Brown/Weidmann, Mini-Debate?

[Mitch Todd]

By the way, just because it was “normal procedure” to reset the clocks when they were “a minute or two” apart doesn’t mean that the maximum they could ever be off is two minutes.

Bowles wrote: " When clocks were as much as a minute or so out of synchronization it was normal procedure to make the needed adjustments. Somehow, Bowles' "a minute or so" became "a minute or two" in your post. And yet you are the one who claims that I am misrepresenting witnesses. Good job, Kid!

Anyway, once Bowles established that the standard was to keep the dispatcher clocks within a minute of each other, then you need  to come up with an actual reason to believe such an exception was in play that afternoon. Good luck. Bowles himself couldn't manage it.

And I have never seen any compelling reason to assume that the existing recordings are a continuous recording during the time period in question.

Bowles noted that the radio recording system didn't stop recording until there was 4 seconds of silence. Therefore, if there is a place where the recording shuts of and loses time, there should be at least 4 consecutive seconds of silence. If you listen to the channel one recording during this time, that doesn't happen from the beginning of the Bowley transmission until after the Callaway one. This includes the section where both 1:19 timestamps are located. Theoretically, someone with some very good audio processing could filter out everything but the 60Hz and 120Hz bands on the recording, then analyze the power supply hum to see if they can find a discontinuity as well.

[Mitch Todd]

He’s misrepresenting Cason too. Not only does she not say anywhere that the clocks were kept to within a minute of each other, she’s not even talking about the same clock.

Here's what she actually says:

Mr. HUBERT. Now, is that clock checked at any time as to accuracy?
Mrs. CASON. I don't know how often they are checked. I do know that sometimes we find a discrepancy as to the time on the clock insofar as sometimes when we dispatch--when we sent a call sheet through and the time received may be--it says, this could have been 11:23 on the time I received the call, and when we dispatched it it would have shown 11:22, then we would know that the clocks were off, because we couldn't--I couldn't receive a call after we had dispatched it.
Mr. HUBERT. But, the dispatcher would be using a different clock from you?
Mrs. CASON. And when we find these errors in these clocks this way, someone in the office usually adjusts them to where they all are stamping the same time. It doesn't happen very often that they get out of time, but sometimes they do.

So, yes, they sometime get out of sync. But the standard was having the clocks "stamping the same time." To do that, they have to be within a minute of each other, QED.

And, again, if you want to claim that I'm "misrepresenting" people's statements, do not do so yourself. And especially don't do it twice in a row. Otherwise, nice people will start thinking that you're some kind of dork and you'll never be invited to any of the cool kids' parties.

[Martin Weidmann]

You don't understand the words you quote, do you? To wit: "When clocks were as much as a minute or so out of synchronization it was normal procedure to make the needed adjustments." To spell it out for you, that sentence is Bowles' own admission that they kept the dispatcher's clocks within a minute of each other. Just like I said.

The rest is best summarized by the string of weaselly qualifiers that Bowles relies on: "it was not uncommon" (litotes often being the weaseliest of the weaselies, which is why lawyers are so fond of the practice),  "could easily be," "might," "might be," "might go." Nothing more than a big bag of "maybe." The problem is, Bowles was both the supervisor of the dispatch center and the person responsible for the first transcript of the channel one and channel two recordings. As such, he is the one person who would know of any concrete Nov. 22 examples of these maybes and mights and litotic obfuscations. But he can't point to a single example of any of them occurring on Nov 22. There is a reason for that. 

As lagniappe, I offer this particularly clever bit of misdirection:

"Telephone operators and radio operators were furnished "Simplex" clocks. Because the hands often worked loose, they indicated the incorrect time. However, their purpose was to stamp the time, day and date on incoming calls."

So, Bowles said that the hands on the faces of the Simplex clocks "often" [ed: exactly how often is often?] became loose.....and then admits that the DPD didn't use those clock faces to tell time in the first place. But he admits it in a way that the average sucker --that is, you-- is liable to miss it on the way to their self-congratulating, self-serving assumptery.
 
Sorry, Martin, you are the one who keeps missing what is important. For instance, channel one dispatch is handled by one guy from 12:30PM to some time past 1:20. One guy looking at one clock. This one guy and his one clock defines channel one time. So the time announcements he makes are going to be internally consistent with each other, as well as with the other time announcements he makes after 12:30. That's one of the things that makes the analysis I did possible, but it requires that the analysis be limited only to channel one time. And that's exactly what I did. 

You have yet to present any coherent or cogent rebuttal of this analysis. So far, all you can do is once again dredge up some ancient FUD-piece by Bowles that doesn't actually apply to what I've done.  Now, the analysis does lead to the question, how is channel one time offset from channel two time or standard time. I've already done that --if you haven't noticed-- and Mr O'Meara has done something very similar on his own.

Which means what, exactly? Really, it's just an assertion by Bowles. That's all you have.

You don't understand the words you quote, do you? To wit: "When clocks were as much as a minute or so out of synchronization it was normal procedure to make the needed adjustments." To spell it out for you, that sentence is Bowles' own admission that they kept the dispatcher's clocks within a minute of each other. Just like I said.

Cherry pick much?

Rather hypocritically, on the one hand you talk about a "string of weaselly qualifiers that Bowles relies on", yet on the other hand, when he says something you like, you instantly accept it at face value and misrepresent it by leaving out what he said next.

Bowles also said;

When clocks were as much as a minute or so out of synchronization it was normal procedure to make the needed adjustments. During busy periods this was not readily done.

Just one of those inconvenient bits you prefer to ignore. I wonder why.... wait, no I don't. It's pretty obvious.


Which means what, exactly? Really, it's just an assertion by Bowles. That's all you have.

Typical LN behavior; playing down evidence you don't like. You can try to discredit Bowles as much as you like, but the information he provided still stands. The mere fact that you prefer to dismiss it out of hand doesn't do much for your own credibility.

"There is no way to connect "police time" with "real time."" - J.C. Bowles

To any honest person it's self explanatory what this means.

Your desperate attempt to present a 1:16 or 1:19 time stamp as being the actual time is pathetic.

Bowles was both the supervisor of the dispatch center and the person responsible for the first transcript of the channel one and channel two recordings.

Indeed, and when he basically says that the clocks used by the dispatcher do not match real time, I'll take his word over your BS any day.

When the man in charge of the dispatchers clearly states that the clocks can not be relied on to show "real time" (actual time) you just don't get to assume that he was wrong. It's up to you to show that he was wrong and that the dispatcher's clocks were in fact running exactly on time. Good luck with that.

[John Iacoletti]

Bowles wrote: " When clocks were as much as a minute or so out of synchronization it was normal procedure to make the needed adjustments. Somehow, Bowles' "a minute or so" became "a minute or two" in your post. And yet you are the one who claims that I am misrepresenting witnesses. Good job, Kid!

Good job indeed, “kid”. Direct quote from Bowles:

“Therefore, it was not uncommon for the time stamped on calls to be a minute to two ahead or behind the "official" time shown on the master clock. Accordingly, at "exactly" 10:10, various clocks could be stamping from 10:08 to 10:12, for example.”

And you chide Martin for “not understanding” what he reads…

Anyway, once Bowles established that the standard was to keep the dispatcher clocks within a minute of each other, then you need  to come up with an actual reason to believe such an exception was in play that afternoon.

You got it. “During busy periods this was not readily done.”

By the way, nobody (apparently) ever described how “city hall time” was set or calibrated.

Bowles noted that the radio recording system didn't stop recording until there was 4 seconds of silence. Therefore, if there is a place where the recording shuts of and loses time, there should be at least 4 consecutive seconds of silence. If you listen to the channel one recording during this time, that doesn't happen from the beginning of the Bowley transmission until after the Callaway one.

How would you know that? The recording you are listening to has been dubbed, spliced, and edited. Incidentally, the transcript at https://www.jfk-assassination.net/dpdtapes/tapes2.htm shows “(Long pause, 15 seconds)” right before the Benavides/Bowley “hello police operator” call.

[John Iacoletti]

Mrs. CASON. And when we find these errors in these clocks this way, someone in the office usually adjusts them to where they all are stamping the same time.

There are those weasel words again. “Usually”.

[Martin Weidmann]

There are those weasel words again. “Usually”.

What goes straight over Todd's head is the fact that both Bowles and Cason talk about clocks that need to be adjusted because they were not running correctly.

How Todd can claim (as he clearly does) that, despite these remarks, the time stamps on the DPD recording are not only correct but also reflect real time is the real conundrum.

[Martin Weidmann]

Where did Bill Brown go?

Did he lose interest again?