Say What, Now?

Okay, seriously, you're all just messing with me, right?

I mean, I just have to ask that, because the alternative is that IQs in this nation have been dropping precipitously, and I really just can't wrap my mind around that possibility. I can't believe that people are truly that gullible . . . or, perhaps, I just don't crawl out from under my rock often enough to truly appreciate that we have become a nation of morons.

You all do realize, right, that just because you read something on the internet doesn't necessarily mean it is true, yes? Because if you think it is, I've got some news for you: your village called, and they want their idiot back.

Let's back up for a minute. Why am I ranting now? Well, I guess because it's illegal to beat some sense into people, and even if it weren't, there are just too many of you for me to get to. Ah, all of those so-called "intellectuals" out there really do make me nostalgic for the Khmere Rouge . . .

In my web wanderings the other day, I stumbled across yet another conspiracy theory about the "ebil gubmint" and its nefarious plots to, well, do away with us all. And, like all such theories, the people pushing it are once again showing their wit . . . or, at least, half of it.

I've got one word for you: "Chemtrails." Haven't heard of that one? Well, that only proves that the Government's propaganda machine has gotten to you. But you will learn, presumably just as you are being led off like a lamb to the slaughter.

Chemtrails are those wispy, thin white cloud-like things that you sometimes see trailing behind aircraft as they fly past. The Government, you see, in an effort to control the size of the population, is using commercial aircraft as a means of delivering chemical weapons in order to poison said population. Those clouds you see trailing behind aircraft are, in reality, an exotic mix of nerve and biological agents. And if you don't believe in that, well, that's only because you can't handle the truth.

Right, this is where I start banging my head on my desk.

According to the theorists, the Government started spraying us all with these poisons in 1997. So, for twelve years now, we've all been subject to a massive chemical attack, the sole purpose of which has been to kill people. Except, no one has actually died from any chemical or biological weapons. Oops.

What these conspiracy theorists call "chemtrails" are actually called "contrails." They aren't exactly a new phenomenon, and certainly didn't just appear within the past decade or so. Aircraft, in fact, have been producing contrails since we first built machines capable of flying high enough to do so.

Once again, folks, this is basic education and physics. One of the things you produce when you burn fuel, in addition to all the stuff that turns your lungs black when you breathe the exhaust, is water vapour. Your oil-burning furnace does it, your car does it, and aircraft engines do it. At the right temperature and above a certain altitude, that water vapour freezes and turns into ice crystals, which is what those white contrails you see behind aircraft are. People have been seeing contrails behind aircraft since the 1930s, but I suppose that it has only been with the advent of the internet that the dumb have been able to find the stupid and find an audience for their inane ramblings.

Get a grip, people. Your car does exactly the same thing on a really cold day . . . or did you all think that white vapour you see coming out of the tailpipe is the Government using your car to deliver chemical weapons, too? Back to basic physics for a moment, unless you are burning some other impurity in the fuel - like carbn deposits - or not all of the fuel is actually combusting, you can't actually see engine exhaust.

Then again, I suppose it is easier to believe that something like forty thousand commercial airline pilots and air traffic controllers are a part of some massive conspiracy to poison themselves and their families than it is to admit that you are a moron suffering from paranoid delusions of grandeur.

Ask these particular theorists if they know of anyone who has actually died as a result of this, and they tend to come up empty. The problem, you see, is that aircraft contrails only form above twenty thousand feet or so, which would make them completely useless as a means of delivering chemical weapons. That high up, the particulates would be dispersed so much that even if they reached the ground, they wouldn't do so in concentrations high enough to be effetive. Look at it this way: cropdusters tend to release their chemical payloads from a few hundred feet or less. They don't do it from a couple of miles up in the sky. Hmm. I wonder why.

Of course, I suppose I could just be one of those faceless Government minions hell-bent on wiping you all out and instituting the New World Order. But if I am, I have to say that the pay sucks and the fringe benefits are pretty much non-existent. Perhaps I should take that up with the Illuminati. I mean, is health insurance and a two-week paid vacation really too much to ask for? But ask yourself this: the last time you were at the airport, how many chemical canisters did you see being loaded on the airliners? None? That's what I thought.