Subject: Illogical Logic (Part 2)

In a post to another blog (click HERE), an Anthrax Truther argued that there were "Hebrew elements" in the text of the anthrax letter sent to Tom Brokaw and The New York Post.  I challenged his "illogical logic" in the previous thread on this blog.  That thread with my arguments can be found by clicking HERE.

In a response posted in that thread, the Anthrax Truther provided a new and revised explanation of his beliefs in a lengthy comment that can be read by clicking HERE.

Significantly, in his new post he tentatively dropped the idea that the question mark in the senate letter was deliberately drawn to resemble the Hebrew character "Kaf."  Here's the illustration I used in the previous thread to illustrate his claim:

He evidently dropped this claim because it conflicts with his argument that all the Hebrew elements that he sees in the media letter were dropped from all other anthrax documents.  Here is what he wrote about a "document" he is writing that explains his theory:

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.

He still claims that the G in "GREAT" in the media letter closely resembles the Hebrew character "Tet," although he acknowledges that it is "the most questionable Hebrew element left in the analysis."   Here's the comparison illustration for that:

And, he still claims significance to his belief that the characters "IC" in "AMERICA" in the media letter were written somewhat closer together than the way those same two characters were written in the same word in the senate letter and in "AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS" on The New York Post envelope.  In reality, however, it seems that the "I" was drawn farther from the "R" and the C" farther from the "A," since, when all the writings are made approximately the same size, the "IC" in the media letter appears to be no closer together than the "IC" in the Senate letter and less close than the "IC" on the New York Post envelope.  Here's a comparison illustration for that:

And, when viewed in their actual sizes, the I and C in the media letter are actually farther apart than in both of the other documents:

 So, the Anthrax Truther's claim makes no sense.  It isn't true.  It's just the way he views the two characters - as being close together - when, in reality, they are just farther from the adjacent characters.  And he sees no meaning to that, or he would have mentioned how far apart the A and T are in the word "GREAT" in the media letter.  Or compare the C and I in "PENACILIN."  Or the S and R in "ISRAEL."  Below is an image of the media letter sent to Tom Brokaw (click on it to view a much larger version):

The Anthrax Truther is finding "similarities" where no real similarities exist.  All that exists are normal variations in human handwriting.  He just wants to see things that confirm his beliefs.  He wants the I and C to be close together and resemble the Hebrew character Aleph instead of merely being further than "normal" from the adjacent characters R and A.

And this desire to see things that aren't really there is most clear in the two main points of his theory:

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

In the media letter, he sees all the T's as being "Hebrewized," although not all in the same way.  Six are "Hebrewized" by tracing over the horizontal bar in the T.  Two others are "Hebrewized" by the fact that the vertical line in the T's are not perfectly centered, they are offset slightly to the right.  NONE show BOTH "Hebrewized" characteristics.  And, in no other anthrax document does he see any of the T's as being "Hebrewized" in either fashion.  This lack of a pattern he inexplicably sees as a "pattern."  (Click HERE.)

In a post HERE, he also sees the T in the second spelling of "DEATH" in the Brokaw letter as a "perfect" Dalet.  But, what is a "perfect" Dalet (or Daleth)? Many exhibits on the Internet seem to be done by one pen stroke, which is definitely not the case with the T, but all the Dalets show a darkened or heavy horizontal bar across the top, which is NOT shown in the T in example he claims is a "perfect" Dalet.  (The red mark above the T in the illustration below is the cursive version of the Hebrew Dalet):

Furthermore, while the five Dalets in the illustration above are somewhat different from one another, they all have one thing in common: They all have a point or mark at the left top of the crossbar, which the T in "DEATH" (and every Ashuri Dalet I've ever seen) definitely does not have.  Thus, by no stretch of the imagination can the T in DEATH be called a "perfect" Dalet.

The Anthrax Truther also totally ignores the fact that some of the A's in the media letters are traced over in the same way as the T's.  The A's do not fit with his theory.  He ignores things which do not fit with his theory.  And he simply does not believe any theory where both the highlighted A's and T's fit perfectly.

Initially, his argument was:

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      

When  I showed him examples from the Internet where people were commonly drawing the vertical lines on T's off-center, he changed his theory.  Now it's mostly a numbers game.  If eight T's in the media letter are all "Hebrewized" (in two different ways) and no T in any other document is "Hebrewized," then that is proof of his theory.  And, he writes:

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.

Deciphering that claim, he seems to be saying: The two T's with the off-center vertical line on the media letter are both off-center to the right.  On all other documents, if the vertical line is off-center, it is off-center to the left.  He simply ignores (or fails to see) that there are T's in the media letter that are also off-center to the left.  The T in "NEXT" is the best example:

The T in "TO" in "DEATH TO ISRAEL" is a less clear example.  Meanwhile, the T in "GREAT" in the senate letter is ever so slightly off-center to the right:

So, the Anthrax Truther is seeing what he wants to see, he's ignoring everything that doesn't fit his beliefs, and an abrupt change from mostly "Hebrewized" T's to mostly "NOT-Hebrewized" T's is somehow proof to him that someone deliberately tried to add Hebrew elements into the media anthrax letter to point at Mossad agents as being behind the attacks:

The ‘mistakes’ (ie interpolations of Hebrew forms) however are NOT likely to have been made accidently. Rather they seem to be embedded in the text(s) to produce a red herring for investigators: the possibility that a Mossad agent or other native Israeli wrote the Amerithrax letters.

In other words, his belief appears to be that the "mastermind" he believes was responsible for sending the anthrax letters (and lots of hoax letters) wrote "ALLAH IS GREAT" in the anthrax letters to be a "red herring" to make investigators (and everyone else) think that Muslim terrorists sent the anthrax letters, while at the same time including "Hebrewized" characters in the media letters to be another "red herring," this time to make investigators think that "a Mosaad agent or other native Israeli wrote the anthrax letters."

Of all the illogical logic in the Anthrax Truther's theory, I thought that the idea that someone would put TWO "red herrings" in the letters (one that everyone can see and one that only he can see) to mislead investigators in opposite directions was the most illogical.  But, in a post to the other thread (click HERE), he explained:

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.

In other words, there is no rhyme nor reason to "the Anthrax mastermind's" crimes. And thus, the lack of any meaningful evidence to point to the "mastermind" is the Anthrax Truther's PROOF that his "mastermind" did it. And all the SOLID evidence pointing to Bruce Ivins is meaningless, because it is evidence, it is not a lack of evidence. And the Anthrax Truther's belief is that a lack of evidence is the best evidence, because a lack of evidence is what points to his suspect.

That is another perfect example of "illogical logic."

Ed