Hijacking Minds...

What a terrific headline by Drudge!

I found the 9/11 memorial hype this year to be absolutely nauseating.

Realize that in the ten years since 3,000 people died in the attacks...

...that over 400,000 people have died UNNECESSARILY on the roadways - a silent holocaust in and of itself.

To the fools that claim they are *accidents* I call bull$hit. There are people texting, tailgating, weaving, and driving 80 mph in the right hand land everywhere. And there are absolutely no efforts made to get shady uninsured drivers off the road, get illegal immigrants and blind 'old coots' off the road, or to investigate the extent of cordless cellphone usage in crashes. No, the people, the media, and the government just accept this as an immutable reality.

And they do so because it doesn't present a mass marketable, self-aggrandizing opportunity for themselves.

So when every blowhard on the radio and television wants me to reflect on what THEY deem important I punch the off-button with indignation. Realize again that they NEED everybody talking about, worrying about, angry/happy about the same things each day or they simply don't have a market for their *product*; they'll have no one to manipulate.

I suggest that whenever someone else tries to hijack and terrorize your mind that you take appropriate self-defensive measures.

Was 9/11 a big deal?

Yeah, of course it was. You don't have to tell me. I was on the phone with my (future first) wife when the first Tower fell and the line cut off. She was only 4/5 blocks away.

In fact at around 9pm last night when we got back from Maine there was still a massive vigil going on in our hometown of Manhasset, NY. Our *Wall Street* town lost 40 people or so on 9/11.

But still, why were we attacked in the first place?

It was because the powers-at-be let important $hit slide (lax illegal immigration enforcement, threatening rhetoric from overseas caves, etc.) in the first place while they focused on self-serving crap like global warming, gay marriage, and defeating their political opponents opponent.

Incompetent Terrorists?

Nine years ago today my wife was 5 blocks from the towers when they fell. And, as I've mentioned before on this blog, I was on the phone with her and the line went dead while I watched the implosion live on TV. (Luckily, she called me back a minute later.)

At the time, I thought for sure there'd be another attack soon in NYC - even if Homeland Security was busy protecting laughable non-targets like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

Regardless of its inaccuracy, I still stand by that prediction.

But since we're back in NY now, and my wife takes a train and a subway to get to her job downtown, on this I try not to think about how extraordinarily prescient I am.

I do believe it will eventually be a subway attack. Those trains at rush hour are jammed. A bomb (nerve gas) or something would wreak genuine *terror* among the lumpen NY masses. Every tanned person (and there are a lot) with a backpack or briefcase on a train would arouse deep suspicion and fear; a lot of women and interior decorators would minimally never ride the subway again - if not move away altogether. Perhaps even some of those well-marbled municipal workers would even start walking to work?

Alright, that last supposition was a jest.

Ground Zero - 8.75 years later

Wow. It really has been a long, long time.

I took my kids into Manhattan ("the City") today for the first time since we moved here. We hit that breath-taking Battery Park, lingered on the playground there for a bit, met *mom* after work for dinner (pricey $12.50 burritos from Blockheads!), and then took the subway and train home as a family.

Despite a spot of rain, it was a beautiful 72 degree day with a refreshing breeze off the Hudson. And the kids did well with all the walking until about the very end. After all, their strides are HALF as long as ours!

These are the types of things a family can do when they are untethered by *school*. Tomorrow should be just as nice; and around lunchtime we're going to a state park to meet up with our new, local homeschool co-op.

Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest

First off, let me say that I hate having to cover subjects like I am about to here - but no blog named Marginalizing Morons can justifiably ignore this.

22% Believe Bush Knew About 9/11 Attacks in Advance

Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.

Republicans reject that view and, by a 7-to-1 margin, say the President did not know in advance about the attacks. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 18% believe the President knew and 57% take the opposite view.

Reiterating, I hate having to put stuff like this on my blog. One, because everyone else is talking about this poll and two, because it crosses the line into the "political arena" - a fray I try to stay above.

Clearly, the fact that 35% of Democrats believe Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand is one mother lode of a Moron indictment.

Almost on par with these demented conspiracy theorists was the reaction among some Democrats that I observed. Bill O'Reilly had a "Democratic Strategist" on last night and he asked her to respond to the results of the poll, namely the 35% number. Her Moronic response was two-fold. First, she screamed "15% of Republicans believe it too!" Bill O'Reilly demanded a more legitimate answer so she exclaimed, "President Bush has created a lot of mistrust in voters..."

Okay, he may have created "mistrust" among the electorate, but he didn't start confiscating brain cells. Can you say external locus of control?

If I was a Democrat I would just say, "Sure we have a lot of dummies in our party, but we also have a lot of smart people too" or "Well, 75% of Americans can't find their own country on a map..."

I certainly wouldn't have gotten as defensive as the guest on O'Reilly. Doing so essentially corroborates the point they are trying to deflect. This illustrates why arguing has gotten real boring for me. I can't hardly get a good argument from anyone. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I know better counter-arguments against my views then the Moron or genius trying to altercate with me.

I emailed the story to a couple of acquaintances who I knew would get similarly "defensive". One responded with the Republican percentage just like the clown on O'Reilly. While the other tried to draw a Moronic equivalence with those who "reject evolution" - which started a whole other sidebar discussion. But the evolution analogy is fatuous at best. Evolution is a theory on human development. Many evolution deniers don't "reject evolution", they consider it a theory and not a fact. Also, how can anyone compare doubt of what happened incrementally over a period of millions of years to doubt of what happened six years ago in a time of prevalent video cameras, human witnesses, etc.? Evolutionists and 9/11 conspiracists have one thing in common in that both groups' evidence has yet to "fossilize".



Identity politics is out of control in 2007. I voted for President Bush in the last election - so did Don King but I don't feel any obligation to vouch for his intelligence.

Lord Halifax said that ignorance,

"maketh most men go into a party, and shame keepeth them from getting out of it."

Indeed.

One more excerpt from that poll,

White Americans are less likely than others to believe that either the President or the CIA knew about the attacks in advance. Young Americans are more likely than their elders to believe the President or the CIA knew about the attacks in advance.

Let's see....Ethnic minorities and college kids are most likely to believe in the 9/11 conspiracy tripe.

Does that mean that American socialists are failing in their efforts to elevate and educate?

Or does it mean that they have been successful in creating a docile horde of bitter voters?