June 8, 2013

Joe Quinn, editor over at sott.net, has chosen to pen another attack on this website, and this one is a particularly cowardly one in that he conspicuously avoids identifying who it is that he is attacking. Quinn tries to play it off as though he is attacking the ‘crisis actors theory’ in general, though it is perfectly obvious that he is critiquing my series without naming it. Well … not all of my series, actually … just a few things here and there that he chose to cherry-pick.
http://www.sott.net/article/262463-Ink-Blot-Tests-and-actors-at-the-Boston-bombings

By not identifying my site, of course, he avoids having to supply a link to it, depriving his readers of the opportunity to judge for themselves whether my arguments are valid. And that, I have to say, is a seriously chicken-shit approach. What do you suppose it is that Quinn is afraid of? If it only took him three minutes to figure out that the crisis actors theory was bogus, as he says in his post, then why is he so scared to let his readers judge for themselves?

Here’s a classic example of Quinn’s cowardice: “Some bloggers have claimed that the use of ‘crisis actors’ at the Boston bombings is an attempt to further blur the lines between what is real and what is false, between fantasy and reality, and usher us all into a ‘reality TV’ world.” Uhmm, no, actually, some bloggers haven’t claimed that; one specific blogger has claimed that, but spineless Quinn would obviously rather attack an anonymous target.

His entire post is based on a curious bit of Orwellian logic. He claims that crisis actor theorists essentially work backwards, drawing conclusions first and then working “to make the evidence fit what appears to be a pre-established theory.” But yet he candidly admits that that is in fact how he works: “Before I begin though, I should explain how and why my approach differs from the approach that the ‘actors’ advocates have taken. When trying to decide whether a particular conspiracy theory, or particular angle on a conspiracy theory, is likely to be true or false, my approach is to first look at the plausibility of the theory in question.”

In this case, he notes, “it took me about 3 minutes of rumination before it began to make no logical sense whatsoever.”

To recap then, Quinn gave the actors theory a solid three minutes of thought, decided that it didn’t make any sense to him, and since it didn’t make any sense to him it obviously could not have happened, so he then set about trying to make the evidence fit his hastily drawn conclusion. I, on the other hand, studied literally hundreds of photographs and scores of videos while drawing my conclusions, and yet I am the one who supposedly approached this investigation in entirely the wrong way. You can imagine my embarrassment.

As far as ‘debunking’ specific arguments that I have made, Quinn doesn’t have a whole lot to offer. He appears to dismiss my entire post detailing the lies spun by victims and responders with this brush-off: “it is the media’s job to hype national crisis situations, and therefore exaggeration and dodgy reporting cannot, in isolation, be construed as evidence of a grand conspiracy involving ‘actors’.” Deliberately overlooked is that it wasn’t compromised media assets who were spinning the tall tales – it was the alleged victims and rescuers, the supposed heroes of this story. It was, in other words (and as I have already stated), people who should not have had a vested interest in “hyp[ing] national crisis situations.”

Quinn naturally feels compelled to weigh in on Jeff Bauman, but he does so in a way that is not too far removed from the pathetic arguments offered up by the last would-be ‘debunker’: “The fact that Bauman was transported in a wheelchair can be explained by the fact that, at that point in time (about 6 minutes after the first bomb exploded) no ambulances had yet arrived, and gurneys were therefore scarce. There were however many wheelchairs available as part of the marathon entourage and these were used to evacuate several people before ambulances arrived.”

I guess Quinn missed the part about how Bauman and Arredondo have both claimed that Jeff was wheeled directly to a waiting ambulance, which would have been hard to do “before ambulances arrived.” Ambulances had not pulled up to the site yet, because that would have ruined the whole spectacle of wheeling the victims out for the waiting cameras, but ambulances were in attendance well before the blasts. Quinn surely knows that, just as he knows that Bauman was not hastily rushed off the scene, even though he implies that he was.

As for the notion that gurneys were scarce, Quinn is either willfully ignorant of the facts or he is just a really inept liar. It is an incontestable fact that the woman identified in the media as Mery Daniel was rolled out on a gurney while Bauman lay on the ground just a few feet away, allegedly bleeding out. And it is also an incontestable fact, because I happen to have the photo right here to prove it, that Mery Daniel was rolled out alongside another woman who was also on a gurney. So the reality is that there were at least two gurneys available simultaneously and yet responders chose not to use either one to rescue the guy who had supposedly just had both of his legs blown off and who was clearly visible to everyone on the scene.

Word on the street is that all of the alleged victims from the first bombing site who are pictured below actually had to bring their own gurneys from home due to the scarcity problem. Luckily for them, they were thinking ahead that day.

Quinn repeatedly asserts that the victims should not be judged on their apparent actions after the blast because they were all in severe shock from being so close to the alleged device. Indeed, he seems to know precisely where that device was located, allowing him to make authoritative statements like, “these people were pictured seconds after a bomb had just detonated right beside them,” and, “A bomb went off 5 seconds before this photo was taken, about 3 feet from where the people in question were standing,” and, “The women in the above image were mere feet from the blast,” and, “a bomb had exploded right beside her just minutes before.”

Of course, Quinn offers no evidence whatsoever to support even the contention that a bomb exploded on the ground, let alone that it detonated in some specific location that he seems to be able to pinpoint. But the government and the media have said that that is what happened, and I guess that is good enough for him.

Quinn also tackles the question of why no one outside the temporary barricade was injured, but his argument is so fundamentally ridiculous that it is impossible to really take it seriously: “The women in the above image were mere feet from the blast. The runners were 10-15 yards from the explosion and were protected from its effects by metal and wooden barriers and the material that made up the advertising sign that was draped over the barriers.”

Seriously?! When I referred to what he calls “the advertising sign” as a shrapnel shield, I was obviously being facetious. But I assume that this guy wants to be taken seriously. I’m not even sure what to say here, except maybe to ask if it might be just slightly misleading to describe scaffolding as a “metal barrier”? Here’s an experiment Quinn might want to try out: stand behind some scaffolding and have a friend fire a 12-gauge load of buckshot at your ass. Then let all your readers know how well that “metal barrier” worked out for you.

Weighing in on Krystle Campbell, Quinn has this to say: “For the ‘actors’ theorists, it seems that when two images are taken of the same scene just a few seconds apart, the people in the images are not allowed to move. The idea that the worker was checking for a pulse and would likely have had her hands in that position for up to a minute is apparently irrelevant.” I have no clue what point he is trying to make here, but since he brought up the subject of what the EMT was doing and how long she was there, let’s take a look and see what the photographic record has to say about that.

This first image is cropped from one of the Tang photos. In the full-sized original, the race clock reads 4:12:06, which was two minutes and twenty-three seconds after the first blast. I guess I should first point out the obvious – that there is a gurney already on the scene, even though Quinn just informed us that there still were none available a full six minutes after the device detonated. Carlos, America’s newest superhero, is standing idly by, not doing much of anything. The blond EMT is working her way past Dr. Panter and Dr. Levine, neither of whom are showing the slightest concern for the plight of Ms Campbell. Or the plight of Mr. Bauman.

In the next image in the series, Carlos, barely visible, still isn’t doing much of anything. Dr. Levine is still standing by. Out of the camera’s view, Jeff is on the ground bleeding out, but no one really cares. The gurney can still be seen on the scene. Jeff is probably considering trying to climb onto it by himself. The blond EMT has reached the two women and is bent over, partially blocked from view.
Continuing on, the EMT now cannot be seen but she is presumably doing something with the two women. Dr. Panter and Dr. Levine are both guiding the gurney that won’t be used for either Jeff Bauman or Krystle Campbell. Carlos is still standing by on the sidelines. The photographer, just behind that curiously indestructible Tow Zone sign, is approaching the scene to get his ‘dead girls’ shot. There are several people blocking his view but he seems to know exactly where he is going and what he needs to do.
Continuing on with the next shot in the series, we find Carlos and Dr. Levine still not doing much to help anyone, though Dr. Panter is now bent over, presumably working on Mery Daniel. The EMT is in position but the photographer is not quite ready yet. We also see that a number of people, police and civilians alike, are aggressively working to keep outsiders off the scene, though no one seems to care that there are clearly a lot of people already on the scene who don’t have any business being there.
By this time, the EMT has had time to check the girls’ vital signs. According to Dr. Panter and others, what she should have found was that Campbell was in full traumatic arrest, barely had a pulse, and was literally just a few minutes away from death. Dr. Panter and Dr. Levine are both less than ten feet away but she hasn’t notified either of them of her patient’s precarious condition. Of course, she shouldn’t have had to since Dr. Panter has already told us that he immediately recognized that Campbell and Bauman were the most critically injured of the victims and, after pulling one of them out from under the other, he quickly got to work on both of them. But we already know that virtually everything that Panter has said is a lie.

Anyway, in the next image we see that Tang has cut away from the action to give us a not-very-informative view of the street. We can’t see the race clock or much of anything else of importance. We can though see that the photographer has gotten his shots and, apparently uninterested in any of the other victims, has walked away from the scene.
This next shot is almost completely worthless, clueing us in only to the fact that the race clock now reads 4:12:50.
We now return to the scene of the crime. The race clock reads 4:12:54. Exactly 48 seconds have elapsed since the blond EMT was first seen working her way toward Campbell. She therefore spent, at most, maybe 40 seconds checking on Campbell and Rand, who have now been left unattended. And again, Campbell is allegedly just a few breaths away from death. Which is why the EMT has walked away from her. And why Dr. Panter and Dr. Levine both have more important things to do. And why Mery Daniel has been loaded onto the gurney rather than Campbell. Or Bauman.
The EMT was there just long enough to set up the scene and pose for her photo-op. The photographer, a man on a mission, was there just long enough to grab the shot he was destined to take. No one on the scene is acting as though there are at least two people in critical condition. No one, in other words, is acting as if this is a real crisis situation. Dr. Levine doesn’t even really try to pretend as though he is offering any kind of medical assistance to anyone. At one point, he will appear to be primarily concerned with checking out the hot chick. I know you think I’m joking, but I’m not. You can also see in the preceding images, by the way, the bizarre residual smokiness that only affected the small area where the alleged victims were gathered.
Anyway, it appears that Quinn is way off the mark on both Campbell and Bauman. He probably should have actually reviewed the photographic evidence rather than deciding in three minutes that he already knew the truth. It’s seems pretty clear though that Quinn doesn’t actually have much interest in the truth. He demonstrates that when he has this to say about the Fox reporter who was on the scene: “Additional evidence for this claim is provided by a Fox News reporter on the day of the bombing who stated that while she wasn’t exactly near the first bomb, when she looked around, she thought that the bomb came from inside a building.”

So when a reporter states live on the air that she “was right there,” Quinn reports it as, “she wasn’t exactly near the first bomb.” And when she states emphatically on more than one occasion that the blast occurred midway up the building, Quinn reports it as, “she thought that the bomb came from inside a building.” And this is the guy who in the very same post complains about “dodgy” reporting by the mainstream media?

Quinn wraps things up with this little show of cockiness – cockiness which, I have to say, seems a bit unwarranted: “If anyone has any piece of ‘evidence’ that I haven’t covered here that they’d like me to opine on, feel free to send it to me. But be warned, I’ve looked at a lot of ‘evidence of ‘actors’ at the Boston bombings, and all of it fits into this same profile of mild to wild conjecture and supposition in an effort to make the case.”

Seeing as how Quinn obviously cherry-picked his way through my series of posts, he is very well aware of the fact that there is a considerable amount of hard evidence that he has chosen to ignore. Perhaps though his time would be better spent channeling aliens through a Ouija board with his boss. I hear she has quite a passion for that sort of thing.