Top 10 Conspiracies of 2005

Here it is again. Time for the top 10 Conspiracy Theories of 2005!

(For a refresher on the rules, see last year's post.)

This year saw one conspiracy after another flow from the administration. Given that vastness of them all, the entire year is almost a tribute to Bush's second term.

Here, then, without further ado, are this year's top 10 conspiracy theories:

10. Winning in the "most weird" category. Too nutty to otherwise make the list except that it was reported in USA Today: that Japan's Yakuza mafia used a Russian-made electromagnetic generator to cause Hurricane Katrina in a bid to avenge itself for the Hiroshima atom bomb attack.

9. An item from last year comes back again: Deibold's voting machines are selected by Republicans because they are designed to be hacked, so much so that the CEO has resigned in anticipation of shareholder lawsuits.

8. John Roberts, if not gay himself, is a secret gay rights champion.

7. The bird flu pandemic scare is a hoax created by the Bush administration designed to sell more Tamiflu.

6. One of my personal favorites: that Google is a secret military conspiracy designed to "identify dissenters" and "control the world". Well, maybe at the very least they distort their search results to favor their own properties.

5. The levees in New Orleans were intentionally blown in order to kill the city's black population.

4. The recent oil price spikes are symptoms of intentional gouging, neglect of resources, profit taking, and other nefarious doings by Big Oil. Or were they simply the precursor to the End of Civilization?

3. That EVERYONE is behind The Valerie Plame conspiracy, including: Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, George Bush, Judith Miller, The New York Times, and no less than 23 administration officials.

2. In a way, this year, I think we can say that the entire Iraq war was one big conspiracy.

and the number one conspiracy theory of 2005:

1. The CIA is kidnapping and holding prisoners in secret, Soviet-era detention camps in Eastern Europe. (Maybe something this eggregious still can be a conspiracy, even if it's true....)