Against "connections"

I was going to start a new podcast tonight (not much going on), but I was hit with a rock solid wall of stupid tonight when I went to get quotes from Howse's July 3rd show. He was in full conspiracy mode. Basically, he is saying that Obama's boyhood mentor (I don't know if that is a real relationship--don't care to check, really--I once knew a Benedictine priest, and I'm hardly a monk) somehow recommended the boy Obama to Chicago communists to promote his career and "push him to the presidency." Howse also heard that a guy in Russia overheard (that's the whole strength of his evidence....no, seriously) that the communist world was waiting with baited breath for the black Communist Messiah of the Americas who was being groomed in Chicago.

Well, Trevor Loudon, wot comes from New Zealand, said that there was definitive evidence that there was a link between the Hawaiian Commies (played by Frank Marshall Davis) and Chicago Commies (played by Vernon Jarrett). And he has the documents to prove it. This, he suggests, validates all of the speculation about the vast, intricate program to place Obama high in the ranks of a global communist conspiracy. Thank fuck. I was waiting for something so solid I could put it in an air cannon and shoot it through a syphillitic clown. I mean, these must be some fucking awesome documents, unambiguous correspondence proving this complex, multigenerational conspiracy!

The documents are at New Zeal, Loudon's website, and it is "Obama File #78," a name that will last a lunchtime:

That's it? A letterhead from the 1940s with names and a brief note that two of these people were once on a committee together?

FUCK!

Do you know what this proves, Loudon? That they once sat on a committee together! Holy shit, your life is a misguided waste.

"Connections" is a word that increasingly makes me angry and suspicious of the message. Let me illustrate.

I want to know why Brannon Howse will not just come out and admit that he has been planted by the Catholic Church, and that they were the principle supporters of his failed campaign to amount to anything mayor-like in Collierville. I have the documents. Howse has well-known and unabashed ties (or "connections") to the Bush Administration, and I have the documentation to prove it--hell! It's on Brannon's website!

Well, President was a well-known associate of the Pope, who, as everyone except those asking rhetorical questions knows, is Catholic. My evidence? There are many lines of evidence. Ecce homos!

On more than one occasion, Bush had secrets meetings with the Pope. While they were called "audiences" by the press, we know what was really going on. They were consipring to place Howse in some shithole Tennessee backwater.

But why is Howse working for the Pope, though, when he is also an agent of for radical Muslims? What, you don't believe me? His connections to the White House place him firmly within the orbit of radical Muslims who recruited him to promote their radical Muslim agenda. Hell, he even gave a radical Muslim fighter the Medal of Freedom!

Do you see how crazy obsessions with "connections" lead to ridiculous statements? Until Loudon produces a document that says, "Obama is the communist Golden Child," there is no reason to become a Red Scaredy Cat.

The math at work, I suspect, is fairly straightforward. Let's imagine that everyone knows 100 people that they would say hello to on the street. Each one of those people you would greet knows 100 people. That means that you have a common friend with 10,000 people, right? (Given that social circles accrete around common interests and occupations, the chances that some of those 10000 also appear in your group of 100 probably is not all that bad, right?) Well, what about 2 degrees of separation? Well, each of those 10,000 people you share a friend with knows 100 people too. That's 1,000,000 "connections" right there. Another degree of separation probably puts you in contact with, well, probably every other person in the country somehow. It should be clear that links that look to be really remarkable are rather pedestrain, easily found, and almost uniformly utterly insignificant.

Someone correct my math if I'm wrong, please, but I think that's how it goes.

HJ