Conspiracies: Are they real?

[Reveilled]

I think there is a difference between paranormal activities and conspiracies.  I firmly believe conspiracies exist, because it is human nature.

 

Paranormal activities make for spooky television programming, but I believe in them far less.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Do you mean that you believe in conspiracies because conspiracies are human nature, or do you believe in conspiracies because believing in conspiracies is human nature?

 

There's nothing wrong with conspiracies, per se, it's just that all the famous ones are used to justify events that already have perfectly reasonable and logical explanations, like the Apollo Program, or Roswell.

 

On the other hand, if you wish to pick a reasonable thing to have a conspiracy about, say "There was a conspiratorial secret treaty between France and Spain for a combined invasion of the British Isles led by Napoleon", or "Every other player is ganging up on me and Turkey because they think that we are in an alliance! It's a conspiracy!", then youd have a much more logical and reasonable case for the conspiracy.

 

Problem is, when did logic and reason get you in the papers over sensationalism? Did you know that John Wilkes Booth was actually a Jovian part of a conspiracy intent on preventing the United States from leading a war to emancipate their Martian slaves, through use of their secret 19th Century space program?

[EnderAndrew]

Actually, I buy into certain conspiracies.

 

I think Roscoe White shot JFK. He admitted to it before he killed himself. He was a Dallas police officer who had opportunity, and he was the individual who posed for the pictures holding up a rifle and a community newspaper, that was later used to frame Oswald.

 

People like to try and discredit said story by obfuscating the facts with minor nit-picks, but White had no reason to lie, and admitted he was a shooter. He was tied to Oswald with hard evidence, he was tied to the Dallas PD, and his gun was used to shoot another local police officer as he ran away.

 

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/sleuth.htm

[alanschu]

I wonder how many of our "clairvoyant" dreams come true because they are of a somewhat plausible occurence in our life, and then when the situation presents itself, we're more willing to perform said task because we had dreamed we did it a certain way.

 

Sort of like our dreams giving us an expectation.

[EnderAndrew]

I swore as a kid that I had clairvoyany dreams all the time. Now, I don't remember my dreams 99% of the time. I wake up and have no memory of what I was dreaming about.

 

It could be that my dreams are just boring.

[Reveilled]

I'll confess I missed it, but there was a documentary on the BBC called JFK: The Simple Truth, the purpose of which was to bring together all the leading experts in all the relevant fields, and prove once and for all that Oswald was a lone gunman acting alone.

 

As I say, I never saw it, but I have yet to meet someone who saw the doumentary and still believes in a conspiracy regarding Kennedy's death. Apparently, the documentary left absolutely no room for doubt. There's a BBC Article regarding the documentary, btu I'm not sure where one could find the documentary.

 

And if you don't mind me asking, as I only skimmed the article you linked to, doesn't that article assert that the Roscoe White story was an "elaborate deception"?

[Darth Flatus]

While the nature of famous conspiracy theories is different to paranormal stuff the "believers" usually share something in common, psychologically speaking.

[EnderAndrew]

Considering the gun in question that Oswald used takes two seconds to **** between shots, and 3 shots were fired in less than 5 seconds, I say there is room for doubt.

 

Considering ballistic forensics suggest the only way that all the bullets originated from the same place is to completely defy the laws of physics, and the Warren commission actually went on the record of saying that bullets entered the body, left the body, turned around in mid-aid and reentered the boyd, I say there is room for doubt.

 

Then again, one can make a convincing arguement for anything if you focus solely on your evidence and completely ignore any evidence that might make your case look bad.

 

I just wrote a paper for someone else on a subject I completely disagree with, yet I sold it well.

[Reveilled]

Which forensic experts? Have a source I could look at?

[alanschu]

I watched an episode of Bull**** with Penn & Teller (A hilarious, and often informative show - Their motto is "We're biased as *fark* but we try to be honest" - and they actually get professionals in the field discussed to suppor their arguments, so it's not just two guy saying "this is bull****"), and basically Penn took the same model of rifle that Oswald used, and was able to get off 3 shots while using the bolt AND even taking a moment to check his aim in less time than Oswald took....without any training (I've heard Oswald was a military man, so he'd have some training....don't know though...just hearsay).

 

 

But even still, unless Oswald was their world's slowest man at pulling back a bolt, I can't see how it would take him 2 seconds per shot. I have no experience with firearms, and I was able to pull it back and load in a new round fairly quickly.

 

 

*On a side note, my first every shot was with a Glock 9mm, and my first shot jammed the gun because I didn't fire it properly, convincing me that the argument that video games turn us into gun wielding experts is horesh!t, since I've probably passed 6 figures for the amount of "virtual" kills I've had in my entire life

[alanschu]

I swore as a kid that I had clairvoyany dreams all the time.  Now, I don't remember my dreams 99% of the time.  I wake up and have no memory of what I was dreaming about.

 

It could be that my dreams are just boring.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Lately I've had neat dreams. They often involve me being the hero

 

 

I've also noticed that a large portion of my dreams are now lucid dreams. The reason I know is that often something "bad" will happen in them, and while dreaming, I'm like "no no no, that can't be right" and I usually rewind and replay the scene with a more favourable outcome

 

 

I suspect it's the video games. So used to Save and Reload. And the "no no no" part reminds me of old games like Conan and stuff where it's some guy telling a story and when you die, he always goes "Oh wait, that's not what happened!" or something goofy like that.

 

I have actually had dreams where I was spiderman (I blame my friends and family, apparently I have a likeness to Toby Maguire, and even a young kid that I didn't know in the mall called my Spiderman!), as well as a Jedi Knight (one dream was particularly wierd, where I was Zorro with a lightsaber....needless to say I was pretty powerful ).

 

I never get the woman though!! :D

[Darth Flatus]

I once had a dream where i was Spiderman with a lightsaber... seriously.

[Lucius]

I once had a dream where i was Spiderman with a lightsaber... seriously.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... and in women's clothing, or so it was in mine anyway.

[alanschu]

I wouldn't be surprised if I had one like that once, but I just don't remember it.

 

 

My roommate jokes that my desire to be a superhero must really outweigh his, since he does not recall having any superhero dreams

[Kaftan Barlast]

Reveilled> Damn, that would be really interesting to see. Id like to see how they explained the "magic bullet" thing. And debunking documentaries are always more entertaining than those building the case.

[EnderAndrew]

Penn and Teller's BS is the same show that claimed there is zero medical evidence to suggest that smoking is actually bad for you.

 

If I wanted to give into paranoid conspiracy theories, I could also suggest the bolt action on said rifle has been intentionally changed since the JFK assassination.

 

Or, I can quote the Warren Commission report.

 

"Tests of the assassin's rifle disclosed that at least 2.8 seconds were required between shots"

 

http://www.archives.gov/research_room/jfk/...html#trajectory

 

That's not a paranoid conspiracy rag. That's our government's official report, the same one that claims Oswald was a lone gunman, but clearly has some holes in the report.

 

That same link has people testifying when shots were fired to try and create a larger window of time, however it has expert analysis showing that window of time between shots was considerably less.

 

The same report also says an expert might lessen the time to 2.3 seconds between shots.

[alanschu]

Penn & Teller's Bull**** did not claim zero medical evidence for second hand smoking being bad for your health.

 

 

They pointed out that the two reports from the EPA and the WHO that are spouted off so much by the fans of anti-second hand smoking are bogus.

 

First and foremost, the WHO had a study in 1998 that concluded: "Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] and lung cancer risk" only to later put out there press release to the public that states that it is....going against their own conclusion.

 

As for the EPA, Penn and Teller pointed out the "25%" number that the EPA and the second-hand smoking advocates like to toss around. The 1993 EPA report states that those exposed to second hand smoke have a 25% greater chance of dying from lung cancer. What isn't apparent in this statement however, is that the change is from 1 in 100,000 to 1.25 in 100,000. Common-folk still like to state "well it's still an increase," ignoring the fact that they difference is not statistically significant (that is, the change could very well be based on the random sample and pure luck, and does not actually support the claim. If you're still not clear, get two different sets of 100,000 people, and you are likely to find this distribution based purely on random sample).

 

Even IF, you change the measurement of statistical signifigance from the standard 0.05 to 0.1 (which is frowned upon in academia), you still only actually get a 1.19 or 19% relative risk.

 

 

That's what Penn and Teller focused their second hand smoke episode on.

 

 

 

As for the rifle....it's the power brokers that bullied that report into saying it took over 2 seconds to reload that round. You can play the conspiracy game both ways. Those that want you to believe it's a consipiracy have are committed to their own agenda. The guns weren't changed....that's just what the consipiracy theorists want you to think!

 

 

EDIT: And the "bogus" physics have since been shown to actually have been accurate. The way that Kennedy's head jerked around actually does make sense, given the bullets coming from the same location.

[EnderAndrew]

Yes, it clearly makes sense for bullets to change direction in mid-air.

 

And I've seen the cigarette episode twice. They still maintain that it's bs that cigarette smoke is bad from you. Given that I wretch and get physically ill any time I'm in the proximity of second-hand smoke, I know who is really full of it.

 

And it's not power brokers claiming it took over two seconds. The Warren Commission shows they had various experts demonstrate and time precisely.

 

These are the same guys who spend 800 pages going over every frame of video footage that exists for the assassination. There weren't conspiracies theories floating around right away about who killed JFK. They were just doing their job. Who benefits from suggesting the rifle took longer to **** than it did?

 

Maybe the family of Oswald? Not really. It might only suggest there were other gunmen. It doesn't exhonerate his name. Which powers to be would really profit from suggesting there were other gunmen?

 

Because until the Warren Commission suggested there was only one gunman, those powers wouldn't be contradicting our government or trying to make them look bad.

 

Most conspiracy nuts believe the Warren Comission to be a tool of the conspiracy, and yet even the Warren Comission admits there is physical evidence incongruous with the theory of a lone gunman.

[alanschu]

Why would a bullet need to change directions during the Kennedy's Assassination?

 

And don't forget how dated the Warren commission is.

 

Which powers to be would really profit from suggesting there were other gunmen?

 

The conspiracy guys!!!! My powerbroker comments were simply in jest though.

 

 

Although I would be impressed if somehow the conspiracy was able to modify every all those Italian rifles that could have shot those bullets.

[EnderAndrew]

I doubt the rifles were being altered. I merely presented that as a possible case the conspiracy crowd would use.

[alanschu]

Yeah I got that :D

 

 

Although I'm still curious what indicates that a bullet would have had to have changed direction if it was truly only coming from one spot?

[EnderAndrew]

There were more entry and exit wounds than can be accounted for with the 3 shots we know were fired.

 

For instance, I'm reading the report right now looking for such instances and I've found one. (The damned report is 888 pages long!)

 

A bullet entered JFK's back, and left his neck. That's fine. But a person next to JFK was shot, and they say when the bullet left the front of his nexk, it entered her. Never mind the fact they weren't facing, so the bullet flew out of JFK, spun around in another direction and then entered her?

[alanschu]

It entered her in the front?

 

And are they not mistaking depth perception? What part are you looking at (seeing as I have it open too)?

 

I was going to read over the EPA one as well, but it's like 300 pages as well so I basically said fook it.

[EnderAndrew]

Page 105 is where they first mention that the bullet leaving JFK's neck hit the govenor, despite them sitting next to each other in the car. The report doesn't mention they weren't facing each other, but I remember that from the video footage. JFK was facing forward when he was struck with the first bullet.

 

The Govenor was shot in the wrist and thigh.

[alanschu]

The part that I'm reading on Page 105 says this:

 

The relative positions of President Kennedy and Governor Connally at the time when the President was struck in the neck confirm that the same bullet probably passed through both men.

[EnderAndrew]

Yes, but haven't you seen the footage? The bullet entered directly behind the President, and left his neck. How are those two points in line with someone sitting on the side of you?

 

I read a JFK book a while back that got into more details on how one of these bullets actually left JFK's body and supposedly reentered him, and how there is evidence to suggest there were more than 3 bullets.