I’m sure there’s compartmented information that Obama is not just handed access to. For example, he didn’t ask which Navy SEAL shot Osama bin Laden. But if he wanted to know he could find out.
So when it comes to “hey, my political opponents may have been responsible for the biggest terrorist attack and mass murder ever committed on US soil” I’d be willing to bet he could find out if he wanted to.
Oddly, one of them is my ex-bf from high school; he owns it proudly (he used to get annoyed at my religious beliefs because he felt they were irrational…). I know because he posted the link just a couple of days ago. Nice guy, just utterly convinced by Alex Jones–and not a structural engineer or anybody who actually knows anything more than your average schmoe about burning jet fuel vs. steel and concrete. Definitely a Category 2.
IIRC he also thinks the gov’t shot Kennedy. Or something.
Oh and, yes, didn’t mean to imply that all or even most Canadians are like that. I was just rather shocked that they went from one to the other to the other… I guess if you scratch a Conspiracy Theorist on one subject, you find a freerange-nutter on quite a few.
IIRC it started with one guy saying that 9/11 was a conspiracy because steel doesn’t melt at that temperature. I pointed out that it didn’t melt, it just softened enough to bend. Then other folks joined in and they claimed that a missile hit the Pentagon. So I showed them a picture of plane wreckage on the law and debris scattered across the lawn right against the wall. They claimed that since I hadn’t been there myself I didn’t know that the wreckage wasn’t planted and besides, it was far from the wall itself. Then they claimed that the plane should have left a much bigger hole, and the fact that it didn’t meant that the building was hit by a missile. Then they claimed that the landing gear that was recovered was also planted and I couldn’t know that the engine that was recovered was real either, since i wasn’t there and…
It was about that time that one of them piped up with “I bet you also think that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman, eh!?!” and another started showing us YouTube videos ‘proving’ that the moon landing was a hoax and others murmured their approval since, after all, the USSR put the first man into space and the first animal into space, so the US really just launched a rocket, circled the moon a bit, and only pretended to land.
I’ve just discovered that I shouldn’t try to discuss these things with my coworkers, because I’m very bad at keeping a poker face when confronted with that kind of… belief.
Now, if my wife believed something like that, I don’t know what I’d do. It’d be a bit like discovering that you’re married to someone who thinks that UFO are beaming secret messages into her teeth. What is the correct reaction? Sympathy, compassion, quiet-eye-rolling while you change the subject, thorazine? Fuck if I know, but my sympathy goes out to the OP.
What’s horseshit? That it extended beyond 19 guys? It sure did. Supposedly Osama bin Ladin was behind it, and he might have been. The past decade of war is the US Government’s testament that the powers that be think 9/11 was a vast conspiracy. The Bush Administration convinced Congress that Iraq was behind it, which was most certainly untrue. I know that most of the designated villains are now long dead, yet the wars and profit making continue with no end in sight. It’s pretty obvious to me that airplanes brought down the towers. It’s obvious to me that the people who ordered it and arranged it were not among those to die doing the deed. Just because crazy people add bizarre fictions to the accusation of conspiracy isn’t reason to believe that conspiracies do not exist, they most certainly do exist, and 9/11 was one of them. There is no limit to the loathsomeness and evil that some human beings will stoop to if money and power are the motivations. I am comforted that by far the vast majority of people would die before doing such evil things for money or power.
I don’t think George W. Bush would deliberately do such evil acts. But I’m damn sure that someone like Dick Cheney would, and that W was quite susceptible to being a tool of Cheney’s.
Yet again, nobody has denied that there was a conspiracy to attack the United States. Nobody is claiming that conspiracies do not exist. That you do not understand that “Conspiracy Theory” means something totally different than “conspiracy” is quite a problem. As is your Just Asking Questions hinting about who else was involved in the attacks.
The implication that if we don’t know every molecule and how it interacted on 9/11 that we can never know what REALLY happened, of course.
Which, of course, no one is denying. And which isn’t what you mean with your dark and sinister ‘We will never know where it stopped’…wink wink, nudge nudge. Sheesh…no one here fell off the turnip truck yesterday wrt 9/11 CTs and the subvocal dance going on here.
Horseshit. The last decade is a testament to the US government over reacting and lashing out, as the majority of the voting public WANTED them to. We, The People DEMANDED that the government Do Something™…and we stumbled from one cluster fuck to another as the government tried to give us what we wanted.
But, of course, you aren’t talking about a ‘vast conspiracy’ involving AQ…you are really talking about a ‘vast conspiracy’ involving the government of the US, possibly the Jews(aar) and gods know what else…maybe mutant space muffins for all I know. Again…didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday TSS. Can’t pretend to have never seen you posting in a 9/11 thread before. Can’t pretend I haven’t seen the same language used before by 9/11 Truthers. Not going to pretend either.
Well yeah…obviously if Bush didn’t do it, Cheney and the dark forces of evil must have. Q.E.D. and all that. 
-XT
Bro, I’m really, really sorry.
But it’s not so bad. Many conspiracy theorists, with regular treatment and socialization, go on to lead happy, productive and mostly normal lives. I’ll PM you a link to some pamphlets about living with a Conspiracy Theorist loved-one.
Remember to talk to your kids about being patient with and supporting and understanding of their mother. It’s hard to be a child of a disabled parent, but remind them that it isn’t their fault and that whatever happens, their mommy still loves them.
One of my best friends was making “Truthy” noises. She’s a Lefty, I’m a Righty. She, of course, was leaning towards Bush or at least Cheney & others in the Administration either knowing about the plan or being involved.
So I asked her- “Is the Democratic leadership in Congress as evil as Bush & Co?”
Her- “Um, I don’t think so.”
Me- “But they know everything in government records about it & they don’t think the Bush Administration was involved.”
Her- “Well, maybe they don’t know the real facts.”
Me- “Oh, the Democrats in Congress don’t know the real facts but you and your sources do?”
I really don’t know if she changed her mind, but she shut up about it, so that’s almost as good.
No good. These kinds of conspiracy theorists tend to believe that the elected government isn’t really in control of that country, and that they’re just pawns of some secret, sinister (often Jewish) cabal that *really *runs things. These are the same people who generally believe that JFK was killed by our own government. They’ll have no trouble believing that Obama is either fully complicit in the shadow government, or is too cowed by it to reveal its machinations.
With A&EFT, they actually did sign up, but their credentials were barely checked (Gage had fake names on his rosters for* years* despite claiming to do ‘thorough background checks’. The remainder may look like an impressive number until you take a good look at their credentials. Lots of the engineers are ‘Computer Engineers’, a good dose of ‘Electrical Engineers’, lots of people with not-updated statuses saying they are ‘working on a Mechanical/Structural/Civil Engineering degree’. The handful of Architects they have only worked on small or short buildings (including Gage). The 1 or 2 structural engineers they have are 1) retired 2) worked on nothing bigger than an oil rig and 3) outright cranks in their real life.
‘Patriots for 9/11 Truth’ on the other hand, was a classic example of Truther quote mining and adding people without their knowledge or consent. The classic bit being them adding people who died in the collapse of the Towers.
You might want to poke around some places like the blog
http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com which regularly rips AE911T a new one.
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/ - Mark Roberts site which hasn’t been updated in a while but has scads of info about the people of 911 Truth movements and other fun debunking facts.
Ask your wife if she denies the Holocost happened. Many, many truthers are also Holocost deniers.
A support group? heh. Why does it matter so much that your wife believes in a whacky theory? Is one automatically a moral reprehensible person unless one subscribes to the current dogma? I once fucked a girl that was into crystal healing and numerology, she had a funny name but smelled good and was good to children and I have it from trustworthy eyewitnesses that global warmer dolphin/whale worshippers give the meanest blowjob. Wouldn’t it be boring if you agreed on everything? Your wife’s non-conformist views on 9/11 should give you something interesting to talk about.
Of COURSE Obama knows that Bush and the Pubs were behind the whole thing. This is why Obama doesn’t give a shit about public opinion right now. This is going to be the best October surprise EVER! 
If it’s just this one thing, then maybe the best idea is to just let it go. You hinted that she’s also going on about the Fed. Is there a whole suite of beliefs that go with the whole Truther thing, or does she generally have rational ideas about most things, even if you and she might not agree on the details?
Truther + Fed is Evil = typical Ron Paul supporter.
Could you perhaps try to have a conversation about not bringing this stuff up to your kid, and then ignore it?
In my experience you can’t change minds, so try to contain.
There is one unpleasant possibility here - that the OP’s wife is suffering from onset of mental illness, perhaps related to some undetected “physical” disorder.
I’m not trying to be snarky here about Truther beliefs, merely to suggest that if there is new onset of such thinking in a previously rational person, there could be something treatable at the bottom of it. First step (if she hasn’t had one recently) is a good physical exam with blood tests as indicated.
It is a very typical tactic of groups who, no matter how much they huff and puff, they actually have the minority view.
You are correct that a good number of the names in those kind of petitions usually do not have knowledge or consent; but, the fringe proponents ****do ****get **some **deluded former experts or washed up barely involved experts to sign the petition, the organizers then pay to publish it on important newspapers or on-line and then claim elsewhere that: “You see?!! There is no consensus and/or there is controversy on the subject!” The effort is made to confuse many and to reinforce the opinions of the fringe believers.
As the tactic is successful on many (I have seen many dopers fall for it on economic or political matters besides science) expect it to be used again and again.
My most recent tactic for dealing with the phenomenon in question is to reply to the alarmist assertions that, “Yeah, I know, I just don’t really mind all that much.”
Tris
Is this a joke or a bit of sarcasm? 
I honestly don’t know.
Frankly, I wouldn’t want somebody teaching my child things who is so obviously gullible and falls for the most ridiculous of theories.