snowmman

377 said "Because of his refusal to show respect for the FBI, he was denied access to FBI documents and put on a "stop and harrass for any reason" license plate list distributed to local police departments countrywide." When I was younger, I remember a cop stopped me in my beat up car, and when I wouldn't tell him why I had a newish vacuum cleaner in the back, he kept me on the side of the road for about an hour (in a small town) while he sat in his car on the radio...he was sure he'd find something on me. I started to fall asleep. Eventually went on my way with a ticket for a stop sign, but he never found out why I had the vacuum cleaner.

377 wondered "Besides, it is more exciting to think of Braden holding some REALLY BIG secrets, perhaps ones not yet revealed to the public even today." His two secrets were 1) That anyone can skydive. It's no big deal. 2) That the insertion idea into Laos was a joke. The coverup was mostly motivated by 1). The military decided if that got out, none of their jumpers would get laid.

I'm surprised, Snow. I don't know exactly what you studied but presume sciences. Mathematics and Philosophy have always seemed to me like wonderful subjects to study in tandem. let's see, now I'm reminiscing. Senior year: 3 of us shared a basement apt. 2 guys 1 girl....which is a long story. I remember a Govt. 101 writing course: it was focused on revolutions. I still have my papers from then. Hmm. might not be good for Homeland Security to see those. Crazy guy with red hair and handlebar mustache was our T.A. A Lit course on Comedies: I remember the professor having just a little too much fun reading passages from "Lolita". What else there...."The Importance of Being Earnest" Orange1 would have liked that class/professor.

re: science vs engineering. To land on the moon, they first assumed they could. Everything else was just a detail to be worked out. Now building the first atomic bomb: was that different? I think not. Assume you could do it and it would blow up. Then you gather the resources and materials to show you were right. (edit) what confounds the issue is sort of a survivor's bias: we remember the cases where that process worked. So it's hard to prove that it's a good process or a bad process. All you can say is that processes like that produced certain results. Would other processes work? Maybe? But sometimes the experiment only gets done once.

Sluggo posted Tom's resume. He's published a lot of papers on dinosaur bones. So if Tom says something about things in the ground, I thought that means it's true? What's wrong with my thinking? Tom was also vetted by Seattle FBI: Special Agent Larry Carr. Because of his qualifications, he was given privileged access to FBI documents.

true story: in college, I had to take some liberal electives. I could have taken anything, including art (I did take some drawing classes, actually. Fun!) Senior year, I took a boatload of courses I was interested in. Kind of too busy, too many other things going on. Took a sophomore level Philosophy course for my liberal elective. Always missed class. Turned in a couple papers way late. Figured I'd pull it out on the final, since that had worked before. Finals week, I go to the prof's office to try to find out when the final is going to be (after catching up on all the assigned reading). I discover, unlike all my previous courses, that the final was take-home, and had been handed out in class. I realized then I was doomed. There was no way to even take the final. I ended up having to stay the summer to take a liberal elective to graduate. I took a sociology/group behavior course. As part of it, we did this experiment, that was related to how groups work together. In the end, it was cut short, because our class went against the prior results. All prior groups had dissolved in discord, unable to be productive. We went thru a dip, but then our productivity soared (it was a fake factory thing, with lots of small groups with limited communication). I think the key to our success, and confounding of the professor, was our focus on communication. I used the mainframe computer (IBM 360), and early formatting software, to publish a "newsletter" for our factory. By a weird twist of fate, I was dealt a card in the game, that gave me free travel in the hallway, to all the groups..everyone else was constrained. So what's my point? Just that I don't know how people perceive what's rational and what's not.

377: "As a deserter, his credibility was already compromised compared to honorably discharged vets who completed their tours. " Why would Braden's credibility be questioned based on desertion? Actually it was a sign of rationality. The only rational thing to do, if you were in SOG as it evolved in the early '60s, was to leave. Wouldn't it make more sense to question the credibility of those inside MACV-SOG?

I have never talked to anyone connected with FBI or CIA, other than reading posts Ckret made here. So I'm just connecting the dots. Now you can argue that the CIA put Braden in Fort Dix, but no one in the CIA knew about it. I guess that's some kind of weird argument. It's like the Cooper=whuffo argument: anyone could have done it. Same thing with CIA and FBI: they're all just whuffos, so you can't blame anybody. (edit) re FBI and CIA Yes I guess that's a good theory. The FBI is investigating hijackings in 1971, with known history of political motivations in hijackers...and the vietnam war is raging, and McCoy was ex-vietnam..and there's no reason to expect they would ask the CIA "What do you think?" I don't think there's any reason the FBI would contact anyone actually. The investigation was mostly Himmelsbach burying info. Except snowmman. You can blame him. He's nuts.

Easy: you said Starbucks, I said no Starbucks, you didn't ask about other chains! Seattle has been in SA for years, and has many more branches all over the country than Vida. But - honestly - it isn't as nearly good as Vida. Can we get those dollars now please? Your honor, the witness is clearly being non-cooperative. I request permission to treat as non-cooperative. The damn dollars have purple stains and holes and ragged edges. Have to clean them up first.

Orange1 asked, without confessing to the coffee issue: Yes Braden was obvious. I don't have the Ramparts article yet. I just got a notice that it's being shipped. I'll know more when I get it. The CIA were the guys that picked him up in Africa, and put him in solitary for 123 days at Fort Dix. They interrogated him, on who he talked to, the possibility of foreign agents etc. The CIA clearly had files on Braden. The FBI, if they contacted other agencies, with respect to 727, jumping, Vietnam, would have gotten the Braden data from the CIA. The CIA and FBI jointly buried the information. The public didn't know about MACV-SOG then. (because the government hid it). The CIA and FBI did, and they knew about Braden.

Chief Quartermaster (QMC) Phillips: Captain, are you giving away our fuel for a Playmate of the Month? Willard: No, Playmate of the Year, Chief! [Willard takes a swig from a beer bottle]

377 confessed: "a sophisticated team of spooks who post as Snowmman." There was an original Snowmman. He was terminated with extreme prejudice. We did put a nice memorial plate in the entranceway for him, though. (edit) (storyboarding the movie scene) Cousin Brucie says: "What are they gonna say about him? What are they gonna say? That he was a kind man? That he was a wise man? That he had plans? That he had wisdom? Bullshit man!"

Can you explain. I have not seen the Nat Geo program. What analysis of Tom's proved this conclusion, according to who? Please explain - Didn't Tom say it in the documentary? If they didn't show all the data, I'm assuming it was just edited for brevity. I'd go look in that youtube clip I made, but my memory is pretty certain that Tom just said it, I think based on his measurements or something. (edit) Georger: this is a low res mashup of Tom's Theory as presented on TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwlCiCXxeUk I'm a little confused now that you remind me, because thru third parties, Tom recanted 2 days after the broadcast. So maybe you're right. I don't know what Tom thinks. It would have been better if he had gotten published, so we'd have something to read.

nigel99 said: Okay I'll do that. You're saying the Washougal is a good LZ. Can you explain why?

Bruce, I can't seem to pinpoint where you might contact the 80 year old Ted B. Braden. Anyone who's looked up that guy's birthday will laugh. White Haven, PA might be another area to check. If the FBI wanted to talk to him, he might show up in criminal records somewhere?

Seattle coffee IS available in Cape Town. So the locals must think it's okay. I won't accept Orange1's judgement on Vida, unless she says she's at least sampled a cup at Seattle Coffee. The invasion has been put on hold till this is resolved. There is no more room in the C-123K, so we can't bring our own. Need an answer. http://south-africa-travel.suite101.com/article.cfm/cape_towns_best_coffee_experience Cape Town may not be part of the Starbucks Empire, but there are two places to get your caffeine fix in an urban designer setting, namely Seattle Coffee and Vida E Caffé, which offer Cape Town’s best coffee experience. Seattle Coffee, Cape Town’s copycat franchise based on the famous Starbucks chain has been operating for close to a decade and has outlets – mostly in malls – all over Cape Town. Seattle Coffee has imitated Starbuck’s formula of offering an empowering, yet agonizing choice of coffee permutations and a similar caffeine cult language to express it. While it may not match Starbucks 19,000 different coffee styles, many of the most popular global coffee idioms of Starbucks coffee lingua franca, such as the ubiquitous Grande Latte, are available. Starbucks speakers will have no problem communicating, although a few translations are in order: A “no-fun-grande-latte-with-wings” is equivalent to a decaffeinated tall latte to go (no supersizes here). Seattle Coffee’s exposed, burnt brick walls, distressed leather arm chairs, marble coffee tables and dark veneer floors in its franchises are standard Starbucks, as are the above average prices. Seattle, like Starbucks, offers a coffee experience beyond the drinking and charges for it. Seattle’s main rival, Vida e Caffé (Life and Coffee, in Portuguese) popped up a few years ago to capitalize on the coffee experience market. A Portuguese coffee shop concept, with an emphasis on making the best coffee, offering Portuguese rolls and pastries, in an urban chic environment has expanded to dozens of franchises around Cape Town. Its trademark bold Ferrari red and white signage, faux wood grain counters, mosaic tiles, and white and stainless steel furniture targets trendy, creative, urbanites from models to film producers. Vida offers a limited range of freshly baked, white bread rolls filled with Portuguese cold meat such as Chorizo sausage, as well as mozzarella, smoked salmon, and fried egg. Muffins are also displayed prominently and range from sweet pepper and feta, to four cheeses, to blueberry, white chocolate and others. Vida’s coffee is thick and rich and its foam is ultra-thick (because they use ultra-pasteurized nonfat milk as their secret ingredient) Instead of learning coffee speak, its clients have become familiar with Portuguese ordering items like pao com salmao (salmon roll), and coffee gelado (iced coffee). The usually lusophone African staff from Mozambique or Angola, have been told to deliver a constant stream of noisy Portuguese to enliven the atmosphere and add to the caffeine buzz. Despite being a franchise, Vida has – through clever marketing – been able to retain its genuine one-off feel, essential for its clientele which prides itself on its individualism.

I'm confused. I thought you said the FBI had the opportunity to do forensic analysis on the money multiple times over the years, like they did for the DNA analysis from the tie, and the various fingerprint analyses they did over the years. I also assumed they did a thorough fiber and other forensic analysis at the time, and have a pretty good idea of how old/used the tie was at the time of the hijack. I expect Tom's thing about the pollen is just wrong, since he's been wrong about contaminants before? But the other stuff Tom did: in the documentary he clearly showed that the money was deposited soon after the jump, based on his analysis of the money, and other data. This is new/different, than what the FBI presented over the years. So I'm assuming the FBI's forensic analysis was flawed, because they didn't have access to the gear that Tom did. Tom has a lot of scientific equipment at his home in AZ. (edit) Does anyone know how much Tom got paid? There's a rumor that he got $50k. Which is to be expected. That equipment doesn't come cheap. There's also a rumor that Sluggo got paid, but I don't believe that. (edit) Jerry: if you need a brightlight, turn on your beacon. (edit) Georger: food for thought: Waugh thought Cooper's act was "slick". Waugh is a professional giving judgment. Do you think maybe Waugh doesn't have all the facts? I'm wondering why your judgment might be better than Waugh's. Comments?

georger: you may be right. But how do we search for a whuffo? what should I be looking for? Is Ckret's strategy correct then? This case is totally dependent on a close relative remembering or finding something? Can we help that process? What exactly should we be doing, georger?

thats very well put . . . We do have Duane Weber's fingerprints. (remember Ckret posted) If Ckret would publish some of the prints from the plane, we could do a comparison. It's possible the FBI fingerprint analysis is flawed. Tom Kaye has shown their forensic analysis of the money was flawed, so who knows?

I'm glad I'm not a skydiver. They talk about all this bullshit community stuff. But they'd drop a dime on you in a second, throw you under the bus, etc.

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I only need to guess 4 digits and I have Ted, 49's social security number. (from Sluggo's post) Nice! When I'm arrested, I'll say I got it from the FBI. Get out of Jail Free! (I'll throw Sluggo to them as part of the "ring" I'm in) (edit) Sluggo: the tool you're using. If you read the agreement that came with it, I believe you agreed to various restrictions on the use of the data. In fact most of those companies agree to cooperate with authorities, if there is misuse (i.e. provide information to LE).

You claimed to be a gentleman. I guess if one picks an arbitrary definition of gentleman, you are. Kind of like 2+1=5, for appropriate values of 1.

He said that it may be his son. So that makes it okay? What about possible daughters? Or people he might have slept with?

If I remember correctly, April 2008 or thereabouts was the only time Quade did a mass delete of posts for some reason. Is that the spirit you're referring to? Or some made-up notion of spirit? or proposing something new and fresh, but never seen before here? (edit) The Ted B. Braden, 80 years old, I referred to, might not be the one we want, although the age seems roughly correct. I'm waiting on the mail for my Ramparts magazine. So I'm hoping I get an age from that. I'm really, really surprised you didn't see the Ted B. Braden I'm talking about. I have a home address, but I suspect it might not be current. I don't post shit like that on web forums though. Because I'm not from Alabama. :) (smileys always make things all right)