Sandy Larsen

11 minutes ago, Mark Knight said:

You're arguing semantics, Sandy. If you say someone lied, you ARE calling him a liar. Check the dictionary. A liar is one who lies. Therefore you DID call Pat Speer a liar when you said he lied, according to the definition of the word on the English language.

liar

46 minutes ago, Paul Cummings said:

I think Sandy has been doing an outstanding job. I thought being a commissioner in fantasy football league was difficult but this place takes the cake.

Thank you Paul.

Fact is, while it is true I can handle Pat's lies and the bogus claims of people like Tom Gram... I am discovering that certain people are above the law on the forum.

The forum rule needs to be rewritten as:

No member, with the exception of Pat Speer, shall use this board to post any comment or material which is demonstrably false.

53 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

This is supposedly a Jenkins quote from High Treason 2. I do not have the book: 

Everything from just above the right ear back was fragmented…there was (an absence of scalp and bone) along the midline just above the occipital area…this (wound) would not have been low enough to have gotten into the cerebellum.”

The definition of “occipital” is:

“of or relating to the back part of the head or skull or to the occipital bone.” 

53 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

So a literal reading of Jenkins’ statement places the absence and scalp and bone “above the back of the head”. 

Nonsense.

James Jenkins ALWAYS said that the wound was on the back of the head. He NEVER said it was on the top of the head. Never!

When David Lifton told Jenkins that the autopsy photos showed an intact scalp on the back of the head, Jenkins replied, "That's not possible, That is totally--you know, there's no possible way. Okay? It's not possible." ( Best Evidence , p. 617)

Following is what Dr. Aguilar documented on his head-wound witness list. I've highlighted the pertinent parts:

11) JAMES CURTIS JENKINS: the other laboratory technologist who worked with the autopsy team on JFK, Jenkins was at that time in a Ph.D. program in pathology. (High Treason II , p. 226) The HSCA's Jim Kelly and Andy Purdy reported that Jenkins "said he saw a head wound in the "...middle temporal region back to the occipital." (HSCA interview with Curtis Jenkins, Jim Kelly and Andy Purdy, 8-29-77. JFK Collection, RG 233, Document #002193, p.4) He told author, David Lifton, "I would say that parietal and occipital section on the right side of the head--it was a large gaping area...It had just been crushed, and kind of blown apart, toward the rear." (Lifton, Best Evidence ", p. 616) When Lifton told Jenkins that photographs showed that the back of the head was essentially intact, except for a small bullet entry wound at the top, he responded, "That's not possible, That is totally--you know, there's no possible way. Okay? It's not possible." ( Best Evidence , p. 617) Jenkins told Livingstone, "Everything from just above the right ear back was fragmented...there was (an absence of scalp and bone) along the midline just above the occipital area....this (wound) would not have been low enough to have gotten into the cerebellum." ( High Treason II , p. 228). Jenkins' views, whether as given by the HSCA, Livingstone, or Lifton, are noteworthy by their consistency, and as Jenkins was in a Ph.D. pathology program, his anatomic specificity is of value.

53 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

I do not have this interview, but Pat’s website says this: 

While speaking at a 1991 video-taped conference in Dallas, Harrison Livingstone handed Jenkins a mannequin head marked on the low back of the head and said "This area, when the head came in, you said was opened up." Jenkins responded "Yes, the tissue was attached and the scalp was attached to bone fragments in all of this area." Note that Jenkins insisted that scalp was attached to the bone in "this area," and that there was thereby no blow-out wound in "this area." "This area," as claimed by Jenkins, moreover, is shown below. It is the back of the head, precisely where most conspiracy theorists assume there was a blow-out wound.

Pat has a screen cap of Jenkins pointing to the back of a rubber skull. He continues: 

Jenkins was then asked to show where the wound was when he first saw the body. He put his hand on the top right side of his head, above his ear, and said "If I place the palm of my hand a little superior and anterior to the ear, it would encompass the circle of fingers." (This is shown at left below.) He then moved his hand back three inches or so and curled up his fingers to approximate the size of the "silver dollar or half-dollar" sized wound he said remained after reconstruction, and said "It was in approximately in this area, is where the final hole was--after everything had been drawn back and the body had been prepared for burial."  (This is shown at right below.)

Now, should that be too hard to make out, a GIF of this sequence of the interview was put online by a daft person, who insisted I was somehow misrepresenting what Jenkins had told Livingstone. So here it is... Note how Jenkins' hand drops dramatically at the end when showing where the hole was at the end of the autopsy. It is inches below where he first places it, exactly as I've claimed.

The first (left) image is of Jenkins holding his hand entirely above the right ear, with the circle of fingers right behind it i.e. on the back part of the TOP of the head. 

Is there some ambiguity? Sure, but that’s multiple statements from Jenkins that a reasonable person might interpret as him placing the wound on the back part of the TOP of the head. 

Are you saying that unless someone literally says the word “top”, it doesn’t matter that their statements and gestures suggest a wound ABOVE the occipital area of the head? Even Kevin Hofeling admitted this: 

It's true that James Jenkins places the blow out wound slightly higher than the occiput on the back of the head, but in recent years this has evolved into Speer saying that the large gaping head wound was on the top and not the back of JFK's head.

The literal definition of occiput is: 

The back of the head or skull.

Tom, you are a perfect example of a researcher who has been duped by Pat Speer lies.

Had you read Keven Hofeling's post, you would now understand that Pat cherry-picked and mischaracterized what James Jenkins said, to make it look like Jenkins placed the wound on top of the head, when in fact he didn't.

The reason I penalized Pat Speer was to try and prevent other researcher from being duped like you've been.

53 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

Kevin egregiously broke forum rules over and over in his crusade to censor Pat ...

Keven broke no rules.

53 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

...yet Sandy justified it by breaking the rules himself and openly calling Pat a liar...

That is absolutely not true. I have never called Pat or any other member a liar. If I have, prove it!

What I did do was say that Pat lied about two things. And what I said is true... Pat did lie about those two things, and I penalized him because he wouldn't correct it.

18 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Matt [Allison] would be a good candidate [for moderator] imho.

I think that Matt would make a great addition to the admin team!

As Mark Knight said above, he was inclined to retire when I came on as admin. But he promised to stay on as long as I needed him, for which I will be eternally grateful.

Well, I am to the point where I can run things without Mark's mentoring (though I don't know if James Gordon will allow me to continue). If we were to bring Matt or somebody else on, Mark could get his wish and retire.

7 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

I discussed the root of the current problem in the following post. This was back in January, when Sandy had barely begun dishing out punishments to members who disagreed with him:

I have never punished a person for disagreeing with me. Never!

What I began doing in January was penalizing members when they mocked other members for their beliefs. Something that Jeremy Bojczuk was in the habit of doing. Mocking other members is against forum rules.

Forum decorum has greatly improved since I began cracking down on egregious rules violators. Unfortunately for me, the rules violators are now coming back and exacting their revenge on me.

25 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

Matt Allison said:

There is an entire board on the Education Forum dedicated to the RFK assassination. RFK assassination stuff belongs there.

25 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

Roger Odisio said:

The simple answer to your assertion, Matt, is so what. There should be a separate RFK forum.  But to think the murders of the two brothers is unrelated, that there is nothing to learn about the JFKA from information gleaned from Bobby's killing is obviously wrong.  Isn't it?  Is that hard to understand?

Roger,

We DO allow mixed-topic threads on the JFKA Debate board! As long as one of the topics is the JFKA. In fact, I think we have one on here right now.

The exception has been if one of the topics is contemporary politics in nature. We've had a lot of heated discussions in those.

However, we have become more tolerant of those now that the admins added a rule that, on the JFKA Debate forum, it is a violation to say anything bad about a contemporary politician or political party. With that rule built into the automated warning/penalty system, it is now a breeze to give warnings to people who violate the rule.

This is a new policy that is under beta testing. So far it has worked well!

4 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

When Sandy threatened to suspend several people, including Pat in a recent post.  I thought it was ill reasoned... You can't suspend someone for just disagreeing with you.

Kirk,

I did not threaten to suspend "several people." All I did was notify Pat Spear that he was violating a forum rule and that I would have to penalize him if he didn't correct it.

4 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

When Sandy threatened to suspend several people, including Pat in a recent post.  I thought it was ill reasoned... You can't suspend someone for just disagreeing with you.

My Pat-Speer decision was and is extremely well reasoned. Nobody has been able to prove it wrong. Why don't you give it a shot?

Here we go... Pat's claim is that James Jenkins said the large wound was on top of the head. My decision, upon reading Keven's proof, was that Pat was wrong.

So you are now saying that Pat is right? If so, show me one single instance of James Jenkins saying the wound was on the top of the head.

I know you can't because Jenkins has always been very consistent with where he placed the wound. He has ALWAYS said the wound was on the back of the head. He has NEVER said the wound was on the top of the head. Jenkins is still alive, and he actually sent a message to Keven saying that Pat's claim is so ridiculous, it doesn't merit a response from him.

4 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

You can't suspend someone for just disagreeing with you.

I have never, ever penalized somebody for disagreeing with me. I don't know where you get off saying something like that.

Produce one example of my doing that.

Thank you everybody for your support. I am truly appreciative.

And thank you Keven for straightening out what Mark Knight implied about me. And you.

3 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

In my OPINION, the forum will never reach its potential with Larsen in charge and, in fact, his presence is actively driving people away to other places of discussion.

LOL what? I'm driving people away?

The fact is we have by far the most active JFKA forum on the internet.

And -- other than for this recent Pat Speer thing -- the forum runs pretty smoothly. The mods don't need to hand out many warning points to keep it that way.

Jim DiEugenio has said multiple times that this is the best JFK forum on the internet.

27 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Jonathan is now speaking up to get revenge on me.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Isn't it against forum rules to question the motivations of another member? You have zero evidence or proof of your statement, so I suggest you retract and delete it.

It's my opinion.

2 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

In my OPINION, Sandy Larsen has flagrantly, repeatedly abused his position as a moderator to suspend and punish members with whose opinions he disagrees, while constantly moving the goalposts for the "rules" of what he alone considers acceptable decorum.

James,

What Jonathan Cohen isn't telling you is that Mark Knight, Ron Bulman and I (the admin team) all voted to put him on probation. I just happened to be the one who nominated him for that.

Shortly thereafter, Jonathan voluntarily quit posting. The reason he quit posting is that he knew that he was on probation for good reason. He had a long history of making fun of people's posts, while rarely adding anything of value himself.

Jonathan is now speaking up to get revenge on me.

It is a fact that, since I became a member of the admin team, we no longer have members mocking and ridiculing other members for their ideas.

James,

I'm afraid that you've been receiving fallacious information.

First, nobody has been banned. And the forum is running fine. There are just a few members who are disgruntled because I gave Pat Speer a penalty.

The problem began when a particular forum member pointed out, and then proved, that Pat Speer had posted false information on what an autopsy witness (James Jenkins) had said. I asked Pat to correct his post because it is against forum rules to post false information.

Pat refused to do that, and instead doubled down on his claim. Not only that, but he began additionally claiming that his accuser actually agreed with him (Pat)! Which of course is ridiculous. (It felt like Pat was taunting me for having the nerve to question his post.)

So at that point in time Pat had posted TWO falsehoods... one about James Jenkins and one about his accuser. I asked Pat again to correct them. This time, I suggested that he merely add a qualifier to what he was saying -- something like "I believe that ..." or "my interpretation of that is ..." -- so that what he wrote wouldn't be a falsehood. For example, instead of saying, "Jenkins said that the wound was on top of the head" he could say "It is my belief that Jenkins said the wound was on top of the head." (The former is demonstrably false, whereas the latter is true.)

Pat again refused. So I gave him a 8-day penalty. (That is to say, he couldn't post for eight days.) Pat will be posting again in three days.

As a result of my penalizing Pat, two members became angry with me. One treated me disrespectfully (for which I gave a 2-day penalty) and the other said a number of lies about me and what I was doing. I gave him an 8-day penalty.

The next thing I knew, Mark Knight came in late to the thread and proceeded to lambaste the guy who originally accused Pat. But what really took me by surprise is that Mark accused me -- right there publicly -- of being some kind of accomplice or puppet of the guy who had accused Pat. Mark said that he knew that the accuser guy was going to get me to ban him (Mark), and that he (Mark) would enjoy it! Here are Mark's exact words:

As an administrator of The Education Forum, I can't wait for you to direct Sandy Larson to suspend my posting priviliges or to ban me from the forum, simply for questioning your techniques when dealing with Mr. Speer. As of 6/2/2024, I am the last remaining administrator from the transfer of ownership of The Education Forum from John Simkin to the group of four new owners they selected in 2014. It seems I am the "last man standing" of that group of four post-Simkin owners unless James Gordon decides to return. Absent that return, I am the senior "owner" of the forum.

Mr. Hofeling [the accuser of Pat] , I eagerly await your anticipated attempts to have me suspended or even banned from the forum (This is gonna be a hoot!)

When I'm suspended, maybe DVP can go by his former business and pick up a bucket (extra crispy, please, David!) and deliver it to me. I'm 25 miles west of Louisville, David...the same latitude as the first turn at Churchill Downs, and the same longitude as the exit of pit road at Talladega Speedway. I'll supply the drinks as long as you drink decaf cola.

[Emphasis added.]

What an utterly outrageous post to make! About me! And made in public (not PM)!

And then Mark warned another member to be careful agreeing with him (Mark), for he might thereby suffer the same fate. (Implying the I might ban him too!)

I couldn't let Mark get away with that without being penalized. So I gave him a one-day penalty, which expired yesterday. (Note that you can't penalize an admin member. So I temporarily removed admin status from Mark's account in order to issue the penalty.)

There is a new topic in the RFK Assassination forum.

(See the first post of this thread for a quick link to that.)

On 6/3/2024 at 9:32 PM, Sandy Larsen said:

Jean Ceulemans had his posting rights suspended for four days. In his case it was being disrespectful toward a forum administrator (me).

Correction: TWO days, not four.

On 6/3/2024 at 7:59 PM, James DiEugenio said:

I should ask, how many people have been banned or suspended over this argument?

Pat Speer had his posting rights suspended for eight days. It was that long because he lied about James Jenkins, lied about member Keven Hofeling -- multiple times each -- and because he refused to remove the lies after being requested to do so.

Jean Ceulemans had his posting rights suspended for two days. In his case it was being disrespectful toward a forum administrator (me).

Greg Doudna had his posting rights suspended for eight days. In his case it was for telling a series of lies about Keven Hofeling and myself. For example, for saying that we mistreated Pat for merely having a difference of opinion. We did no such thing.

On 6/3/2024 at 9:00 AM, Ron Ege said:

Sandy.

I agree that we cannot not know if any delusion is involved - especially, that appearing to be going back over several or more years.  And Pat has done a some really good work over those years - so, based on the history of this thread, it is a very puzzling scenario.

I did read that Pat is dealing with cancer, and of course, we cannot know his medical history, but medications can play havoc with one's brain.  And we cannot know his medications' history.  That said, I am discombobulated regarding the "good work" over the years - in comparison with the subject of this thread.

There are brain diseases that develop over some 10 years or more before others notice that anything is amiss in the behavior of one so affected.  

Still, the "good work" has been there over the same many years.  Why then, apparently, "off the rails" on this subject?  Much perplexing, in the least.

'Tis more than a shame that we are where we are - especially for Pat.  One cannot probably come close to imagining the quite possible challenging angst that he might be suffering.

Ron,

It's good of you to show compassion for a fellow human being. I hope he deserves it.

As for my handling of this and other Pat Speer threads, It is my job to decide how best to handle it for the sake of other researchers. And that's what I intend to do.

BTW, I don't know how you can tell which of Pat's works are "good" as you put it, and which aren't. Any work can look good if the evidence is controlled as necessary. Which is what Pat sometimes does. For all I know, he might have done it for every single thing he worked on. Or maybe not. We just don't know at this point.

20 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

In the academic world I participated in for many years I don't ever remember one of them calling another a liar.  It's an insulting and provocative term.

It is, in fact, a forum rule violation to call another member a liar.

However, I see nothing wrong in saying someone lied if he posted a falsehood with the intent of deceiving. In such a case, the incorrect information he posted was both a falsehood and a lie, and any other synonym for lie.

So when it comes to the word "lie," I agree with Keven that it should make no difference what you call it ... it is still a lie.

The word "liar," on the other hand, is completely different, and I am completely in agreement with Ron on that. A liar is someone who lies a lot, right? Well, who is to say how much a person has to lie to be labeled a liar? The only solution to this problem is to avoid the word and its synonyms completely.

Keven, I suggest to you go back and find where you used the word liar, and edit that. As I said, its use violates a forum rule.

21 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

I don't know how any reasonable person can put their faith in the autopsy photos and x-rays.

Denny,

For some reason, anti-alterationists have a strange reverence for films and photograph. For some reason they believe that those are off limits to cover-ups.

I've seen all kinds. Some CTers don't believe that witnesses could have been convinced to lie. Some won't even believe that evidence or testimony got altered!

I'm thinking of one CTer in particular who just spins his wheels day after day trying to figure out how the Warren Commission was innocently fooled by the conspiracy.

And the really odd thing is that these anti-alterationists tend to have a good deal of contempt for those of us who do suspect alteration when it is necessary to explain inconsistencies between evidence and large numbers of corroborating witnesses.

It's very, very odd.

21 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

Jim Jenkins and Paul O'Connor use a laser pointer and a projected image to talk about some of the autopsy photos. One of them was the top of the head image Pat posted recently. Jenkins and O'Connor both pointed at the top of the head and indicated that the photo did not reflect what they remembered seeing at the autopsy. Jenkins said that the wound he saw did not cross the midline.

And yet the extant autopsy photo shows the gaping wound extending well forward of the midline.

This makes me consider adding to my working hypothesis regarding this as follows (addition beginning with #5):

1. The handlers of the films and the handlers of the autopsy were both tasked with making sure the wounds supported shots from behind.
2. The handlers of the films got Hawkeye Works to move the gaping wound on the Z film from the back of the head to the top.
3. Likewise, the handlers of the autopsy got the autopsists to extend the gaping wound into the top of the head, which they did with illicit pre-autopsy surgery.
4. Problem is, the two teams didn't move the wounds consistent with each other. The autopsists moved the wound to be above and just BEHIND the right ear. In contrast, Hawkeye Works moved the wound on the Z film to be above and FORWARD the right ear.
   
   Doh!
    
5. [New addition to my hypothesis:]  The coverup artists, seeing their little blunder, decided to alter the autopsy photos to extend the surgery-made gaping wound so that it extended further to the front in order that it more closely matched what we see in the Z film. Unlike with the initial tasks, they had plenty of time to do this.

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Pat has insisted the top of JFK's back was 4 inches below his clothing collars. 

LOL

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Confirmation bias is a bitch, ain't it?

I take it that Pat thinks the autopsists got the back wound location right. That figures. He thinks the autopsists got the gaping head wound location right too.

2 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Free the Ed Forum 3!

I feel a mutiny coming on.

On 6/2/2024 at 4:36 PM, Gerry Down said:

The word "lying" implies intent. I have never come across Pat Speer intentionally lying about anything. 

Gerry,

Wound witness James Jenkins has always said that the large wound on Kennedy's head was at the back of the head. Yet Pat insists that Jenkins places the wound at the top of the head.

When Keven showed Pat a transcript of James Jenkins placing the wound on the back of the head, Pat wouldn't even acknowledge it. Pat just continued to say that Jenkins places the wound on the top of the head. When Keven asked Pat to produce a single document or video of Jenkins placing the wound on top, he couldn't. He couldn't because Jenkins has never said that.

We know form that experience that Pat is 1) lying, and 2) is doing so with intent.*

Furthermore, Keven showed above that Pat has been lying about James Jenkins on this forum for over a decade.

And a couple months ago Keven proved that Pat lied about Dr. Robert McClelland.

I'm betting there is a lot more to come.

*Though, as member Cliff Varnell has indicated, it is possible that Pat is delusional. In which case he isn't aware of his lying.

4 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

 @Greg Doudna @Jean Ceulemans @Pat Speer

BTW, these guys won't be posting for a while. Eight days for Greg Doudna, four days for Jean Ceulemans, and 6 days for Pat.

I might remove Pat's penalty early. If I knew for sure that he is delusional, I would right away.

18 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

If you're going the "sticky disclaimer" route you'd have to call out every Lone Niutter who posts here.

I SHOULD call out every LNer (and CTer) who habitually lie about evidence.

18 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Why not call out Pat's false claims on a case by case basis, and steer clear of the heated rhetoric?

That is what I thought we were doing. But now it's beginning to look like a more pervasive problem.

Oh my, this is much worse than I had imagined. Even Pat's stories of speaking with James Jenkins are filled with lies. And you are right, Pat makes Jenkins out as being a liar... one whose story changes, supposedly being influenced by CTers.

I'm beginning to think that Cliff Varnell may be right, that Pat is delusional. If he is, I'm thinking that the best course of action might be to post a sticky disclaimer at the top of the forum warning readers that it has been demonstrated that Pat Speer is probably delusional and that anything he says may be false. A disclaimer not to protect the forum, but rather to protect researchers and truth seekers from false information. Though I do wonder if posting this might create a libel situation for the forum or me.

Thanks for all the time and effort you put into this, Keven.