It needs to be noted that nobody in America knew for sure this was a terrorist attack and not a ghastly accident until the SECOND plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 (hence the 9:06 announcement). The plane hijacking information that had been dribbling into control towers and other centers had not yet been connected to any of this. This has to be taken into account.

As for the rest, hoo boy.

The article writer is, of course, nuts, but I don't want to go to all the work of showing leaps of logic that would make Evel Knievel weep with envy. Explaining the mistakes is a frustrating exercise, like trying to convince a small boy that he can't fly by strapping pieces of cardboard to his arms. It just seems so obvious to him that it would work.

Just a couple of small, common sense points as an example:

- A number of military "higher ups" would have to cooperate to squelch the air defense response for whatever nefarious conspiracy reason is involved. It seems odd to me that since most of the brass, including the Joint Chiefs, actually are located IN the Pentagon, that they would "drop their shields" and allow a jetliner to plow directly into them. Nobody was in shelters, and, as the writer has indicated, under his theory they were well aware that they were a target.

- If we buy the fevered notion that George W. Bush, Mr. Malaprop, the Chimp, the Dimbulb, was apparently willing to develop a complex master plan using Arab terrorists as pawns to deliberately kill thousands of Americans, wreck downtown Manhattan and the Pentagon, not to mention whatever building (the Capitol? The White House?) that was the intended target of Flight 93, one would think that certainly some overwhelming master goal was intended to justify this ghastly act.

What? What is the goal that is worth an act of mass murder that would make Hitler puke on his shoes? What's that? What do you say? A fucking PIPELINE? Try again. Is he going to take over the world? When? For all the shrieking, wide-eyed horror the Left has directed at The Beast Ashcroft and the Bush Administration, I have yet to see either do anything to annihilate human rights in America, although to listen to the Left we are already marching into the ovens.

These articles have been spread all over the web, and translated into many languages.

I have been studying conspiracy sites and their writers for some time, and I have yet to figure out what bizarre satisfaction, mental stimulation, or comfort these people gain from believing that there is something horribly, horribly wrong with their world. Evidence that contradicts them--i.e. shows the world is normal after all--is ignored, often angrily, which is also an odd psychological response.

When I show my kid that there is actually no monster in the closet, his reaction--his normal reaction--is relief. He goes back to sleep.

Had he insisted that there was a monster, despite being shown otherwise, and invented elaborate reasons why the monster can't be found, and then gotten ANGRY with me for telling him that the monster wasn't there, I would start to wonder. Why the hell does he WANT a monster to be in the closet? And what's wrong with his head?

What makes a person THINK this way? Why does Hoagland insist that it's a face, despite photo after photo showing it to be an eroded rock? What makes people see George Bush, of all people, as a master super villain who would casually murder thousands of office workers?

I really want to know. These people VOTE for God's sake.