In honor of 9/11, there's this citywide music program where New Yorkers of all ages, genders, and races are joining together right now to sing "All You Need Is Love." It's very touching and all, but — sorry, John — love is not all you need. Not just in the "hugs and kisses aren't gonna stop Al-Qaeda" sense, although economic and social improvements in the Middle East might keep disaffected but otherwise moderate Muslims from turning radical. The thing is, right now, with a bunch of people in Chelsea singing the lyrics (uh, I mean, lyric) they know and humming the rest, first thing you need is to agree on a pitch, cause this dissonance with thirteen different people singing in thirteen different keys is sort of making me feel like I need earplugs.

Great. Same old post-9/11 world, where everyone does there own selfish thing, indifferent to the larger society, but at least we're all giving lip service to the same ideals. Well, the same ideal, at least — we can all agree that Osama is bad, but we should have a national debate about how to exploit that fact for my benefit. Should I use the threat of terrorism to let a craven Congress consolidate power within the executive branch? Or maybe I'll buy Toby Keith's boot-up=Osama's-ass song and put a magnetic ribbon on the back of my Humvee? I can let the government illegally strip my civil rights. Or I could buy a hybrid car and try to conserve oil, but then I'd have Dick Cheney calling me unpatriotic and that knuckle-dragging Toby Keith calling me a pussy.

And even that would be an improvement on the current torrent of idiotic fearmongering and punditry. So, Guy With an "Investigate The 9/11 Conspiracy" T-shirt, I know you're disenfranchised and you're afraid of losing what little control over your world that you have, but they already did investigate 9/11. Sorry that the loads of incompetence the 9/11 Commission found we are a disappointment to you, but like the rest of America, you need to learn to put the solipsism aside and deal with the society as it is, instead of how you'd like it to be.