Zacarias Moussaoui

What the hell is Moussaoui doing? The guy's been convicted and faces the death penalty. During his trial he confessed to being an unrepentant rapscallion, but denied any involvement in or knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.

Now he's saying something completely different.

Mr. Moussaoui said he knew in advance of Al Qaeda's plans to fly jetliners into the World Trade Center and asserted that his role on that day was to have been to fly another plane into the White House. He said he was to have been accompanied on the suicidal mission by Richard C. Reid, the so-called shoe bomber who was convicted in a separate failed effort to blow up a plane in flight.

Although Mr. Moussaoui had said over the last few years that he was a member of Al Qaeda and was learning to fly a plane to participate in some "second wave" of terrorist attacks, until now he had always insisted that he knew little of the plot for the attacks and vowed to fight the death penalty to the last of his strength.

I doubt I'd be able to fundamentally connect with a guy who thinks it's a good idea to crash airplanes into buildings so I'm not going to waste a lot of energy deciphering his motivations. But there is one thing I wonder.

Which lie will most count against him when he gets to paradise?

Since his current statements blatantly contradict his previous, one set of statements must be false. If we assume that he's on his way to the afterlife he expects (a big assumption, I know), then one of his lies is going to be a black mark on his jihad record.

Either he was trying to save his skin by lying before about his 9/11 involvement, or he's lying now by completely fabricating his 9/11 involvement in order to… puff up his martyr status? One way or another, in the great beyond he'll have to account for a big lie. Which lie would be the worse of the two?

I don't have an answer for this. I'm just wondering.