Subject: Re: From Josiah Thompson Date: 02 Jan 1999 17:01:41 GMT From: mtgriffith@aol.com (MTGriffith) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk In article <3670E148.C02AE36F@lucent.com>, Steve Keating writes: >Hey Dick. You and I can agree on this one. It was a non-answer answer for >sure. I see SSID2 coming. Most all of the buff authors are coming out with sequels >to "correct" stuff and add to their wacky theories with "new" information. >Thompson is one of the *few* buff authors who might actually do it to correct some >bugs rather than go for the money. Speaking of correcting "wacky theories," let's take a look at some truly wacky theories that have yet to be corrected and/or rejected by WC apologists: * Posner's theory that the first miss struck a limb of the oak tree, that this collision caused the lead core of a jacketed missile to separate from the jacket, that this lead core then weaved its way through the the tree's intervening limbs and leaves and traveled over 400 feet to strike the curb near James Tague, and then sent concrete or lead streaking toward Tague. * Posner's theory that Connally was rotated some 25 degrees to the right in Z224. Of course, Posner had to posit that degree of rotation in order to make the SBT's trajectory work. (Myers and Vaughan have acknowledged that the rotation is no more than 15 degrees, but Posner has yet to correct his theory.) * The farfetched theory that the first shot was fired prior to Z166 from the sixth-floor window and that it completely missed, not just Kennedy, but the entire huge limousine. * The long-since-discredited claim that Oswald and Ferrie didn't know each other. * The absurd claim that scoring two hits out of three shots in 5.6 to 8.4 seconds, with the first shot being the miss, would have been "easy." (Of course, the only way to expand the firing time to over 6 seconds is to assume the alleged lone gunman missed the entire limousine with his first and closest, and easiest, shot.) * The bunched-clothing theory, which is refuted by the photographic evidence. (To be fair, one lone-gunman theorist, Jim Moore, has repudiated the bunched-clothing theory for any alleged magic-bullet hit prior to Z224.) * The theory that the 6.5 mm object seen on the autopsy x-rays "sheared off" a jacketed missile that supposedly struck the skull in the cowlick and then "migrated" to a point 1 cm below the alleged higher entry point. Forensic science knows of no case where a jacketed missile behaved in this manner. * The single-bullet theory. Two members of the WC itself later rejected the theory. Two of the Commission's own wound ballistics experts disputed the theory. No wound ballistics test has ever produced a bullet that went through two simulated tissue entities, smashed through two bones, and yet emerged in nearly perfect condition. The AAT test and Dr. Lattimer's test both produced markedly deformed missiles. The FAA test was unrealistic. (For starters, the test bullet was merely fired into a wrist at a reduced rate. The bullet did not pass through a simulated neck or chest, nor did it smash through simulated rib bone before striking the wrist.) Not only do lone-gunman authors continue to advance this theory, but they won't even admit that it is far from proven (to put it mildly). Mike Griffith MICHAEL T. GRIFFITH. Check out my Real Issues Home Page at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/MGriffith_2