Coming home

It's not easy to experience the confusing emotions of sacrifice, joy and relief in the same moment. But that's exactly what videos like this make me feel.

I go down a lot of rabbit holes on YouTube—Springsteen, Taylor Swift (yes I'm a Swiftie), standup comedians, German Shepherd videos, versions of Stand By Me and Tracks of My Tears—but the ones that affect me to the core are of soldiers returning from overseas, surprising their families and relatives.

These joyful, tearful reunions remind me of the sacrifice, real sacrifice, our soldiers and their families make everyday. Even during an awful period of time when a bone-spur addled, dementia-ridden, brainless, spineless, morally and financially bankrupt, rapist, convicted felon and overall cowardly piece of shit who thought of them (and still does) as "suckers" and "losers" was elected for reasons I'll never understand.

Anyway, the minute these families realize what's happening, you can see and practically feel the fear and uncertainty lift from them as they run to hug their loved ones who've done the one thing they hoped and prayed for: they came home.

They fight wars they didn't start. They're at the whims of politicians who have no idea what it means to sacrifice or defend honor. And they go back time and time again because it's their duty. It makes me realize I need to stop complaining about tough days at the office.

It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, or what color your state is. If you have a beating heart, you can't help but be moved by videos like this.

God bless all our soldiers.

And just for the record, I'm not crying. You're crying.

Conspiracy theory

It happens every anniversary of 9/11, and this one is no exception.

Every year, these idiots in their tin foil hats take a break from their vaccine conspiracies - microchips tracking you, vaccines don't work, they make you magnetic (they might be confusing that with my magnetic personality), they cause autism, they alter your DNA - to resurface and decide to scream the same ludicrous 9/11 conspiracy questions that have been answered and proven false for the last twenty-two years.

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m all in favor of questioning authority and government watchdogs. But conspiracy theorists, like their Republican and MAGA soulmates, all work under the same motto: don’t confuse me with the facts.

There’s a video online, sadly one of many, of a woman who has a conspiracy theory page on Instagram. I’m not going to name her, and I’m certainly not going to give out the name of her site. The reason I know about it at all is because a friend, who until now I considered fairly intelligent, reasonable and whatever the opposite of paranoid is, posted it today on their IG.

It is totally ridiculous, not to mention disrespectful and hurtful to the many who lost loved ones that day. But again, conspiracy theorists, like their Republican and the MAGA brethren, don’t really give a shit who they hurt.

I’m not going to answer all the questions this moron asks in her video, but I’ll tackle a few.

How does jet fuel burn steel beams?
The answer is it doesn't burn them, it compromises their integrity, something you'd think these asshats would be familiar with. From an article in the October 2001 Scientific American written by structural engineers from M.I.T. - not the YouTube University this conspiracy theorist went to::

” The main culprits in bringing the famously lofty buildings down, they concluded, were the two intensely hot infernos that erupted when tens of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel spilled from the doomed airliners. Once high temperatures weakened the towers' supporting steel structures, it was only a matter of time until the mass of the stories above initiated a rapid-sequence "pancaking" phenomena in which floor after floor was instantly crushed and then sent into near free fall to the ground below. Significantly, the panel stated that any mitigating reinforcements and redundancies added to these buildings could have only delayed the inevitable failure, though they would have bought more time for the evacuation of the occupants. “

How did two planes make three buildings fall?
Actually, two planes made two buildings fall. The fire from the falling debri set fire to the third building and brought it down by compromising the steel beams (see above answer). From the September 23, 2022 issue of USA Today: Official investigations show there is no truth to the claim the Building 7 collapse was pre-planned. World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, after burning for seven hours, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency report. It said the collapse of the building was a direct result of fires stimulated by debris from the collapse of World Trade Center Tower 1. The National Institute of Standards and Technology also says on its website that “heat from the uncontrolled fires caused steel floor beams and girders to thermally expand," causing a key structural column to fail and initiating the collapse of the entire building. The site also says investigators "found no evidence supporting the existence of a blast event."

How many people actually saw the airplanes hit the buildings?
In a litany of monumentally stupid questions, this may be the winner. No one has an exact head count, but literally thousands of people in Manhattan and millions watching around the world saw the planes hit. There are eyewitness videos of it all over the internet.

There are also a plethora ($5 word - thanks Rich Siegel) of false claims regarding United 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. Most all of those are debunked here. And the perennial claim that no airplane debri was found at the Pentagon is answered here.

The truth is the facts that prove the reality are all readily available and easily accessible. Of course, none of this will matter to the tin foil hat crowd. They will take refuge, as they always do, in lame defenses like "that's what they want you to think." or "They made it look that way." or "Follow the money." even if there's no actual money to follow.

Do I think that evidence-based events require further investigation? Of course. JFK's assassination and Jeffrey Epstein's "suicide" have a set of factual circumstances surrounding them that go beyond coincidence and need further examination. But really, let's stop the insane conspiracies - JFK Jr. is alive, the election was rigged, the moon landing, Paul McCartney's death - and put our energies on solving our real problems.

Want to hear my theory? All these conspiracy theorists want to sound smart, like they've uncovered some big secret the rest of us don't know about and are too ignorant to see. And if they haven't, which they haven't, they just make it up. And then they sound like sad, babbling idiots without an ounce of ability for reason or critical thinking.

Oh wait, that's not a theory. Turns out that's a fact.