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Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part IV

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Vixen, what happened to your post?



Edited by zooterkin: 
Do not alter other member's names in order to ridicule or insult them.
 
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zooterkin said:
Look, a squirrel!
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Indeed, a post calculated -- and I use the term loosely -- to strengthen the illusion that Vixen is competent in physics without her having to display any actual skill at the subject.

Of course there are proofs of Archimedes' discoveries, and not just his work in displacement and buoyancy. The most satisfying proofs are empirical. Similarly there are many ways in which one can try to prove one is competent in physics. But the only one that matters is the empirical one: one actually has to be able to do physics. Telling dubious stories about her prowess at school, the praise of her teachers, etc. simply will not substitute.

A fair amount of Vixen's claims either base themselves on physical science principles, or are testable by those means. She's hitched her wagon to a claimant, Anders Björkman, who she believe has her back when it comes to science; she can just parrot what he says and no real scientist would be able to argue against it. But when it comes to science, the man is an obvious crackpot with no discernible skill at physics, or at best no discernible desire to represent it accurately. What's more important is that her critics have the knowledge and skill to see this for themselves while she's still wallowing in ignorant bluffs. Her critics also have the knowledge and skill to know -- not just guess or suppose -- but to know that she don't have any idea what she's talking about when it comes to the physical science portion of her claims. That knowledge is not going to be displaced by her nostalgic recollections of questionable authenticity.

She keeps peppering us with ill-conceived questions such as how a ship can "float on its superstructure." She considers it an unshakable article of faith that any ship, once it has passed its angle of vanishing stability, will turtle. She stumbled across a lecture presenting some of the elementary principles of transverse stability, but she don't seem to actually want to learn about the subject. She's using scientific references as opaque, magical incantations to dispel criticism, not as tools to help learn about the way the natural world behaves. If she expended half the effort she spends in pretending to be right toward actual learning, she might be happier in the long run even if it means shedding some of the counterfeit pretense to erudition along the way.
 
Vixen said:
The JAIC was the appointed body and thus, it was Kari Lehtola on behalf of Bildt, Aho and Laar, who acted as spokesman for the three nations at that press conference, in his JAIC function. When an investigation is going on, all comments and questions come and go to the investigator's and usually there is a nominated spokesperson.
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This article reports on what Lehtola said on the day of the press conference.

Cari Lehtola, den finske haverikommissionens ordförande, ville på onsdagen ännu inte presentera några teorier om olyckan.

- Men eftersom det på fartyget fanns en vägg mellan styrbord och babord bildäck bör det kunna uteslutas att olyckan enbart berodde på en förskjutning i lasten. Svängningen borde inte kunna bli så stor om det fanns en vägg som stoppar lastförskjutning, sa han till DN.

Lehtola sade sig ännu inte kunna ta ställning till den teori som presenterats av den räddade estniska besättningsmannen Henrik Sillaste, som sagt sig uppfatta att en lucka på bildäck släppt in vatten.
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My translation:
"On Wednesday, Cari Lehtola, chairman of the Finnish Accident Investigation Board, did not want to present any theories about the accident.

- But since there was a wall on the ship between starboard and port car decks, it should be possible to exclude that the accident was only due to a shift in the cargo. The roll should not be so great if there was a wall that stops load shifting, he told DN.

Lehtola said he had not yet formed en opinion on the theory presented by the rescued Estonian crew member Henrik Sillaste, who said he perceived that a hatch on the car deck had let in water."

So far I haven't been able to find any quotes that supports Vixens claim that Bildt already the day after the accident declared it to be the bow visor. Instead I've found several newspaper articles from the day after the press conference that say exactly the opposite. The challenge is that I cannot prove a negative - that he didn't at some stage say something.

The ball is firmly in your court Vixen - show your sources, or withdraw your claim.
 
Vixen, why do you delete posts like that? What purpose does it serve, do you think? What do you think it says about you?
 
MarkCorrigan said:
Vixen, why do you delete posts like that? What purpose does it serve, do you think? What do you think it says about you?
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I don't have a problem in general with the prerogative to delete a post. I've made many a post in frustration that I wanted to withdraw after further reflection. And I've deleted posts in fast-paced discussions where I repeat a question that was answered while I wrote the post, rendering the additional request moot. But it's pointless to delete a post almost two hours later, after it has been quoted and responded to. Disavowing a post after that happens requires something a little less passive-aggressive.
 
Here_to_learn said:
Citation needed.
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OK, so I found this passage in Jack A Nelson's book, 'Flashes in the Night', 2010, Apprentice House.

The ship itself served as an on-board center for numerous groups that held meetings each evening in conference rooms going and coming between Stockholm and Estonia. In addition, growing numbers of Finns, Swedes, Norwegians and other Europeans were taking these pleasure ships to what had become slightly-exotic Estonia for a cheap vacation. On this night, the Swedish groups included, along with the others, fifty-six retirees from the small city of Norrkoping south of Stockholm, part of a national pensioners' club. The Norrkoping retirees were so excited to be going to Estonia that they arrived at lunchtime, nearly six hours before sailing time. They had considered going to Poland, but had decided the Estonia trip was safer.

One member of such a group, Tom Johnsson, was a tall, heavy shouldered man of thirty-three. Tom was one of sixty-eight representatives of the Swedish Police Union on an official visit. During their stay in Tallinn that day, the police union officials had visited their colleagues in the Estonian capital and had given them gifts. Then, they had returned to the ship, where the conference continued in the meeting rooms. Following dinner, some went to the pub, where the famous Swedish singer Pierre Isacsson was performing. Others headed for a shopping spree in the duty-free store to buy things be fore it closed at midnight. Prices in the shop were only about half what they were in Stockholm, sometimes far less.

Just before midnight, Tom, who worked in the foreign affairs section of the Stockholm police union, left the others. Instead of going to the bar, he headed down to his cabin, number 4405 on deck four next to the lobby.
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So a union man who belonged to the 'foreign affairs section of the Stockholm police union'.

That's terribly friendly.
 
Vixen said:
OK, so I found this passage in Jack A Nelson's book, 'Flashes in the Night', 2010, Apprentice House.







So a union man who belonged to the 'foreign affairs section of the Stockholm police union'.



That's terribly friendly.
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So that confirmed that the conference was with union officials and held on board the ship. As the source I linked to said and not as you previously have posted.
 
Here_to_learn said:
That's your statement that started the discussion this time. You have of course made this specific claim many times earlier in the thread, but I can't be bothered to find all instances of it.

I answered you with this:
Here I have a report from the press conference. We can see that Carl Bildt was speaking at that conference, and that he specifically did not claim that the bow visor was the cause.

We now come to your post as of today:


I'm glad to see that you now have moved away from claiming that Bildt did say that the bow visor was to blame during the press conference. That your original claim was that it was in a press release you seem to have forgotten.

Instead, you now seem to claim that Lehtola on behalf of Bildt said something. Exactly what he said you haven't provided.

That Lehtola is a spokesman for the three PMs is of course ********. Lehtola is a spokesperson for the JAIC only. The three country leaders speak for themselves.
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So where did Lehtola get his stuff from, as reported in the Helsingin Sanomat. Press conference/release 30.9.1994 (Friday) referring to Thursday, when he had been appointed and flashback to Wednesday - the day of the accident - when Bildt, Aho and Laar had only as of that time interviewed one member of crew in the morning, Henrik Sillaste, in Turku, before flying onto Helsinki to appoint Lehtola et al in the afternoon. JAIC in place by Thursday 29. Press conference Fri 29.9 1994. Helsinging Sanomat re Bow Visor What Dunnit 1.10.1994.

Already on Thursday 29.9.1994, this was being said:

Investigators on the Estonian crash of the passenger ship consider it highly likely that water from the bow gate reached the ship's car deck. Henrik Sillaste, an Estonian machineman who worked in the control room of the ship's engine room, saw on his TV monitor how water sprayed in from the seams of the gate. On Wednesday evening, the investigators of the accident planned to start working with the ship's drawings to investigate the matter. Kari Lehtola, chairman of the Major Accident Investigation Planning Board, who is leading the investigation with interim powers, did not want to comment on Sillaste's report. On the Estonian side, however, the machineman's report is considered a probable key to investigating the cause.
It's a complete mystery why the water got through the gate. Inspectors from the Swedish Maritime Board had visited the port of Tallinn on Tuesday and found that not all the seals in the bow hatch were in perfect condition.

Superintendent Åke Sjöblom and marine engineer Gunnar Zahlée saw the deficiency as just a small detail - it could not have affected the result of the accident .

It has also been suspected that estonia's bow gate was not properly closed. The Finnish cruise ship Silja Festival was in Tallinn on Tuesday, and the attention of a Finnish cruise guest was drawn to estonia moving up the visor covering the bow gate. On the other hand, the passenger had not seen whether the actual bow gate behind the visor was also open. Estonia's bow first has a visor hinged from its corners like the old-time knights to protect their eyes. The car ramp is not waterproof, but behind it is a real bow gate that is lowered and driven into the harbour. In Finland, too, it was sometimes customary to ventilate the car deck by driving with the hatches open. Now it is strictly forbidden - the ship must be in seaworthy condition when it comes off the quay. On the other hand, it seems unlikely, and at least completely irresponsible, if the ship has gone out with the gate open when there was quite a weather. TV cameras and warning lights would also have told us that the gate had remained open.

Another option is that a truck that broke off in the sea would have broken the gate. A Dutch truck driver rescued from the crash has said that he asked to pull his car with chains to estonia's car clamps, but the request was not taken very seriously. Maritime experts, authorities and Estonia's former Finnish shipping company Silja Line agree that simply unloading is not enough to bring down a ship the size of estonia. There was now little cargo, and at best the share of cargo remains at 10% of the weight of the vessel. The weather at sea was bad, but not exceptionally harsh.

"There were others" is a common statement. One option is also to examine whether estonia's machines had shut down, causing the ship to completely lose its manoeuvrability and be slammed by the winds.

Kari Lehtolan, on the other hand, had reached the news that the ship had first tilted and the machines would not have shut down until they had possibly ingressed water. MARKKU ULANDER / MAGAZINE PHOTO Swedes inspected the ship on Tuesday.
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HS 29.9.1994

Backman Nils-Eric 1.10.1994 2:00 TURKU - Estonia The vessel is apparently lying on its left side in the forward direction. The cause of the accident is the flooding of water from a broken bow gate.

<snip>

Bengt Erik Stenmark, the safety manager of the Swedish Maritime Administration, said at a press conference in Stockholm on Friday that he had come to the conclusion that the Estonian front gate was open and water flooded the car deck through it. The gate and visor were damaged, he said. Stenmark also referred to information from two eyewitnesses that there was no bow gate at all at the time of the sinking.
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HS

So you see, initially - see first newsclip - there were several possible cause for the accident so why firmly state it was the bow visor on Day One?

And we know it was Carl Bildt who insisted because Estonian PM Laar said so in an interview. He was quite surprised as he said he suspected sabotage, and you can see the scepticism of the Swedish marine engineers, above, and I would imagine they know far more about naval architecture than a politician and a lawyer who sit behind desks and never get oil on their hands or need to wear a hard hat.
 
carlitos said:
In any case, the Estonia sank in 1994, so linking the creation of an international court by 2001 to this tragic accident seems like a pretty crazy red herring, yeah?
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It shows it wouldn't be the first time Sweden 'disappeared' suspects at the request of the CIA (as it did with the two Egyptians in 2001).
 
Vixen said:
Oh, right. Why not just say so?
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It's your responsibility to provide the right citation and describe it accurately. Now that you've corrected the date, you can show us where in that document we can find evidence that Sweden had been engaged in enforced disappearances.
 
JesseCuster said:
What the hell are you talking about?

Nobody said anything about uniforms.

The reason that people say that the police employees onboard the Estonia weren't police officers, it's because the facts are that they were civilian employees of the police, who were members of a civil service union going to a union conference.

Those are the facts. Deal with them.

They wren't elite police from an MI5-type internal security branch, as you admittedly guessed they possibly were. This is getting really laughable Vixen.
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I see, so people who belong to a police union cannot possibly be police themselves.

Got it.
 
Vixen said:
It shows it wouldn't be the first time Sweden 'disappeared' suspects at the request of the CIA (as it did with the two Egyptians in 2001).
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Not that I don't believe you, but evidence of that please?

Wait, do you mean the forced repatriation of Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery? They weren't "disappeared" they were deported back to Egypt. Sure, that wasn't a great thing given the possibility of what Egypt would do to them but that's not "disappearing" them.
 
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Vixen said:
It shows it wouldn't be the first time Sweden 'disappeared' suspects at the request of the CIA (as it did with the two Egyptians in 2001).
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How is the international criminal code you cited to evidence that Sweden at any time caused anyone to "disappear," at the request of the CIA or otherwise?
 
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