Via Balloon Juice and Dave Weigel I came across this hopeful nugget of rationality and decency. Seems this guy bought the BostonMarathonConspiracy.com for a very worthy reason:
It took no time at all for conspiracy theorists to elbow in on the Boston Massacre bombings, “false flag” obsessives crashing both a televised press conference by political leaders and law enforcement and a briefing by a surgeon at Mass General. But earlier today, reporters noticed that a domain that might have been useful for Illuminati/lizard people talk—BostonMarathonConspiracy.com—was a mostly blank page with one message:
I BOUGHT THIS DOMAIN TO KEEP SOME CONSPIRACY THEORY KOOK FROM OWNING IT.
PLEASE KEEP THE VICTIMS OF THIS EVENT AND THEIR FAMILIES IN YOUR THOUGHTS.
THANK YOU.
The domain buyer, Jaimie Muehlhausen, lives in California and was nice enough to pass on an email that he’d been sending to friends explaining the purchase. (He owns the page through April 15, 2014.)
This afternoon, moments after the bombing, we stood in my office lobby and watched the TV as the events unfolded. Sadly, one of my first thoughts was that it would only be a matter of hours before a certain group of people would begin to say it was a government conspiracy; an act of terror on our own people for political gain. It’s sickening, but take a look at the massive numbers of 9/11 conspiracy nuts … read the rest
“Sadly, one of my first thoughts was that it would only be a matter of hours before a certain group of people would begin to say it was a government conspiracy…”
I am sad to say that is precisely what I thought shortly after I heard about the bombing also. It’s asisine.
One of my HS friends on facebook has already posted comments about the fact that there was a drill going on right at the finish line the same day as the attack, and that “with false flag operations, there’s always a drill.” He’s also an anti-vaxxer and Loose Change nut, but a good guy none the less. We went to a good school that did a decent job teaching critical thinking, so I’m not sure how he ended up down this particular set of rabbit holes.
@ 2. Tubi : Your HS friend obviously didn’t pay enough attention in class or maybe that was was overwhelmed by other influences. (family? friends? other?) Pity.
Are you still working on him? (Don’t give up on people. Tempting as it may sometimes be)
– My 2 cents worth of unwanted and probably redundant advice for the night.
PS. Speaking as a former climate change denier myself once for a little while among others things. I got better.