastard who died on the 102nd floor. Once I realized it wasn't going to be more than a sick snuff clip I quit it -- but kept on going with the "research". Ugh.

OK so a year ago I looked it all over and then realized I was spending far too much time on the topic and getting nowhere. I spoke to a few friends and moved on. Then my dad asked me about two months ago if I knew anything about it, and I told him the conclusions I'd come to: there's something strangly compelling about the matter, nobody seems to really have anything solid, and I wasn't willing to consider it any more.

Then my sister mentioned it a few weeks ago. Said one of her old high school friends seems way out on the edge. I had some lame advice about asking her friend to cut his rants down to three specific bullet points that she could chew on.

Later that same day another friend sent me a really crummy Word document email attachment version of this hilarity which brought me to the website where I found this. And then last night I saw this video rated 5-outta-5 stars on Google. Pretty cool, so I followed the "other videos uploaded by this user" link. I should have known something was up because he posted a video of some kids who trashed a rental car. His other video was yet another 9/11 conspiracy thing.

And I'm off to the races again! You think this blog entry is long? How about the HOURS I spent reading people's theories and refutations. Now it's late on Thursday and I'm ready to put myself out there:

I have now viewed the very last web-based anything on the topic. I'm done watching videos. My mind is closed. Undecided? Perhaps you're swayed by the conspiracy?

Please see how far you can get with The Creators of "Loose Change" Speak before you too are ready to be done with this. I made it up to about page 16 before being convinced... it's time to move on.

I'm still troubled by why this is so compelling. Yes, if our elected government has an agenda to take away our freedoms... that's something to get ahead of. I am concerned about the trend toward a police state. And I've said it before, there are plenty of real things to worry about.

However, whether "they" made 9/11 happen or intentionally let it happen, won't be troubling me any more. And I'll finish by saying, if you've convinced yourself that there's truth in the conspiracies, then...

Ack I can't do it. I won't type something negative at my few readers who don't agree with me. Read the article and see if it doesn't change your mind. And then send me an email with clues about how to get the pictures off my camera phone, or links about Mac or Linux stuff, or most anything else you think I'd find interesting. But this topic is closed.

I've had enough

Thursday, Aug 10 at 10:13 PM

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