I'm beginning to theorize that people generate omnipotent human conspiracies as a psychological replacement for Gods and demons in order to fight off the inborn human revulsion for chaos in existence.

It makes them feel better to believe those planes flew into those buildings as part of a vast, complex, and well-ordered plan, preferably instigated by that monster the United States of America, rather than a bunch of terrorists managing to squeeze through a series of loopholes in our defenses, past old airline rules, over some dropped balls by the FBI and CIA, and around a sloppy immigration system.

Shit happens, and sometimes we're asleep at our post, and the bad guys get lucky.

If the bereaved people in the article cannot handle this without blaming someone that they think they can get at, instead of instigators deep in the deserts across the sea, I'm sorry. I have difficulty believing that our legal profession may not have had something to do with this. After all, what's the point of suing somebody sitting in a tent on the other side of the world, when maybe you can stick it to someone who actually has some cash, and is accessible under U.S. laws?

Most of the "holes" in the 9-11 story were filled long ago by sensible people. The bit about the fighters not stopping the planes I kiboshed myself with detailed stories of the actual missions from Aviation Week. Didn't notice it changed any minds. It's just that like the hoaxters who showed us how the crop circles were done. The crop circle nuts are more adamant than ever about the supernatural origins of these things. Cripes, look at how many new and detailed photos of the "Face" on Mars have come out, showing it to be a simple hunk of rock. See any minds changed in Hoagland's crew?

An exercise for the student: find one, single conspiracy nut in recent history who has EVER seen a new piece of evidence, and then said, "Oh. Right. Guess I was full of shit, wasn't I?"

BTW, if knives used to be illegal on planes, it's news to me. Prior to September 11, I flew routinely with either a Swiss Army Knife or its Leatherman tool equivalent. It went through the X-ray and showed up clearly. I saw it once on the screen. Nobody gave a hoot. Needless to say, nowadays this is no longer the case.