JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales

[Tomtomkent]

You have a small hole 2 centimeters to the right and just above the EOP, and a large hole on the top-right side of the head. The trajectory of the bullet was downwards and your subject was sitting upright. Connect the dots without having a lot of damage to the cerebellum. If you can not, the damage was caused by separate bullets.

Well, there's your problem.

You have ignored the autopsy, the photographs, and the x-rays, and are still placing the bullet hole 100mm too low, then try to draw the path on a side elevation.

But what the hey...

 

[Axxman300]

This is a battle of evidence.

You have none. Speculation is not evidence.

The entry point on Kennedy's skull is higher than you postulate, and everybody knows it but you.

You've started from a bad premise: the official reports are wrong, or have been altered due to a cover up.

There is evidence that RFK interfered with elements of the investigation where it strayed into Cuba to protect his brother's legacy (and his own butt). This never extended to the autopsy. More to the point, there was no reason to alter autopsy evidence because at the time JFK was on the table the investigation was only days old.

No JFK-CTer has ever explained how an actual conspiracy would have made a difference in whatever outcome the evil cabal had planned. Seriously, why couldn't Oswald have been one of two gunmen? What does that change? If Oswald was killed as part of the same conspiracy then the other gunman dies too before he talks, so what changes?

Nothing changes.

Instead of a lone loser history records two losers killing the President. Oswald wasn't the only unstable hack in Dallas, so finding him a partner would have been easy for your evil cabal. The truth is that a second gunman wouldn't have been a big deal, so why fake autopsy evidence? The second gunman gets away, and Johnson has a green light to roust every Commie in the Southern US. Wasn't that the plan? Hell, why not make the second gunman Vietnamese?

Oswald was the lone gunman. He was a good shot, and he got lucky for a few seconds, and that is where ALL of the evidence leads if you look at it honestly.

 

[Tomtomkent]

My established claim is that a bullet entered near the EOP, slightly damaged the brain, and smashed the base of the skull. This is based on evidence. I am not shifting the burden of proof.

HSienzant, connect point A to point B without demolishing the cerebellum.

[qimg]https://i.imgur.com/mu71GAy.jpg[/qimg]

You failed to establish the claim. Remember? All you had to do was find the measurement given in the autopsy? You failed? And the photographs that disprove your claim?

The actual entry wound is high enough to miss the cerebellum.

 

[Tomtomkent]

I think you know the answer, so you must cling to the notion that literally everybody who saw the body is wrong.

Yeah, go on. Play your red spot. Play so you can't BS.

Do you think it is at all possible you are wrong about what they saw? Given that you haven't read the autopsy to find out and all...

 

[Regnad Kcin]

Sure, nobody here is going to be convinced of anything new. I didn't think that's what this post was for. This is a battle of evidence.

Well, no. But once again, making things up isn't "anything new;" conspiracy authors have been at it for decades.

 

[HSienzant]

Sure, nobody here is going to be convinced of anything new. I didn't think that's what this post was for. This is a battle of evidence.

But what you've cited is hearsay, recollections from 30 or more years after the fact, conspiracy theorists who aren't experts in any field pertinent to the discussion, and quotes out of context.

I don't recall seeing a lot of evidence.

I, on the other hand, most recently cited the experiments using human cadaver skulls shot with Carcano ammo from Oswald's weapon [evidence], the photos of the results [evidence], and the opinion of the wound ballistics expert who conducted that experiment [evidence].

You hand-waved it away, saying you were talking about the brain, addressing none of the points, while in truth you were talking about the skull until the moment you were presented with the contrary evidence of the skull experiments by Dr. Olivier.

You've been presented by others with the photos [evidence] and x-rays [evidence], and the expert opinion on where the bullet entered [evidence] and what damage it caused [evidence], and you've declined to accept that, substituting your own non-expert views, garnered apparently from four non-expert conspiracy theorists, on where the bullet entered and what damage it caused.

You also conjectured a second bullet striking the head, a bullet that no expert could find any evidence of. You also conjectured a path for one of those bullets that no expert who examined the extant autopsy materials found any evidence of, and claimed one of these two head strike bullets allowed JFK to continue to sit upright and point to his throat despite it damaging, in your view, the region of the brain that controlled motor functions.

Your arguments don't make any sense.

So I'm unclear why you would want to proclaim that this is a battle of evidence. You have none.

Or why you would proclaim you've established anything. You have not.

Hank

 

[MicahJava]

Axxman300 - I don't think any of the films have to be altered or fabricated for me to be right. Don't get me wrong, a lot of lies were told around the dinner table.

 

[MicahJava]

HSienzant - X-rays can be misinterpreted, especially if the official story is at stake. According to the mouths of Humes, Boswell, Finck, and Stringer - four people who actually saw every crevice of the head - photographs have been misinterpreted.

Don't you realize that you're saying that literally everybody who was there is wrong? Where are your problem-solving skills?

 

[Tomtomkent]

Don't you realize that you're saying that literally everybody who was there is wrong? Where are your problem-solving skills?

But he isn't.

Your interpretation is wrong. The autopsy records, the WCR testimony of the autopsy team, the review board testimony, all prove it.

You would know this, if you ever actually read the autopsy, instead of your conspiracy books.

 

[Axxman300]

Axxman300 - I don't think any of the films have to be altered or fabricated for me to be right. Don't get me wrong, a lot of lies were told around the dinner table.

But you're entire premise is that the pictures and evidence has been altered or fabricated.

You're failing like I did for 30+ years as a JFK-CT buffoon. I will say it again, if you want to waste time looking for proof of a conspiracy you will NEVER find it in Dealey Plaza, you will NEVER find it in the autopsy. The only places you can look are in the few unaccounted for hours of Oswald's daily life...I did, and all I found was a sad, pathetic little man who wanted to be somebody. A man who bought a cheap-but-powerful rifle to intentionally kill someone, and ended up killing two people while luck intervened to keep him from killing four.

That's right - Oswald would have killed FOUR men had the general not ducked, and had the arresting DPD officer not grabbed his revolver, wedging his hand in between the hammer before it made contact.

How many attempts does it take before you realize that Oswald was a killer?

 

[CORed]

Sure, nobody here is going to be convinced of anything new. I didn't think that's what this post was for. This is a battle of evidence.

You have yet to present anything new.

 

[MicahJava]

But he isn't.

Your interpretation is wrong. The autopsy records, the WCR testimony of the autopsy team, the review board testimony, all prove it.

You would know this, if you ever actually read the autopsy, instead of your conspiracy books.

Gee, some actual refutation sure would be refreshing right about now.

 

[Tomtomkent]

Gee, some actual refutation sure would be refreshing right about now.

You have offered no evidence to refute.

You have to make a claim and actually support it with objective evidence, for there to be something to refute.

 

[BStrong]

You have yet to present anything new.

If the poster is to be believed, his interest in the subject matter developed at the time they signed up for this site.

*Join Date: Jan 2016*

So he's 11 months into a subject some of us have been interested in and have studied from day one.

What is new to them has already passed under the bridge long ago for the rest of us.

 

[HSienzant]

HSienzant - X-rays can be misinterpreted, especially if the official story is at stake.

Are you claiming all the experts are wrong? If you are, please present the evidence of that. If you're only suggesting it as a possibility, and don't intend to present any evidence for it, then there's nothing here to debate. Until you put forth a falsifiable claim that can be tested against the evidence, you might as well be daydreaming.

According to the mouths of Humes, Boswell, Finck, and Stringer - four people who actually saw every crevice of the head - photographs have been misinterpreted.

You are now referencing - are you not - the recollections of these men from about 35 years after the autopsy, the recollections they gave to the Assassination Records Review Board? Why do you think any testimony they gave there was of value?

I will remind you once again of what ARRB itself said in its final report about the testimony it took on the medical evidence (Chapter six, pages 123-124):

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/review-board/report/arrb-final-report.pdf
Finally, a significant problem that is well known to trial lawyers, judges, and psychologists,is the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Witnesses frequently, and inaccurately, believe that they have a vivid recollection of events. Psychologists and scholars have long since demonstrated the serious unreliability of peoples’ recollections of what they hear and see. One illustration of this was an interview statement made by one of the treating physicians at Parkland. He explained that he was in Trauma Room Number 1 with the President. He recounted how he observed the First Lady wearing a white dress. Of course, she was wearing a pink suit, a fact known to most Americans. The inaccuracy of his recollection probably says little about the quality of the doctor’s memory, but it is revealing of how the memory works and how cautious one must be when attempting to evaluate eyewitness testimony.

The deposition transcripts and other medical evidence that were released by the Review Board should be evaluated cautiously by the public. Often the witnesses contradict not only each other, but sometimes themselves. For events that transpired almost 35 years ago, all persons are likely to have failures of memory. It would be more prudent to weigh all of the evidence, with due concern for human error, rather than take single statements as "proof" for one theory or another.

And in addition to cherry-picking the parts you like, you are now changing the subject from the x-rays to the photos, aren't you?

Don't you realize that you're saying that literally everybody who was there is wrong?

Straw man argument. You cannot get solid evidence from 35-year-after the-fact recollections. You get gibberish, faulty recollections, contradictions between witnesses, heck, even contradictions within the testimony of the same witness. All fertile ground for conspiracy theorists to pick the parts they like to build a theory to sell. And those recollections are a central part of your argument, aren't they?

Where are your problem-solving skills?

I used them to solve the JFK assassination by reading the eyewitness testimony thoroughly, the expert testimony, review all the evidence, and make up my own mind, after conspiracy books totally contradicted each other and left me confused.

You read four conspiracy books and came here to debate this, thinking you were adequately prepared. Not really.

Hank

 

[Tomtomkent]

You are now referencing - are you not - the recollections of these men from about 35 years after the autopsy, the recollections they gave to the Assassination Records Review Board? Why do you think any testimony they gave there was of value?

More importantly, far from seeing every nook and cranny of JK's head, they admitted not lifting the head to inspect the back. This was discussed at length, in several incarnations of this thread when Robert Prey was failing to prove the back of the head was blown out.

 

[MicahJava]

HSienzant - My experts were there with the body. Your experts weren't. The autopsy professionals and many witnesses agreed on the placement of the small head wound from day one, and they have been specifically denying the "new and improved" placement since 1969. Humes was coerced on this issue in 1978, but afterwards he just went right back to insisting that the wound was low in the head. We've been over this. If you say this is an exclusively ARRB thing, you are confused or are trying to confuse others reading this thread.

Don't you see that out of all the theories about what wounds Kennedy had, the cowlick wound is one of the least credible?

 

[Tomtomkent]

HSienzant - My experts were there with the body. Your experts weren't. The autopsy professionals and many witnesses agreed on the placement of the small head wound from day one,

And yet you won't prove this by supplying all pertinent measurements from the autopsy. Why use the vague word "slightly" and rely on subjective descriptions? Show us an actual measurement.

 

[MicahJava]

And yet you won't prove this by supplying all pertinent measurements from the autopsy. Why use the vague word "slightly" and rely on subjective descriptions? Show us an actual measurement.

If they bothered to measure out "two centimeters to the right", I tend to think that by "slightly above", they mean "less than one centimeter above".

 

[Tomtomkent]

Just on the off chance we have any lurkers reading this, let's pause a moment and consider the importance of objective evidence over subjective.

Let's start with subjective evidence, like witness testimony:

People like to say stuff like: "Oh boy, working on the president? You best believe that people would remember it!" As though that means "Oh boy! Their memories would be really, really accurate!" To some degree that is true. But that degree is considerably less than you would expect. You don't record images in your head in perfect detail. You record key details, and your imagination fills in blanks to pad out a memory.

But here is the thing: Those details are not the ones you would expect.

Play a game. Talk to a friend, or relative, and ask them to describe three days in absolute detail. Two should be really important days, like their marriage, or a car accident. The third is a simple lie. "The day you got lost in the mall", or "that tenner you owe me." The more detail they went into for the first two, the more likely they will make up a new memory for the third.

We remember emotional detail. We remember being afraid, or sickened, more clearly than what we saw or heard. And, without realising it, we might influence our memories. If there is a lot of talk of the bullet being in one place, we will convince ourselves our memories match the group 'truth'.

The people who perform autopsies, or conduct investigations know this. They know people will be completely honest with their answers, but they might only have seen some of the detail, or remembered measurements as a ball park figure.

So we have x-rays, and photos, measurements and records. We can check if these are accurate. We can check if these are fakes, forged, etc. We can check measurements.

Here is the problem: MichaJava thinks the Objective records are wrong because of what people may, or may not remember. (A lot of his claims have been shown to be cherry picked, out of context, and have failed to stand up to scrutiny. But let's pretend for the sake of argument they weren't.) He looks at the testimony, he looks at the objective evidence, and he thinks the records were forged because they are "wrong".

In the real world, we check how accurate a witness testimony is by comparing it to the objective evidence, not the other way around. When we see anomalies in the testimony, we check the measurements they took at the time, we don't make up fairy tales about the autopsy being altered.

We can see the entry wound, in the photographs, that match the autopsy, that match the xrays, and we can see why Michajava refuses to be more accurate than "slightly above" in his location of the wound. He needs to ignore the evidence to cling to his theory.