When strange things happened back in Epswitch, Massachusetts, the paranoid villagers accused others of being witches, and burned them at the stake. Now in modern times, if something strange goes on, the paranoids blame the government and post their accusations on the internet.

The weather in New England, and probably the Atlantic states too, has been unusual. Most of us think that we’ve hit upon an unusual weather pattern. That happens from time to time, right? But there are those who will have you believe that there is nothing unusual about our weather because the government is in fact controlling the weather in the northeast. There are two theories about the government controlling the weather, both of them make me wonder about people’s sanity.

The first theory, and the one that has the most supporters, is that the government is controlling the weather, making it rainy, in the northeast to prevent the spread of the West Nile Virus. This sounds like a noble thing for the government to do, right? Looking out for the welfare of all its citizens and all that. However, it takes about five minutes research to make you wonder about the soundness of this theory. First look up the West Nile Virus. It’s a disease that affects the nervous system of birds, namely crows. It’s spread to the birds, and sometimes humans by mosquitoes. Next look up mosquitoes. Mosquitoes thrive when there are a lot of stagnant pools of water around, since the larvae are born in the water. Now, let’s think about this logically. The government is making it rainy, and therefore providing more breeding grounds for mosquitoes, if the theory is right. Since the government probably doesn’t want to increase the number of people who contract this deadly disease, I think it’s safe to dismiss this one.

The second theory is that the government is controlling cloud cover over the northeast to somehow affect the use of energy as a nation. Part of this theory ties into there being a lot of heat-related deaths of the young and elderly in California, so this one isn’t as readily understandable, since no one has been able to offer an explanation of how making it cloudy on the other coast is going to keep people in California from dying of heat stroke. It’s probably better not to try to understand this one.

The thing that is more frightening to me than the theories, which I suppose could happen if was 100 years from now and the government spent most of its time and resources developing the technology to do so, is that people believe them without trying to figure out if this is a logical possibility or not. I suppose this is within the nature of a lot of people, given how many e-mails one receives about stolen kidneys and genetically altered chicken, but it makes me sad that so many people would rather accept a handy accusation at face value instead of wondering for five minutes about the plausibility of their new belief.