Craig Lamson

On your "bluish white smoke"...

Got any links that support your statement that bluish white smoke is indicative of an electrical fire? I've done extensive research into reading smoke and have yet to find a source that makes the same claims as you.

One interesting factoid is that is that cold air temps often cause dark smoke to turn light. Something about moisture in the burnt gas hitting the cold air....at least thats what people who fight fires for a living say.

But hay if you can provide some source information on your claim that the smoke SHOULD have been black in those temp conditions from the fuel fire and that fires that START from an electrical source give off bluish white smoke I just might grant you this point.

deleted, dupe post

Opps....might want to rethink that GPS thingy Jim....unless Karl Rove now controls the sun too!

http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?d...efid=ency_botpm

US NEWS SPACEWEATHER KRT

KRT US NEWS STORY SLUGGED: SPACEWEATHER KRT PHOTOGRAPH VIA NATIONAL

OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION (January 14) This powerful

solar flare on Oct. 25, 2002, sent a storm of high-energy particles

(proton and electrons) racing toward Earth at a million or more

miles per hour. Such flares can garble terrestrial communications

links, black out power grids, cause navigation errors, even confuse

homing pigeons. Astronauts and satellites in orbit are at special

risk. (lde) 2003

These questions are related to CT research but I can not disclose why I am asking them. The results should be interesting. I will let the survey run a week or so and reveal why I am asking these questions.

1] Which best describes you?  Explain

a] professional photographer

b] scientist/researcher etc, who uses photography for their work

c]advanced amateur

d] beginner

2] How long have you been a photographer?

3] Do you use digital or film cameras? If you use both explain when you use which format.

4] When you fly do you put your cameras / film / memory card in your suitcase or do take them as carry on?

5] Briefly describe the equipment you have.

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Pro

25 years as a pro

Almost all digital now, 35mm dslr, 4x5 betterlight scan back.

Carry on only.

Equipment: (well most of it...I have a bunch of new Canon stuff since this image...1Ds, 1DsMKII, 10D...9 lenses)

http://www.pbase.com/infocusinc/image/37591568

And the name of this thread is......(drum roll)........Civil Discourse...?????!!!!!. 

Come on people, we're capable of better.

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Pat, I understand your feeling but what am I supposed to do?

I've asked questions which receive no reply.

A poster asked for my work and I have (albeit with some snideness) pointed to it.

I'm happy for people to point out where I may have made mistakes, and discuss them.

Is it so unreasonable for Jack to do the same?

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As I have pointed out, I will discuss any issues that are

free from personal attacks. I too would be interested in

the research credentials of Mr. Burton. Like Mr. Lamson,

he showed up on this forum strictly to discredit me,along

with other members of BADASTRONOMY website.

Questions asked with personal attacks deserve no reply.

For that matter, NOBODY is obligated to engage in discussion

with anyone, let alone unpleasant persons.

Jack

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Ok Jack, no insults just an honest question.

In this study :

http://www.aulis.com/jackstudies_10.html

you indicate that the double crosshairs are the result of an overlay on a photograph that has lifted during a copy process.

Please explain exactly how the lighting was set up to create the effect you say is shadows from a lifted overlay.

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Since you are known as MR. LIGHT, I am sure you can explain it better than I.

Most professionals use 2 (or more) lights positioned at a 45-degree angles on

each side of the copyboard. Like you, I am puzzled why the side lights did not

cast multiple shadows of the overlay crosshairs. But hey, my job is to point

out such anomalies, not to explain them. You tell us your theory on how the

shadows were created...and why.

Jack

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I'm not puzzled at all, but it is interesting to note that you base you theory on something you cannot explain or even offer an opinion as to how your theory might even work.

And I'm sorry but your job goes far beyond 'pointing out anomalies" when you suggest reasons why these so called anomolies exist.

But thank you for answering the question and pointing out you have no idea how your theory might work.

BTW, there is no way to create a lighting setup to create what you call the shadows from a lifted overlay.

You might note however that your "shadow" crosshairs are in perfect alignment with the rest of the crosshairs on the image.

My theory, which Jay Widley was kind enough to do the math on, and who found it to be a very likely candidate can be found in Evans 13 page thread in case you want to check.

We are all tired of the ravings of Mr.Peters/Miller/whoever.

He continues to ignore the obvious RETOUCHING of the so-called

DRUM SCAN, which was revealed at least 2 years ago or more.

He continues to beat this dead horse by calling me and others

liars and worse.

The drum scan RETOUCHING is very clear in the area of the

pedestal:

1. the pedestal top was cleaned up with a sharp straight line

2. the "gap" was significantly increased

3. the corner of the pedestal was "squared up", although it is not

4. and most obvious, the slant of the pedestal top was changed

from slanting down to right to SLANTING DOWN TO LEFT, to

further exaggerate the "gap".

This was posted on the JFKresearch forum years ago, AND NEVER

REFUTED NOR DENIED by Thompson/Mack/Lamson/Miller et al.

Here it is again, gang.

Now SHUT UP!

Jack White

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Additionally, as I have always pointed out, the corner of the

pedestal is not square, but is offset by about an inch. The

"gap" advocates refuse to recognize this. When retouching

the "drum scan", they also were ignorant of the CAMBER

of the top of the pedestal (for shedding rainwater). It is

NOT A FLAT SURFACE, but is raised more than an inch in

the center. When they retouched the top of the pedestal,

they made it a STRAIGHT LINE, not a curve.

Give up, Peters/Miller. The hoaxers have been exposed.

Jack White

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I love this one...White as Fetzer before him argues against the principal of the lever....amazing.

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can always tell when the non-photo alteration camp get's nervous. They ring any bell they can find, especially when they've run out of arguments, so here we go AGAIN - regurgitating a argument from 10/03.

They could find no one ( I wonder why?) to duplicate the transit experiment in Dealey Plaza, as performed by Dr's. Fetzer and Mantik amongst their able bodied assistants. I suspect no one will take up the chore now... As a result we're back to the BM movement [bill Miller - pardon the pun] along with Gentleman Larry Peters, or whomever he is.

Get your gear down there and show us your findings? Next to the seamless films of DP [four years now] might this experiment be second?

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The TRANSIT experiment...that cluster F__K! Are you kidding David? There has never been a more sorry sight than White and company doing the transit thing...well perhaps second to a PhD and White running strings all over the plaza....

So David...care to go on the record? Are White and company correct...Was Moorman in the street when she snapped #5?

We are all tired of the ravings of Mr.Peters/Miller/whoever.

He continues to ignore the obvious RETOUCHING of the so-called

DRUM SCAN, which was revealed at least 2 years ago or more.

He continues to beat this dead horse by calling me and others

liars and worse.

The drum scan RETOUCHING is very clear in the area of the

pedestal:

1. the pedestal top was cleaned up with a sharp straight line

2. the "gap" was significantly increased

3. the corner of the pedestal was "squared up", although it is not

4. and most obvious, the slant of the pedestal top was changed

from slanting down to right to SLANTING DOWN TO LEFT, to

further exaggerate the "gap".

This was posted on the JFKresearch forum years ago, AND NEVER

REFUTED NOR DENIED by Thompson/Mack/Lamson/Miller et al.

Here it is again, gang.

Now SHUT UP!

Jack White

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Additionally, as I have always pointed out, the corner of the

pedestal is not square, but is offset by about an inch. The

"gap" advocates refuse to recognize this. When retouching

the "drum scan", they also were ignorant of the CAMBER

of the top of the pedestal (for shedding rainwater). It is

NOT A FLAT SURFACE, but is raised more than an inch in

the center. When they retouched the top of the pedestal,

they made it a STRAIGHT LINE, not a curve.

Give up, Peters/Miller. The hoaxers have been exposed.

Jack White

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I love this one...White as Fetzer before him argues against the principal of the lever....amazing.

The DRUM SCAN image is clearly retouched when compared

to older Moorman prints.

Jack

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In a word...bunk.

Your zippo is so out of focus and jpg artifacted it next to worthless. However when one spends the time to actually do an in depth comparison of the white Zippo and the Thompson Drum scan they are in perfect agreement as it relates to the "gap".

You are just plain wrong here jack.

The DRUM SCAN image is clearly retouched when compared

to older Moorman prints.

Jack

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In a word...bunk.

Your zippo is so out of focus and jpg artifacted it next to worthless. However when one spends the time to actually do an in depth comparison of the white Zippo and the Thompson Drum scan they are in perfect agreement as it relates to the "gap".

You are just plain wrong here jack.

Mr. Peter's just post the before and after [regarding Dr. Thompson's 'drum scan' image] imagery, with a statement from Craig what he did to the image -- I would like to know what Craig Lamson did to ***enhane*** the image, if anything other than creating the CD --

Now thats plain English Mr. Peter's, James Gordon, Bill Miller or whatever name/skirt your currently hiding behind -- you've expressed ZERO knowledge regarding imagery posted on the net - guess we're back to provocateur nonsense aren't we....?

For your info Mr. Peter's, I think it's a safe bet; JWhite wiped his hands of you long ago; your an amusing distraction; certainly nothing more than a distraction! Based on your photo resolution comments, I'm fairly certain your Bill Miller, all you needed to add is: if you save a 72dpi image at a higher resolution [300dpi], only you can see things in a picture others can't. roflmao

So for lurkers hereabouts, that TYPE OF REASONING, not to mention the disruptions, is why the likes of these guys we're dumped from JFKRESEARCH and the forum going private - researcher funded...

I'd say we're onto something - sure gave cause to those of us that need much convincing regarding the subject matter.

Whinning about what researchers did with photos Mr. Peter's just doesn't cut it!

ta-ta guy!

----------------

 

dgh01: operative word here is "knowingly", if you can prove that, please post your proof. As far as posting on the internet, Mr. Peter's let me remind you, what you and lurkers see on this forum and in the websites in general is posted imagery that has NO higher resolution than 72 dpi (at no fault of the forum moderators, a internet **given** -- if you're unaware of what that means, you might want to get clarification - I'm sure the moderators can clarify this).

Mr. Healy - I see you're still trying to move on and keep Mr. White out of the spot light by continuing to beat a dead horse. Very well, here it is from someone who worked with Mr. White on the Badge Man project. Gary Mack has said,

"Jack White not only has had access to all known Moorman photos - including

an 8x10 print of the drum scan - he has copied all of them. Every single

one! I was there. I gave some of them to him. He has them all, yet

insists on using the WORST one to try to make his point."

The "drum scan" image was forwarded AFTER Dr. Thompson's work in San Francisco to Craig Lamson for further/other processing[?], later copied to CD's and distributed, I being one of the recipients of a CD with the image.

A CD that I was eventually given, as well.

Understanding the seriousness of the debate and the implications of the street/grass Moorman position, it is prudent that researchers see [Craig's before and after imagry] the components that drew your side of the **gap** debate to it's current conclusion, YES?

No - that is smoke and mirrors on your part and here is why. You can overlay every known copy of Moorman's photo over the top of one another and there will NEVER be one that shows the gap closed as Mr. White's so-called recreation photo does. Below is an example of two Moorman photos - One is Thompson's with the fingerprint on it and the other is Groden's without the fingerprint. Like with the pedestal, there is a gap between Jackie and JFK's head. When overlaid on top of one another - the gap never changes. The only way to get the gap to change is by lightening the photo until you start washing out the images and expanding the light colored areas. There is no Moorman print in TGZFH that shows the gap closed, nor will Mr. White ever be able to produce one on this forum. (see attachment number one)

Doing research on imagery of no greater resolution than 72 dpi, is dangerous at best -- if that's all you've got, then the honest thing you can say is: "no conclusions - just opinions". For what it's worth, Jack White always requests comments regarding his work [new and old]. If YOU are not in the vicinity when his requests for comments are made, well what can you say? Maybe, you've been 86'ed from the very place where Jack posts regularly, Rich's JFKResearch forum?

Mr. Healy - again you are trying to mislead someone. When enlarging an image after it has been reduced to 72 DPI it will cause it to pixel and become distorted with magnification. However, magnification can be achieved before posting an image to a forum such as this one. I can zoom in on the Moorman photo - capture it to where we can count the emulsion specs if you like. No matter how you slice it - the gap will not close. The transfermation to the Internet will not selectively alter any parts of the image being posted. In other words - it will not leave the some gaps like that between Jackie and JFK's head open while closing others like that between the pedestal and the pergola window. (see attachment number two)

dgh01: Mr. Peter's if you can't post right here, the exact resolution of imagery your working with, what your comparing, where that referenced imagery is located, make it available to other's. NOISE Mr. Peter's - just another opinion -- far cry from research, Mr. Peter's. A very far cry!

You mean the same resolution imagery that Mr. White didn't post? By the way - I did source my Moorman images, but you have to take the time to actually read the post thoroughly.

dgh01: I post my opinions regarding photo alteration research. elsewhere -- LOL!

That is the most honest statement you have made thus far. I believe you are talking about JFKResearch where no one can challenge alteration claims without being banned from the site. That brings us to the next question - If you are not here to share your opinions about photo and film alteration, then why are you posting in this thread at all? Interesting!

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<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As I was reading this old thread I found this question by you David and its time to correct the record.

When Tink had the Moorman 5 copy neg drum scanned in San Fran he had the the scanner tech make two copies of the cd containing the file. All the details of the scan are available at our web page on the Moorman 5.

Tink had the scanner tech sign each original cd and he sent one to me and one to G. Mack for the 6 floor. Gary still has this original disk.

When I recieved the disk I did noting to the file....nothing..repete...nothing. No changes what so ever. I simply made dupilcates of the master disk supplied by Tink and sent them out in the mail. The file you recieved is exactly as it came off the scanner. The master disk (with the scanners techs signature) was returned to Tink.

Any claims by White that the image was retouched is pure crap. The file is as it came from the scanner...and I might add it matches the print that was made from the same neg perfectly, as well as every other file I have seem from the Moorman except for that crappy scan White likes to promote. And even that one when subjected to careful study also shows the same gap as all the other Moormans floating around.

Craig - This Healy guy seems like a complete moron. As much as I jibe at Fetzer I have to admit he's not an idiot - he is just blinded by his preconceived notions!!

This guy on the other hand, only knows how to insult people who call into question the findings of his "intellectual fellow travelers" Fetzer and White. His comments don't even serve to advance his friends' ideas - he does not seem to be capable of anything beyond insults and sarcastic remarks.

Elsewhere of this forum some had this to say

And you David - you just like posting in the forum. You don't seem to add anything to the topic being discussed, and you never take a position on any of the points questioned.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...ost&p=38521

I won't respond to any of his posts here if they continue to be of this low level and I suggest you do the same. Our bickering with him only serves to distract from discussion of the details of this case which is to Fetzer's advantage. So does getting into debates over the Z-film and other JFK issues

Len

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Healy just likes to go WOOF WOOF...he's the guard dog here for Fetzer, White and Costella. Don't ever expect him to actually offer anything of substance to the discussion, thats just not his job, nor does it seem that he is qualified to do anything more.

Craig Lamson

Oh yes..the hacks have had at it...Fetzer Costella, Four Arrows et al. 

The debunking of Fetzers falsehoods and downright lies are here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FETZERclaimsDEBUNK/

I agree with Fetzer on one point...do the reading and the research yourself and come to your own conclusions.

_____________

your last sentence in your post above  [finally, one beyond the 3rd grade level] a few of us can agree on-- thank you -- I'd also add, when future research is complete covering the discussed subject matter (and I certainly don't expect any from Lansom) please post with document cites supporting your theses pro and/or con... Lets see what these armchair pros are made of, shall we? The NTSB posted their results, Fetzer posted his and his teams -- we await yours and what's his name Colby's [retired attorney or is he the guy who sells souvienrs from Brazil, can't keep track of these newly risen pillars in research community] If the best you can do is point to NTSB findings ONLY, and can't take the Fetzer/Four Arrow/Costella findings point-by-point, displaying contrary support evidence, I hear nothing more than .john McAdams WCR supporting clone type rhetoric ... shall we see what you're made of... or will you be relegated to the 'noise maker hall of shame er, fame' peanut gallery?

Everyones a "hack" according to the Indiana drygoods photog. Gott'a love America, those without Wellstone subject matter credibility, overnight, become experts on his death, not to mention, additional incidents covering murder.... truck on Craigster... one should sell internet streaming tickets... if you had something, anything to show that wasn't thrown about here as opinion... so make a point-by-point case, who knows, I might learn something... Hell, you might get a book offer!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You dont read well do you rodeo boy? Everything you would ever want to know the sorry state of Fetzer and crews shoddy and falsehood filled works can be found at the link that has been posted here at least twice.

So flame on there David...and then go video some cowboys....

and BTW there rodeo boy...

drygoods

n : textiles or clothing and related merchandise [syn: soft goods]

You can't even get that right.

Oh yes..the hacks have had at it...Fetzer Costella, Four Arrows et al.

The debunking of Fetzers falsehoods and downright lies are here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FETZERclaimsDEBUNK/

I agree with Fetzer on one point...do the reading and the research yourself and come to your own conclusions.

Jack White, who has had more experience with disseminators of disinformation

than anyone else in the JFK research community, developed an axiom some

time back, which holds that the more intense the attack, the closer you are to

the truth.  By that standard, I believe we must be right on the money regarding

what happened to Senator Paul Wellstone.  Certainly, nothing this guy has had to

say offers any good reason for thinking otherwise.  But he is certainly persistent.

The subtle things can easily be overlooked.  Just a casual glance revealed that,

in his discussion of Conry's qualifications, where I observed that he had passed

his FAA "flight check" just two days before the fatal flight, in his response, this

guy omits the phrase, "just two days before the fatal flight".  He suggests that

I am paranoid for asking whether he works for the US, but does not answer the

question.  There are dozens and dozens of slights of hands and misrepresen-

tations.  He is very good at ridicule; indeed, in my opinion, he's a professional.

He has certainly cast many aspersions on my character, so many that I am not

reluctant to suggest that he is here on a mission, which is to present the most

extensive verbal assault he can muster, no matter how many fallacies he has

to commit in the process.  His expertise in ad hominem attacks is breathtaking.

He tells me that he does not believe me, even when I explain that I do not make

any money from royalties on the book but recycle it to support further research.

The fact is that I have financed many kinds of research on Wellstone and JFK.

Whether he believes it or not I could care less.  I would make an obvious point,

however.  Some of you have suggested that he does his homework!  Well, un-

less you have done yours, how could you possibly know?  Unless you have in

fact taken the fime and the effort to read THE NTSB REPORT, the reports on

which the NTSB report is based, and our book and studies, you cannot know.

So stop and consider the possibility that this clever guy is playing you for saps.

Unless you have studied the case independently, you can't know who's right!

PLUS I have read enough of his stuff to assure you that his word is completely

unreliable.  Ask yourself why three Ph.D.s--one also an Ed.D.--are committing

themselves to the thesis that Paul Wellstone was taken out for political reasons.

Why would we do that?  Why would we expend the time, money, and effort to

get to the bottom of this case if we did not believe what we were doing?  This

guy insists that he wants you to read everything we have written on this case--

except the book!  Why do you suppose that is?  Why not read it and find out?

We have proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this was not an accident.

The NTSB, however, confined itself to accident alternatives.  It never even

considered the possibility that the plane was taken down deliberately using

a small bomb or a gas canister or a high-tech weapon.  Remember that a

member of the NTSB's own team--who signed the report!--admitted that

they had no idea what had happened and were merely speculating!  If the

case is as clear as this guy says, why would Richard Healing have done that?

For convenience, a lot of material on the case may be found at my web site,

http://www.assassinationscience.com.  My academic web site is available at

http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/  Check it out and ask if I appear to be some

sort of nut case or a serious scholar with important accomplishments to his

credit.  And if you conclude that I am a serious scholar, ask yourself why my

research on Wellstone should be inferior to my research on other subjects.

Ask yourself if what is going on here makes more sense from my point of

view (he is promoting disinformation) or his (I am a flake).  Think about it.

Notice too that his appeals to the family, for example, do not determine

whether our hypothesis is true or false.  Like the Kennedy family, they

appear to have their own reasons for not wanting to confront the grim

possibility that their father was deliberately killed for political purposes.

And never forget that this man was unique--passionate, articulate, and

courageous.  He is the kind of man of which the world has entirely too few.

His denial that the administration had reasons to take him out before the

election when he was pulling away from Norm Coleman are beyond belief.

We are hardly the only ones to suspect that this was an assassination.  We

cite the early piece by Michael Niman of Buffalo State College, Christopher

Bollyn of americanfreepress.com, and Michael Ruppert of fromthewilderness.

com, among others, who suspected foul play.  Ruppert even reports what

he heard from an insider, namely:  that this had been a hit, that a group

of reinvigorated old white guys were in charge and were no body to screw

around with, and that he could bet there would be other "strategic" accidents. 

All these things are discussed in the book, but you won't hear them from him.

I will never have the last word, because he will continue and continue and

continue until he wears everyone down.  I am doing what I can--short of

recapitulating the book again and again--to provide a framework within

which his performance can best be understood.  I have no doubt that I'm

right about it.  He is a professional character assassin and he is practicing

his craft.  Admire his efforts, but don't allow yourself to be taken in by them.

Read the book and our studies and figure out for yourself which of us is right

and which is wrong.  He's worth studying, since he's about as good as they get.

ask your-self why these very good men would join in common cause if this were nothing but "smoke and mirrors".

I think Fetzer, Costella and Arrows believe that Wellstone was murdered by Bush. In Fetzer's case at least it seems clear to me that he is willing to stretch, bend and distort the truth to prove his case, like a DA or cop who would fake evidence against a suspect they were sure was guilty.

Several eminent people have come to have strange beliefs. There are Ph.D. university professors who don't believe the Holocaust happened or that we went to the Moon, there are others who believe in "Intelligent Design" [i.e. Creationism].

Without exception [as far as I can tell] these profs. who believe these things are outside their area of specialty. For example there aren't any European [general], Jewish, German, Polish etc. History/Studies profs. who doubt the Holocaust, no Physics, Geology or Aero-space engineering profs. who don't think man has been to moon and no natural sciences [biology etc.] profs., who believe in Creationism.

This makes sense because these crackpot ideas are based on misconceptions that people who know there stuff don't suffer from! So I ask Fetzer have any pilots, aviation or crash scene experts endorsed you theories? Has anyone with expertise in fire backed you ideas in that regard, have any experts in the area said publicly that EMPs exist?

Now that we are on the subject has anyone associated with Wellstone or any of the other victims expressed anything but disdain for your theories? The Wellstone people and family seem to want to distance themselves from you as much as possible! They complain that it is a distraction from his legacy.

http://www.wellstone.org/news/news_detail....=4054&catID=298

There is also the interesting case of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who believed all manner of strange things!

<http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/doyle.htm>

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My god Jim you are SO predictable. Time to play the sympathy card. Fetzering at its finest. I must say I truly enjoy watching you make an ass of yourself over and over again.

You spend a lot of time talking about disinformation yet it has been shown that you and your crew spew more disinformation that anyone. You drag out that old saw of Whites and post it as if it had some truth, when is not. You play the "I'm being atacked my professionals" in hopes that will somehow curry favor with the readers. What a joke.

You tell us that your have "proved beyond a resonable doubt" that Wellstone was taked out by a hit, yet your claims lies in tatters at the yahoo site and now here. You answer to the critics...I'm a PhD and have other PhD's with me. A classic appeal to authority. The problem is your "authority" has been shown to be lacking. You are the guy who spent two weeks arguing that the principal of the lever was wrong....sheesh. Your bud Costella, the great PhD from down under goes on at lenght in Hoax about how the singpost breaks the laws of physics, yet when you understand what he is trying to prove you find he misses a most elementtry point...the sign post in question is not vertical and thus his entire argument fails. The list goes and on but the point being...your appeal to authority fails.

So now that you have gotten your pity party out of the way, how about you actually try and defend your theory based on evidence? I'm not holding my breath, seeing how badly you failed on the yahoo forum. I'm not holding out much hope that will happen because I know you cant argue this on the evidence because you have none. No I expect more "Fetzering" which is a term we on the yahoo forum coined to describe Jims rants. His last post is a perfect example of Fetzering.

And the name of this thread is......(drum roll)........Civil Discourse...?????!!!!!. 

Come on people, we're capable of better.

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Pat, I understand your feeling but what am I supposed to do?

I've asked questions which receive no reply.

A poster asked for my work and I have (albeit with some snideness) pointed to it.

I'm happy for people to point out where I may have made mistakes, and discuss them.

Is it so unreasonable for Jack to do the same?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As I have pointed out, I will discuss any issues that are

free from personal attacks. I too would be interested in

the research credentials of Mr. Burton. Like Mr. Lamson,

he showed up on this forum strictly to discredit me,along

with other members of BADASTRONOMY website.

Questions asked with personal attacks deserve no reply.

For that matter, NOBODY is obligated to engage in discussion

with anyone, let alone unpleasant persons.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ok Jack, no insults just an honest question.

In this study :

http://www.aulis.com/jackstudies_10.html

you indicate that the double crosshairs are the result of an overlay on a photograph that has lifted during a copy process.

Please explain exactly how the lighting was set up to create the effect you say is shadows from a lifted overlay.

I would imagine that the tens of thousands of people earning minimum wages or waiting for welfare checks would be trapped in Pompeii.

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It is a good comparison. The people of Pompeii got adequate warning when Vesuvius began erupting in 79 AD. However, thousands were killed by poisonous gases or by the falling buildings. Why? The rich got out but insisted on their slaves staying behind to protect their homes from looters. The vast majority of people killed in New Orleans were the descendants of slaves. They were not ordered to stay but they lacked the necessary funds to get out. Like the US government, the Romans believed in charity rather than a state run welfare system. One would have thought we would have made some advancements in 2000 years but in some countries that does not seem to be the case.

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John, we have a pretty big welfare system in this country, and thats a big part of the problem. It saps the will of those in the system. Perhaps many of those poor will have a chance at a better life now, way from the pit they lived in in NO. Only time will tell.

As a political independent, I'm not shackled by the thinking that EITHER one side OR the other is corrupt.  I assume that BOTH are corrupt, and leave it to the respective parties to prove me wrong.

There's enough poor judgement to fill the Superdome in the New Orleans case.  Poor judgement on the part of the NO mayor; poor judgement on the part of the Louisiana governor; and, yes, poor judgement on the part of President Bush.

The BEST example I've heard reported of GOOD judgement was by the commander of the National Guard trrops once they landed in NO.  He ordered that MRE's and bottled water be UNLOADED from the trucks prior to distribution, so that the trucks could return for more supplies, rather than waiting for individual items to be handed out one-at-a-time from the trucks.  He ordered troops to NOT be constantly be pointing their weapons at obviously unarmed civilians ["This is NOT Baghdad!"].  In short, he became part of the SOLUTION, and not just another part of the PROBLEM.

I read an account in this morning's newspaper that Guard troops returned fire on a group of armed civillians who were apparently part of the robbery-and-mayhem squads that have been roaming the city, killing "five or six" of the perps.

GOOD.

Nothing like the fear of death to put some of these folks back on the "straight and narrow" path.

Still wondering when the declaration of martial law will occur in NO...because it's WAY past time for it.

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Mark, LA. has no provisions for "martial law" in the state constitution. The best they have is "state of emergency".

EVERYONE in Amerika needs to see the interview Tim Russertt of Meet the Press did with Aron Browsard, president of Jefferson Parrish, New Orleans. 

I sent it out, en masse,  from the forum link "time bomb" last night but many were having a hard time accessing the video.

I have it on an easier link now, and just sent it to one person. I will see if he can open it before I post it.

Any one who feels anything but fear and outright hatred of FEMA after viewing this video clip is in need of a brain transplant.

Including the rather racist Mr Purvis and of course our resident  GOP apologist Mr Gratz.

John, I sent you the video clip, were you able to listen to it? (I see you quoted him) , but the entire clip MUST BE SEEN. Jut 3 minutes and people will GET IT. EVEN the two here who keep either blaming the victims or saying it ain't the feds fault. 

Dawn

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This Aaron Broussard ?

Feds subpoena campaign records

Details sought on donations from bond firm

Thursday, August 18, 2005

By Michelle Krupa

West Bank bureau

Federal investigators have issued grand jury subpoenas to Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard and 24th District Judge Kernan "Skip" Hand for records of political donations to Hand's campaigns from Bail Bonds Unlimited, Hand's attorney and Broussard said Wednesday.

The subpoenas offer the first public indication since the conviction seven weeks ago of Judge Alan Green that authorities are pushing ahead with their Operation Wrinkled Robe investigation of Jefferson Parish courthouse corruption.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/ind...45510247860.xml

Tom wrote:

"Tim;

Best not to confuse people with the facts and truths of the situation.

Tom"

Here is a summary I found that may put some of this in perspective for a few of the members here:

Craig

(from the net)

This is a very long piece I wrote earlier today to help organize a lot of the information and arguments I have been using against the bush haters this week (and here in Marin county, they are out in force, let me tell you.) Feel free to use any of this if is interestin or useful, much of the info came from these links to begin with.

SPEAKING TRUTH TO HYSTERIA

The rains from Katrina’s aftermath had barely begun to taper off before the utterly predictable, knee-jerk, blame-Bush for everything hysteria began to rage. The attacks are loud, strident and given top billing by the media, who have shamelessly and blatantly added their own negative, anti-Bush spin without investigating the facts or questioning the political motives of the critics.. It seems, those of us who look to the actual facts before we draw our own conclusions are forced to endure a hurricane of rhetoric, speculation, and just plain nonsense. So don your waders, as there are some actual facts amidst all the debris. Let’s start with the tin-foil hat stuff.

THE THEORIES OF THE LUNATIC FRINGE: THE DEMOCRATS AND THE MEDIA.

CLAIM: Global warming is Bush’s fault and global warming caused Katrina.

First, of course, hurricanes in the US have not in fact been increasing in number or intensity since the supposed onslaught of global warming. As this schedule from the national weather service (www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml) shows, both the number and intensity have actually decreased in recent decades, and were generally much more severe in the first half of the century.

More to this point, however, let’s accept the global warming alarmists on their own terms, and assume global warming caused Katrina without inquiring too closely into what caused all those other hurricanes. Had Al Gore been elected President in 2000, and the day after his inauguration managed to get the US Senate (who had rejected the Kyoto Protocol 95-0 during the Clinton administration) to ratify and then fully implement its provisions in the US immediately, and had every other major country in the world also done so, the projected decrease in global warming after 20 years was projected, by its own proponents, to be only 0.7 degrees centigrade. In the first few years, that is, by now, even if it had been implemented in 2000, the supposed decrease would be essentially zero. So there is simply no conceivable scenario in which Bush’s policies could possibly have had an impact on hurricanes. These claims, retailed widely in major US newspapers and by German and other European politicians, are nothing but despicable political posturing.

CLAIM: The Iraq war has dangeroulsy depleted our National Guard Resources,and that's why help took so long to arrive.

Facts can be your friend. There are roughly 1,000,000 army personnel in the US, including active duty, National Guard and reserves. A bit over 100,000 or 10% are in Iraq (the rest of the forces over there are from the other branches of service). The Pentagon has agreed with the states that it will not mobilize more than 50% of the National Guard from any state, and only about a third of Louisiana’s National Guard is on active duty. The National Guard units that have been mobilized for active duty in Iraq are for the most part heavily armored combat units, not the more lightly armed military police and search and rescue units that are the primary source for domestic disaster support.

You might never know this if you watched network news, but the Commander-in-Chief of each state’s National Guard is the governor of the state, not the President, unless and until the National Guard units are called by the Department of Defense to active duty. It is also worth noting that it is against federal law, the long-standing Posse Comitatus law, for active duty troops to be used for law enforcement—the only National Guard troops that can be used this way are those commanded by state governors. There has been some talk since 9/11 of repealing or amending the Posse Comitatus law, but the changes were strongly opposed by groups from both the left and right.

Would it also be crass to point out the undeniable fact that by Sunday, September 04, 2005, the massive presence of National Guard units arriving from all over the US clearly shows that there are plenty of domestic units still available domestically? The Pentagon says there will be 30,000 guardsmen deployed, fully equipped, by Monday, September 5, only one week after the hurricane hit. These troops didn’t come back from Iraq. QED, the war in Iraq didn’t deplete our NG reserves. There are serious questions about why units of the Louisiana National Guard weren’t in downtown New Orleans a lot earlier, but any claim that the troops weren’t there because they were in Iraq is demonstrably false, as can be seen by turning on any news channel and watching the troops in action.

Finally, I will note that National Guard regulations provide for 72 hours notice for reporting to allow the troops to get their personal affairs in order before showing up. Many respond faster, but planning for use of the National Guard has to allow for the full 72 hours to begin deployment. After that, they can’t magically teletransport to where they are needed. Moving major military units with all their equipment, supplies and material is a not inconsiderable operation. It takes a bit longer than landing a five-person TV crew, who can then stand there and shout about why the troops haven’t arrived.

CLAIM: Bush cut funding for Army Core of Engineers and that’s why the levee’s failed.

Dozens of Democrats and media types have made this claim. A Washington Post’s headline today reads “Critics Say Bush Undercut New Orleans Flood Control.” Read a bit further, however, and you note that even these Democratic critics all admit that even at the highest level of funding, NONE of these projects would have been completed in time to have helped. And none of them would have upgraded the levees to withstand a Cat 4-5 hurricane. As one commentator put it, a more accurate headline would have been “No Government Plan Would Have Prevented Flood, Democrats Still Blame Bush.” In other words, this is another flat out lie, given widespread distribution by the media.

It is also perhaps inconvenient to point out that major flood control projects that could have been completed by now were in fact cut—by the Clinton administration. From the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1995 (isn’t the Internet fun?): “The Clinton administration is holding back a Corps of Engineers report recommending that the $120 million project proceed. …Without the improvements - a flood gate in the Harvey Canal and raised levees along the Intracoastal Waterway - a tidal surge produced by a hurricane ‘could result in the catastrophic loss of life and property damage,’ corps officials reported.” Not that the Bush administration stepped in to do more since, but given the time these projects take – one item of ACOE funding that the Bush Administration cut was for a study about upgrading the levees, and the study wouldn’t have been completed until, I believe, 2008. (As a side note, the Internet also lets us discover that the New York Times, now on its Olympian high horse condemning the irresponsibility of the Bush administration’s funding cuts for the ACOE, in fact, last April bitterly condemned the very same legislation as an expensive boondoggle. The paper thundered that “the bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects — this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs.” Ah well, no one ever expects to hold them accountable for anything.)

The city of New Orleans over the years has managed to find hundreds of millions of dollars for other projects, from building the convention center and a variety of other typical municipal pork projects, millions of which seem to have disappeared into the maw of perhaps the most corrupt local government in the country, but they found nothing to fund their own flood control. Couldn’t pass a bond measure to upgrade their decrepit sewers and pumping system, though.

LEADING UP TO THE DISASTER

We have now established that despite all the histrionics and feverish rhetoric, nothing Bush did before the hurricane caused the hurricane itself, depleted the National Guard or contributed to the failure of the levees. So let’s go back to the days before Katrina struck. Better yet, let’s start with an overview of the responsibilities of the numerous entities involved in hurricane and disaster relief.

The City of New Orleans.

One might think that most reasonably well-informed and rational people would understand that the primary and initial first response to any disaster is the local government. This fact has apparently escaped most of the media, but let’s see what the city of New Orleans’ own disaster plan says. (The whole thing is, remarkably, still available on line at www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26.) I suppose it would have been too much to expect anyone at any of the major news outlets to have bothered to read this.)

One of the major criticisms repeated constantly over the last few days is that no one seemed to be in charge, a fact that was visibly apparent to anyone watching. Who was supposed to be in charge? According to the city’s own plan: “The lead agency responsible for coordinating recovery operations following a natural or man made disaster is the Office of Emergency Preparedness. The Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness shall serve as the initial contact with the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness for the coordination of recovery efforts.” You may have seen the New Orleans director on television complaining that no one was in charge, but you might not have noticed him doing anything else. Perhaps he didn’t read the city plan either. That Director is, I believe, now styled the local Homeland Security Director; in any case, his name is Terry Ebbert. We heard a lot from him last week pointing the finger at everyone else, especially Bush, but next to nothing of what he, the actual designated front line official in charge, managed to accomplish, if anything. We have a few choice quotes from him below.

The plan is also very specific about who is in charge and who is supposed to do what. “The person responsible for recognition of hurricane related preparation needs and for the issuance of an evacuation order is the Mayor of the City of New Orleans.” The Mayor is charged to: “nitiate the evacuation” and “[r]etain overall control of all evacuation procedures via EOC operations.” The Office of Emergency Preparedness, led by the above Director and reporting to the Mayor, is charged with the various details including the responsibility to:

• Activate EOC and notify all support agencies to this plan

• Coordinate with State OEP on elements of evacuation.

• Assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas.

• Assist ESF-8, Health and Medical, in the evacuation of persons with special needs, nursing home, and hospital patients in accordance with established procedures.

• Coordinate the release of all public information through ESF-14, Public Information.

• Use EAS, television, cable and other public broadcast means as needed and in accordance with established procedure.

Request additional law enforcement/traffic control (State Police, La. National Guard) from State OEP

• As established by the City of New Orleans Charter, the government has jurisdiction and responsibility in disaster response. City government shall coordinate its efforts through the Office of Emergency Preparedness

Another fun fact is that: … “the City of New Orleans has established a maximum acceptable hurricane evacuation time standard for a Category 3 storm event of 72 hours. This is based on clearance time and is the time required to clear all vehicles evacuating in response to a hurricane situation from area roadways.

So, we know now that the designated leader for the recovery effort was a local official reporting the Mayor. It should go without saying, or needing to be said, but since the media in fact seems to go without saying it, I will point out that the first-responder units are the local police and fire departments. You may have noted the absence of the President of the United States from the above list.

It is also worth noting that Louisiana has its own disaster plan. It states that the “primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles (emphasis added) and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.” The need to use school and municipal buses is interesting in light of this now well-known photograph showing the status of the buses the City government in fact had available to it.

The City plan is also very clear about the responsibility of the local transit authorities, who report to the Mayor. The regional transit authority is directed to:

• Supply transportation as needed in accordance with the current Standard Operating Procedures.

• Place special vehicles on alert to be utilized if needed.

• Position supervisors and dispatch evacuation buses.

• If warranted by scope of evacuation, implement additional service

The State of Louisiana.

As you know now, but may not have before if you relied on, say CNN for your news, the Commander-in-Chief of the Lousiana National Guard is Governor Blanco. You also now know that the President can not use active duty troops, regardless of whether they are regular army or mobilized NG units, for law enforcement. Given the state of our country’s education system, it is not surprising that neither the average citizen nor the average broadcast journalist know the first thing about the relative roles of states and the federal government in our federal system, but the 50 states are in fact still sovereign entities, and the Federal government cannot simply step in and take over.

Overall, the State of Lousiana is the second-responder, especially regarding deployment of the National Guard.

FEMA.

FEMA is, if you will, the third responder, intended to support and assist, not supplant, the state and local authorities. It has relief supplies cached around the country. Its purpose is to provide assistance and support to state and local governments upon their request. FEMA cannot and is generally not expected to be able to respond immediately. Although supplies and equipment are stored all over the country, FEMA takes some time to deploy its resources hours. FEMA also has to depend on local coordination and control to know where to send supplies and direct other aid. In previous hurricanes, the major relief efforts generally started flowing 3-5 days after the initial disaster.

US Military.

The US military, especially the Navy, Coast Guard and Marines can provide immediate support, in large part because they work in the air and water, rather than on the ground, unlike the US Army. We of course saw all three service branches in action 24 hours a day almost as soon as the hurricane passed by and air rescue could begin.

In short, in the days leading up to and immediately after a disaster, the person in charge was the Mayor, and the agencies reporting to him had first-responder responsibility, including the fire and police departments, the office of emergency preparation and the regional transit authorities. If the police are overwhelmed, the second line of defense is the state National Guard. The first responders have to hold the line until FEMA can bring in disaster relief supplies. The US Military will provide search and rescue support and security; law enforcement and maintenance of order has to remain a state and local responsibility.

KATRINA APPROACHES

By Friday, August 26th, Katrina began picking up strength and heading for the gulf coast. By Saturday morning, Katrina was blowing at 115 mph and headed towards New Orleans. Governor Blanco got off to the right start by declaring a state of emergency and requesting the same from Bush. The term “state of emergency,” by the way, is not merely descriptive, but a legal term that grants the Governor extensive authority.

At Blanco’s request, Bush promptly stepped in. He declared a state of emergency in advance of the actual disaster, which gave FEMA the authority to begin moving and storing supplies. Ironically, when Bush did the same thing last year in advance of hurricane Ivan hitting Florida, he was naturally accused by Democrats and the media of grandstanding and attempting to pander to Florida voters. Thankfully, he ignored the carping then and again this time.

Later on Saturday, Nagin and Blanco held a news conference to urge residents to take the storm seriously, but stopped short of ordering a mandatory evacuation. Nagin also announced that the Superdome would be a shelter of last resort, but thoughtfully noted that residents needed to bring their own food and water. The city, of course, had not arranged for supplies. He did, finally, order a “voluntary” evacuation at 5PM. At this point, it was roughly 30 hours until the expected landfall-when the city’s own plan called for 72 hours notice for a mandatory evacuation. According to the Times-Picayune and other published accounts, Nagin claimed, incredibly, that he hesitated because he was concerned about the city’s legal liability to the hotels if he ordered a mandatory evacuation. It strains credulity beyond the breaking point to believe that this issue had never occurred to anyone in New Orleans before and that no one had ever considered the legal ramifications of issuing a evacuation order. Whether they had or not, as a lawyer myself, I can hardly conceive of such liability when faced with a Category 4 or 5 hurricane poised for a direct hit on a city that knew it couldn’t take the blow. Even giving Nagin the benefit of the doubt and granting that he and his legal teams were in fact the complete idiots they seemed to be claiming they were, it still means he put those concerns ahead of the lives of his constituents. Far more probable, however, is that in the cesspool of corruption that is New Orleans, Nagin simply didn’t want to risk offending powerful local business interests. Apart from the evacuation, there were many other critical preparatory steps that needed to be taken, but there is no evidence that the Mayor Nagin had done anything else. He obviously did nothing to stock the Superdome, mobilize the available transit resources or request National Guard assistance.

Apparently, Governor Blanco too did nothing to call up and mobilize any more than a few National Guard troops or otherwise exercise the powers and responsibilities she had assume by declaring a state of emergency. If, as many rightly claim, the post-hurricane breakdown in public order could and should have been foreseen, it might have been wise to begin the call for full mobilization on Saturday. This was not a federal decision or responsibility, but lay squarely on the shoulders of Blanco and Nagin. They failed.

Staying on top of the situation, Bush, however, noted that Nagin still had not ordered a mandatory evacuation and even took the extraordinary step of placing a personal call to the Mayor to urge him to do so. Another federal official, the National Hurricane Center Director, also called Nagin at his home Saturday night to plead with him to “get people out of New Orleans.” This is not normal procedure, the locals are supposed to have the brains to figure this out for themselves. Not in this case, apparently.

Finally, on Sunday morning, with Katrina now a category 5 hurricane and heading straight for the city, barely 24 hours before landfall and far past the 72 hours timeframe required by the city’s own plan, Nagin finally issues the order, far too late by any standard. A few RTA buses were sent out to pick up people to take them to local shelters, but, as the heart-breaking picture of flooded buses shows, most of the available buses just sat there, and none were used for the evacuation. The plans, noted above, to mobilize the local buses and the regional transit authority for evacuation simply didn’t happen.

Nagin had declared that the Superdome was to be opened as a shelter of last resort, but little or no effort had been made by anyone to stock it with food, water or medical supplies, or to provide security or medical care. As residents began flowing in, they now heard from Terry Ebbert, the local official supposed to be in charge. He sends all the people with medical problems to one side of the Superdome, everyone else to the other side, and announces to the latter that “those arriving on this side… are expected to fend for themselves.” Nice.

As was expected, the wealthy and middle class whites mostly managed to get out. The poor, largely black population was left behind.

Thanks to Bush’s advance declaration, the Coast Guard moved into place closing the port and positioning 40 aircraft and 30 boats in position.

The Louisiana National Guard, although hardly fully mobilized, managed to deliver water and food in an amount intended to supply enough MREs to, in theory, for 15,000 people for 3 days. There are, however 26,000 people already there, as best as anyone can tell. The Louisiana senators sent a joint letter to the President thanking him for his help so far.

Abandoning the poor black population to their fate, the Mayor decamped to Baton Rouge.

President Bush had done what he was supposed to do, all in fact he could do. The mayor, however, was criminally negligent in having completely failed to fulfill their responsibilities to prepare for the disaster that was bearing down on them—or, rather, on the people the Mayor left behind.

LANDFALL

Prior to landfall, the head of the Louisiana National Guard said troops were deployed and ready to move into the city using high water vehicles. Four thousand more guardsmen were supposedly mobilizing in Memphis.

FEMA Director Michael Brown reported that he had medical teams, rescue squads and supplies in place outside the city. Everyone at the local, state and federal level seemed to think the situation was reasonably under control despite the obvious fact that tens of thousands of residents hadn’t evacuated. Those who had neither evacuated nor moved to the Superdome were simply waiting it out, out of sight and, it seems, out of mind. Some were apparently just waiting for the extra-curricula acquisition opportunities they expected to arise.

At 8:00AM Monday morning, Katrina struck.

Initially, however, it appeared that New Orleans had somehow, miraculously, yet again dodged the bullet squarely aimed at its low-lying head, protected by Category 3 levees against a Category 4 hurricane. Then, the brief sense of relief evaporated as the levee broke at 17th street and the city began filling up like a punchbowl.

Almost immediately, Bush declared the states of Louisiana and Mississippi major disaster areas, another legal description that authorized even more major relief efforts and funding. At the same time, widespread looting began to break out. The ever delightful Director Ebbert declared that “everyone who had a way or wanted to get out of the way of this storm was able to.” Well, too bad for them, apparently. There were quite few locals to whom this news might come as a surprise, assuming they survived.

By the end of the day, air rescue operations by the Coast guard and Marine units were in full swing. The Red Cross said it is had a thousand volunteers in place, and many more coming in. Mayor Nagin said he has talked to FEMA and was told to give them a list of their needs and he would get what was needed. Details of subsequent conversations between Nagin and Brown on these points have not yet been revealed, but will surely prove interesting if they come out.

THE AFTERMATH

By the end of the day Monday, both officials and the public were just beginning to get an idea of how extensive and widespread the destruction really was. We all have since all seen the scope of the disaster, although television cameras can not possibly convey the sheer extent of the devastation. Slowly, the scope of the disaster was beginning to unfold; an area nearly the size of the British Isles was devastated. Cities and communities across three states simply ceased to exist. Roads, communications, power were wiped out. All levels of government were overwhelmed by a level of disaster never seen before in American history. Within hours, the recovery efforts began to break down, and the blame game began in deadly earnest.

By Tuesday morning, the waters were rising all over the city, and officials seemed helpless to stop it. Later that week, Bush was to be lambasted in the media for stating that such a large breach was not contemplated in the disaster planning. Of course, the talking heads said, everyone had known about this possibility for years, his dumb statement just proved yet again how much of an idiot Bush is. He was in fact correct and was clearly repeating the precise information he had been given. The most recent, and publicly available, plan contemplated that the levees would overflow in a category 4 or 5 storm, but not that they would themselves collapse, and that two city blocks of levee would simply disappear into the maelstrom. The section that collapsed had also been recently repaired and upgraded, so the various claims that somehow the breach was attributable to Bush’s “reduced” funding (that is, less than the maximum local officials might have ever requested) are, again, simply false. But this fact does explain why there weren’t contingency plans for conducting a massive levee repair operation immediately after the breach open. And even if there had been, with the roads nearly impassible and destruction spreading for miles, there was no way to bring in heavy equipment, and not much that could be done anyway until the rushing water subsided.

A Pentagon spokesperson issued a statement that the affected states had plenty of National Guard capacity, with 6,500 troops available in Louisiana alone, that the National Guard units of the four victim states were providing support to civil authorities as well as generator, medical and shelter, with approximately 7,500 troops on State Active Duty. That means that they were called up by the state governors for domestic deployment, not by the Pentagon. It also noted that the National Guard was augmenting civilian law enforcement capacity; not acting in lieu of it. Note, Bush-bashers, the phrase “State Active Duty.” These troops were not under federal command.

The question we all want answered is: “where were these troops and what were they doing?”. They were not, in any case, in downtown New Orleans. Everyone wants to know why, but remember who their Commander-in-chief was and still is. Hint: it’s not a Texan.

By the end of the day Tuesday, the federal response included the following:

• FEMA had deployed 23 Disaster Medical Assistance Teams from all across the U.S. to staging areas in Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, and Louisiana and was then moving them into impacted areas.

• Seven Urban Search and Rescue task forces and two Incident Support Teams had been deployed and positioned in Shreveport, La., and Jackson, Miss., including teams from Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Three more Urban Search and Rescue teams were in the process of deployment.

• FEMA had begun moving supplies and equipment into the hardest hit areas including water, ice, meals, medical supplies, generators, tents, and tarps.

• The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) had dispatched more than 390 trucks that were beginning to deliver millions of meals ready to eat, millions of liters of water, tarps, millions of pounds of ice, mobile homes, generators, containers of disaster supplies, and forklifts to flood damaged areas. DOT had helicopters and a plane assisting delivery of essential supplies.

These supplies, however, do not yet seem to be reaching the Superdome, and it is not at all clear why. The idea that Bush was somehow deliberately starving poor black people because they voted Democratic is despicable, and there isn’t the remotest hint or a shred of evidence to support the claim. The theory therefore immediately becomes the accepted explanation among the left, black activists and race-hustlers and elite Europeans.

Now, where exactly is Bush at fault in this so far? He had done everything he was supposed to do, authorized everything necessary to support Federal support, and, despite being on what passes for a vacation for a President, was in regular contact with the governors of the affected states. Without a doubt, Bush was too slow to make a more public response, and the criticism he received from all sides about his poor public relations efforts were well-deserved. He should never have gone to a political event in California on Tuesday. But it is a huge and utterly unfounded step to go from his failure to cancel a public appearance and make more public statements to blaming him directly for the consequences on the ground.

First and foremost, the blame has to start with Mayor Nagin, who failed to take even the most basic steps before the storm hit. Apart from the looting, this collapse greatly hindered the ability of the rescue teams, and a lot of the deaths will surely be directly attributable to this. The New Orleans police department is famously corrupt, underfunded and understaffed. To meet intense pressure for more minorities on the force in a city nearly 70% black, the force had even taken on convicted criminals, which may explain some apparent instances of looting by the police themselves. Many officers simply fled. Those who stayed complained of a complete lack of direction or leadership. They had no communications, no plans, no direction and no support. Some National Guard officers have already said that their deployment plans did not contemplate the almost immediate and total collapse of local police control, which is at least one plausible explanation for why they weren’t there quickly.

It remains to be seen who is primarily responsible for the initial collapse of any police authority in the city, but the one party who cannot be held responsible is President Bush. Where was the Mayor? The Police Chief? And, then, after things started to south in abig way, where was the Louisiana National Guard? And then where was the Louisiana National Guard. Even if they didn’t originally plan for the police collapse, once it occurred, why didn’t rather quickly move to plan B? Who was making the deployment decisions? Hint: it still wasn’t Bush.

The fire department was not much better than the police. Turns out the entire department had only 3 boats, and 2 of them were inoperable. This, for a city where flooding has been a known risk for centuries. It gets worse. As of Friday [september 3rd], nine stockpiles of fire-and-rescue equipment strategically placed around the country to be used in the event of a catastrophe were still sitting unused. According to CNN: “Department of Homeland Security spokesman Marc Short said Friday the gear has not been moved because none of the governors in the hurricane-ravaged area has requested it. A federal official said the department's Office for Domestic Preparedness reminded the Louisiana and Mississippi governors' offices about the stockpiles on Wednesday and Thursday, but neither governor had requested it.” This is Bush’s fault somehow, I suppose, but I can’t see it. Then again, the receptors in my dental fillings have been out since the last full moon. I’m sure Bush’s racism fits is somehow involved.

So now where were we? Efforts to repair the levee had failed. The real problem, however, occurred when the last pumps keeping water out of the city are submerged by rising water and fail. As a result, the waters began to rise much more quickly and soon 80% of the city was under water.

It is only speculation, but it seems likely that this took most of the residents still there by complete surprise. They had survived the hurricane, the sun was out, and things were looking up. They had no power or access to information. They must have expected that everything was about to get a lot better, and thus were completely blindsided by the flooding. I suspect many didn’t have a chance. A horrible tragedy, but one that only adequate evacuation plan could have prevented in the circumstances. The city had one, and it could have saved countless lives. It wasn’t implemented. Criminal negligence by someone, but Bush’s fault? How?

By the end of the day Tuesday, as both the staggering extent of the disaster and the completely inadequate response to it was becoming apparent, Bush announced that he was ending his vacation early and headed back to Washington. Starting Tuesday afternoon, a human flood of shell-shocked residents began heading towards the Superdome to escape the rising waters.

By Wednesday morning, the full scope of the disaster began to unfold in front of TV sets around the world, revealing a city collapsing into anarchy and chaos. At this point, Governor Blanco seemed herself shell-shocked. Later on Wednesday, for the first time she finally requested assistance from other states National Guard under a mutli-state support agreement. She does manage, however, to break down and cry on television, and blame Bush and the federal government. She orders the evacuation of the Superdome, but has no idea how to do it, or at least doesn’t manage to communicate any plan to anyone.

In the city itself, abandoned to the gangs and criminals, Police and fireman were not only not stopping the looting, but many were engaged in it themselves; we saw the uplifting site of a New Orleans policeman wheeling a computer and a TV out of a store in a cart. But also within hours, the blame-it-all-on-Bush meme began.

In the meantime, Texas, led by an functioning and competent Governor, announced it would provide for the evacuees from the Superdome in the Astrodome in Houston. Texas managed to get the Astrodome set up with food, cots, medial supplies and staff, and, blessedly, lot of toilets, in less time that the Mayor of New Orleans had to (not) prepare the Superdome before the hurricane. With most of the local New Orleans buses underwater, thanks to Mayor Nagin, FEMA arranged for 475 buses, but they took some time to assemble and arrive. Governor Blanco did finally exercise a bit of her executive authority and order the Louisiana National guard to commandeer whatever functioning school buses they could still locate.

Just after midnight Wednesday, the first buses began arriving in Houston. Supplies and volunteers are flooding the Astrodome. (Thank God, because I can’t take anymore of Geraldo’s hysterics.) Bush and his convoy arrive on the scene on Thursday. US military units are arriving in force, as are National Guard units from other states. The adults are in charge of the asylum, and things are getting a lot better quickly. By the end of the day Thursday, all but a couple of thousand evacuees were gone from the Superdome.

Meanwhile the despicable white, racist, bigot, rednecks of the Christian Right in Texas are volunteering at the Astrodome, to the extent that they have to be turned away. Food and donations are pouring in. Church groups are particularly active in all phases. Within a couple of days, Texas would be providing for over 200,000 evacuees.

Yet the political wrangling continued. Despite the blame heaped on Bush and her shrill requests for more federal help, on Friday Governor Blanco still refused to federalize the the recovery operation. But the early days of hell were clearly coming to an end. The finger-pointing and the hate-filled, venomous attacks on Bush, however, were just getting into high gear.

WHO’S FAULT?

It would be nice to think that is this hour of crisis that as a nation we would postpone the blame game, at least until things calmed down. Presdent Bush and his team have followed this high road. Chertoff when confronted with a nearly insane Tim Russert screaming for his head, barely hinted that perhaps some of the problem might have been due to a wee breakdown at the local level before the feds could get in. On the other side, however, the road led straight to the gutter and has stayed firmly mired there from the start. No accusation has been too vile, no theory too slanderous to get national news coverage.

We have already seen that, at least through Tuesday, there is nothing whatsoever that can be reasonably be laid at the Presidents’s feet. But after that, things did in fact go really wrong, and it is fair to ask what and why.

There were two separate, major failures. First, adequate supplies of food, water, medical supplies and police security did not show up at the Superdome and, perhaps more important to the blame game, on the Highway overpass where most of the TV reporters were. It is false to claim, as many reporters did, that no food or water arrived, and, as noted above, there were MREs and water inside the Superdome, but it was obvious to everyone that nowhere near enough arrived prior to the evacuation.

The nation and the world were treated to the heartbreaking and deeply embarrassing display of thousands of poor, mostly black Americans lined up on a highway overpass without food or shelter. The TV coverage was hysterical and overblown, and despite claims that the people there had been there without food and water for many days (on Thursday, I heard 5 or 6 days from Geraldo), most of the folks on the highway arrived Tuesday, after the rising water forced those who had chosen not to go the Superdome out of their homes. Most were forced to spend 2-3 days on the overpass. Those who arrived in the Superdome on Sunday, the first day it was opened, and left Thursday, spent 4 nights in the Superdome with at least limited shelter and some food in the first couple of days. It must have been horrible, but not quite as horrible as the splenetic coverage tried to make it out. And, of course, the vast majority of them should have never been there in the first place, they should have been evacuated before the storm.

The other major complaint voiced on the news broadcasts was the lack of information—no one apparently bothered to tell the poor, suffering victims what was going to happen to them. I am not sure why the Mayor wasn’t out there, or the execrable Mr. Ebbert, but I am also not sure why communication to his constituents should be the responsibility of the federal government, still less so that of the President.

Nonetheless, someone needs to answer for not getting those folks help sooner. Neither I nor anyone else knows at this point exactly what happened. It may well be that FEMA was charged with the primary responsibility and failed to do so. Again, it is hard to fault Bush directly for that. He issued the appropriate orders well in advance to authorize and instruct FEMA to begin.

The one legitimate source of blame for Bush will come if it turns out that FEMA’s focus on preparing for possible terrorist disaster scenarios significantly reduced its ability to respond to natural disasters, and that that reduction was what caused the delay. If so, then Bush bears some responsibility. But then, so does the Congress that wrote and passed the legislation creating Homeland Security and placing FEMA under its jurisdiction, along with the bipartisan committee that proposed and recommended the wholesale reorganization. But it seems much more likely at this point that the real problem was that the Mayor and the entire local government simply collapsed and utterly failed to perform its most basic duties, and the Governor failed to step in.

I note that the relevant date for the start of the real disaster in New Orleans was when the pumps failed and the majority of the city began flooding. This really started on Tuesday. The hurricane on Monday largely spared the city, but the media nonetheless clocks the failure from landfall Monday morning, rather than from the widespread flooding a day later, in order to make Bush and FEMA look worse. But the truth is that, prior to the flooding, the major disaster areas were further east and mostly in the other states. Absent the levee breach, by Tuesday afternoon, not only would the desperate local residents not have been streaming en masse onto the highway overpasses, but those holed up in the Superdome would have begun heading home—the hurricane itself did not cause widespread property damage, and most of their homes would have still been as there, perhaps a bit battered, but mostly standing and as habitable as they had been before they left (which was not very for a lot of them, but that is another story). With the staggering scope of the calamity, it would have certainly made sense for FEMA to initially concentrate on getting supplies to the other, harder hit areas, rather than plan for a major airlift operation into New Orleans, an operation it couldn’t have known would be needed until early Tuesday. We need answers, but putting all the blame on Bush even before we get the basic details about what went wrong is absurd.

The second major failure was the effective loss to the thugs, gangs and looters of what little of New Orleans remained more or less habitable after the flood. The National Guard needed to be brought in much sooner than it actually arrived. The Louisiana National Guard was and remains under the command of Governor Blanco. We know that it had 6,500 troops available for state active duty, and that the claims that Iraq deployments fatally weakened troop levels completely false. We have already seen that she failed to anticipate any of these problems and fully mobilize the guard in advance. But once she did, what happened to them? Where were they in those early days? We have heard that no one expected the police to lose complete control of New Orleans, and it possible that the Guard was initially deployed to what everyone thought were the harder hits areas to the east. Louisiana also undoubtedly expected to call on guard troops from neighboring states if it needed more troops than it could provide for itself, but of course those in Mississippi and Alabama were otherwise engaged. No one at any level seems to have contemplated a disaster so braodn that it required National Guard deployments to 4 states. But it also doesn’t appear that Governor Blanco requested units from other states not hit until Wednesday. In the meantime, New Orleans descended into anarchy and destruction, rescuers were shot at, hospitals put under siege. Remember, law enforcement is by law the responsibility of state and local government. Both the mayor and the Governor have a lot to answer for.

To be fair, it is still far from clear that Bush and the federal government are blameless for the breakdown in law and order. We don’t know if the Department of Defense failed in some way. There is no evidence so far that they did, and despite the keening from the left, the mere absence of the National Guard on the ground in New Orleans did not establish that it was somehow the federal government’s fault in general, much less Bush’s personal fault. No matter. The near hysterical chorus is screaming for Bush’s blood over this before anyone really knows what happened, while at the same time almost completely ignoring the parties whose responsibility was clear and whose near total failure is undeniable.

There will undoubtedly be congressional hearings and more thorough investigations by journalists beyond the shrill, ignorant rantings that pass for news reports. Like everything else in this country today, it will continue to be biased, partisan and politicized. But I strongly suggest that the state and local officials so frantically trying to blame Bush for their failings have a lot more to fear from a full expose of the facts than does the President.

After 9/11, Rudy Giuliani established a standard for conduct in the face of disaster and adversity. Jeb Bush led Florida superbly through 4 hurricanes in row last year. Despite the fact that Mayor Nagins is suddenly the darling of the left because he has viciously attacked their arch nemesis, can anyone possibly believe that the actions, or, mostly inaction, of Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco even began to live up to the standard set by Rudy? I don’t think so, and no matter how much the left may hate Bush, they know it too.

Greg Richey

September 4, 2005

Lamson dronnes on:

Healy whined:

"Error? We've noticed the physicists running to defended your position, what were their names again? Just for the record...? roflmao! Anybody find those .pov files yet?"

THIS is the best the "gang" can do...

Be happy, the Shuttle is UP!"

Yes an error...in fact a massive one.  Somehow I'm not surpised you dont understand.  One that wipes out the very foundation of his most important claims.  And I dont need a physicist.  Just a simple expert photographer.

In fact the major weakness of your "horde" is your physicist.  Never mind that he is quite the kook (but in great company in your little group) the problem is that your physicist...er math teacher seems to have failed photography 101, if in fact he ver took it.  Now you guys might have had a chance in getting it right if you would have had a competent photographer on board to keep your wacky PhD's in check.  But alas all you had was White and lets just say that history has shown over and over and over again that Jack White is anything competent in regards to photography.

And finally to you David.  You have the pov ray files, they were given to you in 2003.  Do I need to quote the entire usenet thread? 

dgh01: please do -- and please comment on the following: without the topos and the conversion files you, YOU and JOE used, the .pov files are useless -- but you know that don't you -- NO topo files, no - zip - nada confirmation.

WHy not do something useful for a change other than read a book about optical printers.  Why not use the pov ray files to prove that the sign MUST not move.  After all your PhD,-physicist,-math teacher says that the way it has to be.  It should be a snap for you to prove him right.

dgh01: read the above, AGAIN -- get me the topos and conversion files YOU used and I'll confirm it. Simple request, one that YOUR side I suspect, has willfully neglected. WHY is that?

BTW, you might want to suggest to Costella that he start telling the truth when he writes his replies.  From his last:

dgh01: call John what you like -- seems thats the best you can do -- show us what you got, confirm to me and the rest of the world, "...the Zapruder film is not altered, here's WHY..."?

"I have not received any requests from Lamson for clarification of this

point, "

This is quite an untruth.  In fact its the second request he has replied to in the last few weeks, the other was on a different public forum.  He told a blatant untruth in that reply as well.  If needed I will be happy to supply the exact links to his untruth if needed.  Seems in addition to being in error on the Zapruder fillm, you vaulted physicist cant seem to even tell the truth on very simple matters.

dgh01: still, no physicist to confirm to YOUR findings? All this noise over research?  Which by-the-way, the entire symposium is available on DVD. Your .pov files AND conversion topo files available on DVD? They'll never see the light of day! Will they?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

9 messages in topic - view as tree

GordonD Nov 16 2003, 8:19 pm show options

Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk

From: gordondavid...@hotmail.com (GordonD) - Find messages by this author

Date: 16 Nov 2003 20:19:34 -0500

Local: Sun,Nov 16 2003 8:19 pm

Subject: Great Zapruder Film HOAX contributors have answered the GANG...

Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse

Here's the URL for those interested in first hand responses to the

GANG'S website:

http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~jpc/hoax

Point by point! Anything further Joe, David Wimp, Ron Hepler, Tink

Thompson, Craig Lamson, Barb J., James Gordon and the others.

We're around to please, answer questions, clear up ANY and all

confusion that YOU may have....

No one is answering my PovRay concerns from your camp yet, been what,

a week now, what's up?

DHealy

-- aka gd

Joe Durnavich Nov 16 2003, 10:56 pm show options

Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk

From: Joe Durnavich <j...@earthlink.net> - Find messages by this author

Date: 16 Nov 2003 22:56:17 -0500

Local: Sun,Nov 16 2003 10:56 pm

Subject: Re: Great Zapruder Film HOAX contributors have answered the GANG...

Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse

USENET THREAD:

GordonD writes:

>Here's the URL for those interested in first hand responses to the

>GANG'S website:

>http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~jpc/hoax

>Point by point! Anything further Joe, David Wimp, Ron Hepler, Tink

>Thompson, Craig Lamson, Barb J., James Gordon and the others.

>We're around to please, answer questions, clear up ANY and all

>confusion that YOU may have....

Thanks.

That reminds me: I should point out that Dave Perry just contributed

an article on John Costella's theory that the rain sensors are really

listening devices. It is worth it alone just for the quotes from

Costella:

http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/zaphoax/rainsenless.htm

>No one is answering my PovRay concerns from your camp yet, been what,

>a week now, what's up?

David, my responses must have not made it to you. I'll respond here:

----------------------

>Message from David Healy

>Can you pass this on to the guy's, I haven't heard from them since I asked

>for the URL regarding the .pov file...

>Need clarification on David Wimps lens distortion

>note: below parts extracted from JoeD's dealeyplaza.pov/.ini

>btw Joe, I inserted the ini file into the POV file for [my tests] as info

>only [POV3.5 has a problem with Wimps orth camera - I'll have to load 3.1

>back in in a few day's], you'll notice I've commented it out - on the Apple

>side of things - the .ini is a menu function. Haven't wrote an .ini file

>since version 1 in DOS

I rewrote the .pov to work with POV-Ray 3.5:

http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/zaphoax/sign.pov

>The .ini and .pov file your site posted, is not enough! I need to see how

>Wimp came to the code for the lens and the viewing angle -- in short how did

>he code for the Z-camera "full zoom" lens distortion factors and his

>corrections for the pincushion corrections, etc.

>Fustrum size/viewing angle ain't enough.

>Is the correction applied to the whole [Hunt] world or the [Hunt] world

>through the lens?

David Wimp's writeup on lens distortion is here:

http://home.att.net/~joliraja2/DistortionDiscussion.html

Note that lens distortion is a 2D transform, so we just corrected the

Zapruder frames first using a separate application and worked with

those. For the "Pincushion distortion Test" section, we did apply a

distortion transform to the generated 3D image files.

>And,

>/*

>* The cameras are setup to use the right-handed coordinate system.

>* This allows the use of coordinate values that closely resemble*

>* the coordinates on John Hunt's HSCA map. Coordinates here are in

>* feet, so divide the x and y values on the map by 10 to get feet*.

>* Also, make the y value negative.

>*

>*/

>* emphasis mine - dgh

>ah ---- closely resemble? resemble -- feet? we should be talking inches

>here, shouldn't we [at the outside most]? --

Elevations on the map are given to a precision of 0.1 feet. For

example, the top of the pedestal is labeled as "101.2" feet. For

convenience, we specified the x and y coordinates the same way, except

that the "y" values are negative--thus the "closely resembles" remark.

>Let me make myself clear, when you deal with optical printing and

>compositing we're dealing with one thousandTH of an inch .001 tolerances ---

A frame of 35 mm film is less than an inch wide, though. Dealey Plaza

is thousands of cubic feet in volume. There is no point in an

accuracy of 0.001 inch.

>POVRay in the scientific world has been known to map 'dna strands' and other

>molecules. Certainly your measurements can do better than this?

>Needs a little more work, yes? -- Better placement of the Zapruder camera,

>perhaps.

Keep in mind that John Costella is claiming certain changes like the

change in sign width are impossible. We are merely demonstrating that

moving the virtual camera back does change the sign width and that

this is a natural consequence of perspective. As we point out on the

web page, it is a qualitative analysis, but that is all that is

necessary in this case.

>Of course when you place the camera in the world "accurately" in the exact

>"Z" spot

>what's to stop you from dropping the camera { location *-y ; a tad when you

>make your run? --

>Actually if one wants, one can fine tune the camera till you get the exact

>results one wants! ! Isn't that correct?

No. The laws of projective geometry control the outcome. In other

words, if you move the virtual camera towards the rear of the pedestal

to shift the sign rightwards, the sign is also going to get smaller

whether you want it to or not. As a cameraman, I am sure you are very

well aware that this is just how the world works. John Costella

denied that in his article, and that is what we took issue with.

>Where's the .inc file for Hunt's data? Can't be , what? couple of megs --

>.dxf file perhaps?

>Thanks,

>David Healy

>oh -- you using a frontend on Pov? If so, make and version # please

John Costella can provide you with a copy of John Hunt's HSCA map.

You have been given the pov file, and the conventions used to input the topo data along with the data set that was used and how to get it. Now it seems to me with your great wealth of experience putting all of this together should be within your grasp. So do it and quit whining.

Your appeal to authority on the subject of physicists is duly noted, not that it means anything. Your "physicist" have made two documented errors concering photograhy ... moorman and that shadow in the Apollo 11 photo. These errors alone discount your "physicist" as any sort of authority on photography. His latest blunder, not understanding how moving a camera works, puts him into woowoo land.

Clearly your team has the horsepower to provide a simple emperical proof of concept demonstration. Rest assured I will be posting very soon the same showing in easy to view form exactly why Mr. Math Teacher is dead wrong.

In the mean time perhaps you might actually do some real work for a change rather than being the "hordes" guard dog. Like doing a pov ray work?

Have a great day David...it looks like you could use one.

Healy whined:

"Error? We've noticed the physicists running to defended your position, what were their names again? Just for the record...? roflmao! Anybody find those .pov files yet?"

THIS is the best the "gang" can do...

Be happy, the Shuttle is UP!"

Yes an error...in fact a massive one. Somehow I'm not surpised you dont understand. One that wipes out the very foundation of his most important claims. And I dont need a physicist. Just a simple expert photographer.

In fact the major weakness of your "horde" is your physicist. Never mind that he is quite the kook (but in great company in your little group) the problem is that your physicist...er math teacher seems to have failed photography 101, if in fact he ver took it. Now you guys might have had a chance in getting it right if you would have had a competent photographer on board to keep your wacky PhD's in check. But alas all you had was White and lets just say that history has shown over and over and over again that Jack White is anything competent in regards to photography.

And finally to you David. You have the pov ray files, they were given to you in 2003. Do I need to quote the entire usenet thread? WHy not do something useful for a change other than read a book about optical printers. Why not use the pov ray files to prove that the sign MUST not move. After all your PhD,-physicist,-math teacher says that the way it has to be. It should be a snap for you to prove him right.

BTW, you might want to suggest to Costella that he start telling the truth when he writes his replies. From his last:

"I have not received any requests from Lamson for clarification of this

point, "

This is quite an untruth. In fact its the second request he has replied to in the last few weeks, the other was on a different public forum. He told a blatant untruth in that reply as well. If needed I will be happy to supply the exact links to his untruth if needed. Seems in addition to being in error on the Zapruder fillm, you vaulted physicist cant seem to even tell the truth on very simple matters.

I send John Costella the Lamson post and, based on my experience

with Lamson, I was not surprised to receive the following response.

The pity is that naive readers are susceptible to taking him seriously.

Jim,

Lamson is (as always) misleading. He has taken the start of one of my

sentences and tacked it onto the end of another. Of course the

frankensteined statement is completely incorrect!

I did not state that I 'transformed 2d images from different camera

locations to the "same optical axis"'. Only images from the same camera

location can be transformed to the same optical axis. I am happy to provide

details of how this is done -- it is shown graphically in the DVD of my

Minnesota Symposium lecture, and was used, for example, to create the Dealey

Plaza panoramas, and also to transform the Moorman Polaroid to compare it to

photos taken with the camera pointing directly at the Zapruder pedestal

rather than at the grass on the knoll. (See the transformed image in my

Moorman chapter in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax.) The mathematical formulas

are straightforward, but not in themselves enlightening to most people.

'Moving the camera around' obviously changes the objects in the image, and

in particular which objects are obscured by others. Shifting the camera

left-right or up-down (or any combination of the two) by small amounts

shifts image objects, depending on their distance from the camera. This is

called 'parallax' and Lamson can read about it in optics or graphics text.

A simplified argument to understand what is going on here is to realise that

if you hold a camera perfectly horizontal, then a vertical pole will be

vertical in the image no matter where you put the camera. The mathematical

subtlety comes in catering for the fact that a camera need not be held

horizontal, either left-right or up-down. This is where the transformations

referred to bring everything to a common basis, where the optical axis is

horizontal and the image orientation is horizontal, by calibrating against

the background objects in Dealey Plaza (which, being distant, are affected

negligibly by the small movement of the camera location).

I have not received any requests from Lamson for clarification of this

point, probably because he has been blocked from my email for years due to

harassment. I am sorry that he has remained confused and confounded on this

issue for so long. I hope he can do the homework necessary to enlighten

himself. I have wasted many hours on his hairbrained requests in years past,

and am not inclined to throw away more time on him. If anyone wishes to

believe his rantings, then by all means let them. It's a free country.

Best

John

For those who would like an easy-access route to understanding some of the evidence that establishes the alteration and recreation of the Zapruder film, in addition to the studies presented in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003), parts of which may be too technical for many students of the case, John P. Costella, Ph.D., an expert on the film, has provided an introduction to the evidence that is largely cinematic and very easy to understand at

http://www.assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/intro/

Every student of the case, I believes, needs to be familiar with the evidence related to the alteration and recreation of the film, which exceeded mere frame removal and excision of sequences of frames and extended to recreating the film using sophisticated techniques of optical printing and special effects.  The purpose was to create a framework that would defeat serious study of events in Dealey Plaza, since, once you assume it is authentic, it becomes logically impossible to reconstruct what really happened.  Those who want to pursue this further can always consult the studies in the book.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

For those who want to read the rebuttal to the above please check here...

http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/zaphoax/

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

From the hordes rebuttal:

"I am also more than happy to explain how moving the camera around will change the results. Moving it sideways, or up and down, won’t help: that will shift the sign sideways, or up or down, but the images I present show that the bottom of the pole, at least, does not move sideways, and the top of the sign does not move up or down. (See how easy a verification is with the direct method? You can just look at the images with your own eyes. No sleight of hand, no incomprehensible “sticks” from some sort of graphics engine, no wondering how on earth they put the sticks onto the Zapruder film frames.) Moving the camera toward or away from the sign will changes its width and height (see the section below), but it won’t make it flip and flop. There are fundamental mathematical and physical explanations for why this must be so, which I am happy to explain to The Gang if they are still motivated. Finally, changing the three Euler angles of rotation of the camera doesn’t do anything at all, because we have shifted the optical axis of each frame to the same direction (that wipes out two angles), and we have simply rotated the images to match up the background precisely (which knocks out the final, third angle).

Which is probably more explanation than most of you readers of this page really wanted to know. That’s why I didn’t describe these things in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax—it’s not a physics textbook, nor an opportunity for me to show that I’m a physicist, but rather a book on the assassination of the 35th President of the United States. But rest assured that I have these explanations for you, should you want them."

Clearly Costella has no experience "moving the camera around". But lets take him at his word have have him explain exactly how he transformed 2d images from different camera locations to the "same optical axis".

You say you have the explainations Costella, so produce them. I've asked more times than I can count and yet you have not provided anything. What exactly is your word worth these days?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I see John is well versed in the fine art of fetzering just like you Jim.

First. the quote is direct, I suggest John read it again. His fetzering on this is really silly.

The Zapruder camera moved between every frame and John, that means you took two 2d images from two different camera locations and did the transformation you just said you could not do. So which is it? can you do it or not? Time to put up or shut up. Produce the work.

John continues:

"A simplified argument to understand what is going on here is to realise that

if you hold a camera perfectly horizontal, then a vertical pole will be

vertical in the image no matter where you put the camera. The mathematical

subtlety comes in catering for the fact that a camera need not be held

horizontal, either left-right or up-down. This is where the transformations

referred to bring everything to a common basis, where the optical axis is

horizontal and the image orientation is horizontal, by calibrating against

the background objects in Dealey Plaza (which, being distant, are affected

negligibly by the small movement of the camera location)."

Yes a perfectly vertical pole will remain vertical, but what about one that is not perfectly vertical, like the signpost on the freeway sign? Costella lives by the numbers which is his complete failing when trying to do work on photographs. Unless a camera is rotated exactly on the nodal point of the lens you introduce perspective changes that, depending on the rotational point and its distance from the nodal point, introduces perspective changes that are impossible to "transform" away. People who use cameras for a living know this, it seems math teachers dont. Then add into the mix photographing a leaning pole from different camera locations and Costella and his "proof" go down in flames. Is it any wonder why he is not forthcomming with his proof that he can do what he says he can do?

None of this is hard to show with simple emperical evidence. A simple camera and tripod will do. I will be happy to post camera raw digital images of a simple street scene taken with only one axis of rotation...pan...that show a sign post "flipping and flopping when photographed in the center of the frame compared to being photographed at the edge of the frame. Now remember Costella tells us that the laws of physics makes this impossible, but the reality of the matter is that it is not. You up for the challenge John, or are you going into hiding again? Want me to also send you some images that also prove that your "impossible" Apollo shadow is not really impossible? LOL!

For all of his "scientific" bluster and his PhD., Costella is playing a shell game on the readers. He claims he can do certain things, but when requested to show exactly how he did them, he runs, even though he clearly states any number of times his willingness to do so. Not a good place to be if you are a math teacher playing scientist and trying to convince the world that the Zapruder filim is fake, the Apollo photos are fakes, that a US senators aircraft was taken down by an "EMP" weapon by the GWB administration, and that rain sensors in Dealy Plaza are really listening devices. Not a good place to be at all.

I suggest that Costella spend some time with a real camera, and provide emperical proof of concept. In the process he might actually learn what happens when you "move the camera around". A little real world time just might open up your eyes and perhaps then you might actually "see" the error of your position. Then again given your past performances that is unlikely. I suspect we will just see you "fetzer"

So John are you still going to "fetzer" or are you going to finally make good on your word?

For those who would like an easy-access route to understanding some of the evidence that establishes the alteration and recreation of the Zapruder film, in addition to the studies presented in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003), parts of which may be too technical for many students of the case, John P. Costella, Ph.D., an expert on the film, has provided an introduction to the evidence that is largely cinematic and very easy to understand at

http://www.assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/intro/

Every student of the case, I believes, needs to be familiar with the evidence related to the alteration and recreation of the film, which exceeded mere frame removal and excision of sequences of frames and extended to recreating the film using sophisticated techniques of optical printing and special effects.  The purpose was to create a framework that would defeat serious study of events in Dealey Plaza, since, once you assume it is authentic, it becomes logically impossible to reconstruct what really happened.  Those who want to pursue this further can always consult the studies in the book.

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For those who want to read the rebuttal to the above please check here...

http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/zaphoax/

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From the hordes rebuttal:

"I am also more than happy to explain how moving the camera around will change the results. Moving it sideways, or up and down, won’t help: that will shift the sign sideways, or up or down, but the images I present show that the bottom of the pole, at least, does not move sideways, and the top of the sign does not move up or down. (See how easy a verification is with the direct method? You can just look at the images with your own eyes. No sleight of hand, no incomprehensible “sticks” from some sort of graphics engine, no wondering how on earth they put the sticks onto the Zapruder film frames.) Moving the camera toward or away from the sign will changes its width and height (see the section below), but it won’t make it flip and flop. There are fundamental mathematical and physical explanations for why this must be so, which I am happy to explain to The Gang if they are still motivated. Finally, changing the three Euler angles of rotation of the camera doesn’t do anything at all, because we have shifted the optical axis of each frame to the same direction (that wipes out two angles), and we have simply rotated the images to match up the background precisely (which knocks out the final, third angle).

Which is probably more explanation than most of you readers of this page really wanted to know. That’s why I didn’t describe these things in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax—it’s not a physics textbook, nor an opportunity for me to show that I’m a physicist, but rather a book on the assassination of the 35th President of the United States. But rest assured that I have these explanations for you, should you want them."

Clearly Costella has no experience "moving the camera around". But lets take him at his word have have him explain exactly how he transformed 2d images from different camera locations to the "same optical axis".

You say you have the explainations Costella, so produce them. I've asked more times than I can count and yet you have not provided anything. What exactly is your word worth these days?

For those who would like an easy-access route to understanding some of the evidence that establishes the alteration and recreation of the Zapruder film, in addition to the studies presented in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003), parts of which may be too technical for many students of the case, John P. Costella, Ph.D., an expert on the film, has provided an introduction to the evidence that is largely cinematic and very easy to understand at

http://www.assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/intro/

Every student of the case, I believes, needs to be familiar with the evidence related to the alteration and recreation of the film, which exceeded mere frame removal and excision of sequences of frames and extended to recreating the film using sophisticated techniques of optical printing and special effects.  The purpose was to create a framework that would defeat serious study of events in Dealey Plaza, since, once you assume it is authentic, it becomes logically impossible to reconstruct what really happened.  Those who want to pursue this further can always consult the studies in the book.

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For those who want to read the rebuttal to the above please check here...

http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/zaphoax/

For the uninformed, Clavius is a website sponsored by NASA.

Jack

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ROFLMAO!