Sunday, November 3, 2013

Mail Brane Blog: Readers Seeking Answers to Questions






























Q.  Ok, I'm curious. In your Sept. 28 Mail Brane Blog the second questioner('Davante')  asked if he could go to FLA and "teach your cracker brother some manners". There's a link to his racist blog in your response but when I click on the link I get a message:

"Sorry, the blog at mytalkandthoughts.blogspot.com has been removed.  This address is not available for new blogs."

So what happened to it? - Julie, Ann Arbor, MI

A. I have been informed by a reliable source that Mike voluntarily removed it as he was "appalled" at the hate he'd spewed out again.  Of course, he's done this on at least two occasions earlier before changing his mind and resurrecting it again. So, who can say what the real reason is? My theory is - if he did take it down on his own - it was more likely a result of being blistered with comments, emails complaining about the content. He simply got tired dealing with all the flack so simply pulled the whole blog.

Q. Reading your assorted posts on the framing of Oswald by the CIA, the Oswald doppelgangers and so on, has my head spinning. Can a conspiracy really be this complicated? - Oscar W., London, Ontario

A. Of course! The mistake too many make is assuming simplicity along the same theoretic lines as for physical theories. Obviously, we opt to have physical theories,( i.e. quantum theory, Newtonian gravitation etc.) that are simple and elegant, minimal hypotheses and no loose strings, because these are also more amenable to mathematical formalism. Thus, the widespread presumption that any viable physical theory needs to be a hallmark of simplicity - not complication.

But let's be realistic here: human beings are not inanimate, unconscious objects like planets and moons in defined orbits,  or billiard balls - say that collide according to Newton's 2nd and 3rd laws of motion- making their future paths predictable. Humans by their nature possess the capacity for duplicity, formulation of self-determined agendas and concealed motives as well as the ability to misdirect others toward their (hidden) agendas. In any conspiracy of any magnitude (say like assassinating a President), therefore, one fully expects such devious capacities to overwhelm straight line logic - given the conspirators already know any would-be investigators would start off with that form of approach.

Hence, for the conspiracy to be ultimately successful, it would have to cover all the (ex post facto presumed linear logic) bases in advance, and build in misdirection at multiple junctures. The use of Oswald "doppelgangers" (actually impostors, and at least one physical double - deployed in Big D itself) accomplishes this. Yes, it is liable to make certain heads "burst"  and others spin- but then those heads, brains are too wedded to pedestrian and prosaic (what I call linear) logic anyway. They will always be the first to throw their hands in the air, and say 'I give up - this is too complicated' and opt to chose the simplest alternative, albeit totally wrong - which is the lone assassin bollocks.

This is why seriously pursuing something like the JFK assassination is not for everyone. The false leads, framing complexities, arcane CIA mischief -  false names, cut outs, constellation of differing files-documents as well as covert operations, narratives are usually too much except for deep politics mavens. Most Americans, sadly, can barely keep pace with our standard politics, far less deep politics. But those of us who want to get to the bottom of this dastardly crime of the century aren't easily dissuaded, nor are we easily distracted by lone assassin bunkum, tales or fake  "revelations" (which supposedly REELZ-TV plans to put on tonight). We know better, through long years of experience and having been already led down many dead ends and into false leads.

Basically then, there are few options for anyone really interested in the case:

1) You can hurl yourself into it and dig up thousands of files, documents and pore through them like the rest of us (researchers) have.

2) You can take the easy path, and just accept the simple (but wrong) lone assassin narrative - sticking with the likes of Gerald Posner, Vince Bugliosi, Philip Shenon etc.

3) You can adopt an "agnostic" approach and just say the case is too difficult to find any reasonable resolution, but knowing in the back of your mind, many of us already have (to within perhaps 95% probability).

Q.  I was shocked to read in your Sept. 25 blog of the persistent after effects from the radiation treatment for your prostate cancer. I would have thought given such significant effects the psa would surely have dived but in your blog post of Nov. 2 you say it's gone up.  How is this possible?- Anne, Dublin, Ireland

A. Sadly, Anne, no one knows the answer. All anyone can do is guess. Who knows why some 10 percent or so of patients hit the psa nadir within months of treatment, and it never goes back up? And why others (like me) experience a "PSA bounce" and then have to closely monitor the PSA over time for signs of "treatment failure". No one really knows and this is why more longitudinal studies over time for the different treatment modalities are badly needed.

One more interesting aside: When I had the PSA test done at LabCorp, I had to sign a form agreeing to pay for the test ($127) if Medicare didn't, given Medicare regards those in my "condition" as no longer needing it!  Now, this is strange, but maybe not. It suggests that Medicare regards the fact that once you've had treatment as ending the matter. Hence, a series of PSA tests - with rising numbers - led you to get treatment, but now that you've had treatment you need no further tests. Of course, this takes no account at all of the possibility of treatment failure or that the numbers can go back up. But given Medicare's solvency problems I guess it's understandable, so I expect to probably have to pay!


Q. In your Oct. 30 post ('Pills Made from Poop') you wrote that your wife got c. diff. after taking amoxicillin, but then to relieve it she was put on another antibiotic called flagyl- which didn't work- so then she was put on vancomycin. What I don't get is how an antibiotic can cause c. diff. but then it takes an even stronger antibiotic to snuff it out. How can that be? Shouldn't the strongest antibiotic make the symptoms worse if a lesser one starts them off? - Andre, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

A. Sorry, antibiotics don't work in that particular way. First, there appears to be a category of antibiotics which predisposes one to c. diff. Amoxicillin is one of these, and there are others which you can learn about by googling: "antibiotics predisposing to c. diff".  Let's also grasp that the initial introduction of amoxicillin essentially killed off nearly all the good bacteria which allowed the bad bacteria, the c. diff. to spread. By this stage, then, with the harmful bacteria spreading, an antibiotic powerful enough to kill them is what's needed. These are flagyl and vancomycin. The only possible effect these could have is: no effect (i.e. on antibiotic resistant bacteria) or eliminating the bad bacteria enough to allow the good guys to proliferate again.


Q. Reading your post 'The United States Of Tex-Ass' on Oct. 26 was a wake up call since I now live in Dallas. I never realized what a hotbed of hate the city was back in 1963, and to me it might explain for why Kennedy was killed there. Are they any other sources about the city back then, say from online sites, that I can read about it? I plan to get 'Dallas 1963' but in the meantime would like to see some other stuff. - Jared, Dallas, TX

A. A recent set of articles - blog posts has been appearing by Russ Baker on www.smirkingchimp.com based on his bestseller, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years

These appeared in seven installments on smirkingchimp.com with full article accounts in a separate blog link at www.whowhatwhy.com.   You can read his Dallas account here:

http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/10/24/bush-and-the-jfk-hit-part-6-the-cold-war-comes-to-dallas/

It's headed up:  A Cauldron of Right Wing Americans, Right Wing Russians, and Nazis

 Be thankful you're not living in the Dallas of 1963!


Q. Why do you think the American congress is so reluctant to put a leash on the NSA, especially after they have spied on European allies and broken into Google's cloud sites to collect so much data? - Gerhard Remke, Bielefeld, Germany

A. My suspicion is that the spooks have tons of stuff on all congress critters, so effectively the threat of black mail is enough to halt any ability to pass effective control legislation now. I also suspect that they have loads of material on Angela Merkel, France's François Hollande and the UK's David Cameron.  Given this hidden leverage it was no surprise all the allies could be deterred from accepting Edward Snowden as a whistle blower refugee. The leaders were all too intimidated to do so. To read more from the actual author of this theory, see:
 http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/52437/what-s-done-abroad-can-be-done-at-home-too-is-nsa-spying-really-about-blackmail




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