Friday, September 27, 2013

Subject: Illogical Logic

 
An Anthrax Truther has provided an excellent example of "illogical logic" in a post to a different web blog HERE. He sees indications of Hebrew characters within the writing on the anthrax letters - mostly in the letter sent to Tom Brokaw and The New York Post.

He says the similarities he sees are "unnatural and contrived" in the way the Hebrew characters were drawn, and this evidently indicates to him that the writer of the anthrax letters was trying to deliberately draw characters that resemble Hebrew characters in an "unnatural and contrived" way.  Some of the characters he has mentioned are drawn using the formal calligraphy style called "Ashuri" and some are drawn using the informal script or "cursive" style as shown in the illustration above.  The anthrax letter sent to Tom Brokaw is shown below. (You can click on any of the illustrations to view larger versions).

Here are some details about the Anthrax Truther's "hypothesis" or "theory":
The Anthrax Truther's first claim is that the Hebrew "Ashuri" writing style involves a lot of thick horizontal lines.  The anthrax letter writer drew thick horizontal lines atop some of the T's in the media anthrax letter.  The Anthrax Truther views this as a "contrived" attempt to resemble Hebrew writing.  Of course, in order to arrive at that illogical conclusion he has to ignore the horizontal lines in the H and E and in other characters in the letter, like the L in PENACILIN and ISRAEL.  Plus, the "Ashuri" style of writing also includes a thick diagonal line, but there is no thick diagonal line in the X in NEXT.  The anthrax truther's "logic" is illogical.

The Anthrax Truther's second claim is that the T in the second writing of the word "DEATH" in the media letter resembles the Hebrew "Ashuri" style character "Dalet," which is drawn like the top and right sides of a box.  That particular T does not have the horizontal bar darkened, which the Anthrax Truther probably feels is "unnatural and contrived" rather than good evidence that he is seeking similarities to prove a belief, instead of seeing what is most likely and most logical: the writer simply drew a T with a vertical line that was a bit off-center. The anthrax truther's "logic" is illogical.

The Anthrax Truther's third claim is that the way the I and C are drawn close together in the word "AMERICA" is an "unnatural and contrived" way of drawing the Hebrew cursive letter Aleph. Of course, it could also be that that particular  "I" was simply drawn a bit too far to the right, which is perfectly natural for a human being who does not print like a machine. The Anthrax Truther's "logic" is illogical.

The Anthrax Truther's fourth claim is that the G in GREAT looks like an "unnatural and contrived" way of drawing the cursive Hebrew character Tet.  Actually, to most people the G probably looks more like the number 6 than the Hebrew character Tet. But, the Anthrax Truther argues that the differences between the G and the cursive Tet are evidence that the writer was drawing a Tet in an "unnatural and contrived" way, instead of simply drawing a G in the writer's natural style.  The Anthrax Truther's "logic" is illogical.

The Anthrax Truther's fifth claim is that the question mark in the Senate letter is an "unnatural and contrived" way of drawing the cursive Hebrew character Kaf.  Why anyone would draw a Kaf (which is pronounced like the K in King) where a question mark should be is undoubtedly the Anthrax Truther's proof that it is "unnatural and contrived."  But, to anyone else looking at it, it's probably good proof that the Anthrax Truther's "logic" is illogical.  His theory is unnatural and contrived.  He's making connections where there almost certainly are no real connections.  According to Wikipedia, someone writing in Hebrew who wants to write a question mark will write it the same way as it's written in English.

The Anthrax Truther seems to believe all this "unnatural and contrived" writing of pseudo-Hebrew characters was done to mislead the FBI into thinking Israelis were behind the anthrax letter attacks.  The Anthrax Truther clearly sees no problem with believing at the same time that writing the phrase "ALLAH IS GREAT" in the letters was done to mislead the FBI into thinking that the attack was done by Muslims.  

On the other hand, to me it seems that the entire Hebrew alphabet may simply look "unnatural and contrived."   Who creates an alphabet where so many characters look so much alike?  The Daled merely has a slightly shorter vertical line than the Khaf, and both are similar to the character Reish, except that the Reish is drawn with a single stroke.  And, what's the difference between a Samekh and a Mem Sofi?  And look at Chet, Hey and Tav.  And Beit and Kaf.  One would think that over the course of 2,400 years, someone would have come up with something better!  (That's a joke, folks.)   


Ed

71 comments:

  1. I'm going to extend my comments on all this over a few days. I hope, among other things, to dispel the rancor that seemed to creep into the previous thread (which I haven't read to the end in a few days, in the hopes of putting it aside).

    I'd like to start where we, Mister Lake and I, had AMAZINGLY identical reactions to the Aleph-Bet(h): (Mister Lake):
    ------------------------------------------------------------
    On the other hand, to me it seems that the entire Hebrew alphabet may simply look "unnatural and contrived." Who creates an alphabet where so many characters look so much alike? The Daled merely has a slightly shorter vertical line than the Khaf, and both are similar to the character Reish, except that the Reish is drawn with a single stroke. And, what's the difference between a Samekh and a Mem Sofi? And look at Chet, Hey and Tav. And Beit and Kaf. One would think that over the course of 2,400 years, someone would have come up with something better! (That's a joke, folks.)
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Well, for me a few years back it was NO JOKE: it looked like a nightmare, especially for someone like me: over the hill and never very visually-oriented to begin with. I realized with (printed) Dalet(h), Resh, Zayin, Vav(to a lesser extent),
    Kaph Sofi(t) the key wasn't that it was a single stem with some sort of cross-bar (they all had that!) but to zero in on the slight, in the beginning all-but-unnoticeable,
    differences between/among them. As Mister Lake indicated, the VERY worst is the
    nearly identical (printed) pair: sofi(t) Mem and Samech> my only 'solution' there is to assume that it comes at the end of a word, it's a Mem. Otherwise it's a Samech.
    Until I make a fool of myself one day. And then when I realized that many of the letters were completely different in the script (cursive-like but not exactly)....Yikes!
    I threw in the towel. Several times. But came back for more punishment.

    And, as an aside, my interest in the Hebrew Aleph-Bet(h) had nothing to do with Amerithrax, it had to do with debates on the Internet over the likelihood of this item being a legitimate archaeological find or it being a hoax:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JamesOssuaryInscription-1-.jpg

    I think it proved to be a hoax, but I wasn't able to fully participate in the discussions because I didn't know the alphabet. It became a weird temporary incentive. Until
    I found myself muttering to no one in particular "I'm not gonna let that alphabet beat me!" Then the obstacle became an 'opportunity'. But I STILL know no Hebrew, just
    the alphabet..............

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mr. Rowley,

    The fact that you are apparently trying to figure out how to understand the Hebrew alphabet without actually reading any books on "How to read Hebrew" tells everyone that you have no comprehension of how languages are learned.

    I've studied a bit of French and Spanish, and I think you know that I once learned how to read, write and speak Japanese. Japanese has THREE "alphabets," Hiragana, Katagana and Kanji.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji

    And it wouldn't be unusual to use ALL THREE alphabets in one sentence. Kanji is the Chinese alphabet with thousands of characters. Hiragana like an alphabet (technically, it's a syllabary, a way of writing syllables) and is used in place of many Kanji characters. And Katagana is another alphabet/syllabary that is primarily used to spell out foreign words and names.

    You learn to read and write ANY language by first learning how to read and write simple sentences:

    You learn to speak ANY language by listening to others speak it. (Living in Japan for two and a half years was a big help.)

    Simple sentences:

    My name is Ed.
    What is your name?
    I have a pencil.
    Do you have a pencil?

    There's no "rancor" from my side in this discussion. There's just frustration in not being able to get you to explain yourself in any understandable way. There's frustration over the fact that you seem incapable of understanding any kind of law or legal reasoning, or most logic. Plus, you endlessly argue over the meaning of words where any "normal" person would understand what is MEANT, even if a word is not used perfectly. (Which is your cue to argue over my use of the word "normal" and how "normal" may be different for you than for me, or that "normal" has never been officially defined.) That makes most of our discussions a total waste of time.

    You wrote: "I think it [the James Ossuary] proved to be a hoax"

    No, it was NOT proved to be a hoax. But, it wasn't proved to be REAL, either. A few seconds of research would show that.

    http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/25/opinion/la-oe-burleigh-bible-ossuary-forgery-20120325

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr. Rowley,

    The fact that you are apparently trying to figure out how to understand the Hebrew alphabet without actually reading any books on "How to read Hebrew" tells everyone that you have no comprehension of how languages are learned.
    ====================================================
    Not only do I have such a comprehension, I've taught others.......mostly Russian.
    Your assumption is: I'm trying to learn Hebrew. Instead I'm like someone who
    is warily eyeing the water and dipping his toe in the pool. I may just go back to
    my lounge chair and while away the afternoon reading that Grisham novel.

    When an Army buddy of mine in the early 1980s got permission from our CO to study Russian 101 at the local university during the day, he urged me to seek
    similar permission so that we could do it together. I, somewhat sceptical, relented because I 'only wanted to learn Cyrillic'. My goal was limited then (I would have had no notion that eventually I would get a degree in Russian), and it's been limited now in regard to Hebrew, but to my way of thinking, a non-Latin writing system is like a mask: once more-or-less figured out, it descends, revealing the 'face' of the language, whether friendly and appealing, or hostile and off-putting.

    Learning a language is an investment of enormous time and energy, at least for most people, and I'm not certain here it would be terribly (personally) profitable: rare is the Israeli who doesn't speak/understand English, it's a nation of only 8 or 9 million, most Jews of the diaspora speak local languages, and last but not least, I never expect to take even a short trip to the Levant. Meaning the main profit to my
    Hebrew alphabet adventure will have been its (quite unexpected!) application to
    the texts of Amerithrax.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You wrote: "I think it [the James Ossuary] proved to be a hoax"

    No, it was NOT proved to be a hoax. But, it wasn't proved to be REAL, either. A few seconds of research would show that.

    http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/25/opinion/la-oe-burleigh-bible-ossuary-forgery-20120325
    =========================================================
    When I wrote "proved to be a hoax" I was not making a juridical observation, I was making an observation about the general sense of how things played out. As one of
    those persons who, on the Internet a decade ago, was saying 'It must be authentic because credentialed epigraphers had vouched for the letterings', this was a slow walkback on my part (the slowest!), and, though I haven't looked specifically for it in many a year, I doubt that there are significant numbers of Internet posters who still back Oded Golan. He's a bit like OJ Simpson in the Brown/Goldman murders:
    acquitted but not vindicated.

    ReplyDelete
  5. R. Rowley wrote: "Meaning the main profit to my Hebrew alphabet adventure will have been its (quite unexpected!) application to the texts of Amerithrax."

    "Unexpected" to you. Totally unbelievable to me and probably just about everyone else. The fact that you can't understand that means it's a usually a nonproductive, laborious chore to discuss anything about the Amerithrax case with you.

    And maybe you should focus on learning English. Your similes are labored and cryptic. They're like your logic, they're convoluted and illogical.

    Example #1: "to my way of thinking, a non-Latin writing system is like a mask: once more-or-less figured out, it descends, revealing the 'face' of the language, whether friendly and appealing, or hostile and off-putting."

    To my way of thinking, a non-Latin writing system is like a key to an alien world, a way to open a maze of puzzles and differences, which when learned become a new way of understanding how the world works and how the people in it think.

    Example #2: "I doubt that there are significant numbers of Internet posters who still back Oded Golan. He's a bit like OJ Simpson in the Brown/Goldman murders:
    acquitted but not vindicated."


    I doubt there are significant numbers of Internet posters who do not back Oded Golan. The LA Times' article says:

    "Supporters of the ossuary and the other objects that had been discredited by the state's investigation hailed the acquittal as a legal stamp of approval."

    It seems like the type of controversy where people will ignore what the facts say and believe what they want to believe --- very much like another case that comes to mind.

    http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/%E2%80%9Cbrother-of-jesus%E2%80%9D-proved-ancient-and-authentic/

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/juneweb-only/james-ossuary-verdict.html

    http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/story/2012-03-17/james-ossuary-jesus/53578490/1

    http://jamesossuarytrial.blogspot.com/2013/08/jehoash-tablet-no-longer-forgery-israel.html

    http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/james-ossuary-120314.htm

    And there are 2,277 comments after the article below. I glanced at a couple dozen. While the first few think both the box AND the Bible are fake, a large number seem to think the inscription could be real but it's just a DIFFERENT James, Joseph and Jesus, since those were very common names in that era and place.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/14/oded-golan-james-ossuary-acquitted-of-antiquities-fraud_n_1344994.html

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  6. Okay, so on to some of what I couldn't put into my document:

    1) this (the linked documented entitled "Pseudo-Hebrew and other deceptive ‘foreign’ elements in Amerithrax printing(s)" (ain't that a mouthful!)) is really what I call one of my mini-documents: smallish documents of limited purpose which can be modules--------as I so wish----------of larger documents, OR can stand on their own, when one is only examining a part of the Case, or even a part of the graphic elements of the Case.

    2) Not mentioned in the document is that the 'highlighting' served a dual function for the printer: a) to give in the Brokaw text a very high profile and obvious Hebrew-alphabet coloring to the text and b) to serve as a signature line (ie the author's first name, diminutive-ized, is in the highlighted letters).
    I'm not going to talk about b) further on the Internet. It's for any book I may write in the future. It is a POSITIVE help in identing the author, whereas a) is merely negative: it eliminates anyone who didn't know Hebrew well in 2001.

    3) Also not in the document is any elaborate thoughts on any of the elements presented therein.

    But here I'll talk about one. Once I established to my own satisfaction (?2 or 3 years ago?) that, in addition to the 6 instances of the letter T with the heavy/thick/redone crossbars, the non-highlighted instances of T were ALSO Hebrewized, I had to be very self-critical: how likely was this that the fact that the T of "the fourth line of the Brokaw text in the word “DEATH” is identical
    in form to a printed Hebrew ‘daleth’ (4th letter of Aleph-Beth)" was a product of design (ie purposely printed that way)? Could not it and the other non-highlighted but Hebrewized T which I describe in the document as "in the 3rd line of the same text, also in the word ‘DEATH’, is printed in such a way as to be mid-way between an ordinary capital T and a Daleth", could not these BOTH be counter-explained in terms of chance variations in printing?

    Eventually, after much rumination, I decided in the negative, as I'll elucidate in my next post.

    ReplyDelete
  7. So, my ruminations centered on the letter 'T/t'. People like me who are sound-oriented probably miss out on a lot of visual stuff that is obvious to others. It was only with difficulty (plus consulting over a few years with general books on graphology etc.) that I was able to separate in my own mind the fact that 'T' and 't', though the 'same letter' and representing the same sound(s), were graphically horses of different colors.

    The lower case 't' is almost invariably written with the stem done first; the upper case 'T' is almost invariably written with the crossbar done first. Though this is but a small detail, it's a detail of decisive significance.

    When you read books on graphology it is generally stated that, general features to one side (margins, slant, baseline ascent/descent, pastiosity etc), the most telling features of a person's writing are: connecting strokes (frequently not there in printing, just about never there in slow, careful printing of the block letter sort); the crossbar of the letter 't', the dot to the letter 'i'. This is probably for technical reasons over my head/ability to describe. But what it means concretely is: those elements are the ones which: show great variation from person to person; (arguably) reveal things about the personality of the writer. (Since I'm no graphologist and graphologists only seem potentially informative on writing samples typical of the writer, we can put graphology to one side in the Amerithrax samples).

    We have the expression in English "I just have to cross my 't's and dot my 'i's".
    This means: do the finishing touches. This reflects the graphic reality: the crossing of 't's and dotting of 'i's is frequently the last thing done. Meaning that some people just never get around to it. In addition, both (lower case) letters can show enormous
    variations in those high-flying elements: a high crossbar/dot; a low one; an ascending crossbar; a descending one. A crossbar too far to the left; too far to the right. And then there is length.

    Back to the capital 'T': since it is typically BEGUN with the crossbar, it tends to show a great similarity to the copybook version of the letter. In particular it's going to be rare that the crossbar is too far to the left or right. Because the printer is going to a) eye the crossbar he has just made b) put his writing instrument at dead center of that crossbar and c) drop a straight line down to the baseline.

    Not difficult AT ALL. So the too-far-to-the-left 'T' crossbar of the word 'DEATH' of line 4, AND the too-far-but-not-quite-so-far-as-that-of-line-4 'T' crossbar of the word 'DEATH' of line 3 are simply not credible as 'accidents' (vagaries or chance variants) of the printing:

    1) not plausible AT ALL for a native user of the Latin alphabet (who would do the
    crossbar first, and come close to dead center of that crossbar when putting in the stem)

    2) not plausible AT ALL for a native user of the Hebrew alphabet (who likewise would do the crossbar first, and if anything, would be even more careful about the placement of the stem, since in addition to the Dalet(h) there are other Hebrew letters with a single stem + crossbar: T-like Hebrew letters).
    http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/detect/antdetect_letters_a4a.htm

    Those letter forms are both contrived by the printer to give a Hebrew appearance to the printing.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    And the fact that NO exemplars similar to this, PLUS no exemplars of highlighted crossbars are to be found in the Daschle/Leahy text means that it was indeed just an improvised effort to appear 'Hebrew'. People don't change their writing(printing) styles in 3 weeks.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Another 'correction' I should make, for fear that someone may take Mister Lake TOO seriously in all his 'summary' of my ideas is this:
    ------------------------------------------------
    (From Mister Lake's summary above):

    He says the similarities he sees are "unnatural and contrived" in the way the Hebrew characters were drawn, and this evidently indicates to him that the writer of the anthrax letters was trying to deliberately draw characters that resemble Hebrew characters in an "unnatural and contrived" way.
    ------snip----------------------
    The anthrax letter writer drew thick horizontal lines atop some of the T's in the media anthrax letter. The Anthrax Truther views this as a "contrived" attempt to resemble Hebrew writing.
    --------------snip----------------------
    That particular T does not have the horizontal bar darkened, which the Anthrax Truther probably feels is "unnatural and contrived" rather than good evidence that he is seeking similarities[...]
    ----------snip-------------------------------
    The Anthrax Truther's third claim is that the way the I and C are drawn close together in the word "AMERICA" is an "unnatural and contrived" way of drawing the Hebrew cursive letter Aleph.
    ----------snip---------------------------
    The Anthrax Truther's fourth claim is that the G in GREAT looks like an "unnatural and contrived" way of drawing the cursive Hebrew character Tet.
    ----------snip---------------------------
    But, the Anthrax Truther argues that the differences between the G and the cursive Tet are evidence that the writer was drawing a Tet in an "unnatural and contrived" way, instead of simply drawing a G in the writer's natural style.
    -----------snip------------------------
    The Anthrax Truther's fifth claim is that the question mark in the Senate letter is an "unnatural and contrived" way of drawing the cursive Hebrew character Kaf.
    ---------snip-----------------------
    Why anyone would draw a Kaf (which is pronounced like the K in King) where a question mark should be is undoubtedly the Anthrax Truther's proof that it is "unnatural and contrived." But, to anyone else looking at it, it's probably good proof that the Anthrax Truther's "logic" is illogical. His theory is unnatural and contrived.
    ------------snip----------------------------------------------------------
    The Anthrax Truther seems to believe all this "unnatural and contrived" writing of pseudo-Hebrew characters was done to mislead the FBI into thinking Israelis were behind the anthrax letter attacks.
    --------------snip-----------------------------------------------------
    ==================================================
    Anyone reading the above and taking it at face value---------especially the multiple instances of the expression "unnatural and contrived" IN QUOTATION MARKS---------would be justified in thinking that I used and overused that expression in my document. But in fact I used that expression once and only once in the document: in a footnote that I present here in full:

    *”dropped most of these features”= a sign of how unnatural and contrived
    those features were.
    ---------------------------------------------------------
    So yes, the features were/are/always will be contrived, but repeating the expression over and over again makes me out to be a polemical Ed Lake! And I am anything but!



    ReplyDelete
  9. R. Rowley wrote: "So yes, the features were/are/always will be contrived, but repeating the expression over and over again makes me out to be a polemical Ed Lake! And I am anything but!"

    You have a belief that does not appear to be shared by anyone else in the world, a belief that does not appear to be logical, and you argue constantly (without providing evidence) that you are right in your belief and everyone else is wrong. Yet, you do not consider yourself to be "polemical"?

    Thanks for giving us another excellent example of your illogical logic.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "So the too-far-to-the-left 'T' crossbar of the word 'DEATH' of line 4, AND the too-far-but-not-quite-so-far-as-that-of-line-4 'T' crossbar of the word 'DEATH' of line 3 are simply not credible as 'accidents' (vagaries or chance variants) of the printing"

    Check out the ways the T's were written in the images at these links:
    http://ochandwriting.com/images/B_after.jpg
    http://i-cdn.apartmenttherapy.com/uimages/at/2012-2-22-handwriting3.jpg
    http://www.practical-handwriting-analysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/capitals-note.jpg

    You need to learn that just because you believe something, that does not automatically make it true.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "So yes, the features were/are/always will be contrived, but repeating the expression over and over again makes me out to be a polemical Ed Lake! And I am anything but!"

      You have a belief that does not appear to be shared by anyone else in the world, a belief that does not appear to be logical, and you argue constantly (without providing evidence) that you are right in your belief and everyone else is wrong.
      ====================================
      I did not write (in any thread in any venue) that "everyone else is wrong"!

      That's putting in my (metaphorical) mouth the sweeping/blanket statements that are so much a part of Mister Lake's own polemics. (If I wrote that, Mister Lake would be able to quote me to that effect).
      ----------------------------------------------------------------------
      Yet, you do not consider yourself to be "polemical"?
      -----------------------------------------------------------------
      I'm aware of when I'm being polemical and when I'm not; you, by contrast, basically just have that one mode. So, when you write stuff that is just cheap polemical manipulation of the childish Internet variety, you aren't even aware of it as 'polemics'. It's just Ed Lake being Ed Lake.
      =============================================
      Thanks for giving us another excellent example of your illogical logic
      ===========================================
      "Illogical logic" is your latest broken record. Might want to change it: people can stand only so much repetition.

      Delete
  10. In Mister Lake's comment of September 30th he once again misstates things:
    -----------
    September 30, 2013 - The ongoing argument with the Anthrax Truther on my Interactive blog produced a couple interesting things this morning. First, in the middle of an long, three-part complaint about how he doesn't approve of the way I argue my case[...]
    -----------
    I did indeed make three longish posts in a row, but:

    1) my first post ( of September 29, 2013 at 2:08 PM) begins this way:

    "Okay, so on to some of what I couldn't put into my document:[...]"
    ------
    There follow 3 points: NONE of them mentions Mister Lake, none of them mentions an 'argument' made by Mister Lake, none of them "complaints" in any way. About anything.
    ---------------
    My second post (of September 29, 2013 at 2:58 PM) is just a follow-up to the previous post and presents what I call my 'ruminations' on the letter(s) 'T/t'. It's an analysis of the differences in how 't' and 'T' are typically formed, and how this ramifies in looking at printing/writing samples that contain the letter(s). And in determining whether a 'T' that is identical to a printed Daleth could have been a chance event (a coincidence).

    Once again, Mister Lake is not mentioned in any way, no argument made by Mister Lake is mentioned in any way. No complaints are made in any way.
    ----------------------------------------------
    For each of the above two posts, they could have appeared ANYWHERE that Amerithrax is discussed: Lew Weinstein's blog, Meryl Nass's blog, [fill-in-the blank's blog]. That's because they exclusively have to do with my thoughts, my reasonings about the printing, especially of the Brokaw/NY POST text. They have, in both the strictest and widest senses, absolutely nothing to do with Mister Lake and aren't 'complaining' about anything.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    Only in the 3rd and last post (that of September 29, 2013 at 8:26 PM) do I write anything critical about Mister Lake's efforts and they have exclusively to do with
    his tendency to take a phrase (of mine) out of context, and use it for what he perceives to be some polemical advantage: here (in the matter I brought up) he took an expression I used in a footnote, "unnatural and contrived" (features) and repeated it in full or in part (but always in quotation marks as though he is merely
    quoting me!) TEN TIMES.

    One complaint, one post. Not three 'complaining threads'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One complaint, one post. Not three 'complaining threads'.
      ----------------------------------------------------------------
      I meant: One complaint, one post. Not three complaining posts.

      Delete
  11. R. Rowley wrote: "I meant: One complaint, one post. Not three complaining posts."

    I knew what you meant. Most human beings can generally figure out what another person means when a minor conversational mistake in made.

    But, I figured you'd change the subject. And you did. You found a need to write a new complaint about how I didn't characterize your previous posts correctly.

    Okay, so I changed this sentence:

    "First, in the middle of an long, three-part complaint about how he doesn't approve of the way I argue my case, he posted an addition to his argument that the person who wrote the anthrax letters was trying to imitate writing Hebrew characters and did it in an "unnatural and contrived" way."

    to this:

    "First, in a long, three-part post about his theories and about how he doesn't approve of the way I argue my case, he posted an addition to his argument that the person who wrote the anthrax letters was trying to imitate writing Hebrew characters and did it in an "unnatural and contrived" way."

    Your theory about how T's are drawn has been shown to have no basis in reality. Don't you care about that? Are you just going to continue to believe what you always believed as if you weren't proved wrong?

    The rest of your beliefs can probably be just as easily debunked. They seem to be based upon how you see things working in some imaginary world within your mind. They certainly have nothing to do with how things work in the real world in which the rest of us live. And it's clear why you almost never explain you beliefs.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  12. But, I figured you'd change the subject. And you did. You found a need to write a new complaint about how I didn't characterize your previous posts correctly.
    =======================================
    And why didn't you? (Not a rhetorical question) And by the way, by my lights, noting mischaracterizations of my previous posts IN THIS THREAD doesn't constitute 'changing the subject', it constitutes RETURNING to what the subject was upthread and clarifying an misimpressions made by your erroneous summaries to those who ONLY read your comments section. HOW (ie where) else would I make such clarifications/corrections?

    If our roles were reversed and I was doing the 'summarizing' via wildly distorted mischaracterizations of YOUR posts, I have no doubt Mister Lake would 1) scream bloody murder right here in the thread and
    2) not think that he was thereby changing the subject.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I wrote: "You found a need to write a new complaint about how I didn't characterize your previous posts correctly."

    I should have written: "You found a need to write a new complaint about how you felt I didn't characterize your previous posts correctly."

    I characterized your post correctly. You just don't like the way I did it.

    You only used the phrase "unnatural and contrived" once, but IT APPLIED TO ALL FIVE PARTS OF YOUR THEORY.

    So, when I examined all five parts of your theory, one by one, I used the term over and over for emphasis. I was explaining your theory, and I repeated the term over and over to make the point that the term "unnatural and contrived" applied to all five parts. It was a way of showing how ridiculous your theory is.

    And now I'm explaining how ridiculous this argument is. You're complaining that I don't write the way you write. The reason I don't write the way you write is because I'm explaining your convoluted, cryptic, ill-begotten, absurd theory to the readers of this web site in understandable terms to show how ridiculous it is.

    You acknowledge that the term applies to all five parts of your argument, you just complain, "So yes, the features were/are/always will be contrived, but repeating the expression over and over again makes me out to be a polemical Ed Lake! And I am anything but!

    On the contrary. You argue your beliefs against the facts. And when I show you to be wrong, you argue about wording and phrasing in how I showed you to be wrong, instead of defending your absurd theory. That is the definition of "polemic," i.e., "a person inclined to argument."

    You argue that the FBI is wrong. You have no facts to show they are wrong. You just believe they are wrong. And you argue a theory that makes no sense and which can be easily proved wrong. Yet, you endlessly argue it. And you argue that anyone who disagrees with you is just being argumentative.

    You are not merely polemic, you are wrong in so many ways that it's necessary to repeat the same phrases over and over to show just how consistently and absurdly wrong you are.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "If our roles were reversed and I was doing the 'summarizing' ....."

    You have shown yourself to be INCAPABLE OF SUMMARIZING. Just about everything you write is overlong, cryptic and convoluted. Example:

    "a non-Latin writing system is like a mask: once more-or-less figured out, it descends, revealing the 'face' of the language, whether friendly and appealing, or hostile and off-putting."

    A writing system is like a mask?? A mask is something deliberately put on to hide or disguise something. How can that be applied to a language? You do not "descend" a mask. You lift it. "The 'face' of a language"?? Which part is the "nose" of the language? Can a language be "friendly" or "hostile"? Isn't that like saying the number 368 is "friendly" while the number "149 is "hostile"? It seems to make as much sense, yet you make no attempt to clarify your meaning. That's why it is FREQUENTLY necessary for me to try to EXPLAIN what you mean as part of debunking your beliefs. But, sometimes your similes are inexplicable.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's why it is FREQUENTLY necessary for me to try to EXPLAIN what you mean as part of debunking your beliefs. But, sometimes your similes are inexplicable.
      ==============================================
      How you, a literate person of the 20th/21st Century, could NOT know my meaning in the use of the word "mask" is beyond me:
      (Just a sampling)
      -----------------------------------------------

      http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-instances-have-characters-macbeth-worn-124935

      Topic: Macbeth

      What instances have the characters in Macbeth worn metaphorical masks to hide their true nature? And what effect has it had on the outcome of events?
      Throughout the play, many characters put on metaphorical masks to hide their true nature, thoughts, or feelings. Trace the instances where this occurs and the effect it has on the outcome of events. (Consider the idea of appearance/illusion versus reality.)
      Please include citations and quotes

      http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080423063826AA3RyMd

      "We Wear The Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar?
      Pleaseeee I need all the poetic devices, form, tone, mood, content, voice, Rythme ,rime, diction in that poem by tomorrow!!!Plzzz

      Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

      we wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile;With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,And mouth with myriad subtleties.Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs?Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!
      6 years ago

      In addition: multiple uses, sometimes as literal masks, many times
      as metaphorical device, various sources:
      http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/masks
      http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/mask.html
      Ad nauseam.

      Far from "mask" as a figure of speech being in the SLIGHTEST bit original, , idiosyncratic, arcane, or obscure, it's a pedestrian usage, bordering on the hackneyed! Close to a cliche.
      -------------------------
      And. of course, MY usage of "mask" was the simplest of all: that which masks:

      Mask
      verb
      1.
      cover (the face) with a mask.
      synonyms: hide, conceal, disguise, cover up, obscure, screen, cloak, camouflage,veil

      More
      conceal (something) from view.
      synonyms: hide, conceal, disguise, cover up, obscure, screen, cloak, camouflage,veil

      More
      disguise or hide (a sensation or quality).
      synonyms hide, conceal, disguise, cover up, obscure, screen, cloak, camouflage,veil More

      http://www.google.com/#q=mask+synonym&revid=458296084

      Delete
    2. Once last effort:
      --------------------------
      "a non-Latin writing system is like a mask: once more-or-less figured out, it descends, revealing the 'face' of the language, whether friendly and appealing, or hostile and off-putting."

      A writing system is like a mask??
      ========================================
      What do you think the average American with no knowledge of Japanese
      "sees" when he/she looks at Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana? He sees lots of lines on whatever the writing surface is. That's all. Efforts to 'read' any of the three, without prior familiarity/study (and without knowledge of Hanzi, upon which Kanji are based) are going to be fruitless: not simply no semantic values (meaning) taken from the 'text' but no phonetic/phonemic ones either. That's why Romanji was invented: to allow persons who know the Roman (ie Latin) alphabet to 'see through' the mask(s) of the native Japanese writing systems, and thereby at least have a rough idea of the SOUNDS of Japanese. Unnecessary if the native writing systems weren't opaque.

      Delete
  14. A writing system is like a mask?? A mask is something deliberately put on to hide or disguise something. How can that be applied to a language?
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Definition of Simile

    A simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison, showing similarities between two different things. Unlike a metaphor, a simile draws resemblance with the help of words “like” or “as”. Therefore, it is direct comparison.

    We commonly use simple similes in our daily speech. We often hear comments like “John is as slow as a snail.” Snails are notorious for their slow pace and here slowness of John is compared to that of a snail. The use of “as” in the example helps to draw the resemblance.

    Some more examples of common similes are given below:

    Common Examples of Simile

    Our soldiers are as brave as a lion.
    Her cheeks are red like a rose.
    He is as funny as a monkey.
    The water well was dry as a bone.
    He is as cunning as a fox.
    Simile includes vividness into what we say. Authors and poets utilize comparisons to convey their sentiments and thoughts through a vivid word pictures like a simile.
    -----
    Above from:
    http://literarydevices.net/simile/
    ===========================================
    This is writing 101. Back to Mister Lake:
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    You do not "descend" a mask. You lift it.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I did not write '[someone] descends a mask]. I wrote "It descends" , ie the mask falls away.
    Back to Mister Lake:
    ================================================
    "The 'face' of a language"?? Which part is the "nose" of the language? Can a language be "friendly" or "hostile"? Isn't that like saying the number 368 is "friendly" while the number "149 is "hostile"? It seems to make as much sense, yet you make no attempt to clarify your meaning.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    I give up! (I'm surprised Mister Lake didn't ask me 'which toe' I put in the pool and which Grisham novel I was reading!)

    ReplyDelete
  15. R. Rowley wrote: "A simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison, showing similarities between two different things."

    Mr. Rowley makes my point: Comparing a language to a mask is definitely comparing two different things, but where are the similarities in what he wrote?

    Why not write: "a non-Latin writing system is like a rubber ducky: once more-or-less figured out, it floats away, revealing the 'backside' of the language, whether yellow and bobbing, or sinking and upside-down." That makes about as much sense.

    In my September 29 comment, I wrote a simile that makes a comparison people can understand: a non-Latin writing system is like a key to an alien world, a way to open a maze of puzzles and differences, which when learned become a new way of understanding how the world works and how the people in it think."

    Do you see the difference between "a language is like a mask" and "a language is like a key"? A language is NOT like a mask. It IS like a key. It IS like a code.

    Learning a language is like falling in love. http://blog.thelinguist.com/language-learning-is-like-falling-in-love

    ❝If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.❞
    ‒Nelson Mandela

    ❝One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.❞
    ‒Frank Smith

    ❝The limits of my language are the limits of my world.❞
    ‒Ludwig Wittgenstein

    ❝Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can; there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.❞
    ‒Sarah Caldwell

    ❝Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.❞
    ‒Chinese Proverb

    ❝You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.❞
    ‒Geoffrey Willans

    ❝To have another language is to possess a second soul.❞
    ‒Charlemagne

    ❝Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.❞
    ‒Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    ❝Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.❞
    ‒Rita Mae Brown

    ❝Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.❞
    ‒Oliver Wendell Holmes

    SOURCE

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  16. The more languages you know, the more you are a person. SOURCE

    To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world.

    Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery.
    - Mark Amidon

    Every language is a temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined.
    - Oliver Wendell Holmes

    Language is an anonymous, collective and unconscious art; the result of the creativity of thousands of generations.
    - Edward Sapir

    As a hawk flieth not high with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excellence with one tongue.
    - Roger Ascham

    Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
    - Ambrose Bierce

    He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.
    - Francis Bacon

    There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the Earth.
    - Elias Canetti

    I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my dog.
    - Emperor Charles V

    Perhaps of all the creations of man language is the most astonishing.
    - Giles Lytton Strachey

    Any time you think some other language is strange, remember that yours is just as strange, you're just used to it.
    - Linguistic Mystic

    England and America are two countries divided by a common language.
    - George Bernard Shaw

    We infer the spirit of the nation in great measure from the language, which is a sort of monument to which each forcible individual in a course if many hundred years has contributed a stone.
    - Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Language embodies the intellectual wealth of the people who use it.
    - Kenneth Hale

    Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides.
    - Rita Mae Brown, Starting From Scratch, 1988

    Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
    - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    Not only does the English Language borrow words from other languages, it sometimes chases them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and goes through their pockets.
    - Eddy Peters

    They spell it Vinci and pronounce it 'Vinchy': foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.
    - Mark Twain

    It's no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase "As pretty as an airport" appear.
    - Douglas Adams

    A language is NOT like a mask OR like a rubber ducky.
    - Ed Lake

    ReplyDelete
  17. A language is NOT like a mask OR like a rubber ducky.
    - Ed Lake
    ===========================================
    Good example of how Mister Lake distorts what I ORIGINALLY write and interpolates whatever he thinks makes my idea(s) 'clear' and thus 'ridiculous".

    I wrote (post of September 29, 2013 at 12:29 PM)
    "[...]to my way of thinking, a non-Latin writing system is like a mask:[...]"

    Yet, under Mister Lake's mangling ministrations, this morphs into me saying that a LANGUAGE is like a mask. If I meant "language", I would have written "language".
    "Language" and "writing system" are not synonyms!

    ReplyDelete
  18. R. Rowley wrote: "Yet, under Mister Lake's mangling ministrations, this morphs into me saying that a LANGUAGE is like a mask. If I meant "language", I would have written "language". "Language" and "writing system" are not synonyms!"

    A "writing system" is not a "system" unless it systematically conveys a language. So, you are merely confirming that you are being needlessly cryptic and polemic.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "I did not write (in any thread in any venue) that "everyone else is wrong"!"

    You have a theory is yours and yours alone. You have never indicated that anyone else believes it, except for one lone journalist who has not said he or she disbelieves it. That means you believe in your theory and therefore everyone else's theory must be wrong.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "What instances have the characters in Macbeth worn metaphorical masks to hide their true nature?"

    And what is the "true nature" of a language that uses a non-Latin writing system??? Is it evil? Is it hostile? Is it friendly? Is it rambunctious? Is it fat? Is it thin? And who decides?

    Mr. Rowley provided what he thinks is a definition of the word "mask":

    Mask
    verb

    1. cover (the face) with a mask.
    synonyms: hide, conceal, disguise, cover up, obscure, screen, cloak, camouflage,veil


    Note, however, that Mr. Rowley did not use the word as a verb. He used it as a noun.

    MASK
    noun
    1. a covering for all or part of the face, worn to conceal one's identity.
    2. a grotesque or humorous false face worn at a carnival, masquerade, etc.: Halloween masks.
    4. anything that disguises or conceals; disguise; pretense: His politeness is a mask for his fundamentally malicious personality.

    So, Mr. Rowley admits that a mask deliberately hides something. But, what does a "writing system" deliberately hide? It hides NOTHING. It is a key that OPENS or UNLOCKS another world.

    Mr. Rowley explains: "That's why Romanji was invented: to allow persons who know the Roman (ie Latin) alphabet to 'see through' the mask(s) of the native Japanese writing systems, and thereby at least have a rough idea of the SOUNDS of Japanese. Unnecessary if the native writing systems weren't opaque."

    NO. Romanji was developed to allow missionaries who did not read or speak Japanese to read the Bible to Japanese people by reading Japanese words phonetically written out in the Roman alphabet. They "see through" NOTHING. It's the same thing an American tourist in Japan does when he opens a phrase book and asks a local Japanese merchant how much something costs: "Kore wa ikura kakarimasu ka?"

    There is no mask. There is no attempt to see through any mask. There's just an attempt to communicate in an unfamiliar language. The words have no meaning to the American, but he knows the words have meaning to the Japanese merchant.

    The Japanese merchant can then (if he has one available), use a Japanese to English phrase book to do the reverse and slowly respond, "Wan zaozandu tu handuredu yen," which the American understands as "One thousand two hundred yen."

    The same American would do the same thing if he were trying to communicate with a French or Norwegian merchant. It has nothing to do with any non-Roman writing system. It's just a way to communicate basic matters without knowing the other language.

    No masks. Just attempts at communication. Attempts at communication can be viewed as the OPPOSITE of masks. They're saying, Neither of us understands the other's language, but we're both intelligent people with nothing to hide, so let's see if we can transact business anyway.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "Yet, under Mister Lake's mangling ministrations, this morphs into me saying that a LANGUAGE is like a mask. If I meant "language", I would have written "language". "Language" and "writing system" are not synonyms!"

      A "writing system" is not a "system" unless it systematically conveys a language. So, you are merely confirming that you are being needlessly cryptic and polemic.
      ==============================================
      Huh? (If there are ANY READERS out there who are not named Ed Lake, could you post and explain this to me?)

      Delete
  19. Well, Mister Lake did it again: in the comments section he brought in his "rubber ducky" simile without telling his readers that it was HIS 'simile' which he dragged in from left field to make.........a point that remains obscure to me. But naturally he continues to claim I'm the one 'changing the subject'.

    The attentive reader will notice that:

    1) Mister Lake dragged his child-printed-it hypothesis into the thread, even though the thread had NOTHING to do with his child-printed-it hypothesis.

    And his links thereon are as without merit as the LAST TIME he loaded up on links in that regard: a whopping two weeks ago:
    http://anthraxdebate.blogspot.com/2013/08/subject-how-ivins-made-attack-powders.html#comment-form

    (see my posts beginning with August 26, 2013 at 5:52 PM of that thread).

    2) he seized on a passing remark of mine upthread that the Ossuary of James Brother of Jesus was the occasion of my initial interest in the Hebrew alphabet to do another hijack, the whole purpose of which seemed to be to 'prove' that he knew more about the Ossuary and the surrounding litigation than I did. Major hijack replete with the usual preachiness and and multiple links.

    3) this now multiple-day obsession with 'similes' is (at least!) a third hijack of the thread by Mister Lake, one that stunned me at first and now merely perplexes me: if he doesn't consider THAT a thread hijack, what WOULD he consider one?!!?!??

    If you don't like a simile/metaphor/etc 1) keep it to yourself and/or 2) mention in passing you think it a weak/strange/whatever. But to go on and on and on about it
    now for a couple of DAYS and THEN claim I'm the one 'changing the subject' combines obliviousness with hubris.

    4) his VERY extensive quotations on language also seem to me to be off-point in a major way: I've been a linguist for decades. You don't have to 'sell' me on language!
    Hijack #4 by Mister Lake. But I may have missed one or two.

    ReplyDelete
  20. R. Rowley wrote: "Well, Mister Lake did it again: in the comments section he brought in his "rubber ducky" simile without telling his readers that it was HIS 'simile' which he dragged in from left field to make.........a point that remains obscure to me."

    The point is: It's NOT - repeat NOT - a simile. It's my deliberately BAD attempt to CREATE a simile, similar to your bad attempt at creating a mask simile.

    That's all very clearly explained in my web site comment. If you don't understand it, it's probably because you're seeing things that aren't there and not seeing what IS there.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "Mister Lake dragged his child-printed-it hypothesis into the thread"

    That's another example of you seeing things that aren't there. The "rubber ducky" idea came from the Mel Brooks movie "Blazing Saddles." Watching the bit again, however, I see it was a "froggy," not a rubber ducky. But, there is a rubber ducky on the credenza in the background of the scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C35Zhdk2V4U

    R. Rowley also wrote: "If you don't like a simile/metaphor/etc 1) keep it to yourself and/or 2) mention in passing you think it a weak/strange/whatever."

    If you look at this thread you'll see that I DID just "mention it in passing." At the end of my Oct. 2, 7:18 am comment I stated that your mask simile made no sense. And it is because you make no sense that I have to try to explain things.

    But, because you are a polemic, you then went on and on and on and on in defense of your BAD simile, inexplicably suggesting that I don't know what the word "mask" means. You cite Shakespeare, you provide multiple dictionary definitions of the word "mask," and then in a followup post you make a preposterous claim that Romanji was invented to see through the "mask."

    So, I provided EVIDENCE that Romanji was NOT invented to see through the mask.

    Everything is an argument for you. Yes, I dispute your nonsensical claims, but I PROVE your claims are nonsensical. All you do is create a new argument with a new nonsensical claim.

    Is an argument started (1) when someone makes a nonsensical claim, or is it started when (2) the nonsensical claim is shown to be nonsensical?

    You see it as being #1, evidently because you think anyone who disputes your nonsensical beliefs is just being argumentative.

    I see it as #2 because you appear to endlessly spout these nonsensical beliefs as ARGUMENTS in support of your other nonsensical beliefs.

    You are the one who consistently changes the subject or "hijacks" the thread by getting off the subject of the anthrax attacks of 2001 and onto the subject of definitions of words.

    I started this thread by pointing out that your claim that there are Hebrew elements in the anthrax letter is FALSE. I did so by showing that your logic is illogical. Every part of your theory can be quickly and easily disproved.

    But, instead of admitting that your claim was bogus, baseless and ill-conceived, you changed the subject by using a joke I added at the end of my post to go into a long, incoherent ramble about how it wasn't a joke for you and that you found it to be a "nightmare." You just ignored the evidence that your theory is nonsense and went into spouting how you came to believe the nonsense.

    And so on and so on. You spout nonsense. I show evidence that your claim is nonsense. You then change the subject by spouting NEW nonsense.

    And you also endlessly complain that I do not argue the way you WANT me to argue. Maybe that's because you argue by endlessly changing the subject, while I want to argue to RESOLVE who is right and who is wrong. That appears to be the LAST thing in the world you want.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But, instead of admitting that your claim was bogus, baseless and ill-conceived, you changed the subject by using a joke I added at the end of my post to go into a long, incoherent ramble about how it wasn't a joke for you and that you found it to be a "nightmare."
      ============================================
      What my crime was in your eyes wasn't being 'incoherent' but agreeing with your spot-on observations about how many similar-to-each-other letters there are in the Hebrew alphabet. You have a horror of me agreeing with you on ANY subject matter, not matter how peripheral that subject matter is to Amerithrax. I know that because you've done it before: expressed such horror.

      And I know why:

      You define yourself in a way that just isn't healthy: Ed Lake is the man who opposes the always wrong and always illogical 'Truthers'. Because of that black-and-white worldview of yours, it simply cannot be that we agree on anything, no matter how minor it is, because that very agreement puts you in the midst of the 'Truthers', makes you a "Truther'. In your eyes anyway.

      And that is poison to your self-image, to your self-esteem.

      Nevertheless, it's humorous to watch you flee from our genuine rare agreements, and it gives the lie to your pretense to logic: for you this is all about raw emotion. But it shouldn't be: Amerithrax is simply one criminal cases among thousands. To be mistaken about it is just like getting a mathematics problem wrong. No big deal.

      Delete
  21. And you also endlessly complain that I do not argue the way you WANT me to argue.
    =======================================
    It isn't a matter of what I 'want', it's a matter of 1) sticking to the main point (which is NOT about who knows more about the Ossuary, whether "mask" is a good figure of speech in a given situation, etc. With you there are no 'mentions in passing':
    you turn everything into an argument!

    2) arguing in a way that would be persuasive to 3rd parties: your 'summaries' of these threads are, as I've indicated, distortions: sometimes minor ones, sometimes major ones, and attentive readers who are reading the threads AS WELL AS your 'summaries' are going to notice that. Do you think that your distortions are going to give you credibility in THEIR eyes? If so, you need to rethink that. Big time.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Mr. Rowley found an old post HERE and has attempted to start a new argument about something else I wrote: "A "writing system" is not a "system" unless it systematically conveys a language." He is unable to understand my meaning.

    Unlike Mr. Rowley, I'm always willing to explain:

    sys·tem ˈsistəm/
    noun

    1. a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole.

    2. a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme or method.

    Use this link to see an explanation of "writing system": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_system It says, "Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that a writing system is always associated with at least a spoken language."

    Mr. Rowley argued that "Language" and "writing system" are not synonyms!"

    But, a "writing system" is a set of principles and procedures that systematically conveys a spoken language in the form of symbols that can be read. So, while the terms "writing system" and language" may not technically be synonyms, they nevertheless convey the same IDEA or concept: a means to communicate. AND NEITHER IS LIKE A MASK.

    Thus I have explained further in different words in an attempt to get him to understand.

    Mr. Rowley also wrote: "It isn't a matter of what I 'want', it's a matter of 1) sticking to the main point (which is NOT about who knows more about the Ossuary, whether "mask" is a good figure of speech in a given situation, etc. With you there are no 'mentions in passing': you turn everything into an argument!"

    And I, in turn, argue that Mr. Rowley turns everything into an argument by bringing up new subjects that are intended to support his argument that the FBI is wrong and he is right about the anthrax attacks of 2001.

    I explain. He argues.

    If he wanted an intelligent discussion, all he had to do was explain WHY a writing system is like a mask IN DIFFERENT WORDS as I just did with my explanation.

    But, he NEVER does that. Instead he tries to make it look like I don't understand English by showing definitions of the word "mask." He seems incapable of explaining further WHY and HOW a writing system is like a mask.

    Normal people can explain things further. When someone doesn't understand how a writing system can be like a mask, they can explain in different words and terms how it can be like a mask. For example, Mr. Rowley might have explained his beliefs this way:

    A writing system is like a mask because it was deliberately created to hide people's thoughts from foreigners. For example, most foreigners cannot be trusted. They are evil and out to take over America. And they don't have the common decency to learn to speak English. The trouble is, you can't tell which ones are evil and which ones are benign because of this "mask" of language they use. So, what Americans need to do is learn their language so that you can pull down that mask they use to hide their intentions, and then you can see whether they are friendly or hostile, appealing or off-putting.

    See how simple it is? With such an explanation using different words, we would fully understand what Mr. Rowley meant --- even if we totally disagreed with him. We'd understand his thought processes. Communication would be complete. Words said, words understood.

    Further references:
    http://authorcharmainegordon.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/rubber-ducky-day-folks-you-just-cant-make-this-stuff-up/

    http://articles.latimes.com/1997-04-19/sports/sp-50250_1_duck-fan

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  23. A writing system is like a mask because it was deliberately created to hide people's thoughts from foreigners.
    ==============================================
    No one (certainly not me!) ever said it was "deliberately created to hide" ANYTHING. Another Ed Lake distortion. Perhaps Mister Lake is going for a 'personal best' on a thread!

    But if the writing system is completely unknown to outsiders, the thoughts of the
    the people using the writing system can be hidden/unknown to those outsiders. If the writing system has been abandoned for centuries, and all knowledge of it lost,
    then only some wondrous decipherment/decryption by someone like Michael Ventris or Jean-François Champollion can get through the mask of that writing system.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    And I, in turn, argue that Mr. Rowley turns everything into an argument by bringing up new subjects that are intended to support his argument that the FBI is wrong and he is right about the anthrax attacks of 2001.
    =======================================
    I mentioned the Ossuary in passing; YOU turned it into an argument. I used a common figure of speech (a mask as a figure of speech); YOU turned it into an argument. Etc.
    (But just read the thread dear readers!)
    Any reader of this thread is going to wonder about you, Mister Lake!

    ReplyDelete
  24. But, a "writing system" is a set of principles and procedures that systematically conveys a spoken language in the form of symbols that can be read. So, while the terms "writing system" and language" may not technically be synonyms, they nevertheless convey the same IDEA or concept: a means to communicate.
    =================================================
    No, there are plenty of languages in history that have come and gone and have never been recorded in ANY writing system. Despite that, they are languages, but NOT writing systems.

    Basque and Spanish use the same writing sytem (a version of the Latin alphabet)
    but are different languages. Etc.

    If you want to quote me, do a copy and paste, because all your efforts to 'summarize', 'clarify' etc. have been nothing like summarizations, clarifications.
    They have been distortions. And when you are called out on the distortions, you go into all sorts of contortions to 'explain' how you know what I 'meant' better than I did!
    Not so.

    ReplyDelete
  25. R. Rowley wrote: "But if the writing system is completely unknown to outsiders, the thoughts of the the people using the writing system can be hidden/unknown to those outsiders."

    Yes. We agree. So what?

    The disagreement was about how a "writing system" can be like a mask. And, instead of explaining how a writing system can be like a mask, you just used the term again in a different and equally meaningless way:

    "If the writing system has been abandoned for centuries, and all knowledge of it lost, then only some wondrous decipherment/decryption by someone like Michael Ventris or Jean-François Champollion can get through the mask of that writing system."

    I will explain:

    All you did was create a meaningless metaphor instead of a meaningless simile.

    And you changed the subject. Hebrew is NOT a lost language. Neither is Russian. So, why change the subject to lost languages?

    A language is not a mask. Masks are donned deliberately to hide things. A lost language can be a mystery. It can be a puzzle. A living language like Hebrew can also be a puzzle to an outsider. It's like a coded message that needs to be deciphered.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "No, there are plenty of languages in history that have come and gone and have never been recorded in ANY writing system. Despite that, they are languages, but NOT writing systems."

    Yes. We agree. Weren't we talking about Hebrew? Why did you change the subject?

    In a new response to an earlier thread, R. Rowley also wrote: "What my crime was in your eyes wasn't being 'incoherent' but agreeing with your spot-on observations about how many similar-to-each-other letters there are in the Hebrew alphabet. "

    Your comment was an "agreement," but it was an agreement on a SIDE ISSUE that means nothing and no one cares about. Who cares? You just took the opportunity to go off on a tangent.

    You agree on things no one cares about and use them to go off on tangents in order to avoid discussing what this blog is all about: the anthrax attacks of 2001.

    I pointed out that you were totally wrong in believing that "the too-far-to-the-left 'T' crossbar of the word 'DEATH' of line 4, AND the too-far-but-not-quite-so-far-as-that-of-line-4 'T' crossbar of the word 'DEATH' of line 3 are simply not credible as 'accidents' (vagaries or chance variants) of the printing"

    To prove you wrong, I simply did a quick Google search and found multiple instances of people drawing off-center T's by "accident." So, that should have been an opportunity for you to explain yourself. Instead, yet you just ignored it and discussed a comment/joke I made about how many seemingly identical characters there are in the Hebrew alphabet. Who cares if we agree about that or not?

    What I'm interested in is how you can continue to believe your theory after it has been proved wrong? If you now accept that off-center T's ARE frequently drawn by "accident," why not just say so? Then we can move on to discuss a different mistaken belief of yours.

    If you still believe that off-center T's cannot be drawn by accident, explain why you still believe it. Such an explanation could be something like this:

    "Yes, you can find many examples of people writing off-center T's, but those people also work for the criminal mastermind behind the anthrax attacks. His group created all those faked off-center T's just to confuse people like you. But, I can see though the fakes, no matter how many there are. The conspiracy is simply bigger than you can ever imagine. Only I in my infinite wisdom can see the truth. That is why no one else agrees with me. They cannot see the truth no matter how clear and obvious it is. Only I can see the truth."

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "If the writing system has been abandoned for centuries, and all knowledge of it lost, then only some wondrous decipherment/decryption by someone like Michael Ventris or Jean-François Champollion can get through the mask of that writing system."

      I will explain:

      All you did was create a meaningless metaphor instead of a meaningless simile.

      And you changed the subject. Hebrew is NOT a lost language. Neither is Russian. So, why change the subject to lost languages?
      ============================================
      It was not a change of subject:

      1) you mischaracterized what I wrote.

      2) you did this by SUBSTITUTING the word "language" for "writing system"
      in what I had written.

      3) when called on it, you tried to weasel your way out by saying that while not 'synonyms' they were something like (this is my term) 'near synonyms'.

      4) but they're NOT.

      So I used the Basque/Spanish example as proof that two DIFFERENT languages can have the same writing system, and I used the instances of the dead languages to establish further the gapping chasm between the two words.

      I've known for a couple years, Mister Lake, that, your achievements in Japanese notwithstanding, you've never had even an entry-level course in linguistics. But this, this really takes the cake: there are 12-year olds who know that "language" and "writing system" are different concepts.

      Delete
  26. From today's comment, last sentence:

    "And the last of the deaths that were the direct result of he'd done would be his own -- by suicide, seven years later."

    I don't agree but that's not why I'm posting:
    It may be just me, but I think you left out a word (before "he'd").

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      Yes, I left out the word "what." The error has been corrected. Thanks.

      Ed

      Delete
  27. Okay, back to the Hebrew sub-hypothesis. First a walkback:
    -----------------
    The document first lists 4 features in the letterings of the Brokaw text that seem to be Hebrewized: 1) & 2) all instances of the letter 'T' 3) the letters IC (ic) in AMERICA of the 3rd line of the text and 4) letter 'G' of GREAT in the last line.
    Under that 4-part list I wrote:
    -------------
    In doing the Daschle text some 3 weeks later, the printer dropped most of these features*, and the only arguably NEW pseudo-Hebrew element in the Daschle text is the question mark at the end of line 4 (ie ARE YOU AFRAID?); this question mark, described as “labored” by one graphologist, resembles some versions of the script/cursive letter Kaf in its “sofit” or word-final form.
    (See first line, second letter-form from left: http://www.google.com/search?q=hebrew+alphabet+cursive&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=X6v7UbyhDOnE2gWt7IG4Dg&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1059
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In the next edition of the document I'll probably drop this reference to the question mark, a reference that was a late-ish addition to the document based largely on the observation of the graphologist and an effort on my part to find in either the Arabic alphabet or the Hebrew alphabet a corresponding form.
    ==============================================
    However, though that will make the document shorter, it will make it stronger: it will emphasize all the more that the printer abruptly dropped all Hebrew elements from his printing after writing the Brokaw letter: he didn't even retain those features when printing the outsides of the envelopes which contained the Brokaw/NY POST text.
    See: http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/detect/antdetect_letters_a3.htm

    (And if one looks ever-so-closely at those 'T's on the outside of the envelopes, one will find that that slight imperfection seen in the distribution of the crossbar is OPPOSITE that of the Hebrewized forms of the Brokaw text: he, the printer, has a slight propensity to favor the RIGHT side of the crossbar, not the left which gives it a Daleth or otherwise Hebrewized cast, when taken to an extreme.)
    ===============================================
    So, getting back to the instances of the letter "T", what do we have?

    Brokaw/NY POST text: 8 instances, 8 Hebrewized.

    Leahy/Daschle text: 9 instances, 0 Hebrewized.

    Brokaw envelope: 2 instances, 0 Hebrewized.

    NY POST envelope: 3 instances, 0 Hebrewized.

    DASCHLE envelope: 5 instances, 0 Hebrewized.

    Leahy envelope: 4 instances, 0 Hebrewized.
    ------------------------------------------------
    Total 23 non-Brokaw text instances of the letter 'T', 0 Hebrewized.

    Brokaw text: all 8 instances Hebrewized.

    So, 'T's in Brokaw text: 8/8=100% Hebrewized
    All other KNOWN texts from same printer: 0/23=0% Hebrewized.

    The Leahy/Daschle text also has the letter combination IC (ic) in AMERICA, but those letters are not noticeably closer to each other than other letters in the text. So, 'non-Hebrewized'.

    (The letter 'G' of GREAT in the last line of the Daschle text also appears to be less curled in than that of the Brokaw text, and thus less like a Tet. Though this remains the most questionable Hebrew element left in the analysis).

    ReplyDelete
  28. From the (B) comment of Sunday:

    October 6, 2013 (B) - The Anthrax Truther has posted a new message on my interactive blog using logic that is so stunningly illogical, that I'm at a loss for words on how to respond. Like nearly everything he writes, it's cryptic in the extreme. It's mostly about his imagined reasoning{...]
    ========================================
    What "reasoning"?!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!? (And what 'cryptic'? The prose style in the above is simple and lucid).

    There's no "reasoning" whatsoever in the above post: there is merely a NUMERICAL comparison between the Hebrewized features of the Brokaw text and the total absence of such features in ALL the Amerithrax proper texts we have (envelopes and Daschle/Leahy text). If you want my speculations as to why the guy dropped his Hebrew elements, ask me! I would be happy to oblige.
    But until then, you have no basis for your own speculations as to what MY speculations for his dropping the Hebrew elements are. And thus no basis for saying that they (my speculations) are 'illogical'.

    The (B) comment of today is a good example of Mister Lake's inability to do anything but label. Lately his preferred label is 'illogical'. There's nothing illogical about observing resemblances between: strokes, letters, groups of strokes/letters etc. There's nothing illogical in looking for patterns. Having a guy print one way in one particular text and then have him drop multiple elements in other texts constitutes a pattern. Whether it involves a criminal case or not.

    ReplyDelete
  29. R. Rowley wrote: "If you want my speculations as to why the guy dropped his Hebrew elements, ask me! I would be happy to oblige."

    Okay, please give us your speculations on BOTH why the guy put the "Hebrew elements" in the media letter AND why he dropped them from the other documents. What is your reasoning? Why did he put "Hebrew elements" in a letter that contains MUSLIM phrases clearly intended to make people think that the letters were either sent by a Muslim or by someone wanting to have Muslims blamed for sending the letters? And why did he drop the "Hebrew elements" in the second letter but still keep the Muslim elements?

    R. Rowley also wrote: "There's nothing illogical about observing resemblances between: strokes, letters, groups of strokes/letters etc."

    If the "observations" make no logical sense, they are illogical.

    R. Rowley wrote: "There's nothing illogical in looking for patterns. Having a guy print one way in one particular text and then have him drop multiple elements in other texts constitutes a pattern."

    NO IT DOESN'T! In order for something to be a "pattern" in a criminal case or not, things have to REPEAT. If there are Hebrew elements in one letter and not in another, that NOT a pattern, that is A LACK OF A PATTERN.

    I'm trying to think of a way to illustrate and explain all this to you. Meanwhile, PLEASE provide your speculations as to why the guy put the imagined "Hebrew elements" in the media letter AND why he dropped them in the other documents but still kept the Muslim phrases in the Senate letter.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  30. R. Rowley wrote: "If you want my speculations as to why the guy dropped his Hebrew elements, ask me! I would be happy to oblige."

    Okay, please give us your speculations on BOTH why the guy put the "Hebrew elements" in the media letter AND why he dropped them from the other documents. What is your reasoning?
    ================================================
    Okay, since I've been thinking now a couple weeks specifically about how to explain, NOT to the general readership, but to Mister Lake, I've come up with an analogy. And like ALL analogies it's imperfect (ie not all the analogues have counterparts with the thing being analogized).
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In the past couple years I've become accustomed to watching youtube videos of the old panel show WHAT'S MY LINE?. I was too young during its original 1950 (ie before I was born) to 1967 run to be able to appreciate it (plus it was past my bedtime when I was in early grades).

    Though most of the guests were ordinary people with hard-to-guess jobs (ie lines),
    each episode had at least one 'mystery guest' who was famous (heavily weighted in the show biz area), and for that segment the panelists were blindfolded. If the extant episodes are any indication, rarely was the panel stumped (having gone through 10 yes-or-no questions that elicited a 'no' answer without figuring out the guest's identity).

    As nearly as I can tell, the panelists largely keyed on two things: their very detailed knowledge of New York (and LA) show business (who was acting in what etc) and
    the guest's voice.

    (Main analogues: voice of mystery guest=printing style of Anthrax printer.

    The cleverer guests had certain strategies to disguise their voices:

    1) pitch it higher (including but not limited to falsetto); pitch it lower.

    2) use a foreign accent (foreign to themselves). Or regional. Or sociolectal. Etc.

    3) (similarly) use a foreign language (remember, these are SUPPOSED to be yes/no answers[[[[I was shocked to realize that neither Jim Backus nor Dorothy Kilgallen understood "Da" or "Nyet" in Russian!]]]]]]

    4) use a kazoo or other musical instrument to answer (as interpreted by the host, John Daley, who, needless to say, was NOT blindfolded and could really just interpret the nodding or shaking of the head).

    So, we come to one of the things that Mister Lake called "illogical logic": the use of Muslim slogans with Hebrew printing.

    Apparently, mystery guest Fredric March (who was born in Racine!) didn't know that you only can use one ruse scenario in such deceptions because during his segment he alternated between an effete, upper-class British accent pitched above his normal voice, and an extremely low-pitched AMERICAN voice with the sound of the gutter therein. He continued to do so (alternate wildly different voice pitches/dialects/nationalities), even AFTER it was established that he was American rather than British. And thus there was no possibility the panelists would think him a Brit. Why? Because it was effective:

    1) in masking his true voice (he stumped the panel not just for 10 questions, but for an 11th one thrown in, and it appears he could have gone on for 9 more questions
    with the panel none the wiser as to his identity).
    [Analogue: any foreign elements in the printing disguised or masked the true printing style of the printer; there was no need in his view for internal consistency]

    ReplyDelete
  31. 2) in dividing the panel (some probably pictured him as close to the lower class American, others closer in pitch/class to the Brits he was mimicking)
    [Possible analogue: divide the Task Force, but certainly divide would-be amateur sleuths opining in public about the letters, amateur sleuths some of whom to this day take the Muslim slogans at face value etc*.]

    3) in being funny/having fun and simultaneously 'winning' the game.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Amerithrax mastermind does what he does (B'nai Brith, Amerithrax, ricin of 2003, Syracuse mailings, north Texas white powder mailings, jihad boom postcards etc.) for fun primarily. He gets bored easily. So he changed motifs, red herrings etc.

    Plus in 2001 he didn't likely know Arabic, though he did okay with that sinuous 'S'
    that looks like a 'ya'. He couldn't very well learn Arabic in the week between Sept 11th and Sept 18th, the first mailing. But he knew Hebrew, knew it well. So, just like the WHAT"S MY LINE mystery guests went with the foreign accent they were most familiar with, he went with Hebrew elements. Then got bored and dropped them. For him it's a game. Funny game.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/

    Since, by all indications, those Hebrew elements went WAY over the heads of the Task Force, they simply were a red herring that did.......nothing. And probably even THAT amused him.


    *One reason the Hebrew elements went unrecognized by the larger public was: the people who would WANT to see such Hebrew elements, anti-Semites, generally hate Jews from afar and never learn stuff like the Hebrew aleph beth. Even Adolf Eichmann, supposed Third Reich "Jewish expert", knew precious little Hebrew.

    ReplyDelete
  32. R. Rowley wrote: "And, had the Task Force (alone or via consultants) recognized the Hebrew elements, it could have cleared Hatfill and Ivins pronto."

    As I've clearly illustrated at the top of this thread and at the top of the "Part 2" thread, the facts say the "Hebrew elements" exist only in your imagination. The Task Force worked with evidence that could be used in court. Items from your imagination cannot be used in court.

    R. Rowley wrote: "Two deceptions are better than one. Just like Fredric March felt over a half century ago on What's My Line. Is that SO difficult to understand!?!?!?"

    Yes, it is very difficult to understand in a real world. Frederick March was horsing around to get laughs. (Anyone can watch the video by clicking HERE.) In the Amerithrax case, the two deceptions would negate each other. An investigator who sees signs that the letter was sent by Muslim terrorists AND signs that the letter was sent by the Mossad would view them together as being meaningless. Neither "sign" could be used in court. Neither "sign" is of any help in the investigation. The lack of a pattern is not a pattern ... except in your imagination.

    There was nothing funny about the anthrax letters. The killer wasn't just horsing around when he sent out deadly pathogens. While he may not have intended for anyone to be killed, the facts nevertheless indicate he was deadly serious.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "And, had the Task Force (alone or via consultants) recognized the Hebrew elements, it could have cleared Hatfill and Ivins pronto."

      As I've clearly illustrated at the top of this thread and at the top of the "Part 2" thread, the facts say the "Hebrew elements" exist only in your imagination.
      ==============================================
      Oh, I'm so sorry, Mister Lake, I didn't know you were visually impaired.
      Sorry again.

      Delete
    2. R. Rowley wrote: "Two deceptions are better than one. Just like Fredric March felt over a half century ago on What's My Line. Is that SO difficult to understand!?!?!?"

      Yes, it is very difficult to understand in a real world. Frederick March was horsing around to get laughs.
      =============================================
      That's not incompatible with trying to stump the panel. And he DID stump the panel, and he did it EXACTLY as I described: using two voice deceptions. Two essentially conflicting voice deceptions.
      (Anyone who has watched much of the show knows that the regular panelists are very competitive: they were really stumped).
      Just because something is fun/funny doesn't mean that it doesn't have a serious angle to it too.

      Delete
  33. In the Amerithrax case, the two deceptions would negate each other.
    ============================================
    You keep on avoiding the MAIN purpose: masking the true printing of the perp.
    THAT would be accomplished if he used 1, 2, 3, 4, 19 writing system interpolations.
    THOSE don't "negate" each other.
    ==============================================
    An investigator who sees signs that the letter was sent by Muslim terrorists AND signs that the letter was sent by the Mossad would view them together as being meaningless.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Well, Duh! They ARE meaningless.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Neither "sign" could be used in court. Neither "sign" is of any help in the investigation.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The printer's objective.
    =======================================
    There was nothing funny about the anthrax letters. The killer wasn't just horsing around when he sent out deadly pathogens. While he may not have intended for anyone to be killed, the facts nevertheless indicate he was deadly serious.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Nope.

    ReplyDelete
  34. R. Rowley wrote: "You keep on avoiding the MAIN purpose: masking the true printing of the perp."

    I assume that "masking the true printing of the perp" means "disguising the true handwriting style of the perp." Using phrases like "ALLAH IS GREAT" has nothing to do with disguising one's handwriting style. It's just more handwriting that can be used by an expert to match to a suspect's handwriting. If a person is attempting to disguise their handwriting, they generally write as little as possible. The more they write, the more likely it becomes that they will accidentally revert to their personal style and habits. Lifelong habits are difficult to control.

    Mr. Rowley also wrote: "Well, Duh! They ARE meaningless."

    Hardly. Coming right after 9/11, nearly everyone assumed that the anthrax letters were sent by Muslim terrorists. DXer and many others still do. The phrase "ALLAH IS GREAT" and the familiar anti-American, anti-Israeli phrases helped foster that idea. NO ONE saw the phrases as meaningless.

    It was only when FACTS began to point to an American scientist behind behind the attacks that the phrase "ALLAH IS GREAT" was seen as a ruse to hide the real purpose behind the letters. It was still far from "meaningless." It said a lot about motivation.

    No one but you sees the "Hebrewized" characters. So, no one but you was fooled by any imaginary "Hebrewized" characters.

    And, therefore, no one but you would see any similarity to a guest using two different voices to disguise his identity on "What's My Line?". Using two different silly voices just confirmed that Frederick March was disguising his voice. March seriously misled the panelists by indicating he was British. They were further confused by the fact that he said his mother was born in Britain. It's probably something only he knew. But the panelists would look at it as an important clue. I doubt that using two different voices had anything to do with the panel being stumped. But, you are free to believe whatever you want to believe. As am I.

    Your logical may be logical to you, but it is probably illogical to the rest of the world.

    The "Hebrewized" characters you see exist only in your imagination. I understand that you believe otherwise, but, as I see it, you have absolutely nothing that would convince any reasonable person that what you see is anything other than your personal, unverified interpretation from your imagination.

    Now that you've explained the basis for your beliefs, I can understand your thinking. And, I can understand why it appears you've been unable to persuade anyone else that you are right after many years of trying. Your logic is illogical to most others on this planet.

    You've also made it clear that NOTHING can change your mind. So, there no longer seems to be any purpose in trying.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "You keep on avoiding the MAIN purpose: masking the true printing of the perp."

      I assume that "masking the true printing of the perp" means "disguising the true handwriting style of the perp." Using phrases like "ALLAH IS GREAT" has nothing to do with disguising one's handwriting style.
      ==============================================
      So? There are VARIOUS ways to pretend to be someone else. One is via the text: ALLAH IS GREAT. Another is graphically.

      And we have another instance of this from the same exact case: here's Dr Foster describing a St Pete hoax letter:
      ------------------
      The letter, postmarked on September 20 in St. Petersburg, Florida, began:

      "THE UNTHINKABEL" (the Ns are reversed as Cyrillic characters in the published Vanity Fair article)

      SAMPLE OF HOW IT WILL LOOK

      Brief but ominous, the handwritten note threatened bioterror attacks on New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C
      --------------------------------------------------------------
      The printer is mimicking certain Cyrillic features: the one noted above and the open quotation marks on the baseline. That's another way to 'pretend' to be a foreigner.
      Back to Foster:
      ---------
      The Brokaw letter matched two other biothreat letters, also from St. Petersburg, mailed 15 days later -- same writing, same backward N's and Russian quotes, same threats of imminent bioterror.
      http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/messageanthrax.html

      Delete
  35. R. Rowley wrote: "There are VARIOUS ways to pretend to be someone else. One is via the text: ALLAH IS GREAT. Another is graphically."

    All you are doing is demonstrating that you are a insatiable polemic. You want to argue things that are purely your opinions. I have no interest in arguing opinion against opinion. I'm only interested in subjects which can be proved or disproved by finding solid facts.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  36. R. Rowley wrote: "There are VARIOUS ways to pretend to be someone else. One is via the text: ALLAH IS GREAT. Another is graphically."

    All you are doing is demonstrating that you are a insatiable polemic.
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    That's polemicist.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Mr. Rowley wrote "That's polemicist."

    A polemic is "A person engaged in or inclined to controversy, argument, or refutation."

    A polemicist is "A person skilled or involved in polemics."

    Whether or not you are "skilled" in polemics is another opinion versus opinion debate I do not want to get into.

    But, I'm glad you now admit that you are a polemic/polemicist who is just here to argue endlessly. I'm only interested in resolving issues. Resolving whether you are a polemic or a polemicist is not a matter of interest to me.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  38. But, I'm glad you now admit that you are a polemic/polemicist who is just here to argue endlessly.
    ============================================
    Since we ALREADY established (and Mister Lake admitted long ago) that he has
    been arguing for DECADES on the Internet, including decades when I didn't know the ARPANET/INTERNET from a hole in the wall, this is just another instance in which Mister Lake is taking his own psychological tendencies and attributing them to his "opponent", in this case, me. My interest here is NOT convincing you of anything: you're among the most closed-minded persons I've ever 'met'. But some of your readers may be more open-minded, more rational (in the best sense of that word). And those who know some Hebrew (or are willing to learn) are likely to learn something about Amerithrax that they'll never learn from any (presently existing) book or article.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    And then there is this admission by Mister Lake:

    "After studying and arguing with "Truthers" for over 11 years, it seems to me that "Truthers" can be divided into two sub-classifications: Conspiracy Theorists and True Believers."
    -------------------------------------------------------
    http://anthraxdebate.blogspot.com/2013/05/subject-truthers.html
    (Naturally, I was not arguing with anyone 11 years ago).

    ReplyDelete
  39. R. Rowley wrote: "Naturally, I was not arguing with anyone 11 years ago"

    So what? You may think your argument is unique, but it's just another Anthrax Truther argument following the same patterns as all other Anthrax Truthers, i.e., you don't believe the FBI's evidence, you have no real evidence to support your own theory, but nonetheless, you believe your own personal theory (which no one else believes).

    I've shown how your logic is illogical. You do not appear to have ever convinced anyone that your suspect is the true suspect. You just endlessly argue that "the government's case" is flawed while ignoring the fact that your case is not only flawed, it's not even a case. It's just a belief without any real evidence.

    You may believe that you are trying to convince others who read this blog of your beliefs, but have you ever seen anyone reply to this blog saying they accept your beliefs? From what I can tell, it's basically just you and me here, along with a few people who link in from my web site. I seriously doubt that any of them would accept your beliefs without SOLID evidence (of which you have NONE).

    Your beliefs about who you are trying to convince about your beliefs is just another part of your fantasy world.

    You are presenting your beliefs to me, and I am showing you that the facts say your beliefs are nonsense.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  40. R. Rowley wrote: "Naturally, I was not arguing with anyone 11 years ago"

    So what? You may think your argument is unique[...]
    =============================================
    Oh, I thought it was you who was writing over and over and over and over and over and over again that: I'm the 'only person on the planet' (!!!!!) who holds to what I hold to. That's the very definition of "unique": one of a kind.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    I've shown how your logic is illogical
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Let me guess: you took classes in logic the same place you:

    1) took your law degree

    2) took all those linguistics classes

    3) earned your degrees in microbiology.

    Have you even encountered the words "modesty", "humility", Mister Lake?
    If not, you should look them up. If nothing else, if you FAKE those qualities, you can convince FAR more readers than your long-standing and current chest-pounding routine does!

    ReplyDelete
  41. Your beliefs about who you are trying to convince about your beliefs is just another part of your fantasy world.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Oh, so you deny that you have any readers? Or that any of those readers are "open-minded" and/or "rational"? For that's the only way that that PARTICULAR belief of mine could be a "fantasy".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "Oh, so you deny that you have any readers? Or that any of those readers are "open-minded" and/or "rational"? For that's the only way that that PARTICULAR belief of mine could be a "fantasy"."

      Here are the current statistics:

      Pageviews today 74
      Pageviews yesterday 80
      Pageviews last month 1,948
      Pageviews all time history 37,399

      What I'm saying is that the 80 visitors yesterday were mainly you and me and visitors who link in from my web site (which is currently averaging over 600 visitors a day). The regular visitors to my web site are people who generally agree with me or Anthrax Truthers who would disagree with you AND me, because they have their own theories.

      I don't see you being able to convince any of them. But, I suppose it's possible.

      The point is: Until you see others posting messages, you should view this blog as a debate between YOU AND ME. Nearly all of the other people who come here are regular readers of my web site. There's no reason any of them would be convinced by your beliefs, because my emails indicate they visit my site looking for FACTS, not other people's BELIEFS.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. The point is: Until you see others posting messages, you should view this blog as a debate between YOU AND ME. Nearly all of the other people who come here are regular readers of my web site. There's no reason any of them would be convinced by your beliefs[...]
      =============================================
      If they are NOT visually impaired they will see:

      1) one of the T's of the Brokaw text is identical to a Daleth.

      2) one of the T's of the Brokaw text is a hybrid: half-way between a T and a Daleth.

      3) the OTHER 6 T's of the Brokaw text are done with an extra heavy and/or thick/redone crossbar in accord with the Ashuri style of writing.

      (This was all courtesy of Mister Lake who conveniently juxtaposed those forms)

      NONE of that depends on my personal eloquence. None of that depends on the to and fro-ing of 'debate'.

      During the civil trial of OJ Simpson someone in the media (I think Geraldo Rivera) said that the disconnect between Simpson's testimony
      and the photos of him wearing the Bruno Magli shoes he denied EVER wearing presented every onlooker with the following dilemna:

      'Who are you going to believe, OJ or your lying eyes?'

      The present bit we are going over will be answered in roughly the same way: people who take the time to look at the letter forms and can put their prejudices aside, will see that the Brokaw text is Hebrewized in
      (at least) 9 characters and in 4 different ways (3 for the letter T, one for the letters IC (ic). I think very few persons will find that a coincidence.
      If they DON'T see that, then no eloquence of mine could ever convince them, if they DO see that, then nothing Mister Lake could write would dissuade them.

      Debate is debate, it shouldn't be overestimated.

      Delete
    3. R. Rowley wrote: "1) one of the T's of the Brokaw text is identical to a Daleth."

      FALSE. There is NO T in the Brokaw Text that is identical to a Daleth -- except in your fantasies. Writing the Daleth in block letter form requires the thick cross-bar AND it is expressed with a single pen or brush stroke. There is no T in the Brokaw letter which does that.

      "2) one of the T's of the Brokaw text is a hybrid: half-way between a T and a Daleth."

      And ONLY in your fantasies would that mean anything.

      "3) the OTHER 6 T's of the Brokaw text are done with an extra heavy and/or thick/redone crossbar in accord with the Ashuri style of writing."

      Those other 6 T's were done extra heavy because THE FACTS SAY they are part of a code. Your fantasies do not stand up to what the facts say. Your fantasy theory does not explain the A's which were also highlighted. The FBI's hypothesis DOES explain the A's, and they have EVIDENCE to show that Ivins KNEW THE CODE.

      There are so many holes in your "Hebrewized" theory that it seems absurd that anyone would keep arguing it.

      Mr. Rowley also wrote: "I think very few persons will find that a coincidence."

      Agreed. People will see the highlighted T's as part of the code that includes the highlighted A's which you conveniently ignore. So, they are not a coincidence. People will see the "IC" you view as similar to a Hebrew cursive Aleph as being pure happenstance, not a coincidence. To call it a "coincidence" would require giving your fantasy some credence. I doubt anyone but you could do that.

      Ed

      Delete
    4. R. Rowley wrote: "1) one of the T's of the Brokaw text is identical to a Daleth."

      FALSE. There is NO T in the Brokaw Text that is identical to a Daleth -- except in your fantasies. Writing the Daleth in block letter form requires the thick cross-bar AND it is expressed with a single pen or brush stroke. There is no T in the Brokaw letter which does that.
      ==============================================
      Since you are about 6 years behind me in your study of the Aleph Beth, I'll be the judge of that. It is is perfect Daleth.
      -----------------

      Nor is this atypical of Mister Lake: he suddenly and miraculously proclaims himself a de facto expert in each and every field he encounters in Amerithrax:

      1) the first grade curriculum (but he knows nothing about it, so he wings it!)

      2) the law (but he knows nothing about it, so he wings it!)

      3) linguistics/graphemics (but he knows nothing about it, so he wings it!)

      etc.

      Total head case.

      Delete
  42. Mr. Rowley,

    Taking words out of context is just another way to be polemic. Your THEORY is "unique" but your ARGUMENTS follow the same patterns most (or all) other Truthers. You argue that you do not believe "the government's" case, but you have nothing better (or even equivalent) to support your own case.

    Arguing credentials instead of FACTS is another typical Truther tactic. It's the argument of a polemic.

    BTW, here is the current "traffic sources" information for this blog (I think the "pageview" numbers following the "entry" represent the last 24 hours, or since the last time they did a check):

    Referring URLs
    Entry Pageviews

    http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/ 78
    http://www.vampirestat.com 6
    http://www.vampirestat.com/ 6
    http://www.ourmeets.com 5
    www.seoanalyses.com 5
    http://anthraxdebate.blogspot.com/ 3
    http://www.adsensewatchdog.com 2
    http://www.google.com/imgres?img... 2
    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgu... 2
    http://www.bing.com/search? 1

    Referring Sites
    Entry Pageviews

    www.anthraxinvestigation.com 78
    www.google.com 18
    www.vampirestat.com 12
    www.ourmeets.com 5
    anthraxdebate.blogspot.com 3
    www.google.co.uk 3
    www.adsensewatchdog.com 2
    www.bing.com 2
    www.google.ca 1
    www.google.co.il 1

    Search keywords
    Entry Pageviews

    "ed lake" anthrax "amino acid code" diary 2
    "mister lake" code anthrax 2
    anthrax "ed lake" "amino acid code" 2
    "ed lake" argue truthers 1
    "ed lake" anthrax "amino acid code" 1
    "madre of all murder mysteries" 1
    "r rowley" anthrax matuska 1
    "richard rowley" anthrax hebrew 1
    ed lake anthrax 1
    ed lake anthrax syracuse 1

    I can't be certain, but it looks like many of the search arguments are yours, and after the links from my web site, the main visitors seem to be search engines, spam sites and statistic sites.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I should have also mentioned that when someone does a Google or Bing search and enters this blog as a result of that search, the chances are that they enter on some thread from long ago. So, they wouldn't be following the current argument.

      The last search on the list, for example, includes "syracuse". When was the last time that "Syracuse" was used on this blog?

      Using that search argument, I find two mentions in 2012 and one in the "Double Standard for Evidence" thread, which was created in March of this year.

      So, those people were NOT following the current argument.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. In case you believe the Lew Weinstein's blog gets vastly more visitors than this blog, I check his "hits" number on the first of every month.

      For the months of June and July, they averaged 81 "hits" per day.
      For August, they averaged 75 "hits" per day.
      For September, they averaged 61 "hits" per day.

      So far this month, they're averaging 130 visits per day, but I think that's because of the visitors I've been sending them because of my comments on my web site about DXer's rantings over Dr. Madiji's new book. (My site gets over 600 visitors per day.)

      Ed

      Delete
    3. Mr. Rowley,

      Taking words out of context is just another way to be polemic. Your THEORY is "unique" but your ARGUMENTS follow the same patterns most (or all) other Truthers.
      ===================================
      Don't agree: YOUR arguments, which are INFINITELY followable courtesy of your 3 humongous websites over close to 12 years now, tell us:

      1) you staked out subhypothesis territory early (on the child-printed-it hypothesis, on the no-anthrax-in-the-J-Lo letter etc.)

      2) in subsequent years, you just dug in your heels on those subhypotheses , ie compiled longer and longer lists of "FACTS" (perennially capitalized by you in your apparent belief in the miraculous powers of capitalization to convince people, sort of like Americans who shout at foreigners in the 'hopes' that they will be better understood that way) even when it should have been clear to you that these subhypotheses were extremely unlikely and/or either never supported by the proper authorities (child-printed-it) or were in outright contradiction of the findings of the proper authorities (the J-Lo letter, as I've amply documented in 2 threads now).
      In a (Lakeian) word you "rationalized" for over a decade.

      3) you are unwilling to admit even the most obvious of blunders on your part (yes, I have a humongous list of those things).

      4) when you are doing poorly in the thread you hijack it. As happened in a big way here (ie this very thread, you did it in major 4 ways*, and you didn't bother to deny it).

      *And the thread is still young yet!

      5) even before you are called on the hijacking, you announce that your interlocutor has "changed the subject" (again see upthread). I've taken a policy of never squawking about your hijacks until/unless you accuse me of "changing the subject"; THEN all bets are off.

      6) you "believe" simultaneously impossible things: that Ivins' printed the Amerithrax texts and so the "eyewitnesses" named in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary can testify on the similarities between his printing and that of the Amerithrax letters

      AND

      that a 6/7 year old printed the letters and so there's no true match (nor could there be!) between Ivins' printing and that of the Amerithrax texts.

      I don't know whether this makes you a "truther". Rather, I would say it puts you a couple of cuts below most truthers in ability to reason, be positively consistent etc.
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      Delete
  43. R. Rowley wrote: "YOUR arguments, which are INFINITELY followable courtesy of your 3 humongous websites over close to 12 years now"

    Three web sites? I know only of only one web site -- plus this blog, which has been in existence only since October 6, 2011. Please list the "3 humongous websites." (Maybe you're thinking of the three SECTIONS to my web site at www.anthraxinvestigation.com. I had to start new sections when the old sections got too large for people to download them. Mostly that's caused by the many many links to news articles at the bottom of the SECTIONS.)

    R. Rowley also wrote: "you "believe" simultaneously impossible things: that Ivins' printed the Amerithrax texts and so the "eyewitnesses" named in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary can testify on the similarities between his printing and that of the Amerithrax letters"

    AND

    that a 6/7 year old printed the letters and so there's no true match (nor could there be!) between Ivins' printing and that of the Amerithrax texts."


    You simply do not understand the basic facts of life on this planet. Maybe it's because you do not comprehend facts and understand only beliefs.

    I don't "believe" that a child wrote the anthrax letters. I accept the evidence and what the FACTS say. The FACTS say a child wrote the anthrax letters. Until facts can be found which say otherwise, the facts will CONTINUE to say a child wrote the anthrax letters. There's nothing I can do about that, since I've been unable to find any FACTS which disprove the FACTS about the handwriting. Beliefs cannot change facts, but facts CAN often change beliefs.

    It is my understanding that the witnesses in the case against Ivins who say the style of writing is similar to Ivins' style of writing block letters BELIEVE what they say, AND that their testimony would be useable in court. The EXISTING FACTS KNOWN TO ME, however, clearly indicate that their beliefs are wrong. But, there's nothing I can do about it, and either way, the testimony and the FACTS say Ivins was the anthrax killer.

    It's two different subjects. (1) What witnesses say and would testify to in court. (2) What the facts say.

    I am open to any NEW FACTS which disprove the existing FACTS which say that a child did NOT write the anthrax letters. NEW FACTS can sometimes change the interpretation of OLD FACTS. But, in this instance, all "new facts" which have been found merely CONFIRM that a child wrote the anthrax letters. (Plus, there are FACTS about WHO the child was that I cannot discuss without solid proof and approval from the parents.)

    I'm not going to get into any further arguments about "hijacking" discussions. I'll just point future instances out to you when you attempt to hijack a discussion to argue about the meaning of words.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "you are unwilling to admit even the most obvious of blunders on your part (yes, I have a humongous list of those things)."

    You may have a list of your beliefs, which undoubtedly include a belief that your beliefs prove the facts are wrong. They don't. Please list the top five "blunders" you BELIEVE I've made and have not corrected.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      By the way, since you have brought up the subject of "blunders," you may not have noticed that I changed the text at the top of the "Illogical Logic (Part 2)" thread to include a graphic and description debunking your latest "blunder" where you claimed that there is a "perfect" Dalet in the Brokaw/NY Post letter.

      The new illustration and description clearly show that you "blundered" wildly, and your claim is no more valid that any of your other preposterous claims about the "Hebrewized" characters in the media letter.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. Up two posts:
      -------------

      I don't "believe" that a child wrote the anthrax letters. I accept the evidence and what the FACTS say. The FACTS say a child wrote the anthrax letters[...]
      =========================================
      You have failed and failed repeatedly now over a decade to:

      1) explain why none of the language specialists employed by the Task Force came up with the same "facts".

      2) explain why not a single graphology professional NOT employed by the Task Force ever reached any of your conclusions/sub-conclusions (ie FACTS in the Lakeian sense).

      3) explain (over a shorter period of time) why none of your FACTS are listed in the 92-page Amerithrax Investigative Summary.

      4) explain why the Task Force thinks an adult printed the Amerithrax texts.

      Blaming 'facts' for feeble analysis is no excuse whatsoever.

      Delete
    3. R. Rowley wrote: "YOUR arguments, which are INFINITELY followable courtesy of your 3 humongous websites over close to 12 years now"

      Three web sites? I know only of only one web site[...]
      ======================================
      What do you take me for a techie? Bwahahahaha

      Delete
    4. Two posts up(partial):
      --------------

      I'm not going to get into any further arguments about "hijacking" discussions. I'll just point future instances out to you when you attempt to hijack a discussion to argue about the meaning of words.
      ====================================
      You hijacked this thread 4 times. And you haven't denied it yet!
      In THIS thread YOU hijacked the discussion via arguing about my use of the word "mask", by going into a long sidebar issue about similes, by doing everything you could to sink the thread. Well, you succeeded.
      Another Ed Lake "success story"!

      Delete
  44. Mr. Rowley,

    By the way, since you have brought up the subject of "blunders," you may not have noticed that I changed the text at the top of the "Illogical Logic (Part 2)" thread to include a graphic and description debunking your latest "blunder" where you claimed that there is a "perfect" Dalet in the Brokaw/NY Post letter.
    ==========================================
    In what WAY is the Daleth I pointed out not perfect (And WHY, as always, do I have to ask you for info that LOGICALLY you should be presenting?!?!??!?? This is not a rhetorical question!)???

    All you did was, unaccountably, insert a CURSIVE Dalet over the printed Dalet of the Brokaw text. So? (Are you THAT thick??!?!?!?)
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The new illustration and description clearly show that you "blundered" wildly,
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    No, they show that creeping senility can convince a man that a printed version of a letter is somehow "imperfect" if it doesn't resemble the cursive version of that letter.
    They don't resemble each other because one's cursive, the other print. That's all.

    Your blunder, not mine (and I gave you DAYS to realize it!)

    ReplyDelete
  45. R. Rowley wrote: "You have failed and failed repeatedly now over a decade to:

    1) explain why none of the language specialists employed by the Task Force came up with the same "facts"."


    If I attempted to do that, wouldn't you call it "mind reading"?

    I explain what the facts say. I don't explain why other people have different points of view or why they haven't commented on what the facts say. I'm not a mind reader. And any such explanation would just be my OPINION. I'm trying to avoid opinion versus opinion arguments.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "In what WAY is the Daleth I pointed out not perfect"

    It's explained in the image I created and in what I wrote:

    1. What IS a "perfect Dalet"? I showed 5 different Dalets. I could have showed 50 Dalets and ALL would be different from the T you argue is a "perfect Dalet."

    2. All 5 Dalets had the thick crossbar. Your "perfect Dalet" does not.

    3. All 5 Dalets show the point in the upper left of the crossbar which your Dalet does not have.

    I put the cursive Dalet over the top of the T just to show that the cursive Dalet doesn't look anything like the Ashuri or block letter Dalet. Others reading this blog, who see that the T doesn't look like an Ashuri Dalet might wonder if it looks like a cursive Dalet. It doesn't. So, the discussion is ONLY about whether the T in DEATH is a "perfect" Ashuri-style Dalet. It is not.

    You are taking a T that is simply an off-center T and arguing that it is a "perfect Dalet," when it should be clear to everyone that it is certainly NOT a "perfect Dalet." You are also arguing that it was put in the media letter to confuse people, when it appears that YOU are the only person in the world it "confused."

    Your logic is illogical. You are seeing things that aren't there. Does anyone in the world believe your theory -- except you?

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  46. It’s hard to find knowledgeable people on this topic, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  47. You fools will defend the clear calls to violence against non-Muslims from the Quran, but you'll give yourselves headaches trying to find "crypto Jew" in everything that happens in the world. May you rise above your petty racism and ravaging paranoia.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This thread is about facts and evidence, not about beliefs. So, your beliefs have no meaning here.

      Ed

      Delete