The first topic mentioned in my regular Sunday comment on my web site for February 19 was the connections between Ivins, the KKG sorority and places named "Monmouth." In arguments on this interactive blog, it is more circumstantial evidence connecting Ivins to the attacks that Anthrax Truthers who are "in denial" don't see as being evidence at all.
The second topic was the discovery that Franklin Park, NJ, the town used in the return address on the senate envelopes was just ten miles farther than Princeton along the Lincoln Highway on the way from Frederick, MD, to Newark, NJ. That suggests that Franklin Park was probably where Ivins planned to mail the letters. But, when he reached Princeton, he either spent too much time looking over the KKG office or he simply figured he'd driven far enough and needed to turn around and head home again. So, he mailed the letters in Princeton.
I also realized that the reason that there was no return address on the media letters may have been because the child doing the writing wrote too large, and perhaps ruined an envelope or two before Ivins decided to just use the destination addresses on the envelopes to NBC, CBS, ABC, AMI and the New York Post.
In my Sunday comment, I also mentioned that there has been no dispute of any kind regarding my discovery that the Emerson radio/CD player in Ivins' lab was most likely a "nanny cam" TV spy camera.
And, I also mentioned once again that Anthrax Truthers do not agree with each other about who sent the anthrax letters. But, they ignore that fact in order to appear united in their belief that the FBI was wrong in naming Ivins as the anthrax mailer.
Since it wasn't really a subject mentioned on my web site, only on this interactive blog, I'll make some more comments here about getting books published:
ReplyDeleteMy novel "Clipper" which is for sale on Kindle was written about 18 years ago. I got an agent interested, and he must have tried about fifty different publishers, but he couldn't get a sale. I received some nice letters about the book from editors, but they felt that the characters weren't engaging.
That's the same experience I had with my screenplays. The plots were great, but the characters weren't engaging. When writing screenplays, the "trick" is to write characters that top actors would fight to be able to play.
Novels don't sell well because of good plots, they sell well because of interesting characters. And, developing terrific characters was something I just could never learn to do well enough. I was always too involved with the plots.
I also had an agent in Hollywood who tried to sell my screenplays. He got an option on one, but I never actually had anything get produced.
I wrote a non-fiction screenplay about gunboats on the inland rivers during the Civil War, and all the characters were interesting characters because they were REAL, but it just didn't grab the right producer. The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences had a screenwriting contest, and my screenplay got honorable mention, but that didn't help.
When writing non-fiction books, the "trick" is to have a topic of current interest AND impressive credentials showing that you know things about the subject that will be new and interesting, and you can write well about it.
I'll give it at try, but I don't hold out much hope for getting a publisher interested in my book. I don't have "impressive" credentials, and the topic is no longer of great interest to the general book-reading public.
If I can get a publisher, it will be because the book is somewhat controversial. Controversy also attracts publishers, but usually only if the writer is recognized as an "authority."
So, if anyone is planning to write a book about the anthrax attacks of 2001, you really need to spend some time understanding the book publishing business and how things work.
End of lecture.
Ed
At the very end of the comment of today is this paragraph:
ReplyDelete------------
The emails I received from readers of this web site were 100% in agreement that the Emerson radio/CD player was most likely the" nanny cam" version. And, it's certainly another hypothesis that seems to explain all the facts.
===============================================================
Which facts are those? Did I MISS something? Did AMERITHRAX involve using a 'nanny cam'? Does the FINAL REPORT say THAT? Is it in Willman's book? WHAT does the (alleged) nanny cam have to do with sending anthrax through the mail? You've entirely lost me on this!
Richard Rowley asked: "Did AMERITHRAX involve using a 'nanny cam'?"
ReplyDeleteNo, it didn't This isn't about AMERITHRAX directly. It's about Bruce Ivins. It's about how Ivins would take crazy chances to feed his obsessions.
Taking a secret camera into a secure government facility to spy on his female co-workers is wildly reckless. It shows just how obsessed he was with his female co-workers. It shows how little regard he had for breaking the law (in this case, privacy laws and laws about spy cameras in secure government labs). It says he thought he was smarter than everyone else, could fool everyone, and he felt he could explain his way out of anything.
It seems to be a piece of visible evidence that is very persuasive in showing that Ivins was NOT the harmless kidder that his friends seemed to think he was.
But, you pointed out something I'll correct. I wrote "it's certainly another hypothesis that seems to explain all the facts."
I'll change that to "it's certainly another hypothesis that seems to fit all the facts."
Thanks.
Ed
Who were his female coworkers in 2007?
DeleteMara had left at least 7 years earlier and Pat had left 5 years earlier.
Do you know who his coworkers were? (so as to know their gender)?
His coworkers think you regularly post things without any factual basis. They are all available by email and are highly responsive to inquiries aimed at getting your facts corrected.
Anonymous asked: "Who were his female coworkers in 2007?"
DeleteWhat difference does it make? The fact that the alleged "nanny cam" was photographed in 2007 doesn't mean it was put there in 2007. It could have been there for years.
"His coworkers think you regularly post things without any factual basis."
And it's clear that some of his co-workers make claims about Ivins' abilities and inabilities without any factual basis.
If they have evidence that I'm wrong about something, they should be able to find my email address without any problem.
The "co-workers" with whom I've communicated have pointed out errors, and I've made the corrections. But those errors had NOTHING to do with Ivins' guilt or innocence. They only had to do with the physical layout of Building 1425 and Suite B3.
Ed
Okay, maybe I'll come back to the nanny cam but now about your last paragraph:
ReplyDelete------------------
And, I also mentioned once again that Anthrax Truthers do not agree with each other about who sent the anthrax letters. But, they ignore that fact in order to appear united in their belief that the FBI was wrong in naming Ivins as the anthrax mailer.
==============================================================
Your choice of words in that last sentence: "in order to appear united in their belief that the FBI was wrong in naming Ivins as the anthrax mailer."
The word "appear" implies that we AREN'T in agreement ("united") that the FBI was wrong about Ivins.
I'm pretty sure Lew Weinstein, Meryl Nass, DXer, and I (for starters) are not merely 'appearing' that way. We DO agree about something. We agree that the DoJ case against Bruce Ivins is chockful of mindreading, bad psychology, overstated evidence, evidence that bears no logical relation to Ivins' guilt or evidence etc. Our agreement is MORE than an "appearance", it's a reality.
Others skeptical of the government's case include: Noah Schachtman
(see: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_anthrax_fbi/all/1
; Stephen Engelberg, Gary Matsumoto, and Greg Gordon (see:
http://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-science-id-anthrax-killer
and many others. The above persons are knowledgeable about the case (including what is held up as evidence against Ivins).
You might check out former Senator Russ Feingold's book discussing the anthrax mailings due out tomorrow. He says that the mystery of who did it and why continues till this day. (p. 48). But by all means, read the book and explore his views more thoroughly.
DeleteAnonymous,
DeleteYou continue to fail to understand that opinions are meaningless, particularly the opinions of politicians.
Only facts and evidence have meaning at this point.
But, I'll check out his opinions. They may result in an interesting comment for my web page.
Ed
Richard Rowley wrote: "Our agreement is MORE than an "appearance", it's a reality."
ReplyDeleteNonsense. Just the opposite. The Anthrax Truthers all argue that the FBI is wrong because, if the FBI is right, each and every one of the Anthrax Truthers must be wrong. That is not an agreement.
You don't even agree on WHY the FBI is wrong. Some think it's a massive criminal conspiracy, others think it's total incompetence, and others (like you) think it's "organizational entropy and group think."
The only thing that binds you together is a common belief that each one of you is smarter than "the government." (I can't even say "smarter than the FBI," since the conspiracy theorists see the FBI as being just a pawn of "the government."
There is no agreement that unites every Anthrax Truther. All you share is a common belief that each one of you knows the real truth.
You thinking that you know better than all the other Anthrax Truthers is not agreement.
"Anonymous" (a.k.a. DXer) thinking that you are wrong is NOT an agreement."
However, you try to make it appear that you are united, because you seem to think a lot of people arguing against "the government" looks like a "majority." But, in reality, you each are a minority of ONE.
I find that to be an interesting social and psychological phenomenon.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
Delete------------------
The only thing that binds you together is a common belief that each one of you is smarter than "the government." (I can't even say "smarter than the FBI," since the conspiracy theorists see the FBI as being just a pawn of "the government."
=================================================
Well, since Rachel Lieber, Jeff Taylor et alia. were the frontmen for the 'Ivins-did-it' presentations starting in Aug 2008 and since they don't work for the FBI, 'the government' or 'the DoJ' are more accurate terms.
As my understanding has evolved over the past 3 years, I see little chance any of the persons named above truly believe they had a good case against Ivins, but organizational and career considerations make it mandatory they play the role.
Posted by Mister Lake:
Delete--------
But, in reality, you each are a minority of ONE.
============================================
Oh, so it's BAD to be a "minority of ONE", is it?
Like for instance:
1)claiming over and over and over again for what? 6 to 8 years that a 6 or 7 year old printed the anthrax letters isn't being a "minority of one"? It sure is, if, as someone (DXer?) said, Brother Jonathan HIMSELF changed his mind.
2)claiming that the anthrax killer wasn't trying to kill anyone? Never read another soul claim THAT, Mister Lake.
But MOST striking isn't that you are a heretic (since neither the FBI nor the Postal Inspectors nor the US attorneys, nor anyone officially involved in making the findings has endorsed the he-didn't-mean-to-kill-anyone hypothesis nor the six/seven-year-old hypothesis), it's the VEHEMENCE with which you proclaim your heresies. And not just your heresies either!
I find that to be an interesting social and psychological phenomenon
Richard Rowley wrote: "But MOST striking isn't that you are a heretic (since neither the FBI nor the Postal Inspectors nor the US attorneys, nor anyone officially involved in making the findings has endorsed the he-didn't-mean-to-kill-anyone hypothesis"
DeleteYou need to look up these words before you use them.
heresy n. a religious belief opposed to the orthodox doctrines of the church.
No one in the FBI has stated that Ivins intended to kill people when he mailed the letters. So, there is no "heresy." There is only your misinterpretation of the facts.
Plus, you're fellow Anthrax Truthers would also be "heretics" by your standards:
"The motive of the perpetrator was not necessarily to kill but to create public fear, thereby raising the profile of BW. He simply took advantage of Sept 11 to throw suspicion elsewhere. The letters warned of anthrax or the need to take antibiotics, making it possible for those who handled the letters to protect themselves; --- Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg - December 1, 2001
"Something else was odd. The attacker had actually warned the recipients that the letters contained anthrax, and suggested they take penicillin. Then a lightbulb went off: someone was sending these letters to create an effect, not to cause damage. The letters were sealed with tape, presumably to further prevent the escape of spores. The point was to frighten, not to kill. --- Dr. Meryl Nass, February 2002.
"The perpetrator desired to frighten, not to kill --- Dr. Meryl Nass, November 21, 2001
There are probably dozens of newspaper articles which say the same thing, although most are quoting from Rosenberg. However, I think some government statement or report says the same thing, but I can't find it at the moment.
Richard Rowley also wrote: "it's the VEHEMENCE with which you proclaim your heresies."
My handwriting analysis does NOT conflict with the FBI's findings, so it is not "heresy." The FBI's findings are INCONCLUSIVE. My findings merely fill in the blanks where the FBI couldn't make a clear finding.
The FBI and I are not in disagreement. If the FBI ever stated that a child didn't write the letters and showed evidence to prove that claim, I'd admit my hypothesis is wrong. But, that never happened, and it's isn't going to happen.
Ed
Richard Rowley wrote: "claiming over and over and over again for what? 6 to 8 years that a 6 or 7 year old printed the anthrax letters isn't being a "minority of one"?"
DeleteI never said that being a "minority of one" was a bad thing. I was just pointing out that you seem to think that you are some kind of "majority" because you all think that the FBI is wrong. But, in reality, each one of you is a "minority of one" because you all have different ideas of who did it and why.
The BIG difference between me and Anthrax Truthers is that they work with beliefs, and I work with facts.
The FACTS say a child wrote the anthrax letters. Anthrax Truthers don't believe the facts, but they have no facts to disprove my hypothesis. They only have opinions and beliefs. And, my facts do NOT conflict with any FBI findings.
The FACTS say that the anthrax killer did not intend to kill:
1. He included medical advice in the first letters: "TAKE PENACILIN NOW." Penicillin is an effective antibiotic for anthrax.
2. He told the recipients of the second letters that the powder inside was anthrax. That would allow them to take antibiotics to protect themselves.
3. He folded the spores inside a "pharmaceutical fold" intended to keep the contents from spilling.
4. He taped the envelopes shut to prevent spores from escaping.
5. No addressee was killed. Only innocent bystanders and postal workers were killed, which the killer clearly did NOT anticipate.
6. The killer, Bruce Ivins, stated "I'm not a killer at heart."
7. None of Ivins' motives have to do with killing people, they have to do with changing the course of the vaccine project and/or making money from the anthrax project. His motives were about getting his career back on track, not about killing someone for some specific reason.
8. Ivins had no reason to try to kill Tom Brokaw. He had no reason to try to kill anyone at AMI. He disagreed with Daschle and Leahy, but he had no reason to want to kill them. Ivins wanted to warn America and to change the course of his life. It was shattering to him when he learned that he'd killed someone. He became a "basket case," according to his co-workers.
Ed
Richard Rowley wrote: As my understanding has evolved over the past 3 years, I see little chance any of the persons named above truly believe they had a good case against Ivins, but organizational and career considerations make it mandatory they play the role."
DeleteAren't you being self-contradictory? You claim that Rachel Lieber doesn't believe she had a good case, yet you also seem to claim it was a good career move for her to take on the case. Losing cases is NOT a good career move for a prosecutor - particularly "high profile" cases.
Do you think that she planned to lose? What sense does that make? Why would "the government" want to lose the case in court?
Your reasoning is illogical. It appears to be based upon beliefs about the government being some kind of malicious monolith and upon a fantasy of being able to read the minds of government employees who you have never met.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
Delete---------------
Richard Rowley wrote: As my understanding has evolved over the past 3 years, I see little chance any of the persons named above truly believe they had a good case against Ivins, but organizational and career considerations make it mandatory they play the role."
Aren't you being self-contradictory? You claim that Rachel Lieber doesn't believe she had a good case, yet you also seem to claim it was a good career move for her to take on the case. Losing cases is NOT a good career move for a prosecutor - particularly "high profile" cases.
===================================================
I think that by mid-summer of 2008 it was too late in the day for Lieber and the others to back out:
1)Ivins was the sole suspect of the Task Force for who knows how many months. So no possible fall-back
position.
2)Right up until his death Lieber et alia, like the Task Force, was counting on some last-moment crackup by Ivins that would release a confession. A confession that would fill the holes in the case. Never happened (the confession).
3)Lieber et alia had sat in on one (or more than one?) of the formal questionings of Ivins, as did at least one of those 'forensic psychiatrists' (Saathoff) and so was ALREADY involved for some time.
4)US attorneys don't, that I know, CHOOSE cases. They have cases assigned to them.
5)US attorneys almost all have bosses too; it's a good career move to do whatever the boss says.
Richard Rowley wrote: "5)US attorneys almost all have bosses too; it's a good career move to do whatever the boss says."
DeleteThe idea that some "boss" at the DOJ was ordering Rachel Lieber to prosecute a case that was hopeless is absurd. It would be a disaster to prosecute such a high profile case knowing that it would fail.
They were presenting their case to a grand jury. They were a few weeks away from an indictment.
You seem to believe that because they were trying to get Ivins to confess that means they didn't have a case. That's NOT how things work.
The investigation isn't over when they decide to arrest someone. It's over when the trial is over. The fact that they were still trying to get Ivins to confess just means they were trying to avoid the cost of a trial. Prosecutors almost ALWAYS to that.
They had a SOLID case against Ivins, but that doesn't mean they would stop trying to make it an even better case. Every prosecutor wants to go into a trial with MORE evidence than he needs for a conviction.
Ed
Posted by Mister Lake:
Delete-------
Richard Rowley wrote: "5)US attorneys almost all have bosses too; it's a good career move to do whatever the boss says."
The idea that some "boss" at the DOJ was ordering Rachel Lieber to prosecute a case that was hopeless is absurd.[...]
==============================================
Points:
1) Did I use the word "hopeless"? If so, then I overstated it. But the case was and is weak.
2)ADMINISTRATORS don't get in-depth knowledge of cases unless they are personally involved for reasons of time (Willman describes G-man Alexander going over the case files against Hatfill in early 2004 FOR WEEKS; but that was HIS case (as an FBI man)). Administrators are personnel managers primarily.
In other words, the FBI administrators give the US attorney administrators THEIR take on a case, tell them how solid they think it is etc. THEN the US attorney administator provides personnel accordingly.
DeleteHand in glove.
Partial post by Mister Lake:
Delete-----------------
Richard Rowley wrote: "claiming over and over and over again for what? 6 to 8 years that a 6 or 7 year old printed the anthrax letters isn't being a "minority of one"?"
I never said that being a "minority of one" was a bad thing. I was just pointing out that you seem to think that you are some kind of "majority" because you all think that the FBI is wrong.[...]
==============================================
I think that if you exclude DoJ personnel from the equation, those who have VERY high knowledge level of the Case in general (Amerithrax) and the case against Ivins in particular, a solid majority either thinks that that latter case falls short of the "beyond a reasonable doubt" metric or thinks the case very weak.
That's the impression I get from having interacted a lot on this subject on the Internet. For example, here: http://www.bloggernews.net/118931
You have: '983 users commented in "Leading Theories of the Anthrax Mailings Case"'. Probably it's 983 comments in the thread rather tahn 983 users, but the writers are mostly knowledgeable and mostly skeptical. Though this particular blog entry is from December 2008 (ie before the FINAL REPORT was issued).
And if you are talking individuals, then I would cite DXer. Though I disagree with his fixation on Muslim suspects, there can be no doubt that he's a whirlwind of investigative passion and is very knowledgeable. In fact, I would hazard a guess that no one, aside from the perps themselves, has greater in depth knowledge about the details of Amerithrax and the investigational nuances.
Richard Rowley wrote: "In other words, the FBI administrators give the US attorney administrators THEIR take on a case, tell them how solid they think it is etc. THEN the US attorney administator provides personnel accordingly."
DeleteNot true. The US attorney administrator doesn't provide any FBI personnel. All he or she can do is request that the FBI provide more FBI agents to a case.
And you fail to understand the difference between a SENIOR INVESTIGATOR like Lawrence Alexander, a task force chief like Edward Montooth, a field office chief like Washington Field Office Director Joseph Persichini and a top administrator like FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Alexander and Montooth were both directly involved in the investigation, although Montooth probably did more of his work in the office coordinating the work by the people under him. Persichini and Mueller are primarily administrators, any not involved directly in the investigation.
Rachel Lieber worked for the Department of Justice. Her chain of command is totally different and goes up to the Attorney General. The idea that anyone above Lieber would expect her to go into court with a high-profile case that wasn't a SOLID case is absurd. With a high-profile case, they'd want it to be MORE SOLID than an ordinary case.
Richard Rowley also wrote: "a solid majority either thinks that that latter case falls short of the "beyond a reasonable doubt" metric or thinks the case very weak."
Humorist Will Rogers once said, "H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"
You're talking about people who go on-line to argue against the government. So, naturally there would be a majority that disbelieves the government.
The people who agree with the government (or who have no opinions) have no reason to go on line to argue. They have other things to do.
I'm about the only exception because I find it fascinating to discuss the case with people who have other theories. (1) It helps me refine my understanding of the case. You don't really learn much from people who agree with you. (2) I'm fascinated by the psychology of True Believers and conspiracy theorists, and I enjoy probing their beliefs to see what they actually think. (3) I enjoy arguing facts against beliefs to see how those who use only beliefs will counter the facts. (4) I want to leave a written record on the Internet showing how Anthrax Truthers try to ignore or distort the facts. (5) Arguing with Anthrax Truthers helps me refine my arguments while also avoiding making statements that they can twist and distort. It helps me with the writing of my book, since I want my book to debunk all the false claims from Anthrax Truthers.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
Delete----------------
And you fail to understand the difference between a SENIOR INVESTIGATOR like Lawrence Alexander, a task force chief like Edward Montooth[...]
==================================================
Look I've been in the military and I know how ranks and hierarchies work. The new guy, whatever his TITLE, isn't likely to have much influence unless he's either the boss (the head of the hierarchy), or if everyone else is exhausted/confused/idealess and is open to suggestions. Alexander was BROUGHT in (by Roth I think) circa February 2004. According to Willman, he was given the files on Hatfill with the info that Hatfill was the lead suspect, his indictment "imminent". Yeah, his demurral after WEEKS (how many?) of reading those files DID, according to Willman, slow down the rush to indict Hatfill, but look at the chronology: it was ANOTHER 2 to 2 1/2 years before they cleared Hatfill. If Alexander had been higher up in the hierarchy (ie at or near the top)it almost certainly would not have taken so long. And, if I recall correctly, it was a CHANGE in the very TOP of the task force in mid to fall 2006 that finally got them out of that Hatfill-did-it rut for good.
Partial post by Mister Lake:
Delete----------
Richard Rowley wrote: "In other words, the FBI administrators give the US attorney administrators THEIR take on a case, tell them how solid they think it is etc. THEN the US attorney administator provides personnel accordingly."
Not true. The US attorney administrator doesn't provide any FBI personnel.[...]
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I did NOT say "provide FBI personnel", I said provide "personnel" (ie US attorneys) BASED ON what the law enforcement administrators say. OTHERWISE the administrators would have to read ALL the files in every (let's say major) case. TOTALLY unrealistic.
It's like that in the intelligence business too: at any given moment (round the clock, round the globe)NSA and other intelligence agencies are collecting MOUNTAINS of raw intelligence. MOUNTAINS EVERY SINGLE DAY. As it goes up the hierarchy, it gets compressed. And compressed. And compressed. And compressed. At the very top is the president's daily intelligence summary. Probably 10 to 40 pages at most. But most presidents DON'T READ IT. Because they don't want to devote so much time to it. Not compressed/summarized enough!
The second Bush had George Tenet (later perhaps Tenet's successor)SUMMARIZE (yet more compression!)orally the intelligence when they (Bush and Tenet) would meet each morning.
From a practical standpoint that's probably the only way to do it: the higher up the hierarchy, the less familiarity with the details of anything (in the Dept of Justice that means less familiarity with the gritty elements of the cases).
From way up there somewhere (partial on signs the perp didn't intend to kill anyone):
Delete================================================
3. He folded the spores inside a "pharmaceutical fold" intended to keep the contents from spilling.
4. He taped the envelopes shut to prevent spores from escaping.
====================================================
With #4 I agree: to prevent the spores from escaping into his vehicle/makeshift lab. Same way with the fold. C'mon if you receive an innocent-looking envelope and UNFOLD the letter by pulling it out of the envelope you are going to get MORE airborne spores than if the spores are just at the bottom of the envelope when you open it!
Richard Rowley wrote: "With #4 I agree: to prevent the spores from escaping into his vehicle/makeshift lab. Same way with the fold."
DeleteIt's a virtual certainty that Ivins (or "the culprit") didn't carry the letters around the same way one would carry ordinary letters. For one thing, he would want to avoid leaving fingerprints.
He almost certainly put the letters into a ziplock plastic bag while they were still inside the biosafety cabinet, and he probably swabbed the outside of the bag down with bleach before removing it from the cabinet.
He carried the letters to New Jersey in the disinfected plastic bag where he opened the bag and - without touching the letters - dumped them into the mailbox.
So, he wasn't concerned about spilling anything in his vehicle.
When you pull out a letter folded with the pharmaceutical fold, it's like opening a package. And, the powder inside can be felt. So, the person opening the letter would use both hands and probably lay the letter down to open it.
You'd get far more airborne spores by using an ordinary fold which involves only one vertical fold. There would be spores inside the letter AND inside the envelope, and spores would spill out of the open end of the folded letter as you took it out of the envelope.
The pharmaceutical fold was used to keep the spilling and aerosolization of the spores to a minimum.
You're just picking the facts you think you can dispute while ignoring everything else. That shows that you have no real arguments.
Ed
Richard Rowley wrote: "Alexander was BROUGHT in (by Roth I think) circa February 2004. ... Yeah, his demurral after WEEKS (how many?) of reading those files DID, according to Willman, slow down the rush to indict Hatfill, ... it was ANOTHER 2 to 2 1/2 years before they cleared Hatfill. If Alexander had been higher up in the hierarchy (ie at or near the top)it almost certainly would not have taken so long."
DeleteNot true. The clearing of Hatfill was only accomplished by proving that Ivins did it.
Alexander saw right away (after reading all the files) that the case against Hatfill was weak. And, according to Willman, "another scientist -- Bruce Ivins -- merited the most rigorous scrutiny possible."
It took another 2-1/2 years to turn Ivins into the prime suspect because it took that long to get all the scientific work done which pinpointed flask RMR-1029 as the source used to grow the attack spores.
Once it was clear that Ivins was the culprit, then they could close the books on Hatfill. Proving someone is innocent can be as difficult as proving someone is guilty. And, in this case, because of all the people outside of the investigation who were pointing at Hatfill, Hatfill had to be PROVED innocent. There were just too many conspiracy theorists, reporters and politicians who considered Hatfill guilty until proven innocent.
Ed
Richard,
ReplyDeleteI can't find now where you listed the two titles you relied upon. But the
the full title of the second book you rely upon is:
Handwriting Analyst's Toolkit: Character And Personality Revealed Through Graphology [Paperback].
What do you divine from the case law available for free online as to the difference between handwriting analysis and graphology? Isn't one is the subject of expert testimony in court and one deemed a pseudoscience and not subject to the testimony?
Are books based on a pseudoscience going to be admissible as a "learned treatise" or is such testimony and text going to be deemed unreliable?
The cornerstone of the admissibility of scientific evidence is its reliability. These are not issues relating to the deterrence of privacy or violation of constitutional right.
And there is no reason to be basing a theory on unreliable evidence -- that just leads to an unsupported theory.
Ed makes the same basic mistake in arguing that a First Grader wrote the letters.
He presumes to describe how to be published and yet hasn't even read Pulitzer Prize winner Laurie Garrett's book - which anyone could tell him is a basic requirement in advance of submitting a book proposal.
So getting back to Anonymous, when you say 'books [I] rely on', when it comes to Amerithrax I don't rely on any. The printing is too artificial. See my other posts (regarding VANITY FAIR article by Don Foster etc,). I think I put them at bottom, but until Mister Lake okays them in the AM, I can't be sure!
DeletePartial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete---------
Richard Rowley wrote: "Our agreement is MORE than an "appearance", it's a reality."
Nonsense. Just the opposite. The Anthrax Truthers all argue that the FBI is wrong because, if the FBI is right, each and every one of the Anthrax Truthers must be wrong.
==============================================================
I never heard that from:
1)Lew Weinstein (he doesn't even HAVE his own pet theory and Mister Lake BLAMED him for this)
2)DXer. He does prefer a Muslim terrorist scenario but when he writes about the Ivins Case, which he does voluminously, he sticks to the particulars, even to the point of getting FOIA documents on it.
3)Meryl Nass. She may be prejudiced in FAVOR of Ivins, since she knew him, but she thinks the government case against him weak.
Etc.
Richard Rowley wrote: "I never heard that from:
ReplyDelete1)Lew Weinstein (he doesn't even HAVE his own pet theory"
He wrote a novel that supposedly outlines his theory. He won't tell anyone what his theory is because he wants them to buy his book. He endlessly pitches his book as an explanation of what really happened, even though it's a novel.
"2)DXer. He does prefer a Muslim terrorist scenario ..."
Correct.
"3)Meryl Nass. She may be prejudiced in FAVOR of Ivins ..."
By "prejudiced in FAVOR of Ivins" I assume you mean that she's prejudiced toward believing that Ivins did NOT do it. So, who does she think did it?
4. You have a theory that is different from the above 3.
5. Others have theories that are different from all of the above. (Hatfill did it, Jews did it, Saddam Hussein did it, Dick Cheney did it, a next door neighbor did it, etc., etc., etc.)
The problem with nearly all of them is that they are reluctant to describe exactly what evidence they have in support of their theory.
That's one reason these arguments go on for ever. You can't prove someone wrong if they refuse to be clear about what they actually believe and what their evidence is.
Ed
Partial post by Anonymous:
ReplyDelete----------------
What do you divine from the case law available for free online as to the difference between handwriting analysis and graphology?
=================================================================
Naturally the two are (somewhat) different. I haven't gotten into the case law of it. My interest OUTSIDE OF AMERITHRAX is very casual: mostly it has been an amusement: since I gave up TV about 3 1/2 years ago, I partially compensate by watching a lot of youtube. ESPECIALLY episodes (partial) of WHAT'S MY LINE? (the original show from 1950-1967). The celebrity guest enters after the panelists are blindfolded and writes his/her name on a blackboard. Though some of the signatures are HIGHLY stylized (Liberace and Alfred Hitchcock, for example)there's a LOT of stuff claimed in the graphology books that shows through( psychologically matches biographical material I've read about a number of these celebrities, including Hitchcock).
Back to Amerithrax: since I DON'T 'buy' the surface text of the Amerithrax letters (highly contrived and little reflecting the true printing style of the printer), I'm in effect rejecting what's in "Handwriting Analyst's Toolkit:..." and similar character/personality oriented books on graphology. I did NOT do that for 'admissibility reasons', though that's a good reason as well. I did that because the ONLY thing you could rely on in the style was: it wasn't his natural one, and that he was using one or more methods to deceive. It took me the LONGEST time to realize that the PRIMARY method of deception was: interpolating strokes and other Hebrew alphabet elements into the Brokaw/Post text. (This seemed to have trailed off in printing the envelopes and the Leahy/Daschle letter).
Two questions: could I present this in a court of law? Could a bona fide expert of long experience present this in a court of law via testimony?
1)Hell no, I'm a circus clown! No qualifications of any sort in this area.
2) Don't know. Would be good to know the case law on that stuff.
I SUSPECT that nothing EXACTLY like this has happened before (the interpolation thing, I mean), so it might be a bad match for the case law that exists. But it would have to be a bi-lingual (meaning bi-alphabetical) expert presenting it. And there would be a rebutting defense expert witness too!
As I indicated before, I'm a puzzle-solver, not a lawyer or law enforcement type.
(END OF PART I)
Richard Rowley,
DeleteI had to delete part II. It looked unnecessary, and such long quotes may be in violation of copyrights. Please limit your copy and paste quotes to no more than what you need to make a point. It's not necessary to quote whole sections of an article in order to discuss just one sentence or part of a paragraph.
Ed
Alright, I'll try to comply. But you have to understand that on the message boards etc. a lot of people, in arguing, complain that something was "taken out of context". And context DOES help to orient the reader. You and I have probably read Foster's article several times. But not all readers HERE (reading the blog)necessarily would have....'Don Foster? Who's Don Foster?' So it was designed to try to be more informative to the general public, make clearer Foster's role in the early going etc.
DeleteRichard Rowley wrote: Who's Don Foster?'
DeleteYou're probably the only person on this forum who doesn't seem to know who Don Foster is. He's the guy who made up a pile of nonsense about Steven Hatfill and got sued for it. His theory was totally bogus. Among other things, he claimed Hatfill committed a crime that someone else was arrested and convicted for.
Foster and the magazines which foolishly printed his nonsense - Vanity Fair and Reader's Digest - were sued by Hatfill. The terms of the settlement are confidential, but the facts suggest that Hatfill was paid close to ten million dollars.
Ed
(Continuation of article)
ReplyDelete-----------
On balance, the St. Petersburg letters looked to me to be the work of a scientist. The linguistic evidence and choice of targets pointed to an offender interested in biodefense: 9/11, he seemed to be saying, could be the prologue to something worse -- a sweeping epidemic of biological terrorism, for which our nation stood unprepared.
It soon came out, however, that the F.B.I. had recovered the wrong threatening letter. Laboratory analysis indicated that the white substance enclosed in the three St. Petersburg biothreats was nontoxic. Erin O'Connor must have been infected from another source. A fresh search of segregated NBC mail turned up a second letter, one with anthrax traces, likewise addressed to Tom Brokaw but written by someone else and postmarked on September 18 in Trenton.[...]
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While I don't agree 100% with Foster on all aspects of his analysis, he WAS the only 'outsider' to see these "St Petersburg hoax letters" and we can trust, at least, his description:
-----
the quotation marks were done Russian-style, with the opening quotes below the line, and the document's backward N's resembled the letter I in Russia's Cyrillic alphabet. But a bilingual Russian would be unlikely to confuse English and Cyrillic characters. This appeared to be someone's attempt to make his writing look Russian, or at least foreign. The same went for the block letters, which Russian adults don't use.
----------------------------------------------------------
My further quibble: the baseline open-quotes convention exists in a number of European countries. And Cyrillic is used by Bulgarians, Serbs, Ukrainians, among others. But let's put that aside for the moment and see what we have:
1)St Pete hoax letters done in pseudo-Cyrillic style and postmarked Sept 20th and Oct 5th.
2)Brokaw/Post letter done in pseudo-Hebrew style. Postmarked Sept 18th.
I asked myself: was THIS a coincidence? It wasn't.
So with the previous three posts as a backdrop, we can now reexamine the likelihood that the "Bruce Ivins, acting alone, yadda yadda yadda" hypothesis fits the circumstances.
ReplyDeleteEventually, time permitting in the next few days, I'll circle back to OTHER reasons (besides the pseudo-Hebrew/pseudo-Cyrillic connection of Brokaw/St Petersburg delineated in the previous 3 posts) to think that the St Pete "hoax letters" are intimately tied to Amerithrax proper.
Now, however, I'd like to show how utterly incompatible the St Pete connection is to the government's solution.
The first St Pete hoax letter had a postmark of September 20th 2001.
Where was Ivins then? For that we go to Mister Lake's chronicling of Ivins' work life (originally taken from http://foia2.fbi.gov/amerithrax/847547.PDF pages 49-57), a chronicling exhibited on this very website: (Partial):
[Evening hours only]
---------------
-------------blding 1225-----Bact. Division
September 19 7:13 - 8:37 84 7:48 - 7:51 3
September 20 9:59 - 10:23 24 9:59 - 10:00 1
--------------------
See: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/IvinsB3Hours.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------
So the FBI as part of the case AGAINST Bruce Ivins says that he spent the above hours at USAMRIID. This is utterly incompatible with Ivins being in St Petersburg, Florida, about 900 miles to the south mailing the first St Pete hoax letter so as to get a Sept 20th 2001 postmark. So he either had an accomplice OR he didn't do the crime at all.
If the above weren't enough, we ALSO have Ivins' B3 work hours during the daytime: (same sources as above):
suite B3
September 19 12:09 PM - 12:12 PM 1:20 PM - 2:00 PM 3 49 43
September 20 12:42 PM - 12:46 PM 1:39 PM - 2:06 PM 4 47
----------------------------------------------------------------
Next I'll examine the second postmark date to see whether that's compatible with the "Bruce Ivins, acting alone, yadda yadda yadda" hypothesis with which the DoJ closed the case.
So now we come to the SECOND postmark date of the St Petersburg hoax letters: October 5th 2001. Where was Ivins then? From same source as above: evening hours:
ReplyDelete-----------Bldg 1425--------Bact. Division-----B3 (approx.)
October 4 6:10 - 6:55 215 6:19 - 6:55 172 6:21 - 6:55 153
7:25 - 9:2 7:22 - 10:12 7:23 - 9:34 7:25-9:24
10:07 - 10:12
October 5 7:40 - 12:00? 260 7:44 - 7:52 243 8:03 - 8:57 222
7:59 - 9:01 9:07 - 11:55?
9:05 - 11:58
-----------------------------------------------------------------
So once again we have Ivins showing a LOT of time at work: so this time is incompatible with Ivins driving the 1800 mile round trip in order to mail the October 5th hoax letters in St Petersburg Florida.
But just to be as sure as we can, let's look at Ivins' B3 hours: : (Oct 4th)
-----------
B3 suite Daytime B3 Evening
1:48 PM - 1:51 PM 3 39 6:20 PM - 6:55 PM 35 156
2:29 PM - 3:05 PM 36
7:23 PM - 9:24 PM 121
-------------------------------------------------------------
And for October 5th
B3 Daytime B3 Evening
7:01 AM - 7:01 AM 0 4 7:59 PM - 8:57 PM 58 228
12:32 PM - 12:36 PM 4 8:59 PM - 8:59 PM 0
1:31 PM - 2:07 PM 9:00 PM - 9:00 PM 0
9:05 PM - 11:55 PM 170
--------------------------------------------------------------
Again, see: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/IvinsB3Hours.html
So if Ivins had anything to do with the St Pete hoax letters, he needed at least one accomplice. More likely he had nothing to do with them. More later.
Okay I decided to get JUST A TAD into a Hebrew feature, but NOT the only Hebrew feature of the Brokaw/NY Post text. It's highly accessible, in my opinion. Take a look here at this version of the (PRINTED)Hebrew alphabet ("aleph bet"):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Aleph-Bet/aleph-bet.html
The only thing omitted there is that 5 letters have special end-of-word forms ("sofit"), forms that are distinct. But for our present purposes this will do just fine.
First look at all the stokes/stroke segments that are HORIZONTAL (and straight).
You will notice sooner or later that in this, the traditional style of letter presentation (call it a 'font'), the horizontal strokes are VERY thick. As much at twice as thick as corresponding
VERTICAL (and straight)strokes*.
Hebrew has a number of letters that resemble, to one degree or another, our letter 'T'. That is: they have a sort of cross bar (horizontal again) at the top of a stem (vertical). In most exemplars of this alphabet the stem of the Daleth and of the Heh is completely vertical. And very thin. As thin as is possible within the font in question. HERE (in the exemplar given)the stems of Daleth are slightly slanted (not COMPLETELY vertical)but are still markedly thinner than their corresponding cross bars.
(To be continued)
Richard Rowley wrote: "So if Ivins had anything to do with the St Pete hoax letters, he needed at least one accomplice. More likely he had nothing to do with them. More later."
ReplyDeleteThis is just a massive straw man argument.
NO ONE ever argued that Ivins sent the St. Petersburg letters. Therefore, it is unnecessary to argue that it is an invalid argument.
Don Foster's claim was evidently that Steven Hatfill may have been behind the St. Petersburg letters, because he had a storage locker in Florida and he visited relatives down there from time to time. It was a bogus claim.
It's not necessary to argue against something that no one believes.
Ed
Somehow a post just before my post of Feb 20, 2012 05:11 PM
ReplyDeletehas disappeared (it was there yesterday!). The post in question began the presentation of the Vanity Fair article by former FBI consultant Don Foster, an article in the Oct 2003 issue. Foster relates how he was given what came to be called the St Petersburg 'hoax letters'. He describes them and evaluates them linguistically. You get the tail end of that in my post of Feb 20, 2012 05:11 PM
Posted by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete----------
Richard Rowley wrote: "So if Ivins had anything to do with the St Pete hoax letters, he needed at least one accomplice. More likely he had nothing to do with them. More later."
This is just a massive straw man argument.
NO ONE ever argued that Ivins sent the St. Petersburg letters. Therefore, it is unnecessary to argue that it is an invalid argument.
==========================================================
It's not an "argument", it's an integral part of my (sub)hypothesis, which evidently you DON'T want to learn. Else why would you delete the middle one of three posts by me explaining it?
Richard Rowley wrote: "Somehow a post just before my post of Feb 20, 2012 05:11 PM has disappeared (it was there yesterday!)."
ReplyDeleteI posted an explanation. It was too much material from Foster's article and had the potential of violating copyrights. Please limit your cut-and-paste quotes to no more than you need to explain a point. Use a link to the rest of the article to show people where they can find more if they need it.
Ed
Richard Rowley wrote: "It's not an "argument", it's an integral part of my (sub)hypothesis
ReplyDeleteThen your "hypothesis" is based upon meaningless conjectures about Ivins NOT mailing the St. Petersburg letters, which no one claims he did. In other words, it's based on NONSENSE.
You need to explain your hypothesis without violating copyright laws and without long explanations about preposterous theories that no one has.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete----------------
Richard Rowley wrote: "It's not an "argument", it's an integral part of my (sub)hypothesis
Then your "hypothesis" is based upon meaningless conjectures about Ivins NOT mailing the St. Petersburg letters, which no one claims he did.
---------------------------------------------------------
If Ivins didn't mail the St Pete "hoax letters" then why is it "conjecture(s)"? Conjecture is SPECULATING on something. His work record, which I copy and pasted from your site, indicates that he couldn't possibly have mail the St Pete letters. He was at USAMRIID. So if he couldn't possibly have mailed the St. Pete letters, how is it "conjecture"? It is settled fact.
Richard Rowley wrote: "His work record, which I copy and pasted from your site, indicates that he couldn't possibly have mail the St Pete letters."
ReplyDeleteRight. So, why even bring it up? Just to shoot it down? That's a straw man argument.
Or, are you arguing that because Ivins didn't send the St. Petersburg letters, that means your culprit sent the anthrax letters? That would be absurd.
If you want to argue that your culprit sent the St. Petersburg letters AND the anthrax letters, then there's no need to argue that Ivins didn't send the St. Petersburg letters. No one said he did.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete----------
You need to explain your hypothesis without violating copyright laws and without long explanations about preposterous theories that no one has.
-------------------------------------------------------
So I can only talk about preposterous theories that people DO have?
If you read the full article by Don Foster which is here
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/messageanthrax.html
you will find that Foster himself, contacted by the FBI on October 12th 2001, was tasked with examining the Brokaw "hoax letter" (that's right, ONE St Petersburg "hoax letter" was sent to Tom Brokaw, postmarked Sept 20th, the "real anthrax letter" ALSO sent to Brokaw and postmarked Sept 18th).
Foster's overall take was: some of the so-called "hoax letters"
could possibly have been sent by the SAME individual(s) as the real anthrax letters. My psycholinguistic study of Amerithrax, begun some 4 years later, came to the conclusion that Foster was right:
1)the St Petersburg hoax letters (all three)
and
2)the Amerithrax letters
and
3)the TOWN OF QUANTICO letter
were ALL written by the same person.
Richard Rowely wrote: "So I can only talk about preposterous theories that people DO have?"
ReplyDeleteHopefully, you'll only talk about your preposterous theory.
Don Foster, Vanity Fair and Readers' Digest were SUED because of the nonsense Foster wrote.
Foster's theory was that Steven Hatfill wrote the anthrax letters. His theory was NONSENSE. Vanity Fair and Readers' Digest may have paid Hatfill as much as $10 million dollars because of the NONSENSE Foster wrote and they printed. (The actual amount was not disclosed.)
Foster wrote that some hoax letters sent from Louisiana were sent by Hatfill when he was in Louisiana, but Hatfill was not in Louisiana at the time of that hoax mailing AND the actual hoax mailer was caught and convicted.
So, you seem to be basing your hypothesis upon admitted and proved NONSENSE plus new meaningless NONSENSE about how Ivins didn't send the St. Petersburg letters, which no one said he did.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete------------
Don Foster, Vanity Fair and Readers' Digest were SUED because of the nonsense Foster wrote.
Foster's theory was that Steven Hatfill wrote the anthrax letters. His theory was NONSENSE.
====================================================
Actually a LOT more people than that were sued. Are you forgetting Hatfill's $5.8 million payoff?
You, once again, are giving here a "Lakeian summary". Always a BAD idea. And you quote NOTHING from the article in question. Why?
If he said EXACTLY what you claim then you would be able to provide the evidence. Forensic linguists are INVESTIGATORS, they aren't bloggers coming up with "theories" (Mister Lake's word)but by the time he wrote the article (Oct 2003 issue) he was no longer an FBI consultant and had all the leeway any writer has.
So eventually he pointed out Hatfill's high-profile status as a biowarrior and hinted broadly.
Fully half the article is gone before Hatfill is even mentioned and the first mention is in connection with Ayaad Assaad:
-----
New USAMRIID hires that year, following Assaad's departure, included Steven J. Hatfill, a recruit from the National Institutes of Health. Hatfill was a concept man with a detailed vision for building mobile germ labs.
----------------------------------------------
A few paragraphs later Foster gets back to Hatfill: he found two Wash Times stories on Hatfill and then goes into considerable detail. It seems IRONIC as all getout that you FAULT Foster (and Rosenberg) for suspecting Hatfill when the Task Force had him as the lead person of interest/suspect for what? 4 1/2 years, and you don't fault them.
------------------
At any rate, I did my own psycholinguistic study and it in no way relies on however Foster's ideas subsequently developped.
Partial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete-------------------------
So, you seem to be basing your hypothesis upon admitted and proved NONSENSE plus new meaningless NONSENSE about how Ivins didn't send the St. Petersburg letters, which no one said he did.
===========================================================
So you ADMIT that if the Amerithrax author ALSO wrote the St Pete hoax letters, then this exonerates Ivins, is that right?
Richard Rowley wrote: "So you ADMIT that if the Amerithrax author ALSO wrote the St Pete hoax letters, then this exonerates Ivins, is that right?
ReplyDeleteThat's a total distortion of what I said.
If you can prove that someone other than Ivins sent both the St. Petersburg hoax letters AND the anthrax letters, you should do so.
Yes, Ivins would theoretically be exonerated by overwhelming proof that someone else sent the anthrax letters. But, you have offered NOTHING to even remotely suggest that you have such proof. All you do is play word games and cite people like Foster who have been shown to be wrong.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
Delete------------
Richard Rowley wrote: "So you ADMIT that if the Amerithrax author ALSO wrote the St Pete hoax letters, then this exonerates Ivins, is that right?
That's a total distortion of what I said.
==============================================
I wasn't trying to REPEAT what you said, I was trying to pin you down, before you start telling me that Don Foster was once a bedwetter and slurps his soup at the dinner table.
People can be wrong about a given area and INCREDIBLY prescient in a nearby one. That's what Foster was on the St Pete 'hoax' letters. But your mind is closed because he made a mistake. Thereby you make a bigger one.
Richard Rowley wrote: "People can be wrong about a given area and INCREDIBLY prescient in a nearby one. That's what Foster was on the St Pete 'hoax' letters."
DeleteYou BELIEVE Foster was "INCREDIBLY prescient about the St. Pete 'hoax' letters. But you have no proof that he was right. The only proof is that he was wrong, because Foster was blaming everything on an innocent man.
Plus, it's clear for the handwriting that the St. Petersburg writing is nothing like the anthrax writing.
And the text of the St. Pete letters is nothing like the text of the anthrax letters.
The St. Pete letter to Troxler read:
""Howard Toxler ... 1st case of disease now blow away this dust so you see how the real thing flys. Oklahoma-Ryder Truck! Skyway bridge-18 wheels.""
Does that seem similar to the anthrax letters to you?
There's no BASIS for seeing any connection between the St. Pete hoax letters and the anthrax letters -- except in your fantasies.
You need to supply PROOF, not just cite some "expert" who everyone knows was totally full of crap.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
Delete------------------
You need to supply PROOF, not just cite some "expert" who everyone knows was totally full of crap.
==============================================
No, if I do write the (second) book the ONLY reason there would be interest in it is that it won't be the 10th or 12th recapitulation of the course of the investigation (plus now the case against Ivins). The interest, should I garner it, will be for the new solution. The solution isn't based on Don Foster whom I know solely through his Vanity Fair article.
He was right about the St Pete hoax letters and for the Bureau to solve future cases of the same type they will eventually have to do as he suggested: pool "hoax letters" with "real" toxic ones because the unlying psychology is the same (which means that frequently "hoax" letters are the product of the same perps)>
Partial post by Mister Lake:
Delete--------------
The only proof is that he was wrong, because Foster was blaming everything on an innocent man.
=================================================
The Task Force/DoJ has now a record of incorrectly blaming the attacks on (at least) two innocent men: Hatfill and Ivins. And THAT for a solid decade. But the leading chronicler of the Amerithax Case (you) doesn't see it.
Partial post by Mister Lake:
Delete------------
Does that seem similar to the anthrax letters to you?
----------------------------------------------
Yes, at the psycholinguistic level they are clearly written by the same person as the anthrax letters.
It is the psycholinguistic level that I will deal with in 2 books (if I should live so long!).
Once more from the Department of Irony:
Delete1)Mister Lake incorrectly (again!) says that I'm citing some "expert" (Mister Lake's quotation marks around the word "expert"), and I've already (ie yesterday)explained my interest in the VANITY FAIR article was primarily because in it Foster describes the FORMS of the lettering of the St Pete letters, forms which tie it to the Brokaw/Post text and forms which aren't publicly available (via photographs).(At least one envelope face is available though)
2)The irony, of course, is that in October of 2001 it was the FBI (not r. rowley) that designated Foster an expert.
3)They did that based on his educational background, his known devotion to forensic linguistics, career accomplishments etc.
4)Evidently this was NOT the first time that they used him as an "expert" (once again the quotation marks are those of Mister Lake)consultant. They used him on other cases before Amerithrax.
5)Therefore, implicit in all this is: Mister Lake is actually criticizing the FBI for bringing in the equivalent of "Daffy Duck" (Mister Lake's evaluation of Foster's forensic linguistic skills) to look at linguistic elements of Amerithrax, criticizing the FBI without having the self-awareness to even realize that he is doing so.
Daffy Duck? That quacks me up!
Richard Rowley wrote: "The Task Force/DoJ has now a record of incorrectly blaming the attacks on (at least) two innocent men: Hatfill and Ivins. And THAT for a solid decade."
DeleteThe FACTS say that you are totally wrong. The FBI NEVER said that Hatfill was the anthrax mailer.
Richard Rowley also wrote: "Yes, at the psycholinguistic level they are clearly written by the same person as the anthrax letters.
It is the psycholinguistic level that I will deal with in 2 books (if I should live so long!)."
Well, at every other level including the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face level, the text in the Troxler letter is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the text in the anthrax letters. But, it should be hilarious to see you try to make them appear similar (if I should live so long!).
Richard Rowley also wrote: "5)Therefore, implicit in all this is: Mister Lake is actually criticizing the FBI for bringing in the equivalent of "Daffy Duck" (Mister Lake's evaluation of Foster's forensic linguistic skills) to look at linguistic elements of Amerithrax, criticizing the FBI without having the self-awareness to even realize that he is doing so."
I'm not criticizing the FBI for bringing in handwriting "experts" to get their opinions, because you can never tell where an "investigative lead" may come from. From what I understand, most "handwriting experts" disagreed with each other about the handwriting. The only difference with Don Foster is that he got upset because his findings were ignored by the FBI, and he decided to go public with his theory.
Ed
Mister Lake's post:
Delete--------------------
I'm not criticizing the FBI for bringing in handwriting "experts" to get their opinions, because you can never tell where an "investigative lead" may come from. From what I understand, most "handwriting experts" disagreed with each other about the handwriting. The only difference with Don Foster is that he got upset because his findings were ignored by the FBI, and he decided to go public with his theory.
---------------------------------------------------
Professor Foster ISN'T a "handwriting 'expert'" (to my knowledge), he's a forensic linguist. There is a difference.
Richard Rowley wrote: "Professor Foster ISN'T a "handwriting 'expert'" (to my knowledge), he's a forensic linguist. There is a difference."
DeleteAgreed. So, maybe I should have written "writing 'experts'" not "handwriting 'experts'." And "The only difference with Don Foster is that he got upset because his forensic linguist findings were ignored by the FBI, and he decided to go public with his theory."
The point was that Foster got upset because his findings were ignored, and that's why he went public. The fact that he was not the same kind of writing expert as the others is irrelevant to the point being made.
Ed
Richard Rowley wrote: "If he said EXACTLY what you claim then you would be able to provide the evidence."
ReplyDeleteI provided the evidence on my web site when I read the crap Foster wrote.
Read my September 23, 2003 comment which refers to an article where most of Foster's claims about his previous cases were shown to be bogus.
I thoroughly debunk Foster's article in my September 7, 2003 comment. I cite the passage Foster wrote about the Louisiana hoaxes and I cite the sources which prove his claims were total nonsense.
Here's the link: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Update-History.html
Or just click HERE
You're just wildly uninformed. You constantly forget that while you just came on the scene recently, I've been studying this case and writing about it since 2001.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete--------------
All you do is play word games and cite people like Foster who have been shown to be wrong.
==========================================================
Mister Lake, I am aware of only one person who was (allegedly) never wrong in His Life, yet somehow, if He were posting here, I'm sure you would be telling Him that HE was wrong. And refusing to think that HE might know anything about the case because he was a Jesus-Come-Lately!
I notice in your two responses you don't touch on the what I referred to above: it WASN'T just Foster and Rosenberg who were wrong about Hatfill (and were sued by same), he was the lead "person of interest"/suspect from (at least) 2002 to 2006. This is a matter of public record.
So why DON'T you blame the Task Force anywhere near as much as Foster/Rosenberg? (This is not a rhetorical question, if you have an explanation, I would LOVE to hear it).
I dealt above with the St Petersburg hoax letters, and their relation to the true culprits. That is NOT answered by saying that Foster was wrong about some LOUISIANA hoax letters. Capisc'?
Richard Rowley wrote: "So why DON'T you blame the Task Force anywhere near as much as Foster/Rosenberg?"
ReplyDeleteBecause the Task Force had NOTHING to do with what happened to Hatfill.
What happened to Hatfill was started by Rosenberg. She got other scientists to join her, then she got the New York Times to join her, then she got other newspapers and, finally, she got politicians to join her in demanding that Steven Hatfill be investigated.
It took her EIGHT months, but finally the FBI had no choice but to publicly investigate Hatfill. It's all detailed on my Hatfill Timeline page here: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/HatfillTimeline.html
Or, click HERE.
The "task force" had no reason to suspect Hatfill. The pressure to investigate him came from higher up due to the pressure from Rosenberg and the New York Times and politicians.
As I understand it, a separate FBI group investigated Hatfill. Eventually, the higher-ups were replaced and the task force got back to focusing on the real culprit -- who, by then, looked to be Bruce Ivins.
"That is NOT answered by saying that Foster was wrong about some LOUISIANA hoax letters. Capisc'?"
If you read the comments for which I provided a link, you would see that it wasn't just the Louisiana hoax letters that Foster was wrong about. He was wrong about almost everything. I even told you where to find an article about the findings that made him "famous," and how that was bogus, too.
If you want to cite Don Foster as an expert, that's up to you. But, everyone else will probably consider Daffy Duck to be a better expert.
Capite?
Ed
Back to Hebrew. So as I was saying, in the most common forms of printed Hebrew lettering, there are varying THICKNESSES of strokes/stroke segments depending upon the nature of the stroke/stroke segment (straight versus curved) and its orientation.
DeleteI think this example of the alphabet is better than the one I suggested above:
http://www.jewfaq.org/alephbet.htm
In general:
1)straight horizontal lines tend to be extra thick
(see cross-bars of cheit, zayin, hei, dalet,khaf,reish)
All the above letters could be described as near cousins IN FORM to our Latin letter 'T'.
2)straight vertical lines tend to be the thinnest line (but we could also label them 'regular' as opposed to extra thick). Once again cheit, zayin, hei, dalet, khaf, and reish have such vertical lines: call them 'stems'. These stems correspond to the STEM of the Latin letter 'T'.
3)straight diagonal lines tend to be extra thick (see alef).
4)curved strokes/stroke segments tend to VARY in thickness over their course, depending on their orientation at a given point on the horizontal/vertical axis. The ordinary non-sofit Mem is a good example of this (rightmost Mem).
-------------------------------------------------------
Richard Rowley wrote "1)straight horizontal lines tend to be extra thick [when writing Hebrew}"
DeleteWow! Don't you realize that is because they are BRUSH STROKES? When writing with a modern pen, as was done on the anthrax letters, people writing in Hebrew do NOT make any lines "extra thick."
Your argument is just plain silly. But, it appears you are merely totally ignorant of the field you are trying to discuss.
At one time, I could read, write and speak Japanese fairly well. When writing Chinese characters with a brush, you get wider lines on certain types of strokes. Writing Chinese beautifully with a brush is considered an art form. (Japanese writing uses Chinese characters PLUS two different Japanese alphabets.)
But, when a Chinese or Japanese person sits down to write with a pencil or a ballpoint pen, there are no wide horizontal or diagonal strokes. The extra wide strokes are NOT PART OF THE character. They don't make extra-wide neon tubes when creating signs in Chinese.
Your reasoning is based upon total ignorance of how people writing in foreign languages write when using a brush versus using a pencil or ball point pen.
Ed
I had thought to continue to expound my Hebrew subhypothesis, but I see that in the interim Mister Lake has seen fit to attack a hypothesis not even halfway out of the bottle. So
Delete(Mister Lake)
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Richard Rowley wrote "1)straight horizontal lines tend to be extra thick [when writing Hebrew}"
Wow! Don't you realize that is because they are BRUSH STROKES? When writing with a modern pen, as was done on the anthrax letters, people writing in Hebrew do NOT make any lines "extra thick."
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If you will notice what I have written so far, you will see that I explicitly state that I am talking about the printed (I should have added "traditional printed") Hebrew letters only (ie not the cursive which follows this pattern not at all and is more interested in efficiency, rather than aesthetics).
Though Mister Lake is probably right that the ORIGIN of different thicknesses may have been due to the use of brushes (I think the same could be said of Chinese, Arabic and many ornate scripts), he is wrong in thinking, as he evidently does, that the use of these traditional motifs (varying thicknesses in strokes) is restricted to the use of brushes. One is struck, among other things, by the appearance of these traditional letter forms in stained glass, if one passes by a synogogue/ex-synogogue in a city. Here for example: http://revpatrickcomerford.blogspot.com/2012/01/introducing-jewish-spirituality.html
(scroll 1/3 way down page to see stained glass window with Hebrew inscription).
(End Part 1)
I won't be able to post any more today, but anyone who is interested in the importance given by the Jewish religion/society to letters and letter forms, might look here:
Deletehttp://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Aleph-Bet/Aleph/aleph.html
Of the three forms of the letter Aleph given at the very top, I was talking about the book print one (far left). That's the traditional one, but of course modern writing implements like pens and pencils make it less attractive for someone in a hurry. But it is preferred for aesthetic and religious purposes and retains the 'distinctively Hebrew' quality. So if you ARE trying to print something in Latin letters and yet give it a 'pseudoHebrew' style, the way to go is to follow the thickness/thinness style of that first "book print" Aleph, and to do that for ALL the letters which you wish to give that style.
Richard Rowley wrote: "If you will notice what I have written so far, you will see that I explicitly state that I am talking about the printed (I should have added "traditional printed") Hebrew letters only .."
DeleteHmm. It took you awhile to come up with that argument, didn't it?
You're still not talking about how someone learns to PRINT Hebrew in school. They don't use brushes in school. They don't trace over strokes in letters to make them wider or to make them look like brush strokes.
And, any adult should know that printing on a letter or envelope in any language using a pen or pencil isn't done the same way as is seen in brush-calligraphy.
In the olden days, English writers would use quill pens which left distinctive wide and narrow lines vaguely similar to brush strokes. You can see it in "We The People" at the beginning of the Constitution. And, any adult should know that "printing" as is done on books and newspapers involves many different "fonts." Some fonts combined wide and narrow lines. They have NOTHING to do with the way an average person writes with a pencil or ball point pen in any language.
"So if you ARE trying to print something in Latin letters and yet give it a 'pseudoHebrew' style, the way to go is to follow the thickness/thinness style of that first "book print" Aleph, and to do that for ALL the letters which you wish to give that style."
That's just plain absurd!
And, the writer of the anthrax letters did NOT do it with ALL the letters. The writer wasn't consistent with highlighting A's and T's. The T's in DEATH are not highlighted. The A in TAKE is not highlighted, neither is the A in AMERICA or the second A in ALLAH nor the A in ISRAEL.
Your concocted explanation just makes things worse. It's clear your theory doesn't fit the facts.
You should spend some more time on dreaming up a better explanation for why you wrote what you did. It's clear you just didn't realize the difference between brush-calligraphy and everyday writing with a pen or pencil.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
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Richard Rowley wrote: "If you will notice what I have written so far, you will see that I explicitly state that I am talking about the printed (I should have added "traditional printed") Hebrew letters only .."
Hmm. It took you awhile to come up with that argument, didn't it?
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No, I don't think so. My very first post in dealing with the subject in some detail was at 06:07 on Feb 22nd (this thread) (ie 3 days ago) and I wrote (partial):
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r. rowleyFeb 22, 2012 06:27 AM
Okay I decided to get JUST A TAD into a Hebrew feature, but NOT the only Hebrew feature of the Brokaw/NY Post text. It's highly accessible, in my opinion. Take a look here at this version of the (PRINTED)Hebrew alphabet ("aleph bet"):
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Aleph-Bet/aleph-bet.html
The only thing omitted there is that 5 letters have special end-of-word forms ("sofit"), forms that are distinct. But for our present purposes this will do just fine.
First look at all the stokes/stroke segments that are HORIZONTAL (and straight).
You will notice sooner or later that in this, the traditional style of letter presentation (call it a 'font'), the horizontal strokes are VERY thick. As much at twice as thick as corresponding
VERTICAL (and straight)strokes*.
Hebrew has a number of letters that resemble, to one degree or another, our letter 'T'. That is: they have a sort of cross bar[...]
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So in that post, the VERY FIRST ONE dealing in detail with my Hebrew hypothesis, I say:
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You will notice sooner or later that in this, the traditional style of letter presentation (call it a 'font'), the horizontal strokes are VERY thick.
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"traditional style of letter presentation". THAT'S what's distinctively Hebrew (actually pseudoHebrew) about the lettering in the Brokaw text.
Partial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete-------------
Richard Rowley wrote: "So why DON'T you blame the Task Force anywhere near as much as Foster/Rosenberg?"
Because the Task Force had NOTHING to do with what happened to Hatfill.
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Do you realize how foolish you sound by writing such a statement?
If you can't blame the Task Force for what happened to Hatfill over 3 1/2 years after the DoJ made a $5.8 million settlement, when would you blame the FBI/DoJ for anything?!?!?
You are so far in the tank for the DoJ that you have scratch marks all over your body from the "tiger" that was already in their tank.
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Back to Mister Lake:
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If you want to cite Don Foster as an expert, that's up to you. But, everyone else will probably consider Daffy Duck to be a better expert.
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Well, at a bare minimum Dr Foster has a PhD in English literature.
What's YOUR highest degree in languages? (I'm not a great overadmirer of formal credentials but they certainly do tell us SOMETHING about some minimal competence in a field).
And if you read again, CAREFULLY this time, what I wrote about Foster as I was going over elements of his article, you will find that I wrote, among other things, (this thread):
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While I don't agree 100% with Foster on all aspects of his analysis, he WAS the only 'outsider' to see these "St Petersburg hoax letters" and we can trust, at least, his description:
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Am I "citing Don Foster as an expert in that sentence? I am not. And a 10 year old with a good reading comprehension could see that I'm not. I'm citing his DESCRIPTION of the forms of the letters.
Then in that VERY SAME POST I write:
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My further quibble: the baseline open-quotes convention exists in a number of European countries. And Cyrillic is used by Bulgarians, Serbs, Ukrainians, among others. But let's put that aside for the moment and see what we have:[...]
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So am I "citing Don Foster as an expert" in THOSE three sentences?
I am not: I am taking issue with his label of "Russian" for the forms since the Cyrillic alphabet is used in several other nations of Eastern Europe and the former USSR. AND I note that the baseline open quotation convention is practiced in several European countries besides Russia.
I was using Foster PRIMARILY as an INFORMANT, that is as a source of information about the forms of the characters in letters (St Pete hoax letters) that are not now and never have been in the public domain so that I could look at them myself.
That's NOT "citing" Foster as an expert. But I would say he is an expert nonetheless.
Jeeze!! NINE new posts came in from Mr. Rowley overnight!
ReplyDeleteOne post is at the bottom, just above this post. Another is a reply to the previous post. Four are replies to a post in the middle of this thread, and three are replies to a post about a third of the way down from the top.
I wonder how many other people can find them. How would anyone even know they're there? Why would they look? The only reason I found them is because I get an email from Google informing me whenever someone posts something to the forum that needs to be "moderated." So, I know they're there and I have to check to make sure they are posted properly.
Mr. Rowley's tactic appears to be to flood me with posts to show that he is not deterred by any comment I may make. He's going to believe what he wants to believe regardless of what the facts say.
I expect no less.
Ed
"NINE new posts came in from Mr. Rowley overnight!"
DeleteOh now now Ed!
What would you prefer? No posts? Then I suppose you could endlessly post message after message validating yourself.
Now what fun would that be?
BugMaster wrote: "What would you prefer? No posts?"
DeleteExcept for yours, that's what I got this morning. No posts.
My comment was a way to show people that Mr. Rowley was posting in various places on this thread. I wanted people to look for his posts.
I would think that most people who aren't visiting this thread for the first time would just go to the end and check to see what has been added at or near the bottom.
I was concerned that people might not look for posts that come in as replies to posts much earlier in this thread.
I really want people to read Mr. Rowley's explanation of who he relied upon as an authority and particularly his explanation of why some of the characters in the media letter were traced over.
I think it's the first time I've ever gotten any Anthrax Truther to fully explain his reasoning. It's VERY illuminating. And, while I expected something bizarre, I never expected anything that bizarre.
And this blog is a record of it!
BTW, I have no need to use this blog to "validate" myself. I have a web site for that. ;-)
Ed
Richard Rowley wrote: "If you can't blame the Task Force for what happened to Hatfill over 3 1/2 years after the DoJ made a $5.8 million settlement, when would you blame the FBI/DoJ for anything?!?!?"
ReplyDeleteCan't you write anything without distorting the facts?
I said the TASK FORCE had nothing to do with what happened to Hatfill.
The task force didn't settle Hatfill's law suit. The task force wasn't involved in the lawsuit. The lawsuit was against the Department of Justice. It was about Ashcroft calling Hatfill a "person of interest" and about DOJ lawyers leaking confidential information to the media.
The facts say Ashcroft was an idiot for saying Hatfill was a "person of interest." He should have realized how the media would distort such a statement. And the facts say that DOJ lawyers Daniel Seikaly and Roscoe Howard leaked confidential information to the media. So, claiming I don't blame the FBI or DOJ for anything is nonsense.
The DOJ didn't admit fault when they settled. They just settled because it was less expensive than continuing to fight and go to trial. Roughly 95 percent of all lawsuits are settled outside of court.
So, once again: The task force didn't have anything to do with what happened to Hatfill. And, any claim that the "investigation" of Steven Hatfill was in any way similar to the investigation of Bruce Ivins is a STUPID and IGNORANT claim.
Richard Rowley also wrote: "I was using Foster PRIMARILY as an INFORMANT" and "But I would say he is an expert nonetheless."
If there is one thing the Amerithrax case has proved it is that "experts" can be wrong. So, it's necessary to look at the facts.
When you use an opinionated, discredited or dubious "expert" as a "informant," you need to be DOUBLY certain that the FACTS are valid and hold up to scrutiny. Usually, you are better off by just citing the facts and leaving the "expert's" name out of it.
Your suggestion that the writer of the anthrax letters was trying to make it look like he was original taught in Hebrew is unproved and appears to have no basis in reality.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete-------------
Richard Rowley also wrote: "I was using Foster PRIMARILY as an INFORMANT" and "But I would say he is an expert nonetheless."
If there is one thing the Amerithrax case has proved it is that "experts" can be wrong. So, it's necessary to look at the facts.
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Mister Lake, you need to look up the word "informant" because it is by no means synonymous with the word "expert". You have shown no recognition whatsoever that you follow what I'm saying in this thread about Foster's article.
Last sentence by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete---------------
Your suggestion that the writer of the anthrax letters was trying to make it look like he was original taught in Hebrew is unproved and appears to have no basis in reality.
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I NOWHERE ever said that the writer "was original[lu] taught in Hebrew". How you cannot understand, after all my explanations, what my hypothesis is I find puzzling.
Okay, in my previous post I jumped the gun (ie assumed Mister Lake was mischaracterizing me.....assumed based on past performance). I DO think that the printer is trying to SUGGEST that the printer might be an Israeli, and since a native Israeli normally IS originally taught in Hebrew, Mister Lake is right and I blundered in "correcting" him.
DeleteRichard Rowley wrote: "Mister Lake, you need to look up the word "informant" because it is by no means synonymous with the word "expert"."
ReplyDeleteYOU wrote that "he is an expert nevertheless" and I commented on experts.
You are clearly not reading your own words, or you are just being argumentative.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake"
ReplyDelete-----------
YOU wrote that "he is an expert nevertheless" and I commented on experts.
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Okay, there's a difference between/among saying:
1) person A admits that person B is an expert.
2) person A admits that person B is an expert but only accepts part of what person B says (about a given matter. (Here that would be "Russian style" vs "Cyrillic style"; baseline open quotes as distinctively Russian vs baseline open quotes as being a convention of several European nations including Russia etc.)
3) person A says that person B is an expert but lacks credentials etc.
Don Foster, however he got into Mister Lake's doghouse, is a "widely recognized expert" on Shakespeare, forensic linguistics (and I don't know what else!). I'm not praising him, I'm not condemning him. I'm just trying to accurately label him, regardless of whether I agree with him in a given matter or not.
(I don't agree much with you Mister Lake but you ARE an expert in the history of Amerithrax, and plenty of other things too!)
Richard Rowley wrote: "Don Foster, however he got into Mister Lake's doghouse, is a "widely recognized expert" on Shakespeare"
ReplyDeleteHe WAS once a "widely recognized expert" on Shakespeare."
But, his work was shown to be NONSENSE. I've provided a link for you several times. But there's a better link here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Wayne_Foster
It says:
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After considerable debate, Foster's theory was eventually rejected by other Shakespeare scholars. In 2002, Gilles Monsarrat, a translator of Shakespeare into French, published an article arguing that the poem's true author was John Ford, a younger writer whose works Monsarrat had also edited. Foster conceded that Monsarrat had the better case in a post on the SHAKSPER listserv, saying, "No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar." Foster said he had not previously analyzed Ford's works closely enough and had erroneously dismissed him as a possibility.
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So, claiming that Foster is a "widely recognized expert" on Shakespeare means you have not done sufficient research.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete-----------------------------------------------
So, claiming that Foster is a "widely recognized expert" on Shakespeare means you have not done sufficient research.
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Okay, OBVIOUSLY you have done lots of research on Foster (I didn't nor to I feel particularly moved to: it would be different if I was a particular Shakespeare buff).
My attitude towards 'expertise' and 'authority' (the latter term more generalized) is clearly different than your own. Despite what you posted about Foster above, I would still call him an "expert" (and I'm not doing it to get your goat)on Shakespeare.
Almost every field of intellectual life is filled with controversy (heck there are even 'Shakespeare experts' who think there was no such person as Shakespeare!).
What marks an 'expert' in my idiolect(and maybe I'm funny this way) is: a thorough understanding of the NATURE of such disputes: 'John Ford', the writer alluded to above, means NOTHING to me, because I lack all expertise in this area. I'm a layman's layman. Foster likely got his doctorate by, among other things, writing a looooooong dissertation (likely after a master's thesis)on some literary topic. A dissertation that, if I tried to read it, would perhaps go way over my head. He TEACHES Shakespeare at Vassar (I think). That's not something the average non-expert can 'fake'. He's tenured and that means his research played a big role in getting him tenure (that's what those 'primary committees' are keen on: published research of the peer-reviewed sort).
Though you posted the above to discredit Foster, I take it as a good sign (ie a sign of his professionalism in his field) that he is willing to admit his mistakes.
But I see I'm not going to convince you. Cheers!
Richard Rowley wrote: "But I see I'm not going to convince you."
ReplyDeleteRight. I'm not easily convinced by opinions. I require facts.
As I recall, there were people posting all kinds of things about Don Foster on various forums after that nonsense article was published in Vanity Fair. He was a very popular subject on FreeRepublic.com, but it doesn't appear that their current archives go back that far. I have a lot of FreeRepublic threads in my archives, but it would take too long to find anything, particularly since there doesn't appear to be any point to it. You're not going to be persuaded by anything I find.
Ed
I think that this is as good a place as any to note this (rather than this week's thread): implicit in my treatment of the Brokaw text (ie the pseudoHebrew style)is: Foster (and any other forensic linguists brought in on this) blew it. They had a text with an obviously Hebrew-styled lettering and saw it not. I'm guessing: perhaps Foster has no Hebrew even to the extent of letter recognition. So a decade goes by and some guy on a blog has to take note of it...
ReplyDeleteRichard Rowley wrote: "So a decade goes by and some guy on a blog has to take note of it..."
ReplyDeleteAnd ten more decades will go by before you convince anyone that you know what you're talking about. Your fellow Anthrax Truthers do not believe you. No one believes you. You cannot provide any believable evidence.
Talking about it as if it's some significant discovery is ridiculous. It's only an indication that you can conjure up things that YOU believe proves your theory. We all know you can do that. You do it repeatedly.
What you need to do is find something that OTHER PEOPLE will accept as proof of your theory. So far, you've produced zilch.
Ed
Posted by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete--------------
Richard Rowley wrote: "So a decade goes by and some guy on a blog has to take note of it..."
And ten more decades will go by before you convince anyone that you know what you're talking about.
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Oh ye of little faith! As a matter of fact, my longest-term correspondent shows EVERY sign of believing me. And he's an accomplished reporter.