It's a publicity stunt..

I know.

While I have tried to stay out of this "fray" I must admit that I miss JL. I admire him and enjoyed reading all his threads. He did bring many thought inspiring ideas, regardless if you agreed with him or not, it was a good read. He spent many many hours both in research and answering questions. I watched on the side lines, as many of us do, while he was attached verbally time and again. His response was generally kind and to the point, very seldom did he loose his temper.
Something happened to make him "snap" many of us would have long ago.
I do hope this can be resolved as he is missed and so is Sleeper.
Maybe we should start a poll. From what I am getting many people on here want him back.
Just my $ 0.02

"This would be the worst publicity stunt of all time. John Lear will bring as much traffic as you or I would if we were banned."

Sublime620:

Are you sure?

It's an issue "about nothing".


This is hilarious! Very entertaining though!

The subject is Project Camelot video interview.

We're not discussing who knows what, banned or not banned and other members.

Please return to the subject.

Thank you.

I watched the first part of the interview to see what he had to say about ats. I really didn't find it damaging at all. I took what he had to say with a grain of salt as i knew he (as anyone would be) would be upset about being banned. Sure he said that when he first came to the site he thought it may be connected to cia, but i also noticed that the interviewers seemed to be leading him there and tried to get him to elaborate more than he wanted to. As far as the mods posting as other people and trying to sway the threads in a certain direction, again that came from one of the interviewers via an email that he claims to have received from a former ats partner. Mr Lear didn't start or carry on that accusation and when the interviewer tried to get him to do so he didn't. As far as why he was banned only the admins knows the real reason. I'm new here so i don't know what went on with that situation, quite frankly not my concern. The only thing that i did not approve of that Mr Lear said during the interview was to talk about another member's location imo that was wrong. We all know that there are gov agents that monitor what's said here and i'm sure some post to try to invalidate certain things. But that's to be expected due to the topics discussed here, do i think that the admins has anything to do with it, right now the answer is no. I just wanted to say that i think that this is a very well run site, and i like the fact that the admins and the mods try to keep this site a place for intelligent conversation. I have recomended it to several people already and will continue to do so. I will not be swayed by one person's accusations, especially when they have nothing to back it up, and are disgruntled because of being banned. As far as any people that would be swayed by the unsubstantiated claims of one person, well should a person so easily swayed be on this site in the first place?

Originally posted by Springer
John is using this as some trumped up conspiracy to make himself look the victim, well it's bunk. All S. O. asked of him was to GET OVER the fact that JRitzmann edited his posts and removed the "insults".

Originally posted by jritzmann

Lets make one thing real clear.

I did NOT edit any posts. I did NOT lie about editing any posts. There was nothing to "confess" to. I made the statements, I never edited them.

Originally posted by jritzmann

Now that it's clear, I can relax and get back to work. Have a good day.

Hmmm did i miss something ?, who edited John's posts then ?. Id hope the 3 Amigos could check to see what IP address edited the posts in question ?. These smells fishy to say the least

Originally posted by helium3
who edited John's posts then

No one. If you review the posts from Jeff & Springer, it was a bit of misconception with a little fuzzy memory, mixed in with overreaction.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by helium3
who edited John's posts then

No one. If you review the posts from Jeff & Springer, it was a bit of misconception with a little fuzzy memory, mixed in with overreaction.

I have reviewed the complete thread and Springer states Jeff edited John lear's posts then Jeff infactically deines the claim twice. If John Lears post where never edited then why would Springer say state:

Originally posted by Springer
GET OVER the fact that JRitzmann edited his posts and removed the "insults".

So the post edited itsself ?, hackers ?. Jeff ritzmann has stated he never edited the posts so what or who did ?

[edit on 5-5-2008 by helium3]

Originally posted by helium3
[

Ok that clears things up, cheers for that. Still this does not explain who removed the quotes using Jeff ritzmann account on ATS ?

NOBODY removed the quotes. They were simply taken so far out of context that the staff had difficulty in locating them after John posted them. Many of those quotes in no way were even remotely directed towards Lear.

Sorry for being slow on the uptake, but thats pretty shocking stuff coming from Mr Lear. Id love to see the "before and after quotes".