I was intrigued to see Barrie Zwicker being interviewed on TVO’s The Agenda on Wednesday night (13 February 2008). Author of Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-up of 9/11, he is a talking head in the 9/11 conspiracy theory movement. The host, Steve Paikin, a typically well-researched, intelligent and down-to-earth interviewer, was lobbing softball questions at Zwicker and only challenged him occasionally with incredulous requests to confirm his position. Of course, Zwicker’s breathless style of spouting half-truths, linking non-sequiturs and speculating with innuendos did make it difficult for Paikin to get a real fact in edgewise.

But, all was not lost. The format of The Agenda is a half-hour interview, followed by a half-hour panel discussion, and Zwicker, who was absent from the second segment, "Conspiracy Anyone?", was effectively set up as Exhibit A in the panel’s consideration of conspiracy theories. Although he did not say the words, Paikin gave himself the opportunity to open the panel segment with, "And what do you make of all that?" Of course, the show is never that blunt. Even the tagline for the second segment, "Why do some people see things that most don't? The rising popularity and seductive logic of conspiratorial thinking," is somewhat non-confrontational. Nevertheless, the well-chosen panel of academics provided some excellent psychological, sociological, historical and philosophical insights into the motivation and rationale of conspiracy theorists.

Okay, all you Linux/Apple-friendly skeptics, bear with me, but this article is about Microsoft Windows.  Unenlightened computer users like me are still in its thrall.  The latest Windows OS, Vista, has a desktop feature called the Sidebar on which you can load Gadgets, which are functional icons like clocks, radio channels and RSS feed readers.  The Windows Live community site offers downloadable Gadgets.  As I was trolling through the offerings, I came across the Spirit Detector Gadget.