Moderated JFK conspiracy theories: it never ends III

[catsmate]

So. No evidence there should be a smell. No evidence if a smell was there or not. No reason the smell would be noticable in open air.

Exactly.

Why should this be considered anything but outlaying reports from falliable humans?

Probably no reason, and that's assuming such reports actually exists. Given the propensity for conspiracy peddlers to lie and fabricate any such claims should be scrutinised.

He/she hasn't even told us who these witnesses are or where we can find their testimonies. We're supposed to just take it on faith that "people" said this, and therefore, that it happened.

Indeed.

 

[manifesto]

Because you look at the world through a conspiratorial filter?

Is that a question?

Nope. Of course I don't suffer from a desperate need to distort facts to support my opinions either.

Have your mother told you that several times?

No not really. Three medium rifle shots, fired out a window (and thus with most of the propellant gases exiting immediately) wouldn't leave much residue, and that would have dissipated.

Most? Could you be more precise?

I note that you've utterly failed to address my points are resorting to the argument from incredulity fallacy.

What points?

Nor have you provided any evidence whatsoever to support your assertions.

If there were three rounds fired minutes before the first witnesses arrived, there should be a smell of gunpowder. It tends to stick around for awhile. Should be easy to reproduce, btw.

 

[JayUtah]

What points?

You claim there are witnesses to the smell of gunpowder on or near the Grassy Knoll. You have been asked to provide references or citations to that testimony, but you have not provided it. Please provide it.

If there were three rounds fired minutes before the first witnesses arrived, there should be a smell of gunpowder. It tends to stick around for awhile.

What is the basis of your statement that the smell of gunpowder "tends to stick around for awhile?"

 

[thedopefishlives]

You claim there are witnesses to the smell of gunpowder on or near the Grassy Knoll. You have been asked to provide references or citations to that testimony, but you have not provided it. Please provide it.

I have asked this question twice (three times now, with this post), and have yet to get a response. Manifesto, are you intending to provide the names, and links to the testimony, of the witnesses to this gunpowder smell in the motorcade and on the grassy knoll? "Put up or shut up", as the saying goes; please provide your evidence or withdraw your affirmative claim.

 

[LSSBB]

I have asked this question twice (three times now, with this post), and have yet to get a response. Manifesto, are you intending to provide the names, and links to the testimony, of the witnesses to this gunpowder smell in the motorcade and on the grassy knoll? "Put up or shut up", as the saying goes; please provide your evidence or withdraw your affirmative claim.

I'm getting serious "40 medical witnesses" vibes here...

 

[abaddon]

Because you look at the world through a conspiratorial filter?

Is that a question?

See that wiggly thing at the end of the sentence? It's called a question mark and denotes a question.

Nope. Of course I don't suffer from a desperate need to distort facts to support my opinions either.

Have your mother told you that several times?

The best you can come up with is "your momma"? Really?

No not really. Three medium rifle shots, fired out a window (and thus with most of the propellant gases exiting immediately) wouldn't leave much residue, and that would have dissipated.

Most? Could you be more precise?

Why? You are not precise at all.

I note that you've utterly failed to address my points are resorting to the argument from incredulity fallacy.

What points?

Reading comprehension fail.

Nor have you provided any evidence whatsoever to support your assertions.

If there were three rounds fired minutes before the first witnesses arrived, there should be a smell of gunpowder. It tends to stick around for awhile. Should be easy to reproduce, btw.

No. That is not evidence, that is an unevidenced claim. Feel free to provide evidence that "there should be a smell of gunpowder". Feel free to provide evidence that gunpowder was even present.

 

[catsmate]

Is that a question?

No. It's an observation

Have your mother told you that several times?

Aww, is someone's ego feeling a little bruised?

Most? Could you be more precise?

Yes, but given your demonstrated lack of understanding of how a rifle operates it may be difficult for your to grasp; however here goes.

A firearm works by containing the deflagration of a propellant mixture within a sturdy, usually metal, tube (a 'barrel' as it's known) and directing the gaseous fraction of the combustion products out a narrow bore, pushing a projectile (usually a single solid 'bullet') ahead.

Most of said gases therefore exit out the end of the 'barrel' along with the projectile; if the weapon (in this particular case a type referred to as a 'rifle') is pointed out a window most of the gases (which are moving rather quickly) exit into the air.

A small amount of the gases will exit through parts of the structure of the 'rifle' usually the loading aperture.

What points?

Your allegations that:
1. If there rifle had been fired from the TSBD there would have been a detectable odour.
2. That such odour was not in fact present.
3. That if the rifle had been fired from the "grassy knoll" there would have been a detectable odour.
2. That such odour was noticed by contemporaneous witnesses and noted then.

You have supported none of these.

If there were three rounds fired minutes before the first witnesses arrived, there should be a smell of gunpowder.

Bald assertion.

It tends to stick around for awhile.

Unsupported opinion.

Should be easy to reproduce, btw.

Why haven't you done this then?

 

[Matthew Best]

A group of conspiracy theorists are on a conspiracy tour bus, going by all the biggest and most controversial events in American history. Suddenly, a deer runs onto the road. The driver shrieks, he tries to avoid the animal but ends up steering the bus off the road, into a ravine.
Instantly, all of the people on the bus find themselves surrounded by white clouds, and angel music. Before them, a large and golden gate opens up, and from it an old and wise man with a long beard appears.
"Hello, I am God, and welcome to heaven. Before I let you into heaven, you may ask me one single question, and I will answer it truthfully."
The group comes together and discusses for a while about the question they want to ask. After 10 minutes of discussion, the leader of the group steps forward.
"Who killed JFK?" he asks God.
God strokes his beard as he thinks deeply. He then answers:
"Lee Harvey Oswald, sixth story of the Texas School Book Depository, using a rifle."
God turns around and begins to lead the group through the gates, into heaven. At the back of the group, two men stand next to each other. One leans into the other and whispers:
"This goes higher than we thought."

 

[TheRedWorm]

1. Lots of testimonies of smelling gunpowder in the motorcade and on the "grassy knoll".

2. No smell of gunpowder inside 6th floor TSBD from three high powered rifle rounds minutes after the shooting.


Do you have any experience with nitro powders exploding inside a room? It smells for days even if you leave the windows wide open. Why is there no witness talking of the smell?

Have you ever smelled gunpowder from a freshly fired firearm?

 

[thedopefishlives]

I'm getting serious "40 medical witnesses" vibes here...

Funny, I thought the exact same thing. But at least Robert Prey eventually named names.

 

[RoboTimbo]

1. Lots of testimonies of smelling gunpowder in the motorcade and on the "grassy knoll".

Can you link to those testimonies of smelling gunpowder? I only find two occurrences of the word "gunpowder" in the WCR, neither in the context of smelling it.

2. No smell of gunpowder inside 6th floor TSBD from three high powered rifle rounds minutes after the shooting.

Can you link to the testimonies of those who said they didn't smell gunpowder from Oswald's sniper's nest?

Do you have any experience with nitro powders exploding inside a room?

Yes.

It smells for days even if you leave the windows wide open.

No.

Why is there no witness talking of the smell?

You said above that there were testimonies to that effect.

 

[JayUtah]

Funny, I thought the exact same thing. But at least Robert Prey eventually named names.

Never the same names twice, though. When pressed to give a definite list and defend each, he presented one name whose testimony was subsequently rebutted. This "unfair" treatment motivated Prey disavowed any further obligation to name any other witnesses.

This does seem like a repeat: unwillingness to actually present and defend evidence.

 

[TheRedWorm]

Never the same names twice, though. When pressed to give a definite list and defend each, he presented one name whose testimony was subsequently rebutted. This "unfair" treatment motivated Prey disavowed any further obligation to name any other witnesses.

This does seem like a repeat: unwillingness to actually present and defend evidence.

I do suppose that if they had any, they wouldn't be JFK CTs.

 

[LSSBB]

Funny, I thought the exact same thing. But at least Robert Prey eventually named names.

Only because he stole shamelessly from others.

 

[thedopefishlives]

I've answered all the questions. If you chose to continue on the straw man trail, you're indeed proving my point. Good hunting ...

You never answered my question. You keep alluding to "talk" of gunpowder smell. Who talked about it, and where is their testimony? If you can't or won't answer it, then I don't care what you call yourself, you're a wooster. You made an affirmative claim, now show the evidence to back it up. You can call that groupthink or whatever fancy label helps you sleep at night; I call it not believing everything I read on the Internet.

 

[manifesto]

You never answered my question. You keep alluding to "talk" of gunpowder smell. Who talked about it, and where is their testimony? If you can't or won't answer it, then I don't care what you call yourself, you're a wooster. You made an affirmative claim, now show the evidence to back it up. You can call that groupthink or whatever fancy label helps you sleep at night; I call it not believing everything I read on the Internet.

You don't get it do you? I'm not asserting that 'testimonies' of smell of gunpowder in and around the grassy knoll and the motorcade is evidence of shooting in this same areas. I'm proposing that (with this in mind) it is peculiar that no testimony, - or talk of testimony of smell of gunpowder on 6th floor of the TSBD has been reported. Get it?

Here is a reference to "lots of testimonies ... " ...

The Scent of Gunpowder on the Knoll

Right after the shots were fired, several witnesses reported smelling gunpowder on or near the grassy knoll. British journalist Anthony Summers:

Three witnesses in the motorcade--the Mayor's wife, Mrs. Cabell, Senator Ralph Yarborough, and Congressman Ray Roberts--all later mentioned the acrid smell in the air. It is highly improbable that any of these people--sweeping past in the motorcade--could have picked up the smell of gunpowder from a sixth-floor window high above them. It is remarkable too that they could have smelled it from the grassy knoll, but it seems it was in that general area that they did notice it. Police Officer Earle Brown, on duty at the railway bridge, and Mrs. Donald Baker, at the other end of the knoll, reported the same distinctive smell. Another policeman, Patrolman Joe Smith, was holding up traffic across the road from the Texas School Book Depository when the motorcade passed by. He heard gunfire, and when a woman cried out, "They're shooting the President from the bushes!" Smith ran to the grassy knoll, the only bushy place in the area. In 1978 he still remembered what he reported shortly after the assassination, that in the parking lot, "around the hedges, there was the smell, the lingering smell of gunpowder." (Summers 29)

http://michaelgriffith1.tripod.com/knoll.htm

... and as I said, I have no opinion on the quality of this testimonies. I'm stating that, with this testimonies in mind (false or true), I find it peculiar that there is no mention of the same in the TSBD, nor was it investigated. Why?

 

[I Ratant]

Griffith is a well-known conspiracy nut. I've had many exchanges with him years back.
A stereotypical "true believer", and immune to criticisms and discussions of the flaws in his reasoning.
There has been NO credible indication that anyone other than Oswald with his Carcano shot JFK. (Ever shot one? I have. A formidable weapon, and was the Italian Army rifle for almost a century, until they adopted the NATO rifle. Their competition team used the Carcano long after that, it was such a good weapon.)
I have a shelf of books all claiming conspiracy, and every one fails to prove diddly.
Any serious researcher would first read the WCR... all of it.
That makes the errors of omission and flat-out lies in the Conspiracy Twinkie books very obvious.

 

[manifesto]

Griffith is a well-known conspiracy nut. I've had many exchanges with him years back.

This is as you know irrelevant for the discussion at hand.

 

[JayUtah]

This is as you know irrelevant for the discussion at hand.

Nonsense. All your alleged testimony comes third-hand from him, from second-hand sources he supposedly consulted. When you rely upon an author to collate and present evidence, that author's reputation for having done so correctly and faithfully is definitely not irrelevant.

In a debate, you don't get to ignore the reliability of your sources.

 

[Border Reiver]

Griffith is a well-known conspiracy nut. I've had many exchanges with him years back.

Michael Griffith posts on this forum as "bobtaftfan" - he tends to post and run.