Cuil Is Anything But Cool

Two weeks ago I wrote here that I was enthusiastically trying Cuil (pronounced "cool") as a search engine replacement to Google. I am hard-pressed to find a single reason why I would ever use Cuil again. It is patently terrible. It is in fact so bad that it almost seems a hoax or even a cruil joke.

And you know what? Well, today I stumbled on an oddly interesting link in the comments section of the Statfinder blog's entry on Cuil's performance (Statfinder tracks web traffic; I use Statfinder at Contratimes). Look at the comment left by Simsim. Now, I grant that this is an arcane link; one might reasonably argue that this is even an arcane discussion. But I am offering this because I have a confession to make: I feel taken.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am NOT SAYING that there IS a conspiracy behind the launch of Cuil. What I am saying is that 1) I never once suspected such a thing possible, and 2) even if such a thing is possible, I have no way of not falling prey to it. Does that make sense? What I am once again realizing is that the web is an utterly dubious place; in other words, it is a place where doubt should reign supreme. (Please note that at about the same time Cuil was launched, Yahoo launched, get this -- Yuil. Or is this all one big nightmarish joke? Am I sleeping? Dead? Have I drunk a deep draught of Cuil-Aid?)

Regarding the dubiousness of the blogosphere: I was involved in a lengthy debate last year at a website given to promote atheism. I was engaged in a number of jousts with a wide range of characters. But there was one thing very odd: Every time I clicked on my interlocutors' blog profiles, nine times out of ten the profiles would lead to blind alleys or dead blogs, blogs with but one post on them. (I have NEVER seen such a high percentage of pseudonymous bloggers at one site who did not actually blog.) I then did a web search on the man who hosted the site, and what I found was disturbing: he had a history of presenting false personae. I am not kidding. In fact, he had been caught by a savvy debater who spotted the man's name buried in the source code of a blog that was presented as being managed by someone else. It was all rather creepy, and creepily self-promoting.

So, when I thought I was debating several people, I was really debating one (there were a few legitimate folks there, but not all were legitimate).

And I've become suddenly wary of having given up my anonymity on the web, as I now see how easy it is for others to use my name to post comments. Identity theft in the blogosphere, I am afraid to say, is probably rather easy. And potentially very destructive. (In fact, the end of the blogosphere is solipsism, or so I auger.)

The Cuil promotional tour that hit the press now seems utterly weird and even surreal. I mean this with all the force of my wits: Cuil is terrible. Just go to Cuil right now and search for "Cuil Logo." Look what you get -- the GMAIL logo! (see screen shot below) And guess what you get when you Google "Cuil Logo"? Yeah, that's right: Cuil.

Who would EVER think Cuil was remotely competitive? Or am I missing something huge?

Anyhow, check out the arcane link I posted above. Tell me, PLEASE, what you think. I am not one given to paranoia. But I am one who loathes being made to look like a fool, even a Cuil fool. The link Simsim provides, also arcane and utterly conspiratorial (and WHO KNOWS who wrote that piece), is enough to make me want to simply leave blogging to someone else.

Food for thought, or not.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Rosie Sheen Sheehan

Rosie O'Donnell's view has been obscured by the top brass at ABC, and now she will have to find a different vista from which she can divine truth, and dispense her happy bromides. Curiously, a Rosie cohort, Charlie Sheen, is apparently seeing some sort of light at the end of his nose: He admits he might be wrong about the conspiracy-laden 9/11 film, "Loose Change." The good news is that he might have doubts; the bad news is that Rosie, who has also touted the film, has not had such doubts. Change comes slow, no doubt, and change, like wits, can even sometimes come loose.

Stepping into the news to eclipse all this is Cindy Sheehan, the indefatigable anti-war protester who has, apparently, finally tired out. She is heading back to California to reconnect with her remaining children. News has it that she is selling her land (Camp Casey, named for her fallen son) near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

It is hard not to pity Ms. Sheehan. Her own words (found here in her "resignation letter"), which are very much worth reading, are filled with pain. Perhaps the most telling line is the one about her son, who died -- freely -- while serving the American armed forces in Iraq. Ms. Sheehan writes simply, "I failed my boy and that hurts the most." [emphasis mine]

Ms. Sheehan has admitted something to us all in her resignation letter posted at The Daily Kos. She has admitted that the most painful thing is not the Iraq War or partisan duplicity or partisan betrayal. The most painful thing is not even the death of her son. The most painful thing is that she feels she let him down by buying "into the [American] system."

One can only grieve for Ms. Sheehan, for it seems she has not yet had the chance to really grieve. Her cause, her passion, and her many minions kept her, or so I believe, from truly addressing her deepest sorrows. Today, she is finally returning to California to try to restore relations with her surviving children, to try to regain the things she has lost. But what things are those, one might ask, if not the very things that are most valued in the system known as America?

If I was a friend of Ms. Sheehan's and I received a letter from her like the one she posted at The Daily Kos, I would be concerned that my friend was contemplating suicide. I am not her friend, and yet I am still concerned. For it is clear that she feels she failed. If her greatest pain comes when she considers that her failures led to her son's death, then she is not really blaming America or war or Iraq or Democrats or Republicans or even Casey for his death, she's blaming herself.

That is too much for any mother to bear.

Ms. Sheehan strikes me as exhausted and disoriented. Someone needs to get her home, hide her from the world, and give her lots of silence. She should stay away from TVs and radios and newspapers and the Internet; she should be given lots of love, hot tea, and pampering. She needs a long holiday from the world and, perhaps most importantly, her own persona needs to be exorcized. Her resignation letter proves that she teeters on the edge of sanity. Her words are those of a martyred messiah, a snubbed prophet. She sees things better than the rest of us; she knows more than America. That sort of inflated sense of self is not healthy. It is the very stuff of craziness. It is the sound of exhaustion, of collapse.

May God give her the healing and peace she seeks. Let us all pray.

Peace to you.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

(A related Contratimes essay, "Weapons of Miss Direction", which addresses Ms. Sheehan's quasi-gnosticism, can be found here.)

Watch Out For The Death Blow!

A simple truck driver did more than disturb -- and distort -- this morning's commute in Oakland, California. He dealt a fatal blow to those 9/11 conspiracy theorists who believe that fires in the World Trade Center could not have "melted" steel.

That such foolishness is contradicted by countless blacksmiths everyday does not stop such theorists' wild fantasies. But maybe James Mosqueda's close scrape with death will quench the flames burning in the hearts and minds of far too many souls who stubbornly refuse to believe the simple truth, namely, 9/11 happened exactly the way they saw it happen. When Mr. Mosqueda and his 8,600-gallon gasoline tanker crashed beneath an overpass in Oakland, the result was the undeniable melting of massive steel girders and the collapse of one of Oakland's vital thoroughfares.

Not that the steel actually melted; it just weakened enough to lose its strength and collapse after three hours of raging fury. Which is, of course, identical to the official statement regarding the WTC towers: the fires, along with the brutality of two planes traveling hundreds of miles an hour slicing through both buildings, weakened the structures enough to render them incapable of supporting their own weight.

But, as I said, we only needed to talk to a blacksmith about steel to come to conclusions the 9/11 theorists could not, in all their scientific inquiries, discover for themselves.

Perhaps we will now learn that Mr. Mosqueda wasn't driving at all; witnesses saw a grey-headed middle-aged man from Texas leap from the tanker into what looked like a Washington, D.C. motorcade. It is reported that three hours later, using a reconfigured cell-phone from inside Air Force One, some person called another phone at the Oakland underpass, which triggered a series of thermite bombs to detonate.

It's all just to throw the conspiracy theorists off the trail.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On 9/11: Rosie O'Donnell and Building 7, Imploding

It may very well be true that we in fact battle against those in high and lofty places, but it is clearly not true that those who sit in such esteemed heights are one whit lofty. Take Rosie O'Donnell, for example. There is nothing particularly outstanding about this woman; there is nothing that would lead any of us to think that she is even particularly gifted. When I think of Rosie, I think of luck more than I think of brains, talent, or even brawn. One wonders where Ms. O'Donnell might be without her connection to Madonna, that diva known widely around the world for her nice, tight, erudite acumen.

In the truest expression of the spirit of this age, Ms. O'Donnell brings to us her perspective on the World Trade Center "attacks" of September 11, 2001: the buildings did not fall according to the laws of physics (or something like that). Instead, it appears that the buildings were felled by internally-placed explosive devices (not that Ms. O'Donnell knows much about internally-placed explosive devices [Sorry. Dreadful joke].) But we can at least find humor in the seriousness of this comedienne; the court jester is earnest. Of course we all know what trouble there is in being earnest, but we shall leave that for another time.

At issue, or so Ms. O'Donnell points out in her blog entry, wtc7, is the curiously aberrant collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. Conspiracy theorists and other 9/11 "scholars," you see, have pointed out that the building could not have collapsed on its own footprint because the fires afflicting it, which have been officially cited as cause of the collapse, were not symmetrical. In other words, for a structure like Building 7 to collapse so perfectly into itself by fire, the fire would have to be evenly distributed throughout the steel-framed building.

Also at issue are assertions that fires of the sort that ripped through the building could not melt steel framing. Add to this reports that witnesses saw plumes of smoke billowing out from the building during collapse, plumes allegedly compatible with detonations, and then blend in some emergency radio comments transmitted during the day, and, well, you've got a major conspiracy.

I will not venture into the science here, though it seems that even a lay person could come up with some pretty compelling explanations. What I would like to focus on is the simple fact that the building collapsed at 5:30 pm, more than eight hours after the very first whiff of jet fuel wafted over Church and Liberty.

And I also want to point out, if but for a second, that not a single person was killed -- or even reported injured -- when that building finally fell.

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What Manner Of Conspiracy Is This?

Let us ignore the fact that if 9/11 occurred at all like it is suggested in the paranoid internet documentary, Loose Change, (see this, or this) then we're dealing with a conspiracy that included hundreds, if not thousands, of people. This requires us to suspend our adherence to what we know to be the cardinal law of crime: If you want secrecy, do your dastardly deeds alone. I think we would all agree that if O. J. Simpson had 1,000 accomplices assisting him with his wife's beheading, he would be serving time in San Quentin right this minute.

We can suspend or accept all the truisms and facts we want, but we cannot suspend the very real fact that this conspiracy proves only one thing: What a lousy conspiracy this is.

Let me ask you: If you have rigged a building with bombs intent on killing and maiming as many people as possible, why would you choose to detonate those bombs when everyone was safely away from that building? How is it that you could only manage to generate a great cloud of dust and a silly conspiracy theory? Why, pray tell, would you not drop the building when its occupants were spilling onto the streets, or when tens of thousands of people stood on the pavement looking skyward? How, too, do you broadcast your intent so blatantly; how is it that the fire department was able to declare that the building was going to collapse and that everyone should clear the area? And how do you manage to drop the building when nary a newscaster had his or her camera trained on the area?

Ah, perhaps there is a reason for such bungling. Perhaps the charges failed to go off at the proper time; perhaps there was a problem. Fair enough, we might conclude, but then we have to ask how it was that the bombs could be later detonated so sequentially, if, as everyone knows, ALL THE ELECTRICAL POWER was shut off for hundreds of city blocks.† Did some stealthy crew spool out wire disguised as a fire hose; did a crew spend some 8 hours (climbing over rubble, too!) reconfiguring the schematics -- and the scheme -- so that the buildings could be plunged down manually?

Really, the view from Rosie's high seat is breathtaking.

__________________
Let us ignore the fact that over 210 acres of debris fell from the sky that September morning. Let us forget that when those first buildings fell in Manhattan, they did so with such force that seismographs moved in Maine. Let us forget that the World Trade Center plaza was built on fill; let us forget that the entire plaza was built over six floors of malls, restaurants, garages, and subway tunnels; let us forget that the ground moved like jelly. Let us forget that each of the buildings was designed to implode by architects who knew that someday the buildings might need to be removed. Let us forget that jet fuel burns away nearly instantly; that fires burned bright that day from gases released from countless carpet fibers, sheets of paper, plastics and woods and varnishes; that fires, drawing torrents of rushing air through narrow passages like elevator shafts, will generate heat aplenty, heat like a blowtorch, local and lethal to flesh, bone, and steel.

Let us forget all this and ask the simple question: Why drop Building 7 at all, and why at 5 o'clock at night?

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Why, Of Course! (Or is that "way off course?")

According to Ms. O'Donnell, there is an answer to our question: the collapse of Building 7 was meant not to destroy people. It was meant to destroy evidence. You know, papers, files, tapes, you know the deal. Come on, you know! Data was destroyed, data that would NOT AT ALL BE DESTROYED IN A COLLAPSE!

Isn't it the case that FIRE destroys the very things Ms. O'Donnell would have you believe were ruined in an intentional implosion (one that could have easily smothered the very fires that would be most effective in destroying incriminating evidence)? It seems obviously true that fire is a vandal's best friend. Why implode? Ah, we'll never know.

And, lastly, who is it that is (most likely) responsible for this great conspiracy? That's right. George W. Bush.

(Alas, not that anyone has ever wondered if the Clinton Administration could have orchestrated 9/11. I mean, it is clear at the very least that the 9/11 attacks were being planned well before George W. Bush stole the presidency. Clinton minion Sandy Berger scooted off with what from the National Archives?! Never mind.)

Here's the fact about 4 planes crashing on the American landscape that fateful day in 2001, written in language Ms. O'Donnell will understand: Bush flied, people died.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

†Perhaps the building was rigged with bombs set to trigger with a mere cell phone call, or some other remote device. That cell coverage was gone in Lower Manhattan is well-known, so we'll have to rule that out. But even if the building was detonated via remote switches, we must ask how it is that the master-minds would have been comfortable with their plan: In the fiery chaos of 9/11, a series of linked bombs could have been -- and surely must've been -- compromised. This problem remains even if we accept the idea that the bombs were on a timer: surely some part of the layout of bombs had to be damaged by fire and debris. But if we admit this, then we admit that if only some bombs detonated, they would have done so asymmetrically. If that is the case, how could asymmetrical detonations cause a building to fall straight down if we have already concluded that only symmetrical explosions could have that effect?

The Hole In Brown Ground

Perhaps it was an act of quiet protest. Who knows? But instead of packing myself into a theater to see The Da Vinci Code Friday night, struggling for elbow space with people dressed like Mona Lisa, I went to a rather empty theater to see United 93, the riveting film about the 9/11 flight that crashed into a Pennsylvania field. Perhaps it is wrong of me to note that there are many people who believe that The Da Vinci Code is real and that 9/11 was not. But that this surprises any of us is alarming, as most of us pride ourselves at not being shocked by the crazies among us. But the crazies are out: 9/11 was the result of nefarious American military operations and the Church has been hiding the fact that Jesus had children (and that I am one of his descendants).

If you want reason to slit your wrists and bleed out in a Da Vinci Code chalice (soon to be made available with McDonald's Happy Meals, I think), then check out any number of 9/11 conspiracy media, particularly the brooding "documentary" Loose Change. But I warn you: with headphones on (and several one-hitters on your Cheech and Chong bong) you will not only doubt that 9/11 happened as you KNOW IT DID, you will doubt whether bleeding yourself to death is the best way to silence your outrage. (Seriously, I warn you: Loose Change is disturbing, not because it is at all right, but because it does not offer you alternative explanations.) But if you don't want to watch something, you can read hundreds of webpages that will prove that 9/11 was a conspiracy pulled off by literally thousands of people (which proves that miracles DO occur). I am sure that the next thing we will find out is that those who "died" in 9/11, especially those passengers on the four deadly planes, are actually alive and well, held for re-assimilation in Guantánamo Bay (affectionately known as Club Re-med, or so say the voices in my head). By the way, if you do watch Loose Change and you need to regain a foothold on the world, go here for help.

United 93 is a powerful, frank, straightforward tale. But it is not as powerful as one's imagination, especially if one has a strong imagination and is at all familiar with flying in commercial planes. Reality is far worse than the film could depict, which is not to say that the film flinched at realism but rather to admit that film, any film, is limiting. Irrespective of this film's limitations, I wept (which I am wont to do at such movies) during many of the film's scenes. And one line struck me as significant: "We have a real world situation here." Real world indeed.
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When I used to paint houses (on the side, pun intended) I became pretty good friends with Bob, the man who worked the counter at the paint store. Bob Peterson was a simple man in the good sense of the word; he surely was not a simpleton. His simplicity was more Thoreau than Forrest Gump; and yet he was far more St. Francis than he ever was that recluse on Walden Pond. Bob also was a Christian, and he wore his faith beautifully, but not on his sleeve; he wore it in his every word and deed. He was an exemplar of everything Christ might be as a husband, father, paint store clerk. And yet Bob no doubt could have been more, more like his brother, a man who attended MIT and Harvard and later became the president of a major company. For Bob, his calling was far less lofty.

Bob told me about his brother several times. The most poignant tale was right after the first anniversary of 9/11 when Bob and his family traveled to Pennsylvania to meet President Bush, to hold hands with others in ceremony, to cry and weep and pray on a quiet tract of land. Bob told me that before the ceremony, a firefighter was assiduously looking for members of the Peterson family. Finally finding them, the firefighter specifically spoke to Bob's nephew. The fireman shared how he was one of the first people to arrive at the scene of the plane crash one year earlier. He said that as he got near the crater left by the plane's horrific impact, the very first thing he found was a lightly scorched Bible. Apparently it still smelled of jet fuel.

The Bible belonged to Bob's brother, Don Peterson. Don and his wife, Jean, sat in Row 14 on September 11, 2001.
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I think of conspiracy theories, and I think of how cruel they are. The 9/11 theorists, to me, are committing a gross form of spiritual and emotional abuse, even battery. To read (and see) suggestions that Don Peterson's Bible was scorched not by the evil acts of terrorists (and the heroic feats of the United 93 passengers) but by a missile, or some other outside violence, is hard to countenance without anger. It is even harder to countenance without being wounded. 9/11's effects have been monstrous, with not only the collapse of common sense but the collapse of common decency being the most obvious.

The mythology of The Da Vinci Code may indeed lead some people to hell or some sort of apostasy. But the conspiracy theorists scavenging on fear and uncertainty in the wake of a truly awful tragedy are already in hell, the hell of a well-repudiated delusion.

There remains a gaping hole in the earth, with all sorts of things crawling forth.

Remember 9/11.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: The Da Vinci Code, Don Peterson, United 93, Conspiracy Theories, Loose Change, 9/11