How very sad. I thought you were one of the smart guys.
the only true "collapse of rational thinking" occurs when people are bullied or cajoled into not asking the questions
Or when they refuse to accept that 2+2=4 because of some deep-seated need to gain attention. This is far more common than external bullying. We call it "attention whoring", or in more extreme circumstances, schizophrenia.
You're not talking to one of your high school teachers, here, gnarly C-Dude. The standard manipulations don't even make a sound in this room, much less receive any attention.
I only said what I did in four-six-four to get Ditto and his two attached-at-the-sphinc sidekicks to go away: they are more easily read, lead and controlled than a finger-puppet. One last mini crash course clue for today:
Every last person with a logon at FreeRepublic likes attention. Those who don't avoid these sites. Refer to someone else's affinity for contact as though it were a disease or character flaw if you must, just know the same microbe is making runny scabs on your ass too. And you can stuff the "nuance" argument: "Yeah but you need it more." One, it's beneath you. Two, it's way beneath me.
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Here's the "2+2=4"; LA area has lots of flights. Several airports, and thousands of flights. I'm sure the public is extremely attuned to the appearance of jet contrails, as they must be as common as traffic jams in LA.
If this wasn't something remarkably different, something truly unique, why all the fuss? Things you wouldn't normally give a second glance take on a different potential when you hear that the tape might have been seized, or see the F-16 racing into the frame; the mere invlovement of the Pentagon transcends the normal (lack of) gravitas one might otherwise allow an unattributed "quote."
There are all sorts of "2+2=4's" flying around. Asking the questions is very different from drinking the kool-aid. Those who try to lump the two together very rarely have a noble reason for such subterfuge. It's a red-herring. You know it, and you know I know it. I wonder why you'd bother.
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The next time the admin mods kick me off FreeRepublic and I have to get a new ISP to create a logon/legend, I'll come back as "Tarantula." It actually makes me homesick.
Back in the day a group of black-ops ghosts were pinned down in a steep-walled, narrow valley in Columbia, hunted by the powder-crazed soldiers of Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. They were lying submerged in about 2.5 feet of water in a stream at the bottom of the cleft.
They stayed there for 48 hours, finally making it the 3 kliks to the EP on day 3, just catching their last chance for a flight home. The Huey only checked for smoke at that time of day 3 days in a row, then had orders to return to base, assuming that the ghosts weren't gonna make it out. One of the group, it's leader, had started life as an OCS ninety-day-wonder butter-bar who somehow managed to survive his three deployments to Nam and ended up leading an elite force that no brass would ever admit to the existence of.
He made it out that day, by was DOW within a week of getting home. His code-name in all radio communications for that, his last op, had been "Tarantula."
If I ever get the chance, I'll wear it with pride. Thanks again.
;-\