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Experts Now Say JFK Bullet Analysis Was Wrong

Spy Handler writes "Researchers analyzing bullet fragments from the 1963 Kennedy assassination using new techniques say that the government's 1976 conclusion that the bullets came from only one gun (Oswald's) is wrong. 'Using new guidelines set forth by the National Academy of Sciences for proper bullet analysis, Tobin and his colleagues at Texas A&M re-analyzed the bullet evidence used by the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations, which concluded that only one shooter, Oswald, fired the shots that killed Kennedy in Dallas. The committee's finding was based in part on the research of now-deceased University of California at Irvine chemist Vincent P. Guinn. He used bullet lead analysis to conclude that the five bullet fragments recovered from the Kennedy assassination scene came from just two bullets, which were traced to the same batch of bullets Oswald owned.'"

104 of 550 comments (clear)

  1. Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's about damn time. Maybe in another 44 years we'll also learn the truth about 9/11?

    1. Re:Finally by untaken_name · · Score: 4, Funny

      I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

      You'd be really blue after 44 years even if we did find out the truth then.

    2. Re:Finally by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It wasn't done by the US, as much as people like you seem to believe/wish it were.

      And yes, we've all seen the alleged "proof" (which is laughable at best).

      A decent compendium debunking most of the more common little tidbits is here:

      http://www.loosechangeguide.com/

      (Yes, it's related to Loose Change, but since Loose Change is a collection of some of the more popular conspiracy theories/doubts/etc. about 9/11, it's a good place to start.)

      There might be a lot of corrupt politicians, ulterior motives, and evil deeds in the world, but the US executing 9/11 on itself, and all that is implicit in that from technical, personnel, logistics, military, and numerous other perspectives, simply doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny.

      You can say the US invited the attacks because of mideast policy. You can even say that some people might have not shed a tear in terms of the ability to then use 9/11 as a "Pearl Harbor"-type incident. But unfortunately, it was 19 mostly Saudi radical Islamic extremists - even if one believes they are monsters of the United States' own creation - that attacked the US on 9/11.

      Not the US government or military itself. Not the shadow government. Not the Illuminati.

      It's actually quite incredible what some conspiracy loons believe about 9/11. It simply does not stand up to any logic at all, or even common sense. Buildings weren't wired with explosives. It wasn't a drone or missile that hit the Pentagon. It wasn't remote control military aircraft that hit the towers. Voice changing technology wasn't used to make fake cell phone calls from Flight 93. Cell phones *do* work on planes (in various circumstances). The FCC/FAA cell phone "ban" isn't a trick so that people will "find out" that cell phones "don't work" under Flight 93-like conditions. Saying that something falls at "free fall speeds" (e.g., in reference to WTC 7) is meaningless and has no bearing on the discussion. Bringing up things like some NORAD exercise or Operation Northwoods or all kinds of tenuous, ridiculous, and (co)incidental information about some pilot who worked some particular place 25 years ago is irrelevant and meaningless. All/some of the planes weren't secretly landed safely at a military installation and then the occupants murdered. Hundreds/thousands of people haven't been "bought off" or "disappeared" to "cover up" the "truth" about 9/11.

      I could go on and on and on and on. But ultimately, the people who want to believe 9/11 was an inside job will keep believing it, and any amount of proof otherwise won't sway them, and can indeed just be explained away as part of the conspiracy. Kind of like rabid Creationists, almost, frankly...

      If you want to hate policy and a political view, go for it. But just realize that lunacy takes away any legitimacy from your debate, and getting other people to believe this tripe will eventually be the entire movement's undoing, or the end of *actual* truth (as opposed to your "truth") in any debate on this topic. And frankly, I think that may be what some people want.

    3. Re:Finally by RockoTDF · · Score: 2, Funny

      In addition, the US Military would not kill their own like that, or attack their own headquarters. To me that is what ultimately debunks 9/11 conspiracy theories.

      --
      There is more to science than physics!

      www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
    4. Re:Finally by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah. Because we do already know the "truth" about 9/11, and nearly all of the mechanics and particulars of the attack, holes and omissions and mistakes aside, is quite nicely, thoroughly, and comprehensively covered in the 9/11 Commission Report, which conspiracy theorists think is the biggest whitewash in US history to throw people off the "truth" of what "really happened" on 9/11.

      And for people who point out holes and mistakes in the Commission's report, they apparently don't understand how commissions like this - and their reports - work. They're not living documents or someone's blog. They're painstakingly compiled with all of the information available at the time, and then written, edited, and frozen. And when they are frozen, they stay that way. Errors and all. Except that doesn't make the other 95% of the factual information in the report any less true.

      Not to mention that all of the convoluted theories people have, a mere fraction of a fraction of some of the most common I rattled off in my reply, just utterly defy any kind of logic or common sense and usually both.

    5. Re:Finally by Brad+Eleven · · Score: 5, Funny

      I could go on and on and on and on.
      Ehhhh, you kind of did.
      --
      "Press to test."
      (click)
      "Release to detonate."
    6. Re:Finally by Var1abl3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The truth about 9/11???? WTF are you talking about??? As I stood and looked up at the buildings just before the plane hit I can tell you the truth: "A plane, moving very fast, hit each building causing major damage resulting in an eventual collapse of both buildings. As for Building 7 a fire broke out, caused by damage from the falling debris, (this was the emergency management building with something like 10K gallons of fuel in it for the backup generators) that was all but ignored by the first responders who were left alive partly because with the cloud of dust and smoke it was all but impossible to even see it let alone get new fire trucks there to put the fire out, that eventually weakened the structure causing its collapse."
      I know all you tin foil hat folks have a hard time with fire melting steel but look at what happened in California a few weeks ago when a tanker truck loaded with fuel crashed and caught fire causing the collapse of the overpass. Sorry to break the news to you but heat does soften steel long before it actually liquefies. If you do not like this country so much, or do not trust it then move to IRAN or somewhere that you will be more comfortable...... until you can show me proof that it was an "inside" job just shut the fuck up...
      BTW with the way all the "leaks" have been coming out of the CIA, FBI, NSA etc. do you really think our government could keep an "inside" job of this scale quite for so long? And if Bush is as dumb as you leftest keep telling me he is how could he have planed such a huge attack without blundering it in the few months he was in office prior to the attacks? Like I said STFU or leave you dumb bastard or should I say Anonymous Coward.... If you want to rant at least have the balls to give us your name!

      Troll this all you want!

    7. Re:Finally by daveschroeder · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Steven Jones is a godsend to you guys, I know.

      I'm sorry, but you have to ask yourself:

      Was 9/11 a conspiracy perfectly executed by the US government, that required hundreds, at a minimum, of people at all levels of government and private industry to be completely complicit (and silent after the fact, when we can't even keep our most classified programs secret), which murdered over 3000 US citizens, then made it look like it was mostly Saudis that did it and masterminded by a Saudi (when Saudi Arabia is an official ally), who had previously been partially aided by the CIA against the Russians, but then supposedly "concealed" that it was Saudis that did it, as an excuse to warmonger in completely and utterly unrelated nations in the mideast?

      Look, this doesn't have ANYTHING to do with "mainstream media". If you believe the kinds of things you think these things are telling you, you MUST also believe what I said in the prior paragraph, and that makes no sense. If you DO, on the other hand, believe essentially that, then I feel very, very sorry for you, and there won't be any further productive discussion between us on this topic.

      And yes, as someone who also happens to have formal education in physics, I can read a cold fusion physicist's paper and absolutely not "question" the "official story", which is that two of the largest buildings on earth collapsed in an unprecedented fashion in an unprecedented event. There is nothing in the mechanics of the collapse that contradicts any laws of physics in the "official" (i.e., true) story.

    8. Re:Finally by jcr · · Score: 2, Informative

      The thing that keeps pissing me off is the nuts who claim that the towers were destroyed in a controlled demolition when 1) a building that's being imploded starts with detonations at ground level and 2), preparing a building for implosion is a major construction project. It takes weeks to strip the drywall from around the structural members, place the shaped charges, wire the detonators back to a control panel, etc, etc. Thousands of people worked in those buildings; we're supposed to swallow the notion that nobody would notice all that activity?

      Rosie O'Donnell gives stupid, loud-mouthed fat chicks a bad name.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    9. Re:Finally by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While I hate the Bush Administration, I learned from an early experience in IT to never attribute to malice what you can to incompetence. These guys simply were incompetent and then tried to hide it; which is where all the unnecessary secrecy stems from. I've seen a too many of the 9/11 conspiracies debunked already to give credence to an evil plot.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    10. Re:Finally by Coryoth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That is true. However, liquid steel was found in the basement of the World Trade Center weeks after 9/11. Some metal that had been liquified was found in the wreckage; there is no reason to believe it was steel (as opposed to some of the many other metals with lower melting points in the building) -- it was certainly not identified as steel by anyone except those who want to believe in a grand conspiracy.
    11. Re:Finally by sycodon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Don't you get the feeling that arguing with the "9/11 Inside Job" folks is like arguing with your dog?

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    12. Re:Finally by miskatonic+alumnus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's amazing how this offtopic, ranting, flambaiting, straw-man beating, troll of a post got modded up to 5. That's okay --- I'll take the negative mod-bombs from your little fan club.

    13. Re:Finally by tehshen · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe it was liquid tinfoil.

      --
      Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
    14. Re:Finally by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 2, Funny

      I don't argue with my dog. I roll up a newspaper and tell him to shut the hell up.

      I wish it were that easy with the kind of nuts who deal in this kind of conspiracy. Then again, I actually married a woman who believes the Moon Landing was a hoax.

    15. Re:Finally by Plutonite · · Score: 3, Informative

      The best debunking I ever saw was Maddox's usual black satire:
      http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=91 1_morons

    16. Re:Finally by dave1791 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hey!

      I'm a member of the Illuminati and I have to fess up that we did not do that one. It was the Freemasons.

    17. Re:Finally by IWantMoreSpamPlease · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Backing you up on this, one of the conspiracys I had seen mentioned the impossibility of steel in the twin towers melting from the kind of heat generated by the planes crashing into them.

      Just last week or so, a tanker truck caught fire and burned on a california highway system, and the heat generated from that, melted the steel support structure and the roadways collapsed.

      So yes, fire can melt steel and cause large buildings to collapse, so it's one more conspiracy de-bunked

      --
      So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
  2. Get your tinfoil shelters out. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Time travllers came back and fired invisible bullets from the grassy knoll.

    1. Re:Get your tinfoil shelters out. by throup · · Score: 2, Funny

      So you've been watching Red Dwarf recently too, have you?

    2. Re:Get your tinfoil shelters out. by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, that's not right...Chuck Norris' beard actually deflected the bullets in a *failed* assasination attempt. Kennedy's head exploded out of shear amazement.

  3. JFK, blown away. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What else do I have to say?

    1. Re:JFK, blown away. by DrDitto · · Score: 4, Funny

      Moderating this as "Funny" is sick.

    2. Re:JFK, blown away. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      What, too soon?

  4. seriously by Ace905 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Seriously, was there ever any doubt? Did _anybody_ believe the government over all of the eye witnesses, the drawn out court-case, the ridiculous implausible explanation required, or the pristine perfect bullet found OUTSIDE his body?

    It's good somebody finally _proved_ they were lying, but we still don't know why they lied - and really, what moron ever thought the case was closed.

    ---
    this moron

    --

    Ace
    1. Re:seriously by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 4, Funny

      In my defense, I rejected the official story on the grounds that the Freemasons had to be involved. So I'm immune from criticism.

    2. Re:seriously by MankyD · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's good somebody finally _proved_ they were lying, but we still don't know why they lied...

      It's worth noting that they did not prove that they were lying. Rather, they simply proved that they were wrong in their original analysis.

      This reminds me of a particular xkcd comic.

      --
      -dave
      http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
    3. Re:seriously by Obyron · · Score: 4, Informative

      I saw a very fascinating Discovery documentary entitled "Beyond the Magic Bullet" wherein they replicated as closely as possible conditions of the day, and a shooter was able to fire a shot nearly perfectly recreating the wounds from the magic bullet, and resulting in a round that had equal deformity (which was very little) to that of the "Magic" bullet. It was very very startling to me, as a doubter of the probability of the theory, and forced me to reevaluate things. I'm still not sure if I believe that it's what happened, but those decrying the single shooter "magic bullet" theory as scientifically impossible are wrong.

      --
      --Obyron
    4. Re:seriously by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 4, Funny

      Unless, of course, the Discovery documentary you watched was a propaganda piece carefully orchestrated by the FBI (or whomever) specifically designed to make you think that the magic bullet people are wrong so that you will dismiss their arguments and accept the official story!

      You'll have to pardon me for that, the X Files movie is available On Demand on my cable system and I keep watching bits and pieces of it.

      --
      "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
    5. Re:seriously by megamerican · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Have you ever read or watched anything about the JFK assassination other than the movie JFK?



      If you have watched or read any recent documentary you will know that the "magic bullet theory" isn't magical at all. You would also know that JFK being shot from anywhere besides the book depository is basically an impossibility.



      This revelation is interesting only because there is a possibility of a second gunmen. Most of the places where people claim a second gunmen to be have been heavily debunked in recent documentaries. I would speculate that the bullets are from the same gun (and are actually two bullets). Just because the methodology of the test isn't correct doesn't mean that the results of the test were completely false.



      There is no need for a second gunmen to prove that there was a conspiracy or that Lee acted alone, it is just the easiest way to do so. Lee had such a weird life and there are plenty of holes in his life, especially after he joined the Marines.



      I really don't see any other tests coming up with anything other than the fragments are from two bullets that came from Lee's gun. It would be much more correct to say that "Experts Now Say JFK Bullet Analysis MIGHT Be Wrong." And it is still a very big MIGHT.

      --
      If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
    6. Re:seriously by aminorex · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I can tell you one thing that is impossible: That Oswald was the shooter. There's a nice photograph of the front of the TSRB as Kennedy rides by, published in Look magazine immediately after the assassination, which shows Oswald on the sidewalk, street-level, wearing the same shirt he was wearing when Jack Ruby killed him.

      --
      -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
    7. Re:seriously by hcmtnbiker · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Seriously, was there ever any doubt? Did _anybody_ believe the government over all of the eye witnesses, the drawn out court-case, the ridiculous implausible explanation required, or the pristine perfect bullet found OUTSIDE his body?

      • Witnesses couldn't have seen anything the TIME tape didn't catch about the shootings. Sure talk about the grassy knoll all you want, but with all the people there(the "witnesses" you where talking about) I would expect at least a fair physical description of a suspect from there or something more then a "it looked like smoke came from there" response.
      • Oswald happened to get shot in the middle of it all, that might have messed up the court system maybe?
      • What explanation would you have considered plausible given the strange occurance of the entry vs exit wounds? Tell me why there was no bullet found that would have come from the opposite direction(the main conspiracy theory relies on a wound in JFKs back to be an exit wound, but that would mean there's a bullet lying around somewhere).
      • Last, what pristine bullet are you talking about? I know of one that ended up in 5 pieces inside JFK, and another that ended up in the car after passing through the original's entry/exit wounds and passing through his I believe right leg before embedding itself in the car(and not in prestine condition either).
      --
      If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
    8. Re:seriously by Himring · · Score: 3, Funny

      I saw that too. I've seen lots of documentaries. You need to watch more. They failed to mention, at all, the umbrella man or the hail-fist man who signal just prior to the first shot. They failed to mention, entirely, the photographic work done on the grassy gnoll wherein images of a shooter and an american soldier are discovered verifying the soldier's original testimony (he was even interviewed recently and is a highly credible witness). It failed to mention the dozens and dozens of witnesses who claimed "secret service" agents confiscated their cameras and video cameras 'as part of the investigation.' It failed to mention at all the train station operators who testified to seeing strange construction workers opening toolboxes and pulling things out and then walking onto the grassy gnoll. That show you mention even had a guy pull out Oswald's shooters score book from the marines showing what an incredible shot he was, yet you can find evidence with google proving Oliver Stone's assertion that other marines said he had "maggies drawers" and/or was a poor shooter overall. They had simply pulled out a few instances of good shooting he had for your show. They failed to mention Johnson's comments on the event with a "well, if it's a war they're wanting I'll give it." They failed to mention how the secret service did many, many odd things that day that allowed the shooting to happen.

      For every documentatary and book stating it was Oswald only there are opposite documentaries and books stating otherwise. Don't believe everything you see, read and hear on one source alone. Come on now, you are the post 9/11 crowd. Use your head.

      John F., Bobby, MLK, all of those shootings were too convenient, too easy and too mysterious to be so cut and dry.

      Stone made a movie, and he made one hell of a one. It still stirs up controversy. That documentary you saw was meant totally to discredit the movie, JFK, and Stone. It appears to have one at least one convert....

      --
      "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
    9. Re:seriously by arivanov · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have no opinion on the authenticity of this photogrpah, but it is clearly very very interesting: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ JFK/postphotos.html

      --
      Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
      http://www.sigsegv.cx/
    10. Re:seriously by Josuah · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wrong episode/movie. You want the one where they go into cancer man's background, since he's the one that killed JFK. None of the JFK stuff is mentioned in the movie. :p

    11. Re:seriously by CaffeineAddict2001 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You guys are total nut jobs.

      The united states government can't cover up a blow job from a 21 year old intern in the privacy of the oval office. What makes you think they can cover up an assassination on a crowded street at noon?

    12. Re:seriously by jeremyp · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The BBC also did a documentary for the 40th anniversary in which they simulated the scene using a computer model based on camera footage from the assassination and they came to the same conclusion. The magic bullet wasn't magic at all.

      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
    13. Re:seriously by kalirion · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I can understand watching bits and pieces of a movie that's being broadcast over and over, but how do you explain watching bits and pieces of it when it's ON DEMAND? Do you request the movie and then fast forward to a random segment? Do you constantly fall asleep while watching it?

    14. Re:seriously by hajus · · Score: 3, Funny

      So that's how it got on her dress...

    15. Re:seriously by RiddleofSteel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The government couldn't cover up the blow job because Monica talked and half the government wanted it blown up(pun intended) all over the media. It's when the whole government wants to cover something up that we should be scared.

  5. Oh good grief by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 4, Funny

    He's dead - get over it. Marilyn Monroe: dead too. Elvis: him too.
    Get over it.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    1. Re:Oh good grief by niceone · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, yeah, JFK and Monroe, sure. But not Elvis.

    2. Re:Oh good grief by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Even knowing the identity and motives of the "real" assassin would do nothing more than satisfy historical curiosity. It would be no different than finding out that Archduke Ferdinand was really killed by a Frenchman. You can't change history. (but you can re-write it.)

      Well, I don't give any particular credence to any of the individual theories (I'm not an expert on the subject, or any related subject) but some have speculated that it was a faction within our government that assassinated JFK, that Ruby would have suffered even worse had he not executed Harvey and so on. If it's true, then those people are probably still profiting from the assassination and they should be found and imprisoned, and their ill-gotten goods taken away. (Most would say they should be executed; for the record, I am anti-death penalty for any reason save if it is physically impossible to imprison someone who will otherwise do people harm. And I'm having a hard time imagining such a situation barring the fall of civilization or similar.)

      It's not about changing history, it's about understanding history, and its implications for both the present and future.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Oh good grief by Gospodin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What I want to know is, if they're so good at maintaining the cover story for all these years, how come they're so frickin' incompetent at everything else?

      --
      ...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
    4. Re:Oh good grief by RoaldFalcon · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, yeah, JFK and Monroe, sure. But not Elvis.

      OK, people. Let's get this straight. Elvis is dead. Period. He's been dead since 1991. Otherwise the US Postal Service would never have made a stamp with him on it. Best as I can figure, the CIA must have told the USPS about his demise as soon as it happened.

    5. Re:Oh good grief by Gospodin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Good point, but I wouldn't say this is the same thing, for several reasons. First, it was only highly significant until 1945, and considering the intelligence wasn't usable until after 1940, the highly significant secret was only kept for at most 5 years, not "decades". Second, the secret was being kept during a time of total war. Third, while official disclosure of Ultra didn't come about until the 1970s, some disclosures about it were made public earlier. The fact that this didn't generate a mass of conspiracy theories only supports my point #1: that it was no longer highly significant.

      OTOH, if it were true that the US government (or a foreign government, for that matter - let's thrown in the conspiracy theory that Castro backed Oswald just for fun) assassinated JFK, that would still be highly significant today.

      --
      ...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
  6. In other news by niceone · · Score: 4, Funny

    The researchers believe that the chunk of "grassy knoll" they found among the fragments might also be significant.

    1. Re:In other news by grassy_knoll · · Score: 2, Funny

      The researchers believe that the chunk of "grassy knoll" they found among the fragments might also be significant.


      I'll have you know I'm not missing any chunks.
  7. Cmon Seriously? by otacon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Obviously there was another shooter that the Gov didn't want you to know. If you look at Oswald's history he was all over the place...defecting to the Soviet Union when he was 19, just 3 days after being discharged from the Marines...that has CIA written all over it.

    --
    In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
  8. Re:Does anyone really care anymore? by tgd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Money

    People make a lot of money writing books.

  9. I can hear it now by LordKaT · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can hear it now ... somewhere Bill Hicks is giggling to himself.

    1. Re:I can hear it now by dr_dank · · Score: 4, Funny

      I was just down in Dallas, Texas. You know, you can go down there and to Dealey Plaza where Kennedy was assassinated. And you can actually go to the sixth floor of the Schoolbook Depository. It's a museum called ... "The Assassination Museum". I think they named it that after the assassination. I can't be too sure of the chronology here, but ... anyway, they have the window set up to look exactly like it did on that day. And it's really accurate, you know, 'cause Oswald's not in it.

      - Bill Hicks

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
  10. just to be clear by mzs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "They reached no conclusion about whether more than one gunman was involved"

    They only have shown that it is not statistically certain that all bullet fragments were of similar make-up of to those of Oswald's.

    1. Re:just to be clear by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They only have shown that it is not statistically certain that all bullet fragments were of similar make-up of to those of Oswald's.

      That is not at all what the article says. What it says is that the previous investigation concluded that all bullet fragments came from only 2 bullets. This new study shows that it is possible that the fragments came from three or more bullets . So assuming that now people think that 3 or more bullets were fired, the question is - How many of those bullets could Oswald have fired? My understanding is that some people think he could have gotten off 3 shots within the time allowed. Others say that it would be almost impossible to fire more than 2. So until we seem to come to a conclusion that Oswald could only have fired 2 bullets and not 3, we haven't seen anyone rule out that Oswald could have fired 3 bullets himself.

    2. Re:just to be clear by Syberghost · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not to mention the fact that they didn't reach the conclusion there were three bullets; they just reached the conclusion that it wasn't PROVEN to be two. It is still possible that there were only two, and it is still possible that it will be proven to be two. It is also possible that there were only two, but that it will never be proven that there only two.

      None of this will have any material bearing on what 99% of the people who have an opinion on this matter think.

  11. Re:Zapruder film by techpawn · · Score: 2, Funny

    Back... and to the left... Back... and to the left...

    --
    Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
  12. ~Conspiracy, Still by Omestes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wait, meaning he could have loaded his gun with bullets from different batches of rounds?

    Am I misreading this? It just says that some of the fragments had different chemical profiles, meaning they come from different sources. So, why couldn't he have used different sources for his bullets? How does this make a conspiracy, still?

    --
    A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
  13. Re:I really wonder if this is just by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Whoa, it's a meta-conspiracy.

  14. Slow your horses there, cowboy. by geekoid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Based on common analysis at the time, it was reasonable conclusion.

    This analysis is full of maybes
    example:

    "If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely, as the additional bullet would not be attributable to the main suspect, Mr. Oswald."

    Or he fired another shot.
    The guy who claims this has been afer the FBI for years, and what better way to get in the press then dragging this out. Lets see some other groups confirm his analysis.

    Even though this post is clearly trollish in nature, and quite frankly doesn't belong on /. there is no reason to exsasorbate the issue with post like yours.

    Was there more then one shooter? I don't know.
    What I do know is this:
    Any moment in time, looked at be enough people begin to show things that dno't make sense. Any event has thing that seem unexplainable 20+ years down the road.
    I also watched a man hit a moving target at 1000 yards, repeatably.
    I also no that if there was another shooter, that doesn't mean there is a cover up or conspiracy. Just a wrong conclusion based on faulty analysis.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  15. This casts doubt how? by Flababo · · Score: 4, Informative

    This story makes it seem as though this new revelation casts doubt on the whole story. Simply because the lead analysis is wrong doesn't invalidate the highly compelling ballistics evidence and reliable eyewitness testimony. While the lead analysis may not preclude a second shooter, the other evidence certainly does. I would suggest reading Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK by Gerald Posner. It does a very convincing job of examining and supporting Oswald as the sole shooter. This new analysis is not a smoking gun and shame on the media for slanting it that way.

  16. Not "wrong"... Just "not proven" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Misleading summary on Slashdot? Who would have thought? They didn't say it was wrong (meaning that there was more than one gunmen), they said the analysis was not correct. This means it could have been one gun, it could have been several - the analysis that supposedly proved one gunman actually did not. But, it didn't disprove one gunman either. Of course, "analysis not statistically significant" is a far cry from "multiple gunman proven", but which gets more clicks?

  17. Every been to Dealey Plaza? In person? by Syncerus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I used to believe a bunch of the conspiracy bs until I actually visited the site of the shooting in person. Once you've been to the Book Repository and seen the location in person, it becomes painfully obvious that it was almost trivially easy for Oswald to have done the shooting. Quite frankly, the conditions make it very easy (almost convenient) for Oswald to kill Kennedy.

    In a nutshell, the location is **small**. Everything is very close together, distances are modest and the shooting was very, very easy from the window to the traveling automobile. The angle was just about ideal for Oswald. The "grassy knoll" is a joke, and the angle from the "knoll" was much less favorable for an assassination attempt.

    Seriously folks, go visit the Book Repository yourself. All the conspiracy FUD is just anger and disappointment that something exciting and pretty was destroyed by something ugly and small.

    --
    "Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
    1. Re:Every been to Dealey Plaza? In person? by t0rkm3 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Guess they've never fired a rifle whilst being battle-trained eh?

      My dad was a international level shooter and you wouldn't believe how fast he could reload a bolt-action rifle.

      One of those thing's that make me laugh. Like saying that taking an assault rifle away is going to lower the body count when someone walks into a classroom and starts shooting. With a little practice you can fire a clip empty and reload before someone can get out of their seat.

      Just shows how ignorant people become when they have zero experience in a field.

  18. Re:Zapruder film by airen9 · · Score: 3, Funny

    "...back and to the left, back and to the left. Which, by the way, that action you see Kennedy's head go through in the Zapruder film - caused by a bullet... [points behind him] comin from up there, ha. Yes, I know it looks to the layman or someone who might dabble in physics... This action here would be caused by a bullet coming from... Well... [thinks] Up here, did you see that? Did everyone see that? Yeah, but no. What happened was Oswald's gun went off, causing an echo to echo through the buildings of Dealey Plaza and the echo went by the limo on the left up into the grassy knoll hitting some leaves causing dust to fly out which 56 witnesses testified was a gun shot, cos immediately... Kennedy's head went over. But the reason his head went over is cause the echo went by the motorcade on the left and he went "What was that?" "

  19. Re:Does anyone really care anymore? by jcronen · · Score: 2, Funny

    I was going to make the same point, but then I saw that the next article down on the main page is entitled "Does Zelda Need an Overhaul?" and realized Slashdot is the wrong forum to decide what is useful and what isn't.

  20. Re:Does anyone really care anymore? by Himring · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "I don't understand, why are people concerned with this?"

    You nailed by italicizing the "why." Mysteries always intrigue the human animal. We read books to find out what happens. Women chase men who are ... mysterious. "Who is he?" She wonders. We want what we can't have. What we do have, we want to get rid of. Why? We want something new, someone new, new experiences. Lewis called this true joy. Joy, true joy, he explained, is never in the having, but always in the desiring. Never is a thing more perfect than when we don't have it. Never is someone more lovely than when we lose them and can no longer have them. Psychologists tell us that people dumped in a relationship tend to only remember the good things about the one who dumped them. Even the dumper, in time, feels this way. Why? It rebuilds mystery. It rebuilds joy. It rebuilds the what, who and why of it all.

    Why do people care about JFK's death? Because he was the president of the United States. He was mysteriously killed. A very important person dying a very mysterious death builds tons of who, what and why. Yes, in a sense, it builds that mechanism in us that craves knowing. How many of us wouldn't pay all our money to have a true, clear answer to a question that's pained us in our lives? We see that answer as something joyful, fulfilling. Some call it closure. Some call it joy....

    --
    "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
  21. Re:"Experts", huh? by swillden · · Score: 4, Informative

    So, unnamed, so-called "Experts" are here to stoke conspiracy theory bullshit and maybe sell a book. What else is new?

    From the article, the main guy is William A. Tobin "the FBI lab's chief metallurgy expert for more than two decades". Sounds like an expert to me. He could be wrong, of course, but I would think his say-so would be enough to warrant another review of the evidence, with the improved techniques that he already got the FBI to adopt.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  22. Re:MOD PARENT UP by jfengel · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your statement implies that they were ever going to RTFA. I find that a rather bold and unwarranted conclusion.

    We're Slashdot: we already know everything we need to know. We're just waiting for everybody else to find it out.

  23. To quote the late, great Bill Hicks by loafula · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "I have this feeling that whoever's elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what promises you make on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down... and it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before, which looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll.... And then the screen comes up, the lights come on, and they say to the new president, 'Any questions?'"

    --
    FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
  24. The accidental assassin by steveha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One interesting theory I heard: there were two shooters, but the second shooter might not have intended to shoot.

    There were various Secret Service people around, armed with various weapons. If you are well trained, you carry a weapon with the safety applied, and with your finger off the trigger, and the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. But sometimes people do screw up.

    So, according to this theory, Oswald starts shooting at JFK, and someone screws up and fires off an accidental shot from an AR-15 or something. Then the person who screwed up never admitted it, because if you fatally shot the man you were trying to protect, would you be in a hurry to admit it?

    The accidental shot could have been while taking the safety off in a hurry with a finger on the trigger, for example. (One of Cooper's famous three laws of firearm safety: keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you have the sights lined up on a target you are willing to shoot.)

    http://www.sportshooter.com/safety/safetyrules_ann otated.asp

    I heard this theory from Massad Ayoob years ago during a lecture on safety. He felt that JFK's head wound was consistent with the small, fast bullet fired by an AR-15, while JFK's other wounds were consistent with a big, heavy, slow bullet fired by the Carcano rifle used by Oswald.

    http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/id89.htm

    I have not researched this enough to have an opinion on how likely it is, but I do find it interesting.

    steveha

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  25. I'm no conspiracy theorist... by TheBearBear · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But when I came across this wiki article, I said "HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, I wonder"

    From Wiki Article on JFK Assassination

    "The FBI has received added scrutiny by Kennedy assassination researchers due to the actions of FBI agent James Hosty. Hosty appeared in Oswald's address book. The FBI provided to the Warren Commission a typewritten transcription of Oswald's address book, in which Hosty's name and phone number were omitted. Two days before the assassination, Oswald went to the FBI office in Dallas to meet with Hosty, and when he found that Hosty was not in the office at the time, Oswald left an envelope for Hosty with a letter inside. After Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, Hosty's supervisor ordered Hosty to destroy the letter, and he did so by tearing the letter up and flushing it down the toilet. Months later, when Hosty testified before the Warren Commission, he did not disclose this connection with Oswald. This information became public later and was investigated by the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations.[57]"

    1. Re:I'm no conspiracy theorist... by aztektum · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Federal Bureau of Investigation was deficient in its sharing of information with other agencies and departments.

      Shock! Dismay! How so little has changed in nearly 50 years. My grandpa has told me a few times that ever since JFK he never felt he could trust the world he thought he knew. He's no conspiracy nut, but it definitely realigned his opinion of politicians and made him realize "Big Brother's" presence even back then.

      The citizens of the US haven't become disenfranchised because of G.W.. That started decades ago and is simply accelerating rapidly these days.

      --
      :: aztek ::
      No sig for you!!
    2. Re:I'm no conspiracy theorist... by Optic7 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm no conspiracy theorist either, but I think that the JFK assassination conspiracy theory is probably the juiciest of them all. That's because it's plausible, there were plenty of people with motivation to do it, and it's just shooting one man in a convertible car, something that could easily be pulled off with a handful of skilled people in the 1960s. Not to mention that there is just so much about the assassination and the strange or suspicious events around it that make it seem like we haven't heard the entire story yet. Yep, the JFK assassination conspiracy theory wins the grand prize of conspiracy theories. Notice that the 9/11 theories are the opposite - completely far-fetched, easily debunked stuff.

  26. You think *that's* puzzling? by Bearpaw · · Score: 2, Funny

    There was this guy (I forget his name) executed for some crime a couple of thousand years ago, and there are multiple organizations, big and small, arguing about that. Heck, sometimes they even get to killing each other over it. Go figure.

  27. Huey Long shot by own body guard by Latent+Heat · · Score: 5, Funny
    There is one screwball theory upon which I read a book about (yeah, yeah, there are books and books on this). The theory is that the kill shot was from an accidental discharge of a Secret Service AR-15.

    Yes, Oswald was up in his sniper's nest in the Book Repository building and popped off some shots, and his was the "magic bullet" that wounded the President and Governer Connely. As to the bullet being pristine, there is this thing about full-metal jacket military bullets that are supposed to go through you instead of fragment or mushroom, and it was not pristine but rather deformed, and high-energy 22 cal bullets can take strange paths through body tissue.

    The big mystery is how Oswald could have popped off the "single bullet" and then the kill shot -- was he that good a marksman at a moving target or was he lucky and the rest of the world so unlucky? The theory is no, the kill shot came from somewhere else -- the commotion of the shooting, a Secret Service agent dropped what was at that time an experimental AR-15, the thing discharged (in front and below the President), and the peculiar ammo inflicted the horrific, fatal wound on the President.

    Government coverup? You bet! How could the government admit to the President being killed by his own bodyguards, althought that is what happened to Huey Long -- also an accident. Oswald the lone killer? Also true -- that the fatal shot was an accident in response to someone trying to kill the President doesn't let Oswald off the hood.

    1. Re:Huey Long shot by own body guard by iainmcphersn · · Score: 2, Informative

      The book is "Mortal Error" by Bonar Menninger. He also concluded that the shots he attributed to Oswald were unsurvivable though not as graphically destructive as the one he attributed to the Secret Service AR-15, ergo, any accident by the Secret Service did not change the ultimate outcome.

  28. Re:Zapruder film by Col.+Klink+(retired) · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The bullet (and a bit of brains and other material) left the front right side of his head. That would act as a propellent and have a greater mass than that of the bullet alone. Penn & Teller debunked this one:

    Binding a honeydew mellon with an inch of fiberglass tape to represent Kennedy's skull (on the model proposed by Nobel-laureate physicist Luis Walter Alvarez), Teller puts a shot through it. Slow motion photography shows how the spray of goo exiting the mellon propels it back towards the shooter. Put another way, "back and to the left" is another way to say "shot from the Texas School Book Depository Building."
    --

    -- Don't Tase me, bro!

  29. This ISN'T the truth - JFK was killed by bears by Valacosa · · Score: 2, Funny

    This still isn't the truth. The truth is JFK was killed by bears from space.

    --
    "Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
  30. Does the government put up red flags on purpose? by jollyreaper · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The whole JFK assassination thing never sat right with me. For the most part I believe that your typical conspiracy theory, the ones that would be called kooky, rely too much on the omniscience of the shadowy "they." We're talking a level of coordination and control that any overt organization would be hard-pressed to match, PLUS the ability to keep it all secret! Your typical Illuminati conspiracies fall apart under analysis. But then there's your more realistic conspiracies, what I call the Mafia-type. They're possible, plausible, and have happened in the past, the only question is whether event X involved one. The Loose Change theory that the Pentagon was not hit by a passenger jet, that's kook. The idea that the WTC was taken down by controlled demlolition charges, that's kook. The idea that the Bush administration was behind the whole thing with detailed involvment in the planning, made it happen on purpose, that's kook. But what about the stuff that really happened? Coverying up Pat Tillman's death? Fact. Lying about Jessica Lynch? Fact. Outright fabrication of evidence to steer the nation towards war? Fact. Shutting down and firing anyone within the administration, military, and government agencies who questioned the war? Fact. Basing selection criteria for who to recruit for the rebuilding of Iraq based on party loyalty rather than professional qualifications? Fact. The textbook definition of a conspiracy: an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot. If I plot to kill my wife and my brother is in on it, this is a conspiracy to commit murder. If I plot to steal money from my employer and my coworker is in on it, that is a conspiracy to steal.

    But back to what I was getting at originally, the whole official story for the Kennedy Assassination smells funny. You have passionate people on both sides of the issue arguing about whether this point or that validates or disproves the government's story. If Oswald was not the lone killer, it's a conspiracy. If there were some gigantic lapse in security that let Kennedy be killed and officials moved to coverup that embarassment, it's a conspiracy, but not in the sense that "they" ordered him killed. But who would "they" even be? If there is a "they", why kill him on Dallas? Why the whole fancy shooting from the Schoolbook Depository?

    And this all leads around to another explanation, maskirova. That's a russian word for camouflage, deception, or misdirection. Take Area 51 for example. The Air Force wants to play with some crazy toys out in the desert. Seeing as the Western powers were the Soviet's best source for military research, the last thing anyone wanted was to give the game away to their spies. So, the public has a fascination with flying saucers and little green men, right? Well, the new experimental aircraft look pretty odd, especially at night. Why not play up that angle? Everybody assumes the government is hiding something so why not really give them something to talk about? Act mysterious, give ludicrous explanations for what people might have seen in the sky, call it swamp gas or venus low on the horizon, act like you've got something to hide. Pretty soon everybody is talking about flying saucers and nobody is talking about stealth aircraft.

    So, is there a real conspiracy there or not? Is the government hamming it up to make us think there's something there to misdirect us from the truth? Or is this just typical government bungling and we're just seeing a pattern of deception that isn't really there?

    Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  31. Re:Not "wrong"... Just "not proven" by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They didn't say it was wrong (meaning that there was more than one gunmen), they said the analysis was not correct.

    I guess you could say it was misleading, but it's not the way I took it. I took it to mean the analysis was wrong, as in not correct.

    If any step in a proof is wrong, then the entire proof is wrong, even if the conclusion is actually a true statement.

    Of course it's all the other problems with the official story that naturally push my mind in the direction of there being multiple shooters upon finding out that the proof of the single shooter was incorrect. But I still didn't take the summary as implying that this was now proven.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  32. You are the conspiracy! by KDN · · Score: 3, Funny

    JFK IS NOT DEAD. The CIA cloned him and that was what was really shot. He faked his death so that he could live with Marylon Monroe, who also faked her death, and they are currently living on Cuba as a guest of Fidel Castro with their good friend Jimmy Hoffa.

    A fake conspiracy of who really killed JFK was drawn up to give the nut jobs who think everything is a conspiracy something to chew on, leaving just enough evidence to keep them going. To manufacture the evidence the Borg brought back a federation replicator which is powered by a V8 with a 500 mile per gallon carbarator with those tablets that convert water into fuel.

    If it seems like Deja-vu, its just another gliche in the Matrix.

  33. Re:seriously (as in "heart attack") by The_REAL_DZA · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dude, if you think the X-Files movie being available On Demand at the same time this research has come to light is merely a coincidence then you might want to get that wool off your eyes before you fall down and have an "accident".

    --


    This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
  34. Re:Zapruder film by bkr1_2k · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They don't always leave larger exit holes, but it's a general rule, especially for larger caliber weapons. Velocity, slug material, slug design, trajectory, impacts inside the body etc, all have a factor. Obviously if a bullet hits a bone and carries the bone matter with it, it's going to do more damage than just passing through soft tissue. However, if a bullet passes through soft tissue on entry and only hits bone on exit (say being shot at the base of the skull with exit through forehead) it's a possibility that the exit wound isn't particularly large, especially with high velocity rounds. Lots of factors will affect the final result.

    --
    "Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
  35. Re:What a surprise!...NOT by Richthofen80 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can't understand your arguement at all.

    #1: you say the evidence isn't good enough to know? What kind of proof do you require? Videotape? eyewitness? Since there's no such thing as a time machine, the best evidence in criminal cases comes down to either eyewitness accounts, circumstantial accounts, or evidentary. There were people who identified Oswald as eyewitnesses. There was plenty of circumstances that led one to believe Oswald committed the crime.

    #2 You come to the 'one in a million' account through no known reasoning. Explain where that number comes from.

    #3 This is just incorrect. There were THREE seperate investigations. The reason why the police didn't pursue heavily a full criminal investigation? They had a suspect in custody, who had been murdered. Did you view the records from the investigation at all? Do you know what processes the police, FBI, and federal agents went through?

    #4 Even if this were true, motive does not prove guilt. The same statement you made could apply to Kruschev, Castro, etc. You also state that he was opposed to any investigation. If that's the case, why were there investigations during his presidency? He was the one that declared the Warren Comission.

    You wrote that anyone who takes enough time looking at the evidence against Oswald. He's evidence. He worked at the schoolbook depository, a fellow employee DROVE HIM INTO WORK THAT DAY WITH A LARGE LONG PACKAGE WRAPPED IN BROWN PAPER. He was in the vicinity at the time of the shooting, Eyewitnesses identified him as the shooter in the window, Eyewitnesses identified him as the shooter of the cop afterwards. Also, Oswald attempted to assassinate General Walker a few months before he killed Kennedy.

    People take comfort in comspiracy theories because it makes them think a larger force is at work (same principle religion offers), and therefore that people can't just 'snap' and kill a lot of people, like what happened in 9/11 or the Virginia Tech massacres. But people can just snap, and kill people. This victim just happened to be the president. Its not hard to believe, Regan was shot, Lincoln was shot. No Conspiracy there.

    --
    Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
  36. Re:What a surprise!...NOT by geekoid · · Score: 2, Informative

    What?
    That is an easy shot for any trained marksman. Easy.
    Yes, some people look at that and think "Wow, Nobody could do that at the paintball range."
    That's about their experience.

    This new analysis needs to be done by others before it's creditable.
    If it is creditable, it only means the bullet lead didn't come from the same place. Nothing more. Not that they came from different guns.

    The grassy knoll would be a horrible place for second shooter, far worse then the book repository.If there is a conspiracy, it was probably to cover up an accidental discharge of an agent.

    So LJ went to the SS and sais "Psst, see that the president gets killed, here's a fiver?"

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  37. *sigh* by coaxial · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ahh yes. Someone stokes the consipiracy flames to sell a book, and that makes news. Meanwhile Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutior of Charles Manson, writes a book explaining in excrutiating detail about how the Oswald was the lone gunman and fired the shots from the book depository, and no one says a thing.

    All this talk about conspiracy theories is absurd. There's a group of people that that refuse to believe that shit happens. One guy can kill a president. A cult would willingly set themselves on fire rather than be arrested. That 19 guys from the desert can hijack airliners with boxcutters and crash them into buildings. I think it comes from that the need to place some meaning and reason on these acts. They can't fantom the power of a single commited individual, and so they find a vast and all powerful secret conspiracy is behind it all. The Knights Templar. The Illuninati. The Zeta Reticulians. The Water Fluoridation Industrial Complex. The Left Handed People of Borneo. The large underground homosexual population of Des Moines, Iowa. You name it. It's quite absurd.

    1. Re:*sigh* by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Dude, don't argue with conspiracy theorists. You'd have more luck debating pork consumption with a Islamic extremist or abortion rights with an evangelical.

      Cpnspiracy theories are, in all important aspects, religions.

  38. Re:Not "wrong"... Just "not proven" by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Funny
    "Of course it's all the other problems with the official story that naturally push my mind in the direction of there being multiple shooters upon finding out that the proof of the single shooter was incorrect. But I still didn't take the summary as implying that this was now proven."

    Maybe now, FINALLY, the truth will come out!!

    That Oswald was really trying to be a hero, and shot only at the sniper he saw hiding in the grassy knoll!!

    (with apologies to Family Guy)

    :-)

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  39. E. Howard Hunt Confessed on his Deathbed by MutualDisdain · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was surprised that no one commented here on E. Howard Hunt's audio tape confession of involvement in the Kennedy assassination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Howard_Hunt#Audio- taped_confession Within the audio tape Hunt names Cord Meyer, Frank Sturgis, David Sánchez Morales, and David Atlee Phillips as co-conspirators. He also claims Lyndon Johnson approved of the assassination for political gain. "I think that LBJ settled on Meyer as an opportunist, parent--like himself a parent--and a man who had very little left to him in life ever since JFK had taken Cord's wife as one of his mistresses. I would suggest that Cord Meyer welcomed the approach from LBJ, who was after all only the Vice President at that time and of course could not number Cord Meyer among JFK's admirers--quite the contrary." E. Howard Hunt was also famous for organizing the bugging of the DNC in the Watergate scandal.

    --
    - Yes, I am posting at a -1, and no I will not use a proxy to bypass my circumstances.
  40. Oblig Full Metal Jacket Quote by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 3, Funny

    HARTMAN: Do any of you people know who Charles Whitman was?
    No response
    HARTMAN: None of you dumbasses knows?
    COWBOY raises his hand.
    HARTMAN: Private Cowboy?
    COWBOY: Sir, he was that guy who shot all those people from that tower in Austin, Texas, sir!
    HARTMAN: That's affirmative. Charles Whitman killed twenty people from a twenty-eight-storey observation tower at the University of Texas from distances up to four hundred yards.
    HARTMAN looks around.
    HARTMAN: Anybody know who Lee Harvey Oswald was?
    Almost everybody raises his hand.
    HARTMAN: Private Snowball?
    SNOWBALL: Sir, he shot Kennedy, sir!
    HARTMAN: That's right, and do you know how far away he was?
    SNOWBALL: Sir, it was pretty far! From that book suppository building, sir!
    The recruits laugh at "suppository. "
    HARTMAN: All right, knock it off! Two hundred and fifty feet! He was two hundred and fifty feet away and shooting at a moving target. Oswald got off three rounds with an old Italian bolt action rifle in only six seconds and scored two hits, including a head shot! Do any of you people know where these individuals learned to shoot?
    JOKER raises his hand.
    HARTMAN: Private Joker?
    JOKER: Sir, in the Marines, sir!
    HARTMAN: In the Marines! Outstanding! Those individuals showed what one motivated marine and his rifle can do! And before you ladies leave my island, you will be able to do the same thing!

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  41. It isn't my intent... by sub67 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...to make claims one way or the other, but even if the original theory was correct, isn't it reasonable to assume that if there were in fact two assassins that they could have simply shared ammo from the same box? I skimmed most of the comments but didn't see anything like this mentioned..

  42. Re:Zapruder film by evilviper · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Uhh..I thought that the Zapruder film, the fact that bullet took an upward, not a downward trajectory, and eyewitness testimony have already trounced on the Warren Commission's findings that Oswald was the lone gunman in Dallas that shot Kennedy.

    Only to extremely ignorant, non-experts, and conspiracy theorists...

    Anyone who has ever seen a high-powered riffle going through a human head, knows that the forces involved are extreme, and difficult to imagine by those who have only seen people hit by slow, weak handguns. Bodies really do explode, in whatever direction is least dense... (closest to the surface)

    If anything, the Zapruder film makes the "grassy knoll" conspiracy theory laughable, because non-military weapons like handguns and most riffles don't have nearly that kind of destructive force.

    and eyewitness testimony have already trounced on the Warren Commission's findings

    People claim they heard more shots... Big deal. Eyewitnesses are often mistaken, and the echo characteristics of cities make such mistakes quite understandable.
    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  43. 45 auto is 1911, 45 peacemaker is 1873 by HornWumpus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ever heard of a Colt 45 peacemaker?

    Granted they fired different cartridges and the peacemaker was originally a black powder round (lower velocity).

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  44. Re:Does anyone really care anymore? by fishbowl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    >It's called history

    With as many people who would be in on the conspiracy, we should be getting deathbed confessions already.

    I'm interested in the Kennedy Assassination because I was there. Too young to be aware of anything, but there, I'm told, with my mom and the other AT&T operators she worked with, at the AT&T building across Houston Street. They didn't realize what was happening, didn't hear any gunshots, but saw the crowd panicking. As far as they were concerned, the parade ended when the car turned on Elm.

    Also, my dad was at work at the Ford Furniture company across the street from the Texas theatre when they arrested Oswald.

    I myself have lived in a house that Marina lived in later with her daughters. And I've worked at the Texas theatre, routinely parked my car at the North Tower, and had many a lunch break at the Grassy Knoll.

    Should I be worried?

    My "conspiracy theory" is a little different. I'd accept the premise that the opportunity to assassinate Kennedy presented itself as so completely obvious, that several people *independently* executed a plan, without knowing about Oswald. Maybe the guy at the fence and the guy on the railroad bridge knew about each other, but totally freaked when they realized somebody *else* was shooting.

    --
    -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
  45. Why was Kennedy in Dealy Plaza anyway? OT by dfenstrate · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From what I understand, it was because the voters of Texas outright hated him and not even Johnson's voting fraud buddies could be counted on to keep things in line. He was there to try to gin up some good will.

    Of course, his assasination was the biggest boon to his legacy ever.

    He was actually a horrible president with a self-centered high school mentality, put in place by the political mechanations of his father and the Daley's in Chicago. Lyndon and Kennedy actually hated each other, and he was only brought onto the ticket to deliver Texas- fraudulently. JFK's only real gift was charisma, and that's all he needed to win given his father, the Daleys, and Johnson.

    If he wasn't assisinated his presidency would have been nothing more than a painful, distant memory by now.

    --
    Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
  46. Re:Not "wrong"... Just "not proven" by grassy_knoll · · Score: 4, Funny

    That Oswald was really trying to be a hero, and shot only at the sniper he saw hiding in the grassy knoll!!


    There was no sniper on the grassy knoll.

    [eyes shift back and forth]

    ps: dont look at my user name. ;-)
  47. The best evidence of a second shooter... by NotPeteMcCabe · · Score: 2, Informative

    I read all the conspiracy books about 20 years ago, and the piece of evidence that most rules out the Oswald-only theory is that Kennedy was shot in the neck from the front. The emergency room doctor at the hospital reported that kennedy had an entrance wound in his neck, which the Dr. then cut through to perform a tracheotemy. This doctor, I recall, is the only person to examine Kennedy's body who had any real world experience dealing with gunshot wounds. [p]No evidence stronger than this, on either side, was presented at any point in the entire investigation.

  48. Don't blame the mods by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Moderating this as "Funny" is sick.


    We didn't start the fire.
  49. Oswald & Hitting The Broad Side Of A Barn by cmholm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That show you mention even had a guy pull out Oswald's shooters score book from the marines showing what an incredible shot he was, yet you can find evidence with google proving Oliver Stone's assertion that other marines said he had "maggies drawers" and/or was a poor shooter overall. They had simply pulled out a few instances of good shooting he had for your show.

    My dad was at one point a Sergeant stationed at MCAF Santa Ana, and enjoyed the dubious honor of being Oswald's last NCO, escorting him to the front gate the day he was discharged. Neither the old man nor the other NCOs he knew were impressed by Oswald's ability on a firing range, barely good enough to rate the "Marksman" shooting badge. When the nature of JFK's shooting came out, my dad could not believe JHO had the ability to pull it off.

    Granted, as my mom used to argue, anyone can have a lucky day. But, with two shots, that's damn lucky.

    --
    Luke, help me take this mask off ... Just for once, let me butterfly kiss you with my own eyes.
  50. Actually by ukemike · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Professor Jones of BYU got a sample of the slag from the discovered molten material. He has analyzed it and found that the component metals match the components of Thermate (not thermite).

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    -- QED
  51. Re:Not "wrong"... Just "not proven" by nwbvt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First, there never was a "proof", at least not in the way you are thinking. Such proofs only exist in the world of mathematics, and there they are only possible because mathematics is a completely abstract field that does not involve perceptions of the real world (which always have some degree of intrinsic doubt). You cannot mathematically prove that Oswald did or did not do it, because Oswald is not a mathematical construct. Its been said many times before, but it bears repeating because people still for some reason try to do it; NEVER interpret real world arguments as mathematical proofs.

    Second, here is the exact quote from the article summary:

    "Researchers... say that the government's 1976 conclusion that the bullets came from only one gun (Oswald's) is wrong".

    The summary is clearly saying that the conclusion was shown to be false (meaning Oswald didn't do it), not the argument itself. Which of course is not what the article says at all. If you read it differently, you need to work on your reading comprehension skills.

    Third, how the hell is this news anyways? Experts (or rather, people calling themselves experts) have been disagreeing with the lone gunman theory since the day Kennedy was shot. This can only be considered "news" if mainstream scientists can back up the lone research team.

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    Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
  52. Liberty by nickmalthus · · Score: 2, Informative

    The sailors who were there tell of a coverup.

    --
    If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
  53. Two things I learned from TV. by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The first is how to find the suspect the Murder She Wrote way. You walk around investigating the suspects and then tell all of them that you know who did it and are going to reveal it tomorrow. The one who turns up that night to kill you, is the murderer. For the JFK assasination we need to go to the twist on that plot. Namely that the person who turns up is the one who wants to protect the person they think really did it.

    How does this relate? What is most intresting about the whole JFK thing is NOT who actually pulled the trigger, but the sheer number of people that turned up at night to kill Angela Lansbury. An awfull lot of people/groups/institutions reacted as if they feared that "they" had done it. Not they themselves but perhaps some over ambitious underling, some group they supported and could be traced back.

    Since plotting to kill the president of US of A is not what organisations like the FBI and CIA should be doing, just having them react guiltily is enough condemnation.

    Think of it like this. I am thinking of killing CowboyNeal and have talked about this with various people. Then all of a sudden CowboyNeal turns up death. I will then offcourse panic, what if someone I talked too actually did it, it could be traced back to me and so I start covering my tracks even though in reality there may be nothing to cover up.

    But for me to plot to kill CowboyNeal is not a crime in itself. If it was, millions of lovers of the english language would be in jail right now. It is not quite the same if a security agency plots to kill the president. It does not matter if Oswald worked for them, or even if he was the actuall shooter, that fact that they reacted as if they thought he might have is enough.

    The SECOND thing I learned from TV is that conspiracy people are dreamers. They like to believe that the world is run by someone with some degree of competence. Not someone they agree with offcourse but at least that someone is in control.

    Sorry. Nope. Unless someone out there is a truly amazing human with skill far beyond any know living being in all of history it just doesn't seem that likely that anyone could pull a shadow goverment type thing off for so long.

    People just ain't clever enough. If you look for instance at the 9/11 conspiracies you get the idea that these people desperately wish for a world in wich someone is in control. To set all this up would require a lot of skill that I have never seen displayed before.

    In a way conspiracy theorists HELP the powers that be. By looking for order they allow chaos to thrive.

    Again the JFK shooting and the Murder She Wrote method. By focusing on trying to find out who DID it, the conspiracy theorists are leaving in the clear everyone who THOUGHT they did it. Who has there been no investigation of the known facts that goverments officials had formed plans to kill the president? These are not disputed, they are know and well documented. BUT because they did not actually do it they get off because everyone wants to find some non-existant secret organisation.

    Same with 9/11 by wishing to find that the US goverment planned it all they are ignoring the facts that someone in the US goverment made some really bad choices. Those bad choices did NOT plan the attack but also did nothing to stop it. For some people, charged with the protection of the US, this is a crime itself. Just as plotting to kill the president is.

    In my darkest hours I fear that conspiracy theorists are the wetdream of every conspirator. By focussing on the outlandish they are letting the mundane go unnoticed.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.