Question for Greg Parker

[Len Colby]

On the “McAdams on Garrison, scholarship or propaganda?” thread I asked you for evidence there were refugees in Darwin (Australia) on the day of the first two Japanese air raids, Feb. 19 1942.

You replied:

The refugees were fleeing the Japanese. How hard is that to grasp?

“Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies…”

http://www.ww2australia.gov.au/underattack/airraid.html

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=172573

Though not actually stated the obvious import was that the quote referred to casualties from the first Darwin raids. I was prepared to acknowledge that you were correct but to my surprise when I clicked on your link I discovered that the Dutch casualties were in Broome two weeks later. This would have clear to anyone who had read the paragraph YOU cited.

Other areas of northern Australia also suffered attacks at various times. The next most devastating was on

3 March 1942 at Broome

. Again without warning, Japanese aircraft swept in low, bombing and strafing

Broome

’s harbour, township and airfield. Dozens of people were killed or wounded and 24 aircraft were destroyed.

Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies (modern Indonesia)

whose flying boats were sitting defenceless on the harbour.

So my question to you is you really so careless that you posted the quote without reading the preceding sentences in the paragraph OR were you trying to “pull a fast one”?

This is a bit or a conundrum because I find it hard to believe anyone could be so sloppy but also find it hard to believe you would think I wouldn’t notice. I really think you should give a forthright reply, after all your credibility is on the line.

[William Kelly]

On the “McAdams on Garrison, scholarship or propaganda?” thread I asked you for evidence there were refugees in Darwin (Australia) on the day of the first two Japanese air raids, Feb. 19 1942.

You replied:

The refugees were fleeing the Japanese. How hard is that to grasp?

“Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies…”

http://www.ww2australia.gov.au/underattack/airraid.html

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=172573

Though not actually stated the obvious import was that the quote referred to casualties from the first Darwin raids. I was prepared to acknowledge that you were correct but to my surprise when I clicked on your link I discovered that the Dutch casualties were in Broome two weeks later. This would have clear to anyone who had read the paragraph YOU cited.

Other areas of northern Australia also suffered attacks at various times. The next most devastating was on

3 March 1942 at Broome

. Again without warning, Japanese aircraft swept in low, bombing and strafing

Broome

’s harbour, township and airfield. Dozens of people were killed or wounded and 24 aircraft were destroyed.

Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies (modern Indonesia)

whose flying boats were sitting defenceless on the harbour.

So my question to you is you really so careless that you posted the quote without reading the preceding sentences in the paragraph OR were you trying to “pull a fast one”?

This is a bit or a conundrum because I find it hard to believe anyone could be so sloppy but also find it hard to believe you would think I wouldn’t notice. I really think you should give a forthright reply, after all your credibility is on the line.

Len,

Greg's credibility isn't on the line.

It is your credibility that is lost.

BK

[Len Colby]

Len,

Greg's credibility isn't on the line.

It is your credibility that is lost.

BK

So Bill are you saying that…

1) the quote about the Dutch refugees wasn’t completely out of context and thus indicative of either gross carelessness or an intent to deceive on Greg’s part? OR

2) I’ve posted info that was so inaccurate/misleading I must have been extremely careless or dishonest? OR

3) Both?

Please offer justification/evidence for your response.

[William Kelly]

Len,

Greg's credibility isn't on the line.

It is your credibility that is lost.

BK

So Bill are you saying that…

1) the quote about the Dutch refugees wasn’t completely out of context and thus indicative of either gross carelessness or an intent to deceive on Greg’s part? OR

2) I’ve posted info that was so inaccurate/misleading I must have been extremely careless or dishonest? OR

3) Both?

Please offer justification/evidence for your response.

No,

What I am saying is that Greg has much more important research to do rather than engage in a debate with you over anything.

BK

[Greg Parker]

Len,

Greg's credibility isn't on the line.

It is your credibility that is lost.

BK

So Bill are you saying that…

1) the quote about the Dutch refugees wasn’t completely out of context and thus indicative of either gross carelessness or an intent to deceive on Greg’s part? OR

2) I’ve posted info that was so inaccurate/misleading I must have been extremely careless or dishonest? OR

3) Both?

Please offer justification/evidence for your response.

No,

What I am saying is that Greg has much more important research to do rather than engage in a debate with you over anything.

BK

No,

What I am saying is that Greg has much more important research to do rather than engage in a debate with you over anything.

BK

Bill,

Like his appeals to authority, his false dichotomies also show the stuff of which he is made.

When he started casting aspersions against those who were eye-witnesses, it became clear that he had no real interest in the subject; except to deny all evidence of a cover-up in his zeal to nail my oily hide to the wall.

Good luck, Len...! To help in your quest, here's a list of logical fallacies... see if you can find one you haven't used yet....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Logical_fallacies

[Len Colby]

Len,

Greg's credibility isn't on the line.

It is your credibility that is lost.

BK

So Bill are you saying that…

1) the quote about the Dutch refugees wasn’t completely out of context and thus indicative of either gross carelessness or an intent to deceive on Greg’s part? OR

2) I’ve posted info that was so inaccurate/misleading I must have been extremely careless or dishonest? OR

3) Both?

Please offer justification/evidence for your response.

No,

What I am saying is that Greg has much more important research to do rather than engage in a debate with you over anything.

BK

Bill you are conflation importance of subject matter with quality of research and seem to rate both on how much the product agrees with your viewpoint. I haven’t looked much at his JFK research but if his postings concerning the Darwin attacks are exemplary he is quite careless and fails to verify that his sources are really saying what he claims they are. As if it weren’t bad enough that he twice quoted pages without having read them carefully he quoted a sentence without having read the paragraph. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming these were accidents rather that failed attempts to deceive

Bill,

Like his appeals to authority, his false dichotomies also show the stuff of which he is made.

Sorry Greg no “false dichotomy” in the above. You used a quote completely out of context either you did so by accident or you did so intentionally there is no third alternative which is why you chose to change the subject rather than address it

You keep referring to “appeals to authority” but you don't know what the term means. It is only considered a fallacy if “the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject.” Since the people I cited had all extensively researched the attacks they are legitimate authorities

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/a...-authority.html

When he started casting aspersions against those who were eye-witnesses, it became clear that he had no real interest in the subject; except to deny all evidence of a cover-up in his zeal to nail my oily hide to the wall.

I didn't “casting aspersions” against them I merely suggested they might be mistaken given the passage of time, their advanced age and the trauma they went through at the time. As for eyewitnesses I suggested you look for a book (not available in Brazil) written by someone who was their published in 1966 (when the interviewed witnesses would have been younger and their memories fresher) but you seem to have declined

Good luck, Len...! To help in your quest, here's a list of logical fallacies... see if you can find one you haven't used yet....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Logical_fallacies

Please cite specific example of when and where I have used any of them. Here’s you favorite you did it almost every post.

Fallacy of quoting out of context

The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which

a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning

.[1]

[…]

The problem here is not the removal of a quote from its original context (as all quotes are) per se, but to

the quoter's decision to exclude from the excerpt certain nearby phrases or sentences (which become "context" by virtue of the exclusion) that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_quoting_out_of_context

The last time you did this was the worst I can remember anyone doing on this or any other forum I participate in, you used a quote referring to Broome as if it were about Darwin. You of course will refuse to address this and prefer to change the subject, but I will keep bring it up till you do.

[Mark Knight]

From the rules of behaviour for the forum:

"(iv) Members should not make personal attacks on other members. Nor should references be made to their abilities as researchers. Most importantly, the motivations of the poster should not be questioned. At all times members should concentrate on what is being said, rather than who is saying it. It is up to the reader to look at the biography submitted by the poster, to judge whether they are telling the truth or not. The word “xxxx” is banned from use on the forum. [Emphasis mine throughout.]

And Mr. Colby asks:

"So my question to you is you really so careless that you posted the quote without reading the preceding sentences in the paragraph OR were you trying to “pull a fast one”?"

Does Mr Colby not question BOTH the abilities AND the motives of the researcher with his question ? The first part of Mr. Colby's question appears to question the abilities of the researcher, while the second appears to question the motives of the researcher, IMHO.

If so, is that NOT a violation of the above-quoted rule of behaviour? Or do these rules not apply to Mr. Colby?

[Greg Parker]

Sorry Greg no “false dichotomy” in the above. You used a quote completely out of context either you did so by accident or you did so intentionally there is no third alternative which is why you chose to change the subject rather than address it

Well, your original argument was - either/or "gross carelessness" or "intent to "deceive" - a false dichotomy. Of course, you have changed the dichotomy now to "accident" or "intentional". Or are you saying all accidents necessarily involve "gross carelessness"? That would be yet another logical fallacy...

You keep referring to “appeals to authority” but you don't know what the term means. It is only considered a fallacy if “the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject.” Since the people I cited had all extensively researched the attacks they are legitimate authorities

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/a...-authority.html

Wow - that's chutzpah! Quoting from a Jewish Holocaust site to prove your appeals to authority on the subject of the bombing of Darwin did not fall within the definition of "logical fallacy".

Nizkor - area of expertise = Jewish Holocaust.

Your appeal here then, has the very hallmarks of another appeal to authority within the definition of logical fallacy.

Here is what wiki says:

Argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative. The most general structure of this argument is:

Source A says that p.

Source A is authoritative.

Therefore, p is true.

This is a fallacy because the truth or falsity of the claim is not necessarily related to the personal qualities of the claimant, and because the premises can be true, and the conclusion false (an authoritative claim can turn out to be false). It is also known as argumentum ad verecundiam (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it). [1]

On the other hand, arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism.

You imply your sources are infallible by impugning the eye-witnesses whom you say they chose to ignore.

Please cite specific example of when and where I have used any [logical fallacies]. Here’s you favorite you did it almost every post.

Fallacy of quoting out of context

The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.[1]

[…]

The problem here is not the removal of a quote from its original context (as all quotes are) per se, but to the quoter's decision to exclude from the excerpt certain nearby phrases or sentences (which become "context" by virtue of the exclusion) that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_qu..._out_of_context

The last time you did this was the worst I can remember anyone doing on this or any other forum I participate in, you used a quote referring to Broome as if it were about Darwin.

So you've made up your your mind that it was deliberate (Which is the only way it could be a logical fallacy).

But hang on... didn't you tell Bill in this very same post "I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming these were accidents rather that failed attempts to deceive"

And by the way, you had already conflated Broome and Darwin, so this accusation is kinda ironic...

You of course will refuse to address this and prefer to change the subject, but I will keep bring it up till you do.

I'm sure John will humor you by keeping this forum going until Hell freezes over. I promise when it does I'll let you know when I stopped beating my wife.

[Greg Parker]

Please cite specific example of when and where I have used any of them. Here’s you favorite you did it almost every post.

Fallacy of quoting out of context

The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.

As usual, you did exactly that which you falsely accused me of doing:

You quoted from An Awkward Truth that "The Melbourne Herald's report appeared on page 3 under the headline, 240 killed in First Raid on Darwin - Shipping Losses Also Given in Report." Conveniently for your argument, you left out the very next line, "It would have taken a keen-eyed reader to spot the 3 paragraph story..."

Though the author did not believe there had been a cover-up, unlike you, he did not shy away from evidence that pointed to one.

Mark,

thanks for voicing your concern over rule breaches, but I'm happy for Len to take his shots.

So long as I am able to reply in the manner I see fit.

[Len Colby]

NOTE TO MODERATORS – I suggest that unless Greg objects this thread be folded into the original one.

Sorry Greg no “false dichotomy” in the above. You used a quote completely out of context either you did so by accident or you did so intentionally there is no third alternative which is why you chose to change the subject rather than address it

Well, your original argument was - either/or "gross carelessness" or "intent to "deceive" - a false dichotomy. Of course, you have changed the dichotomy now to "accident" or "intentional". Or are you saying all accidents necessarily involve "gross carelessness"? That would be yet another logical fallacy...

In this case there is essentially no difference either you made the out of context quotation a) ‘accidentally’ due to "gross carelessness" or ‘intentionally’ due to an "intent to "deceive".

I figured out what went wrong.

1) You did a Google search, the search string was more or less

darwin refugees 19 february 1942

2) Either

a) You simply copied and pasted one of the results without even bothering to open the page. The result was:

Australia Attacked - Air Raids

On 19 February 1942, Darwin suffered its first and most devastating air raid. ... Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies ...www.ww2australia.gov.au/underattack/airraid.html

Note that your quote began and ended at the exact same points.

OR

You opened the page and copied the phrase without bothering to read the rest of the paragraph.

Either way you were grossly careless

You keep referring to “appeals to authority” but you don't know what the term means. It is only considered a fallacy if “the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject.” Since the people I cited had all extensively researched the attacks they are legitimate authorities

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/a...-authority.html

Wow - that's chutzpah! Quoting from a Jewish Holocaust site to prove your appeals to authority on the subject of the bombing of Darwin did not fall within the definition of "logical fallacy".

Nizkor - area of expertise = Jewish Holocaust.

???? And what by contrast are the areas of expertise of the authors of the Wikipedia page you cited?

You have no idea because you don’t know who they are! Presumably they know little if anything about the Japanese air raids against Australia either. What an absurd ad hom, logical fallacies are logical fallacies independent of the subject matter.

An just for your information since the Nizkor site is run by a non-Jewish Canadian and focuses on Holocaust victims of all races/religions/ethnicities it is inaccurate to call it a “Jewish Holocaust site”. Obviously however refuting the claims of Holocaust deniers schools the site owner in logical fallacies.

Your appeal here then, has the very hallmarks of another appeal to authority within the definition of logical fallacy.

Here is what wiki says:

LOL ‘physician heal thyself’ you complain that I appeal to the authority of Nizkor but then appeal to the authority of Wikipedia!

Argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative. The most general structure of this argument is:

Source A says that p.

Source A is authoritative.

Therefore, p is true.

This is a fallacy because the truth or falsity of the claim is not necessarily related to the personal qualities of the claimant, and because the premises can be true, and the conclusion false (an authoritative claim can turn out to be false). It is also known as argumentum ad verecundiam (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it). [1]

On the other hand, arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism.

Wikipedia is not an authoritative source, you don’t like Nizkor. There many cites that opine on the matter whose reliability is unknown so I did a Google search for argument from authority fallacy limited to .edu sites. Based on the 1st 10 hits academics are divided over when an argument from authority is improper (see below). Some object only if someone cites an authority does not have expertise in the area others if they do so place of other arguments. I did neither by case doesn’t rest solely on the historians.

You imply your sources are infallible by impugning the eye-witnesses whom you say they chose to ignore.

And you of course imply the handful of witnesses you cited “are infallible” when there is a great deal of evidence eye witness testimony is unreliable especially for elderly people, especially for people remembering events that took place decades earlier, especially form people remembering traumatic events.

Nor do I think any one of the researchers is infallible but think it is unlikely that all of the 6 people we know of who looked into this (not counting the LC or Douglas Lockwood whose book you shown no interest in consulting) would reject the numbers you are suggesting unless that is what the evidence indicates.

You offered the testimony of IIRC 4 - 5 witnesses out of thousands of people who were there. How do you know their views are representative of the others? The witnesses gave there accounts as elderly men 50 – 60 years after the event. The historians looked at a larger body of evidence including interviewing survives and examining documentary evidence.

One of the main stumbling blocks for the notion that there were 600 – 800 or more uncounted deaths is that based on what I’ve read none of it proponents can explain whose these people were. It’s difficult to imagine so many military personnel or civilians could so easily disappear without being noticed which leaves migrant workers, Aborigines and refugees but so far I’ve not seen evidence there were significant numbers of any of the above in Darwin that day.

Another problem with such theories is that it makes little sense that the government would admit that 243 – 292 Australian and allied military personnel and local civilians were killed but cover up the deaths of 600+ migrant workers, Aborigines or refugees.

Yet another problem that Grose pointed out, this would mean there many times more people killed that injured in the town something rarely if ever happens in such attacks.

Please cite specific example of when and where I have used any [logical fallacies]. Here’s you favorite you did it almost every post.

Fallacy of quoting out of context

The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.[1]

[…]

The problem here is not the removal of a quote from its original context (as all quotes are) per se, but to the quoter's decision to exclude from the excerpt certain nearby phrases or sentences (which become "context" by virtue of the exclusion) that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_qu..._out_of_context

The last time you did this was the worst I can remember anyone doing on this or any other forum I participate in, you used a quote referring to Broome as if it were about Darwin.

So you've made up your your mind that it was deliberate (Which is the only way it could be a logical fallacy).

But hang on... didn't you tell Bill in this very same post "I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming these were accidents rather that failed attempts to deceive"

It is unreasonable to expect a relatively brief entry to cover every possible scenario, I doubt the author anticipated someone would copy and paste a Google result without bothering to open the page. Legally someone who causes death or injury through negligence is liable for their acts. In any case you choose to look at only half the sentence part of the problem is the exclusion of “certain nearby phrases or sentences…that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words”

And by the way, you had already conflated Broome and Darwin, so this accusation is kinda ironic...

Predictably you still refuse to unambiguously admit error and got your facts wrong again. I never conflated them; I did however include the fatalities in Broome as part of those in northern Australia. As for the meaning of the disputed sentences. I asked members of another forum how they interpreted them. Of the 10 people who voted 7 understood both to refer to “all 97 raids”, 1 thought the 1st referred to Darwin and the 2nd to northern Australia only 2 understood both to refer to “the 64 raids on Darwin” but one said this was unclear. An 11th member said “there's no way from the text to distinguish between meanings…for either sentence” thought it “is a little more likely” they both referred to all 97.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=155084

So getting back to matter at hand

1) Your case that 900 plus people were killed in Darwin on February 19 is weak

2) You not produced any evidence the LC were aware of the true death toll.

Search results for argument from authority fallacy site:.edu

1) Lake Superior College

Logical Fallacy “Argument from authority”

Stating that a claim is true because a person or group of perceived authority says it is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim. It is reasonable to give more credit to the claims of those with the proper background, education, and credentials, or to be suspicious of the claims of someone making authoritative statements in an area for which they cannot demonstrate expertise. But the truth of a claim should ultimately rest on logic and evidence, not the authority of the person promoting it.

http://blog.lsc.edu/wipaige/2009/06/16/log...from-authority/

2) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Appeal to authority

Definition: Often we add strength to our arguments by referring to respected sources or authorities and explaining their positions on the issues we're discussing. If, however, we try to get readers to agree with us simply by impressing them with a famous name or by appealing to a supposed authority who really isn't much of an expert, we commit the fallacy of appeal to authority.

[…]

Works Consulted

[…]

Hurley, Patrick J. A Concise Introduction to Logic. Thornson Learning, 2000

Lunsford, Andrea and John Ruszkiewicz. Everything's an Argument. Bedford Books, 1998.

Copi, Irving M. and Carl Cohen. Introduction to Logic. Prentice Hall, 1998.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/fallacies.html

3) University of Oregon

Here is a list of everyday fallacies take from Peter A. Angeles Dictionary of Philosophy-- published by Barnes and Noble, copyright 1981.

[…]

8. Fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam (argument to authority or to veneration) [another of my personal favorites]. (a) appealing to authority (including customs, traditions, institutions, etc.) in order to gain acceptance of a point at issue and/or ( appealing to the feelings of reverence or respect we have of those in authority, or who are famous. Example: "I believe that the statement 'YOu cannot legislate morality' is true, because President Eisenhower said it."

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/fallacies.html

4) Prof. R. Cherubin - George Mason University

An argument from authority claims that the reader should accept something just because a person who is distinguished or accomplished or experienced (in a relevant field, or, in the more egregious cases, in any field) says it is true.

But if the purported authority really is credible in this case, he or she (or the author citing him or her) will provide the reasoning and evidence to show why his or her claims are correct.

www.gmu.edu/courses/phil/ancient/Effective_Argumentation.ppt

5) Texas A&M

Arguments from authority

An argument from authority is arguing that a claim is true because a certain person with authority says it is. In some cases, there is nothing at all wrong with taking someone as an authority for something: if I tell you that I have a serious pain in my left foot, then that's a very good reason for thinking that the proposition "Smith has a serious pain in his left foot" is true. More generally, there are at least two classes of arguments from authorities that are not only quite respectable but also probably unavoidable. The first concerns testimony: we rely on other people's reports of what they have seen, heard, read, etc., and believe things just because people have said them. Of course, this is a limited kind of authority. I can be an authority about what I saw while looking out of my window last night, but hardly of what you saw looking out of your window last Thursday while I was unconscious. The second kind of case is expert opinion: we often believe things just because a doctor, or a mechanic, or a historian has told us so. If relying on the opinions of others in cases like this were always unreasonable, then we'd have a hard time extending our knowledge beyond the present experience of our own lifetimes.

When people criticize arguments as bad arguments from authority, they generally have in mind a case in which someone is supposing that whatever a certain person says is true: "Well, Quine says that reference is always indeterminate, and his word's good enough for me." As you might expect, whether an argument from an authority is a good one in philosophy is liable to become the subject of a philosophical argument itself. However, philosophers would probably agree at least on this: when it comes to philosophical arguments, there are no philosophical authoritie

http://aristotle.tamu.edu/~rasmith/Courses.../fallacies.html

6) UC San Diego

Same as 3)

http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/...a0/art0-21.html

7) Prof Lance Cooper University of Illinois

(5). Argument from authority

The argument that we should adopt an idea because some respected person tells us to:

“The missile theory has expert witnesses. For example, just before Flight 800 broke into flames, private pilot Sven Faret reported that he saw ‘a little pin flash on the ground.’ In his view, that flash ‘looked like a rocket launch.’”

http://online.physics.uiuc.edu/courses/phy...cSkeptic_09.ppt

8) Dr. L. Kip Wheeler - Carson-Newman College

Appeal to Improper Authority (Argumentum Ad Verecundium, literally "argument from that which is improper"): An appeal to an improper authority, such as a famous person or a source that may not be reliable. This fallacy attempts to capitalize upon feelings of respect or familiarity with a famous individual. It is not fallacious to refer to an admitted authority if the individual’s expertise is within a strict field of knowledge. On the other hand, to cite Einstein to settle an argument about education or economics is fallacious. To cite Darwin, an authority on biology, on religious matters is fallacious. To cite Cardinal Spellman on legal problems is fallacious.

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html

9)Introduction to Logic – Lander University

2. Ad verecundiam (argument from authority)

Authority on x, L, says accept p.

p is outside the scope of subject x.

————————————––

p is true.

E.g., H. L. A. Jenkins, the noted international rose expert, has publicly stated that logic is essential to a life of excellence; consequently, it must be so.

http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/fall_summary.html

10) Philosophy 12 - Salk Institute for Biological Studies

When this fallacy is invoked some authority's judgment is put inplace of an argument when the authority is illegitimate and should not be a a surrogate inplace of sound reasoning. An appeal to authority is illegitimate when the purported authority is not an authority in the relevant field, is unidentified, or is particularly likely to be biased in some way

www.snl.salk.edu/~jacobson/Phil12/Handouts/H05%20Fallacies.pdf

[Len Colby]

Please cite specific example of when and where I have used any of them. Here’s you favorite you did it almost every post.

Fallacy of quoting out of context

The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.

As usual, you did exactly that which you falsely accused me of doing:

You quoted from An Awkward Truth that "The Melbourne Herald's report appeared on page 3 under the headline, 240 killed in First Raid on Darwin - Shipping Losses Also Given in Report." Conveniently for your argument, you left out the very next line, "It would have taken a keen-eyed reader to spot the 3 paragraph story..."

Though the author did not believe there had been a cover-up, unlike you, he did not shy away from evidence that pointed to one.

I find it odd they you deny doing something you undeniably did. Intentionally or not you falsely created the impression that refugees were killed in Darwin.

I have no idea what your problem is with my quote is I cited it to dispute your claim the death toll was covered up for years. Whether it was on page 1 or page 3 or page 69 if something is reported in a newspaper it isn't being covered up.

Mark,

thanks for voicing your concern over rule breaches, but I'm happy for Len to take his shots.

So long as I am able to reply in the manner I see fit.

Nope none of my posts violated any rules I never questioned you motives (I have no idea were Mark got that from) and you being careless occasionally or even regularly doesn't mean you are unable to do good research.

[Greg Parker]

I find it odd they you deny doing something you undeniably did. Intentionally or not you falsely created the impression that refugees were killed in Darwin.

There are a number of books dealing with the battles to hold Indonesia which mention refugees being sent to and arriving in Darwin.

See for example, Battle submerged: submarine fighters of World War II or United States destroyer operations in World War II.

I have no idea what your problem is with my quote is I cited it to dispute your claim the death toll was covered up for years. Whether it was on page 1 or page 3 or page 69 if something is reported in a newspaper it isn't being covered up.

As I have explained, the objection is your leaving out the very next sentence which qualifies the impact of publication of

the figures. "It would have taken a keen-eyed reader to spot the 3 paragraph story..."

And this shows again you are guilty of what you falsely accuse me of... even in your latest reply, you state: In any case you choose to look at only half the sentence part of the problem is the exclusion of “certain nearby phrases or sentences…that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words”

The clear intention of the author you selectively quoted was to show that, though published, the story was hard to spot. By leaving that part out, you gave a false impression.

You have yet to show such selective quoting on my part.

Moreover, you are well aware that my argument is that the figure quoted in that story, is itself, part of the cover-up, since I dispute its accuracy.

Nope none of my posts violated any rules

I could care less what rules you have or haven't violated. I'm not hiding behind any rules.

NOTE TO MODERATORS – I suggest that unless Greg objects this thread be folded into the original one.

Yes I do object. You started this thread. You're not going to hide from it now.

In this case there is essentially no difference either you made the out of context quotation a) ‘accidentally’ due to "gross carelessness" or ‘intentionally’ due to an "intent to "deceive".

No difference???!!! Within the one one post, you went from giving benefit of the doubt that it was not deliberate to accusing of me of a deliberate deception. That is the point. There is a very big difference between those two.

And it is STILL a false dichotomy.

I figured out what went wrong.

1) You did a Google search, the search string was more or less

darwin refugees 19 february 1942

2) Either

a) You simply copied and pasted one of the results without even bothering to open the page. The result was:

Australia Attacked - Air Raids

On 19 February 1942, Darwin suffered its first and most devastating air raid. ... Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies ...www.ww2australia.gov.au/underattack/airraid.html

Note that your quote began and ended at the exact same points.

OR

You opened the page and copied the phrase without bothering to read the rest of the paragraph.

Either way you were grossly careless

Whose a clever boy? Well, half clever anyway. Keep trying.

???? And what by contrast are the areas of expertise of the authors of the Wikipedia page you cited?

You have no idea because you don’t know who they are! Presumably they know little if anything about the Japanese air raids against Australia either. What an absurd ad hom, logical fallacies are logical fallacies independent of the subject matter.

An just for your information since the Nizkor site is run by a non-Jewish Canadian and focuses on Holocaust victims of all races/religions/ethnicities it is inaccurate to call it a “Jewish Holocaust site”. Obviously however refuting the claims of Holocaust deniers schools the site owner in logical fallacies.

Encyclopaedias by their very nature, are repositories of such information, and in the case of wiki, provides numerous citations in support.

Nizkor, by its very nature, is a repository of information on one specific subject, and provided no citations for what you quoted.

The rest of your post is just argumentum verbosium.

Here is what you're trying to avoid.

There were an estimated 900 to 1100 killed in the initial bombings. The figure of approximately 250 does not take into account those whose who were non-citizens. The Lowe Commission was suppressed until the end of the war, and even 30 years on, nearly 200 pages were still being redacted. Where the death toll was published at all in those early years, it was given no prominence, was subject to censorship and gave only the official numbers, despite the opportunities to investigate rumors of "cover up" based on eye-witness accounts of the true magnitude of the deaths.

As for LBJ, you admit he was here for reasons of troop morale and personal political gain. The bombing of Darwin certainly had an affect on morale, especially given it was the same bombers who got PH. You also admit he was feted by powerful people here. To suggest he was not told of the Lowe Commission is naive. To suggest that he failed to grasp the utility of such a commission in keeping a lid on public disquiet, is beyond even that.

[Len Colby]

There are a number of books dealing with the battles to hold Indonesia which mention refugees being sent to and arriving in Darwin.

See for example, Battle submerged: submarine fighters of World War II or United States destroyer operations in World War II.

You produce more BS than the world’s biggest cattle ranch. The issue was how your quote completely changed what the author meant. And you should know by now you won’t get away with making stuff up. Both books you cite are available online and neither of them said anything about there being refugees in Darwin on the day of the attacks.

Battle submerged only mentions one group of refugees going their, this was in 1944 however. According to the latter “There the few Allied reinforcements dribbling in were meeting the first of the refugees driven down from the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies” it gave no indication how many there were and this was in “the third week of January” a month before the attacks. How many of the unknown number were still there on February 19? Was there anywhere near enough to account for the 600 plus uncounted dead? And as I’ve asked you a few times already why would the government admit to the deaths of its own citizens and its and foreign troops but cover up those of foreign refugees?

As I have explained, the objection is your leaving out the very next sentence which qualifies the impact of publication of the figures. "It would have taken a keen-eyed reader to spot the 3 paragraph story..."

And this shows again you are guilty of what you falsely accuse me of... even in your latest reply, you state: In any case you choose to look at only half the sentence part of the problem is the exclusion of “certain nearby phrases or sentences…that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words”

The clear intention of the author you selectively quoted was to show that, though published, the story was hard to spot. By leaving that part out, you gave a false impression.

You have yet to show such selective quoting on my part.

BS You falsely created the impression the refugees the author referred to were in Darwin on the day of the attacks they weren’t. As for my quote, my point was that a number close to the still official death toll was made public with in weeks, its placement was irrelevant and the story did make it to the front page of at least one Australian newspaper.

http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2586452

NOTE TO MODERATORS – I suggest that unless Greg objects this thread be folded into the original one.

Yes I do object. You started this thread. You're not going to hide from it now.

No need for me to hide from this, nor would it do me much good if I wanted to since everyone has seen it. I imagine you want to “hide from” all your errors on the other thread.

In this case there is essentially no difference either you made the out of context quotation a) ‘accidentally’ due to "gross carelessness" or ‘intentionally’ due to an "intent to "deceive".

No difference???!!! Within the one one post, you went from giving benefit of the doubt that it was not deliberate to accusing of me of a deliberate deception. That is the point. There is a very big difference between those two.

And it is STILL a false dichotomy.

Nope I still think all your misquotes were due to shoddy research rather than attempted fraud and until you can spell out another alternative those are the only two possibilities.

I figured out what went wrong.

1) You did a Google search, the search string was more or less

darwin refugees 19 february 1942

2) Either

a) You simply copied and pasted one of the results without even bothering to open the page. The result was:

Australia Attacked - Air Raids

On 19 February 1942, Darwin suffered its first and most devastating air raid. ... Many casualties were Dutch refugees from the Netherlands East Indies ...www.ww2australia.gov.au/underattack/airraid.html

Note that your quote began and ended at the exact same points.

OR

You opened the page and copied the phrase without bothering to read the rest of the paragraph.

Either way you were grossly careless

Whose a clever boy? Well, half clever anyway. Keep trying.

Typical neither an admission nor a denial nor an explanation of why you so severely mangled the quote. And no I don’t believe you quasi-denial.

???? And what by contrast are the areas of expertise of the authors of the Wikipedia page you cited?

You have no idea because you don’t know who they are! Presumably they know little if anything about the Japanese air raids against Australia either. What an absurd ad hom, logical fallacies are logical fallacies independent of the subject matter.

An just for your information since the Nizkor site is run by a non-Jewish Canadian and focuses on Holocaust victims of all races/religions/ethnicities it is inaccurate to call it a “Jewish Holocaust site”. Obviously however refuting the claims of Holocaust deniers schools the site owner in logical fallacies.

Encyclopaedias by their very nature, are repositories of such information, and in the case of wiki, provides numerous citations in support.

Nizkor, by its very nature, is a repository of information on one specific subject, and provided no citations for what you quoted.

The rest of your post is just argumentum verbosium.

If baby burns its finger in a candle it probably won’t get anywhere near a flame again for quite a while you however seem incapable of learning from experience and continue to quote sources you haven’t read carefully. The Wikipedia article you cited provided only one citation and it was to…to… (can you guess?), that’s right to the Nizkor page I cited! But wait it also has an “External Link” to a site called “The Fallacy Files” but it is to its entry on “Appeal to Misleading Authority”

"Here is what you're trying to avoid.

There were an estimated 900 to 1100 killed in the initial bombings."

Estimated by a few old men decades after the fact, a number not supported by anyone who researched what happened that day. I have repeatedly suggested you consult the 1966 book by a journalist who was there that day, but you’ve show no interest in it. Most curious.

"The figure of approximately 250 does not take into account those whose who were non-citizens."

And you have yet to show that significant numbers of “non-citizens” were in town that day let alone been subject to attack, let alone killed. Nor have you even attempted to explain why the government would admit to the deaths of foreign troops and Australians but cover up the death of foreign civilians. Nor why opposition parties would keep quiet. The Governor of the NT was appointed by Robert Menzies and thus presumably a member of the Liberal Party. He was severely criticized by the LR and wasn’t happy about it yet he never seems to have said anything about a cover-up or leaked news of such to other members of his party.

"The Lowe Commission was suppressed until the end of the war,"

Reports going over war time foul-ups are normally only released after the war ends for obvious reasons.

"and even 30 years on, nearly 200 pages were still being redacted."

That was of the transcript rather than the report proper as you falsely claimed. Since it is now over 60 “years on” I imagine the pages were released long ago.

"Where the death toll was published at all in those early years, it was given no prominence, was subject to censorship and gave only the official numbers, despite the opportunities to investigate rumors of "cover up" based on eye-witness accounts of the true magnitude of the deaths."

As noted above the 240 figure made it to the 1st page of at least one paper. What evidence was there at the time of a higher death toll?

"As for LBJ, you admit he was here for reasons of troop morale and personal political gain. The bombing of Darwin certainly had an affect on morale, especially given it was the same bombers who got PH. You also admit he was feted by powerful people here. To suggest he was not told of the Lowe Commission is naive. To suggest that he failed to grasp the utility of such a commission in keeping a lid on public disquiet, is beyond even that."

Was he aware of the LC? Since it was even reported in US newspapers I imagine so. Was he aware of any of the specifics of how it operated? I doubt it. Was he aware of the LC’s supposed rule in covering up the supposedly higher death toll? You’ve got nothing but speculation.

[Greg Parker]

You produce more BS than the world’s biggest cattle ranch.

That's the biggest compliment you can pay someone of convict stock. Great great grandpappy George Parker would be proud. Best he could do was get himself transported at 15 for the heinous crime of trespassing. And btw, the biggest cattle ranch (called stations here) is in the Northern Territory. You know. Darwin and all that.

The issue was how your quote completely changed what the author meant. And you should know by now you won’t get away with making stuff up. Both books you cite are available online and neither of them said anything about there being refugees in Darwin on the day of the attacks.

Sorry. Did I miss something. What did I make up? Refugees are not brought to Darwin and immediately shipped out - at least not in most circumstances. Presumption has to err in favor of them remaining in the port they were brought to, at least in the short term (ie one or two months). The distances to other ports, modes of available transport, and numbers of people involved would have inhibited opportunities to move them quickly, even if that was what was wanted.

Battle submerged only mentions one group of refugees going their, this was in 1944 however. According to the latter “There the few Allied reinforcements dribbling in were meeting the first of the refugees driven down from the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies” it gave no indication how many there were and this was in “the third week of January” a month before the attacks. How many of the unknown number were still there on February 19?

See above.

Was there anywhere near enough to account for the 600 plus uncounted dead?

I doubt it. And I never said they alone made up the number. I said non-citizens, which I made clear in previous posts included Aborigines.

And as I’ve asked you a few times already why would the government admit to the deaths of its own citizens and its and foreign troops but cover up those of foreign refugees?

The government want a low number of deaths. It was easy to not count refugees whose identities were probably unverifiable even before death.

The harder question is regarding the indigenous population - though there is an answer, and it has to do with the deaths of some "solving" what to do about white man's dirty little secrets.

BS You falsely created the impression the refugees the author referred to were in Darwin on the day of the attacks they weren’t

What are you blathering about here? Show where the author says they were moved out before the attacks, or admit you don't know if they were or they weren't. As I've indicated - default assumption - given various known conditions would be that the refugees were still in Darwin at the time of the attacks. And that fits with eye-witness reports of bodies being towed to sea. Those bodies would only be of people who "didn't count"

As for my quote, my point was that a number close to the still official death toll was made public with in weeks, its placement was irrelevant and the story did make it to the front page of at least one Australian newspaper.

Ah yes, the Canberra Times with a circulation of about 50. But you're right. This gets a bit more prominence on the front page. Wonder why?? Oh, I know! Shades of Dealey Plaza and the call to "get something out quickly to show that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone". Propaganda needs prominence to put the public back to sleep. This bit of blarney for instance, sticks to the figure of 15 dead by way of saying that was the civilian toll. The balance were all military. It goes on to say that "the damage done to Darwin was very small..." And you accuse me of BS and accept this as true? Or did they only lie about the damage but were truthful about the death toll?

Nope I still think all your misquotes were due to shoddy research rather than attempted fraud and until you can spell out another alternative those are the only two possibilities.

Trouble is, you've labelled it both in different parts of the same post. You can't keep track of the type of attack you're trying to mount, but I'll help you sort that out when you lose track. Fair enough?

Typical neither an admission nor a denial nor an explanation of why you so severely mangled the quote. And no I don’t believe you quasi-denial.

I didn't mangle any quotes. That's not to say I didn't make a mistake, but I'm having way too much fun watching you thrash about looking for "gotcha" moments to interfere in your antics.

Bottom line: What I have said is substantively correct. All else is just your side show.

If baby burns its finger in a candle it probably won’t get anywhere near a flame again for quite a while you however seem incapable of learning from experience

No Pain, no gain!

and continue to quote sources you haven’t read carefully. The Wikipedia article you cited provided only one citation and it was to…to… (can you guess?), that’s right to the Nizkor page I cited! But wait it also has an “External Link” to a site called “The Fallacy Files” but it is to its entry on “Appeal to Misleading Authority”

Well, here's the link I provided for that cite. Anyone is free to go to it and see who wiki cited.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_qu..._out_of_context

For those who couldn't be bothered checking, but are willing to take the word of this BS artist, here are wikis sources:

References

1. ^ Ivor H. Evans, editor, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 14th edition, Harper & Row, 1989, ISBN 0-06-016200-7,

2. ^ Yale Book of Quotations [1]

p158

3. ^ AJ Giannini. Use of fiction in therapy. Psychiatric Times. 18(7):56-57,2001.

[edit] External links

* The Black-or-White Fallacy

entry in The Fallacy Files

Not a Nizkor citation in sight. I'm sure Len has an explanation.

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

There were an estimated 900 to 1100 killed in the initial bombings."

Estimated by a few old men decades after the fact, a number not supported by anyone who researched what happened that day. I have repeatedly suggested you consult the 1966 book by a journalist who was there that day, but you’ve show no interest in it. Most curious.

Cute. Those "old men" had told the same story when they were young to family members.

"The figure of approximately 250 does not take into account those whose who were non-citizens."

And you have yet to show that significant numbers of “non-citizens” were in town

You yourself have provided quotes to the effect that there were large numbers of Aborigines in Darwin. As I have explained already, they were non-citizens ie not counted in the census data.

that day let alone been subject to attack, let alone killed. Nor have you even attempted to explain why the government would admit to the deaths of foreign troops and Australians but cover up the death of foreign civilians.

I thought it was self-evident as to why they would. Theywanted the appearance of a low death toll - hard to hide civilian and military deaths - not so hard to hide the deaths of people whose identity is not recorded. Just tow those bodies out to sea... problem solved.

Nor why opposition parties would keep quiet.

Tweedle dee and tweedle dum when it comes to anything of any importance.

The Governor of the NT was appointed by Robert Menzies and thus presumably a member of the Liberal Party. He was severely criticized by the LR and wasn’t happy about it yet he never seems to have said anything about a cover-up or leaked news of such to other members of his party.

Not the way party politics works. You take your knocks for the party and you stand by party policy.

Was he aware of the LC? Since it was even reported in US newspapers I imagine so. Was he aware of any of the specifics of how it operated? I doubt it. Was he aware of the LC’s supposed rule in covering up the supposedly higher death toll? You’ve got nothing but speculation.

What you doubt is of course, up to you. As for it being speculative - of course it is! Your point being?

It is not however, speculation out of thin air. A commission to serve a political aim rather than the truth was exactly the sought thing that would interest a politician of LBJ's calibre. And the fact is, he employed the same technique a bit over twenty years later...

[Len Colby]

The issue was how your quote completely changed what the author meant. And you should know by now you won’t get away with making stuff up. Both books you cite are available online and neither of them said anything about there being refugees in Darwin on the day of the attacks.

Sorry. Did I miss something. What did I make up? Refugees are not brought to Darwin and immediately shipped out - at least not in most circumstances.

I was referring of course to you providing the quote about Broome as if it were about Darwin

"Presumption has to err in favor of them remaining in the port they were brought to, at least in the short term (ie one or two months). The distances to other ports, modes of available transport, and numbers of people involved would have inhibited opportunities to move them quickly, even if that was what was wanted. "

Of course you ignore you bring caught up on your shoddy research once again, one the books you cited put the refugees there in 1944 not 1942. The second had an unknown number there a month before the attacks. Lockwood (pg 40) and Timothy Hall in Darwin 1942: Australia's Darkest Hour (pg 27) reported that at the time Darwin was served by “civil airliners, such as they were, flying scheduled services from Adelaide and Brisbane” additionally the town was connected by road, train and ship to other parts of the country and thus refugees and migrant laborers would have had plenty of opportunities to leave. Indeed on pages 12 and 13 (your bad luck!) of Darkest Hour Hall wrote that:

…one of the more unedifying sights in Darwin had been of able-bodied men physically pushing women and children aside to buy for their own use seats that had been ear-marked for the evacuees. These men,

a large number of whom were migrant workers

,

took so many of the seats

originally allocated to the evacuees that it was more by chance than good management that the women and children had been evacuated by the time the Japanese finally attacked

[…]

…evacuation plan went to the airlines and pleaded with them to take several pregnant women who were among the refugees waiting to be air-lifted to safety. A similar plea to

a group of migrant laborers

who had just bought seats on the aircraft went completely unheeded.

So it seems non-citizens (migrant laborers in this case) were able to leave town in significant numbers and were not ones to be pushed around, more on this later. Even you concede that the expected layover time for refugees in Darwin could be “one or two months”. According to your ONLY source an undefined number of refugees already were in there when a ship arrived a month before the attacks. i.e. they could have been there a month already.

Google Books returns 41 books with “Darwin” and “1942” in their titles about 15 of which are duplicates, about wreck diving or works of fiction. Almost half of the remaining 25 – 26 books are specifically about the attacks most the rest are military histories/soldiers memoirs. One is, An Analysis of Race Relations Between 'coloureds' and 'whites' in Darwin 1911-1942, which would be interesting to take a look at concerning your theory many/most of the uncounted fatalities were Aborigines, another is the mayor diary entry from that day.

http://books.google.com/books?client=firef...nG=Search+Books

There were no applicable hits in any of the books for “Philippines”, “Filipino” or “Filipinos”. The only hit for "migrant" or "migrants" was quoted above. The words “refugee” or “refugees” appear in only 3, Grose, Lockwood and Hall. In all three cases the terms referred to either the civilians evacuated before the raids (Hall) or the ones who fled it after them (Grose and Lockwood). The only relevant hits for “Dutch” or “Netherlands” were in Lockwood (pg 40) and Hall. Apparently “in February 1942…Dutch DC3s which commuted between Australia and the fast-diminishing remnants of the Dutch East Indies” also used the Darwin airstrip (Hall pg 27, that was a freebie) so it is reasonable to expect a few Dutch colonists were there the 19th .

Since no other source you or I have found mentions refugees, Filipinos or Dutch people being there February 19 it’s logical to assume not many (if any) were still there at the time. Since the only reference to migrant workers is about them leaving I don't expect many were there either. None of the hits for Aborigines indicated any were killed other than a young girl the Territorial Administrator was criticized for not getting better medical attention. If you really are interested in getting to the truth you should get the above mentioned books which are available in numerous libraries in Australia but apparently not in any Brazilian ones. The Lockwood and Hall books are snippet view only but I included as much of the relevant passages as I could see at the end of this post.

http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Australia...qt=results_page

"As I've indicated - default assumption - given various known conditions would be that the refugees were still in Darwin at the time of the attacks. And that fits with eye-witness reports of bodies being towed to sea. Those bodies would only be of people who "didn't count" "

Report, you have only one and it is a 2nd hand paraphrase, we don’t even know his name. As for your “default assumption” see above.

As for my quote, my point was that a number close to the still official death toll was made public with in weeks, its placement was irrelevant and the story did make it to the front page of at least one Australian newspaper.

Ah yes, the Canberra Times with a circulation of about 50. But you're right. This gets a bit more prominence on the front page.

We only know of the article’s placement in 2 papers, page 1 in one, page 3 in the other.

"Wonder why?? Oh, I know! Shades of Dealey Plaza and the call to "get something out quickly to show that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone". Propaganda needs prominence to put the public back to sleep."

Wait are you complaining that the story was given too little or too much “prominence”? Both can’t be true.

"This bit of blarney for instance, sticks to the figure of 15 dead by way of saying that was the civilian toll. The balance were all military. It goes on to say that "the damage done to Darwin was very small..." And you accuse me of BS and accept this as true? Or did they only lie about the damage but were truthful about the death toll?"

Based on the Lowe Report and seemingly the conclusion of every historian to study the attacks (other perhaps than Forrest) - yes, the number of dead was close to the true number Curtin's assessment of the damage however was not straight forward. I don’t know of anyone claiming Lowe underestimated the damage, he said several buildings were “a total loss”.

Nope I still think all your misquotes were due to shoddy research rather than attempted fraud and until you can spell out another alternative those are the only two possibilities.

Trouble is, you've labelled it both in different parts of the same post. You can't keep track of the type of attack you're trying to mount, but I'll help you sort that out when you lose track. Fair enough?

Typical neither an admission nor a denial nor an explanation of why you so severely mangled the quote. And no I don’t believe you quasi-denial.

I didn't mangle any quotes. That's not to say I didn't make a mistake, but I'm having way too much fun watching you thrash about looking for "gotcha" moments to interfere in your antics.

No I never said or indicated I thought you did it on purpose. Odd that you almost admit making a mistake but deny mangling the quote. It referred to the March 3 attack on Broome you cited it as if it referred to Darwin 2 weeks earlier, how does that not constitute mangling?

and continue to quote sources you haven’t read carefully. The Wikipedia article you cited provided only one citation and it was to…to… (can you guess?), that’s right to the Nizkor page I cited! But wait it also has an “External Link” to a site called “The Fallacy Files” but it is to its entry on “Appeal to Misleading Authority”

Well, here's the link I provided for that cite. Anyone is free to go to it and see who wiki cited.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_qu..._out_of_context

For those who couldn't be bothered checking, but are willing to take the word of this BS artist, here are wikis sources:

References

1. ^ Ivor H. Evans, editor, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 14th edition, Harper & Row, 1989, ISBN 0-06-016200-7,

2. ^ Yale Book of Quotations [1]

p158

3. ^ AJ Giannini. Use of fiction in therapy. Psychiatric Times. 18(7):56-57,2001.

[edit] External links

* The Black-or-White Fallacy

entry in The Fallacy Files

Not a Nizkor citation in sight. I'm sure Len has an explanation.

My god you really showing how confused you are now. Did you down a couple of Foster’s “oil cans” or smoke some doobies before posting? I cited the wiki page on out of context quotes YOU cited their page about “Argument from authority”. That page has only one link and it’s to Nizkor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

There were an estimated 900 to 1100 killed in the initial bombings."

Estimated by a few old men decades after the fact, a number not supported by anyone who researched what happened that day. I have repeatedly suggested you consult the 1966 book by a journalist who was there that day, but you’ve show no interest in it. Most curious.

Cute. Those "old men" had told the same story when they were young to family members.

I don’t suppose a citation for this claim will be forthcoming?

"You yourself have provided quotes to the effect that there were large numbers of Aborigines in Darwin. As I have explained already, they were non-citizens ie not counted in the census data."

You are correct but your theory still faces enormous hurdles only about 40 – 60 civilians including about 30 dock workers out of a civilian population of 2000 were known to have been killed (Lowe, the Darwin plaque and Grose give similar numbers), a fatality rate of about 3%. But as you would have it for reasons unknown the number of “non-citizens” killed would be 10 – 30 X that (600 – 1200). Thus one would have to conclude that there were about 20 – 60,000 “non-citizens” in town or for reasons unknown they were far more likely to get killed. And since only about 30 allied soldiers were killed the would have had to have been far more likely than military personnel on the ground to get killed

But obviously there weren't ten of thousands of non-citzens in Darwin and based on the available evidence white Australians were more likely to be victims that day because the locations that were attacked were mostly government buildings. According to the Lowe Report (pgs 8 & 13) the ‘civilian’ facilities struck were the warf, “the Administrator's Office…Government House…The Police Barracks…The Post Office , the Telegraph Office, the Cable Office…The Civil Hospital…two or three private residences... the Guinea Airways hangar…three huts [at the air field]… the hospital at Berrima.” I imagine you will object to the source but doubt you will find reports of serious damage to other locations. So where did the hundreds of Aborigines etc get killed?

Also there seems to be little dispute that about 300 – 400 people were injured, that was Lowe’s estimate. According to Wikipedia citing a book not available online the estimate was over 400 with 200 seriously injured, Womack said the number was 311. I have not seen any one challenge these numbers. Except for people in ships that were sunk we would expect there to be more injured than killed but if we were to accept the numbers you’re pushing 2 – 5x more people were killed than injured.

Another hurdle is that 600 – 1200 people, even non-citizens would have several times that many friends and relatives. Though you’re right that Aborigines, migrants and refugees probably wouldn’t have been missed by white Australians they would have been by their friends and relatives. Have you heard any reports of people complaining that their father, brother, mother, uncle, friend etc disappeared or was killed and had their body unceremoniously dumped at sea or bull dozered into a mass grave? No? Why not? I mean Aborigines started speaking up about the “Stolen Generation” and other travesties committed against their people years ago, but none, not one it seems has said anything about the hundreds of their people who were killed in the raids and had their bodies dumped at sea. I suggest you contact the main Aboriginal groups in the NT and tell them they should look into it. I imagine that as with most tribal people Aborigines put a great deal of importance on proper burial and would be extremely offended by their relatives’ bodies being treated in such away. This would probably interfere with their progression to the next life according to their religion.

One large group of migrant men refused to give their seats on a plane to pregnant women but you think they or others would remain silent forever about the death/ disappearance / unceremonious burial of friends and family?

Nope all you have is a handful of excerpts of decades after the fact witness accounts and you have no way of knowing if they are representative. Based on what Peter Forrest said I doubt they are. He told ABC:

“I'm completely satisfied, from talking to people who survived, that the death toll could have been anything up to double that 243.

On the other hand, I have spoken to people who were here and they reckon it could have been anything up to 1,500.”

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2002/s485505.htm

In other words though some witnesses think “up to 1,500” were killed most put the toll under 486.

that day let alone been subject to attack, let alone killed. Nor have you even attempted to explain why the government would admit to the deaths of foreign troops and Australians but cover up the death of foreign civilians.

I thought it was self-evident as to why they would. Theywanted the appearance of a low death toll - hard to hide civilian and military deaths - not so hard to hide the deaths of people whose identity is not recorded. Just tow those bodies out to sea... problem solved.

I don’t think most Australians would have cared much about Aborigines getting killed.

Nor why opposition parties would keep quiet.

Tweedle dee and tweedle dum when it comes to anything of any importance.

Odd then mid-century Australian politics must have been very different from other parts of the world. The party out of power in the US has never shied away from criticizing the president’s conduct during wartime presidential and midterm elections. There have even been problems with in parties LBJ was challenged for the nomination in 1968 and in 1863 there was talk or replacing Lincoln as the Republican nominee in the 1864 election. And just off the top of my head the PM’s wartime conduct has been an issue in elections in Israel and participation in unpopular wars (think Iraq) has been one in Spain, Italy and even yes Australia. In Georgia opposition parties led demonstrations against Saakashvili over the Ossetia debacle. But I guess the UAP/Liberal Party in Australia and were different - they preferred to loose the 1943 and 46 elections rather than bring up a serious case of misconduct.

But my extensive research into the subject (i.e. 5 – 10 minutes on Wikipedia) indicated that 1940’s Australian politics weren’t so unforgiving, in 1940 with the country technically at war Labour refused to form a coalition with the UAP, soon Robert Menzies, the PM was undercut by members of his own party and in 1941 was forced out as PM and party leader, soon after that Labour gained control. After the 1943 election Menzies regained control of his party but in 1944 dissolved it to start a new one, his new party was defeated in 1946 and he only regained power in 1949 after he led opposition to Labour’s plans to nationalize banks. He was Australia’s (and one of the world’s) longest serving PM’s he spent a quarter century as leader of one his country two main parties, he was obviously a very ambitious man. Yet you think he and his parties’ would have kept quiet? He made a stink about bank privatization but said nothing about a major cover up? Sorry that rationalization makes even less sense than the “Apollo hoax” proponents rationalization that the USSR kept quiet because they were afraid the US would stop selling them grain.

Was he [LBJ] aware of the LC? Since it was even reported in US newspapers I imagine so. Was he aware of any of the specifics of how it operated? I doubt it. Was he aware of the LC’s supposed rule in covering up the supposedly higher death toll? You’ve got nothing but speculation.

What you doubt is of course, up to you. As for it being speculative - of course it is! Your point being?

It is not however, speculation out of thin air. A commission to serve a political aim rather than the truth was exactly the sought thing that would interest a politician of LBJ's calibre. And the fact is, he employed the same technique a bit over twenty years later...

Of course it’s nothing more than “speculation out of thin air” your case that 900 or more people were killed is more legless than a billion worms and you’ve presented zero evidence that Lowe was aware of these supposed additional fatalities. All you have is about 5 eyewitness reports out of the thousands of survivors and the barely interesting footnote that LBJ was briefly in the country well almost 2 months after Lowe reported on the number of people killed in Darwin.

Excerpts from

Australia's Pearl Harbour: Darwin, 1942 By Douglas Lockwood

http://books.google.com/books?id=C-M_AAAAYAAJ

AND

Darwin 1942: Australia's darkest hour By Timothy Hall

http://books.google.com/books?id=sC4aAAAAMAAJ

Lockwood

PG 40

Darwin then had a second aerodrome at Parap between the town and the RAAF base. It was used principally by civil airliners, such as they were, flying scheduled services from Adelaide and Brisbane, and by Dutch DC3s. It was here that Ross and Keith Smith

PG 162

Not until February 21 did Abbott go to Adelaide River. His visit was then necessary, and requested by Blake, to help clear the area of about five hundred civilian refugees. Every one was medically examined and three hundred were called up for military service. The remainder were sent south by rail and road. Abbott arranged for rations to be issued to these men, and for the collection and return to Darwin of municipal vehicles needed to resume the town’s sanitary and garbage services.”

I imagine the refugees would not have spent a long time in Darwin it would be easier to take of them near the large population centers to the south. Presumably the ships bringing supplies to Darwin returned pretty much empty

Hall

PG 10

…Harbour. Darwin was now actually inside the battle area and each…and the Territory’s Administrator was instructed to have the first batch of evacuees ready to travel south on the Zealandia on about 19 February. From then there was a steady exodus of refugees in ships of all sizes. State Premiers had been alerted to expect the refugees and reacted with fulsome promises of help, tempered in some states. South Australia was warned to expect about two thousand, including 'a small number of Australian-born Chinese'. The prospect of the Chinese seemed to bother the South Australians more than the two thousand Europeans and Premier Playford sent a cautionary warning to…

PG 11

…whatever they could scourage along the way till they reached Adelaide.

On 18 February the last plane load of priority refugees whom the government had ordered out urgently two months earlier finally…

PG 12

one of the more unedifying sights in Darwin had been of able-bodied men physically pushing women and children aside to buy for their own use seats that had been ear-marked for the evacuees. These men, a large number of whom were migrant workers, took so many of the seats originally allocated to the evacuees that it was more by chance than good management that the women and children had been evacuated by the time the Japanese finally attacked

PG 13

…evacuation plan went to the airlines and pleaded with them to take several pregnant women who were among the refugees waiting to be air-lifted to safety. A similar plea to a group of migrant laborers who had just bought seats on the aircraft went completely unheeded.

When the last of the women and children had gone, those left behind had time to wonder, in some cases for the first time, what lay in store for them.

PG 27

In February 1942 the civil aerodrome was used by the few airliners which still

came in to Darwin on scheduled services to Brisbane and Adelaide; and by Dutch DC3s which commuted between Australia and the fast-diminishing remnants of the Dutch East Indies. The RAAF also kept a detachment of Wirraway trainers there....

Edited October 8, 2009 by Len Colby