Historian explains the mind of Conspiracy Nuts - CBS 1967

[Steve M. Galbraith]

That seems to work with any fixation. Yours included.
  Tommy...You know that is not how it works. Technically, Oswald remains innocent of shooting people because he was never found guilty [beyond a reasonable doubt] That doubt is stated all over this forum.

I have no fixation. I don't post here day after day after day. I average about .5 posts a day. I go for numerous days without posting. I am not a member of a conspiracy group. I don't attend conspiracy conferences. I don't obsess over this event.

The evidence for me is that Lee Oswald took his rifle and shot the president. If you think he had curtain rods in his bag and that he left the building shortly after the shooting because he wanted to see a movie and believe there were two Oswalds and a double and all of the documents are faked and on and on then feel free to believe this absurdity. It's absurd. It didnt' happen.

All of the alternate explanations don't make sense. It's been more than half a century since the assassination. There have been multiple investigations - both public/government and private/news media. We can add the millions and millions of pages of documents that were released. Add in the investigations by reporters and journalists and historians like Caro and others. There's nothing there. But as Commager predicted: nothing will persuade the conspiracist that he's wrong. In fact, investigations that show no conspiracy are, for you people, further evidence of the conspiracy. It's conspiracy after conspiracy after conspiracy. Who is obsessed over this again?

People have doubts about all sorts of events. That the Holocaust happened. That 9/11 was done by Islamic terrorists. That the world is round. People expressing doubts is meaningless. Paranoid unstable people express doubts all of the time. That doesnt' mean we should take them seriously.

I certainly don't.

[John Iacoletti]

There have been multiple investigations - both public/government and private/news media. We can add the millions and millions of pages of documents that were released.

Doesn't it kinda matter whether or not these millions and millions of pages of documents contain evidence as to who killed Kennedy?

Add in the investigations by reporters and journalists and historians like Caro and others.

I'll bite:  exactly what investigation did Caro do to determine who killed Kennedy?  I thought he was LBJ's biographer.

People have doubts about all sorts of events. That the Holocaust happened. That 9/11 was done by Islamic terrorists. That the world is round. People expressing doubts is meaningless. Paranoid unstable people express doubts all of the time. That doesnt' mean we should take them seriously.

Along the same lines, people all of the time believe stories that are spoon-fed to them by authorities and based on faith.  That doesn't mean those stories are true.

[Mitch Todd]

Were the characteristics of this alleged gouge in the CE 133* photos measured in any way? If so, the analysis is missing from any of the HSCA documents. Kirk's analysis is nothing but hand waving.  There is nothing that actually shows that they are "identical in every respect".

No, Cecil Kirk claimed that CE139 was the rifle in the BY photos -- there was no "determination" done.  In contrast, the panel report actually showed measurements and analysis for their claim that the rifle shown in the police station photos matches CE 139.

You're down to trying to argue that Cecil Kirk could not have concluded or determined anything because he didn't use a methodology that you approve of then.  That's just a ridiculously silly, and quite possibly megalomaniacal, argument. By the way, human beings have very good pattern recognition abilities. If you see someone you know, even under circumstances in which you don't expect to see them, you recognize them instantly without the need to formally measure any part of them. Don't think that we wouldn't be able to recognize the same gouge in different photographs.

Also, you are incorrect about the use of the photography panel's measurements.  They used a series of "identifying marks"  --dings, dents, divots, and scratches, labelled "A" through "W"-- for specific identification. Those marks are listed in Table 7 in the report, and they are what that the panel used to determine that the CE139 rifle in the archives is the same rifle shown in the Alyea film, 11/22/63 news photos, and photos of the TSBD rifle taken by the DPD. Those marks were not measured.  The photography panel did make a set  of measurements of the relative locations of certain parts of the rifle along the length of the rifle. However,  those were used to show that a line of argument used by Jack White was based on fallacious reasoning and weren't used to identify a specific rifle.

Oh, also by the way, you apparently didn't notice this bit from that portion of the report: "significantly, the largest and most prominent mark, mark S, a gouge mark that appears on the backyard picture, also appears in the gun as it is portrayed in the Alyea movie sequence and in three other postassassination photographs of the rifle as well. See table 7."

[John Iacoletti]

You're down to trying to argue that Cecil Kirk could not have concluded or determined anything because he didn't use a methodology that you approve of then.

My approval is irrelevant.  He didn't use a methodology, period.

By the way, human beings have very good pattern recognition abilities. If you see someone you know, even under circumstances in which you don't expect to see them, you recognize them instantly without the need to formally measure any part of them. Don't think that we wouldn't be able to recognize the same gouge in different photographs.

You mean the way Seth Kantor recognized Jack Ruby at Parkland?

Also, you are incorrect about the use of the photography panel's measurements.  They used a series of "identifying marks"  --dings, dents, divots, and scratches, labelled "A" through "W"-- for specific identification. Those marks are listed in Table 7 in the report, and they are what that the panel used to determine that the CE139 rifle in the archives is the same rifle shown in the Alyea film, 11/22/63 news photos, and photos of the TSBD rifle taken by the DPD. Those marks were not measured.  The photography panel did make a set  of measurements of the relative locations of certain parts of the rifle along the length of the rifle. However,  those were used to show that a line of argument used by Jack White was based on fallacious reasoning and weren't used to identify a specific rifle.

Right.  They were examining the effect of perspective on the apparent length of the rifle in the backyard photos and they showed their work.  When it came to "mark S" (the only one claimed to be "visible" in CE133A, Kirk regressed to handwaving.

Oh, also by the way, you apparently didn't notice this bit from that portion of the report: "significantly, the largest and most prominent mark, mark S, a gouge mark that appears on the backyard picture, also appears in the gun as it is portrayed in the Alyea movie sequence and in three other postassassination photographs of the rifle as well. See table 7."

No, I didn't miss it.  Now, if you can even find it in CE 133A, show how it is "identical in every respect", and not just roughly in the same area.  Cecil Kirk certainly didn't.

[Mitch Todd]

Mitch Todd: IIRC, Shaneyfeldt testified as to what he was using, and that was CE133A and B, but mainly CE133A. He never mentions CE134.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Absence of evidence is absence of evidence. Shaneyfelt testified as to which images he used: CE133A and B. If you want to argue that he used anything else, it's up to you to demonstrate that.

In the larger picture, you've claimed that "In all candor, Kirk had no friggin idea what Shaneyfelt looked at." Isn't it up to you to show that Kirk had 'no friggin idea'? And wouldn't Shaneyfelt's own testimony be evidence otherwise?

[John Iacoletti]

Absence of evidence is absence of evidence. Shaneyfelt testified as to which images he used: CE133A and B. If you want to argue that he used anything else, it's up to you to demonstrate that.

I didn't argue that he used anything else.  Mytton argued (with no evidence) that he didn't use CE134, even though the HSCA panel admitted that it was just an assumption.  And damn the luck: the negative allegedly used to produce CE134 is "missing".

[Jerry Freeman]

I have no fixation. I don't post here day after day after day. I average about .5 posts a day. I go for numerous days without posting.

Who cares?