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Tags Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi , Abdul Giaka , Lockerbie bombing , Pan Am 103 , Tony Gauci

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Old 2nd August 2010, 03:27 PM   #41
manxman
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Hey rolfe would you be interested in looking at the david kelly case, theres a can of worms with multiple leaks, i hope you will agree to giving it some time now you have come to the end of the road with this one.
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Old 2nd August 2010, 03:32 PM   #42
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Well, we seem to be pleading "no contest" to the proposition that the US authorities framed Megrahi for that crime, by bribing Giaka, and also the Gaucis, to give evidence to incriminate him. Maybe we should have a look at the real conspiracy theories and see if some counter-arguments can be mustered.

There are three specific areas of fact where conspiracy to pervert the course of this investigation may have happened, and these are
  • The MST-13 timer tragment
  • The identity of the radio-cassette player
  • The cover-up at Frankfurt
And behind and beyond all that is, WHY? Why plant evidence to mislead the investigation? Why conceal or destroy vital evidence?

That's the real biggie, and I don't have concrete answers at all. However, the first step is to examine how strong the evidence is for shenanigans having happened in the three areas I listed above.

I'll take them one at a time.

Rolfe.
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Old 2nd August 2010, 03:33 PM   #43
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Originally Posted by manxman View Post
Hey rolfe would you be interested in looking at the david kelly case, theres a can of worms with multiple leaks, i hope you will agree to giving it some time now you have come to the end of the road with this one.

I'm nowhere near the end of the road with this. There are other threads on Kelly, if you want to search for them. I think the Distalgesic probably did it.

Rolfe.
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Old 2nd August 2010, 05:16 PM   #44
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Breath dammit breath
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Old 2nd August 2010, 05:19 PM   #45
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The MST-13 timer

Initial assumption regarding the trigger for the Lockerbie bomb was that it was a simple barometric device, one of the items known to be used by the PFLP-GC. These were based on capacitance, and the time taken for a capacitor to charge. These things incorporated an aneroid barometer (altimeter) and were safe indefinitely at ground level. When the pressure dropped to the equivalent of about 8,000 feet above sea level, the contact would close and the capacitor would start to charge. Once the capacitor was charged, it would discharge, triggering the explosion.

These things (sometimes called "ice-cube timers") couldn't be altered by the operator, and the time of the explosion following the drop in pressure was essentially fixed at around 30 to 40 minutes. Therefore, triggering the bomb way out over the Atlantic wasn't an option, but the upside was that the explosion would always occur while the plane was in the air. Maid of the Seas blew apart at 19.03 GMT, 38 minutes after leaving the tarmac at Heathrow.

This was a bit of a problem when considering either a Malta or a Frankfurt introduction. With that sort of device, the first take-off would trigger the explosion and the thing would never have got as far as Heathrow. The investigation never really addressed this all the time they were pursuing the PFLP-GC but at the same time denying the device could have been introduced at Heathrow.

The MST-13 fragment, when it was finally identified, changed all this. That instrument is a simple digital timer. It was far more versatile in a way than the ice-cube device, in that it could be set to trigger exactly when the explosion was wanted - weeks in advance if necessary. However, it would explode at that time irrespective of where the device was - in flight, or on the tarmac, or in a baggage store. It would explain how the device could have been loaded at Malta and negotiated two feeder flights without exploding.

It was also part of a very small manufacturing run, only 20 items, all of which were said to have been sold to Libya.

And it has the most bizarre provenance of any piece of evidence in the history of detection.
  • A rag of grey cloth which turned out to be a shirt collar was picked up in a field behind Blinkbonny Farm near Newcastleton, during a routine search on 13th January 1989.
  • The evidence label was signed by DC Gilchrist as the actual finder and DC McColm as the corroborative witness (the team leader to whom the individual searchers showed their finds, to fulfil the Scots Law requirement for two witnesses).
  • The label was later seen to have originally read "cloth", but to have been changed to "debris (charred)" by over-writing and re-forming the original letters. Proper procedure for changing labels is to cross out the original, write the new word beside it and initial the alteration. This had not been done. http://www.mebocom-defilee.ch/2008/995/995-1.png, http://www.mebocom-defilee.ch/2008/995/995-2.png
  • DC McColm is described (by John Crawford) as having secured a cushy desk job and very seldom going out in the cold and rain to pick stuff up. He also demonstrated a cavalier disregard for chain of custody, preferring to keep his office tidy rather than wait for paperwork to be properly completed.
  • DC Gilchrist is described (press report) as being extremely nervous about giving evidence at Zeist. He was completely unable to explain the alteration on the label. His evidence was described in the court judgement as "at best confusing, at worst evasive".
My suspicion is that while something may have been picked up in that field on that date, it wasn't by these two. Quite a lot of evidence wasn't properly labelled, due to the difficulties of working in the open in a Scottish winter. Bobby Ingram (The Maltese Double Cross) describes being asked by a policeman to sign a number of bags containing "important evidence" supposedly picked up by members of his mountain rescue team, as late as 1990. The items listed next to this one in the Dextar log were recorded as "finder unknown". Perhaps "finder unknown" wasn't good enough for this vital piece of evidence, and a couple of accommodating cops simply signed for it retrospectively. Which would explain why Gilchrist was nervous about giving evidence, and behaved as if he'd never seen the thing before.
  • The item next surfaces at RARDE in Kent on 12th May, when the contents of the bag were examined by Thomas Hayes. He found items of debris embedded in the cloth - a tiny wad of paper, some pieces of black plastic, a small piece of wire, and "a fragment of green circuit board".
  • A photograph was taken, apparently using a professional-quality polaroid. All copies in existence are copies of the same original print. http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q...ayes_notes.jpg
  • He then described the findings in note form and also drew the paper fragment which he had teased out into its individual leaves. http://www.mebocom-defilee.ch/2009/examination.jpg
  • This page is numbered 51. However, so is the following page, but that has been changed to 52. Altogether five pages are re-numbered in this way, before the pagination returns to normal. In addition, the dates on the pages are inconsistent, with 15th May beginning on page 50 and continuing on (new) page 52. (I think, this is detailed in another thread.)
The pagination anomalies suggest (new) page 51 could have been interpolated retrospectively at a later date. The photograph which might have proved provenance (from the negative being traceable to that date) appears to be a polaroid.

Another real oddity is the fact that absolutely no attention was paid to the "fragment of green circuit board" at the time. It's sitting there screaming "I'm a clue, look at me", and nobody does anything. It could have been another fragment from the radio-cassette player, some bits of circuit board having already been found from that. At this time, the RARDE scientists were going mad looking for more such pieces to confirm the exact model of the radio. Another piece, smaller and less distinctive than this, sent them into ecstasies when it was found a few weeks later. Or if it wasn't part of the radio, then it was likely to be part of the IED itself. But nothing. It was just filed away.
  • It next surfaces on 15th September. On that date Allan Feraday sent pictures of it (either the original polaroid or new ones) to DCI Williamson in Scotland, with a covering note asking if his "lads and lassies" (the SCRB, presumably) could identify it. http://www.mebocom-defilee.ch/2008/Memo-Feradey.jpg
This is very different behaviour from Feraday's hands-on approach to identifying the radio model from its circuit board, in the course of which he travelled himself to Germany and then to Japan. The green fragment just gets sent to Williamson, end of story.
  • This was the month when Hayes left RARDE under a cloud, in relation to the findings of the Birmingham Six enquiry, in which he drew criticism for having fabricated, or at least seriously sexed-up evidence that led to that wrongful conviction. He remained as a consultant until some time in 1990, but eventually retrained as a chiropodist (he had a PhD in his original field of electronics).
Williamson and his minions set about trying to trace the origin of the thing, with no success. In January 1990 they attend a case conference with the US investigators. Richard Marquise of the FBI explains how the US group knew this piece of evidence existed, but could not persuade the Scots to involve them in the identification.

In April the fragment was taken to Germany to the Siemens factory, where it was examined further including being cut into two pieces and a sliver removed from one edge. Still no identification.

In June there was another case conference with the Americans, but the Scots were still reluctant to involve them in the identification. However, on this occasion Tom Thurman of the FBI got hold of a photograph of the fragment. As the Scots were departing, he took it to a colleague in the CIA, a man going by the pseudonym Orkin in the records. Orkin went straight to a file and found a complete timer which matched the fragment. This news was telephoned back to Britain, and the Scots contingent pretty much had to turn on their heels at Heathrow and go back to America. Thurman had had the photograph for less than 48 hours (although later, in a TV interview, he waxes lyrical about the months he spent trawling through a gadzillion files to identify the thing....).

Although Thurman says (Lockerbie Revisited, I think) that they knew pretty much immediately that the manufacturer was MEBO of Switzerland, the investigators spent several more weeks checking out other leads "just so we didn't miss anything", before finally fetching up on Edwin Bollier's doorstep in September (I think). Edwin's accounts of these timers (as of everything else) are varied and imaginative, however, the bottom line seems to be that he supplied 20 of them to Libya in 1986. Two had subsequently surfaced in Togo and two more in Senegal, which was where the CIA sample had come from.

Coincidentally, Tom Thurman also left the FBI forensics service under a cloud some time later, in the middle of a scandal about fabricated evidence. He went into teaching.

The conspiracy theory version of this is that the fragment was only fabricated in the summer of 1989, and the memo of 15th September is the first real record of its existence. That Tom Thurman and his CIA mate Orkin identified it so fast because they already knew what it was.

I've got an open mind on this, though rather a suspicious one I have to say. So, discuss.

Rofe.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 12:18 AM   #46
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
I've posted some speculation about planted evidence and cover-ups on Robert Black's blog, which I might try to tidy up and post here. I see this as two parallel narratives of the case, and I'm unsure which to favour. Here.
Please do. I was preparing to re-post it to the Divide as-is. You might dig the updated top-post.

Quote:
Oh dear. I feel dirty now.

I'm glad I'm not American, to be honest. Even the comments on the Hootsmon are light years better than that.

Rolfe.
Terribly sorry. I realized after I should have had a warning. For my part, that's the closest I'll let myself get into a prolonged verbal fistfight. I'm willing to hit back, just not to waste much time on it. The wee beastie is on ignore, but yeah, I couldn't do it right off the bat.

Originally Posted by A.A.Alfie View Post
Breath dammit breath
What, someone's smells bad? (the verb version ends in "e")
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Old 3rd August 2010, 01:01 AM   #47
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Possibly people don't have much to say because you've got all your ducks so nicely lined up that there's really nothing to argue about, Rolfe.

Megrahi was framed, and he didn't plant the bomb. There's no more to it than that.

How we get the news out to the foaming masses is a problem I don't have an answer to.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 02:10 AM   #48
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I cant help but think that if there was something in the line up of the ducks, then someone in the media would run with it and give it attention. Why isn't this happening?
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Old 3rd August 2010, 02:11 AM   #49
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The ducks in part one seem to line up perfectly, I agree. Megrahi was framed in the plain vanilla manner, by "inducing" witnesses to testify against him after he was identified as being a possible suspect, and ignoring the evidence that said he didn't do it. This has happened time and time again in the annals of criminal justice, nothing very remarkable about it except for the high-profile nature of the case, the unusually blatant way the judges went along with the frame-up despite the gaping holes in it, and the subsequent complications involving the compassionate release.

I'm guessing we have to take silence for assent on that one, because the baying mob who were all over threads suggesting he didn't do it this time last year have gone quiet as little mice. (It would be nice if even one or two of these people were to come by and say, OK, I see what you mean, maybe I was a little hasty last year, but that's not human nature I suppose.)

I'm trying to move on to part two, where the ducks are still swimming around somewhat randomly. The suspicions that evidence was planted to turn the attention of the investigation away from the PFLP-GC towards Libya, and that this was done by and with the knowledge of a small number of people involved in the investigation on both the US and UK sides.

This is a far far more serious allegation than blackmailing and bribing witnesses to commit perjury. It also pushes the allegations that the course of the enquiry was perverted back from 1991 to 1989. It's whole new kettle of fish.

Remember, the D&G police started trying to get Tony Gauci to say Megrahi was the purchaser in February 1991. We don't quite know where they got Megrahi's name from at that point, but presumably from following up passengers catching other flights from Luqa at the critical time. The CIA didn't go postal on Giaka to force him to invent his fairy-stories until July 1991.

The allegations I'm putting forward now relate to 1989, only months after the disaster, and appear to be completely separate from any attempt to incriminate Megrahi personally, as this all occurred 18 months to two years before he seems to have entered the frame at all.

Rolfe.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 02:21 AM   #50
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Originally Posted by A.A.Alfie View Post
I cant help but think that if there was something in the line up of the ducks, then someone in the media would run with it and give it attention. Why isn't this happening?

Good question. However, I really don't think "but if this is right, some journalist would have picked it up, so it can't be right" is an adequate refutation to anything.

It has been said quite often of course. Paul Foot's seminal analysis of the trial from 2001 is probably the best - it appeared in Private Eye though, and it's always easy to dismiss Private Eye. I could probably link you to a dozen or more fairly mainstream articles questioning the judgement. The editorial today in the Scotsman questions whether the right person was convicted.

Quote:
These latest exchanges have been sparked by the continuing controversy over what happened on that terrible night over Lockerbie in 1988: who was responsible; whether the right man was convicted; and if the PTA agreed by the UK government was linked to BP's bid for business in Libya, once held responsible for bringing down Pan Am 103, but brought into the international fold over the past decade.

In their determination to keep the issue alive - in an election period for them - the Senators are seeing matters from a narrow, US-centric, perspective and conveniently ignoring the doubts over their own country's involvement in the wider Lockerbie story.

There are still questions over the US's warship's downing of an Iran Air A300 Airbus in July 1988 in which 290 passengers were killed, and whether the supposedly retaliatory bombing of Pan Am 103 was the responsibility of Palestinian terrorists linked to Syria, and not Libyans as the US subsequently claimed.

If the Senators are serious in their search for the truth behind the Lockerbie tragedy then, with the same self-proclaimed objective of establishing that truth objectively from evidence, they might care to look a little deeper at the involvement of their own country.

That's the lead editorial in today's paper. We get coverage like that quite often. It just seems as if nobody quite has the guts to come right out and hit the public between the eyes with both barrels on it. It needs someone of the calibre of a Brian Deer to do to the Lockerbie evidence what Deer did to the Wakefield fraud, and nobody has grasped the nettle that firmly.

Rolfe.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 02:29 AM   #51
Hallo Alfie
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Good question. However, I really don't think "but if this is right, some journalist would have picked it up, so it can't be right" is an adequate refutation to anything.
I wasn't actually suggesting, nor did I say "it can't be right" - so I have no idea why you would ascribe that to me. However I can agree that it might have seemed that way.

So putting this to one side. Is there a reason, in your opinion that papers/journalists are running with it? Couple that with the fact that this thread hasn't gained a great deal of momentum, then the casual JREF observer (such as myself) could easily come to the conclusion that this has no legs.

Just asking, no offense.

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Old 3rd August 2010, 03:08 AM   #52
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by A.A.Alfie View Post
I wasn't actually suggesting, nor did I say "it can't be right" - so I have no idea why you would ascribe that to me. However I can agree that it might have seemed that way.
It absolutely seems that way, and that's why Rolfedecided that.No mystery, mate, when you say:
Quote:
I cant help but think that if there was something in the line up of the ducks, then someone in the media would run with it and give it attention. Why isn't this happening?
The media hasn't run with it, so there must/might not be anything much to it. Take it up with the mass media, I don't know what their problem is. The ducks line up pretty darn good.

Your previous post was similarly 'mis-understandable.' It's all right that you're not convinced by our Internet talk. It's your right. But do note, we're examining actual evidence in great detail, and your counter is that there was no Woodward and Bernstein moment.

ETA: And "no legs?" In case you missed out previous fertile threads stretching back almost a year, I posted links to most earlier in the thread. Legs! It's a millipede nest of 'em! Kevin Lowe is much closer to the mark as to why there's not a lot of comments besides Rolfe. We already agree and don't have much more to add ATM.

Here's a link that might put it in context for you:
http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/...home-base.html

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Old 3rd August 2010, 03:10 AM   #53
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Originally Posted by A.A.Alfie View Post
I wasn't actually suggesting, nor did I say "it can't be right" - so I have no idea why you would ascribe that to me. However I can agree that it might have seemed that way.

Because that was a possible inference from what you said, even if you yourself didn't mean to imply it.

Originally Posted by A.A.Alfie View Post
So putting this to one side. Is there a reason, in your opinion that papers/journalists are running with it? Couple that with the fact that this thread hasn't gained a great deal of momentum, then the casual JREF observer (such as myself) could easily come to the conclusion that this has no legs.

9/11 twooferism has "no legs", but that doesn't stop threads growing like Topsy whenever someone else comes along and declares that the towers fell into their own footprints at free-fall speeds, or whatever. Just sayin'.

I touched on my main theory earlier. There are two parts to this. I began with the plain vanilla part, in which Megrahi was the victim of a perfectly standard frame-up job by the police and other investigators, starting in 1991. If you present that on its own, as I did in the OP, it's pretty straightforward and easy to follow and difficult to refute.

The trouble is that nobody approaches it that way. That's the boring way.

The exciting way is to drag in the other part of the story, which is the suspected fabrication of evidence against Libya (not Megrahi himself) in 1989 - two years earlier. This is all sexy because you can weave a big mystery over the provenance of the timer fragment and turn it all into a big conspiracy theory linked to the Gulf War.

Journalists who decide to write on the subject are usually sucked into taking this approach. The problem is, it's far less clear cut, and it reeks of conspiracy theorising. As a result, it's far easier to file it away as another intriguing CT, rather than realise the essence of it is that someone was quite simply framed, entirely separately from the big mystery part of the story.

There are a mindboggling number of documentaries about the Lockerbie case - and this isn't twoofers posting YouTube clips, this is professional film-makers doing documentaries that get shown on TV. Most of them are available online, and I've just about fried my brain watching them. Every single one of them majors on allegations of fabrication of evidence, particularly that timer fragment, and other nefarious conduct.

There isn't a single presentation I've seen which ignores that aspect, and presents the simple case that Megrahi was framed by quite unspectacular means. And yet that's a case that's childishly easy to make once you look at that aspect in isolation.

Rolfe.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 03:16 AM   #54
Hallo Alfie
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You guys are taking this a bit personally imo.
I was asking a genuine question and then I am deliberately misquoted - frankly I care not.

At any rate, I'll ask it again why do you think the media haven't run with it?
And "I don't know" seems like a pretty weak answer too given you are "examining actual evidence in great detail".



eta, sorry Rolf, I was writing (among other things) while you were posting, I wrote this prior to your above post.

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Old 3rd August 2010, 03:29 AM   #55
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You might find it instructive to look at the comments following today's Scotsman article on the issue. There are over 300 already.

I don't post on the Scotsman because the comments are a bear-pit, quite frankly. I don't know any of these people from Adam (sorry, Caustic Logic!). However, as far as I've read, the predominant attack force is vehemently asserting that Megrahi is quite self-evidently innocent. An example.

Originally Posted by Cynicus Unbound

Originally Posted by Fifi la Bonbon
There is a minority of obsessives here who are in favour, because they bought into the Unique Scottish Compassion™® myth, or because they have bought into the conspiracy theory.

...or because they have spent may hours -hundreds in my case- reviewing the evidence and concluding there has been a monstrous miscarriage of justice. Some of our arguments have been rehearsed, in your presence, in this forum.

Are you going to actually address them one of these days? Or will you continue your role of idle fat-head, content to mouth off on the basis of what you read in (some) newspapers that dictate your opinions on this and every other matter?

I have no idea who Cynicus Unbound is, he's certainly not me. Have a read at some of the rest of it.

Rolfe.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 03:38 AM   #56
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
I have no idea who Cynicus Unbound is, he's certainly not me. Have a read at some of the rest of it.

Rolfe.
I've always wondered, that person's comments are simply awesome, And Fifi LaBonBon annoys like few other trolls can. From what "ve read of Scotsman comments.

A.A. Alfie - no, I wasn't taking it personal, just calling it like I see it, right or wrong. I gather you're not convinced / disagree, but not coming right out and saying it. Maybe not, and if so it's no problem.

And hey, if "I don't know"is not a good answer to why the media hasn't blown this up, do you really think "why hasn't the media run with this" is a good argument that something isn't true? (argument, suggestion, whatever way you meant it).
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Old 3rd August 2010, 03:46 AM   #57
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ETA to the above - my answers at this moment to a question I read as I'm nearing bedtime is not like "THE answer that CTists give" or anything like that.

Here, amateur US news media. Somehow that's unaffected.The facts herein are un-challenged. Can you tell me why the wider media IS avoiding a story this alarming and true? http://causticlogic.newsvine.com/_ne...misinformation

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Old 3rd August 2010, 03:48 AM   #58
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
I've always wondered, that person's comments are simply awesome, And Fifi LaBonBon annoys like few other trolls can. From what "ve read of Scotsman comments.

I recognise quite a few of the names because I used to post a lot on the Herald articles before they got fed up with the trolling, sock-puppetry and impersonation that was going on sent every comment there was to the great bit-bucket in the sky, and it was a lot of the same people. Fifi and Grahamski are unionist trolls. The game is for a few Labour researchers and hot-heads to come in and rile up the nationalist posters, then attack the latter group in the main press as "cybernats". I gave up playing that one some time ago.

I've dipped into the Scotsman pages from time to time over the past weeks, and my impression is that the view Megrahi is innocent is becoming more and more unchallenged.

ETA: You really have to get far enough down to where "Haggis Slayers of Fife Unite" starts his all-caps raving. This is honestly the quality of the "Megrahi did it" mob these days. And then by about his third post he reveals himself as a unionist troll.

Rolfe.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 05:13 AM   #59
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Originally Posted by Kevin_Lowe View Post
Megrahi was framed, and he didn't plant the bomb. There's no more to it than that.

I just noticed this part of Kevin's post. Er, not so. There is a great deal more to it than that. The framing of Megrahi in the simple sense, as I described, is only the tip of the iceberg. I wanted to see if we could agree to take that as read, more or less, before going on to discuss whether there was any substance in the more serious conspiracy theories.

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Old 3rd August 2010, 07:43 AM   #60
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
You might dig the updated top-post.

CL, where did you get that ridiculous picture? Have you any idea what the landscape round Lockerbie looks like? It's the Southern Uplands of Scotland, dammit, not the bloody Alps! If you want to know what it really looks like, put the word "Tundergarth" into Google Maps, and go for the village or the farm to the east of the town, not the street of that name in the town of Lockerbie itself. The tops of the hills, which are rough grass grazed by sheep and cattle, are gentle and rounded, and less than 600 feet above sea level.

I spotted something else as a link from a comment on your blog.

http://www.defraudingamerica.com/lockerbie_index.html

This seems to be the web site of one Rodney Stich, although he refers to himself in the third person. He starts off saying some semi-reasonable things about Lockerbie, but very quickly moves into allegations of massive cover-ups and corruption, none of which can be proved. Within a few more paragraphs the whole thing is tied into all sorts of other incidents, including some sort of 9/11 LIHOP, and the guy is quite frankly raving. He makes Lester Coleman look like the epitome of calm, reasoned sanity.

When investigating journalists find this sort of batcrap lunacy, it's not surprising if they decide to give the whole thing a smart body-swerve.

I'd like to look at the possibility that a couple of pieces of evidence were fabricated, and what the motivation for that might have been if they were, but it's ravings like this that put everybody off serious investigation of that area.

Rolfe.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 01:15 PM   #61
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OK, can we try this one again? Post 45, the one about the timer fragment, and was it planted. http://www.internationalskeptics.com...postid=6186356

I'm suggesting that US and UK investigators (specifically "Orkin", Thurman, Feraday and Hayes) fabricated this tiny scrap of evidence, which consisted of the only corner of an MST-13 timer which could be identified (as it had a distinctive "fingerpad" printed circuit on it), and planted it among the Lockerbie debris. They did this to turn the direction of the investigation away from the PFLP-GC and Iran, and towards Libya.

One thing is certain, we will not be able to find out for sure. However, I've laid out the facts. Does anyone want to advance the view that it isn't/can't be a plant?

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Old 3rd August 2010, 02:13 PM   #62
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
CL, where did you get that ridiculous picture? Have you any idea what the landscape round Lockerbie looks like? It's the Southern Uplands of Scotland, dammit, not the bloody Alps!
I made that goofy image, and I'm saddened you don't get it. How does everyone know that's the Alps? It's supposed to be generic mountains. Maybe the term"divide" doesn't have the connotation I was thinking of, like the Rockies, dividing two plains from each other. It's saying the plane crash and the truth are way up in these metaphorical mountains, generally unreachable. The people who care about that truth exist some on one side, some on the other, with the truth 'runoff' vastly different on each side. Or maybe it's the rain and the rain shadow. Do you have rain shadows in the UK? Probably not to any meaningful degree. So mountain climbing and massive erosion are the two possible goals I'm going for.

Too much metaphor? Okay, it's just a weird picture to make people wonder.

Yeah, Rodney Stitch commented at my Newsvine article. I don't know if there's anything to his big picture, and just how systemic corruption causes these plane crashes. It's not an insane notion in itself, but too vague and off-seeming to be compelling, and I haven't looked closely. I fear if I did it'd look worse than it does right off.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 03:05 PM   #63
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I've just taken time out to read a thread asking a 9/11 no-planer what happened to the people on the planes. I've never read such delusional drivel in my entire life, and yet people are responding. If I said Maid of the Seas was a hologram, would I get more debate here? /whine

There was one aspect of the timer saga that I didn't include, because I have serious doubts about it and I would hesitate very much to base any conclusions on it. I'm talking about the assertions that such an item couldn't possibly have survived the explosion in any recognisable form.

These came to a head at the beginning of this year, when BBC Newsnight broadcast a 15-minute film specifically about the timer. The whole thing can be viewed here.

'Flaws' in key Lockerbie evidence
Look, this is not a twoofer YouTube production, this is the BBC's own web site, professional production.

I don't wholly agree with some of their criticisms of the evidence. Tom Thurman identified the fragment by simple visual inspection, however I don't have a problem with that - it really is quite obvious that the fragment and the corner of the intact board are the same. (I don't know why the colour is so wrong in all the photos, as the damn thing never looks green, but I'm not making a big deal about it.)

I'm also a bit confused by the repeated complaints that the fragment wasn't tested for explosives. (Hey, better not - Hayes will say it's been in contact with explosives if it's only been playing cards, yes it's that Hayes we're talking about.) If it was fabricated, then I'm quite sure the people fabricating it were quite capable of ensuring an explosives test came up positive. The excuses for not testing it are pathetic though - one guy says he'd have loved to do it but the funds wouldn't stretch, which is silly, they tested half the bloody aeroplane for explosives, and another said it was too small, which it definitely wasn't. I still think it's a diversion though - what are those who complain about the lack of such a test implying? I have no idea.

The problem is Dr. Wyatt and his tests. I can't find a fault with it. He said he used 300 to 400 g Semtex, which is on the low end of the estimated size of the Lockerbie IED. He packed it in a radio, like the original, and he put that in a bronze Samsonite suitcase with the requisite clothes. He put that suitcase in a luggage container, piled with other cases. He did this twenty times. And he blew them all up.

He doesn't believe it's possible for a 4mm square fragment of the timer circuit board to have survived the explosion. Well, he says, he only did 20 repetitions, not 200, so he hesitates to say it's completely impossible (and Richard Marquise jumps on that and says, look, Wyatt says it wasn't impossible!, just the way the judges treated Wilfrid Borg's similar caveat, without weighting it at all). However, he was surprised by how little remained. "The timer and its circuit board were obliterated." "In all these 20 tests we found absolutely no sign at all."

So far so good, but the implication I'm getting from this is that he also doubts the recovered fragments of the radio itself, which is a whole other kettle of fish. The circuit boards of the radio were also smack up against the Semtex, as can be seen from the trial loading of the radio exhibited at the trial. http://channel.nationalgeographic.co...4_04700300.jpg And yet a tiny fragment of radio circuit board was found by an AAIB inspector, wedged in a data plate on the baggage container, very early in the investigation (less than a month). http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/wp-...r-fragment.jpg It still had legible identification numbers on it.

I find it very difficult to imagine that the radio circuit board fragment wasn't genuine. Though I concede some people have claimed the position it was wedged in was the wrong side of the container for an explosion to have wedged it there.... So, while I don't dismiss what Dr. Wyatt is saying, and certainly not on the grounds Dick Marquise handwaves it away, I don't want to rely on an assertion that the survival of the fragment is impossible.

It seems a shame to go to al that trouble, and then not to tell us more about what was found - how damaged were the clothes, were pieces of radio case and so on blasted into the cloth? But that's a 15-minute TV slot for you.

Rolfe.
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Old 3rd August 2010, 03:12 PM   #64
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
I made that goofy image, and I'm saddened you don't get it.

I'm sorry, I have much too literal a mind. Chalk it down to my lack of imagination and general absence of soul.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
How does everyone know that's the Alps? It's supposed to be generic mountains. Maybe the term"divide" doesn't have the connotation I was thinking of, like the Rockies, dividing two plains from each other. It's saying the plane crash and the truth are way up in these metaphorical mountains, generally unreachable. The people who care about that truth exist some on one side, some on the other, with the truth 'runoff' vastly different on each side. Or maybe it's the rain and the rain shadow. Do you have rain shadows in the UK? Probably not to any meaningful degree. So mountain climbing and massive erosion are the two possible goals I'm going for.

Too much metaphor? Okay, it's just a weird picture to make people wonder.

Too rarified for prosaic little me, sorry. Maybe others will appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Yeah, Rodney Stitch commented at my Newsvine article. I don't know if there's anything to his big picture, and just how systemic corruption causes these plane crashes. It's not an insane notion in itself, but too vague and off-seeming to be compelling, and I haven't looked closely. I fear if I did it'd look worse than it does right off.

He's a raving nutter. It's extremely obvious from his web site. Even if he's right about some of it, it's virtually in the "stopped clock right twice a day" department.

Rolfe.
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Old 4th August 2010, 02:08 AM   #65
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
I'm sorry, I have much too literal a mind. Chalk it down to my lack of imagination and general absence of soul.
Lol. Yeah, I was like... but it's cool. It's not the most clever thing ever, but it works - maybe an explanation would help.

My, another long post. Sometimes I wonder if people wonder if you're okay, going off like this (length-wise, not tone-wise). I think you're okay myself, just exuberant and verbose and possibly retired.

Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
There was one aspect of the timer saga that I didn't include, because I have serious doubts about it and I would hesitate very much to base any conclusions on it. I'm talking about the assertions that such an item couldn't possibly have survived the explosion in any recognisable form.

These came to a head at the beginning of this year, when BBC Newsnight broadcast a 15-minute film specifically about the timer. The whole thing can be viewed here.

'Flaws' in key Lockerbie evidence
Look, this is not a twoofer YouTube production, this is the BBC's own web site, professional production.
I'm still so happy they ran this. I'd also still like to know more about how and why Dr. Wyatt wound up doing these tests. And I'd like to see the results in more detail, but I don't think that'll happen. I did e-mail him once to ask, but never heard back.

Started a longer answer, but I must prioritize. Peace.
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Old 4th August 2010, 03:31 AM   #66
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I'm not retired, I just type while I'm watching TV in the evening. (I'm on my coffee break now.) If that post was split up as shorter responses to other people, it wouldn't look like anything. The trouble is, not getting any response to my conspiracy theorising, I work it out for myself, then post the results as a single block. And I type quite fast.

I think the fragment was planted for three reasons.
  • The 38-minute explosion. Any terrorist who actually had an MST-13 timer would have used it to cause the explosion 5 or 6 hours later than that, to allow for the possibility of the plane missing its slot and still being on the tarmac at 7 o'clock, and indeed to ensure an emergency landing at Prestwick was out of the question.
  • The anomalies in the paperwork, especially the apparently interpolated page in Hayes's notes.
  • The fact that this SODDING GREAT FREAKING CLUE was completely ignored for four months, at a time when finding and identifying pieces of circuit board was probably the #1 priority for the investigation.
The high probability that the fragment couldn't have survived that explosion is another factor of course.

The anomalies in respect of the label and the Scottish police may be relatively innocent. Some evidence bags weren't properly recorded as to who found them and so on, due to adverse weather. A tidying-up exercise whereby an important bag was retrospectively signed for may be entirely wrong and reprehensible, but it doesn't have to have been anything more than that. (The apparent alteration from "cloth" to "debris" is odd, because that's exactly what I believe happened, that a piece of cloth had debris planted in it. However, there seems no compelling reason to change the label - unless someone was just being too clever by half.)

Feraday's 15th September note is a little odd, because he speaks of a polaroid photo being the best he can do in such a short time, when he's supposed to have had the item for four months. However, the note seems to be a follow-up to a personal conversation, and we know that Feraday had been at Lockerbie a day or so previously, probably speaking to Williamson. He was there searching for any further pieces of Toshiba electronics he could find. It's an odd way to introduce this item, but it looks as if he said, there's another odd bit of circuit board back at RARDE, would you take a look at that.

I think the item really existed in September 1989, partly because if it didn't we'd have to assume Williamson was in on this plot (because surely he'd have said, but I wasn't sent these photos till later, otherwise), which is unnecessarily complicated, and because Hayes got the (polite) boot from RARDE about that time, after being heavily criticised by the May enquiry into the wrongful convictions of alleged IRA bombers he was mixed up in.

Another point I mentioned previously, is Feraday's curiously hands-off attitude to the thing. There is another page of evidence where he has drawn it and added some measurements, but that doesn't seem to have led to anything and it's undated. In effect, RARDE didn't try to trace the thing at all, they just passed the job over to the Scottish police and let them get on with it. This is in marked contrast to the tracing of the radio circuit board, which saw Feraday personally globetrotting after an answer.

Considering that RARDE are supposed to be the explosives experts, and it was surely obvious that this fragment was part of the actual IED as soon as it was realised it wasn't a Toshiba component, why weren't RARDE at the forefront of the search for the manufacturer?

My feeling is that the decision had been taken that once that item was planted in the evidence trail, it would be left to the Scottish police to trace it, to distance the RARDE personnel who had done the planting from the subsequent identification. It was probably believed the Scottish police would eventually call in the Americans to assist, only this took longer than anyone anticipated.

I'd just love for someone to debunk this. Certainly, if it were to be shown that the red-circle photo was a 35mm and not a polaroid, and that its negative was sitting snugly in a file with an unbreakable provenance of 12th May 1989 (that is not cut up from the film and with other items photographed the same day on the roll, properly dated and so on), the whole theory bites the dust. But right now I'd be actively astonished if that turned out to be the case.

Rolfe.
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Old 4th August 2010, 06:22 AM   #67
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And then again, this whole business about using loose-leaf notes rather than a proper bound lab book. These books make it extremely difficult to remove or interpolate pages without detection. There was something said at the actual trial about this - Hayes said they used to use proper lab notebooks, but the practice had changed at some time. It looks very much as if the evidence the Maguire Seven and the Birmingham Six were stitched up came from looking at complete RARDE lab books, and realising that only the bits of the evidence that supported a conviction had been revealed, while the bits that didn't had been concealed.

So they changed to using loose-leaf note-taking. Well, well. That would make it a lot easier to pull something similar and not get caught, I imagine. So long as you don't do something stupid like re-numbering the pages, that is.

In the days before digital photography, the provenance of a photograph was from its negative, and its numbering and position within a film. If you use a Polaroid camera, that goes out of the window. When you put the probable use of a Polaroid camera together with the single-sheet note-taking, it does raise a distinct suspicion of a set-up designed to allow manipulation if someone were so inclined. And we know from the IRA conviction scandals that RARDE (and Hayes specifically) were indeed so inclined.

Does anyone think that timer fragment might be on the level?

Rolfe.
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Old 4th August 2010, 10:20 AM   #68
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Sigh. I forgot a bit. The assertion that that photo is a polaroid comes originally from Edwin Bollier, and he confirmed it when I asked him. He said, professional-quality Polaroid camera, part of the RARDE equipment. Now Edwin is one of the least reliable people in this entire story. He makes stuff up apparently at random, especially in relation to the timer fragment. However he has seen the actual photograph, or a copy of it, not just a jpeg. He was shown it by the Scottish police.

He has always maintained the picture is a polaroid, long before it dawned on anyone that this was important in establishing the provenance of the timer fragment. I thought initially that he must be mistaken, but he says not.

Then when we realise that every copy in existence has that red circle on it, consistent with someone (Feraday?) having circled the timer fragment on the original polaroid print (when he sent it to Williamson on 15th September?), and there being no negative to make a fresh unmarked print, it seems likely to be true.

So that's it. The case for the timer fragment being a plant. If nobody is interested in trying to debunk it, I may proceed to the next piece of probably fabricated evidence.

Rolfe.
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Old 4th August 2010, 02:43 PM   #69
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Sigh. I forgot a bit. The assertion that that photo is a polaroid comes originally from Edwin Bollier, and he confirmed it when I asked him. He said, professional-quality Polaroid camera, part of the RARDE equipment. Now Edwin is one of the least reliable people in this entire story. He makes stuff up apparently at random, especially in relation to the timer fragment. However he has seen the actual photograph, or a copy of it, not just a jpeg. He was shown it by the Scottish police.

He has always maintained the picture is a polaroid, long before it dawned on anyone that this was important in establishing the provenance of the timer fragment. I thought initially that he must be mistaken, but he says not.

Then when we realise that every copy in existence has that red circle on it, consistent with someone (Feraday?) having circled the timer fragment on the original polaroid print (when he sent it to Williamson on 15th September?), and there being no negative to make a fresh unmarked print, it seems likely to be true.

So that's it. The case for the timer fragment being a plant. If nobody is interested in trying to debunk it, I may proceed to the next piece of probably fabricated evidence.

Rolfe.
Nope. There is at least one other version/print of the photograph that has the paper lump and not the timer chunk circled in red. Read about it in the transcripts, somewhere. That would suggest prints off a negative, right?

But as you know I don't think in the slightest that this thing is genuine. There's no 100% argument against it, but about five points that are at least 50/50, so I consider it a safe bet.

Another point on Dr.Wyatt's tests, in favor - Bollier rejects the findings.
comments
Quote:
You recall is correctly, I specifically reject that claim from Wyatt
All circuit board from radiorecorder and timers etc. do survive in large 1cm and more largely chunks after 450 or more grams of Semtex-H 1.5 inches away.

sorry, the next column in german language:

Wir, Me--Bo, haben das original MST-13 Timerfragment von Swiss Police (Anfang 1990) erstmals auf einer FBI- Polaroid-Foto gesehen, bevor es in zwei Teile getrennt wurde. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt haben ...
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Old 4th August 2010, 03:17 PM   #70
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Nope. There is at least one other version/print of the photograph that has the paper lump and not the timer chunk circled in red. Read about it in the transcripts, somewhere. That would suggest prints off a negative, right?

I thought that was a photoshop, where the original red circle had been erased, and a new one drawn? I could be remembering wrongly though; do you know where is a copy of that version?

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
But as you know I don't think in the slightest that this thing is genuine. There's no 100% argument against it, but about five points that are at least 50/50, so I consider it a safe bet.

How would you make the fragment a fake if that photo is a 35mm, then? Do you seriously think Hayes and/or Feraday would risk having negatives with a provenance four months later than advertised? Alternatively, if Hayes really did take that photograph on 12th May, then the apparently interpolated page, which is a major plank of the "plant" theory, means nothing.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Another point on Dr.Wyatt's tests, in favor - Bollier rejects the findings.
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Old 4th August 2010, 03:23 PM   #71
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
I've just taken time out to read a thread asking a 9/11 no-planer what happened to the people on the planes. I've never read such delusional drivel in my entire life, and yet people are responding. If I said Maid of the Seas was a hologram, would I get more debate here? /whine
I think the (relative) lack of response simply means people who are reading your posts aren´t finding any of those glaringly obvious logical flaws in your argument that are so much fun to tear into.
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Old 4th August 2010, 04:21 PM   #72
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Originally Posted by Chaos View Post
I think the (relative) lack of response simply means people who are reading your posts aren´t finding any of those glaringly obvious logical flaws in your argument that are so much fun to tear into.
That's another side of it for sure. Debunking is kind of a game, and it's not always uniformly fun to play.

Rolfe: I don't have the time to dig that up ATM. Other than the photoshop possibility you mention, which sounds weird to me, I could add
1) they might possibly have had the fragments in the photo back in May (I forget how thoroughly that's been ruled out)
2) they might have destroyed the original film or otherwise eliminated the clues of a later photo shoot
3) It might still be polaroid - they might have just stood there and took two or five snaps and then did different circles on each

I don't know what to make of it for sure. Bollier saying Polaroid obviously does nothing for me.
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Old 4th August 2010, 04:29 PM   #73
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Originally Posted by Chaos View Post
I think the (relative) lack of response simply means people who are reading your posts aren´t finding any of those glaringly obvious logical flaws in your argument that are so much fun to tear into.

Dunno. Is anybody reading? The thread isn't getting many views either. A.A.Alfie says nobody cares.

I think the case that al-Megrahi was framed in a plain vanilla manner because he was a plausible suspect in the wrong place at the wrong time is unanswerable, frankly. And that the subsequent conviction was politically-motivated, and the present cover-up may be interpreted merely as a cover-up of a deeply embarrassing miscarriage of justice.

I therefore find it incomprehensible that "nobody cares" about this, in the light of the constant headlines going on right now, monstering an innocent man because he was granted the privilege of going home to die of cancer.

However, this is going somewhere. The legend of Lockerbie includes a tuppence coloured conspiracy theory, whereby the US authorities sought from the beginning to avoid bringing the probable real culprits to justice, and to lay the blame on Libya instead. Only two years later did this crystallise out into blaming a particular Libyan.

The usual reason given for this (the Gulf War) doesn't wash. Did it happen at all, or has the plain vanilla conspiracy merely been over-interpreted? Was the main intent to blame Libya - or rather, to avoid investigating the real culprits, and Libya was just a handy diversion?

Was the CIA actually culpable in some way for the Lockerbie disaster, a way which would become public if the true culprits were brought to book, and which would be far too embarrassing ever to allow to be discovered? Is this why evidence pointing to Libya in general was planted in the early months of the enquiry, evidence which (perhaps fortuitously) eventually led to the fingering and conviction of an innocent Libyan for the crime?

I actually don't know. But I don't discount it on principle. So let's see whether anyone is interested if and when the progression of the thread gets that far.

Rolfe.
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Old 4th August 2010, 04:39 PM   #74
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
That's another side of it for sure. Debunking is kind of a game, and it's not always uniformly fun to play.

Yeah, but sometimes it's hugely fun! [Rolfe fondly remembers Malcolm Kirkman....]

But, not all conspiracy theories are nonsense. Isn't anybody interested in one that might not be?

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Rolfe: I don't have the time to dig that up ATM. Other than the photoshop possibility you mention, which sounds weird to me, I could add
1) they might possibly have had the fragments in the photo back in May (I forget how thoroughly that's been ruled out)
2) they might have destroyed the original film or otherwise eliminated the clues of a later photo shoot
3) It might still be polaroid - they might have just stood there and took two or five snaps and then did different circles on each.

I think the problem with the May date for the photo is that it makes much of the rest of the theory a bit moot. The extra page that seems to indicate rerospective insertion becomes meaningless. The four months of ignoring this FREAKING ENORMOUS CLUE starts to look more like incompetence of a truly monumental extent.

Yes, one can always "lose" a batch of negatives. We don't know if the relevant batch has been "lost", of course. Or whether that would be too big a risk to take.

The third would be my preferred theory, if we were still proposing it was a polaroid. If the camera was on a tripod, you could take several copies of each shot and they'd look the same, I think. If I was deliberately pulling this trick, that's what I'd do.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
I don't know what to make of it for sure. Bollier saying Polaroid obviously does nothing for me.

Well, quite. However, he has been saying that long before anyone figured out it was important. I don't know how to tell a professional-quality polaroid print from a 35mm though.

Rolfe.
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Old 4th August 2010, 09:35 PM   #75
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Dunno. Is anybody reading? The thread isn't getting many views either. A.A.Alfie says nobody cares.

I think the case that al-Megrahi was framed in a plain vanilla manner because he was a plausible suspect in the wrong place at the wrong time is unanswerable, frankly.
I apologize in advance for being an inadequate foil for your insightful analysis.

I would, however, like to point out that Woodward and Bernstein brought down a presidency by presenting not just an "unanswerable" conspiracy theory, but an unanswerable conspiracy fact.

It seems to me that, whatever my own shortcomings as an Internet slapfighter, if you're judging the success of your analysis by the "unanswerableness" of stuff you've posted on Internet forums, you're setting your standards of success far, far lower than the tenor of your posts appears to demand.

If you truly believe that Megrahi was framed for a heinous crime, while the real perpetrators got away, and you truly believe that this is Very Important, why are you still posting here?

Congratulations: You won an Internet slap-fight on JREF: Is that the most you have to offer to the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing? Or is that just the most you care to offer?
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Old 5th August 2010, 01:51 AM   #76
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That's an interesting piece of double-think. Why do you think I shouldn't be posting here? Why do you think you can hand-wave away the facts just because I haven't done something you think I ought to have done?

My purpose in raising the matter was to demonstrate to posters on the JREF forum, especially the American ones, that al-Megrahi was framed. This is common knowledge in Scotland, and has been for years, even if many people couldn't explain the minutiae of the case. It's important because it's a topical issue that certain people are trying to make political capital out of right at the moment, and their behaviour is spectacularly hypocritical in that they focus only on the (non-existent) link between his release and BP, while ignoring the fact that the US authorities framed the man for the crime in the first place.

There are people a lot higher up the food chain than I am, pressing the case for the conviction to be reviewed. Law professors, UN representatives and so on - and some of the families of the victims. It's amazing how easy it is for those in authority to ignore all that pressure, though. Megrahi was essentially blackmailed into dropping the appeal that would have cleared him, as a quid pro quo for being granted the compassionate release. He thought he only had three months to live, at the time.

So now, even though all the facts are in the public domain, the stock answer is simply "the appeal was withdrawn, the conviction stands, that's the end of the matter." And if you're in government, and you want that to be the end of the matter, then as far as the legal process is concerned, it is.

So, you don't want to accept he was framed, even though you have no rebuttal to any of the evidence that demonstrates he was, and that's your affair. Just don't claim to be a "sceptic", or clear-thinking, or evidence-led, that's all.

Rolfe.
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Old 5th August 2010, 02:56 AM   #77
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Ooh! Woodward and Bernstein! My favorite anti-CT fallacy! If a borderline insane and self-destructive president hasn't been impeached over a universally accepted, mass-media saturated, insider-enabled, AND well-researched real conspiracy, then there's no conspiracy. Right?

Quote:
If you truly believe that Megrahi was framed for a heinous crime, while the real perpetrators got away, and you truly believe that this is Very Important, why are you still posting here?
Why the "if?" Do you suspect insincerity?

We're at a discussion forum here, aren't we? That's a place to discuss things.

Do you really have any idea just WHAT we should be doing instead of talking? I'm all ears. Or is this just a cop-out for why you can't be bothered to discuss the issues themselves? Because after the concrete details we've examined strongly suggesting from every angle that Megrahi was framed, your seeming suggestion of insincerity pales to vanishing as a counter-argument. You'll need to do much better than that or I'll have to say you lose the slapfight.
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Old 5th August 2010, 03:08 AM   #78
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If Professor Robert Black, Professor Hans Kochler, Dr. Jim Swire, Mr. Martin Cadman (the last two being Lockerbie relatives very concerned about this), Megrahi's legal defence team, Miss Christine Grahame MSP and a whole bunch of other influential people haven't succeeded in getting an independent enquiry into this scandal, I don't quite see what a private person can do.

Other than explain in a US forum to US posters, what the facts are.

Sometimes you really can't do anything against an establishment intent on covering its own backside. It's hardly sceptical to infer from that that said establishment is somehow, inexplicably, magically in the right.

Quote:
If you truly believe that Megrahi was framed for a heinous crime....

Er, haven't you been reading? It's not a question of "if", or personal belief, it's a question of the facts and the evidence. If you've read all the facts and the evidence, and you agree they're compelling, then on what basis would you form a contrary "belief"?

Rolfe.
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Old 5th August 2010, 04:49 AM   #79
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
If Professor Robert Black, Professor Hans Kochler, Dr. Jim Swire, Mr. Martin Cadman (the last two being Lockerbie relatives very concerned about this), Megrahi's legal defence team, Miss Christine Grahame MSP and a whole bunch of other influential people haven't succeeded in getting an independent enquiry into this scandal, I don't quite see what a private person can do.

Other than explain in a US forum to US posters, what the facts are.

Sometimes you really can't do anything against an establishment intent on covering its own backside. It's hardly sceptical to infer from that that said establishment is somehow, inexplicably, magically in the right.
Brilliantly put. What she said. Theprestige, any rebuttal? Might I suggest something like 'touche' or 'fair enough,' and then, if you feel the issue caredabout by those named above is worthy, maybe help us discuss what can be found out and what can be done.

And might I add to the scpetical victim's families:
Pamela Dix
John Mosey
Matthew Berkley (www.mattberkley.com)
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Old 5th August 2010, 05:46 AM   #80
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Yeah, there are other people. The UK victims' families have been screaming for an independent public enquiry since early in 1989. They've been fobbed off at every turn. They're simply outraged that current calls for an enquiry are focussing purely on the non-story of the non-link to BP (and even there, the senators are studiously ignoring the one person who could explain exactly where BP was and wasn't involved in the wider picture, who is Tony Blair). The hypocrisy that it is US senators who are doing that, when it was the US which was the lead player in framing Megrahi in the first place is not lost on anyone.

I'd respect anyone who could explain, rationally, why they believe Megrahi was actually guilty, with reference to the facts and evidence we have. It's never been done. The bomb didn't go on at Luqa airport. Megrahi didn't buy the clothes. The case goes up in smoke, because that's all the evidence there ever was.

Sometimes all you can do is look at the truth, and accept it, and realise that you can't actually do anything about it - certainly nothing to rectify what is widely regarded as an appalling miscarriage of justice.

Sometimes the best you can do is to present the evidence for that truth in a public forum, so that understanding that this was indeed a miscarriage of justice is wider than it was before.

Theprestige seems to be saying, OK you win, but it's just a game, and it's not going to affect my real-life beliefs. That's not how it works. If the evidence points to a conclusion, and that conclusion is unassailable, then changing your real-life beliefs is what it's about.

Accepting that you can't in practice do any more about it doesn't make that evidence go away.

Rolfe.
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