Sandy Larsen

As I said earlier, our experience is that the alternative/MAGA people don't post in the thread dedicated to them. I think it's because they like convincing non-believers of their beliefs, rather than singing to the choir. Because of that, we might be able to eliminate their Cooler altogether. Just have these two: WATER COOLER WATER COOLER - MAINSTREAM (For those who believe mainstream contemporary facts.)

Well, I'm pretty sure we will be using some segregation in order to please those who don't want to engage with those who they think believe obvious nonsense. That was the problem we had before. But we could promote the "one thread -- Free for All" that you speak of as the standard Water Cooler. In which case the names of the threads might be something like this: WATER COOLER WATER COOLER - MAINSTREAM (For those who believe mainstream contemporary facts.) WATER COOLER - ALTERNATIVE (For those who believe alternative (e.g. MAGA) facts.) The top one is the standard Cooler for everybody.

Will you do me a big favor, Cliff? I'm trying to teach Ron Bulman the ropes. Would you ask him to help you? That way we can test my instructions, and at the same time train Ron. Thanks. I'll help out if Ron can't. But Ron's a bright guy and I think he'll have no trouble doing this.

Other than Harvey fake defecting to the Soviet Union, I don't know of any Soviet involvement. And I see no reason to believe there was such an involvement. Yes, of course. That's all anybody has to offer... their guesses. Yes. (Unless I'm forgetting something. Or if I missed something somebody posted.)

Matt, I've never thought that commies were running the Oswald Project, or even just the young boy being cared for by those militant commies. I DO believe that he would become HARVEY Oswald after breaking up with his caretakers. We have very little knowledge to go by. But my guess is that the boy was a Russian speaking orphan who was somehow hooked with up the commies. I suppose they had high hopes for the boy also becoming a militant commie when he grew up.

Maybe I should have qualified my "do whatever you want" comment with "as long as it doesn't break forum rules." You shouldn't have posted that.

Not in general. Believe it or not, we have a set of facts and a set of opposing non-facts. (Sometimes more than one opposing non-fact for a given fact.) And which one a given person believes is the real fact will largely depend upon his or her political leanings. This has long been the case to some extent, but became extremely common when Donald Trump was elected President in 2016. Trump is famous for referring to any news he doesn't care for as "fake news." Of course, if you're not a Trump follower, you will call it what it is... news, not fake news. Some people refer to the truly-fake news as MAGA news. I use the word "facts" instead of "news " because this phenomenon extends beyond what might be reported in the news. Having said that... Certainly there is some fake news reported by the mainstream media. But I, like many others, believe that the news from these sources is far more reliable than news from alternative news sources, most of which have a far-right bias. Here is a simple example: The mainstream media reports that the reason Donald Trump has four criminal indictments against him is because the evidence point to his being guilty. In contrast, MAGA news sites report that Donald Trump is the victim of false indictments because Democrats have weaponized the Justice Department against him in order to keep him from being elected.

Cliff, Check out this new Forum Tip & Trick I just posted:

Special Instructions for Deleting Photos in Locked Threads The procedure for deleting photos in a locked thread differs from the standard procedure. Once a member has been granted permissions to delete photos in locked threads, he should follow these instructions for deleting those photos: Navigate to the My Attachments page of the website. (This is done by clicking My Attachments in the main menu.) To the right of each attached photo is a little square check box. Check this box for each photo in the locked thread that you'd like to delete. Upon checking one or more check boxes, a black menu will appear at the bottom of the window. Click the trashcan in the menu to delete all the selected photos. Once you are finished deleting locked photos, contact the Administrator again and notify him of this fact, so that he can remove from your account permissions to delete locked photos.

If you find you cannot delete photos and free up attachment space because they are posted on a locked thread, do the following: Contact an Administrative Staff member and ask him to follow instructions in the (hidden) post below in order to temporarily grant you permissions to remove photos from locked threads. (Only administrators can see that post.) Once you have been granted permissions, follow the instructions in the second post of this thread. Once you are finished deleting locked photos, contact the administrator again and let them know you are finished. He will remove your temporary permissions.

In the new system, I would word the Coolers as follows: Either: WATER COOLER - MAINSTREAM (For those who believe mainstream contemporary facts.) WATER COOLER - MAGA (For those who believe alternative facts.) WATER COOLER - MAINSTREAM vs MAGA (For those who want to challenge the other side.) Or: WATER COOLER - MAINSTREAM (For those who believe mainstream contemporary facts.) WATER COOLER - ALTERNATIVE (For those who believe alternative (e.g. MAGA) facts.) WATER COOLER - MAINSTREAM vs ALTERNATIVE (For those who want to challenge the other side.) How would you guys word them?

(Following is a copy of my OP that members might have missed.) Kirk Galloway has suggested that the Water Cooler threads be moved back to this -- the JFK Assassination Debate -- forum. (That's not exactly his idea, but it is the only way his idea can be achieved.) They currently reside outside this forum, near the Political Discussions forum. Kirk's goal is to make it easy to see if there is a new post to read, and to make it a bit quicker to navigate to. William Niederhut reminisces how interesting the old "56 Year" was when many forum members were participating. Unfortunately that thread met its demise when it was -- in some members' opinions -- spammed by individuals who believe in "alternate news." It was ultimately closed from further posts due to endless bickering related to that issue. I later opened up the Water Cooler threads in an effort to restore the "56 Year" thread general discussion. I segregated the Cooler by "news type belief" (mainstream vs. alternate vs. both ) to satisfy the "spam" averse members and to keep the peace. Generally speaking, this has worked out well for mainstream news believers. For some reason, alternate news believers don't post there. The downsides of the Water Coolers are what Kirk and William have expressed concern about, as noted above: 1. More difficult to use. 2. Loss of participation. I am considering the following solution to these problems: Move the Water Cooler threads to this forum, but keep them segregated. Members would be allowed to post on any topic they choose, as long as their post didn't cross the news-type line of segregation. (Posting to the "both types" Cooler would allow any news-type post.) Doing this would definitely satisfy Kirk's desire of making it easy to see when there is a new post, and making it easier to navigate to. But I don't know if it would increase participation. The latter, in my opinion, would be of greater value than the former. I am opening this topic up to discussion. Any suggestions? What can be done to increase participation?

Yep, you are free to do whatever you want. Even engage in juvenile sarcasm, if that trips your trigger.

Great call!

I'm not making a judgement call at all. I'm just saying that doing what you want will result in what we had in the "56 years" thread. I recall that a number of posters in that thread hated what was going on with it. If you guys want it back the way it was before, I will consider doing that and will see if I can get the change approved by the other mods. Another possibility is to continue having segregated water cooler threads and pin all three at the top of the JFKA forum. The downside to this is that I will have no place to inform members of the posting rules. Noted. Nevertheless, the small clique did result in consternation for several members. Yes, I understand.

Kirk Galloway has suggested that the Water Cooler threads be moved back to this -- the JFK Assassination Debate -- forum. (That's not exactly his idea, but it is the only way his idea can be achieved.) They currently reside outside this forum, near the Political Discussions forum. Kirk's goal is to make it easy to see if there is a new post to read, and to make it a bit quicker to navigate to. William Niederhut reminisces how interesting the old "56 Year" was when many forum members were participating. Unfortunately that thread met its demise when it was -- in some members' opinions -- spammed by individuals who believe in "alternate news." It was ultimately closed from further posts due to endless bickering related to that issue. I later opened up the Water Cooler threads in an effort to restore the "56 Year" thread general discussion. I segregated the Cooler by "news type belief" (mainstream vs. alternate vs. both ) to satisfy the "spam" averse members and to keep the peace. Generally speaking, this has worked out well for mainstream news believers. For some reason, alternate news believers don't post there. The downsides of the Water Coolers are what Kirk and William have expressed concern about, as noted above: 1. More difficult to use. 2. Loss of participation. I am considering the following solution to these problems: Move the Water Cooler threads to this forum, but keep them segregated. Members would be allowed to post on any topic they choose, as long as their post didn't cross the news-type line of segregation. (Posting to the "both types" Cooler would allow any news-type post.) Doing this would definitely satisfy Kirk's desire of making it easy to see when there is a new post, and making it easier to navigate to. But I don't know if it would increase participation. The latter, in my opinion, would be of greater value than the former. I am opening this topic up to discussion. Any suggestions? What can be done to increase participation?

If I come across new information that I cannot explain with my current theory, or an appropriately adjusted theory, then I will consider doing just that. In the meantime, I find the phrase "Mexico City shenanigans" to be a useful way of pithily referring to what took place there and what supposedly took place there for the purposes of the plotters. (After all, I am not writing a book or dissertation.) But you are free to do whatever you want.

You are harassing me because I disagreed with you. That is what I see as an Admin . P.S. And I didn't "substantively" edit my post. I made a minor clarification.

Here we go. So, who, according to you, did "add it" -- your words? I never said anybody in particular added the mole hunt. And it doesn't matter to me who added it because I don't believe its addition is necessary or useful.

Neither of those "corrections" accurately convey what I meant. I've revised my original post to make it more clear.

Okay. But I never said you did add it.

I personally don't see any reason to think there was any other intelligence agency involved in the whole Mexico City affair, other than the CIA. The whole thing makes perfect sense to me without adding any other agency and without adding a mole hunt. You guys, of course, can believe whatever you want.

Apparently PDS did NOT believe the same disinformation theory that I (and others, like Jim Hargrove) believe. We believe that the purpose of the disinformation in the Oct. 10 cables was to lower Oswald's profile so that he wouldn't be perceived as a potential threat to JFK in Nov. 1963. In contrast, PDS apparently believes that the purpose of the Oct. 10 disinformation was to introduce marked cards to be used to sniff out a mole. When I said that PDS shared the same theory as mine, I wasn't referring to the theory explaining the Oct. 10 disinformation. I was referring to the main theory I explained in the post that you (Michael Kalin) replied to. The theory explaining all the Mexico City shenanigans designed to make it look like Oswald was arranging to kill Kennedy for Cuba and Russia. PDS refers to this as Phase 1 / Phase 2 in his paper on it. (Phase 1 is where it looks like Cuba and Russian conspired with Oswald to kill Kennedy, whereas Phase 2 is where it looks like Oswald is a lone gunman.)

What would be the point? I know it's been altered.

And immediate afterword she said: Mrs. Markham: I asked- I looked at him. When I saw this man I wasn't sure, but I had cool chills just run over me. So she wasn't sure after all. Which isn't surprising given that she denied it was Oswald 15 times. We both know that the DPD designed the lineup to make it look like Oswald was the one in custody for the crime.