The stupidity is more than just "CNN" (Score 1)

Another argument against the "Oh, they're actually smart people looking for cached CNN pages" theory: Searches on the phrase "World Trade Center" shot up from zero to ~2000 per minute just after 9 am ET. For some reason, I have trouble believing hundreds of thousands of people all suddenly felt the urge to leisurely browse scholarly critiques of the WTC's architecture the moment they saw the second plane plow in. They were looking for immediate breaking news, and didn't have a clue where to go or how. (Yes, they have their news headlines page now, but they didn't then. And it doesn't show up on a search results page anyway; there's just a generic "news and resources" button stuck on the bottom bar of every Google page.)

And let's not even get started on the pathetic explosion of "Nostradamus" searches. Oh, whoops, too late.