wrote
The CHP has a VERY large staff that even includes a lot of car
mechanics, in addition to scientists from many disiplines. They have
labrotories and millions of dollars of equipment. They have access to
huge databases and other organizations with addtional expertise that
you can't access. They have a budget for paying for tests and outside
help when needed. My guess is that their car mechanics have a lot more
education and experience than you.

You can't hold a candle to them.

We've not seen the final report yet either. It may take a while for the
true story to come out. We may see some ail time here. I wonder if Judge
Ito will hear the case.

wrote the following:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:53:16 -0400, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:


wrote

The CHP has a VERY large staff that even includes a lot of car
mechanics, in addition to scientists from many disiplines. They have
labrotories and millions of dollars of equipment. They have access to
huge databases and other organizations with addtional expertise that
you can't access. They have a budget for paying for tests and outside
help when needed. My guess is that their car mechanics have a lot more
education and experience than you.

You can't hold a candle to them.

We've not seen the final report yet either. It may take a while for the
true story to come out. We may see some ail time here. I wonder if Judge
Ito will hear the case.



I completely agree that we haven't seen the final report. Could easily
be a year from now, and the verdict may surprise ALL of us.

Anyone who thinks they have the answer NOW is full of baloney.

Yep, there is no true answer now, and maybe never can be. A lot of
things happen once, that cannot be repeated.
The only thing that could cast doubt on his story is his past history,
but that's not proof that he is lying now.


--

Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
In the original Orange County. Est. 1683
To email, remove the double zeroes after @

"h" wrote in
:


wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:42:11 -0400, "h"
wrote:


wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. Clearly
covered with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to
hold _anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be
spread out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...tent/uploads/2
009/10/balloon.jpg

He can't spell "baloon", so why would he know anything about how
they're made?


I don't generally worry about typo's on usenet.


Shrug. If you make the same typo 50 times, it's not a "typo". And the
plural of "typo" is "typos", not "typo's", which is the possessive.
Yes, as a matter of fact I did used to teach English.




go teach it elsewhere....

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

On Mar 19, 7:36*am, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K





wrote:
On Mar 19, 3:43*am, mm wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:25:29 -0400, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:24:06 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

On Mar 18, 5:25*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:20:08 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 18, 7:41*am, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:36:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:

Really OT but on subject of press 'buying into stories'. *Balloon Boy
is a fine example. *They bought the story of the kid being in there
and that went on for hours and hours. *Not once, not nobody, even
mentioned that had the kid been in there he was dead. *You cannot
breath a helium atmosphere and live.

I don't recall that anyone ever reported that he was inside the helium
filled envelope. There was a small "box" on the underside.

Only one of the kids at the beginning, daddy and mommy a couple
times. *The original 911 call was 'kid in the baloon'

No, there was no 'box' attached. *There was one unconfirmed report
that someone had "seen" one but Daddy never confirmed nor denied that
there was one. *There was also the report that someone had seen the
kid fall out of the thing. *Also uncofirmed and proven false.

At the end, when they found the baloon, therewas no "box" attached.

Harry K

The balloon, complete with box was shown repeatedly on television. It
was never alleged by anybody that the kid was in the envelope. He had
supposedly been yelled at previously for playing inside the box under
the balloon.

Oh, look!

http://images.smh.com.au/2009/10/16/...boy-presser-42...

...and here's a picture of the balloon as it landed, with the box
still attached to the bottom:

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2...jpg-Hidequoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Better look again. *That is not a "box", it is part of the balloon..
News reports all day were full of "in" the baloon and you must have
missed the shots of the cops frantically slashing at it looking for
the kid.

The "box" report was of someone sayting the saw a 'box' or 'car'
_suspended_ from the baloon.

Harry K

It is a box, and if you look around I'm pretty sure you can find
photos or video showing it in detail with the door open and closed. It
was intended for cameras and weather instruments, not human
passengers. It was big enough for a small kid to get inside.

Right. That's why the thing looked like a mushroom. *The stem was the
box. * There's not a lot of point to building a balloon that won't
carry a payload. *If that's all you want, you can buy one fully made
at the supermarket.

The cops slashed the balloon because the wind was catching it and they
wanted to make sure it stayed right where it was.

Oh, yeah. *That was why. * The balloon wasn't empty, it still had
helium, almost enough to fly since until a littel while earlier it was
flying, so letting out the helium kept the wind from taking it away.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Try again. *STandard instrumentation on such baloons is suspended
_below_ it, not _in_ it.

I listened to the entire thing and the 'box discussion was proven
invalid. IIANM it was even mentioned in summaries at the end of the
'action"

It is amazing how people can get two different 'facts' from the same
show, one wrong, one right and I am on the right side.

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. *Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...ent/uploads/20...

The box was described after the fact as being made of very lightweight
panels taped together that would not have been strong enough to hold
the boy while airborne. It was in fact, intended to carry instruments
that did not weigh very much.

No one knew any of this, or even the size and carrying capacity of the
balloon itself until after the fact. Pretty hard to judge the size of
it when it was a tiny dot in the sky with nothing next to it for
comparison. All they had to go on was what was reported BY THE FAMILY,
who said they thought the booy was in the balloon and had somehow
launched himself. That is the sum total of what was known until much
later.

When the balloon first landed and the boy was not in the box, it was
feared that he had fallen out.

Hindsight, 20/20, etc...- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Here, I did your work for you:

"Authorities began to fear the worst after reports surfaced that a box
possibly carrying Falcon may have fallen off the balloon.

A Weld County Sheriff's deputy had said he saw an object fall off the
balloon somewhere over Platteville, Colorado, which is in the search
area. There was no box attached when the balloon landed at 1:35 p.m"

Source

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/15/col...oon/index.html

As I pointed out before. The report of a box attached was
unconfirmed, daddy did not say yea or nay and there was no box when it
landed.

As for them slashing at it to deflate it - try again. It was already
on the ground and wasn't going anywhere. It was a wild attack trying
to find the kid INSIDE the baloon.

I watched the whole thing almost from the beginning and the report of
the kid perhaps being in a 'box' was already discounted long before
the thing landed.

The baloon was constructed to resemble a flying saucer and was a
pretty good immitation of one in an early Sci Fi film.

Harry K

On Mar 19, 10:42*am, "h" wrote:
wrote in message

... On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. *Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...ent/uploads/20...

He can't spell "baloon", so why would he know anything about how they're
made?

OOOOHHHH!! a spelling flame. Jeez, I haven' seen one of those for
ages. Thank you!

Harry K

On Mar 19, 11:29*am, "h" wrote:
wrote in message

...





On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:42:11 -0400, "h"
wrote:

wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. *Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...ent/uploads/20....

He can't spell "baloon", so why would he know anything about how they're
made?

I don't generally worry about typo's on usenet.

Shrug. If you make the same typo 50 times, it's not a "typo". And the plural
of "typo" is "typos", not "typo's", which is the possessive. Yes, as a
matter of fact I did used to teach English. *- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

In addition to being a pedantic prick you demonstrate that:
1. You can't count.
2. You don't know the difference between a possesive and a
contraction.

Harry K

On Mar 19, 2:35*pm, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:29:10 -0400, "h"
wrote:







wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:42:11 -0400, "h"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. *Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...ent/uploads/20....

He can't spell "baloon", so why would he know anything about how they're
made?

I don't generally worry about typo's on usenet.

Shrug. If you make the same typo 50 times, it's not a "typo". And the plural
of "typo" is "typos", not "typo's", which is the possessive. Yes, as a
matter of fact I did used to teach English. *

I didn't count how many times anybody used baloon where you or I might
use balloon. It's not a way to win an argument in usenet, where few
bother with spellcheck, most posts are casual conversation, and many
participants do not speak English as their first language.

Typo's is short for "Typographical Errors" *- the apostrophe is
correct, and does not make it possessive.- Hide quoted text -


That would be true if it were a contraction (do not = don't), but it's
an abbreviation, not a contraction. You can have a "typo" or multiple
"typos".

On Mar 19, 11:29*am, "h" wrote:
wrote in message

...





On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:42:11 -0400, "h"
wrote:

wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. *Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...ent/uploads/20....

He can't spell "baloon", so why would he know anything about how they're
made?

I don't generally worry about typo's on usenet.

Shrug. If you make the same typo 50 times, it's not a "typo". And the plural
of "typo" is "typos", not "typo's", which is the possessive. Yes, as a
matter of fact I did used to teach English. *- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

So in addition to proving you are a pedantic prick you also prove
that:

a. You can't count.
b. You don't know the difference between a possesive and a
contraction.

Harry K

On Mar 19, 3:27*pm, willshak wrote:
wrote the following:





On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:53:16 -0400, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:

wrote

The CHP has a VERY large staff that even includes a lot of car
mechanics, in addition to scientists from many disiplines. They have
labrotories and millions of dollars of equipment. They have access to
huge databases and other organizations with addtional expertise that
you can't access. They have a budget for paying for tests and outside
help when needed. My guess is that their car mechanics have a lot more
education and experience than you.

You can't hold a candle to them.

We've not seen the final report yet either. *It may take a while for the
true story to come out. *We may see some ail time here. *I wonder if Judge
Ito will hear the case.

I completely agree that we haven't seen the final report. Could easily
be a year from now, and the verdict may surprise ALL of us.

Anyone who thinks they have the answer NOW is full of baloney.

Yep, there is no true answer now, and maybe never can be. A lot of
things happen once, that cannot be repeated.
The only thing that could cast doubt on his story is his past history,
but that's not proof that he is lying now.

--

Only his past history can cast doubt? Good grief. The guy was told
by the 911 operator repeatedly to shift the car into neutral and/or
turn it off. He refused to do so. He claimed he could not stop or
slow the car, yet when the patrol car catches up with him after 20+
miles, the cop tells him to fully apply the brakes. The car slows to
50MPH and then the cop tells him to shut off the engine. He does and
the car stops. He claimed he reached down and tried to pull the gas
pedal back up but it wouldn't budge. He also said the reason he
didn't shut off the car was he didn't want to take his hands off the
wheel, so how the hell did he do a head stand to get at the pedal?
Forbes magazine tried to reach the gas pedal, and even with the seat
all the way forward, they could barely touch the pedal when it was not
depressed, let alone grab a depressed pedal and pull on it. Try it
in your car and tell me why in the hell you'd try that at 94mph,
instead of putting the car in neutral.

It's about 99.99% certain this guy is a lying skunk just on the facts
of the incident. His past just adds icing to the cake.









Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
In the original Orange County. Est. 1683
To email, remove the double zeroes after @- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:10:35 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

On Mar 19, 1:21*am, mm wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:24:06 -0700 (PDT), Harry K





wrote:
On Mar 18, 5:25*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:20:08 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 18, 7:41*am, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:36:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:

Really OT but on subject of press 'buying into stories'. *Balloon Boy
is a fine example. *They bought the story of the kid being in there
and that went on for hours and hours. *Not once, not nobody, even
mentioned that had the kid been in there he was dead. *You cannot
breath a helium atmosphere and live.

I don't recall that anyone ever reported that he was inside the helium
filled envelope. There was a small "box" on the underside.

Only one of the kids at the beginning, daddy and mommy a couple
times. *The original 911 call was 'kid in the baloon'

No, there was no 'box' attached. *There was one unconfirmed report
that someone had "seen" one but Daddy never confirmed nor denied that
there was one. *There was also the report that someone had seen the
kid fall out of the thing. *Also uncofirmed and proven false.

At the end, when they found the baloon, therewas no "box" attached.

Harry K

The balloon, complete with box was shown repeatedly on television. It
was never alleged by anybody that the kid was in the envelope. He had
supposedly been yelled at previously for playing inside the box under
the balloon.

Oh, look!

http://images.smh.com.au/2009/10/16/...boy-presser-42...

...and here's a picture of the balloon as it landed, with the box
still attached to the bottom:

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2...7411x.jpg-Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Better look again. *That is not a "box", it is part of the balloon.

It's covered in mylar like the balloon is, or is made of, but it's
definitely a box.

News reports all day were full of "in" the baloon and you must have
missed the shots of the cops frantically slashing at it looking for
the kid.

If they slashed the balloon itself it's because he wasn't in the box
when they thought he was so they were looking everywhere. *In a hot
air balloon, one can crawl into the balloon part, especially when the
flame is off or after it lands. *



The "box" report was of someone sayting the saw a 'box' or 'car'
_suspended_ from the baloon.

There are always two usages of "in the balloon". *One considers the
entire contraption the balloon and "in the balloon" *means in the
basket under the balloon. * That's what the meaning is here.

The other refers to the part that holds the hot air, in a hot air
balloon. *And in a helium balloon, it refers to the rubber or mylar
balloon, and no one goes into that. *It's entrance is probably less
than an inch wide. Even for a 6'foot diameter balloon or bigger the
opening is only an inch or less. *But the cops were desperate and
maybe there were multiple rubber balloons and they thought it
possibley he could have slid in between two of them. * Are they
supposed to look only in the basket and then say, "I guess he's not
here."



Harry K- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You can deny it being part of the baloon all you want. It won't
change the facts. That is standard baloon construction method.

I'm not sure if yuou're disagreeing with me or not, especially after
reading your reply to my other post.

If standard balloon construction means that the box is part of the
balloon, that's fine, and that's what I said, that one meaning of
balloon is the whole contraption. So even if someone is in the basket,
he's still said to be in the balloon, even though no one thinks he is
the chamber with the helium or hot air.

Here it's not so much what terminology balloon makers use but what the
reporter used, or what the cop used.

Compare it with almost any picture of a baloon.

My image of a balloon is a big gas bag with a wicker basket hanging
from it, held by ropes, with a fire device in the middle of the
basket, heating the air inside the balloon. I used balloon in two
different ways in the previous sentence. As I said, "ballooon" can be
used two ways, the big gas bag or the whole contraption.

Then there was the Hindenberg, which had many large balloons in a
frame, with a passenger compartment underneath. I don't think the
Hindenberg was called a balloon, but that was probably for advertising
reasons. The same reason it was named a dirigible, directable,
something whose direction was under control, to separate it from a
balloon that wanders almost aimlessly at the whim of the winds. But a
dirigible is just one form of balloon.

You can also do some
searching on the 'net for a summary of the action that day and yu will
find that there is no 'box'

There was a chamber intended for instruments that had no helium in it.
Whether they used the word box or not, that's what I mean.

Harry K

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

On Mar 19, 3:43*am, mm wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:25:29 -0400, wrote:



The cops slashed the balloon because the wind was catching it and they
wanted to make sure it stayed right where it was.

Oh, yeah. *That was why. * The balloon wasn't empty, it still had
helium, almost enough to fly since until a littel while earlier it was
flying, so letting out the helium kept the wind from taking it away.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Try again. STandard instrumentation on such baloons is suspended
_below_ it, not _in_ it.

That's what I'm saying.

I listened to the entire thing and the 'box discussion was proven
invalid. IIANM it was even mentioned in summaries at the end of the
'action"

It is amazing how people can get two different 'facts' from the same
show, one wrong, one right and I am on the right side.

That's true, it is amazing. (Please change I to you. )

I agree with you that spelling errors don't mean anything, except
maybe in some rare cases, like if someone deduces a word's meaning
from its spelling, and relies on that in an argument. But not in this
thread.

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:59:51 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:23:29 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:16:05 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:40:07 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:59:51 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:53:37 -0400, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:


"Harry K" wrote
Try again. If they prove that, then the charge will be fraud and he
would have a felony conviction on his record. Not worth 50,000 to me.

Harry K

How much then??? I'm holding out for $250k if no jail time. $1 million if
jail time.

So far, Sike's and the CHP officer's account have not been disproved -
just attacked by those with an incredibly strong motive to want to
cover this up.

http://hosted2.ap.org/CTMID/APUSnews/Article_2010-03-18-US-Runaway-Prius/id-p19140421bf1742938cfb3ed8d72b4cdc


California Highway Patrol's official position:

"Pennings reaffirmed CHP's position that no evidence has emerged to
doubt Sikes' version of events."


Did this "chippy" graduate from the same police college as the one who
killed himself and his family instead of using his brakes properly and
shutting off the Lexus???

This "chippy" is a large professional law enforcement department with
a whole division just for investigating accidents.

I'm quite sure their expertise exceeds yours by a very wide margin.

In some ways, most definitely - in others, doubtful.

The CHP has a VERY large staff that even includes a lot of car
mechanics, in addition to scientists from many disiplines. They have
labrotories and millions of dollars of equipment. They have access to
huge databases and other organizations with addtional expertise that
you can't access. They have a budget for paying for tests and outside
help when needed. My guess is that their car mechanics have a lot more
education and experience than you.

You can't hold a candle to them.


I wasn't alking about the Hiway Patrol - I was talking about the
lame-brain officer(s).

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:35:03 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:29:10 -0400, "h"
wrote:


wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:42:11 -0400, "h"
wrote:


wrote in message
m...
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...10/balloon.jpg

He can't spell "baloon", so why would he know anything about how they're
made?


I don't generally worry about typo's on usenet.


Shrug. If you make the same typo 50 times, it's not a "typo". And the plural
of "typo" is "typos", not "typo's", which is the possessive. Yes, as a
matter of fact I did used to teach English.


I didn't count how many times anybody used baloon where you or I might
use balloon. It's not a way to win an argument in usenet, where few
bother with spellcheck, most posts are casual conversation, and many
participants do not speak English as their first language.

Typo's is short for "Typographical Errors" - the apostrophe is
correct, and does not make it possessive.


Mabee in your private world.

On Mar 19, 2:33*pm, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:17:40 -0700 (PDT), Harry K





wrote:
On Mar 19, 7:36*am, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 19, 3:43*am, mm wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:25:29 -0400, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:24:06 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

On Mar 18, 5:25*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:20:08 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 18, 7:41*am, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:36:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:

Really OT but on subject of press 'buying into stories'. *Balloon Boy
is a fine example. *They bought the story of the kid being in there
and that went on for hours and hours. *Not once, not nobody, even
mentioned that had the kid been in there he was dead. *You cannot
breath a helium atmosphere and live.

I don't recall that anyone ever reported that he was inside the helium
filled envelope. There was a small "box" on the underside.

Only one of the kids at the beginning, daddy and mommy a couple
times. *The original 911 call was 'kid in the baloon'

No, there was no 'box' attached. *There was one unconfirmed report
that someone had "seen" one but Daddy never confirmed nor denied that
there was one. *There was also the report that someone had seen the
kid fall out of the thing. *Also uncofirmed and proven false..

At the end, when they found the baloon, therewas no "box" attached.

Harry K

The balloon, complete with box was shown repeatedly on television. It
was never alleged by anybody that the kid was in the envelope. He had
supposedly been yelled at previously for playing inside the box under
the balloon.

Oh, look!

http://images.smh.com.au/2009/10/16/...boy-presser-42...

...and here's a picture of the balloon as it landed, with the box
still attached to the bottom:

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2...g-Hideq...text -

- Show quoted text -

Better look again. *That is not a "box", it is part of the balloon.
News reports all day were full of "in" the baloon and you must have
missed the shots of the cops frantically slashing at it looking for
the kid.

The "box" report was of someone sayting the saw a 'box' or 'car'
_suspended_ from the baloon.

Harry K

It is a box, and if you look around I'm pretty sure you can find
photos or video showing it in detail with the door open and closed.. It
was intended for cameras and weather instruments, not human
passengers. It was big enough for a small kid to get inside.

Right. That's why the thing looked like a mushroom. *The stem was the
box. * There's not a lot of point to building a balloon that won't
carry a payload. *If that's all you want, you can buy one fully made
at the supermarket.

The cops slashed the balloon because the wind was catching it and they
wanted to make sure it stayed right where it was.

Oh, yeah. *That was why. * The balloon wasn't empty, it still had
helium, almost enough to fly since until a littel while earlier it was
flying, so letting out the helium kept the wind from taking it away..- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Try again. *STandard instrumentation on such baloons is suspended
_below_ it, not _in_ it.

I listened to the entire thing and the 'box discussion was proven
invalid. IIANM it was even mentioned in summaries at the end of the
'action"

It is amazing how people can get two different 'facts' from the same
show, one wrong, one right and I am on the right side.

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. *Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...ent/uploads/20....

The box was described after the fact as being made of very lightweight
panels taped together that would not have been strong enough to hold
the boy while airborne. It was in fact, intended to carry instruments
that did not weigh very much.

No one knew any of this, or even the size and carrying capacity of the
balloon itself until after the fact. Pretty hard to judge the size of
it when it was a tiny dot in the sky with nothing next to it for
comparison. All they had to go on was what was reported BY THE FAMILY,
who said they thought the booy was in the balloon and had somehow
launched himself. That is the sum total of what was known until much
later.

When the balloon first landed and the boy was not in the box, it was
feared that he had fallen out.

Hindsight, 20/20, etc...- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Here, I did your work for you:

"Authorities began to fear the worst after reports surfaced that a box
possibly carrying Falcon may have fallen off the balloon.

A Weld County Sheriff's deputy had said he saw an object fall off the
balloon somewhere over Platteville, Colorado, which is in the search
area. There was no box attached when the balloon landed at 1:35 p.m"

Source

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/15/col...oon/index.html

As I pointed out before. *The report of a box attached was
unconfirmed, daddy did not say yea or nay and there was no box when it
landed.

As for them slashing at it to deflate it - try again. *It was already
on the ground and wasn't going anywhere. *It was a wild attack trying
to find the kid INSIDE the baloon.

I watched the whole thing almost from the beginning and the report of
the kid perhaps being in a 'box' was already discounted long before
the thing landed.

The baloon was constructed to resemble a flying saucer and was a
pretty good immitation of one in an early Sci Fi film.

Harry K

I have alreadey posted several links to photographs clearly showing
the box under the envelope, and even a pictuer with the door to the
box hanging open.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

we can trade cites back and forth all day and aren't going to convince
anyone. The difference is that I know I am right because I listened
to it as it happened. You appear to be monday morning quarterbacking.

I couldn't bring up your first cite - on dial-up and it wouldn't
load. Second one didn't show anything attached or any door.

No, that thing on the bottom is not a 'box'.

Harry K

On Mar 19, 2:36*pm, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:30:18 -0700 (PDT), Harry K





wrote:
On Mar 19, 11:29*am, "h" wrote:
wrote in message

. ..

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:42:11 -0400, "h"
wrote:

wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. *Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...ent/uploads/20...

He can't spell "baloon", so why would he know anything about how they're
made?

I don't generally worry about typo's on usenet.

Shrug. If you make the same typo 50 times, it's not a "typo". And the plural
of "typo" is "typos", not "typo's", which is the possessive. Yes, as a
matter of fact I did used to teach English. *- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

In addition to being a pedantic prick you demonstrate that:
1. *You can't count.
2. *You don't know the difference between a possesive and a
contraction.

Harry K

Oh, ****! Now you screwed up "possessive"- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yep, got to feed the pedants . My fingers type faster than I read.

Harry K

On Mar 19, 2:44*pm, mm wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:10:35 -0700 (PDT), Harry K





wrote:
On Mar 19, 1:21*am, mm wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:24:06 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 18, 5:25*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:20:08 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 18, 7:41*am, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:36:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:

Really OT but on subject of press 'buying into stories'. *Balloon Boy
is a fine example. *They bought the story of the kid being in there
and that went on for hours and hours. *Not once, not nobody, even
mentioned that had the kid been in there he was dead. *You cannot
breath a helium atmosphere and live.

I don't recall that anyone ever reported that he was inside the helium
filled envelope. There was a small "box" on the underside.

Only one of the kids at the beginning, daddy and mommy a couple
times. *The original 911 call was 'kid in the baloon'

No, there was no 'box' attached. *There was one unconfirmed report
that someone had "seen" one but Daddy never confirmed nor denied that
there was one. *There was also the report that someone had seen the
kid fall out of the thing. *Also uncofirmed and proven false.

At the end, when they found the baloon, therewas no "box" attached..

Harry K

The balloon, complete with box was shown repeatedly on television. It
was never alleged by anybody that the kid was in the envelope. He had
supposedly been yelled at previously for playing inside the box under
the balloon.

Oh, look!

http://images.smh.com.au/2009/10/16/...boy-presser-42...

...and here's a picture of the balloon as it landed, with the box
still attached to the bottom:

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2...jpg-Hidequoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Better look again. *That is not a "box", it is part of the balloon.

It's covered in mylar like the balloon is, or is made of, but it's
definitely a box.

News reports all day were full of "in" the baloon and you must have
missed the shots of the cops frantically slashing at it looking for
the kid.

If they slashed the balloon itself it's because he wasn't in the box
when they thought he was so they were looking everywhere. *In a hot
air balloon, one can crawl into the balloon part, especially when the
flame is off or after it lands. *

The "box" report was of someone sayting the saw a 'box' or 'car'
_suspended_ from the baloon.

There are always two usages of "in the balloon". *One considers the
entire contraption the balloon and "in the balloon" *means in the
basket under the balloon. * That's what the meaning is here.

The other refers to the part that holds the hot air, in a hot air
balloon. *And in a helium balloon, it refers to the rubber or mylar
balloon, and no one goes into that. *It's entrance is probably less
than an inch wide. Even for a 6'foot diameter balloon or bigger the
opening is only an inch or less. *But the cops were desperate and
maybe there were multiple rubber balloons and they thought it
possibley he could have slid in between two of them. * Are they
supposed to look only in the basket and then say, "I guess he's not
here."

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You can deny it being part of the baloon all you want. *It won't
change the facts. *That is standard baloon construction method.

I'm not sure if yuou're disagreeing with me or not, especially after
reading your reply to my other post.

If standard balloon construction means that the box is part of the
balloon, that's fine, and that's what I said, that one meaning of
balloon is the whole contraption. So even if someone is in the basket,
he's still said to be in the balloon, even though no one thinks he is
the chamber with the helium or hot air.

Here it's not so much what terminology balloon makers use but what the
reporter used, or what the cop used.

Compare it with almost any picture of a baloon.

My image of a balloon is a big gas bag with a wicker basket hanging
from it, held by ropes, with a fire device in the middle of the
basket, heating the air inside the balloon. * I used balloon in two
different ways in the previous sentence. *As I said, "ballooon" can be
used two ways, the big gas bag or the whole contraption.

Then there was the Hindenberg, which had many large balloons in a
frame, with a passenger compartment underneath. * I don't think the
Hindenberg was called a balloon, but that was probably for advertising
reasons. * The same reason it was named a dirigible, directable,
something whose direction was under control, to separate it from a
balloon that wanders almost aimlessly at the whim of the winds. *But a
dirigible is just one form of balloon.

You can also do some
searching on the 'net for a summary of the action that day and yu will
find that there is no 'box'

There was a chamber intended for instruments that had no helium in it.
Whether they used the word box or not, that's what I mean.



Harry K- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yep, I misspoke on the 'standard construction'. On a hot air balloon,
they all have a big round skirted opening on the bottom similar (but
not as big as) the one pictured - that is for the hot air to enter. A
helium one would not be inflated that way. The one pictured is
obviously and clearly part of the balloon constructed out of the same
materials and too flimsy to hold any concentrated weight over a few
pounds.

There are cites on the 'net for a 'battery box' and also cites to no
'box' attached. I assume they are talking two separate items (battery
box and a suspended box).

What kicked all this off was my comment that there were plenty of
clues from the start that it was fake and the news people (and cops)
didn't tumble until late in the game. I called it fake after the
first few minutes from the time I began listening. That was before
the discredited report of the deputy seeing a 'box' attached.

Harry K

wrote
That would be true if it were a contraction (do not = don't), but it's
an abbreviation, not a contraction. You can have a "typo" or multiple
"typos".

It is a contraction. "S" being the last letter of "errorS"


Not according to this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographical_error

They do not us an apostrophe at all and use typos instead.

A typographical error (often shortened to typo) is a mistake made in,
originally, the manual type-setting (typography) of printed material, or
more recently, the typing process. The term includes errors due to
mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but excludes errors of
ignorance.[1] Before the arrival of printing, the "copyist's mistake" or
"scribal error" was the equivalent for manuscripts. Most typos involve
simple duplication, omission, transposition, or substitution of a small
number of characters.
Typos are common on the internet in chatrooms, Usenet and the World Wide Web
and some, such as "teh", "pwned", and "pron" have become in-jokes among
Internet groups and subcultures.[4]

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:38:14 -0700 (PDT), tmclone
wrote:


Typo's is short for "Typographical Errors" - the apostrophe is
correct, and does not make it possessive.- Hide quoted text -


That would be true if it were a contraction (do not = don't), but it's
an abbreviation, not a contraction. You can have a "typo" or multiple
"typos".

It is a contraction. "S" being the last letter of "errorS"

No - "Typo" is singular, "Typos" is plural.

wrote:
I think the Balloon Boy, and the Prius threads have really run their
course. They are just going in circles and are repeating themselves.
We need to find something new on which everyone can take intractable
(even when contradicted by photographic proof) positions.

I completely disagree

On Mar 20, 5:35*am, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:56:09 -0700 (PDT), Harry K





wrote:
On Mar 19, 2:33*pm, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:17:40 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 19, 7:36*am, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 19, 3:43*am, mm wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:25:29 -0400, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:24:06 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

On Mar 18, 5:25*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:20:08 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 18, 7:41*am, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:36:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:

Really OT but on subject of press 'buying into stories'. *Balloon Boy
is a fine example. *They bought the story of the kid being in there
and that went on for hours and hours. *Not once, not nobody, even
mentioned that had the kid been in there he was dead. *You cannot
breath a helium atmosphere and live.

I don't recall that anyone ever reported that he was inside the helium
filled envelope. There was a small "box" on the underside..

Only one of the kids at the beginning, daddy and mommy a couple
times. *The original 911 call was 'kid in the baloon'

No, there was no 'box' attached. *There was one unconfirmed report
that someone had "seen" one but Daddy never confirmed nor denied that
there was one. *There was also the report that someone had seen the
kid fall out of the thing. *Also uncofirmed and proven false.

At the end, when they found the baloon, therewas no "box" attached.

Harry K

The balloon, complete with box was shown repeatedly on television. It
was never alleged by anybody that the kid was in the envelope. He had
supposedly been yelled at previously for playing inside the box under
the balloon.

Oh, look!

http://images.smh.com.au/2009/10/16/...boy-presser-42...

...and here's a picture of the balloon as it landed, with the box
still attached to the bottom:

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2....jpg-Hideq...-

- Show quoted text -

Better look again. *That is not a "box", it is part of the balloon.
News reports all day were full of "in" the baloon and you must have
missed the shots of the cops frantically slashing at it looking for
the kid.

The "box" report was of someone sayting the saw a 'box' or 'car'
_suspended_ from the baloon.

Harry K

It is a box, and if you look around I'm pretty sure you can find
photos or video showing it in detail with the door open and closed. It
was intended for cameras and weather instruments, not human
passengers. It was big enough for a small kid to get inside.

Right. That's why the thing looked like a mushroom. *The stem was the
box. * There's not a lot of point to building a balloon that won't
carry a payload. *If that's all you want, you can buy one fully made
at the supermarket.

The cops slashed the balloon because the wind was catching it and they
wanted to make sure it stayed right where it was.

Oh, yeah. *That was why. * The balloon wasn't empty, it still had
helium, almost enough to fly since until a littel while earlier it was
flying, so letting out the helium kept the wind from taking it away.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Try again. *STandard instrumentation on such baloons is suspended
_below_ it, not _in_ it.

I listened to the entire thing and the 'box discussion was proven
invalid. IIANM it was even mentioned in summaries at the end of the
'action"

It is amazing how people can get two different 'facts' from the same
show, one wrong, one right and I am on the right side.

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. *Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...ent/uploads/20...

The box was described after the fact as being made of very lightweight
panels taped together that would not have been strong enough to hold
the boy while airborne. It was in fact, intended to carry instruments
that did not weigh very much.

No one knew any of this, or even the size and carrying capacity of the
balloon itself until after the fact. Pretty hard to judge the size of
it when it was a tiny dot in the sky with nothing next to it for
comparison. All they had to go on was what was reported BY THE FAMILY,
who said they thought the booy was in the balloon and had somehow
launched himself. That is the sum total of what was known until much
later.

When the balloon first landed and the boy was not in the box, it was
feared that he had fallen out.

Hindsight, 20/20, etc...- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Here, I did your work for you:

"Authorities began to fear the worst after reports surfaced that a box
possibly carrying Falcon may have fallen off the balloon.

A Weld County Sheriff's deputy had said he saw an object fall off the
balloon somewhere over Platteville, Colorado, which is in the search
area. There was no box attached when the balloon landed at 1:35 p.m"

Source

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/15/col...oon/index.html

As I pointed out before. *The report of a box attached was
unconfirmed, daddy did not say yea or nay and there was no box when it
landed.

As for them slashing at it to deflate it - try again. *It was already
on the ground and wasn't going anywhere. *It was a wild attack trying
to find the kid INSIDE the baloon.

I watched the whole thing almost from the beginning and the report of
the kid perhaps being in a 'box' was already discounted long before
the thing landed.

The baloon was constructed to resemble a flying saucer and was a
pretty good immitation of one in an early Sci Fi film.

Harry K

I have alreadey posted several links to photographs clearly showing
the box under the envelope, and even a pictuer with the door to the
box hanging open.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

we can trade cites back and forth all day and aren't going to convince
anyone. *The difference is that I know I am right because I listened
to it as it happened. *You appear to be monday morning quarterbacking.

I watched it on live TV, dopey. And I don't have to convince "anyone",
because you are the only dunderhead here who doesn't know that the
thing hanging UNDER the balLoon is a place for small cargo.

I couldn't bring up your first cite - on dial-up and it wouldn't
load. *

That is not anyone's problem but yours.

Second one didn't show anything attached or any door.

No, that thing on the bottom is not a 'box'.

Harry K

I don't generally call people trolls, but you are either a troll or
mentally damaged. Those are the only optionsd left.

See ya!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Now did I call you stupid or anything of the sort? If you aren't
willing to discuss things civilly, why bother. I have my
'opinion' (and backed it with a cite), you have hyours (and backed it
with cites) - obviously we aren't both wrong. We both think we are
right so that is where it stands now and apparently forever.

Harry K

In article ,
bud-- wrote:

I believe the NTSB looked at the car. That would probably preclude the
CHP investigating unless they thought there might be a criminal case.

Probably not. I was involved in the periphery of a couple NTSB truck
cases as a medic and in both cases, the NTSB and the locals worked
together. No need to take it DC for the investigation when there is a
perfectly good lab near by.

--
I get off on '57 Chevys
I get off on screamin' guitars
--Eric Clapton

wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:23:29 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:16:05 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:40:07 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:59:51 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:53:37 -0400, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:

"Harry K" wrote
Try again. If they prove that, then the charge will be fraud and he
would have a felony conviction on his record. Not worth 50,000 to me.

Harry K
How much then??? I'm holding out for $250k if no jail time. $1 million if
jail time.
So far, Sike's and the CHP officer's account have not been disproved -
just attacked by those with an incredibly strong motive to want to
cover this up.

http://hosted2.ap.org/CTMID/APUSnews/Article_2010-03-18-US-Runaway-Prius/id-p19140421bf1742938cfb3ed8d72b4cdc


California Highway Patrol's official position:

"Pennings reaffirmed CHP's position that no evidence has emerged to
doubt Sikes' version of events."

Did this "chippy" graduate from the same police college as the one who
killed himself and his family instead of using his brakes properly and
shutting off the Lexus???
This "chippy" is a large professional law enforcement department with
a whole division just for investigating accidents.

I'm quite sure their expertise exceeds yours by a very wide margin.

In some ways, most definitely - in others, doubtful.

The CHP has a VERY large staff that even includes a lot of car
mechanics, in addition to scientists from many disiplines. They have
labrotories and millions of dollars of equipment. They have access to
huge databases and other organizations with addtional expertise that
you can't access. They have a budget for paying for tests and outside
help when needed. My guess is that their car mechanics have a lot more
education and experience than you.

You can't hold a candle to them.

I believe the NTSB looked at the car. That would probably preclude the
CHP investigating unless they thought there might be a criminal case.
(Everyone probably looked at the front and back brake rotors/pads and E
brake.) The most interesting information probably comes from the "black
box", which is read by Toyota.

I don't remember any report of a CHP *investigation* (other than brake
condition).

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:00:28 -0700 (PDT), jamesgangnc
wrote:

On Mar 17, 4:16*am, mm wrote:
On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:29:41 -0700 (PDT), terry





wrote:
On Mar 16, 7:17*pm, mm wrote:
On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:40:32 -0500, Dean Hoffman

wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/yeruhj7

* *The article is from Forbes. *The author is critical of the press
that swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker. * He says he found
several flaws that a newsman should've found.

As told in the article from Forbes, where it says he was afraid to
shift to neutral, afraid to turn off the car, if it's a hoax as it
sounds, how did the driver think he would get away with it? *

Maybe he didn't. I can easily imagine Toyota paying him 10, 20, 50G to
be a bogus complainer, to make all the other complainers seem more
likely to be bogus.

It seems somewhat paranoid every time some story that may have some
doubtful angles to suggest that thre is some as yet undiscovered plot?

Not to me. 50,000 is enough to buy an hour's time from a lot of
people, as well as any time he ends up spending with reporters later,
and any embarrassment he might feel by being called a hoaxster. *They
won't be able to charge or convict him of anything with what they have
now. *Even if they somehow find out about such a plot, and can prove
it, I think "filing a false police report" might be the most he is
guilty of. * Maybe he needs a new car now. *So they can throw in
40,000 more or whatever one of those costs.

At first this was for me just a mathematically derived possibility,
but on second thought it seems very possible. *After all, as some room
freshener's advertisement says, we don't just cover up bad odors (as
more advertising by Toyata would do), we make the odors disappear (as
discrediting complainers would do.) * For 10, 20, 50 thousand dollars
paid to Sikes, they can accomplish a lot more than a million dollars
of advertising would. *One such phony complaint can make the real
complaints seem a lot more likely to also be bogus. *

This reminds me of the Canuck letter, forged and planted by Nixon's
employees, to discredit Muskie, and lots of other things done by the
Plumbers for the benefit of Richard Nixon. * Or the break-in at Daniel
Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. *Most discussions of that fail to
mention the motive. *The motive was to find something humiliating
about Danel Ellsberg, that he told his psychiatrist, in order to
discredit Ellsberg, and in so doing, discrredit the Pentagon Papers,
which embarrassed the Nixon administration. *Even though nothing about
Elllsberg personally really makes the Pentangon Papers any less
embarrassing to Nixon and his administration. *But they still thought
it would help and in fact it probably would have. * All the things in
this paragraph really did happen.

How many more things like the things Nixon did have been done by
others, but not learned of because there was no investigation. * The
Canuck letter wasn't disclosed iirc until years later, after the
Watergate burglary and the investigation that came from that. * Had it
not been for Watergate, no one would have known about their role in
the Canuck letter or the other things that Nixon's Plumbers did.

Also, I can't recall details but I have a vague feeling there have
been other such attempts to discredit a manufacturer. *Maybe all my
recollections are from movies, but if movie writers can think of such
things (or copy them from true stories) , a Toyota exec can also. *It
also reminds me of inserting people who look like union picketers to
start violence on a union picket line, to discredit a union; or to
insert those who appear like violent radicals into left-wing groups,
to plan and execute violent acts, to discredit peaceful radicals.
IIRC, the FBI itself did that. * Again, I can't remember if those
things actually happened, if I saw them in movies, and if so, I
probably never knew if the movies were based on real life.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You're being way excessively paranoid.

I think I'm just the right amount of paranoid.

The downside of such a scheme
backfiring is so totally overwhelming as compared to the marginal
benefit that no one with any sense would consoider it for more than a
moment.

Clearly this guy has issues that existed long before the toyota
problems. When you put 300 million people in the mix some nut jobs
that own toyotas are going to crawl out of the works.

Most real cases of runaway cars can be traced to throttle confusion
when the post mortem can't find anything mechanically wrong. The high
percentage of elderly in these mystery runaway cases supports that.

It may well support "most", which is all you say, but it can't support
"all". There are always new things that arise.

One of the things that convinces me is the way they say flatly, There
are no electronic problems. Not, We have found no electronic
problems. (but we're still looking)

This says to me that a) they don't understand the nature of testing
and finding, b) the statement is made more to reassure than to report
what is known, c) they are bluffing, and may have done even less
testing than one would think.

I'm pretty sure this will turn out to be an electronics or programming
problem. No one has said anytyhing afaik about revieweing the
computer code. They should have someone who's never seen it before go
over it, line by line.

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:29:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:19:01 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:35:03 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:29:10 -0400, "h"
wrote:


wrote in message
m...
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:42:11 -0400, "h"
wrote:


wrote in message
news:0127q5dj04dthk0nsq1g3nf1e07kt9msq5@4ax. com...
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...10/balloon.jpg

He can't spell "baloon", so why would he know anything about how they're
made?


I don't generally worry about typo's on usenet.


Shrug. If you make the same typo 50 times, it's not a "typo". And the plural
of "typo" is "typos", not "typo's", which is the possessive. Yes, as a
matter of fact I did used to teach English.


I didn't count how many times anybody used baloon where you or I might
use balloon. It's not a way to win an argument in usenet, where few
bother with spellcheck, most posts are casual conversation, and many
participants do not speak English as their first language.

Typo's is short for "Typographical Errors" - the apostrophe is
correct, and does not make it possessive.


Mabee in your private world.

Okay, dopey. If it doesn't stand for "Typographical Errors", then what
does it stand for?

I shouldn't get involved since I don't remember which of you I usually
agree with and which I usually fight with, but typo does stand for
typographical error. And typo has become a word of its own, and typos
is the plural of typo. Not a contraction.

Even if typo is jargon, it still has a regularly formed plural.

For example, someone might call a Stradavarius violin a Strad. The
plural is Strads.

I don't know if this line from Kurt's sig was just a sig or meant to
be an example: I get off on '57 Chevys. Another example.


Or maybe homer, which stands for home run. It's plural is homers.

"mm" wrote

For example, someone might call a Stradavarius violin a Strad. The
plural is Strads.

If he has two, it would be Strad's Strads.

In article , mm wrote:
[...]
Or maybe homer, which stands for home run. It's plural is homers.

s/It's/Its/

"It's" = "It is".
"Its" = possessive form of "It".

On Mar 20, 8:30*am, wrote:
On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:50:52 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
On Mar 20, 8:35*am, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:56:09 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 19, 2:33*pm, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:17:40 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 19, 7:36*am, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:15:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 19, 3:43*am, mm wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:25:29 -0400, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:24:06 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

On Mar 18, 5:25*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:20:08 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:
On Mar 18, 7:41*am, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:36:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:

Really OT but on subject of press 'buying into stories'. *Balloon Boy
is a fine example. *They bought the story of the kid being in there
and that went on for hours and hours. *Not once, not nobody, even
mentioned that had the kid been in there he was dead. *You cannot
breath a helium atmosphere and live.

I don't recall that anyone ever reported that he was inside the helium
filled envelope. There was a small "box" on the underside.

Only one of the kids at the beginning, daddy and mommy a couple
times. *The original 911 call was 'kid in the baloon'

No, there was no 'box' attached. *There was one unconfirmed report
that someone had "seen" one but Daddy never confirmed nor denied that
there was one. *There was also the report that someone had seen the
kid fall out of the thing. *Also uncofirmed and proven false.

At the end, when they found the baloon, therewas no "box" attached.

Harry K

The balloon, complete with box was shown repeatedly on television. It
was never alleged by anybody that the kid was in the envelope. He had
supposedly been yelled at previously for playing inside the box under
the balloon.

Oh, look!

http://images.smh.com.au/2009/10/16/...boy-presser-42...

...and here's a picture of the balloon as it landed, with the box
still attached to the bottom:

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2...411x.jpg-Hideq...

- Show quoted text -

Better look again. *That is not a "box", it is part of the balloon.
News reports all day were full of "in" the baloon and you must have
missed the shots of the cops frantically slashing at it looking for
the kid.

The "box" report was of someone sayting the saw a 'box' or 'car'
_suspended_ from the baloon.

Harry K

It is a box, and if you look around I'm pretty sure you can find
photos or video showing it in detail with the door open and closed. It
was intended for cameras and weather instruments, not human
passengers. It was big enough for a small kid to get inside.

Right. That's why the thing looked like a mushroom. *The stem was the
box. * There's not a lot of point to building a balloon that won't
carry a payload. *If that's all you want, you can buy one fully made
at the supermarket.

The cops slashed the balloon because the wind was catching it and they
wanted to make sure it stayed right where it was.

Oh, yeah. *That was why. * The balloon wasn't empty, it still had
helium, almost enough to fly since until a littel while earlier it was
flying, so letting out the helium kept the wind from taking it away.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Try again. *STandard instrumentation on such baloons is suspended
_below_ it, not _in_ it.

I listened to the entire thing and the 'box discussion was proven
invalid. IIANM it was even mentioned in summaries at the end of the
'action"

It is amazing how people can get two different 'facts' from the same
show, one wrong, one right and I am on the right side.

Even the construction of your 'box' shows it wasn't. *Clearly covered
with the same stuff as the baloon and thus too flimsy to hold
_anything_ heavier than a few pounds and that would ahve to be spread
out.

Harry K

Oh, damn! Looks like you are COMPLETELY WRONG!

http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/e...ent/uploads/20...

The box was described after the fact as being made of very lightweight
panels taped together that would not have been strong enough to hold
the boy while airborne. It was in fact, intended to carry instruments
that did not weigh very much.

No one knew any of this, or even the size and carrying capacity of the
balloon itself until after the fact. Pretty hard to judge the size of
it when it was a tiny dot in the sky with nothing next to it for
comparison. All they had to go on was what was reported BY THE FAMILY,
who said they thought the booy was in the balloon and had somehow
launched himself. That is the sum total of what was known until much
later.

When the balloon first landed and the boy was not in the box, it was
feared that he had fallen out.

Hindsight, 20/20, etc...- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Here, I did your work for you:

"Authorities began to fear the worst after reports surfaced that a box
possibly carrying Falcon may have fallen off the balloon.

A Weld County Sheriff's deputy had said he saw an object fall off the
balloon somewhere over Platteville, Colorado, which is in the search
area. There was no box attached when the balloon landed at 1:35 p.m"

Source

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/15/col...oon/index.html

As I pointed out before. *The report of a box attached was
unconfirmed, daddy did not say yea or nay and there was no box when it
landed.

As for them slashing at it to deflate it - try again. *It was already
on the ground and wasn't going anywhere. *It was a wild attack trying
to find the kid INSIDE the baloon.

I watched the whole thing almost from the beginning and the report of
the kid perhaps being in a 'box' was already discounted long before
the thing landed.

The baloon was constructed to resemble a flying saucer and was a
pretty good immitation of one in an early Sci Fi film.

Harry K

I have alreadey posted several links to photographs clearly showing
the box under the envelope, and even a pictuer with the door to the
box hanging open.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

we can trade cites back and forth all day and aren't going to convince
anyone. *The difference is that I know I am right because I listened
to it as it happened. *You appear to be monday morning quarterbacking.

I watched it on live TV, dopey. And I don't have to convince "anyone",
because you are the only dunderhead here who doesn't know that the
thing hanging UNDER the balLoon is a place for small cargo.

I watched it on live TV too as it happened. * And from everything that
I heard it was never assumed that the boy was inside the helium filled
balloon itself. * There was plenty of discussion about a box beneath
the balloon, even reports that some people had seen something fall off
the balloon and the possibility that was the box seperating.
Without knowing the exact contruction of the balloon and given the
stories being told by the parents and the other children, I don't
think it would have been reasonable for anyone to conclude the story
was bogus because the boy couldn't be breathing helium.

I think the Balloon Boy, and the Prius threads have really run their
course. They are just going in circles and are repeating themselves.
We need to find something new on which everyone can take intractable
(even when contradicted by photographic proof) positions.





I couldn't bring up your first cite - on dial-up and it wouldn't
load. *

That is not anyone's problem but yours.

Second one didn't show anything attached or any door.

No, that thing on the bottom is not a 'box'.

Harry K

I don't generally call people trolls, but you are either a troll or
mentally damaged. Those are the only optionsd left.

See ya!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree that the enitre balloon boy thread is useless. I provide a
cite that there was no box at the end, you provide one or more saying
there was.

When one side resorts to unwarranted insults. I quit.

Harry K

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:17:21 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , mm wrote:
[...]
Or maybe homer, which stands for home run. It's plural is homers.

s/It's/Its/

"It's" = "It is".
"Its" = possessive form of "It".

LOL. It seems people explaining English always make an English
mistake.

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:59:15 -0500, Rick Brandt
wrote:

wrote:
I think the Balloon Boy, and the Prius threads have really run their
course. They are just going in circles and are repeating themselves.
We need to find something new on which everyone can take intractable
(even when contradicted by photographic proof) positions.

I completely disagree

I disagree with both of you.

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:25:26 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:20:08 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

On Mar 18, 7:41*am, wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:36:05 -0700 (PDT), Harry K

wrote:

Really OT but on subject of press 'buying into stories'. *Balloon Boy
is a fine example. *They bought the story of the kid being in there
and that went on for hours and hours. *Not once, not nobody, even
mentioned that had the kid been in there he was dead. *You cannot
breath a helium atmosphere and live.

I don't recall that anyone ever reported that he was inside the helium
filled envelope. There was a small "box" on the underside.

Only one of the kids at the beginning, daddy and mommy a couple
times. The original 911 call was 'kid in the baloon'

No, there was no 'box' attached. There was one unconfirmed report
that someone had "seen" one but Daddy never confirmed nor denied that
there was one. There was also the report that someone had seen the
kid fall out of the thing. Also uncofirmed and proven false.

At the end, when they found the baloon, therewas no "box" attached.

Harry K

The balloon, complete with box was shown repeatedly on television. It
was never alleged by anybody that the kid was in the envelope. He had
supposedly been yelled at previously for playing inside the box under
the balloon.

Oh, look!

http://images.smh.com.au/2009/10/16/...sser-420x0.jpg

...and here's a picture of the balloon as it landed, with the box
still attached to the bottom:

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2...ge5387411x.jpg

This one reminds me of Jiffy-Pop popcorn, the one that comes in a
disposeable pan one puts right on the stove.

But I don't mean there is no box on the bottom. There is. It just
looks the way I said, just like it looks like a mushroom sometimes.

On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:25:26 -0400, wrote:
The balloon, complete with box was shown repeatedly on television. It
was never alleged by anybody that the kid was in the envelope. He had
supposedly been yelled at previously for playing inside the box under
the balloon.

Oh, look!

http://images.smh.com.au/2009/10/16/...sser-420x0.jpg

...and here's a picture of the balloon as it landed, with the box
still attached to the bottom:

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2...ge5387411x.jpg

This one reminds me of Jiffy-Pop popcorn, the one that comes in a
disposeable pan one puts right on the stove.

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:32:09 -0400, mm
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:00:28 -0700 (PDT), jamesgangnc
wrote:

On Mar 17, 4:16Â*am, mm wrote:
On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:29:41 -0700 (PDT), terry





wrote:
On Mar 16, 7:17Â*pm, mm wrote:
On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:40:32 -0500, Dean Hoffman

wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/yeruhj7

Â* Â*The article is from Forbes. Â*The author is critical of the press
that swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker. Â* He says he found
several flaws that a newsman should've found.

As told in the article from Forbes, where it says he was afraid to
shift to neutral, afraid to turn off the car, if it's a hoax as it
sounds, how did the driver think he would get away with it? Â*

Maybe he didn't. I can easily imagine Toyota paying him 10, 20, 50G to
be a bogus complainer, to make all the other complainers seem more
likely to be bogus.

It seems somewhat paranoid every time some story that may have some
doubtful angles to suggest that thre is some as yet undiscovered plot?

Not to me. 50,000 is enough to buy an hour's time from a lot of
people, as well as any time he ends up spending with reporters later,
and any embarrassment he might feel by being called a hoaxster. Â*They
won't be able to charge or convict him of anything with what they have
now. Â*Even if they somehow find out about such a plot, and can prove
it, I think "filing a false police report" might be the most he is
guilty of. Â* Maybe he needs a new car now. Â*So they can throw in
40,000 more or whatever one of those costs.

At first this was for me just a mathematically derived possibility,
but on second thought it seems very possible. Â*After all, as some room
freshener's advertisement says, we don't just cover up bad odors (as
more advertising by Toyata would do), we make the odors disappear (as
discrediting complainers would do.) Â* For 10, 20, 50 thousand dollars
paid to Sikes, they can accomplish a lot more than a million dollars
of advertising would. Â*One such phony complaint can make the real
complaints seem a lot more likely to also be bogus. Â*

This reminds me of the Canuck letter, forged and planted by Nixon's
employees, to discredit Muskie, and lots of other things done by the
Plumbers for the benefit of Richard Nixon. Â* Or the break-in at Daniel
Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Â*Most discussions of that fail to
mention the motive. Â*The motive was to find something humiliating
about Danel Ellsberg, that he told his psychiatrist, in order to
discredit Ellsberg, and in so doing, discrredit the Pentagon Papers,
which embarrassed the Nixon administration. Â*Even though nothing about
Elllsberg personally really makes the Pentangon Papers any less
embarrassing to Nixon and his administration. Â*But they still thought
it would help and in fact it probably would have. Â* All the things in
this paragraph really did happen.

How many more things like the things Nixon did have been done by
others, but not learned of because there was no investigation. Â* The
Canuck letter wasn't disclosed iirc until years later, after the
Watergate burglary and the investigation that came from that. Â* Had it
not been for Watergate, no one would have known about their role in
the Canuck letter or the other things that Nixon's Plumbers did.

Also, I can't recall details but I have a vague feeling there have
been other such attempts to discredit a manufacturer. Â*Maybe all my
recollections are from movies, but if movie writers can think of such
things (or copy them from true stories) , a Toyota exec can also. Â*It
also reminds me of inserting people who look like union picketers to
start violence on a union picket line, to discredit a union; or to
insert those who appear like violent radicals into left-wing groups,
to plan and execute violent acts, to discredit peaceful radicals.
IIRC, the FBI itself did that. Â* Again, I can't remember if those
things actually happened, if I saw them in movies, and if so, I
probably never knew if the movies were based on real life.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You're being way excessively paranoid.

I think I'm just the right amount of paranoid.

The downside of such a scheme
backfiring is so totally overwhelming as compared to the marginal
benefit that no one with any sense would consoider it for more than a
moment.

Clearly this guy has issues that existed long before the toyota
problems. When you put 300 million people in the mix some nut jobs
that own toyotas are going to crawl out of the works.

Most real cases of runaway cars can be traced to throttle confusion
when the post mortem can't find anything mechanically wrong. The high
percentage of elderly in these mystery runaway cases supports that.

It may well support "most", which is all you say, but it can't support
"all". There are always new things that arise.

One of the things that convinces me is the way they say flatly, There
are no electronic problems. Not, We have found no electronic
problems. (but we're still looking)


That is EXACTLY what Toyota has been saying. They have found no
evidence of electronic problems but are continuing to investigate the
alleged problems. They have said they are unable to rule out anything
100% at this time, but have seen NO EVIDENCE that there is an
electronic problem involved to this point.

At least that's what Toyota Canada has been saying.

They can't fix anything that they cannot find.
This says to me that a) they don't understand the nature of testing
and finding, b) the statement is made more to reassure than to report
what is known, c) they are bluffing, and may have done even less
testing than one would think.

I'm pretty sure this will turn out to be an electronics or programming
problem. No one has said anytyhing afaik about revieweing the
computer code. They should have someone who's never seen it before go
over it, line by line.

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:17:21 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , mm wrote:
[...]
Or maybe homer, which stands for home run. It's plural is homers.

s/It's/Its/

"It's" = "It is".
"Its" = possessive form of "It".
One of the most contoversial applications of the apostrophe in
English usage - by all the normal rules, the posessive SHOULD have the
apostrophe, but like a lot of English, it's the exception .

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:31:57 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:17:21 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , mm wrote:
[...]
Or maybe homer, which stands for home run. It's plural is homers.

s/It's/Its/

"It's" = "It is".
"Its" = possessive form of "It".
One of the most contoversial applications of the apostrophe in
English usage - by all the normal rules, the posessive SHOULD have the
apostrophe, but like a lot of English, it's the exception .

I wasn't trying to make any point or follow any rule. It was just a
typo. Apropos for the subthread. I make many t'ypos on the net.

Actually I make many errors in my typing in general, but I don't
proofread on Usenet as much as I would some of the other things I
write.

It's true that John's, father's, etc. have apostrophes, but his, hers,
ours, and theirs don't. Us'ns does, but not just before the s. So
it doesn't seem to me to be "all" the normal rules. There seems to be
a rule for pronouns that it follows.

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:28:47 -0400, wrote:


One of the things that convinces me is the way they say flatly, There
are no electronic problems. Not, We have found no electronic
problems. (but we're still looking)


That is EXACTLY what Toyota has been saying. They have found no
evidence of electronic problems but are continuing to investigate the
alleged problems. They have said they are unable to rule out anything
100% at this time, but have seen NO EVIDENCE that there is an
electronic problem involved to this point.

At least that's what Toyota Canada has been saying.

At the US Congressional committee hearing, that I watched or listened
to because nothing else was on, I think the guy from Japan, maybe
Toyoda himself**, said flatly "There are no..."

**There are often more than one person sitting at the witness table.
If I listened on the radio I also saw a short bit on the news, but
hours later.

I was also turned off because Toyoda was testifying about their being
no electronic problems, and unless he is a techie who hangs out in the
lab, he's just repeating what someone else said, maybe 3rd or 4th hand
even. I was disappointed that afaik no Congressman tried to make that
point, maybe becaue none thought of it.

They can't fix anything that they cannot find.
This says to me that a) they don't understand the nature of testing
and finding, b) the statement is made more to reassure than to report
what is known, c) they are bluffing, and may have done even less
testing than one would think.

I'm pretty sure this will turn out to be an electronics or programming
problem. No one has said anytyhing afaik about revieweing the
computer code. They should have someone who's never seen it before go
over it, line by line.

"mm" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:17:21 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , mm
wrote:
[...]
Or maybe homer, which stands for home run. It's plural is homers.

s/It's/Its/

"It's" = "It is".
"Its" = possessive form of "It".

LOL. It seems people explaining English always make an English
mistake.


Umm, no you're mistaken. His, hers, its, etc. are possessive pronouns, which
NEVER use an apostrophe. Look it up and stop expecting everyone else to do
your research.

wrote in message
...
On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:17:21 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , mm
wrote:
[...]
Or maybe homer, which stands for home run. It's plural is homers.

s/It's/Its/

"It's" = "It is".
"Its" = possessive form of "It".
One of the most contoversial applications of the apostrophe in
English usage - by all the normal rules, the posessive SHOULD have the
apostrophe, but like a lot of English, it's the exception .

Because "its" is a pronoun. That is the rule for pronouns, not the
exception.

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:06:39 -0400, "h"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:17:21 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , mm
wrote:
[...]
Or maybe homer, which stands for home run. It's plural is homers.

s/It's/Its/

"It's" = "It is".
"Its" = possessive form of "It".
One of the most contoversial applications of the apostrophe in
English usage - by all the normal rules, the posessive SHOULD have the
apostrophe, but like a lot of English, it's the exception .

Because "its" is a pronoun. That is the rule for pronouns, not the
exception.

Except the pronoun "its" is somewhat different - he, him and
his,she,her and hers, I,me and mine, you and yours they and theirs .

"it" remains " it", like John remains "John", so to many it would
appear right to make the possesive of "it" be "it's" like the
possessive of "John" is "John's".

But it doesn't work that way in English.
Part of what makes English one of the harder "major" languages to
master - there are almost as many exceptions to the rules as their are
rules.

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:26:19 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:28:47 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:32:09 -0400, mm
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:00:28 -0700 (PDT), jamesgangnc
wrote:

On Mar 17, 4:16Â*am, mm wrote:
On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:29:41 -0700 (PDT), terry





wrote:
On Mar 16, 7:17Â*pm, mm wrote:
On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:40:32 -0500, Dean Hoffman

wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/yeruhj7

Â* Â*The article is from Forbes. Â*The author is critical of the press
that swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker. Â* He says he found
several flaws that a newsman should've found.

As told in the article from Forbes, where it says he was afraid to
shift to neutral, afraid to turn off the car, if it's a hoax as it
sounds, how did the driver think he would get away with it? Â*

Maybe he didn't. I can easily imagine Toyota paying him 10, 20, 50G to
be a bogus complainer, to make all the other complainers seem more
likely to be bogus.

It seems somewhat paranoid every time some story that may have some
doubtful angles to suggest that thre is some as yet undiscovered plot?

Not to me. 50,000 is enough to buy an hour's time from a lot of
people, as well as any time he ends up spending with reporters later,
and any embarrassment he might feel by being called a hoaxster. Â*They
won't be able to charge or convict him of anything with what they have
now. Â*Even if they somehow find out about such a plot, and can prove
it, I think "filing a false police report" might be the most he is
guilty of. Â* Maybe he needs a new car now. Â*So they can throw in
40,000 more or whatever one of those costs.

At first this was for me just a mathematically derived possibility,
but on second thought it seems very possible. Â*After all, as some room
freshener's advertisement says, we don't just cover up bad odors (as
more advertising by Toyata would do), we make the odors disappear (as
discrediting complainers would do.) Â* For 10, 20, 50 thousand dollars
paid to Sikes, they can accomplish a lot more than a million dollars
of advertising would. Â*One such phony complaint can make the real
complaints seem a lot more likely to also be bogus. Â*

This reminds me of the Canuck letter, forged and planted by Nixon's
employees, to discredit Muskie, and lots of other things done by the
Plumbers for the benefit of Richard Nixon. Â* Or the break-in at Daniel
Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Â*Most discussions of that fail to
mention the motive. Â*The motive was to find something humiliating
about Danel Ellsberg, that he told his psychiatrist, in order to
discredit Ellsberg, and in so doing, discrredit the Pentagon Papers,
which embarrassed the Nixon administration. Â*Even though nothing about
Elllsberg personally really makes the Pentangon Papers any less
embarrassing to Nixon and his administration. Â*But they still thought
it would help and in fact it probably would have. Â* All the things in
this paragraph really did happen.

How many more things like the things Nixon did have been done by
others, but not learned of because there was no investigation. Â* The
Canuck letter wasn't disclosed iirc until years later, after the
Watergate burglary and the investigation that came from that. Â* Had it
not been for Watergate, no one would have known about their role in
the Canuck letter or the other things that Nixon's Plumbers did.

Also, I can't recall details but I have a vague feeling there have
been other such attempts to discredit a manufacturer. Â*Maybe all my
recollections are from movies, but if movie writers can think of such
things (or copy them from true stories) , a Toyota exec can also. Â*It
also reminds me of inserting people who look like union picketers to
start violence on a union picket line, to discredit a union; or to
insert those who appear like violent radicals into left-wing groups,
to plan and execute violent acts, to discredit peaceful radicals.
IIRC, the FBI itself did that. Â* Again, I can't remember if those
things actually happened, if I saw them in movies, and if so, I
probably never knew if the movies were based on real life.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You're being way excessively paranoid.

I think I'm just the right amount of paranoid.

The downside of such a scheme
backfiring is so totally overwhelming as compared to the marginal
benefit that no one with any sense would consoider it for more than a
moment.

Clearly this guy has issues that existed long before the toyota
problems. When you put 300 million people in the mix some nut jobs
that own toyotas are going to crawl out of the works.

Most real cases of runaway cars can be traced to throttle confusion
when the post mortem can't find anything mechanically wrong. The high
percentage of elderly in these mystery runaway cases supports that.

It may well support "most", which is all you say, but it can't support
"all". There are always new things that arise.

One of the things that convinces me is the way they say flatly, There
are no electronic problems. Not, We have found no electronic
problems. (but we're still looking)


That is EXACTLY what Toyota has been saying. They have found no
evidence of electronic problems but are continuing to investigate the
alleged problems. They have said they are unable to rule out anything
100% at this time, but have seen NO EVIDENCE that there is an
electronic problem involved to this point.

At least that's what Toyota Canada has been saying.


What percentage of prisoners in prison claim they didn't do anything?
A lot may truthfully say there has been no PROOF they did what they
are accused of - and a surprising number would be telling the truth.
A small but siseable number who say they didn't do anything ( or at
least what they are accused of) are also telling the truth.

And saying there has been NO EVIDENCE of an electronic problem has NOT
been disproved. Their may be suspicion - but up to this point, all 3
known causes of unintended accelleration on Toyotas have been STRICTLY
MECHANICAL.

Mats jamming the pedal
Stiffness in the accellerator pedal
Corrosion in the electronically controlled throttle body (causing
stiffness - not electrical malfunction)

In article , wrote:


And saying there has been NO EVIDENCE of an electronic problem has NOT
been disproved. Their may be suspicion - but up to this point, all 3

4

known causes of unintended accelleration on Toyotas have been STRICTLY
MECHANICAL.

Mats jamming the pedal
Stiffness in the accellerator pedal
Corrosion in the electronically controlled throttle body (causing
stiffness - not electrical malfunction)

You forgot #4:

Dumbass driver stepping on the wrong pedal (as has been confirmed in the
latest case in New York).

According to the NHTSA, "Information retrieved from the vehicle's onboard
computer systems indicated there was no application of the brakes and the
throttle was fully open."
http://www.examiner.
com/x-32892-Automotive-News-Examiner~y2010m3d19-Runaway-Prius-in-New-York-may-
have-been-driver-error