The lineups were tainted from the start. Oswald was the only one with cuts & bruises on his face and he was the only one dressed scruffily. He had also been shown on TV countless times by then.

I knew you would raise the imperfect nature of the line-ups eventually. You might have a case if there were only one eyewitness, but there were six who identified Oswald in this manner. None claimed to be uncertain--none said the man who shot Tippit wasn't in the line-up. Further, whose fault was it that Oswald had bruises on his face, and whose fault was it that he complained about the line-up? There's a great strategy for suspects--resist arrest, and complain about the line-up, so your identification will be thrown out. Again, you are attempting to use the "something is wrong--therefore I am right" gambit to to cast doubt on Oswald's guilt.

Below is from the link, which also details the many problems with the lineups....

When they were later asked if they had watched any televison that afternoon, both ladies claimed that they had not. Virginia Davis, however, also stated "Our television was blurred anyway, so we couldn't hardly tell."

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp..../id_draft.html

Oh, bravo, turbonium--absolute proof of Oswald's innocence. Here is the quote in context:

This is at least the 10th time you have uncritically parroted an out-of-context quotation, severely mangled paraphrase, or factoid from some conspiracist web site, which speaks volumes about both your desperation to proclaim a conspiracy and the mendacity of certain conspiracists (including the author of the linked article).

Now, turbonium, in light of the incontrovertible evidence that a significant number of conspiracists' claims are simply fabricated, why should we or anyone else take any of them seriously? Also, in light of your continual uncritical repetition of these "factoids" or outright fabrications, why should we take you seriously? Please comment.

In light of the tainted lineups due to Oswald being already seen on TV and appearing much different than the others in the lineups, I see no reason to consider Markham's flip-flop testimony as valid.

You also see no reason to consider the Parkland doctors' testimony that they really couldn't be certain whether the throat wound was an entry wound or an exit wound as valid, so your views on witness credibility frankly carry little weight. Further, your attempt to cast doubt on the Davis sisters' claim that they hadn't seen Oswald on television [edit: before the lineup] has clearly been refuted.

She repeated that she did not recognize any of the faces in the lineup. That was all that should have been included in the Warren Report - she clearly stated that she recognized none of the men in the lineup!

And, just as with the Parkland doctors and the autopsy doctors, once someone makes a statement that you feel supports a conspiracy, that statement can never be retracted, corrected, or qualified. This is because There is a Conspiracy, so the absolute slightest doubt about any aspect of The Official Gummit Story conclusively proves that there was one, because in the real world people never make mistakes or misspeak or misunderstand questions, do they, turbonium?

Mrs Markham's later testimony suggests that she meant that she was initially uncertain. As I've stated previously, from looking at all of her testimony one could logically infer that she lacked good reasoning and communication skills, so it is reasonable to conclude that she might actually have misunderstood the question, even though that might seem odd from reading her testimony.


But then, Specter muddied the waters when he suddenly (for who knows what reason?? ) mentions "Was there a number two man in there?"!! Spitfire, even you should be able to admit that specifically pointing out one of the people in a lineup to a witness is a no-no. It instantly taints the witness' testimony as inadmissable (in a standard court of law, or any procedure claimed to be fair and unbiased).

Yes, and no one pointed Oswald out to Mrs. Markham during the line-up, as she testified. You are attempting to seize on senior counsel Joseph Ball's (not Arlen Specter's) questioning of Mrs. Markham about an identification that she was already known to have made as if he were somehow coaching her to identify Oswald at that point. Ball already knew she had identified Oswald in the line-up, thus his obvious confusion. Also, exactly what are you implying by the phrase "even you?"

From the link below are some of the points for conducting a fair and proper lineup. All those listed below were not followed during Oswald's lineups!

This is similar to your thoroughly discredited claim that radio and TV stations weren't allowed to broadcast police radio information. The standards you list are standards today. They were not the standards 40 years ago. To reiterate: the fact that the line-ups were less than perfect by today's standards is neither evidence of Oswald's innocence, nor proof of a conspiracy.

Of course, they don't even mention this one, it's such a no-brainer: Don't "suggest" a specific person to a witness from a lineup!

Again, you are attempting to insinuate that Joseph Ball was coaching Mrs. Markham to identify Oswald, when in fact he was questioning her about an identification she was already known to have made.

[edit: clarification]
[edit: typos]

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Uh, the only "standard" procedure that I'm aware was not followed was nine off-duty agents' having a few drinks the night before, which was (and still is) against Secret Service regulations. Subsequent investigation determined that this incident had no effect on the events of November 22. So what other "standard" procedures do you believe were not followed?

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Just out of interest, this page features a pic of Kennedy with a bunched jacket only seconds before the shot.

__________________
The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

This is at least the 10th time you have uncritically parroted an out-of-context quotation, severely mangled paraphrase, or factoid from some conspiracist web site...

At least the 10th time on this forum. He does it quite often on the www.apollohoax.net forum too. JFK thread As you have been doing so well, you have to go straight to the primary source materials and find out what was actually said or stated.

Yes, I lurk on apollohoax sometimes; possibly I'll join eventually (maybe the next time there's a new Pearl Harbor or JFK thread). I prefer the stricter rules on decorum and debating in force here, though.

Possibly it's because I have a B.A. in American history, but it just seems obvious to me that one needs to go back to primary sources whenever possible in order to draw conclusions about historical events. It occurs to me that the failure of many conspiracists to do so is a sign of intellectual laziness; the deliberate misrepresentation of original documents (such as the blurry television quote) by some conspiracists is a sign of intellectual dishonesty.

[edit: punctuation]

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Okay, I was thinking about a muti-gun theory last night. Here is what I came up with.

A minimum of three shooters. LHO may or may not have been one of them.
Three different guns. One standard rifle, similar to the Carcano, or any deer rifle (Gun 1). Two that fired very light weight bullets of about 6 mm caliber (Guns 2 & 3).

Shot one happened around from 165 based on the reaction of Connelly. This was the bullet either hit the window frame, hit the curb at the end of the street, or possibly did both. Personally, I think if it hit the window frame, there would have been a much different reaction from inside the car. This was with Gun 1.

Shot two was the back hit around frame 200 as some claim. This was by Gun 2 firing some special type of bullet.

Shot three was to the throat at frame 223. This was by Gun 3 and also used the special bullet.

Shot four came from Gun 1 at some point. It had to be fired from behind to cause the wounds on Connelly. Since shot 1 missed, 2 never came through, 3 came from the front and 5 was way too high, this had to be a separate shot.

Shot five came from Gun 1 again and was the head shot. This is the best bet in my book for the round that hit the window frame. The impact shattered the bullet into at least three parts, two of which landed back in the car.

The since the second and third shots produced no exit wounds, the bullets never left the body. This means they slowed down very quickly; the one in the neck must have stopped nearly on impact. What sort of bullet would penetrate less than 4 inches of soft tissue? Even a 22 LR will pass through soft tissue as thick as a neck.

Now, since this is well planned and thought out conspiracy, we have to assume that the plan to recover the bullets was part of it from the beginning, hence the use of the special bullets in two of the guns. The entrance wounds had to be similar, not exact, but close to the 6.5mm round they planned to use for the set up. They could not risk the bullets being made of anything that leave a trace in the body, so it couldn’t fragment, even if it hit bone. It had to either be very light, or go very slow, to stop in such a short time. Let’s say it was a 6mm steel BB, like the kind that are used with sling shots that would be pretty light, and if fired at a subsonic speed my have the required lack of penetration. But then, the chances of that being fatal are not that high, so we have to question the point of it. Poison delivery maybe?

So we have at least three shooters, firing at least 5 shots. Two of them could have been fairly quiet, accounting for the witness reports that only three shots were heard. Two of the guns fired ammunition that would seem to have a hard time passing through a large house cat, with the PLAN to remove them from the body at the hospital. If Guns 2 & 3 did not use special ammo, why did the bullets not punch through?

Does this seem overly complex to anyone else? Did I miss some stuff?

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Let me see if I have this right: Kennedy was attacked by:
- A high-powered rifle from behind;
- Two slingshots on the Grassy Knoll;
- A blowgun firing poison darts;
anything else?

Kinda makes the SBT look a lot better eh?

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

I'm not an expert on weapons or ballistics, but I know more than the average person on the street, and it seems like you've covered everything fairly well. There are, of course, alternatives, but your scenario seems the most likely.

One point that conspiracists have consistently failed to answer is, if there were multiple shooters, and the evidence for this was later covered up, what was the contingency plan in case someone other than Kennedy was hit? All the conspirators were facing a one-way trip to the electric chair if they were caught; were they really willing to trust their lives to luck that no bullets would be recovered that would give away the conspiracy, or no one would be wounded in a manner that would prove there were multiple gunmen? For example, suppose a shot from the side had passed through one of Jackie's cheeks and out through the other when she was facing straight ahead? How could that possibly have been covered up or explained away? Suppose one of the "shallow penetration" rounds fired from the front had struck Kellerman in the right shoulder and lodged underneath his right scapula (shoulder blade)? Were the Men in Black going to threaten the surgeons who removed the bullet with death if they didn't substitute a bogus one fired from Oswald's rifle and lie about it? Or would someone have quietly stuck a hypodermic full of potassium solution in Kellerman's arm so that "they" could later claim he'd died of a heart attack to avoid having the bullet surgically removed?

On a related issue, the claims of film alteration, how could the conspirators have been sure that they would be able to round up every camera with incriminating evidence? The answer is, they couldn't be, so again they would simply have to trust their lives to luck that no camera with film giving away a second shooter had made it out of Dealy Plaza, been surreptitiously developed in another city, and sold to a major media outlet before the Men in Black could suppress it. Again, conspiracists have no answer for this--they simply assume that everyone involved willingly accepted the risk, because that is the only way there could have been a conspiracy.

[edit: incorrect word]

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Well, yes, but that's one of my big problems with JFK conspiracy. None of the conspiracy theories make any sense, and they're all hopelessly complex and prone to fall down at the slightest breeze. If just one thing goes wrong, the whole thing would have been unearthed at the time. Whereas if one thing goes wrong with Oswald, he maybe misses the shot, or maybe, just maybe, he has to kill a policeman in order to make an escape. Or sneak unpaid into a movie theatre.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

The thing I can't get about conspiracies is that they make them so complicated that they fall over due to the silliness. If I was going for one then I'd go with simple.

Look at it this way. LHO was the gunman, but he was hired by unknown forces. He fired the shots and acted as a solo sniper. You can still have your conspiracy but you don't have to add in all additional shotters, hitmen, mob bosses, film alteration and everyone being in on it to actually create the theory.

Same with 9/11. Why have to have explosives and missiles and holographic planes when you can claim that the CIA worked undercover to put together a group of Fanatics who they then allowed into the US and removed the impediments to their conduiting the hijack and crash missions.

The trouble always seems that the CT's seem to think that the way something happened was the was it was planned to happen. The fatal shot on Kennedy was a head shoot and therefore the shooter -MUST- have been aiming for the head. The Tippet was killed because that WAS part of the plan. That LHO went to a Theatre becaue he was instructed to go there. The WTC towers fell and therefore the plan -MUST- have been for them to come down. They never actually consider that the result was not fully planned from the start, but rather it occured as a result of chance or luck. The idea that the shooter might have fired high, that he paniked into killing a cop that stopped him, that he decided to hide out in a dark place till the heat died down a little, that the Towers simply couldn't handle an intense fire after the fireproofing had been shredded and the structure of both exterior and core had been compromised. These ideas just simply won't register to the CT because they are too simple and therefore MUST be part of the Conspiracy itself.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

I've been meaning to follow up on this for a while, but haven't had time until now.

Here again is the link to the Phenix video.

Now, turbonium, you claim you've seen the video "countless times." I'd like you to watch it a few more times, and I request that you stipulate to the following:

1) Ruby starts to jump out of the crowd just after the video counter reaches 00:01.
2) The shot comes just as the counter reaches 00:02.
3) Ruby is in the process of being knocked down when the counter reaches 00:03.

Also, if you would, turbonium, please note the shadows in the video--there are a lot of really bright TV lights in the garage there, shining right in the detectives' eyes. And they've just come out of the police station, with no TV lights inside, so their eyes wouldn't have fully adjusted when Ruby jumped out of the crowd. Also, as you can see, Detectives Leavelle (light suit) and Graves (dark suit) aren't looking in Ruby's direction--they're looking toward the car they're going to put Oswald in.

Human reaction times vary from about 0.1 - 0.2 seconds; Detectives Leavelle and Graves were in their mid-40s at the time, so theirs would likely have run toward the higher end of that range. Therefore, they had, at best, about 3/4 of a second to react.

Here are some relevant statements by Leavelle and Graves about the shooting.

Notice the reporter standing right next to Graves (the "joker" with the microphone). Ruby is almost directly in front of him in the picture, yet he is not reacting. Is he in on the conspiracy, too? Also, you have failed to mention someone else who is clearly "utterly oblivious" at this point--Oswald. By your own criteria, turbonium, you are wrong about Oswald's not being involved in the conspiracy--obviously he was complicit in his own murder!! What a dedicated conspirator!!

In fact, this picture was snapped just as Ruby jumped out of the crowd--before anyone had time to react at all, including Oswald. This photo is evidence of nothing other than the speed with which Ruby approached.

Yes, turbonium--bending backwards for a fraction of a second when someone has just totally unexpectedly fired a gun right in front of you--that's such an incredibly unnatural reaction.

That's correct--not once in the entire 3/4 or less of a second does he look down at the gun--absolutely scandalous. Look back at the first picture, turbonium. Notice the positions of Leavelle's and Oswald's heads. Oswald is blocking Leavelle's view of Ruby as Ruby jumps out of the crowd, so Leavelle would have had even less time than Graves to react. As for not attempting to subdue Ruby, notice also [edit: in the "bending backward" picture] that Leavelle is handcuffed to Oswald. This would tend to be an impediment in hand-to-hand combat. Leavelle did help subdue Ruby, as he notes in his report, but he was unable to stop Ruby from firing a shot.

<snip of gratuitous insults to Dallas Police>

Now, turbonium, in light of the foregoing, I make the following assertions:

1) There is nothing in the video or the still photographs linked above that suggests that Detectives Leavelle and Graves were in any way complicit in Oswald's murder, or that they in any way failed to discharge their duty once they became aware that Ruby was attempting to shoot Oswald.

2) Your claims that the photos and the video show such evidence are based on unrealistic expectations concerning human perception and reaction times, and are obviously colored by your clear predisposition to uncritically accept any perceived anomalies in the historical record as evidence of a conspiracy.

3) The reason that Ruby only fired one shot is most likely that Detective Graves grabbed Ruby's gun hand before he could fire a second.

If you wish to dispute any of the above points, please provide some real evidence, rather than just your opinion, which, for reasons discussed in point 2) above, is quite frankly almost worthless.

[edit: punctuation, line break, and clarity]

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Actually, I'd say that 0.1 to 0.2 second time would be at the very high end for a conscious reaction. Pulling back from a hot iron, or maybe an well trained althete, like a sprinter, reacting to the sound of a startign gun they knew was coming. But to see a situation, understand it, and form a reaction to it I would think takes longer. Add to that the fact that they were expecting a clear path to the car, and instead found the place packed with press and cameras. From the video, I'd say they actually reacted pretty quickly.

In the self defense pistol copetitions we used to run at my dad's range we had one set up where we had to draw and fire one round. Shooter skill ranged from novice, to people that participate in officially run statewide matched for prize money. The fastest I recall was 0.97 seconds. This is drawing the gun without clothing over it, and starting anywhere from 1/2 to 2 seconds after stating READY!. The timing device starts when it beeps (the signal to fire), and records the elapsed time of the last sound loud enough to be a shot. Average was in the 1.5 to 2 second range. My city has the most dificult pistol qualification requirements in the state. One of those is an afficer must be able to draw and fire 2 shots in 2 seconds or less. It would have taken an exceptional person to beable to draw and fire in the amount of time available.

In terms of a revolver, a single action means the hammer is pulled back then the trigger is pulled. This is how the old west revolvers worked. Like in the cowboy movies. As the hammer was pulled back, the cylinder with the 5 or 6 rounds rotates the next chamber to be inline with the barrel. once the hammer is pulled back, the gun will fire if the trigger is pulled. Older ones will go off if they are dropped.

Double action revolvers can fire this way, or they can fire by simply pulling the trigger a second time. In a double action situation, the trigger is puled while tha hammer is in the down position. The effort of pulling the trigger rotates the cylinder and pushes the hammer back most of the way. Before it gets to the place where it locks back, the hammer is released. If either the cylinder, or tha hammer, can be prevented from moving, the trigger cannot be pulled, and no live round will move into the firing position. This can be done by one hand by simple squeezing the cylinder between the palm and fingers. Usually by comming over the top of the gun, as GRAVES states he did with his right hand. Hence, no second shot. From there, the gun can be twisted toward the centerline of the shooter, putting pressure against the thumb to pry the gun from the hand, or away from the centerline of the shooter to break the index finger in the trigger guard. From the description, I would say it was the former.

Yup yup yup

Edit for Word induced muli-spacing issues.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Thanks for the additional information, Tog. I'd wanted to mention something about the double-action rate of fire, but I couldn't find anything authoritative online, and didn't have any kind of a reference handy. My first-hand knowledge of firearms is rather limited, as I've never fired anything heavier than a .22 rifle or target pistol.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Sure thing.

A double action can be fired just as fast as a semi auto in most cases, it just takes a lot longer for the average person to reload. In fact, the world record holder for drawing, and firing 8 shots, uses a 8 shot 45 ACP revolver. I can't for the life of me remember his name though. It's overall reliability makes it a better choice in many respects. If I were planning to shoot a suspect in a crowd like Ruby did, I'd do it just about that same way, unless I could get behind him for safer shot.

I was raised around guns. All types. By the age of 12, I'd fired all sorts of pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, and even a few submachine guns. One in a competition. I was also in charge of reloading the ammunition for the shoots my dad and would enter. That started around age 7 or 8. Loading bullets sucks.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

turbonium, as a follow-up to my post on Oswald's murder, I pose the following question to you:

Your contention that Oswald's murder was staged requires that a minimum of four police officers have been involved: Leavelle and Graves, plus someone above them to make sure that they are the ones assigned to escort Oswald, and a fourth officer to let Ruby into the basement.

My question to you, turbonium, is, why stage such an elaborate murder that replaces the "patsy" with a genuine conspirator, when four police officers (including one high in the chain of command) would have had no difficulty arranging for Oswald simply to be found hanging in his cell, or on the floor with his wrists slashed with a convenient small piece of broken glass?? Oswald attempted to commit suicide (by slashing his wrist) in the Soviet Union in 1959 when his request to remain in that country was denied. In the circumstances, why would any more questions arise from Oswald's "suicide" in jail than from Oswald's murder?? Please explain this huge hole in your so-called "theory."

[edit: punctuation]

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

I knew you would raise the imperfect nature of the line-ups eventually. You might have a case if there were only one eyewitness, but there were six who identified Oswald in this manner. None claimed to be uncertain--none said the man who shot Tippit wasn't in the line-up. Further, whose fault was it that Oswald had bruises on his face, and whose fault was it that he complained about the line-up?

So you contend that having an "imperfect" line-up is perfectly adequate if six people identify the one person who has cuts & bruises, dresses shabbily and who remains in the same position in the line-up? Not a chance. Increasing one tainted line-up to six tainted line-ups does not somehow result in six valid line-ups.

And whose "fault" it is he has cuts and bruises is totally irrelevant. The "fault" lies with those who failed to include others in the line-ups with the same basic appearance as Oswald - cuts, bruises (faked if necessary) and clothing. And you're blaming Oswald for complaining about the line-up? If you were a suspect and placed in a line-up with others who bore little resemblance to yourself - you wouldn't feel you had a valid complaint? Riiight..

If both wounds wewre entrance wounds and neither bullet left the body, what sort of round/caliber, ammuition would have been used? Even a 22 is likely to have come out from the hit to the throat.

A pistol bullet, for example, entering the middle of the throat could lodge in the cervical vertebrae and not exit the body. Or the bullet may have first gone through the front windshield of the limo (as has been theorized), reducing its velocity before entering JFK's throat. Remember that the .38 bullet shot from Ruby's gun at point blank range was still in Oswald's body. So if the bullets were fired from lower velocity weapons, and/or fired from long range, and/or first went through another object, they could have certainly remained in JFK's body. And yes, a smaller caliber round such as a .22 would be more likely to remain within the body.

Uh, the only "standard" procedure that I'm aware was not followed was nine off-duty agents' having a few drinks the night before, which was (and still is) against Secret Service regulations. Subsequent investigation determined that this incident had no effect on the events of November 22. So what other "standard" procedures do you believe were not followed?

Let's start with something you posted yourself...
JFK Assassination....."I tend to agree with you, though, that it didn't matter whether Greer slowed down or maintained speed--the important point is that he didn't immediately speed up or take other evasive action, either of which might well have saved Kennedy's life."

As the link below states...

..what about limo driver Greer who, despite a direct order from his superior sitting in the front seat a few feet away, does not speed up the car out of danger-in fact, Greer turned around not once but TWICE and can be seen in the Zapruder film looking directly at JFK when the fatal, final shot makes its mark (Greer denied looking at the President, slowing down, or turning back around [let alone twice] to the gullible Warren Commission under oath).The second turn around happened AFTER Kellerman told Greer to get out of line; as Kellerman told Manchester, "Greer then looked back in the car. Maybe he didn't believe me"....

Greer "had no special training..."

He was trained just fine; also, he had plenty of experience. Finally, who needs "special training" --- even a snot-nosed 16 year old knows how to HIT THE GAS! Keep in mind that Greer DISOBEYED his superior's order to get out of line BEFORE the head shot arrived.

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp....ssue/saic.html

The links below list some of the many violations/deviations from Secret Service standard protocol on Nov.22, 1963...

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/VP/04-VP.html

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/VP/03-VP.html

http://www.jfklancer.com/LNE/limo.html

A little bit more than a few drinks the night before....

Was there a hole in the windsheild? I thought the window was cracked but not penetrated. Also my point on the bullets not passing through wasn't that they didn't. It was that they couldn't. If he had an exit wound on the back of his neck, and one in his chest, to match the two entry wounds from two different guns, in addition to the head shot, it would have instanly wrecked the single shooter scenario. If there was a conspiracy consiting of multiple shooters, those other two guns HAD to fire a round that they knew would almost certainly NOT leave the body, so they could be extracted later to hide the other two guns.

If the bullet did lodge in the spine, the removal of that bullet would have been pretty obvious to the people that did the full autoposy. Did they mention anything about that?

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

If someone used a pistol he had to stand very close to the target.
Pistols are not good for shooting a distant object. So did someone see someone standing in the croud along the road holding and firing a pistol?
I would guess that a standard windshield would slow a bullet as much as a sheet of paper would?

__________________
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Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916
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I would guess that a standard windshield would slow a bullet as much as a sheet of paper would?

Well .22 calibre pistol bullets have been known to bounce off of car windshields, but then they have been known to bounce off skulls too, so....

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Straw man. My point was that a less-than-perfect line-up reduces the chance of a correct identification--it doesn't make it zero. Even if we were to be extremely generous and assume an 80% chance of misidentification due to your so-called "tainted" line-ups, the probability that all six witnesses would have incorrectly identified Oswald is 1 - 0.8^6, or about 26%. [edit: the calculation is correct, but I inadvertently misstated the formula--it's actually 0.8^6] Although this would be adequate to raise reasonable doubt about Oswald's guilt during a trial (in the absence of any other evidence), it is nowhere near being adequate to serve as proof of a vast government conspiracy to assassinate JFK and frame Oswald for the murder. This is yet another illustration of your lack of understanding of the burden of proof of a conspiracy.

Additionally, some of the other men in the line-ups were prisoners, and most or all of them did bear some resemblance to Oswald in build, height, and age.

Again, you are applying today's standards to line-ups conducted over 40 years ago. Further, even had the Dallas police attempted to fake cuts and bruises, you and other conspiracists would likely claim that the faking was imperfect, and that that fact made it obvious to the witnesses that the other men were decoys. The point is, no line-up can ever be absolutely perfect; therefore, the questions to be considered are a) by the standards of that jurisdiction at that time, were the line-ups reasonably fair? and b) what are the chances that the imperfections actually caused all the witnesses to misidentify Oswald?

More deliberate obtuseness--I meant that Oswald was to blame for complaining during the line-up, and thus giving himself away as the suspect. He could have complained later.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

And, as usual, you are ignoring what I posted about how Greer testified that he initially thought the first shot was a backfire, and Kellerman's testimony that suggests he didn't hear or recognize the first shot. Yet again, your expectations about human perceptions and reactions are unrealistic.

And the article in the last link you've posted below, by the same author claims that Manchester invented quotes from other Secret Service agents that tend to blame political considerations for some protection decisions. So, turbonium, is Manchester a credible source or not? Still more cherry-picking of data by you and other conspiracists.

What a brilliant, scholarly analysis of Agent Greer's training and of his actions during the assassination. How much experience did Greer have of driving a car during an actual assassination attempt?? How many training exercises had he been through that involved driving during an assassination attempt in an urban area?? Further, Palamara just assumes that a) Kellerman actually did give the order before the head shot, and that b) Greer intentionally "disobeyed" it. Why does he make these assumptions? Because There is a Conspiracy, so obviously Greer couldn't possibly have made a mistake or momentarily frozen--he has to have been in on The Conspiracy.

One final point--the driver of the Presidential car can't just take evasive action and stomp on the accelerator at the first sound that might be a gunshot, but might also be something else, such as a motorcycle backfire. Doing so would pose an unacceptable risk to bystanders, the motorcycle escort, and the President himself.

These articles contain, among other things, laundry lists of claims of Secret Service misconduct, mistakes, and "suspicious" activity before, during, and after the assassination. I'm not going to thoroughly examine every single point in the linked articles. I want to see your list of purported violations of "standard" Secret Service procedures, and I will address each of your points.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

o/` For this is the argument that never ends o/`

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

And no, windshields are not like paper against bullets. Windshields can stop small-calibre rounds, and can disorient the flight path of a larger round. Teflon rounds were designed to not only be easier on the interior of the barrel of the gun, but also to keep the round's flight path after penetrating a windshield.

(Note: Teflon rounds are NOT better at penetrating armor or even windshields. This was just a myth. It just ensures the round has a more stable flight path after penetration)

It's fun knowing guns experts.

However, a rifle round, if it hasn't gone through anything else to slow down it's flight path should be able to penetrate a windshield. If it's slowed down, however, it loses a lot of it's velocity. Slow velocity = bad penetrating power.

turbonium, I have posed a large number of questions to you. Some of these questions were asked nearly two weeks ago. During that time, you have attempted to change the subject, and you have continued to argue on issues upon which you thought you might score a few rhetorical points, but you have failed to answer several questions that are clearly problematic to your so-called "theory." You have also made or parroted many demonstrably inaccurate statements, but you have failed to take responsibility for, or even to acknowledege, these inaccuracies. Despite this incontrovertible evidence that your opinion about the existence of a conspiracy is based on a large amount of misinformation, you have continued to manifest an arrogant, condescending, and insulting attitude toward many aspects of the "official" stories.

I now request that you answer (or affirmatively admit that you cannot answer) the questions I have posed, generally in the order that I asked them. I would like you first, however, to deal with the questions about why anyone should take you seriously.

Along those lines, please comment on whether you still stand by the following statement:

Please explain why your assessment can in any way be considered "rational," considering that it was clearly based on a large amount of ignorance and inaccurate information.

[edit: typos]

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

By the way, turbonium, this weekend I visited a friend of mine who's an attorney, and I had him read through the section of Dr. Perry's testimony where Specter asks the question about the Single Bullet Theory, and my friend said the question would be perfectly acceptable even in a criminal proceeding, and that in a hearing the counsel has even more lattitude. He also agreed with what I wrote about the propriety of hypothetical questions. He did have a little good news for you, though--he said that some recent Supreme Court decisions have made it significantly harder for plaintiffs to win libel suits.

[edit: my friend also agreed that apart from the issue of whether or not the wound location is accurate, there was nothing illegal or improper about Gerald Ford's changing the wording of the report, because, as my friend stated (not coincidentally using exactly the same words I have used), "the report is not evidence."]

While on the subject of the SBT, the other thing I've been meaning to follow up on is the issue of the location of the back wound. You presented a laundry list of evidence that purportedly locates the back wound several inches below "the base of the neck." Joe Durnavich and others have dealt with several of your claims; I wish to add a few points that I believe make clear the fact that the autopsy report's listed location is correct.

First, as for the "verified" autopsy face sheet, Dr. Boswell, who prepared it, stated in an interview published in the Baltimore Sun that the wound location was not drawn to scale, but that the measurement was correct. Boswell marked a copy of the face sheet showing the correct location of the wound--at the base of the neck. See also this page from McAdams' web site that links to the preceding, the autopsy photo that shows the wound at the base of the neck, and a discussion of how the face sheet from Oswald's autopsy is not drawn to scale either.

Second, as for the so-called "Bunched Jacket Theory," the photographic evidence that Kennedy's jacket was bunched at several points during the motorcade is incontrovertible. Anyone who observed the back wound only before the jacket was removed (such as the Secret Service agents) would have only seen the hole in the jacket. If Kennedy's jacket was bunched when he was hit, then it might well have have been unbunched after he slid down onto the car seat. This would have caused the observers to believe the wound was lower than it actually was.

Third, many of the observations you cite can only be regarded as estimates, as the observers would not have precisely located the wound with a ruler.

In view of all of the foregoing, turbonium, please explain how there was anything wrong with Specter's question, and how the doctors' answers do not prove that the throat wound could have been an exit wound. And please be advised, in case you're planning to try to raise some medical objections to the question, the way you tried to raise bogus legal objections, I also have a friend who's a doctor, whom I can ask to evaluate any medical issues you may bring up.

[edit: clarity]

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

While turbonium is attempting to gnaw his own foot off so that he can escape from the logical trap he's in, I thought I'd recap his arguments for those of you scoring at home.

The story so far (credit to Pearl Harbor conspiracy debunker Geoffrey Sinclair for this format):

1. Video and photographic evidence shows Oswald's murder was staged--conclusively refuted
2. Dorothy Killagen had evidence that would have blown "the JFK assassination wide open"--refuted
3. Ruby was injected with an agent that caused him to develop cancer--conclusively refuted
4. Ruby could have "easily" fired at least two more shots before being subdued--conclusively refuted
5. Ruby had "years of experience as a gangster"--no evidence provided
6. Ruby deliberately fired only a single "non-fatal" shot into Oswald's abdomen--conclusively refuted
7. CIA agents were arrested and released shortly after Kennedy was shot--refuted
8. Police were called to the Texas Theater only because Oswald hadn't bought a ticket--conclusively refuted
9. Oswald had been a CIA agent--refuted
10. Report of Tippit's shooting could not have been broadcast within 15 minutes--conclusively refuted
11. Autopsy doctors "were absolutely positive the back wound did not have an exit point"--conclusively refuted
12. Autopsy x-rays were faked--refuted (Also refuted by Boston Globe and HSCA forensic panel)
13. Back wound bullet did not cause lung or vertebral damage--conclusively refuted
14. Single bullet could not have caused injuries to Kennedy and Connally without more deformation--refuted
15. Single bullet trajectory based on incorrect alignment of Kennedy and Connally--refuted (by Dale Myers simulation)
16. Helen Markham was the only actual witness to the Tippit shooting--conclusively refuted
17. Markham initially described the shooter as short, heavy, and having bushy hair--refuted
18. Markham "lied and contradicted herself considerably"--refuted
19. Other witnesses to Tippit shooting described someone very different from Oswald--conclusively refuted
20. Many Tippit witnesses were uncertain that Oswald was the shooter--conclusively refuted
21. .38 auto shell casings found at the scene of the Tippit shooting--refuted
22. Patrolman J.M. Poe told the Warren Commission that he definitely marked two shell casings--conclusively refuted
23. Testimony that Oswald violently resisted arrest is "very unclear and contradictory"--refuted
24. Oswald only resisted arrest because he was illegally carrying a concealed weapon--refuted
25. Ruby was "a lifelong gangster, with years of experience in 'snuffing' people"--no evidence provided
26. In 1963, TV and radio stations were not allowed to broadcast information obtained from police radios--refuted
27. The throat wound was too small to have been made by a 6.5 mm bullet--conclusively refuted
28. All the Parkland doctors were initially convinced that the throat wound was an entry wound--conclusively refuted
29. Connally was shot at least 1/2 second after Kennedy--refuted
30. Arlen Specter's question about the Single Bullet Theory was legally improper--conclusively refuted
31. Specter's question was based on an incorrect location of the back wound--refuted
32. Gerald Ford illegally altered the wording of the Warren Report--conclusively refuted
33. Parkland doctors claimed that Kennedy's wounds had been altered before the autopsy--conclusively refuted
34. Parkland doctors' initial speculation "solidly established" the throat wound as an entry wound--conclusively refuted
35. Presidential limousine's slow speed after turning onto Elm Street is highly suspicious--conclusively refuted
36. Actions of agents Greer and Kellerman during the assassination are highly suspicious--refuted
37. Imperfect Oswald line-ups cast doubt on official story--refuted
38. Davis sisters lied about not having seen Oswald on television before the line-up--conclusively refuted
39. Evidence does not support theory that Kennedy's jacket was bunched--conclusively refuted

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

As a follow-up, I saw part of Hannity and Colmes tonight on Fox News that dealt with JFK's assassination. They played a video clip of Ruby shooting Oswald from another angle that clearly shows Leavelle reacting in a perfectly normal manner--he grabs Ruby's left shoulder a split-second after the shot.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Straw man. My point was that a less-than-perfect line-up reduces the chance of a correct identification--it doesn't make it zero. Even if we were to be extremely generous and assume an 80% chance of misidentification due to your so-called "tainted" line-ups, the probability that all six witnesses would have incorrectly identified Oswald is 1 - 0.8^6, or about 26%. Although this would be adequate to raise reasonable doubt about Oswald's guilt during a trial (in the absence of any other evidence), it is nowhere near being adequate to serve as proof of a vast government conspiracy to assassinate JFK and frame Oswald for the murder. This is yet another illustration of your lack of understanding of the burden of proof of a conspiracy.

While I disagree with your calculations based on invalid lineups and prejudicial witness selections, I actually agree with two basic points you make here. First, that your so-called "less-than-perfect" lineups are indeed adequate to raise reasonable doubt. But I still prefer to call them "tainted" lineups, or if I'm being generous..."far-from-perfect".

And, I concur that it is not "proof of a vast government conspiracy". By itself, this point- or nearly any other single point raised - does not prove or disprove a conspiracy. A case being made either way does not rest upon isolating one detail from everything else that supports the case as a whole.

Additionally, some of the other men in the line-ups were prisoners, and most or all of them did bear some resemblance to Oswald in build, height, and age.

Sources?