“So the 3 star General is a fool? Did you tell him? Would you say it to his face?”
You called them fools, I call them wrong. There is nothing magic about stars that makes one immune from this sort of stupidity, especially in this day and age.
“And the man at Jane’s, the Editor -— he is a mistaken fool too?”
He’s a fool if he stands by his erroneous conclusion. Right now he’s just wrong. Ask him if he’s ever made a mistake, I’ll bet he’d admit he has.
“then people who should know, and who DO know, state unequivocally that it is a SLBM missile smoke plume ...”
They should know, but they are wrong in this case. Just because they state something unequivocally doesn’t mean they aren’t unequivocally wrong.
“looked that way to me too and many many others.”
You didn’t know what you were looking at. Your conclusion is wrong, and you have plenty of company. It doesn’t make you right, it makes you wrong with lots of other folks who are also wrong.
It’s ok, you trusted self proclaimed experts. You f’ed up, you trusted them. You’ll know better next time.
“You’ll know better next time.”
I see no evidence of that. In fact, the more he’s proven wrong the more hardcore he gets.