So the Pentagon released the video of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon today, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Judicial Watch. Of course, the conspiracy-think folk are all over it; you should see the Technorati hits on the search term "Pentagon video". Let's see: An airplane with its wingspread couldn't have fit into the resulting hole in the Pentagon. The object in the video wasn't big enough to be a passenger airplane; it must have been a missile. Why didn't the Pentagon have a better video? Why was it only one frame every 5 seconds when the convenience store down my street has video monitoring 24/7? How did electrical cable and windows survive the impact? Why did the Pentagon release it now? It was the (take your choice): Illuminati/military/BushCo that did it to seize power. I haven't got enough patience to do justice to this. My biggest objection is: Folks, this is YOUR USA GOVERNMENT we're talking about here. This is the same government that gave us botched rescue missions. This is the same government that gave us space shuttles that blow up because of fear of bothering higher-up bureaucrats. This is the same government that gave us a war in Iraq that still drags on three years after Our Fearless Leader stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and declared "Mission Accomplished!". This is the same government that can't keep dissatisfied former staffers from blabbing any and everything about the current administration that they can. Why on earth anyone would think that our government is capable--in the "able" sense of the term, rather than the "wanting to" sense of the term--of doing something like this is beyond me. Furthermore, how anyone can think that the number of people required of such a conspiracy could keep their mouths shut... For pair of excellent roundups on some of the questions, I highly recommend this excellent post about the Pentagon hit and this excellent story from Popular Mechanics (the latter, of course, is the target of scorn of conspiracy theorists around the world [you'll be happy to know that PM is a CIA front!], and I suspect the former is, too). I'm more than happy to indulge in potshots at and general all-around dislike of the current administration, and I do love me a good conspiracy theory, but the whole "9/11 Was A Big Conspiracy" meme strains the limits of my credulity something fierce.