9/11 Conspiracy

I was on Facebook the other day and a kid from my high school posted a note entitled “9/11,” where he posed a question:

 “Can anyone convince me that 9/11 was not orchestrated by the corrupt US government in their ultimate goal to drive the United States into a police state?”

 His note had one reply:

 “Honestly no one can”

 To be honest, at first, the question was almost offensive.  Does anyone really believe that our government is capable and willing to orchestrate the biggest terrorist attack in history upon its own country? 

I went on to do a little research and it turns out more than 1 out of 3 Americans believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy.  < http://www.scrippsnews.com/911poll>

 Also during my research, I came across a very popular “Youtube” video that points out all of the inconsistencies that suggest that 9/11 was orchestrated by our US government entitled “Loose Change.”   The video really is fascinating.  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E3oIbO0AWE>

 However, after spending about 30 minutes researching the “conspiracy,” I came to a solution.  “Confirmation bias,” a term I learned it from Professor Crow, my Social Psychology teacher.

 Skepdic.com defines confirmation bias as “a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs.” <http://skepdic.com/confirmbias.html>

 Confirmation bias suggests that some people WANT to believe that 9/11 is a conspiracy; therefore, they seek out information that is consistent with that belief (e.g. the fact that steel melts at a higher temperature than jet fuel burns.) and ignore the information that contradicts their belief.  (e.g. the fact that Osama Bin Laden admitted responsibility.)

 The 9/11-conspiracy topic is fascinating to me, and I challenge anyone to show me evidence that 9/11 was indeed orchestrated.  I am open to new information.  However, my current stance on the issue is that there our government had nothing to do with 9/11.

 

Thoughts?

 

Update

I posted a comment on Paris Hilton's post regarding class attendance.

Free Health Care? Really?

I have been thinking about the issue of health care in the US for the past couple of days after reading the sample blog that Mrs. Channell gave us.  At one point the author of the blog states:

 “A National Healthcare system would not deny anyone coverage because of price, all individuals would be able to enjoy medicine, doctor visits, and treatment required to continue to live.”

 The writer then goes on to say that the government would be able to limit the prices of medical treatment and keep prices “in check.”

 The point that I would like to make is by limiting the price of medical services, you lower the incentive of pharmaceutical companies to make their product.  You also lower the incentive of researchers to look into new ways to cure illnesses.  I don’t mean to get into the economics of the issue but any economist will tell you that a price restriction or price ceiling NEVER increases efficiency and results in a shortage. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_ceiling>

 So in summary, free/price restricted health care = shortage of health care.

 In fairness, the writer does address these points later in his blog, and I am only using his blog to put my point into context.  I do believe that that National Healthcare is a very complex issue, and I do not intend to provide a solution. 

 My only intention is to point out that price-restricted healthcare is not the most efficient solution regardless of how nice it sounds.