There are some physical constraints on human behaviour. You don't have to be an expert in order to give a ballpark guesstimate. E.g.: The only countries with functioning WMD programmes are countries with a GDP more than three times that of the country in question - and if you count only the ones that didn't get help from the USA or one of its client states, call it a factor of 30 to 300 instead, depending a little on your definition of "client state."

The conspiracy theorist is deficient in critical thinking skills if he assumes that all media reports are outright lies. It violates Occam's Razor, which is a pretty basic tool for critical thinking. And lying about everything is plain stupid. You only lie about the important things, because the more you have to lie, the easier it is to slip up and build in an inconsistency that's a little too glaring.

Reasonable people arguing in good faith can, and frequently do, reach widely divergent conclusions. But there are some constraints on what kind of conclusions they can reach. And most cults like the one under discussion are clearly on the "divorced from reality" side of that line.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.