LIHOP/MIHOP Doubters, Disbelievers

Preface: not intended to be a flame fest, and I respect everyone's considered opinions.

With new and damaging stories coming out weekly, I've seen fewer and fewer people here calling LIHOP a whacked-out conspiracy theory.

(Full disclosure: I believe in LIHOP--not necessarily that the admin knew every detail, but that at the very least they knew attacks were coming, and they probably knew they were to be airplanes hitting buildings)

For those of you who still don't believe the Bush administration had any sort of foreknowledge, please tell me why it is you still cling to this belief. You may be right. I am so utterly convinced of Bush admin complicity that I need an occasional reality check, something that tells me I'm getting carried away with my thoughts. So I'd like to hear from you.

Also, are there any recent converts to the LIHOP/MIHOP schools of thought? Is there anyone who used to believe that this was unthinkable, but you've now come around to believing otherwise? What changed your mind? What tipped the scales for you?

Why did I bring this up now? I have a brother-in-law, great guy, fairly liberal, intelligent, free-thinker, all that sort of thing. But he absolutely REFUSES to believe that anyone in our government, left or right, would ever endanger our own citizens like that. It's almost as if his brain just refuses to allow that possibility, even though he sees a lot of circumstancial stuff pointing in that very direction. That, along with the new Keane/stonewalling story, got me thinking about this, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

What are they hiding?

that conclusion. And I have investigated it, gone to Paul forgot his last name's excellent site that chronicles the timeline, and so on.

There simply isn't hard conclusive evidence that can lead to the conclusion of either LIHOP or MIHOP.

There are questions that need to be asked and answered, but unfortunately that will probably never happen, because of the Bush administration secrecy doctrine.

Their stonewalling, their secrecy, their attempt to put Kissinger in charge, those are some of the things that made me very suspicious. Those actions pretty much scream out to me that they had something to hide. Do those things make you suspicious?

And I'm like you--I can't prove or disprove anything one way or another. But I'm taking this to a court of public opinion, not a court of law. Do you think LIHOP is a possibility? A probability? Or not likely at all?

Thanks.

about it, like amazing incompetence.

As far as LIHOP, that's an extraordinary claim, and like the old maxim I would say it requires extraordinary evidence. Is it possible? Yes, I can't say it is impossible. Is it likely? I would say no.

Yours is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. I'm still very firmly a believer that LIHOP is the most likely explanation, but you give a well-reasoned and solid response for a different point of view.

Thank you.

..are simply unable to wrap their minds around the enormity of the situation, that we have an unintelligent, incurious boob occupying the White House on the basis of fraud by his brother and the whim of a Supreme Court, who knew their decision was so outrageously unconstitutional that they wrote a proviso into it that it should never be used as a precedent in any other case. Unprecedented!

That the Bush gang knew something coming is simply undeniable. That they knew the date and targets is a little less so. It's obvious from Bush's performance at the Booker School that such an event was foreseen; it is obvious that he had no intention of dealing with any of it and let it simply unfold as he listened to the kiddies read about the goat as the cameras rolled. That he didn't know the scope of the attack was obvious as he skedaddled off to Nebraska.

I have a little compassion for those folks who suspect the truth but find it so shattering that they are unable to voice it. Once people realize what really happened, their comfort zone is forever destroyed.

The opinion you stated here: how long did it take you to arrive at this conclusion? Was it shortly after September 11th? Was it more recently?

Myself, I was shocked, very, very shocked on September 11th and 12th. By the 13th or so (whenever they announced they had found Atta's passport), my mind started going to scary places that I didn't want to think about. They made me quite uncomfortable, as you say. It wasn't too long after that date that I found Democratic Underground. Still, for months after that, I'd try to rein myself in, to tell myself to quit being ridiculous. I kept thinking I must be a tinfoil hat conspriacy theorist and that I needed to live in the real world. But little snippets, stories, quotes kept falling into place, and at some point, I became incontrovertibally convinced that they knew about it. I still do much the same with MIHOP. I'll start to think about the possibilities, start to think that these people would stop at absolutely nothing to get what they want, then I'll draw back and tell myself to quit being melodramatic. So as of right this minute, I'm a proponent of the LIHOP theory, but I do consider darker possibilities.

Thanks.

...by the attacks, although I was a little puzzled by the timing. I usually expect these things to occur later in the fall. The negotiations with the Taleban over a proposed Unocal pipeline had recently broken down, and threats had been made. Nope, no surprise there.

Little by little the information started to percolate up through the bureaucracy we call gummint, kind of like swamp gas. Add to that Bush's performance at the Booker school and his sitting there rather than ordering all airbases to scramble jets and intercept all planes suspected of being hijacked at at least trying to force them down. His utter lack of action was chilling. He sat there. He didn't apologize to the kiddies and leave to do his job. He sat there. He expected it.

Now, he's stonewalled the investigation. If he didn't expect those attacks, if information had not gotten to the White House in time, he would be shouting it from the rooftops. He's not. He's hiding something, and my guess is that it's pure dynamite.

I came to the conclusion that he had foreknowledge of the attack, although didn't know the precise day or the precise targets. He did know how it was to be done, however. Since one of his major aims, stated during his campaign, was to invade Iraq, I assume he thought he would be able to blame them and not have all the contrary information about who the passengers were surface so quickly.

Bush grabbed the office against the will of the people and the law of the land. He needed an attack or a justified war to consolidate his tenuous grip on power, as one of the major lessons of history is how people will rally around the poorest leaders in time of national emergency. The whole thing was just too fortuitous.

(I don't wear a tinfoil hat. Honestly. I think they're tacky. I prefer the colander. The feet sticking up to the air make a rather jaunty fashion statement, and the holes provided needed ventilation for what some folks here will undoubtedly call an overheated imagination.)

and i blew my opportunity to enlighten her...not necessarily change her mind, but at least open her thinking.

she made some statements, asked a question, i answered, she asked 4 or 5 times how i could believe THAT, i kind of blew up, started enumerating, in a very tense tone, timelines, airspace coverage, bush*'s reacions, closed documents, etc., and other family (hers) backing me instead of her.

it ended up with her crying, her feeling attacked, etc.

we decided not to talk politics anymore

so now i won't have the chances that i would have had if i had kept my cool, maybe walked away w/ her unconvinced but still open to the subject.

the moral of this story: don't drink too much wine at family gatherings.

You can believe in any conspiracy theory you want. But without hard (legal) proof, it is merely conjecture.

no, I don't have to prove it, because I'm just talking about opinion. This needn't stand up in a court of law. I'm just wondering, do you think LIHOP or MIHOP is possible or probable or completely not there? Based on your post, I'm guessing that you don't believe either of the "HOP" theories.

Thanks.

"By PHILIP SHENON The New York Times

MADISON, N.J., Oct. 25 The chairman of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks says that the White House is continuing to withhold several highly classified intelligence documents from the panel and that he is prepared to subpoena the documents if they are not turned over within weeks.

The chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, also said in an interview on Friday that he believed the bipartisan 10-member commission would soon be forced to issue subpoenas to other executive branch agencies because of continuing delays by the Bush administration in providing documents and other evidence needed by the panel.

"Any document that has to do with this investigation cannot be beyond our reach," Mr. Kean said on Friday in his first explicit public warning to the White House that it risked a subpoena and a politically damaging courtroom showdown with the commission over access to the documents, including Oval Office intelligence reports that reached President Bush (news - web sites)'s desk in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I will not stand for it," Mr. Kean said in the interview in his offices here at Drew University, where he has been president since 1990.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&ncid=68&e=3&u=/nyt/20031026/ts_nyt/911commissioncouldsubpoenaovalofficefiles

Bush's stonewalling on this and other things is starting to piss off the republicans as well.

http://news.GlobalFreePress.com

be sure to check out the 911 section...
http://new.globalfreepress.com/index.pl?section=911

and the 911 Encyclopedia and Report Search Engine
http://new.globalfreepress.com/search.cgi

and the general site search engine...
http://new.globalfreepress.com/search.pl

psst... pass the word ;->

peace

Now all that remained was to furnish a "smoking gun" link to al-Qaida by way of a money trail, all in time for the planned October 7 invasion of Afghanistan. On the very day that the Telegraph outed Raissi and Omar Saeed as the 9/11 trainers, ABC News This Week announced that a $100,000 money trail had been traced in Florida from hijacker Atta to "people linked to Osama bin Laden."

The very next day, on October 1, Judith Miller of the New York Times reported that hijacker Atta received money from someone using the alias "Mustafa Ahmad". Five days later, on October 6, Maria Ressa of CNN, quoting terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp, officially unveiled Omar Saeed as the pseudonymous 9/11 money man: "He is ... linked to the financial network feeding bin Laden's assets, so therefore he's quite an important person...because he transfers money between various operatives, and he's a node between al Qaeda and foot soldiers on the ground." Ressa went on to report: "Because investigators have now determined that and Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad are the same person, it provides another key link to bin Laden as the mastermind of the overall <9/11> plot."

Two days later, on October 8, Ressa revisited the story, this time connecting Omar Saeed to an October 1 attack on the provincial legislature in Kashmir - an incident that led Pakistan and India closer to the brink. October 8, incidentally, was also one of the very last times that CNN touched upon Omar Saeed - at least until he bobbed up a few months later, on February 6, as the FBI's main suspect in the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. Yet by then, CNN - and Maria Ressa - was stricken by a curious case of amnesia, neglecting to mention that Saeed was previously outed by them as the 9/11 bag-man. Why this sudden silence? And, more to the point, why did Omar Saeed virtually drop off CNN's radar after October 8?

Perhaps the answer lies in an October 9 bombshell, courtesy of the Times of India:

"While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on Monday, the truth is more shocking. Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday that the general lost his job because of the "evidence" India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Center. The U.S. authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by at the instance of General Mahmud ."

Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11

The thesis that the author presents is that there were several patsies set up to be blamed for 9/11 including Al Quaida, Saudis and even the Israelis. One purpose being to set the internet conspiracy theorists off on wild goose chases and also if the heat started getting to hot any of the patsies could be served up as the culprits while the real string pullers still remain safely out of sight behind the curtains.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

On September 11, 2001, pilotless airplanes were guided into the World Trade Center by homing beacons.  It wasn't a plane that hit the Pentagon, but a missile.  U.S. Air Force planes weren't scrambled to intercept the hijacked planes that morning because the White House was behind the events of that tragic day.  Incredible?  Definitely.  Outlandish?  Absolutely.  But, there are lots of people who believe that at least some parts of these stories are true.

In a special season premiere investigation the fifth estate's Bob McKeown finds that even the most outlandish conspiracy theory may have its basis in a legitimate question.  In the course of separating fact from fiction, Bob delves into the labyrinthine and surprising ties between the Bushes and the Bin Ladens.  What he finds out may startle you as much as any conspiracy theory.

Do you remember just after 9/11/01 when it was reported that some bin Ladens were flown out of the US and also that the Bush's had business dealings with the bin Ladens? This was quickly explained away by informing all of us that Saudis have large families, and that the folks in question were the "good bin Ladens". And almost everyone swallowed that crap whole and said yep, ok, must be true, let's move along. That was among the first of many frustrations I've had about this whole episode.

Or anyone who gets CBC, and who has the means, possibly record this segment and post it?????

The way the events of 9-11-01 unfolded precludes any explanation that stops with: "they just let it happen."

The attacks could NOT and did NOT happen in a vacuum. It wasn't like a car on the train tracks, and not taking any action as the train approached. The 9-11 attacks required ACTIVE actions, without which, the events couldn't have taken place as they did.

For example, orders had to have been given to HALT the normal procedures set up to protect U.S. National Security in the event of a whole bunch of things that happened in VARIOUS locations, in VARIOUS parts of the country on 9-11.

Thus, LIHOP as an explanation or theory, is only a part of MIHOP.

I'm not an expert on this, but it's my understanding that LIHOP would include actions such as keeping jet fighters from being scrambled, stopping the FBI from investigating Saudi-sponsored terrorism.

MIHOP would be the active planning of the acts of terrorism, picking out targets, recruiting people to do the deed, planning cover stories, that sort of thing.

Any experts out there, please correct me if I'm wrong.

recently come to believe that the Administration had some knowledge of some sort of impending terrorist attack, but allowed it to happen.

As for your brother-in-law, if he just can't believe that our government *could* do that sort of thing, I'd point him at the declassified documentation on Operation Northwoods.

Or was it just the steady drumbeat of more and more circumstancial evidence coming out that made you decide, over a period of time, that they might have let it happen on purpose?

Bonus opinion question: Is Democratic Underground too much of an echo chamber? In other words, there is admittedly a concentration of people here who believe that Bush let it or made it happen. Do you think it's easy to get "sucked in" to LIHOP theories just because it's so widely accepted here?

Thanks for your input.

...the film of the Chimp in Chief at the Booker School. Now you and I both know he's not pulling a lot of the strings at the White House, but his performance showed one of two thigs: first, he's completely out of the loop as far as doing the actual job goes (unlikely) or second, these attacks were fully expected and discussed as a way to justify his desired war against Iraq. I'd already been leaning in the direction of his knowing beforehand because of a lot of the leaks from the CIA and their field operatives, and stories of warnings from Hamburg (where the plot was dreamed up) and other intelligence agencies. The film just nailed it.

Bush knew. 3000 people died to consolidate his stolen power and provide justification for an illegal war against Iraq.

I think my change of opinion was largely due to the 'steady drumbeat of more and more circumstantial evidence', as you put it. But there were a few pieces of information that really pushed me harder than others.

The Administration's continual stonewalling of the official 9-11 investigation was the first thing that troubled me.

After that... it was little things like the official denials that the Administration had been briefed about possible terrorist threats like the one that happened on Sept. 11, while others were claiming they had been briefed.

The blurb about "a new Pearl Harbor" in the PNAC documents bothered me.

Then I read a piece about Operation Northwoods somewhere, and that honestly surprised me- call me naive, but before reading about Northwoods, I really didn't think an American politician/general/etc. would be willing to consider the use of terrorist tactics on the US population. Operation Northwoods is clear proof that some can.

So those were the big things that stand out in my mind.

As for DU acting as an echo chamber... that's a very valid question, but it's tough to answer. I don't think that DU influenced my thinking on this particular issue very much, as I would steer clear of the LIHOP/MIHOP discussions as much as possible.

I considered the subject to be simple paranoia at the time and I sort of ignored it.

I've started to entertain the idea more seriously. Like quinnox, I felt that sheer incompetence was probably a better reason for 9/11 than any evil plan. That, and ideological blindness to the real threat. Yet...yet...yet, the Bush admin has shown their extreme callousness towards human life, both in their wars and in events like the Plame affair; they've shown that they are willing to tell any lie--and tell it repeatedly--no matter how outrageous, even after being proven wrong (Cheny is *stilll* yammering about Saddam's nukes); they've shown no shame at all in using 9/11 to advance every unpopular idea they hold dear to their black little hearts, no matter how unrelated (like tax cuts). In short, BushCo has proven itself capable of monstrous evil, so LIHOP has moved into the realm of definite possibility.

I'm sure BushCo will do everything in their power to hide any incriminating documents. But it also sounds like ALL members of the commission are angry and outraged. The Republicans on the board may have started out with warm rosy feelings towards BushCo, but now it sounds like the veil is starting to come off. This will be very interesting.

If it was just sheer incompetence on the part of the Bush Administration, and given their absolute refusal to ever admit they did anything wrong, on any issue, I can see why they would stonewall based on that alone.

It's not what I truly believe, but I think a good argument could be made in that direction.

Thank you.

Incompetence & Negligence have nothing to do with KNOWN actions and orders given that made it possible for the attacks to occur.

How is it INcompetence or Negligence to STOP long-standing National Security SOP?

If I order you to NOT shoot, that isn't negligence. If you DO shoot, but do so with your eyes closed, THAT might be incompetence or negligence. Or both.

The government is actually actively engaged in promoting LIHOP.
Hard to believe, but true.

You recall the Hill & Knowlton PR firm was hired to drum up support for Poppy's Golf War. H & K cooked up the totally false story about the Iraqi soldiers supposedly unplugging incubators in Kuwait and throwing babies out the window.

By the same token, the government knows that the best way to manage the outrage of that portion of the public which sees thru the lies of 9-11, and the best way to contain the growth of those who disbelieve it, is to take pre-emptive measures. One such is LIHOP. It's sufficiently fuzzy that it can be interpreted to mean all kinds of things. Many citizens are aware that mr. bush is wholly unqualified to be president, and so they will easily and readily accept that he and his cronies in the Administration may have been less than perfect in some ways on 9-11.

So, LIHOP is a concocted cover story designed to quell efforts that might lead to the public thinking the unthinkable: that the U.S. government was complicit in 9-11.

The public DOESN'T want to think our own government would do such a thing, so LIHOP gives them a rationale that satisfies and relieves them from the urge to THINK any deeper about what really happened, and who all is really behind 9-11.

To me - if they had any indication that an attack on US citizens was being planned - and they did little if anything to disrupt that plan (all of which seems to be true from the info leaked from the committee) then by definition they did LIHOP.

Defending the lives of US citizens is not a sideline for the executive branch of our government. That's their primary job - especially when a threat has been made.

Any failure on their part to perform that job is the gravest failure on their part - and proves LIHOP.

Now, I think they knew and even were active planners....hell, they were clearing itching for a fight and the plans were drawn up to go after the Taliban. This CIA incompetance theory doesn't wash...GHWB, afterall, was head of CIA. They were getting the intel, no doubt, but they squashed the normal channels from getting it into the Oval Office.

At one time, I thought they probably had some intel and were fed bogus info and they drew the wrong conclusions. Now, I think there's a lot of stuff we really don't know about Atta, the cells, the visa's, the pilot training, etc. Too much info was disregarded or covered up. I really do think they wanted this to happen.

PNAC, with members controlling just about every section of the executive branch, had formalized a plan for global conquest (basically, the playbook Bush is using now). This all hinged on an event of a 'Peal Harbor Magnitude' to kick it into gear. Do you believe that PNAC members would 'wait around', hoping for this event to happen. Or do you believe that PNAC are 'make it happen' kind of people? I know which way I tilt...

once, the LIHOPers had me convinced, but seeing some of the other stuff their sources have said, I'm beginning to have strong doubts.

I'm not saying LIHOP is impossible; far from it. What I'm saying is that there is no real proof. And just because the illegitimate occupant of the White House imprisons people without charge and without trial does not mean that we should.

As Albert Einstein said: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Mistaking stupidity and incompetence for malice can be a bad mistake.

I'm not aware of any evidence or other facts that would tend to show either STUPIDITY or INCOMPETENCE on 9-11. LIHOP allows the public to interpret what happened as being stupid or incompetent; but that's not the same as saying they did something that was stupid & incompetent...which resulted in 9-11.

What specific things did bush & company do that you would consider stupid and/or incompetent viz 9-11 attacks?

btw - (remaining seated in the classroom doesn't prove that 9-11 was the result of incompetence)

Why, i think it's pretty incompetent to allow a group of terrorists to hijack foru airliners and slam them nto the Twin Towers, personally.

I also think that our country's poor security then - even though they had reports of threats - was another example of stupidity/incompetence.

Everything the LIHOPers blame on malicious intent could simply be a result of stupidity and incompetence.

.... "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." :)

That was a really, really, dumb mistake. :dunce:

Thanks for the input. Basically, you're saying you were somewhat convinced LIHOP was a real possibility, but that some of the groups/people pushing it had other opinions so outlandish that you reconsidered LIHOP? I can see that. Totally valid.

I still think that the Bush Admin, all by itself, brings enough suspicion on themselves, but it's good to hear a different take on this.

Thanks.

that's what I'm saying, but it's not my main point.

My main point is that whatever mistakes they made in the time before 9/11 could have been a result of incompetence.

I did concede that these people are so secretive and afraid of admitting to failure that they go to great lengths to cover their tracks. That could explain much of their stonewalling in relation to the 9/11 commission and so on. But this explanation still leaves many vexing questions, in my mind.

Thanks for giving a thoughtful airing of your point of view. I really like it when a thread turns out like this, lots of different points of view, all intelligent, no flames.

Thanks.

And it is the sheer accumulation of evidence that won me over, about 7 months after 9/11. Paul Thompson's timeline was part of that evidence, as was the work of Ewing2001 and others here on DU.

To anyone skeptical of 9/11, I would simply posit a friendly patriotic challenge. Examine 10 good websites that engage the 9/11 questions, and then tell me you have full faith in BushCo. and what they did to fulfill their legal and moral responibility to protect America.

I bet a doughnut you can't do it.

I believe they provoked it and LIHOP.

My mind keeps going back to May 2001, when Powell gave "Afghanistan" 43B (pipeline bribe) and Tom Simmons' (former ambassador to Pakistan), "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs."

When you add that the plans to bomb Afghanistan were already on whistle ass' desk before September 11, 2001, I can not accept that the attacks were not known ahead of time. Not to mention that rummy wanted to bomb Iraq on that very day.

Letting it happen is one thing. But, the government DID certain things, like ordering that National Security procedures NOT be carried out. How is that ACTION "letting it happen on purpose"?

for jets to intercede errant aircraft. (See Payne Stewert) To order the jets to go against SOP and stand down is an ACTION.

Very good.

Abe Linkman, you are constantly doing that, as though LIHOP is somehow offensive to you for not being MIHOP. Why?!

From where we stand now, with all the obstruction and lies spewing from the Bush administration, everything is progress!

Let's start with the Saudi/Bush/Carlyle/CIA/Qaeda complex, which is now being exposed (Bin Laden airlift), and in turn allows us to move on to LIHOP, then on to MIHOP. If it works... these need not be mutually exclusive, one can pave the way for the next. (Hopefully we don't actually go past the truth in doing so.)

There is also an actual *technical* distinction for why there is a LIHOP as opposed to a MIHOP. It relates to the origin of the plot. In LIHOP, the plot originated outside the U.S. elites as a "genuine" attack. In MIHOP, the whole thing was scripted and staged beforehand.

LIHOP = A "genuine" plot by outside terrorists who want to crash planes into the WTC is discovered by elements of the U.S. intel "community" and allowed it to go ahead, or even enhanced with extra elements.

MIHOP = There were no hijackers - or else they were recruited and steered from the first as part of a plot that originated within U.S. (or other global) elites.

You're right if what you are trying to say is that there is actually no moral, only a technical, difference, between the two variants. For whatever reason (possibly that there is more evidence available) people have an easier time accepting LIHOP - which, by the way, if shown, would ultimately lead to exposure of the entire plot, whatever it was.

So if you're for MIHOP what's your problem with allowing people to say LIHOP? It's theoretical for now, let's first get more people asking the questions in the first place so that we can build pressure to get real investigations going with subpeona power, etc.

Okay? Is this acceptable to you?

This LIHOP/MHOP shit is too silly. If you can prove it, you will be famous. Weblogs don't quite cut it.

I think you are, but I can't prove it, and so far you haven't either.

IF the requested files from whistle ass et al are released to the committee.

Have you ever been to www.unansweredquestions.org ?

Go there w/an open mind and spend a few hours there.

If you're saying I cannot prove this, you're absolutely right. I don't believe anyone can prove this right now.

But, why is it silly? Why is it unthinkable? Why aren't your suspicions aroused? Is this something worth looking into? Is the Bush Administration capable of such a thing? Why are they stonewalling? I'm not looking for proof, but I would like to know your thoughts on the matter.

Thanks.

Just a gut feeling I had from the moment I saw the attacks. At a point when Bush's popularity was heading into the gutter and the poor economy was in focus, miraculously, his popularity catapulted into the Stratosphere. In one day.

Sure, it's all tin hat stuff, but if I were placing odds, I would say 50% chance LIHOP/MIHOP, 50% chance Bush incompetence.

Go to motive. Who had motive? Who had really crappy approval ratings? Who had the most to gain. Sure, OBL is one answer, but Mr. Bush certainly did gain more than anyone else did in the space of one day. That doesn't prove anything, but it sure does get my antennae twitching.