Some good thoughts on conspiracy theories...

Posted this on Facebook earlier and I wanted to put it up here as well...

From the article:

The simplest alternate explanation to a conspiracy theory is usually incompetence. When people say, “Why did these things happen?” and then point to a series of seemingly implausible events, it’s usually because the government messed up. The right arm didn’t know what the left arm was doing. Government is made of human beings. They are remarkably ordinary in their ability to make mistakes.

There is also a certain amount of life which is luck, chance, coincidence and happenstance. You can’t always divine some larger pattern from the fact that two events seem related or happened in the same month. Often it is just chance.

As you see, I’m not particularly partial to conspiracy theories.

Why do we embrace conspiracy theories? (by Fareed Zakaria, CNN)

Obama v. W., Dems v. Republicans: Some post-bin Laden commentary from The Young Turks

Two good videos...

Obama and Osama

Saw this on Facebook today...

Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. Special Forces: A new conspiracy theory for the masses

Got him.  Heard the news last night while at a great show.  A good evening.  But, I am wondering, with them dumping his body into the sea, how many wackos will start saying that it is all a lie made up by the Obama administration?  They surely will not trust the DNA, will they?

Still, the more I think about it, this was probably a good solution.  You wouldn't want to leave the body.  And bringing it back to the U.S. could have had many grisly consesequences, plus you'd have millitant Muslims howling over fears that proper Islamic burial rites were possible not observed.  Best choice, I suppose, out of a lot of bad choices.  Our wackos are, on average, much less deadly than their wackos.

All in a front page: Newspapers cover the death of Osama bin Laden




What Ghost Will Emerge from Bin Laden's Watery Grave? (Posted by Ishaan Tharoor Monday, May 2, 2011 at 5:07 am)

From the article:
While the U.S. indulges in its fit of euphoria over the killing Osama Bin Laden, attention is rightly falling on how the death of the world's most wanted terrorist will play out in countries where he once enjoyed a modicum of sympathy, if not outright support. His alleged "burial" at sea seems a rather desperate, blatant attempt to ensure that the Bin Laden legend finds no real resting place, no potential martyr's shrine for wannabe jihadis to rally around and venerate.

That might have been an unnecessary precaution.