even if they are forged who gives a shit? Bush has stooped as low, and even lower. Didn't they try to rig some intelligence found in Iraq shortly after the war started that was highly questionable? The stuff they found in the collapsed inelligence building that was supposed to link Bin Laden to Saddam. It's impossible to look bad when you're going against such a scum-bag.
Some interesting stuff here ... I should point out that Bush's National Guard history is utterly irrelevant to me, and this issue is only of interest because of the rabid and escalatinginsanity that is gripping Americans across the political spectrum viz. the two main presidential candidates' military history.
Retards like Gameface please note: before you say a single word in rebuttal to the info below, consider doing at least 1% the research the guy who wrote this did.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
TANG Typewriter Follies; Wingnuts Wrong
Against my own better judgment, but because I believe that the more rapidly charges are countered, the better, I spend a goodly portion of the last day researching -- shudder -- typewriters of the '60s and '70s. As everyone on the planet no doubt knows by now, the hard-right of the freeper contingent -- specifically, LittleGreenFootballs, a site which frequently is cited for eliminationist rhetoric and veiled racism, and PowerLine, a site linked to with admiration by such luminaries as Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt -- discovered that if you used the same typeface, you could make documents that looked almost -- but not exactly -- like the TANG documents discovered by CBS News. This qualifies as big news, of course, so from those two sites, the story has spread into the mainstream media through the usual channels, most notably Drudge, NRO, etc.
I do not believe there is any truly "new" information here, but I hope to condense it in one easy-to-digest reference.
So here are some point-by-point findings re: the "forgeries".
First Claim (LittleGreenFootballs): "The documents can be recreated in Microsoft Word".
What the LGFer did to "prove" this was to type a Microsoft Word document in Times New Roman font, and overlay it with the original document. As he says:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Notice that the date lines up perfectly, all the line breaks are in the same places, all letters line up with the same letters above and below, and the kerning is exactly the same. And I did not change a single thing from Word's defaults; margins, type size, tab stops, etc. are all using the default settings.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
We're going to make this simple.
First, of course, in order to do this, he first had to reduce the document so that the margins were the same, since the original PDF distributed by CBS is quite a bit larger. Then he superimposed the two documents, such that the margins on all sides lined up.
What he then discovered is that Times New Roman typeface is, when viewed on a computer monitor, really, really similar to Times New Roman typeface. Or rather, really really similar to a typeface that is similar to Times New Roman typeface.
Um, OK then.
You see, a "typeface" doesn't just consist of the shape of the letters. It also is a set of rules about the size of the letters in different point sizes, the width of those letters, and the spacing between them. These are all designed in as part of the font, by the designer. Since Microsoft Word was designed to include popular and very-long-used typefaces, it is hardly a surprise that those typefaces, in Microsoft Word, would look similar to, er, themselves, on a typewriter or other publishing device. That's the point of typefaces; to have a uniform look across all publishing devices. To look the same. You could use the same typeface in, for example, OpenOffice, and if it's the same font, surprise-surprise, it will look the same.
So kudos on discovering fonts, freeper guy.
Next, however: do they really match up? Well, no. They don't.
If you shrink each document to be approximately 400-500 pixels across, they do indeed look strikingly similar. But that is because you are compressing the information they contain to 400-500 pixels across. At that size, subtle differences in typeface or letter placement simply cannot be detected; the "pixels" are too big. If you compare the two documents at a larger size, the differences between them are much more striking.
For instance: In the original CBS document, some letters "float" above or below the baseline. For example, in the original document, lowercase 'e' is very frequently -- but not always -- above the baseline. Look at the word "interference", or even "me". Typewriters do this; computers don't. Granted, if you are comparing a lowercase 'e' that is only 10 or 12 pixels high with another lowercase 'e' that is only 10 or 12 pixels high, you're not going to see such subtleties. That doesn't prove the differences aren't there; it just proves you're an idiot, for making them each 12 pixels high and then saying "see, they almost match!"
"This typeface -- Times New Roman -- didn't exist in the early 1970s."
There are several problems with this theory. First, Times New Roman, as a typeface, was invented in 1931. Second, typewriters were indeed available with Times New Roman typefaces.
And third, this isn't Times New Roman, at least not the Microsoft version. It's close. But it's not a match.
For example, the '8' characters are decidedly different. The '4's, as viewable on other memos, are completely different; one has an open top, the other is closed.
So yes, we have proven that two typefaces that look similar to each other are indeed, um, similar. At least when each document is shrunk to 400-500 pixels wide... and you ignore some of the characters.
"Documents back then didn't have superscripted 'th' characters"
That one was easy. Yes, many typewriter models had shift-combinations to create 'th', 'nd', and 'rd'. This is most easily proven by looking at known-good documents in the Bush records, which indeed have superscripted 'th' characters interspersed throughout.
"This document uses proportional spacing, which didn't exist in the early 1970s."
Turns out, it did. The IBM Executive electric typewriter was manufactured in four models, A, B, C, and D, starting in 1947, and featured proportional spacing. An example of its output is here. It was an extremely popular model, and was marketed to government agencies.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The slaughter continues here for those interested.
Phaedrus
Retards like Gameface please note: before you say a single word in rebuttal to the info below, consider doing at least 1% the research the guy who wrote this did.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
TANG Typewriter Follies; Wingnuts Wrong
Against my own better judgment, but because I believe that the more rapidly charges are countered, the better, I spend a goodly portion of the last day researching -- shudder -- typewriters of the '60s and '70s. As everyone on the planet no doubt knows by now, the hard-right of the freeper contingent -- specifically, LittleGreenFootballs, a site which frequently is cited for eliminationist rhetoric and veiled racism, and PowerLine, a site linked to with admiration by such luminaries as Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt -- discovered that if you used the same typeface, you could make documents that looked almost -- but not exactly -- like the TANG documents discovered by CBS News. This qualifies as big news, of course, so from those two sites, the story has spread into the mainstream media through the usual channels, most notably Drudge, NRO, etc.
I do not believe there is any truly "new" information here, but I hope to condense it in one easy-to-digest reference.
So here are some point-by-point findings re: the "forgeries".
First Claim (LittleGreenFootballs): "The documents can be recreated in Microsoft Word".
What the LGFer did to "prove" this was to type a Microsoft Word document in Times New Roman font, and overlay it with the original document. As he says:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Notice that the date lines up perfectly, all the line breaks are in the same places, all letters line up with the same letters above and below, and the kerning is exactly the same. And I did not change a single thing from Word's defaults; margins, type size, tab stops, etc. are all using the default settings.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
We're going to make this simple.
First, of course, in order to do this, he first had to reduce the document so that the margins were the same, since the original PDF distributed by CBS is quite a bit larger. Then he superimposed the two documents, such that the margins on all sides lined up.
What he then discovered is that Times New Roman typeface is, when viewed on a computer monitor, really, really similar to Times New Roman typeface. Or rather, really really similar to a typeface that is similar to Times New Roman typeface.
Um, OK then.
You see, a "typeface" doesn't just consist of the shape of the letters. It also is a set of rules about the size of the letters in different point sizes, the width of those letters, and the spacing between them. These are all designed in as part of the font, by the designer. Since Microsoft Word was designed to include popular and very-long-used typefaces, it is hardly a surprise that those typefaces, in Microsoft Word, would look similar to, er, themselves, on a typewriter or other publishing device. That's the point of typefaces; to have a uniform look across all publishing devices. To look the same. You could use the same typeface in, for example, OpenOffice, and if it's the same font, surprise-surprise, it will look the same.
So kudos on discovering fonts, freeper guy.
Next, however: do they really match up? Well, no. They don't.
If you shrink each document to be approximately 400-500 pixels across, they do indeed look strikingly similar. But that is because you are compressing the information they contain to 400-500 pixels across. At that size, subtle differences in typeface or letter placement simply cannot be detected; the "pixels" are too big. If you compare the two documents at a larger size, the differences between them are much more striking.
For instance: In the original CBS document, some letters "float" above or below the baseline. For example, in the original document, lowercase 'e' is very frequently -- but not always -- above the baseline. Look at the word "interference", or even "me". Typewriters do this; computers don't. Granted, if you are comparing a lowercase 'e' that is only 10 or 12 pixels high with another lowercase 'e' that is only 10 or 12 pixels high, you're not going to see such subtleties. That doesn't prove the differences aren't there; it just proves you're an idiot, for making them each 12 pixels high and then saying "see, they almost match!"
"This typeface -- Times New Roman -- didn't exist in the early 1970s."
There are several problems with this theory. First, Times New Roman, as a typeface, was invented in 1931. Second, typewriters were indeed available with Times New Roman typefaces.
And third, this isn't Times New Roman, at least not the Microsoft version. It's close. But it's not a match.
For example, the '8' characters are decidedly different. The '4's, as viewable on other memos, are completely different; one has an open top, the other is closed.
So yes, we have proven that two typefaces that look similar to each other are indeed, um, similar. At least when each document is shrunk to 400-500 pixels wide... and you ignore some of the characters.
"Documents back then didn't have superscripted 'th' characters"
That one was easy. Yes, many typewriter models had shift-combinations to create 'th', 'nd', and 'rd'. This is most easily proven by looking at known-good documents in the Bush records, which indeed have superscripted 'th' characters interspersed throughout.
"This document uses proportional spacing, which didn't exist in the early 1970s."
Turns out, it did. The IBM Executive electric typewriter was manufactured in four models, A, B, C, and D, starting in 1947, and featured proportional spacing. An example of its output is here. It was an extremely popular model, and was marketed to government agencies.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The slaughter continues here for those interested.
Phaedrus
So now the neocons are completely discredited
...that is if anyone actually cares...
CBS will be pleased that Gameface and his friends wont be able to publicly stone them to death in Madison Square Garden.
(Foxnews had already secured exclusive rights to this event)
The infidel Liberals escape again.
Stay tuned for next weeks exciting edition of "Neoconservative Jihad"
...that is if anyone actually cares...
CBS will be pleased that Gameface and his friends wont be able to publicly stone them to death in Madison Square Garden.
(Foxnews had already secured exclusive rights to this event)
The infidel Liberals escape again.
Stay tuned for next weeks exciting edition of "Neoconservative Jihad"
Bush's government forged letters pretending they were coming from American soldiers in Iraq saying that the Iraqi's love them and are glad they are there. He also said they have chemical weapons, he also said they have WMD'S, he also said the war was over, ha also said they had drone planes to desperse chemical weapons, he also said they could mount a chemical attack in 15 minutes, he also said he served his whole time in the army, he also .......
From Phaedrus' link...
If you put a picture of a chimpanzee next to a picture of George W. Bush, line them up exactly, and shrink them down to only a few pixels across, they'll look pretty much the same, at that resolution. Whether you think that proves anything depends on your point of view.
If you put a picture of a chimpanzee next to a picture of George W. Bush, line them up exactly, and shrink them down to only a few pixels across, they'll look pretty much the same, at that resolution. Whether you think that proves anything depends on your point of view.
Come on Phaedrus...you are better than this. How did that clown discredit the 'wingnuts' and the scores of experts that claim it likely to be a fraud? He picked a couple of arguments out of the hat and explained how it was possible that these memos were written in 1973. Wow...outstanding work. He stopped too soon though. Why didn't the guy answer a few more relevant and damning questions raised about the documents?
1) Why Bob Hodges, CBS's trump card in the story, claims CBS misrepresented his comments and now believes the docs to be frauds: "According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."
2) Why CBS says Marcel Matley certified 4 documents while Matley said he only looked at one.
3) Why no typography experts have suppurted CBS's claim that the memos aren't fake.
4) Why CBS would bother putting garbage like this out as facts when they don't have the original copy to verify or debunk the documents?
5) Why Killian's family disavows the documents?
6) Why CBS interviewed Killien's family but didn't air the family's statement that the documents were frauds?
"Now, Killian's widow has cast still more doubt on the CBS papers. "Number one, he would not have typed because he did not type," Marjorie Connell told ABC News. "Number two, the wording in these documents is very suspect to me. I just don't believe that, it looks like some things may have been picked up out of a document and then other things just made fictitiously to fill in things, to make them flow. I just can't believe that this is his words, my late husband's words."
And finally, Killian's son has also questioned the CBS documents. Referring to the "sugar coat" memo in particular, Gary Killian told the Associated Press, "It just wouldn't happen. The only thing that can happen when you keep secret files like that are bad things.... No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that."
Dems better stick with McAullife's claim that Karl Rove created the fakes...it is far more believable than their weak arguments that the docs are real.
1) Why Bob Hodges, CBS's trump card in the story, claims CBS misrepresented his comments and now believes the docs to be frauds: "According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."
2) Why CBS says Marcel Matley certified 4 documents while Matley said he only looked at one.
3) Why no typography experts have suppurted CBS's claim that the memos aren't fake.
4) Why CBS would bother putting garbage like this out as facts when they don't have the original copy to verify or debunk the documents?
5) Why Killian's family disavows the documents?
6) Why CBS interviewed Killien's family but didn't air the family's statement that the documents were frauds?
"Now, Killian's widow has cast still more doubt on the CBS papers. "Number one, he would not have typed because he did not type," Marjorie Connell told ABC News. "Number two, the wording in these documents is very suspect to me. I just don't believe that, it looks like some things may have been picked up out of a document and then other things just made fictitiously to fill in things, to make them flow. I just can't believe that this is his words, my late husband's words."
And finally, Killian's son has also questioned the CBS documents. Referring to the "sugar coat" memo in particular, Gary Killian told the Associated Press, "It just wouldn't happen. The only thing that can happen when you keep secret files like that are bad things.... No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that."
Dems better stick with McAullife's claim that Karl Rove created the fakes...it is far more believable than their weak arguments that the docs are real.
Shotgun
Maybe the thrust of my post was not clear. It is literally completely irrelevant to me to the point of absuridty whether or not the documents are real. I was simply celebrating the 0wnage of some batshit freeper trolls, which I think is in fact the only truly indisputable fact of hunter's work.
I did read some stuff regarding Killian's wife and family. I'm not sure I see the relevance of someone's family disavowing unflattering behaviour on the part of that person ... nothing against the late coloneol or his kin, but I just don't see how you or anyone else could take anything they say seriously regarding Killian given the obvious bias.
Gameface
I was sorry to hear about your dad passing. If there's anything I can do please let me know, you psychotically deluded fruitcake.
Phaedrus
Maybe the thrust of my post was not clear. It is literally completely irrelevant to me to the point of absuridty whether or not the documents are real. I was simply celebrating the 0wnage of some batshit freeper trolls, which I think is in fact the only truly indisputable fact of hunter's work.
I did read some stuff regarding Killian's wife and family. I'm not sure I see the relevance of someone's family disavowing unflattering behaviour on the part of that person ... nothing against the late coloneol or his kin, but I just don't see how you or anyone else could take anything they say seriously regarding Killian given the obvious bias.
Gameface
I was sorry to hear about your dad passing. If there's anything I can do please let me know, you psychotically deluded fruitcake.
Phaedrus
