| Quote (pete @ Sep. 15 2004,10:32) |
| These people, on both sides, are playing with the public |
#### it, Tom... this is the voice of Reason. That's not going to help the Right's cause at all. Be quiet and let Mike continue, please!
#### it, Tom... this is the voice of Reason. That's not going to help the Right's cause at all. Be quiet and let Mike continue, please!
What about the "th" mentioned earlier? Have we disproven the claim that this would be hard to do in Word?
187th? Word automatically raised it to look exactly like the "original". We've proven it was EASY for anyone to make exact duplicates of all four documents in just a few minutes.
In the other docs "st" is not raised (1st), and Word allows that to be raised as well. Someone attempting to emulate a typewriter wouldn't normally allow that to be changed into a superscript. Most folks don't know that some typewriters could do it. I suspect 187th was a mistake by the forger. They are amateurish forgeries at best. I could do all four in less than 30 minutes and that includes time to do the screen shots and get them all uploaded. You'd think whoever did it would have given a little more attention to details.
Pete mentions having an a typewriter with Courier font, which us usually fixed width. That's what most typewriters use. Finding one with uses Times Roman would be a nice find since that's what the docs use. It's main use is as newspaper type and books, not typical typewriters. Times Roman has proportional width, which most typewriters don't do at all, even if they do Time Roman font face.
The way I look at it is that there overwhelming evidence, not conclusive proof, that these are were not typed out on a typewriter. There is enough overwhelming evidence that any reasonable person would not even consider them worthy of proof of anything. To blindly stand by and say they are authentic is irresponsible. Those that choose to blindly believe these reports are equally irresponsible.
I don't care if I want Kerry to win. I don't want this kind of thing associated with his campaign. It lowers him to the ranks of the swift boat flunkies.
Dishonesty ALWAYS backfires eventually. To continually repeat false information is dishonest.
In this case, to blindly believe these are not forgeries is ignorant -- to claim they are in fact the real thing, as CBS is doing, is downright dishonest. ("They IS the real thing.") That is not to say that the facts they contain is untrue. The fact that these are forgeries does not mean they aren't true. I make no attempt at saying the text is truth or false. CBS could report that these seem to be fakes but they other proof to back up the text they contain....then again if this is all the physical proof they have then they have painted themselves into a huge corner and done a huge disservice to a lot of folks. Dan's got reason to be worried.
187th? Word automatically raised it to look exactly like the "original". We've proven it was EASY for anyone to make exact duplicates of all four documents in just a few minutes.
In the other docs "st" is not raised (1st), and Word allows that to be raised as well. Someone attempting to emulate a typewriter wouldn't normally allow that to be changed into a superscript. Most folks don't know that some typewriters could do it. I suspect 187th was a mistake by the forger. They are amateurish forgeries at best. I could do all four in less than 30 minutes and that includes time to do the screen shots and get them all uploaded. You'd think whoever did it would have given a little more attention to details.
Pete mentions having an a typewriter with Courier font, which us usually fixed width. That's what most typewriters use. Finding one with uses Times Roman would be a nice find since that's what the docs use. It's main use is as newspaper type and books, not typical typewriters. Times Roman has proportional width, which most typewriters don't do at all, even if they do Time Roman font face.
The way I look at it is that there overwhelming evidence, not conclusive proof, that these are were not typed out on a typewriter. There is enough overwhelming evidence that any reasonable person would not even consider them worthy of proof of anything. To blindly stand by and say they are authentic is irresponsible. Those that choose to blindly believe these reports are equally irresponsible.
I don't care if I want Kerry to win. I don't want this kind of thing associated with his campaign. It lowers him to the ranks of the swift boat flunkies.
Dishonesty ALWAYS backfires eventually. To continually repeat false information is dishonest.
In this case, to blindly believe these are not forgeries is ignorant -- to claim they are in fact the real thing, as CBS is doing, is downright dishonest. ("They IS the real thing.") That is not to say that the facts they contain is untrue. The fact that these are forgeries does not mean they aren't true. I make no attempt at saying the text is truth or false. CBS could report that these seem to be fakes but they other proof to back up the text they contain....then again if this is all the physical proof they have then they have painted themselves into a huge corner and done a huge disservice to a lot of folks. Dan's got reason to be worried.
Dishonesty ALWAYS backfires eventually. To continually repeat false information is dishonest.
Is hasn't seemed to backfire for Bush.
I agree with your last post. If Kerry has anything to do w/ this stuff he's in worse problems than he's already in.
As for Rather - where's Idiot Slapper when you need him?
Is hasn't seemed to backfire for Bush.
I agree with your last post. If Kerry has anything to do w/ this stuff he's in worse problems than he's already in.
As for Rather - where's Idiot Slapper when you need him?
The Selectric does have proportional font, Phoo - AND it does superscript. Courier and Times New Roman are close, but not the same. You can find scholarly examinations of both out there… somebody had posted one of the best I’ve seen earlier in this thread… an exploration done by somebody who was involved in electronic typesetting at its onset and who is not a Bush supporter.
I got a good laugh out of that “the technology existed.” Sure it did - at like something like three major universities, and that only with dot matrix printing. The technology existed for fuel cells too… but how AVAILABLE was it?
That Selectric was/is a gorgeous typewriter. They were muy expensive, and produced nearly typeset quality documents. They use these little balls with the type on them, so you could change fonts, and a shiny one-use transfer tape rather than an inked cloth ribbon. I could fly on that thing. From poking around, I have not seen where Times New Roman was available for it ever. Pica was common, though we used Courier Legal for most stuff. We might have had a couple others… I don’t remember now. You can still buy the balls for them on Ebay from time to time - search on Selectric.
Probabilities have a way of multiplying quite drastically when you have combinations. So far we have;
- The typewriter used was rare
- The font used is exactly the same font, size and kerning as the default Word font
- The word wrap on every single line is the same as the automatic Word wrap produced by Word (I assume here that the decision to ‘word wrap’ on a typewriter is made by a human, and isn’t automatic)
J.
P.S. The thread subject is misleading. You say the docs are ‘probably accurate’. Now, there is a probability that what they describe is accurate, i.e. the content is correct.
However, I would say there is a probability they are forged (given the combination of events described above).
So, either they are forged, and the content is inaccurate. Or they are real and the content is real. OR they are real and the content is inaccurate. OR they are forged, but the content is accurate…!!
Thanks, Pete. What you say is pretty much why I think it’s unbelievable that anyone making a reasonable attempt at forging these would have intentionally selected that type, etc, and why the authentic docs, should they exist, would not have been done using it either, though someone COULD have. It’s just not fathomable that two of those machines (remember–different font point sizes needed to repro the “originals”) would be readily available on a guard officer’s desk back then, or that he’d have switch balls for such a minor change.
What someone should do…devil’s advocate. Is grab the other guard docs that’s authenticity is not in question, and type them in. How do they compare when using Word defaults? If the results are the same then there’s a good argument that these docs are as valid as they are. Who do the swift vet docs pan out?
That’s been done, though I’d have to google around a bit to find it. No matchie.
If you haven’t taken the time to read that rather in-depth exploration of the thing, you’ve already duplicated some of it, (as I had as well.)
http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm
It is more than you will ever want or need to know about electronic typesetting… quite an education - and about as useful and the etymology of “is”.
The first paragraph of that link says it all - no matter what “side” you think you are on:
First off, before I start getting a lot of the wrong kind of mail: I am not a fan of George Bush. But I am even less a fan of attempts to commit fraud, and particularly by a complete and utter failure of those we entrust to ensure that if the news is at least accurate. I know it is asking far too much to expect the news to be unbiased. But the people involved should not actually lie to us, or promulgate lies created by hoaxers, through their own incompetence.
By the way… CBS was supposed to have made a statement at noon regarding all this. That statement is now two hours late.
What someone should do....devil's advocate. Is grab the other guard docs that's authenticity is not in question, and type them in. How do they compare when using Word defaults? If the results are the same then there's a good argument that these docs are as valid as they are.
Or not. What would that prove other than Word can duplicate old type-writers.
As J. Lennon said "Just give me some truth..."
Or not. What would that prove other than Word can duplicate old type-writers.
As J. Lennon said "Just give me some truth..."
It’s official - it’s now calle MemoGate!!!
Rep. Christopher Cox (R-California) has called for an investigation.
This is indeed going to be fun 
It is good to see you getting into the spirit of the festivities, Mike - though I’m disappointed that you jumped this ship before it hit bottom. You did hold on for an admirably long time.
Or not. What would that prove other than Word can duplicate old type-writers
If it matched wouldn't that give a hint of credence to the argument that these kinds of docs, the ones in Times Roman with proportional fonts and superscripts, were in wide circulation at the time?
You're forgetting that what we are doing is proving that old typewriters created docs that Word produces with NO effort on the users part. It's EASY to duplicate an existing typewritten doc in Word. To have it happen serendipitously, as is the case, is another thing.
The argument could be made that Word was coded so that it reproduces exactly what those old typewriters put out to the letter by default. There is some truth to that. But, add in the fact that humans had to typo in the old docs PERFECTLY for then to match PERFECTLY todays docs and things fall apart. Think a typical guard officer is going to go to the trouble to line that stuff up PERFECTLY? There's too many human variables in there for things to be this PERFECT.
If it matched wouldn't that give a hint of credence to the argument that these kinds of docs, the ones in Times Roman with proportional fonts and superscripts, were in wide circulation at the time?
You're forgetting that what we are doing is proving that old typewriters created docs that Word produces with NO effort on the users part. It's EASY to duplicate an existing typewritten doc in Word. To have it happen serendipitously, as is the case, is another thing.
The argument could be made that Word was coded so that it reproduces exactly what those old typewriters put out to the letter by default. There is some truth to that. But, add in the fact that humans had to typo in the old docs PERFECTLY for then to match PERFECTLY todays docs and things fall apart. Think a typical guard officer is going to go to the trouble to line that stuff up PERFECTLY? There's too many human variables in there for things to be this PERFECT.
Well - CBS has finally caught on that there is an ardent Bush-hater in Marian Knox - Killian’s secretary who typed all his memoes. Some interesting things coming out of that already, including the presence of an Olympic and a Selectric. The Olympic did have the superscript ‘th’. Both typwriters have been found and tried. Neither even comes close to matching, and Knox is adamant about these documents not having come from her office.
I suspect the CBS statement is being formulated around Knox’s dislike of Bush. Trouble is, CBS wasn’t the first to get to Knox, and now they have to either match up the rest of what has already been printed or else try Mike’s favorite passtime, “discrediting” her.
Has anybody tried to copyright movie rights to this yet?
“Print of Tides”
“Paper Moon”
“The Wizard of Font”
“Type-tanic”
Type-Tanic, the good ship of the Kerry Presidential Campaign, Dan Rather navigating…
I like that.
Discredit her - she supports what I believe & I quote:
<!–QuoteBegin>
| Quote |
| The information in these memos is correct – like Killian’s dealing with the problems. |
Talk about the kettle calling the pot black - that’s all you do Pete is to discredit people.
I discredit people when there’s colloborating evidence to support discrediting them.
I discredit people when there's colloborating evidence to support discrediting them.
I genuflect before thee, O wise, just and merciful judge of mankind.
Is that shit on your shoes?
I genuflect before thee, O wise, just and merciful judge of mankind.
Is that shit on your shoes?
Hey I’ll eat crow if CBS admits they knew that these doc’s were forgeries. That plus your dinner ought to make you happy! 
I’m already happy, Mike, but I’m pleased to know that you care.
D@mn near ecstatic, actually. This last week has opened more eyes than anything that has happened in a very long time. No matter how it ends, it is already superb. I think it is still going to get better. Rather’s very career is now riding on this. He doesn’t own CBS… and you better believe those who do are frantically trying to calculate the cost in lost goodwill of this fiasco.
Now CBS is saying they will be making their statement at 5:00. Unsubstantiated sources say CBS will admit the documents were false… "but the contents are not."
Let’s pop a cold one and light a fire, shall we?