Conspiracies!

I love 'em... each a mini-laboratory of human cognition, an ant-farm map of the intersections between mind and matter-- and of the co-creative properties of the two...

surely a crowning wonder of nature is the endless ductility of the human mind, able to stretch, bend, twist-tie, and pretzel itself through, around, under, and beyond all possible beliefs... like taffy through a radiator... regardless of evidence... in fact, for the True Believer evidence against is always evidence for, and vice versa.

As my Christmas present to you, here's a round-up of some of the newer conspiracy theories that have come across the desk here at WiHW:

Beethoven and the Illuminati! I don't think of old Ludwig Van as much of a team player, so he probably wasn't on the front lines of the conspiracy. Still, like the Beatles 130 or so years later, he lent his considerable tunesmithing talents to the cause.

Obama's birth certificate! A meta-conspiracy story with commentary by Michael Shermer and other wacko-watchers.

The appropriately-named Jim Marrs is one of the grandaddies of con-think, and unlike the majority of his brethren, he can write. Interestingly (or frighteningly?), as I've watched his career over the years he's drifted nearly into the mainstream, and is now published by Harper Collins...so obviously They got to him!

YOU SHOULD NEVER * EVER * OPEN EMAIL ATTACHMENTS! So we are told by Cryptozoology.com... this useless advice is supplemented by scores of sea serpents, bigfoots, bunyips, and assorted dragons and ABCs. I used to shun cryptozoology as a wanna-be conspiracy-- it seemed so er, fluffy... but this was before I understood the tie-ins with creationism. Believing in the continued existence of pterosaurs actually makes you a cognitive radical!

...but--there really WERE no dinosaurs, you dodo-head! Jurassic... FAKE!!!!

It's all TRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUE!!! Well, not really, but human history has given us enough self-interested cooperation in the name of squashing The Other Guy that it's no wonder that people try on conspiracy theories like pullover sweaters.