Brett - Do you think he is the same caliber as Arnold in California?

Susan - Conspiracy theories in a democratic society, where you can't sneeze without it being immediately known to the whole world, where there is extremely difficult to have anything in secret, even what absolutely should have been be (tons of cases in question), are simply a simplistic way of looking at complex systems, issues, etc.

When we do not grasp the complexity, we come up with a conspiracy. Hey, administration could not keep even CIA agent's name in secret, so what conspiracy you are talking about?

Just be realistic. If a kid fails in school, it is still because he was lazy, not because there was a conspiracy to fail the school. If the Bush administration did something that you do not like, does not necessarily mean that this is because they conspired.

As for Fox news, or any other in this respect, you can either take them seriously, or... come up with conspiracy theory, whichever is easier.

Ted - I am guilty of "reverse engineering". I heard him elaborating on the conspiracy about September 11, and it was embarrassing.

I understand the there is a lot of personality, likeability, electability.

Aside from it, he is not the only one with conspiracy theories about September 11, I listening to two "experts", and what strikes me in all of that, is the fact that they truly believe that somebody can conspire with a lot of people to do something and this circle of people is quite sizable, and there is no leak before or after the terrorist act.

I remember talking to a PhD from Russia once and he suddenly made a statement that there is a secret order in the medical field to mistreat those who are 62 and older. His was absolutely sure that the government had to do that to decrease the number of those, who need medical care the most. It did not bother him that the notion of hundreds of thousands of medical professionals never leak it to the public.

Oh well

William Johnson - It is only going to get more strange in the future. Still, as we even see with Jesse Ventura, you can get elected, but the ability to build consensus (as Ted said in his comment above) is not a given even with the biggest celebrity.

Susan - I am running a small brokerage. I wouldn't want my e-mail to be open to everyone. Then I represent sellers, I wouldn't want the buyers to see what I write tot the Sellers, and vice versa.

You see, I am not arguing with you that some things are not the way you or I think they should be. But how this is the conspiracy?

As to the problem sneezing and remaining unnoticed, it is due to a level of transparency, that exists in the society, and is the direct result of free speech. Does free speech brings only sweet fruits? Maybe not. But it creates the society, where conspiracy is not easy.

Molotov-Ribbentrop pact signed August 24, 1939 between Russia and Germany had a Secret Protocol attached to it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov-Ribbentrop_Pact). It was a terrible document outlining the territorial interests of the Soviet Union and Germany. In 1945 the microfilm of the document (the original was destroyed) made it to the West. Soviet Union kept claiming that this was a falsified document, that the Soviet Union had never signed anything like that, that this was another Western provocation.

Even when Glasnost and Perestroika came in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev claimed that the Sovien Union never signed it, and denied that Secret Protocol ever existed. In 1988 was the first time they acknowledged that there was the Secret Protocol, and 2 years later I saw with my own eyes the Map of Europe with Stalin's signature on it with the tail of the signature of nearly 2 feet (51 cm) crossing the Europe.

That was conspiracy. But Chernobyl blasting out in 1986 was anything but conspiracy. There were tons of things that went wrong, but that was not conspiracy. What I am trying to say is that something fishy, something not right, something disastrous does not necessarily mean that it involves the conspiracy.

As for the Patriot Act, let me ask you this: do you remember the time when you did not need to show ID to buy an airline ticket? When your bags were not searched? You lost that, did you scream? Life is changing, and there is a reaction to the change. I do not know about the Act but we all lose some of our freedom, in exchange for safety.

Fox News ran the interview with Jesse Ventura. I do not think that I would have had a different opinion, had that be done by CNN. Ventura stunned me, not Hannity.

Mike - It is interesting phenomenon, celebrities in Politics. Turning popularity into electability. Tom Hanks for President, can it work?

California Governor is a celebrity, Ventura aslo won easily and had 79% approval rating. As Ted said, consensus building got him frustrated, and eroded his popularity.

But I was simply shocked when he started explaining his conspiracy theories about September 11. ANd again, there are many people who come up with weird stuff, but I was listening to the former Governor, and that was scary.

He was talking about the way the towers were falling, the size of the debry, that 2 planes knocked 3 buildings, and I was looking at him at disbelief. 2 or 3 buildings (or more ) was not the question for me. THe question was that he did not have any problem with the idea of our government sinisterly participating in this. That part did not bother him at all. I would say that to really conspire in a plot like this would take people like Stalin and Hitler.

That's what really bothers me with this interview.

Wayne -  I think you are absolutely correct. We do give up some of our freedom in exchange for safety. And we have done it in the past, so doing it is not really a problem for Americans, accepting it, however, is a problem.

This is one of the most law abiding (and most probably the most law abiding) countries in the world. Which means that we voluntarily gave up a lot of freedom. Let's say when Police stops you , puts handcuffs, this is just the example. Or, it is needed to be done, so that the community can be safe. Sure, but the world is getting smaller, and Patriot Act is doing the same to us as a country.

Don't you feel humiliated when you need to take your shoes off at the airport? This is even pretty much useless, as trained terrorists would have no problem getting to the planes with whatever they need. AND WE ARE NOT COMPLAINING. And then the same people start playing a dangerous game with Patriot Act, which can compromise the security of the country.

This is IMO just bogus.

Nicholas -  I thought that as private people we can come up with most ridiculous stuff. There are plenty of weirdos out there. What surprised me was the guy with the authority (not now), who was thinking that way.

We coexist with mentally sick people, and this is OK. It may, however, be not OK to have one making decisions affecting the lives of many people. I am not implying that Jesse has any mental problem, of course, this is just to show the logical extent of the situation.

So, are people of Minnesota lucky that there was not a situation where he wold made very important decisions with so many "cockroaches" in his head? That is scary.

Nicholas - Peopl sometimes opt for drama instead of reality.

I did not care for all his "technical" stuff why he thought it was a conspiracy. What it tells me is the guy is ready for the govermnet to get involved in crimes against its people. If you are sincere and think that you r government is capable of that, you needed to raise hell BEFORE  anything happened and not wait for something and then try to find the goverment hand in it.

The other thing is that we often expect from others what we would do ourselves. So, being a governor of the State, was he ready to participate n a conspiracy plot?

Susan - I would disagree with some statements you made, but actually this is OK. I guess you used the term conspiracy in a way, that stunned me. You did not hear Jesse, so you do not know what he implied in this. There maybe a lot of things we disagree, a lot of things that can make us feel uneasy, but conspiracy for me is something more sinister. It is something which is done contrary to what is said to the public.

Whether we like the administration or not (and I could not wait for Clinton to leave), the level of transparency in this country is most unlikely for real conspiracy to heppen.

And in that sense we are lucky. You - that you were born in America. Me - that I could come here and became a citizen.

I sense your frustration. I am a bit cautious as you seem to think that anything is going to be better that what we have now. I do not agree with that. I was in New York at time the mayor was Mr. Dinkins. In my opinion the city was going down and the events were mostly uncontrollable. However, I was a fresh immigrant and I thought that this is how it should be. Then came Rudy Juliani and the City started changing noticeably right away. This is a great lesson for me. This was for the first time in my life when I saw that a concerted effort of the administration, the people of that city, were changing it to a cleaner and safer and more discipline and organized place.

I am afraid that we do not value what had been done by this administration as there was not a single serious attack, and there were over 30 serious attempts, but they were prevented. Imagine 30 events like September 11?

Thank you for your passionate but very respectful comments.