Merry Christmas; historical revisionism

Merry Christmas to you, dear readers. I hope you are having a good time with your near and dear.

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As I’ve never been blessed with a working sense of the appropriate — that is, I know what’s appropriate and what isn’t, and yet my mind continues to go there — I’ve been thinking back six years, to the lead-up to the holiday season of 2004.

In November 2004, the iconic game “JFK: Reloaded” was released.

Colby Cosh bought a copy back then. Kelly Nestruck commented on Cosh’s, and others’, reactions.

I actually bought a copy, too — I was curious. And I share, I think, Cosh and Nestruck’s black sense of humour.

Anyway. Appropriateness aside — and yes, it’s damn inappropriate — the game ended up serving a very valuable purpose: no serious person now denies the plausibility of the Warren Commission’s single-shooter “magic bullet” theory. Why? Because a detailed physics simulation — i.e., the game — was made available and allowed just about anyone and everyone to reenact the official story. (Or, if they were in a perverse mood, to take out most of the top of the United States government in 1963.)

Result? Just about nobody serious now professes to believe in the JFK assassination conspiracy theories. That was not the case, pre-2004.

Corollary prediction: the plethora of 9/11 conspiracy theories will lead some irreverent and perverse computer nerds to put out “9/11: Reloaded” in the next twenty-someodd years. It will have a similar impact on the Truther community.

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Another oldie: enjoy listening to President Obama tell someone to get his own damn fries. (Yes, it’s real. Audiobook version of “Dreams From My Father”.)

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Yes, I don’t know why my brain is going these places on the anniversary (more-or-less) of Christ’s birth. But there you are. Maybe your mind echoes the president’s closing line: “this sh!t’s getting way too complicated for me”.

Update: On the same black humour note, see Althouse note how much global warming will benefit Russians and Canadians, if indeed it’s happening.