Who was Mrs Robert Reid?

[David Josephs]

3 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

OSWALD: Uh, I saw Junior and Shorty walk by while I was in there. They may have noticed me. I don't know. 

Fritz then makes a mental note that Oswald said Junior and Shorty might have seen him during lunch and conflates it into Oswald's saying he had lunch with them. This kinda thing happens all the time. All day long. 

It's why the tape recorder was invented. 

 

ok... so then Pat, what does this have to do with Lee Oswald being in the 2nd floor lunchroom between 12 and 12:30 and being seen by Mrs Reid, and then seen again around 12:33 coming from the same place she had seen him before only this time with a coke wearing a t-shirt?

Those 2 events needn't be mutually exclusive... it would also give some credibility to the notion he had his lunch in a paper sack which he usually brings....
"cheese sandwiches + apple"

 ====  you recent post with Piper.... Oswald says he's going "up or out"

7 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Mr. BALL. And that Lee said, "I'm going up to eat?"
Mr. PIPER. He said either "up" or "out"---that's the way I reported it.
Mr. BALL. That's what you told them?                                                                                              
Mr. PIPER. Yes, sir.  

Does this sound like he's staying in the Domino Room to eat?  

Whether this is or is not a 2nd Oswald in that building at the time, very little other than Fritz claiming Oswald said..... puts him down there eating lunch on the 1st floor.

Mrs. REID now sees the T-shirted Oswald walk to the front of the 2nd floor;  he then goes down and ultimately out.   CRAIG sees Harvey as the overshirt he was wearing would look quite a lot lighter in the direct sun of Dealey...  the image of CE150 is also very dark....  The man REID saw simple vanishes into the crowds.

Mr. BELIN - I hand you Exhibit No. 150. Have you ever seen a shirt like this before? Does this look familiar to the shirt that the suspect might have been wearing when you saw him, or this man running toward the station wagon?
Mr. CRAIG - It's the same type of shirt.
Mr. BELIN - I believe you used the phrase, "light shirt". Would Exhibit 150 be darker than the shirt he was wearing?
Mr. CRAIG - Uh--it looks darker in here--yes, uh-huh.

[David Josephs]

4 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Denis,

 

If that is Leavelle sitting with her (and I think it is), and they are going over her affidavit, he took her affidavit on Saturday, November 23rd

See CD 81 p. 548

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10483#relPageId=548&tab=page

 

That's interesting. Those two pages (pp 218 and 219 of the Police Case book are missing from the chronological order of the DPD Archives in Box 5, Folder# 5, Item#'s 30-32. They could be somewhere else in the Archives, but they're missing from that chronological order in Box 5)

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box5.htm

 

Her affidavit is in Box 5, Folder# 2, Item# 51

Patsy Collins, the Notary Public, dates it as November 23rd.

 

Steve Thomas

Box 3: Folder 8

1. Report On Officer’s Duties, by J. R. Leavelle. Report on officer's duties in regards to the President's murder, (Original), date unknown. 00000955 1 page 03 08 001 0955-001.gif

2. Report On Officer’s Duties, by J. R. Leavelle. Report on officer's duties in regards to the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit, (Original), date unknown. 00000958 3 pages 03 08 002
0958-001.gif     
0958-002.gif  (Image below)
958-003.gif

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by David Josephs
wrong page reference

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

This is becoming a PP thread, and I'm not going to be sucked into that black hole.  But an "estimate" derived from an amorphous blob standing in a position that cannot be precisely determined is inherently ambiguous.  You're pretending to have a level of scientific certainty that you simply can't have from the available evidence.

As I indicate in one of my posts above, this is precisely what many eyewitnesses to traumatic events do.  Their "memories" evolve over time to the point that they bear no relation to their recollections at the time.  Why this happens - or why some people knowingly embellish and even insert themselves into events they weren't part of - is one of the mysteries of human nature.  But they do it all the time.  And many of them believe their new "memories" even when they are demonstrably false.  What any witness has to say years after an event is irrelevant to me; it's simply too unreliable to take seriously.

OK, you're a well-meaning, truth-seeking PP enthusiast.

Read my first two posts on this thread and then get back to me about "not addressing the evidence."  Do you actually read anything on these threads, or do you simply see my name and go directly into Cliff Mode?

Well-worn nutter talking points don't get any more readable with extra helpings of blather.

These are among the facts you cannot honestly face:

Early in the hours of 11/23/63 the two FBI men at the autopsy cabled FBI HQ with the news that Kennedy suffered a shallow wound in the back, no round found.

Hours earlier a neck x-ray showed a hairline fracture of the right T1 transverse process, and an air-pocket overlaying the right T1/C7 transverse processes.

JFK was shot in the back at T3 -- too low to have injured the spine at T1 -- the round didn't exit and no round was found.

He was shot in the throat from the front, no exit, no round found.  These wound patterns were not created by 6.5mm Full Metal Jackets.

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

You must have me confused with someone else. I was present at the creation of the prayerman theory, and have never found it convincing, in large part because I don't think prayerperson looks the least bit like Oswald. 

As far as Eddie Piper...you do realize he said he saw Oswald...in the domino room...right?

I wasn't suggesting you were a fan of Prayer Person.  Andrej introduced the PP theme, and it is somewhat of a natural adjunct to the Domino Room Alibi.  Sorry for any confusion by including the PP discussion in my response to you.

We can parse the testimony all day.  I'm not sure that it would be particularly significant if Piper did say he saw Oswald in the domino room at noon, but that doesn't seem to me to be what he said (or at least not what he clearly said).  When asked where he saw Oswald at noon, he answered "Down on the first floor" - not "In the domino room."  He then described himself as saying to Oswald "I believe I'll go have lunch" - somewhat of an odd thing to say if they were in the domino room, although he did "go" have lunch out by the first-floor windows.  Alas, I have not been able to find a schematic that shows the first-floor radiators, but surely there were several - there is one visible right inside the front doors.  Perhaps Piper did bring a hot sandwich (we don't know) and perhaps he did keep it on the radiator in the domino room (we don't know, but that is certainly possible).  When he then said "so I got my sandwich off of the radiator," this doesn't inevitably mean "so I reached over and took my sandwich off of the radiator two feet away because we were standing in the domino room."  It could just as easily mean "so I walked from where I was standing with Oswald over to the domino room, where I got my sandwich off of the radiator."

One possibility that isn't outlandish would be that Oswald, having prepared the sniper's nest earlier in the morning, followed his usual routine as closely as possible up until very shortly before the motorcade arrived precisely to give himself a plausible alibi.  I think that gives Oswald credit for more planning than he actually did, and I don't think it is necessary to my theory of the assassination, but it's a possibility that seems more plausible to me than the notion that the designated patsy was actually eating a cheese sandwich in the domino room moments before the shots were fired.

But I'll let it rest since I don't really see the significance.  Now that Cliff has gone into his T3 tap dance, that's a pretty sure sign the thread is dying anyway.  Cliff's Irrefutable Solution, the place where threads go to die.

[Cliff Varnell]

2 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

Now that Cliff has gone into his T3 tap dance, that's a pretty sure sign the thread is dying anyway.  Cliff's Irrefutable Solution, the place where threads go to die.

The claim is that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK three times with 6.5mm FMJ.  Such bullets do not leave shallow wounds.  That fact absolves Lee Harvey Oswald.

That's a fact Lance Payette is incapable of addressing.

[Andrej Stancak]

16 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

This is becoming a PP thread, and I'm not going to be sucked into that black hole.  But an "estimate" derived from an amorphous blob standing in a position that cannot be precisely determined is inherently ambiguous.  You're pretending to have a level of scientific certainty that you simply can't have from the available evidence.

Sorry, I am not intending to hijack the thread and am comfortable with people changing their views on Mrs. Reid's whereabouts. I am in the camp saying she could not see Oswald after the shooting but she could see him when he went up to buy Coke for his lunch. 

As far as your sceptic attitude regarding the possibility to determine some very basic facts about Prayer Man, please find here a cropped view of the doorway from Darnell film. This version was downloaded from Prayer Man website and it has been enhanced which is all right for the purpose of this discussion. I believe it is relevant in the context of Mrs. Reid thread to say where actually Oswald was (or could be)  during the time when she was returning to the building.  

Please have a look on the images above and decide for yourself why would it not be possible to determine where is the tip of Prayer Man's head. I have drawn a yellow line in the right-hand panel to point to it. If you have this point and if the dimensions of the doorway and the view angle are known, the height of the tip of Prayer man's head relative to to the plane of the top landing can be estimated very accurately. This is not ambiguous or amorphous shape which would preclude any analysis.

You can also judge whether Prayer Man's hair was dark or light-colored. I see dark-colored hair and cannot understand why would anyone say that it is not possible to decide even such a simple thing whether Prayer Man's  hair was dark or light. For a comparison, one of two arrows point to a person with light-colored hair (blonde or light grey). This light color is very different from Prayer Man's dark hair. I just cannot get why you say amorphous or ambiguous  if these simple perceptual decisions are so easy to make. (By the way, the light-color hair person standing behind a shorter person with dark hair (Mr. Shelley) was Mrs. Stanton but this is a different story.)

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Andrej Stancak

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Lance Payette writes:

Quote

What conceivable assassination conspiracy would have allowed the patsy who was supposed to be on the sixth floor shooting the President to be standing in full view on the front steps? ... What sort of conspiracy goes to all the trouble of framing a patsy, including the planting of a rifle traceable to him on the sixth floor, and then allows Mr. Patsy to be eating a cheese sandwich in the domino room moments before the assassination? ... one thing I think I would have made sure of is that Mr. Patsy was under control and nowhere to be seen at the time of the assassination.

Objection, Your Honor!

As counsel points out, the rifle by itself links Oswald to the assassination. What else, in counsel's opinion, would be necessary to frame Oswald as a patsy? Why, exactly, does counsel think that if Oswald was eating his lunch in the domino room, or watching the parade from the front steps, or ogling the strippers in Jack Ruby's club, this might cause problems to anyone who was framing Oswald as a patsy?

Quote

you Harvey & Lee-type folks

Objection, Your Honor!

We are not all "Harvey & Lee-type folks". It is not necessary to sign up for the full tin-foil-hat deal in order to identify the many, many holes in the lone-nut account.

Quote

Of all the photos and films taken that day – or that might have been taken that day – Prayer Person appears in precisely one.

Objection, Your Honor!

"Prayer Person" appears in the Darnell and Wiegman films. That's two, not one.

Quote

It is pure happenstance that there aren’t 15 photos in which Prayer Person is clearly identifiable.

Objection, Your Honor!

Objection overruled!

OK, Your Honor. But one might ask: so what if there aren't 15 such photos? How many photos would counsel expect there to be of a bunch of people watching the motorcade from an office doorway some distance back from the road? Those who were taking photos and home movies and news films (such as the Darnell and Wiegman films, in which "Prayer Person" appears) weren't concentrating on the spectators, but on the motorcade.

Is counsel surprised that there aren't 15 such photos? If he is, why does he find this fact surprising? If not, why mention it? Would it be that counsel thinks that if Oswald had been framed, he must have been framed as a lone nut before the assassination? If that is indeed what counsel thinks, would he be so kind as to tell the court the reasons which led him to that conclusion?

Quote

Not one person recalled Oswald standing in full view where Prayer Person is standing.

Objection, Your Honor!

"Prayer Person" appears to be standing in a shadowy corner, close to the doors. If "Prayer Person" worked in that building, he is very likely to have been one of the last, and quite possibly the very last, person to come out of those doors. How many of the other people in the doorway does counsel think are likely to have been looking back toward "Prayer Person" rather than forward toward the motorcade? In the kerfuffle after the shooting, how many people does counsel think would pay any attention to some nondescript person standing in the corner of the doorway?

Perhaps Your Honor could ask counsel to take the trouble to examine Exhibit A, the Darnell film, and Exhibit B, the Wiegman film.

You got it. Hey, counsel, look at the films!

How many people, in counsel's opinion, are in fact looking away from "Prayer Person", and toward the motorcade? And how many people are looking in the general direction of "Prayer Person"? I can count one. Would counsel like to tell the court who that person is, and describe to the court that person's interrogation later that day by the police, and then tell the court how likely it is that that person would have publicly identified "Prayer Person" as Lee Oswald, if that is who "Prayer Person" was?

Quote

Prayer Person could be literally anyone

Objection, Your Honor!

There are plenty of people who cannot have been "Prayer Person". Winston Churchill, for example, cannot have been "Prayer Person". The Dalai Lama cannot have been "Prayer Person". The people who were cooking the food and laying out the tables and chairs at the event to which President Kennedy was travelling cannot have been "Prayer Person". Counsel may well be able to think of others. There were literally quite a lot of people alive in 1963 who cannot have been "Prayer Person".

Only a very small number of people, all of whom worked in the Texas School Book Depository building, could realistically have been "Prayer Person". One of those people is Lee Oswald. There is only very weak evidence placing him anywhere other than on the ground floor (and briefly on the second floor, during the time it took him to purchase a drink) during the half hour or so before the assassination. I'm sure the court would be interested to discover how deeply counsel has looked into the matter of the possible candidates for the role of "Prayer Man".

The most fundamental aspect of the Warren Commission's case is that Oswald was on the sixth floor when the assassination happened. Unfortunately, there is essentially no solid evidence to support this assertion. The evidence amounts to a handful of vague and sometimes contradictory identifications from witnesses in the street below. Other evidence leaves open the possibility that Oswald was elsewhere when the assassination happened. The lone-nut case falls at the first hurdle, a fact that is often overlooked by lone-nutters and tin-foil hatters, though obvious to anyone who can think straight. Could counsel tell the court how, if he were prosecuting Oswald, he might get around this problem?

[Ed LeDoux]

Lance said....

"You're pretending to have a level of scientific certainty that you simply can't have from the available evidence"

My Response in Bold.

I THINK YOU WANT ABSOLUTE PROOF,  AND ALSO A LEGAL CERTAINTY   

"In pure mathematics , however, there is said to be a proof for the existence of absolute truth. A common tactic in mathematical proofs is the use of reductio ad absurdum , in which the statement to be proved is denied as a premise, and then that premise is shown to lead to a contradiction."

 

HOW ABOUT BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT COUNSELOR?

Numerous TSBD employees were on the front steps at the time of the assassination or in the immediate vicinity.  Not everyone recalled everyone else, but their recollections were quite good and paint a solid picture.  Not one person recalled Oswald standing in full view where Prayer Person is standing.
NOT ONE PERSON RECALLED MOLINA WHOM STOOD IN THE GROUP SINCE 12:15!
NOT ONE PERSON NAMED ANY OF THE COLORED MEN ON THE STEPS, ROY LEWIS ETC.
SO SAYING A PERSON WHOM JUST STEPPED OUT ABOUT THE TIME THE CHARISMATIC PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA JOHN FITGERALD KENNEDY AND ADMIRED JACKIE BOUVIER KENNEDY, VICE PRESIDENT AND TEXAN LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON AND HIS VERY POPULAR WIFE LADY BIRD ALONG WITH TEXAS' JOHN CONNELLY AND WIFE NELLIE WERE ASSURED NOT TO NOTICE THE LEAST FAMOUS PERSON IN THE WORLD-AT LEAST TILL 3PM-ONE NEWLY HIRED WAREHOUSE WORKER NOT PERSONALLY KNOWN TO BUT A FEW, A SCRAWNY LEE OSWALD. I DOUBT HIGHLY THEY WOULD, ASK ROY LEWIS.
  Does it seem plausible that not one person said “Gee, I seem to recall the guy you folks think is the assassin standing right there on the steps with us.  Maybe you should look into that, huh?”  But wait, there’s more … 
SURE, THEN THEY WOULD BE RIDICULED AND SAID THEY WERE MISTAKEN AND OR THAT WAS AFTERWARDS OR THEY NEED PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OR SO MANY THINGS LIKE PERHAPS THEY WERE HIS LOOK OUT OR EVEN ACCOMPLICE.
BUT DONT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT ASK BUELL WESLEY FRAIZER.
2.  Of all the photos and films taken that day – or that might have been taken that day – Prayer Person appears in precisely one.
WRONG HE IS CLEARLY SEEN IN TWO FILMS WIEGMAN AND DARNELL AND IN TINA TOWNERS FILM THOUGH ONLY FAINT GLIMPSES CAN BE MADE OUT 
It is pure happenstance that there aren’t 15 photos in which Prayer Person is clearly identifiable.
WE HAVE MULTIPLE FRAMES FROM SEVERAL CAMERAS SO YOUR PREMISE IS FAULTY
And in that one photo Prayer Person conveniently appears as such an amorphous blob in the deep shadows that debate continues as to whether said blob is a man or a woman.
CLEAR FRAMES SHOW A WHITE MALE WAREHOUSE WORKER, YOU DO THE MATH
Prayer Person could be literally anyone – but, voila, it’s Oswald!  But wait, there’s more … 
NO IT CAN NOT BE "ANYONE" FAULTY PREMISE #2

FAULTY PREMISE #3
3.  What conceivable assassination conspiracy would have allowed the patsy who was supposed to be on the sixth floor shooting the President to be standing in full view on the front steps? 
FRAME JOBS ARE NOT PRE PLANNED
ARE YOU SAYING EVERY PERSON EXONERATED BY THE INNOCENCE PROJECT WAS PART OF A VAST PREPLANNED CONSPIRACY? I HIGHLY DOUBT IT BUT THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.
Nevertheless, to Prayer Person advocates, items 1-3 are no hindrance at all (precisely because Conspiracy Logic is essentially anti-logic). 
YOU HAVE STARTED WITH FAULTY LOGIC AND TRIED TO BUILD ON IT. 
DO ANY OF YOUR PHOTOS OR FILMS SHOW ANYONE IN THE SIXTH FLOOR WINDOW BEFORE OR IMMEDIATELY AFTER? YOU DONT? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR VAST CONSPIRACY THAT IT COULDN'T EVEN LURE LEE TO BE LOOKING OUT THIS WINDOW.
But the notion of Oswald inserting Jarman and Norman into his Domino Room Alibi?  Oh, please, that’s completely off the scale of plausibility!  
The only plausible explanation - put it in stone - is that Oswald was eating lunch in the domino room. 
THAT IS CONFIRMED. LEE WAS EATING IN THE DOMINO ROOM. 
JARMAN SAID "SOMEONE" WAS IN THERE.
JARMAN WAS WALKING AROUND FIRST FLOOR EATING AND DID NOT STAY IN THE LUNCHROOM.
LEE COULD SEE THE BOYS RETURNING TO REAR DOCK STEPS FROM DOMINO ROOM 
THE MOST PLAUSIBLE AND VERIFIABLE.
THIS BY ALL ACOUNTS IS ALSO HIS ALIBI.
CONFIRMED IN HOSTY AND BOOKOUT/FRITZS NOTES.
Of all the aspects of conspiracy theorizing that I regard as laughable, the notion that the TSBD was teeming with conspirators and accessories from Roy Truly to Eddie Piper and everyone in between, while innocent young Oswald was placidly eating a cheese sandwich in the domino room, is one I regard as so self-evidently absurd that I can’t believe intelligent people are even discussing it.
ARE YOU JUST AN IGNORANT ONE BECAUSE YOU ARE DISCUSSING IT AND WRONGLY TOO.

  From my experience as a lawyer,
IS THIS AN APPEAL TO AUTHORITY OR DID YOU HELP OSWALD IN THIS CASE.
this is the sort of explanation people resort to when they are truly (or maybe Truly) desperate. 

YOURS SMACKS OF DESPERATION.
OURS IS DOCUMENTED.
MAYBE START BY READING THE BOOK COUNSELOR.
Or perhaps this was just some citizen seeking a bit of shade who had no connection with the TSBD at all and meant nothing to any of them. 
SORRY FAULTY LOGIC, NO ONE WORMED THEIR WAY UP THROUGH EMPLOYEES.
CAN YOU NAME ANY STRANGERS WHOM DID.
OR POINT OUT ANY STRANGER ON THE STEPS.
REMEMBER ALL EMPLOYEES WERE ASKED ABOUT STRANGERS AND ONLY DANNY ARCE RESPONDED YES.
I forget who it was now, but one of the employees allowed an older man who was having some sort of difficulty to go into the building to get a drink or use the restroom.  That would be my educated guess - that this individual was not mentioned because he or she was of no significance to anyone, which seems far more plausible than the sinister speculation. 
YET ARCE DID.
NEXT.

Do I know Oswald wasn't outside watching the P. parade to a level of ontological certainty?  Of course not. 
WHY NOT. BECAUSE YOU DONT ACCEPT THE EVIDENCE GIVEN YOU. 
THAT IS ON YOU COUNSELOR.
I can't know to a level of ontological certainty that he wasn't having his way with a nubile young secretary in the basement or eating a banana on the roof either.  
DO YOU RANDOMLY ASSIST CLIENTS THIS WAY OR DO YOU SEEK EVIDENCE TO ABSOLVE THEM?
ASKING FOR A FRIEND FROM MENSA.
But, yeah, I think I can objectively claim that the conclusion Oswald was upstairs shooting the President is approximately 500,000 times more likely than the conclusion he was outside watching the P. parade.
WARREN COMMISSION TRIED AND FAILED BUT BE MY GUEST.



Cheers, Ed Ledoux 
CEO Maui Film

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Ed LeDoux
clarity, legalese

[Ed LeDoux]

Was Mrs Reid seen outside by her coworkers?

Who ate lunch with her?

TIA, 

Ed

Edited September 13, 2019 by Ed LeDoux

[Guest]

I don’t have time at the moment for anything more than a general response and am typing as fast as I can before my wife awakes.

I’ve been responding to Prayer Person posts for years.  Don’t pretend I’m some neophyte.  (I actually find Bart’s PP site an absolute goldmine of documents and information.  Kudos, Bart.)  The same enhanced photo is used again and again, as it is here, to identify PP.  To me, as Pat Speer said, it doesn’t look anything like Oswald.  It frankly looks like a woman with considerably meatier arms than Oswald had.  But this is just a general impression, and I concede that I can’t make a definitive identification from the blurry image any more than you can.

Don’t waste my time and that of others with “Winston Churchill” nonsense.  The image could be anyone who was in Dealey Plaza that day who hasn’t been definitively identified from other photos as not being PP.

You believe this figure standing in the shadows has “dark” hair, and this is one of your “Oswald features.”  How many different shades of hair would have photographed as “dark” under those conditions?  OK, you’ve perhaps eliminated people with very blonde hair.  Your “Oswald feature” is really “not having very blonde hair,” not “having hair just like Oswald’s.”  Again, you’re pretending to a level of scientific certainty that you simply don’t have.

Ditto with the height analysis.  This is the game that conspiracy theorists play with almost all of the evidence.  It’s the game Cliff plays with the clothing and the throat and back wounds.  You have no real idea as to exactly how the PP figure is standing – knee positions, possible bend from the waist, possible bend from the neck, slouching, etc.  You’re attempting to cloak what is little more than a Rorschach test with the trappings of precise scientific analysis.  Your “Oswald feature” is really a guesstimate that can say no more than “it could be someone of Oswald’s height.”

Ditto for the receding hairline, if that’s what it is.  Oswald was severely balding, to the point that Robert actually examined him to see what the heck had happened while he was in the USSR.  Many women have precisely the same hairline when they brush or pull their hair back.  This is no “Oswald feature” in any meaningful sense.

But, please, be my guest – if the possibility PP might be Oswald makes a scintilla of sense to you, devote all the time to it you wish.  You’re never going to move the dial of history with this sort of thing.  It will always remain, and rightly so, Badge Man Revisited, Umbrella Man Revisited, Manhole Shooter Revisited.  Conspiracy theorists have made fools of themselves too many times, and fundamentally changed their convoluted theories too many times, for any of this to be taken seriously unless you have a clear and definitive photo of Oswald.

“You Lone Nutters can’t say for sure that isn’t Oswald,” is never going to move the dial.  Until there is definitive proof to the contrary we can say it isn’t because the possibility is contrary to basic common sense and not one person saw Oswald standing there.  If you want to indulge the fantasy that he only appeared for 2.3 seconds and everyone else was looking the other way, you’ll be right in the mainstream of the Conspiracy Game.  That’s how inconvenient facts are always explained in the Conspiracy Game.

Did someone actually ask me what difference it would make to the patsy aspect of the assassination if Oswald were in the domino room or on the TSBD steps at the time of the assassination???  Well, uh …  Why would conspirators plant the patsy’s rifle on the sixth floor if they were going to allow the patsy to be standing outside?  Wouldn’t that pretty much scream “Something is very wrong here?”  Wouldn’t that increase the odds of the conspiracy unraveling and being exposed by, oh, a factor of about 17,000,000?  Comments like this are so bizarre as to be disorienting.  I actually use my friends as a sanity check:  Do these people seem as whacked-out to you as they do to me, or is there something I’m not seeing?  (One of my friends, a hydrologist, observed yesterday after reading this very thread that “There is a thin line between a hobby and insanity.”)

The fact that this sort of thinking defies logic and common sense is why you’re driven to positions such as Sandy’s suggestion from a few years ago:  They wanted Oswald to be seen.  They were sending a message.  “We’re so completely in control here that we want you to understand we don’t even care if it makes sense.”  Andrej is regurgitating essentially the same thing here.  They were so control of every aspect that nothing mattered.  They knew they could mop up any problems after the fact.

Doesn’t this suggest to you some larger questions:  Then why the F bother with a patsy at all?  Why the F undertake all the multiple steps required to frame Oswald?  Who needs Oswald at all?  Who needs the TSBD at all?  Who needs to try to make it appear all the shots came from the rear?  Again I say:  The fact that this sort of thing actually makes sense to some of you is completely disorienting to me.

Like conspiracy theorists always do, here the evidence against Oswald is parsed and pigeonholed.  “All” we have is Oswald’s rifle on the sixth floor with his fingerprints on it, as though this were essentially irrelevant.  Apart from this brute fact, we have nothing to tie innocent cheese-sandwich-eating patsy Oswald into the assassination.  Never mind how the rifle got there or how many unlikely people would have to have been involved in a conspiracy to get it there from Ruth Paine’s garage.  Never mind that none of the employees of the TSBD saw any strangers.  Never mind that the sixth floor was occupied by the floor repair crew virtually the entire time.

Oh, Oswald brought the rifle in and placed it there himself because … because … well, because he thought it was for some lesser conspiracy than killing JFK and it made perfect sense for him to be eating a cheese sandwich or standing on the steps of the TSBD while the motorcade went by and his rifle was sitting up on the sixth floor.  Oswald had the IQ of a mentally challenged turnip, is that your theory?  Rather than telling the truth after being captured, he denied owning a rifle, denied what Frazier and Randle had said, and claimed he had brought his lunch.  And he did this because … because … because …

And then, after eating his cheese sandwich and lingering briefly on the steps, he proceeded to set in motion a chain of events that made him look like The Guiltiest Person on Earth.  But this was also irrelevant because he knew he’d been set up as a patsy and he was understandably worried and thus vanishing from the TSBD, retrieving his revolver, shooting Tippit, scurrying through the neighborhood like a fleeing felon, ducking into a darkened theater, pulling his revolver on a bevy of officers, and proceeding to tell one bald-faced lie after another to his captors seemed like a good idea under the circumstances.

Oh, I know, none of those things happened … or that wasn’t Oswald … or they were consistent with his status as a cheese-sandwich-eating innocent because … because … because …

As I say, simply disorienting.  This is why I am now more interested in “Why do seemingly sane and intelligent people think this way?” than in “Could Oswald actually have been eating a cheese sandwich in the domino room or standing on the TSBD steps at the time of the assassination?”

Sorry for the length of this post, I didn't have time to write a shorter one.

[Guest]

If I were to offer one observation with the utmost sincerity, it would be:

I’ve been involved for some 60 years in numerous areas of what debunkers dismiss as “woo-woo.”  I’ve been a True Believer and a diehard skeptic, sometimes both within the same area of woo-woo.  At least one area, Christian belief, involves scholarship and debate of the very highest level on all sides.  I’ve seen it all – the games True Believers play and the games fanatical debunkers play.  I know the nature of the arguments and the responses on both sides.

In almost every area of woo-woo, my positions have evolved and sometimes changed dramatically in one direction or another as I’ve become better informed and my critical-thinking skills have improved (largely due to 37 years of practicing law but also to fairly serious studies in epistemology).  I can distinguish between nonsense on both sides and solid arguments on both sides.  Had this not occurred, I guarantee I’d still be a gee-whiz conspiracy theorist insofar as the JFK assassination is concerned.  Not just a conspiracy theorist but a True Believer.

You folks would do yourselves a great favor if you became better acquainted with (1) other areas where intense debate prevails, (2) the mistakes that True Believers make in all such areas (because they all make the same mistakes in reasoning and the handling of evidence), and (3) what it means to think critically and arrive at beliefs that are epistemologically sound.

You believe – most of you anyway – that you are doing serious research and thinking critically.  But you aren’t.  You simply aren’t.  You are flailing in all directions as True Believers do in every area of woo-woo (and indeed even in more scholarly areas of intense debate) as they attempt to preserve and defend the house of cards they have constructed.  You’re stuck on the True Believer treadmill, which I’ve characterized here as the Conspiracy Game (but doesn’t always have to involve a conspiracy – militant New Atheists and wild-eyed Christian fundamentalists do essentially the same things).

Maybe you enjoy the treadmill.  Maybe it’s just a hobby or exercise for your brain or an opportunity for fellowship.  But don’t kid yourselves that you’re moving toward historical truth, because you simply aren’t.  As your mom perhaps used to say, “You need to get out more.”

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Ed LeDoux said:

Was Mrs Reid seen outside by her coworkers?

Who ate lunch with her?

TIA, 

Ed

Ochus Campbell stated she was with him

[Andrej Stancak]

2 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

If I were to offer one observation with the utmost sincerity, it would be:

 

I’ve been involved for some 60 years in numerous areas of what debunkers dismiss as “woo-woo.”  I’ve been a True Believer and a diehard skeptic, sometimes both within the same area of woo-woo.  At least one area, Christian belief, involves scholarship and debate of the very highest level on all sides.  I’ve seen it all – the games True Believers play and the games fanatical debunkers play.  I know the nature of the arguments and the responses on both sides.

 

In almost every area of woo-woo, my positions have evolved and sometimes changed dramatically in one direction or another as I’ve become better informed and my critical-thinking skills have improved (largely due to 37 years of practicing law but also to fairly serious studies in epistemology).  I can distinguish between nonsense on both sides and solid arguments on both sides.  Had this not occurred, I guarantee I’d still be a gee-whiz conspiracy theorist insofar as the JFK assassination is concerned.  Not just a conspiracy theorist but a True Believer.

 

You folks would do yourselves a great favor if you became better acquainted with (1) other areas where intense debate prevails, (2) the mistakes that True Believers make in all such areas (because they all make the same mistakes in reasoning and the handling of evidence), and (3) what it means to think critically and arrive at beliefs that are epistemologically sound.

 

You believe – most of you anyway – that you are doing serious research and thinking critically.  But you aren’t.  You simply aren’t.  You are flailing in all directions as True Believers do in every area of woo-woo (and indeed even in more scholarly areas of intense debate) as they attempt to preserve and defend the house of cards they have constructed.  You’re stuck on the True Believer treadmill, which I’ve characterized here as the Conspiracy Game (but doesn’t always have to involve a conspiracy – militant New Atheists and wild-eyed Christian fundamentalists do essentially the same things).

 

Maybe you enjoy the treadmill.  Maybe it’s just a hobby or exercise for your brain or an opportunity for fellowship.  But don’t kid yourselves that you’re moving toward historical truth, because you simply aren’t.  As your mom perhaps used to say, “You need to get out more.”

 

What a cranky rant.

[Steve Thomas]

I myself like woo-woo. Count me in as a member of the B.A.R. movement.

https://www.audubon.org/news/are-birds-actually-government-issued-drones-so-says-new-conspiracy-theory-making

“The CIA assassinated John F. Kennedy after he refused to kill and replace billions of birds with drones.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/9n4tvy/birds_arent_real/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BphiB_NlBFI/

birdsarentrealhouston

https://www.instagram.com/birdsarentrealhouston/?utm_source=ig_embed

 

Steve Thomas

[John Iacoletti]

On 9/12/2019 at 12:47 PM, Steve Thomas said:

If that is Leavelle sitting with her (and I think it is), and they are going over her affidavit, he took her affidavit on Saturday, November 23rd

But the footage of the woman sitting next to Leavelle (they don’t appear to be interacting, btw) was taken on Sunday. They are talking about Oswald being shot immediately before this sequence.