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| 7/8 |
| 2004/9/9-10 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:33447 Activity:very high |
9/9 So CBS and 60 Minutes are so set on bringing down Bush they
usef fraudulent documents!?? This is crazy.
\_ The white house released their own copies and have not denied
their authenticity. You're pretty damn quick to jump on noise.
\_ at least describe what you are trolling with.
here i'll help you out
http://www.powerlineblog.com
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40376
\_ You know, I think they are fakes. -liberal
\_ I think you are a fake.
\_ But the blog sounds so real. We're all D00M3D!! -liberal
\_ DAMN THAT LIBERAL MEDIA!!!
\_ Proportional fonts notwithstanding, all military documents
require the date be in caps.
\_ The documents are real.
\_ Have you ever served? Do you not know military protocol in regards
to writing the date in only capitalized? It is like when armchair
warriors do not know what Zulu time is. Format is always Zulu Time,
Day, Month CAPITALIZED, year.
\_ Is military protocal ALWAYS followed? Even in things like
slapdash memos? The existence of a regulation != 100%
compliance with it. Not saying it's not a forgery, but
you should be a bit more precise (especially with badly
formatted motd posts.) -John
\_ Could the documents be transcriptions?
\_ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9967-2004Sep9.html
See, even the Post agrees. Wah, I don't want Dubya to win. -liberal
\_ Well no, that is not what that article says. Reread it.
\_ It says the Post's experts say it's fake, and CBS won't
reveal its experts and that CBS checked it with Killian's
Republican, Bush-loving superior, but the guy isn't
returning calls!
\_ The pdf's presented by CBS are obviously fakes. One can overlay
a Microsoft Word version and they match perfectly. The
question now is the motive and culprit. This story first
broke on http://freerepublic.com, BTW.
\_ Please provide one in /csua/tmp. I believe you, but I want
to see what you've created.
\_ Look here
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog
\_ I am not convinced either way (yet), reading all this neat
stuff about the history of fonts is fun, your liberal friends
have posted responses
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603 - danh
\_ Thanks. That pretty much seals it for that particular
memo, at least, in that it's not an original 1970s
copy. The only possible explanation, for that memo at
least and perhaps the others, was that it was forged or
transcribed. -liberal
\_ Whee! More media circus of irrelevant bullshit.
\_ Call me paranoid but what if the Bush people are secretly the
source of the forged documents? having this stuff come out and
slathered all over the press and then proven to be fake is really
benefitting Bush, because now he can still say he served his time
etc, but also say "look at the dirty tricks the Democrats are up
to!" so it just makes the Democrats look evil AND stupid.
\_ Guilty as charged! -democrat |
| 7/8 |
|
| www.powerlineblog.com Sekimori September 09, 2004 CBS's House of Cards Collapses It isn't pretty. Over the next few days, we'll be commenting on the significance of the mainstream media's frantic effort to drag John Kerry over the finish line. In the meantime, following the 60 Minutes story is like watching a train wreck. Associated Press weighed in: The authenticity of newly unearthed memos stating that George W Bush failed to meet standards of the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War was questioned Thursday by the son of the late officer who reportedly wrote the memos. "I am upset because I think it is a mixture of truth and fiction here," said Gary Killian, son of Lt. News reports have said the memos, first obtained by CBS's "60 Minutes," were found in Jerry Killian's personal records. Gary Killian said his father wasn't in the habit of bringing his work home with him, and that the documents didn't come from the family. The personnel chief in Killian's unit at the time also said he believes the documents are fake. Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software, which wasn't available when the documents were supposedly written in 1972 and 1973. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript - a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" - as evidence indicating forgery. Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by CBS, she said. "I'm virtually certain these were computer-generated," Lines said after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer's Microsoft Word software. When you can't even fool the Associated Press, you're in deep trouble. Thanks to reader and fellow blogger Ryan McGrath for the AP link. TrackBack An Officer Weighs In We have received hundreds, perhaps thousands, of emails today on the 60 Minutes hoax. We can't begin to publish all the good points that our readers have made. One point we haven't emphasized in our posts today is that a considerable number of military and former military men have written us to point out discrepancies between the faked CBS memos and normal military practice. This email from a military officer is typical of many that we received: As a military officer with extensive administrative experience I can assure you that the letter you have posted about 1st Lt Bush is an obvious fake. Apparently someone took old letter head stationary and created this document to include adding the 'th' when such a subscript was not possible on military typewriters of the time--I know I used them. But MOST GLARING is the omission of an 'SSCI' code the Standard Subject Classification Indicator code which is found on every piece of US military correspondence. The SSCI must appear in the upper right hand corner and include a subject code, the originator's initials, the clerk-typist's code and the date. Every official military document must include an SSCI--this officer (who most likely never typed an official document in his career) forgot to include it and probably could not even remember the correct subject abbreviation code. ALSO ON US MILITARY CORRESPONDENCE THE SUBJECT LINE IS ALWAYS CAPITALIZED-no self respecting military clerk typed this forgery nor would they type the date 14 May,1972 instead of the correct military style of 14 MAY 1972. Other errors: "Lt Colonel"-should be " LC" or " LTCOL" or more correctly "Lieutenant Colonel, (branch of service) Commander-should read "COMMANDING" Alger Hiss could not have created a more obvious fraud. The Alger Hiss analogy is one that has occurred to us frequently today. Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard has consulted several experts who have evaluated the "newly-discovered" 60 Minutes documents. "These sure look like forgeries," says William Flynn, a forensic document expert widely considered the nation's top analyst of computer-generated documents. Flynn looked at copies of the documents posted on the CBS News website (here, here, here, and here). Flynn says, "I would say it looks very likely that these documents could not have existed" in the early 1970s, when they were allegedly written. "They look mighty suspicious," says a veteran forensic document expert who asked not to be quoted by name. Richard Polt, a Xavier University philosophy professor who operates a website dedicated to typewriters, says that while he is not an expert on typesetting, the documents "look like typical word-processed documents." So can we say with absolute certainty that the documents were forged? Xavier University's Polt, in an email, offers two possible scenarios. "Either these are later transcriptions of earlier documents (which may have been handwritten or typed on a typewriter), or they are crude and amazingly foolish forgeries. I'm a Kerry supporter myself, but I won't let that cloud my objective judgment: I'm 99% sure that these documents were not produced in the early 1970s." Says Flynn: "This looks pretty much like a hoax at this point in time." We are pleased to note that Hayes cites Power Line as "leading the charge" on the CBS hoax. TrackBack Asking Questions of the AP This is the email I sent to the Associated Press this morning: I am writing to lodge an ethics complaint against Tom Hays and the Associated Press in connection with a story that you published on Friday, Sept. Later the same day, the AP released a second version of the article that did not contain these false claims. I also have an informant who is a reporter covering the Bush campaign, who was at the West Allis rally, and who saw what happened. Here are what I understand to be the facts: 1) Tom Hays was not at the West Allis rally, even though his by-line appeared on the story. Lindlaw was at the rally, along with at least one other reporter from the AP. In fact, as the audiotape of the event makes clear, no one booed. This was a conscious, deliberate lie, which Mr Lindlaw perpetrated for the purpose of helping his own party in the ongoing Presidential campaign. This appears to me to be a major scandal, which goes to the heart of the Associated Press's credibility as a news organization. Someone here should be fired--Tom Hays, if he really was responsible for the lie, or Scott Lindlaw, if, as my informant says, he was the actual source. I know for a fact that the White House press corps is buzzing about this scandal and wondering what the Associated Press intends to do. You must take appropriate action against the individual or individuals who have betrayed their profession. Please contact me at your earliest convenience to discuss the status of your investigation, and what actions you intend to take. TrackBack The Crowd That Didn't Boo We may be inching closer to the truth about the false Associated Press report claiming that a Republican crowd in West Allis, Wisconsin, booed the announcement that President Clinton had been hospitalized, and "President Bush did nothing to stop them." We have an inside source who was present at the rally and is familiar with the reporters involved. Our source tells us that Tom Hays, whose byline was on the false AP report, was not at the West Allis rally. He is not one of the AP reporters assigned to cover President Bush, and is believed to have been in New York at the time. Our source says that the AP reporter behind the story was Scott Lindlaw. Lindlaw is one of the AP reporters who cover the Bush campaign. our source has heard him say that his "mission" is to see that Bush is not re-elected. On the day of the West Allis rally, Lindlaw was wearing ear plugs in his ears, as he often does to minimize crowd noise. After Bush's speech, he approached another AP reporter and said that he thought he had heard boos, and asked whether his colleague had heard any. The second AP reporter said that she didn't hear any booing. We will add questions about Mr Lindlaw to those we are directing to the Associated Press. Dick Morris is one of the commentators we link to on a "for what... |
| worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40376 com Amid questions raised on Internet weblogs about the authenticity of National Guard documents potentially damaging to President Bush, CBS News told WorldNetDaily it stands by its claims. George W Bush during his Texas Air National Guard service Spokeswoman Kelli Edwards said she was aware of the charge that the documents, purportedly produced in 1972 and 1973, appear to have been forged with a modern word processor. "As is standard practice at CBS News, each of the documents broadcast on '60 Minutes' was thoroughly investigated by independent experts, and we are convinced of their authenticity," she said. Edwards refused to comment further, referring back to her statement as the final word. Later, however, she sent an e-mail to WND, adding, "CBS verified the authenticity of the documents by talking to individuals who had seen the documents at the time they were written. Colonel Jerry Killian and confirm that the documents reflect his opinions at the time the documents were written." Killian, who died in 1984, was Bush's squadron commander in the Texas Air Nation Guard. Among the assertions "60 Minutes II" derived from the documents -- four memos Killian wrote to himself -- were that the commander was pressed to embellish a performance evaluation for Bush and that Bush did not follow an order to report for a physical. online story, based on the "60 Minutes II" report, stated "60 Minutes consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic." Anchor Dan Rather said in the report "60 Minutes has obtained a number of documents we are told were taken from Col. A White House spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Kerry Spot" weblog cited Bruce Webster, an expert witness in US District Court cases on computer document forensics, who said the memo posted online by CBS News "has all sorts of problems" and points out the "typefaces weren't available on typewriters in 1973." Powerline said the document appears to use the superscript 'th,' but there "are no keys on any typewriter in common use in 1973 which could produce a tiny "th." The forger got careless after creating the August 1, 1972 document and slipped up big-time." A number of Web contributors said they could create an exact representation of the document using Microsoft Word. Little Green Footballs wrote: "I opened Microsoft Word, set the font to Microsoft's Times New Roman, tabbed over to the default tab stop to enter the date '18 August 1973,' then typed the rest of the document purportedly from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B Killian. Philip Bouffard, touted as one of the top two experts in forensic document examination of typefaces in the country, said he cannot make a 100-percent-positive evaluation because the documents appear to have been copied several times. But he stated, "It's just possible that this might be a Times Roman font, which means that it would have been created on a computer. It's very possible that someone decided to create this document on a computer ... Bouffard noted the document has "proportional spacing," which was on only seven or eight models not widely available in 1972-73. He also pointed out the number 4 does not have a "foot" and has a "closed top," which is indicative of Times New Roman, a font exclusive to modern computer word processing programs. Bouffard told INDC Journal that after further analysis, he's fairly certain the Aug. He noted, examining his old papers, the inconsistency of the "4" coming up several previous times with forgeries that attempt to duplicate old proportional spaced documents with a computer word processor. He said he didn't know who CBS contacted to verify the document's authenticity, but is aware of only one person aside from himself who might be more qualified to determine authentic typefaces. Bush called him to talk about "how he can get out of coming to drill from now through November." Bush told his commander "he is working on a campaign in Alabama ... Killian adds that he thinks Bush has gone over his head, and is "talking to someone upstairs." One of the Killian memos is an official order to Bush to report for a physical, which never was carried out. Bush be suspended from flight status due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet annual physical examination ... Buck Staudt, head of the Texas Air National Guard, is putting on pressure to "sugar coat" the evaluation of Lt. The memo continues, with Killian saying, "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job." CBS News said Staudt, a Bush family supporter, would not agree to an interview request. Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett responded to CBS's request for comment about Killian's statements in the memos. "For anybody to try to interpret or presume they know what somebody who is now dead was thinking in any of these memos, I think is very difficult to do," he said. Bartlett added that Bush's superiors granted permission to train in Alabama in a non-flying status and that "many of the documents you have here affirm just that." CBS News noted that earlier in his flying career, Bush received glowing evaluations from Killian, who called him an "exceptionally fine young officer and pilot" who "performed in an outstanding manner." According to military documents released this week, Bush scored 88 on an airmanship test, 98 on aviation physiology and 100 on navigational abilities. |
| www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9967-2004Sep9.html All RSS Feeds Some Question Authenticity of Papers on Bush By Michael Dobbs and Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A01 Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday. Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed out typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their authenticity. Thursday's Question: On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office announced that the deficit for the current fiscal year would reach $422 billion. What was the office's report for fiscal year 1996 when President Clinton ran for reelection? News Alert The documents, which were shown Wednesday night on "60 Minutes II," bear dates from 1972 and 1973 and include an order for Bush to report for his annual physical exam and a discussion of how he could get out of "coming to drill." The dispute over the documents' authenticity came as Democrats stepped up their criticism of Bush's service with the National Guard between 1968 and 1973. The Democratic National Committee sought to fuel the controversy yesterday by holding a news conference at which Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) pointed to the documents as a fresh indictment of Bush's credibility. CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying that each of the documents "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity." The statement added that CBS reporters had verified the documents by talking to unidentified people who saw them "at the time they were written." CBS spokeswoman Kelli Edwards declined to respond to questions raised by experts who examined copies of the papers at the request of The Washington Post, or to provide the names of the experts CBS consulted. Experts interviewed by The Post pointed to a series of telltale signs suggesting that the documents were generated by a computer or word processor rather than the typewriters in widespread use by Bush's National Guard unit. A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj Gen. Bobby W Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time." "These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said. The official said the network regarded Hodges's comments as "the trump card" on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not want to hurt Bush. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine in Texas. In a telephone interview from her Texas home, Killian's widow, Marjorie Connell, described the records as "a farce," saying she was with her husband until the day he died in 1984 and he did not "keep files." She said her husband considered Bush "an excellent pilot." He was not a paper person," she said, adding that she was "livid" at CBS. A CBS reporter contacted her briefly before Wednesday night's broadcasts, she said, but did not ask her to authenticate the records. If demonstrated to be authentic, the documents would contradict several long-standing claims by the White House about an episode in Bush's National Guard service in 1972, when he abruptly gave up flying and moved from Texas to Alabama to take part in a political campaign. The CBS documents purport to show that Killian, who was Bush's squadron commander, was unhappy with Bush for his performance toward meeting his National Guard commitments and resisted pressure from his superiors to "sugarcoat" the record. After their initial airing on the "CBS Evening News" and "60 Minutes II" programs Wednesday night, the documents were picked up by other news organizations, including The Post. A front-page story in The Post yesterday noted that CBS declined to provide details about the source of the documents, the authenticity of which could not be independently confirmed. On Wednesday evening, the White House e-mailed reporters copies of the documents, as supplied by CBS, as well as the transcript of a CBS interview with White House communications director Dan Bartlett rebutting allegations that Bush had shirked his military duties. While Bartlett described the emergence of the documents as "dirty politics," he did not dispute their authenticity. |
| www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog -> www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/ Netscape 4 tips support lgf You don't have to pay to read LGF. But if you enjoy what we're doing here and you'd like to show your appreciation, you can use the Amazon or PayPal links below to drop some change in our tip jar and help us buy some groceries. Donate with PayPal contact us your email: subject: message: send it Messages may be published in our weblog, unless you request otherwise. colophon This page contains validated HTML 401 Transitional code, with a validated stylesheet. We're readable in just about any browser, but we look best in the ones that understand CSS. Internet Explorer Everything you see in this weblog was developed and programmed by Charles Johnson, including but not limited to the random photos, slideshow, polls, user preferences, contact form, referrer list, daily statistics, site search, google news search, link management system, random Zappa quote, and last but not least, the weblog system itself, which includes a full commenting system with a recent comments list, automatic archiving, RSS generation for syndication, an email-an-article feature, and a whole bunch of editing and administration features behind the scenes. Please help keep Little Green Footballs bouncing by donating whatever you can! We do this without pay, so the more donations, the more time we can afford to devote to LGF. Thanks for your support, and for helping make LGF a success. email this article Font Geek Bona Fides I actually received two emails from people questioning my expertise to examine and criticize the documents shown in the entries immediately below. I've been involved with desktop publishing software and scalable software fonts (as opposed to hot lead type) almost since their inception. I'm a former West Coast editor of a popular computer magazine for a now-orphaned computer, the Atari ST/TT. I also co-owned a software publishing firm, CodeHead Technologies, for whom I designed and laid out packaging and manuals for more than a dozen products (in addition to developing most of those products, using 680x0 assembly language). My software company also marketed a word processing program (Calligrapher, written by a developer in Britain) that had the ability to import and use Postscript Type 1 fonts. And I had early experience with some of the dinosaur-like dedicated word processors that were available in the 70s/80s. I'm not boasting like this just to pump up my lizardoid ego; it's to let you know that I have an extensive background in these subjects--and when I tell you that there's no way the CBS News documents were created on any machine available in 1972/1973, I ain't just whistlin' Dixie. com and The Corner, and now WorldNetDaily and many other sites--and LGF is slowing down and even timing out for many people when they try to get into the topic for the possibly forged Bush National Guard documents. So here's another topic to handle more comments on the issue. UPDATE at 9/9/04 4:33:11 pm: Since several people have commented on the one noticeable mismatch--the slightly lower "th" in "187th"--I should point out that this difference goes away when the Word document linked above is printed. My screenshot shows the screen display in Microsoft Word, compared to the printed document from CBS News. When you print my Word document, the superscript "th" exactly matches the CBS News document. email this article Bush Guard Documents: Forged I opened Microsoft Word, set the font to Microsoft's Times New Roman, tabbed over to the default tab stop to enter the date "18 August 1973," then typed the rest of the document purportedly from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B Killian. The spacing is not just similar--it is identical in every respect. 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; The one difference (the "th" in "187th" is slightly lower) is probably due to a slight difference between the Mac and PC versions of the Times New Roman font, or it could be an artifact of whatever process was used to artificially "age" the document. UPDATE at 9/9/04 10:57:34 am: And this is not the only document that was apparently written with Microsoft Word; Roger L Simon comments: It's fascinating how quickly the blogs and the Internet were able to catch this as compared to intelligence agencies which were so slow off the mark with the Niger documents. A Palestinian militant of Hamas wires a makeshift explosive device as children stand near him, in a narrow alleyway of the refugee camp of Jebaliya, outside Gaza City, Thursday Sept. FreeRepublic sums up the situation: Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts. The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts. I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. JAKARTA (Reuters) - A powerful car bomb exploded outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta on Thursday, killing at least eight people and wounding more than 130 in an attack Indonesian police blamed on al Qaeda-linked militants. The blast came days ahead of presidential polls in the world's most populous Muslim nation and exactly a month before Australia's general election. It blew a large hole in the embassy's fence and left a deep crater in the road outside. Charred debris, bodies and body parts, glass and the twisted wreckage of motorcycles, cars and a truck littered the road outside the embassy after the blast, which tore off the glass fronts of nearby office towers, wounding many office workers. Australian Prime Minister John Howard expressed outrage. "This is not a nation that is going to be intimidated by acts of terrorism," he told reporters in Melbourne. His foreign minister, Alexander Downer, who was flying to Jakarta late on Thursday along with a team of bomb experts, put the death toll at 11, all of them Indonesians. in which employees who answer to the secretary of defense could control the margin of victory in a close presidential election." They would do so, said the Times, by funneling e-mailed ballots through the Pentagon. The system that is giving the Aunt Pittypats of the Times such a case of the vapors was begun in 1990 to enable states to use available technology to facilitate absentee votes from all American citizens -- not just the military -- who are overseas. Now the Defense Department is engaged in a determined effort to ensure that our soldiers and their families away from home aren't disenfranchised as they were in 2000. Problem is, the Times -- again -- is simply making up facts to feed its own paranoia. Well, maybe it's not paranoia: If the soldiers get to vote, they could easily deliver a Bush win in November. he will allow military voters from his state -- one of the most pivotal in the election -- to e-mail ballots from combat zones to the Defense Department." The Times says that the Missouri rule -- and a similar one issued in North Dakota -- opens the door to coercion of soldiers by their commanders and makes it easy for Pentagon ballot-handlers to alter the votes, and it demands that the Pentagon stop handling ballots and instead help military and overseas voters send the ballots directly to local election officials. It would be a stretch to say that every word in the editorial is a falsehood. Though Matt Blunt's office did make the incorrect announcement, the Times -- knowingly, willfully, and with considerable precision -- misstated the facts. One very senior Pentagon official I spoke to Tuesday was dumbfounded. He said, "The New York Times has outdone itself by having mo... |
| www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603 Hunter Fri Sep 10th, 2004 at 15:37:04 GMT (From the diaries -- kos) 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. 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". As he says: 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; 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. 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. You could use the same typeface in, for example, OpenOffice, and if it's the same font, surprise-surprise, it will look the same. 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; 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. 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. 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." 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. For example, the '8' characters are decidedly different. The '4's, as viewable on other memos, are completely different; 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... "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." It was an extremely popular model, and was marketed to government agencies. "OK, fine, but no single machine had proportional spacing, 'th' characters, and a font like that one." The IBM Executive is probably the most likely candidate for this particular memo. There is some confusion about this, so to clear up: the IBM Selectric, while very popular, did not have proportional spacing. The Selectric Composer, introduced in 1966, did, and in fact could easily have produced these memos, but it was a very expensive machine, and not likely to be used for light typing duties. The proportional-spacing Executive, on the other hand, had been produced in various configurations since the 1940's, and was quite popular. There is skepticism in some circles that these memos really show "proportional" spacing. they apparently were manufactured in a range of configurations, and with different available typefaces. Note that these were not "typeball" machines, like the Selectrics; IBM had what we will call a "close" relationship with Times New Roman: Courier was originally designed in 1956 by Howard Kettler for the revolutionary "golfball" typing head technology IBM was then developing for its electric typewriters. In the 1960s and 1970s Courier became a mainstay in offices. Consequently, when Apple introduced its first Macintosh computer in 1984 it anachronistically included Courier among its core fonts. In the early 1990s Microsoft, locked in a font format battle with Adobe, hired Monotype Typography to design a series of core fonts for Windows 31, many of which were intended to mirror those in the Apple core font group. Thus, New Courier--lighter and crisper than Courier--was born. Linotype and Intertype quickly licensed the design, changing its name for their marketing purposes to Times Roman. Times Roman became an original core font for Apple in the 1980s and Times New Roman MT became one for Windows in the 1990s. And, as we said before, typeface includes not just the "shape" of the letters, but the size and spacing between those letters. One of the differences between the Times New Roman as implemented on the IBM machines, as opposed to Microsoft Word? The IBM machines apparently had the alternative '4' character that matched these memos, while Microsoft Word's TNR does not. Now, would the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron have extravagantly purchased typewriters that contained the th superscript key? Would the military want or require typewriters with the 'th', 'nd', and 'rd' characters? I'll leave that to the enterprising among you to deduce. This is not the final word on this, and it is certainly possible that any documents are forgeries. But the principle argument of the freepers -- that it would be impossible for a TANG office in 1972 to produce documents that look like these -- is simply false. Within a few days, however, we should know for sure either way; these typewriters still have a following, and type samples should be forthcoming. kj's diary just after this one, for evidence on the IBM Selectric Composer, first marketed in 1966. This machine definitively had all the features necessary to produce these documents. Because it was apparently very expensive and difficult to use, the argument is that a TANG office would never have had one. Nonetheless, it strikes down the theory that a 60s-70s era machine could not have produced these docs. Roman" typefaces in the 80s-90s specifically to more accurately match the original design of Times New Roman: When Microsoft produced its version of Times New Roman, licensed from Monotype, in TrueType format, and when Apple produced its version of Times Roman, licensed from Linotype, in TrueType format, the subtle competition took on a new aspect, because both Microsoft and Apple expended a great deal of time and effort to make the TrueType versions as good as, or better than, the PostScript version. During the same period, Adobe released ATM along with upgraded versions of its core set of fonts, for improved rasterization on scree... |
| freerepublic.com -> www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse Republic Log In | Register News/Activism Latest | Search | Topics | Home | Help News/Activism Threads Threads | Messages Search (by title: enter all relevant words or partial title) Search Austrians Praise Schwarzenegger in US Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach On 05/13/2004 9:28:13 PM PDT with 1 comment The Las Vegas Sun ^ | May 13, 2004 at 11:56:36 PDT | GEORGE JAHN GRAZ, Austria (AP) - America, nein. Arnie, ja! When Austrians vent about the United States, the key word nowadays is "no" to things American, with only a few exceptions - including praise of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnie, that country has a real problem," says Robert Biber, echoing sentiments across Austria roused by images of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners. Outrage as KISS player mouths off on Muslims Posted by veronica On 05/13/2004 9:25:48 PM PDT with 3 comments Sydney Morning Herald ^ | May 14, 2004 KISS bass player Gene Simmons has caused an uproar among Australia's Muslim community by launching an attack on Islamic culture while in Melbourne. The lizard-tongued rock god who is touring Australia with the world's most enduring glam rock band launched an attack on Muslim extremists during an interview on Melbourne's 3AW radio - including comments which were labelled inaccurate. Cold Turkey Posted by Rennes Templar On 05/13/2004 9:23:01 PM PDT In These Times ^ | May 10, 2004 | Kurt Vonnegut Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace. But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of Americas becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. May, 2004 10amET | Fintan Dunne The family firm of beheaded American Nick Berg, was named by a conservative website in a list of 'enemies' of the Iraq occupation. That could explain his arrest by Iraqi police --a detention which fatally delayed his planned return from Iraq and may have led directly to his death. Nick Berg, 26 disappeared into incommunicado detention after his arrest by Iraqi police in March, 2004. He vanished again after his release 13 days later. Science & Space ^ | Thursday, May 13, 2004 Posted: 10:13 PM EDT (0213 GMT) | From Dave Santucci, CNN Firm is competing for the $10 million X Prize Aircraft designer Burt Rutan and his firm Scaled Composites took a giant leap early Thursday toward becoming the first private company to send a person into space. Scaled Composites, funded by Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen, set a new civilian altitude record of 40 miles in a craft called SpaceShipOne during a test flight above California's Mojave Desert. Turning Shame Into Outrage Posted by neverdem On 05/13/2004 9:18:08 PM PDT with 1 comment LA Times ^ | May 13, 2004 | Charles Paul Freund Charles Paul Freund is a senior editor at Reason magazine. It's a tough call whether Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the Jordanian militant who is reportedly responsible for the videotaped butchery of Nicholas Berg is more stupid than he is brutal, or whether he is a bigger monster than he is a fool. Zarqawi's own nauseating videotape makes the case for his indescribable brutality and may have inadvertently delivered his enemy from its own demoralization. Official Says War Budget to Exceed $50B Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach On 05/13/2004 9:14:08 PM PDT with 3 comments Yahoo via AP ^ | Thu May 13, 6:29 PM ET | ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Wars in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) will cost more than $50 billion next year, a top Defense Department official told Congress Thursday in the Bush administration's clearest description yet of the conflicts' price tags. Berg's Father Demands Answers From Bush (Free Republic mentioned) Posted by kristinn On 05/13/2004 9:13:32 PM PDT with 25 comments Duluth News Tribune ^ | Thursday, May 13, 2004 | Nicole Weisensee Egan Posted on Thu, May 13, 2004 Berg's father demands answers from Bush BY NICOLE WEISENSEE EGAN Knight Ridder Newspapers PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - The day he buried his son, Nick Berg's father angrily lashed out at President Bush - and said he had a question for him: "I would like to ask him if it's true that al-Qaeda offered to trade my son's life for another person," Michael Berg told a small group of reporters early Thursday morning outside his West Chester home. One Last Card to Play Posted by Russian Sage On 05/13/2004 9:10:54 PM PDT Claremont Review of Books ^ | Posted March 18, 2004 | By Peter W Schramm One Last Card to Play A review of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, by Allen C Guelzo. Since 1865, the new york state library has been the proud owner of the original Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Media Maelstrom Posted by hope On 05/13/2004 9:06:15 PM PDT with 3 comments News Max ^ | 5-11-04 | John L Perry Media MaelstromJohn L PerryTuesday, May 11, 2004 This presidential election is in peril of being swallowed in a perfect media storm, more terrifying than Edgar Allen Poes A Descent Into the Maelstrom. With the inexorable force of the novelists oerpowering whirlpool that funnels nearly every object in its clutches down, down, down into certain doom, the perfect storm of television is sucking American democracy into oblivion. The way things are headed, television mass communications with print media puppy-trotting alongside its ankles are what will determine the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. Not the candidates. Bush Team to Rework Iraq Funding After Senate Balks Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach On 05/13/2004 8:59:04 PM PDT with 7 comments Yahoo via AFP ^ | Thu May 13, 4:11 PM ET | Vicki Allen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration officials said they would rework a plan for a $25 billion reserve fund for Iraq (news - web sites) operations after Republican and Democratic senators on Thursday deplored it as an effort to get "a blank check" without congressional oversight. STRATFOR: Geopolitical Diary: Friday, May 14, 2004 Posted by Axion On 05/13/2004 8:57:27 PM PDT STRATFOR ^ | May 14, 2004 0305 GMT Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers went to Iraq on May 13. Three things are clear from this trip. First, the administration is committed to retaining Rumsfeld, or at least is committed to doing everything it can to salvage him. An open letter-- Berg dies while the Senate preens Posted by hatfieldmccoy On 05/13/2004 8:54:43 PM PDT with 16 comments vanity | 5-13-04 | hatfieldmccoy Senator Hagel, Senator Nelson, It has taken two days for me to have regained my composure to the point I could actually write you. You see, I've seen the unedited video of the Berg (an American) murder. Yes I watched the horrors of 9-11. I saw the Pearl (an American) murder video and the burning and gleeful dismemberment of the four security personnel (Americans). But the Berg video was staring straight into Hell. These things took their time. They used a dull knife and took 30 seconds to saw off this man's head. AM ET LONDON, May 13 (Reuters) - Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper suspended the weekly column of Barbara Amiel-Black after its parent, Hollinger International, filed a lawsuit accusing her and her husband Conrad Black of looting the company. Martin Newland, the editor of Britain's top-selling broadsheet, "has decided to suspend the column until legal proceedings are completed," the paper said in a statement on Thursday. What Led Nick Berg to Iraq? Posted by dyno35 On 05/13/2004 8:48:10 PM PDT with 20 comments The Philadelphia Daily News ^ | May 13, 2004 | By William Bunch BERG'S JOURNEY SPARKED FBI PROBE AND OTHER STRANGE DETAILS HE WAS not like anyone else his friends from West Chester had ever known - an adventurous dreamer, a driven idealist, part philosopher and part inventor who was bored with college Record 26m divorce win 'a pyrrhic victory' (More Saudi kidnapping) Posted by Lan... |