Wednesday, November 7, 2007

I'm Baaaack!

Ok, I just got back from my trip to Las Vegas and LA. The lecture went really well. I'll be getting back to issues on this blog over the next few days.

JimO,

I'm now ready to address any grievances you have against me regarding the issues you keep bringing up. If you could just put them into a concise, bulleted list so I can address them one by one, rather than have to troll through numerous emails and blog posts, I would appreciate it. You can either post it here or send it to my private email. Please express a preference as to whether you'd like a public or private response. I'll have it for you in a few days, after I get caught up on bills and such.

Mike

12 comments:

JimO said...

OK, more hoops for me to jump through... how about from my email to you on November 02, 2007 9:49 AM:

Fact. I did not ever urge anyone to alter in any way Ken's status in the Solar System Ambassador program. I have told Mike this. He has ignored my statements.

I was not a "colleague of Ken's" in Houston during the Apollo program -- in truth, I was never IN Houston during the Apollo program.

I did not refer to Ken's views as "crackpot" anythings -- the Russian text attributes that phrase to me based only on Bara's sloppy writing.

Mike wrote that I "knew full well [Ken's credentials] were valid," which is untrue. What I found out was that Ken worked in lunar sampling documentation, was a 'manager' of nobody but himself, and officially dealt only with photographs of the lunar samples themselves -- not scenary shots from orbit, or elsewhere.

Mike's throwing around words like 'integrity' and 'ethics' in his falsifying about me would be amusing, if it hadn't been so widely picked up, especially in Russia.

expat said...

Since you write in your TOS post "Criticism of our data and arguments is certainly allowed", I have a few points:

1] On page II of the introduction, you make much of the fact that Sec 305 (i) of the Space Act includes the clause "The Administration shall be considered a defense agency of the United States for the purpose of Ch 17, Title 35 of the
United States Code". Are you aware that Title 35 is exclusively concerned with US Govt policy in respect of patentable inventions by Govt employees, and has no conceivable application to photography of the moon or artifacts retrieved from
the moon? If you are aware of this, don't you consider it would have been more honest to point that out in your text? If you were not aware of this when you wrote your intro, I have now made you aware of it and you can verify it with a few google-clicks. Will you add a correction at next edition?

2] As we well know, media of every kind from every country in the world had access to Public Affairs Offices in every one of the NASA Centers dring and following Apollo. In light of this, which photographs are you claiming are "never before seen", and how would you know that they had not been examined or published by any of the world's media?

3] Your statement that Farouk El-Baz was "the most powerful figure in the whole Apollo Program" is in error. Dr El Baz's title
was secretary of the Landing Site Selection Committee, 1967-72. He also had an important function in astronaut geological training. Did you not know that the offices of Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, Administrator of the Office of Manned Space Flight, and Director of JSC (held at the material time by George Low, George Mueller, and Bob Gilruth respectively) had infinitely more influence on the management of Project Apollo than any committe secretary? Low, Mueller, and Gilruth -- not to mention Administrators Webb and Paine -- could have eaten El-Baz for breakfast if they had so desired. Now that I have reminded you of this fact, will you add a correction at next edition?

Mike Bara said...

The reason I have not responded to Jim Oberg is that I brought a horrible cold back with me from LA. I'm feeling a bit better and I hope to have a detailed response posted by Monday.

Meanwhile Jim, I will not allow you to fillibuster this blog, which is supposed to be about the book, not your personal vendeta's or our exchanges. Please keep this in mind if choose to continue posting, as your comments may not show up.

Mike

robert said...

Mike Bara said...
The reason I have not responded to Jim Oberg is that I brought a horrible cold back with me from LA. I'm feeling a bit better and I hope to have a detailed response posted by Monday.

Meanwhile Jim, I will not allow you to fillibuster this blog, which is supposed to be about the book, not your personal vendeta's or our exchanges. Please keep this in mind if choose to continue posting, as your comments may not show up.

Mike

November 10, 2007 6:50 AM

rhw:

Mike I would also like you to add that if Mr. Oberg or others are going to post here in the OPEN BLOG, as he requested me to do in private email where I was asking the same questions I posted in the open blog, that he has a RESPONSIBILTY and COURTESY of replying to members who post questions to him.

I agree with you that if Mr. Oberg is here just to berate you IN PUBLIC...then that should be done off the blog and in emails between the two of you.

But he has made accusations himself without any FACTUAL evidence and has refused to answer politely asked questions.

I would suggest that Mr Oberg be updated as to etitquete of blog exchanges since he seems either ignorant of them or ignoring them.

Thanks in advance.

Bob...:D

Biological_Unit said...

What Successes ?

Man has never walked on the Moon - the very fact that the NEW Apollo has to be radically different . . .

JimO said...

Bara: "I will not allow you to fillibuster this blog, which is supposed to be about the book, not your personal vendeta's or our exchanges."

"The book" includes the promotion of the book, and news media (all Russian and Bulgarian, so far)reaction to the book -- which involves you issuing (and refusing to correct) delusional defamations about me.

If you now choose to censor some of my posts as 'filibusters' while leaving obscene and paranoid ravings of other posters in full, well, it's your blog and you are the host and can do that. Keep what you are comfortable with, and suppress what you are uncomfortable with -- by all means.

Maybe we can start an uncensored exchange, with or without your participation, on another location.

No problem. In anticipation of this move, I've been keeping copies of all my comments so I can divert the censored ones to other discussion groups.

JimO said...

"Bob" posted: "But he has made accusations himself without any FACTUAL evidence and has refused to answer politely asked questions. I would suggest that Mr Oberg be updated as to etitquete of blog exchanges since he seems either ignorant of them or ignoring them."

Thanks for urging some 'etiquette' on me. I do sometimes feel out of step, particularly on blogs where the host makes nasty accusations and his minions rush to DEMAND the accused provide PROOF the accusations are untrue. That really is the reverse of the rules I've been accustomed to. So maybe I really am hopelessly anachronistic.

I'm also baffled by the demands for 'factual evidence'. Did Bara, or did he not, claim that I was a colleague of Johnston's during the Apollo program -- with the implication I knew all about his credentials and hence acted unethically in asking NASA for verification? What kind of 'factual evidence' is required to prove I was not even AT the NASA center during the Apollo flights, as I have repeatedly (and fruitlessly) informed Mr. Bara? My own on-line bio and CV clearly indicates where I was working during the Apollo missions -- NOT in Houston. Nobody -- until Bara dreamed it up -- has EVER suggested that I wasn't where I claimed, but was secretly at the NASA center -- this is bizarre.

As for 'politely asked questions' and a person's 'obligation' to answer them, I haven't seen any such questions from "Bob" so far -- far from it, I've seen nasty insinuations and smarmy lecturing on 'journalism' and such. No big deal. Everybody has the choice to reply, or not, to anybody else, and "Bob" has shown no reason to lead me to suspect that I would benefit from engaging him in any sort of exchange. He has no obligation to answer any of my questions, either.

But Bara does, since he started the exchange with his delusional defamations about me and has found one excuse after another after another to refuse to provide any verifiable documentary support for those nasty allegations -- that have now, thanks to Mr. Bara's unwillingness to pull the objectionable posts before the big press conferences, appeared in the news media.

Something ugly that could have been headed off early, before it snowballed, has now perpetuated itself far beyond its original boundaries, thanks to Mr. Bara's stubborness.

Biological_Unit said...

Doesn't anyone here answer any questions ?

expat said...

People do answer questions, but anything that refutes Mike Bara's point of view is suppressed. This post will undoubtedly be suppressed, too.

Mike Bara said...

Actually expat, the only thing that gets "suppressed" on this blog is when members repeat posts\arguments that have already been proven wrong.

Like yours.

JimO said...

Hope this doesn't get suppressed -- a link to a grudging compliment about Mike's hosting practices...

http://www.amazon.com/review/R11C4QM0ORC04I/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt/002-4679402-9587235?%5Fencoding=UTF8&ASIN=1932595260#wasThisHelpful

JimO said...

Another week's gone by with no substantive response to my list of grievances. The delusional defamations are still posted for dissemination across the internet.