snowmman

I checked my Norjak book to cross check what the trutv link was saying up above about the Scott/Himmelsbach meeting. I can't find in there. There's the meeting with Bohan talking about wind direction. Maybe there's a newspaper article. I'm confused now..did the trutv article actually start a myth there? (edit) Himmelsbach does recommend searching the Washougal area in his book, but that seems based just on a watershed that drains in the columbia upstream of the money find area, not based on any stuff from Scott. He mentions Bohan's conversation on being wrong on wind direction, (confirming his "hunches", H says...maybe hunch about wrong search zone?) but it's all pretty speculative on H's part. Still can't find any Scott meeting in the book. (edit) I'm starting to think the Scott/H meeting is myth.

From this little summary of modern data (2005), I made the guess that the 1971 claim of +- 0.5 NM error in the radar was optimistic. Pilots can chime in on what the error bounds below are talking about. from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/10454/33180/01563441.pdf?temp=x Comparison of host radar positions to Global Positioning Satellite positions Paglione, M.M.; Ryan, H.F. Digital Avionics Systems Conference, 2005. DASC 2005. The 24th Volume 2, Issue , 30 Oct.-3 Nov. 2005 Page(s): 12 pp. Vol. 2 - Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/DASC.2005.1563441 Summary: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control system relies directly on aircraft locations provided by the long range en route surveillance radars. The accuracy of the radars is an important factor in determining the overall performance of the system. To support the planned modernization of the air traffic control system a study was conducted to measure the accuracy of the radar tracking function of the current system. The aircraft radar tracks were compared to the positions produced by the Global Positioning Satellite System (GPS), which was considered the true aircraft position. The GPS data was available from the FAA's Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum Certification Program. Utilizing the host air traffic management data distribution system at each air route traffic control center that captures the radar tracking data, 265 flight's of radar tracking data were compared to their GPS positions. Three distance metrics were used. The time coincident straight line distance, referred to as the horizontal track error, and its two orthogonal components: cross track error (side to side error) and along track error (longitudinal error) were calculated. A total of 54,170 measurements were taken. This resulted in an average horizontal error of 0.69 nautical miles, an average (unsigned) cross track error of 0.12 nautical miles, and an average (unsigned) along track error of 0.67 nautical miles.

The only place I find the supposed 1980 Scott visiting Himmelsbach soiree, was in (edit) this link quoting the NORJAK book. quoted at bottom of http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/DB_Cooper/7.html (apparently written in 2003?) Himmelsbach, thru the NORJAK book, is quoted as saying Scott said they were west of I-5, not east of it. Hey, there's a paper that crosschecks modern day FAA radar location repots for airplanes, with GPS readings, to give actual errors. I'll find it again.

There's a real Cooper connection with the ending. Some might think Bodhi makes it out, some might not. Utah leaves confident he knows. But does he? I figured "The Fugitive" was your fave, from the love of train cars and smoke. My problem is that I remember the original David Jansen on b/w tv in the role. (1963-1967) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdgekgCaefQ Hey, that reminds me...you pseudo-promised to see if you could transfer the film of the drop test to some modern day media we all could see. Or was that a no-go? No-go. No contract. It's off. It's-- Will you explain to the lunkhead that it's a no-go?

I've discovered quite a stunner. While the actual movie has the guys in masks of Johnson Nixon Carter Reagan, the original script was written as Johnson Nixon Kennedy Reagan. There's always been the underlying chatter about JFK in this thread. I was amazed to find the link here too. Why change from Kennedy to Carter, unless for some sinister reason? So during the filming, Kennedy got swapped with Carter. script is at http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/pointbreak.html Nathaniel was supposed to be Kennedy. BODHI Here, you need this. You can't be comin' through that door with your dxxx in your hands, right? UTAH I can't do this. BODHI Sure you can! You may even like it... it's a killer rush. You'll see. Hey, don't I show you things, Johnny U? UTAH Bodhi, this is your wake up call, man -- I... am... an... Eff... Bee... Eye... Agent!! BODHI Wild, ain't it?! See, we exist on a higher plane, you and I. We make our own rules. Why be a servant of the law Johnny U... when you can be it's master? GROMMET Fuckin' A! BODHI Ninety seconds, man, door to door. A small price to pay for someone who loves you. (he looks up) She does you know. It's not her style to fall so hard... I don't think she did with me.

hmm...what makes one a Cooper expert? Isn't that the whole reason everyone can step in? there are no qualifications, other than maybe free time. referring to the subject line: (The new Lincoln book), how come no one hopped on the Abe Lincoln book/Point Break/Ex Presidents connections? The 4 masks used were Reagan Carter Nixon Johnson Isn't it suspicious that a Lincoln mask wasn't used in the movie? The masks start with Johnson who was president from '63-'69. Gerald Ford was not used, even though he was President from '74-'77. Here's the real tell: Lyndon Johnson rubber masks are very difficult to find. My theory: find an LBJ rubber mask, and you've found Cooper. Anyone wants to call bullshit on this: post a url that sells an LBJ rubber mask.

Read it again Snowmman that is not what I said. This is what I said: Okay - have a little fun with this: Cooper double crosses Coffelt and goes back for the money where he hid it.---sounds like a double cross - right? Now go back and read what I just said - go find the article and do NOT take this statement out of context - it is said with Tongue in Cheek and for fun. And I said Larry King was Cooper. So what. Go find it yourself. I try hard to be worse than you in crazy shit, but it's not possible.

The article says he was having a hard time with the CHEST CHUTE. Then he used the BACK chute. THAT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL. the news articles I posted above say the opposite. back, then chest. If you've got something different, post it.

another article from the same 11_23_83 press blitz. (first attach) last couple of paragraphs has quote from a lawyer of Coffelt's plus some more details on his prison/college etc. placed him in Portland? Some interesting things: the claim about having a hard time with the back chute aligns with the rip mod and 28' pack causing hard pull. But it seems like he's implying he switched to using the chest. Coffelt didn't seem to know that the chest was the faulty cooper chute, and that there was the D ring problem. So just based on that description, Coffelt's story seems implausible. Maybe at the time of the Coffelt thing, the FBI still hadn't released details on which chute was actually faulty? No: I just checked that. In 1975 there are plenty of news articles saying the chest chute was the sewn one, (although is that year when Coffelt died?) However I've found articles as soon as 11/26/71 saying it was the chest chute that was sewn. The second attached snippet is from 11/26/71 San Mateo Times page 1. There are some interesting things about Coffelt's bio and the jump description. The idea of the Coffelt doing the jump with Duane on the ground is a good story but sounds like just a story. Yeah Coffelt died at 59 in 1975. The '83 thing said the lawyer on the plane said the photo was a good match, but the lawyer has never been mentioned at getting a real good look at Cooper, so it's probably a bogus ID. (edit) I got a good laugh at Jo worrying about all these little details that might not match in the story. I think she uses a different measuring stick for others! To be fair, the story is told thru 2 people. And Coffelt could have lied/dramatized about some parts (it's a told-in-prison story). But the parachute part seems to kill the story, for me.

LOL. I love this thread. I have seen enough jumps of that type to qualify some of the most prolific posters to this thread for D licenses. Hey Hammer! only Sluggo responds to praise... Sure some of this stuff sounds out there, but look at what's in the press lately for comparison... (two days ago) and tell me who's a nut? Book says Coffelt was the chauffeur of Abe Lincoln's great-grandson, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, and was Cooper (Jo's been bringing up Coffelt again recently) Now Jo has said she's been pursued by a one-legged ex-chauffeur of Howard Hughes, but I think she just has some of the facts mixed up. We never told the one-legged guy to reveal himself to her. The book was written by Charles Lachman, executive producer of "Inside Edition". pictures of Lachman and Coffelt are at Inside Edition but I've attached them too. http://www.insideedition.com/news.aspx?storyID=2184 another review of the book: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/book-links-abraham-lincoln-to-a-hijacker_100103697.html Book links Abraham Lincoln to a hijacker October 5th, 2008 - 3:10 pm ICT by ANI - New York, October 5 (ANI): D.B. Cooper, the notorious hijacker who parachuted from a Boeing 727 in 1971 with 200,000 dollars in cash and vanished without a trace, has ties to the family of Abraham Lincoln, according to a new book. Charles Lachman, executive producer of “Inside Edition”, claims in The Last Lincolns: The Rise & Fall of a Great American Family that Cooper was actually Jack Coffelt, the chauffeur of Abe Lincoln’’s great-grandson, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith. The author writes that Coffelt had set his eyes on the Lincoln fortune, which is why he charmed his way into Beckwith’’s life. However, his failure to assume control of the Lincoln trust fund might have driven him to turn hijacker, the writer states. Lachman writes that Coffelt was in Portland on the same day “Cooper” boarded the plane there, and was later seen sporting leg injuries that could have resulted form a rough parachute landing. He claims that Coffelt, who died in 1975 at age 59, even made statements to a family friend that he was Cooper. The book traces the checkered lives of Lincoln’’s descendants. “(A) dysfunctional family of alcoholics, eccentrics and spoiled brats,” the New York Post quoted Lachman as saying. (ANI) amazon has the book at http://www.amazon.com/Last-Lincolns-Great-American-Family/dp/1402758901 (edit) Byron Brown told the story to Jack Sheehan at the Las Vegan magazine in 0ct/Nov 83. The mainstream press picked it up in Nov 83. Attached article. Also has another Coffelt photo that Byron showed at the time. It's funny that the Coffelt story is like Jo's Duane story: guy who spent a lot of time in jail...claimed to work with the CIA doing "grey" stuff. etc. Interestingly, this '83 article has a quote from Himmelsbach describing the theory that Cooper wanted to jump as soon as possible from Seattle..which we've heard a bunch.

In India, they've already convicted a woman (Aditi Sharma) for murder based on a brain scan. Seems like a waste..good old american dogs and panties should be sufficient. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/15/asia/15brainscan.php "This latest Indian attempt at getting past criminals' natural defenses begins with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, in which electrodes are placed on the head to measure electrical waves. The suspect sits in silence, eyes shut. An investigator reads aloud details of the crime — as prosecutors see it — and the resulting brain images are processed using software built in Bangalore." "The Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature test, or BEOS, was developed by Champadi Raman Mukundan, an Indian neuroscientist who formerly ran the clinical psychology department of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in Bangalore. His system builds on methods developed at American universities by other scientists, including Emanuel Donchin, Lawrence Farwell and J. Peter Rosenfeld."

Jo said Hi Jo. Whenever you don't post something, it's because it weakens your case. Obviously the annotation above sounds more like something a random Cooper fan/investigator would write in a book. Yeah, you can make up some crazy thought that Duane might have had, nothing wrong with doing that. But it's obvious why you don't focus on that second page. It's because it makes it more likely that Duane didn't annotate the Gunther book. And you don't clearly spell out the two book issue all the time, because that weakens the story too. You can flame away all you want on what I say here. But we all know Larry King was Cooper. You just don't want to admit you didn't know King was involved in Mongoose.

Jo said It is good to highlight the difference between Duane with the Norjak book and the annotated Gunther book. Your comments about this have been a little obscure before. The two book thing helps to confirm a fascination with the Cooper case. (edit) It would be odd though if he annotated both books. Why would he annotate the 2nd book, if he already had the 1st book (Norjak?) Also, he owned the Norjak book, while the 2nd was a library book? Odd. In any case, you again leave out details that would help explain the oddities above. There was money in the shop, $100 bills, I believe you said, of unknown origin. Aren't all the oddities more easily explained, and the $100 bills, by Duane being involved in some other crime? Also: why would Duane keep the money bag, but not the money? It doesn't make sense. If there was a money bag, it may have been connected to the other crime Duane was obviously still involved in. Which you suspected, but continue to pretend you didn't suspect at the time.

Larry King was arrested in Miami on December 20, 1971 on charges of grand larceny. He was connected to Jim Garrison and the JFK assassination investigation. I've attached his mug shot from 1971. It's reasonable to conclude that he did the hijack to try to pay off his debts, but failed when he lost the money on the jump. Some court testimony from Dade County, The State of Florida vs. Larry King; Case No. 71-10512 is at: http://cuban-exile.com/doc_051-075/doc0071.html background: In 1960, King broke into television by hosting a local debate program called “Miami Undercover” on WPST (now WPLG). Unfortunately for King, he had to face bankruptcy because of his lavish lifestyle. He continued his career by hosting a weekend show on WTVJ in 1964 and embarking on a new profession as a columnist for the “Miami Herald” in 1965. 1968 marked King's involvement with Wall Street financier Louis Wolfson, from whom the radio personality got money to fund New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, who was investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. Three years later, (1971) King was arrested of alleged taking money from Wolfson, who admitted that not all the money lent to King made it to Garrison. King, who previously had dealt with serious financial problems, could not repay the amount and eventually pled no contest to passing bad checks. In addition to ending his broadcast career for three years, the scandal also forced King to file for bankruptcy a second time in 1978. (edit) as a side note to the Led Zep IV album evidence (old man with sticks painting = cooper with dynamite), I've attached more confirming evidence. Playboy magazine, Dec. 1971 was on the newstands the last week of Nov. 1971. Uncharacteristically, there was no playmate on the cover. Instead (cover attached) a rabbit with a white dove in the eye. The white dove flying is Cooper; The tie on the rabbit is Cooper's tie; The two rabbit ears is the two hundred thousand dollar ransom. The uncharacteristic nature of the cover links to the uncharacteristic Led Zep IV album cover.

Jo replied: Thanks Jo. You reminded me I left out your comments about the shed and the buckets there. You were pretty adamant about buckets in the past. I'm assuming you're now agreeing that what you posted before as statements of fact were just random guesses and should be ignored? i.e. this post: On Jan 23, 2008 6:48 PM you posted: "Some of the money was packed in a 5 gal plastic bucket found at an open shed on the Columbia. There was no door on the shed - it was alway open. Crazy There are now new homes where the old cabin used to be (This is where he went down to the water) just East of Winterly - the home with the buckets available was West of Winterly. Since he couldn't find the bucket - it is most likely that the Flood dislodged it. and sent it on down the Columbia." I am curious how you could come to believe the above statement was fact? And why you would present it as fact?

georger offhandedly said Jo hadn't said what book. Jo had posted this info. It was from the Gunther fiction book. Note that this also adds detail to her Duane theory...i.e. she's saying that Duane was also reading and annotating the Gunther book. The Max Gunther book is "D.B. Cooper: What Really Happened". It was printed in hardcover in Sept, 1985. 224 pages abebooks has used copies for

On the Tourin Shroud, I mean Toutle Shroud: remember it's apparently a scan of a xerox of the book. In my hazy memory, I seem to remember cheap scanners causing this grid like effect. So the grid stuff could be an artifact of the the copy/scan process. Interesting that the whole page wasn't there. I'd still like to see a pic of the other supposed page that was scribbled on.

Jo posted the following on May 16, 2008 3:05 PM "This is the page showing a map, but Toutle is written in pencil and circled -there are other notations on another page. I recognized the handwriting as being Duane's - and the person had to have known where Toutle was located --- the mark is dead on. " I attached her attached jpg. (supposedly scan of a xerox) She never posted the supposed other page. Remember, Jo never tells a single coherent story. She leaves it as bits and pieces on purpose, so the reader can invent a better story for the gaps. If Duane did have knowledge of Toutle and did note it in the book, it's implied to be sinister knowledge. If one accepts that he called himself Dan Cooper, then you would think he'd have news article-level knowledge.

I have information that a FBI informant in Alaska, known as Deep Congeniality has been tracking all known US terrorists. (There are 3.2 million). I talked to her, and she informed me that the alias "Dan Cooper" has initials "D.C.". She pointed out that Flight 305 originated in Washington D.C. "Didja every notice that?", she said. Suddenly, things got very quiet in the room, even though there were 8 guys with nice jackets and things in their ears, standing around. She then said "Ever hear of the North Woods". I said "You mean Northern Exposure? Or ....'Operation Northwood? Fake terrorist attacks' ?" ..She winked, and said "Did you look under the 727 schematics in the safe deposit box?". I hadn't. I went back and found the attached two pdfs. Page 3 has been removed. It is too politically damaging and I have been threatened and beat up. When I was a kid we played "hot peas and butter" with my cousins. The thing is, they always swung with the buckle end free. I was in a bar once with said cousin. The men at the pool table took one look at us and muttered "You're in the wrong place my friends". We wisely left.

Jo didn't give all the known facts (i use that word as in Jo's interpretation) of how Duane threw the money in the river. I'll fill in the details here. If I'm wrong, Jo can correct. It's important to understand that the Duane didn't transport the decomposed money to the Northwest in '79. It's also important to understand that most of the decomposition happened before Duane threw the money in the river. There was too much for it to happen in just the 3-4 months between Duane's throw-in and discovery... The full story is that Duane split the money up into a couple of buckets and buried them in 1971. It's unclear if they were plastic or metal buckets. I put out some info that suggested plastic 5 gallon buckets with the self-locking/sealing lids that are so common now, may have just been coming on the market then. Possibly less likely to be used by Duane 007. Jo and Duane proceeded to return to the area in 1979 because of a business trip. While on this trip, Duane dug up one of the buckets, got the money bundles and put them in the paper bag as Jo as described. It is unclear if there were more bundles or only 3 at this time. Obviously all of the money was not in one bucket, because all of the bundles wouldn't have fit in the paper bag Duane threw in the river. There was also the later Duane testimony about not being able to remember where he put a bucket. This was then tossed in the river. The paper bag and rubber band were apparently new in '79, provided by Duane. There was no description of what was done with the bucket that was dug up. Apparently it was left behind, or maybe thrown in the river also? In any case, it was important to throw the money in the river, rather than leave it in the hole/bucket it was in, or have Duane retain it. That's the whole story. There is another detail about Duane apparently knowing about the money find already, when Jo read about it in the paper, and Duane muttering how it was no good. (And the $173,000 in a bucket story)

New evidence won't matter. We had new evidence before, that raised a question that should have been simply answerable. No answer was found. Ckret produced 3 new photos of Tena Bar area, from '70, '74 and '79. The '74 photo was dated 9/6/74 We know from other records that the dredging in the Tena Bar area took place approx. 8/74 thru 10/74. (some records indicate 8/74 for OR side, 10/74 for WA side). In fact, there is a pipeline dredge in operation, in the 9/6/74 photo, which I highlighted before. (attached again). My post back in Jul 25, 2008, 8:12 PM had some pictures (closer up) of pipeline dredges on the columbia at willignham for comparison. It's a match to what you see in the 9/6/74 photo. I did a montage of all available photos. The circled areas were theorized to be the money find location. (what else could it be? (edit) they were present on the photos as given by Ckret). The important part: the 9/6/74 photo shows the money find just N of a "bump-out" in the sand..i.e. the beachline is disturbed too abruptly to be natural. Since: 1) we know sand was dumped at the Fazio's, 2) and it sure looks like a pipeline dredge was used that summer, (photo) which spits sand out close to shore (a slurry of water+sand) 3) and Tosaw said a pipeline dredge was used based on talking to the Corps of Engineers, 4) Those two bumps of sand were not there in '70 and had disappeared by '79, they don't appear to be naturally reoccurring? Google Earth shows them not there now. The attached montage (which I posted before) zoomed and aligned the areas from the 4 photos as best I could for ease of comparison. In short, I think there was strong evidence to suggest that the money was found at the point where a pipeline dredge deposited dredge spoils at the Fazio's. It would seem to be an easy proposition to show the '74 picture to Corps of Engineer folks. Either back in '80 or now. The '74 sand bumpouts at the money find location, with the money being found "above" or "in" dredge spoils, seems like too much coincidence to me. Sure there's the unanswerable question about going thru a pipeline dredge .But the simple question of "Was the money found right where the pipeline dredge spit stuff out?" should have been easily answerable.

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/News_Articles/2008/galinskyseeingisbelieving.aspx Caught this article. Was interesting to ponder my own thoughts. snips: The research was done by Adam Galinsky, the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., in collaboration with lead author Jennifer Whitson, an assistant professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Through a series of six experiments, the researchers showed that individuals who lacked control were more likely to see images that did not exist, perceive conspiracies, and develop superstitions. According to Whitson, that psychological need is for control, and the ability to minimize uncertainty and predict beneficial courses of action. In situations where one has little control, the researchers proposed that an individual may believe that mysterious, unseen mechanisms are secretly at work. To test their theory, the researchers created a number of situations characterized by lack of control and then measured whether people saw a variety of illusory patterns. For example, in one experiment individuals were asked to look at “snowy” pictures. Half of the pictures were grainy patterns of random dots, while the other half also contained images like a chair, a boat, or the planet Saturn, that were faintly visible against the grainy background. While all people correctly identified 95 percent of the hidden images, the group of people who had felt their control had been eroded in a previous part of the experiment also “saw” images in 43 percent of the pictures that were just random scatterings of dots. “People see false patterns in all types of data, imagining trends in stock markets, seeing faces in static, and detecting conspiracies between acquaintances. This suggests that lacking control leads to a visceral need for order – even imaginary order,” said Whitson. ... Restoring a Sense of Control To test whether individuals with diminished power can restore control and realign their perceptions, the researchers asked participants to rate how strongly they believed in certain values (like aesthetic beauty or valuing scientific theory and research). They then asked participants to write about situations in which they were helpless or lacked control. To restore feelings of control afterwards, some participants were asked to elaborate on the values they had rated as important. As a comparison, other participants were asked to elaborate on the value they held in lowest esteem. The results were clear: participants who didn’t have an opportunity to regain feelings of control were more likely to perceive visual images that didn’t exist and to perceive conspiracies in innocent situations, while participants who regained feelings of control by focusing on important personal values were no different from people who never lost their feelings of self-control in the first place. "It's exciting - restoring people's sense of control normalized their perceptions and behavior," said Galinsky.

found a nice site with old 727 history stuff I hadn't seen before. Some cool stuff. 1) The first rollout of a 727 was E1, [N7001U] on Nov. 27, 1962 The first picture is interesting because it shows the mixture of topcoats that the men were wearing outside (I'm assuming drizzle?) in 1962, at Boeing. Note the predominance of sand/tan. Some are black. All seem to be the same length, mid thigh. Some wore no topcoat. Oliver Stone will notice there is just one guy staring at the camera. Lower right. He wears a black topcoat. If you thought 11/24/71 was picked in relation to some "special" day, it's interestingly close to 9 years after the first 727 rollout 11/27/62. 2) and 3) are pictures of the first takeoff and landing of a 727. (E1 1963) 4-6) some actual 727 schematics. These are likely the schematics that Jo has said Duane had access to. 7) is a nice ground tail shot, from the 727 first flight day (1963). Another interesting factoid: from the nwa.com site, apparently Northwest was the most profitable airline for almost 3 years? around the '68-'70 era. http://www.nwa.com/corpinfo/upclose/1970.shtml 1970: "For third year in a row, Northwest leads the U.S. airline industry in net profitability." 8) Dorky died 8/24/00. His wife Arlene did not give me any safe deposit box keys. 9) Andrew Moonen currently lives in the South Park section of Seattle, near Boeing Field, WA. Boeing field has been used for first flights of 737s, 757s and 777s, and notably the B-52 Stratofortress. The "Chewbacca" defense, I have noted before, was presented on the animated TV show, "South Park"

About Jo? Just human kindness. The Internet somehow brings out the sarcastic bully in all of us, me included at times. You need to balance it out with tolerance. Jo is sincere in her beliefs, has suffered the loss of a spouse and is apparently gravely ill. I don't think Duane Weber was Dan Cooper, but Jo isn't the devil for thinking he was. Ah okay, that's the difference. I'm all for kindness. Let's see my last street handout I gave was for someone claiming to need gas money. I think he did. The last nice thing I did for Jo was tell her to go away when she sent me PMs offering money for services rendered. The thing is, Jo is not a sympathetic character to me. She seems like quite the bully from where I sit. Not quite the innocent "Oh I just have my beliefs" kind of situation that you describe, deserving sympathy. Here's an acid test: picture her as a guy. Do your thoughts stay the same, or does she just sound like a blowhard manipulator? Now picture me as a woman, maybe calling out another woman. Do your thoughts change? Now if the situation really is this poor weak woman who needs kindness from strangers, well sure that's a different story. But nothing I've heard makes me think that's the truth. If it was, I would think Jo's message would come across differently. At least my experience with folks that really do have problems tells me that.

Okay, so I'm sorting thru all the posts on this thread, including all mine. Although I don't want to admit it, I think maybe Hooper was right. This thread (and my participation) is as pathetic as he always said, although not for the reasons he claimed.