Conspiracy Theories

What is it about Mount Shasta that makes conspiracy theories sprout and grow so vigorously?  From just a couple of recent conversations with friends, I have learned that:

• The government is engaging in a secret but very active program of mixing aluminum and borate particles into jet engine exhaust to combat global warming. 
• Global warming has been proven to be a complete hoax.  (This from the same person who two years ago might have said Exxon is conspiring to suppress knowledge of global warming. 
• Technology exists to solve our energy problems by running cars on water and hydrogen, but the government and the oil companies are suppressing it. 
• Flu shots are a conspiracy to kill people. 
• President Obama was born in Kenya.
• Bill Clinton's birth father was Winthrop Rockefeller, former governor of Arkansas. 
• War with Russia is going to happen within three years. 
• Al Gore is the scion of an oil family. 
• Evolution has never been proven
• Academia is suppressing knowledge of advanced ancient civilizations 30,000 years older than the Sumerians. 
• The lemurians beneath the mountain are real. 

I haven't heard anything about 9-11 for a while, or I could add that one to the list.  Well, to be fair, there are a few that I believe in myself:

• The weapons of mass destruction myth was created largely by people who value the interests of Israel more than those of the United States.
• The alleged attacks on US Navy ships the Maddox and Turner Joy were exaggerated or totally fabricated by military interests who wanted to expand the Vietnam War. 
• Bill Clinton's birth father probably was not Willam Jefferson Blythe. 
• Fox News deliberately lies to advance the interests of the military-industrial complex. 

The air isn't really that rarefied here.  But we are a community that has long been a destination for seekers with  a will to believe.   We have a popular bumper sticker that read, "Mount Shasta.  We're all here because we're not all there."  And in the short to mid term, truth is hardly necessary.  Most women will react much more positively to a fervently believed scenario than to a stodgy atheism.  Whether global warming is real or a conspiracy has only a small impact on our lives, at least for the next few years.  And people who know that the Food and Drug Administration is controlled by evil people usually have at least a good basic intuition on what to eat.  Of course, my friend Dave who sometimes wears a respirator on the street to counter the impact of chemtrails isn't helping his social life any.  And the older woman who is sure that chemtrails are tearing her lungs out must have some serious psychosomatic symptoms, or maybe some real symptoms for which she really needs a doctor.  This post is rambling.  I should just publish it.