I just put this together. . .

[xiphias]

From the Chicago Trib:

Karr has apparently been living abroad since being released from a California jail in 2001 after an arrest on child pornography charges. He is being brought to Colorado, where he will face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault, Ann Hurt, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in Thailand.

Like most sane people, my reaction was "WTF? Why the hell is the Department of Homeland Security involved in this, let alone in freakin' THAILAND?"

The 24-hour news channels are all abuzz with the potential confession of some random guy in Thailand who says that he killed Jon-Binet Ramsey, or however you spell it.

They're NOT all abuzz with the fact that President's warrantless wiretapping program has been found BOTH illegal AND unconstitutional.

Just sayin'.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

To summarize what I'm saying -- skepticism is a vital and important trait to have. Skepticism means that you try to listen to what you're hearing, and filter out your own personal prejudices, and try to figure out what is REAL.

There's a human tendency to find patterns, whether or not said patterns actually exist, and therefore, one should be skeptical of the existence of a purported pattern. And there is also a human tendency to assume conspiracy where, in reality, there is only coincidence.

So -- you've got all that on one side of the balance. A skeptic should be inclined to give a good deal of weight to the hypothesis that a supposed pattern in human affairs such as politics is actually just coincidence, or maybe coincidence plus incompetence. Most of the time, that's what it is.

You need to have a pretty good pile of incidents on the other side of the balance to start giving credence to any sort of "conspiracy" hypothesis. Which, frankly, is what my hypothesis is.

I think we're at the point where a skeptic has to start looking fairly seriously at THAT side of the balance. Skeptically, yes. But I think we're at the point that dismissing the hypothesis out of hand (which is USUALLY the appropriate response) is no longer the appropriate response.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

While I concur that there probably are some conspiracies at work to distract the American people from what the administration is really doing, I really think that this particular instance is not part of it. My reasons for this belief:

1. I find it very hard to believe that the White House was involved at any serious level with Karr's capture.

2. I find it hard to believe that, even if they were, they would have used such a thing to distract the public, since there is obviously reason to suspect Karr of at least pedophilia, and he was apparently about to start work as a schoolteacher.

3. The verdict regarding the warrantless wiretapping program was not a huge surprise to anyone. That, and the fact that the verdict was a lock to be appealed regardless of which way it went, makes the verdict something that isn't likely to set the 24-hour news channels abuzz.

4. It's not as though this is the only distracting thing that's happened recently. I mean, the Israel-Lebanon conflict has recently overshadowed the situation in Iraq, even though that certainly hasn't gone any better. Yet I don't see you suggesting that the Bush administration asked Olmert to attack Lebanon to get the American public to look away from the debacle in Iraq for a while. Why is that?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

. . . sadly, there's starting to be a bit of evidence pointing towards your #4 hypothesis. . . it's just, well, Hezbolah did start it, and, while there exist channels in which Bush could ask Olmert to do stuff, I don't really think he's got any connections with Hezbolah. . .