In a great anticlimax, Jerome Corsi finally got around to outing me at WorldNetDaily, but only as a reference in a story aimed at someone else. The article is Experts say Obama certificate not scan of original document: 2 new reports cast further doubt on image White House released. The article is just more anonymous experts creating a diversion.
This is my reply left at WND:
Dr. Corsi is correct that I didn’t duplicate the Obama certificate PDF in my article, The Doc Got Layers, referenced in his story.
What I did was to scan a birth certificate with Adobe Acrobat, clicked “Optimize Scanned PDF” and observed that the resulting PDF was layered with a colored background and white space where text was, and that sometimes parts of a word were in one layer with the other part of the word in another in another. These are some of the things observed in the Obama White House long form PDF.
I showed that PDF optimization does things that some so-called image experts here at WND said were marks of fraud; they just didn’t know what they were talking about. However, I didn’t try it with the Mac software. If I had a Mac, I would have tried it. What I should point out, however, is that not one, not one of the “experts” presented here at WND scanned a document on a Mac and used the software indicated in the White House PDF either.
I can be excused because I don’t own a Mac computer, but WorldNetDaily runs almost entirely on Mac computers. What’s their excuse? I would like to see how Dr. Corsi answers that question.
The Hawaii Department of Health says Obama was born in Hawaii and that they provided him a certified copy of the long form, and they link to the page at the White House where the long form PDF resides. As WorldNetDaily’s own Aaron Klein said on his WABC radio program after the long form was released:
“… the bottom line is that now Obama has done his part to show that he was born in Hawaii. The onus is no longer on Obama to show that. The onus is on somebody else. If somebody else can produce conclusive evidence that Obama was born somewhere else, so that this birth certificate is not real, that’s a different story, but that hasn’t happened, so we have to accept that Obama was born, and this is the evidence as of now, in Hawaii.”
Showing that maybe, possibly someone COULD fake the PDF in PhotoShop or Illustrator is really beside the point. Anyone claiming Obama was not in born in Hawaii now must show that the White House PDF COULD NOT be authentic. Rather than trot out people who know how to use Photoshop and Illustrator, how about someone who has scanned a birth certificate on a Mac? And puh-leeze, no anonymous experts.
Update:
Subsequent to the publication of this article, all of the essential marks of forgery in the PDF claimed by the birthers were replicated in a simple scan of the certificate on Xerox WorkCentre that was then opened and saved by Preview on a Mac.
The story does indicate they are at least studying their opposition, and attempting to divert attention from the gaping holes in PDF madness. But simply saying “nuh-uh” without backing it up with testing doesn’t cut it. Flattering to know they are paying attention.
A truly depressing comment:
“…after what seems like months of reading about the Birth Certificate being a phony, I believe it!”
Poor woman just encapsulated the evil nature of bamboozlery.
What is your impression of this report?
http://www.wnd.com/files/2011/07/cm110801.pdf
How did you learn that “WorldNetDaily runs almost entirely on Mac computers”?
Corsi was on the god awful Plains Radio show with Ed Hale tonight. He mentioned Doc C a few times and kept calling you Kevin Donaldson but corrected himself at least once. He admitted his only verification of the JimBot is James A. Johnson story is a post by Foggy (that was sarcastic to the average third grader but not Corsi it seems) . He blames Foggy for not being truthful. He said talked to Neonzx (Jimbot) today but was very coy about what Neonzx told him. It was clear Neon denied that he was Johnson. Corsi’s journalistic standards are microscopic.
Corsi also said something to the effect that WND could not get certified experts to interview because they would only opine on the original document. Several of their experts wanted to remain anonymous for fear the Obots would mock them. Who knew we were so powerful?
“CM” (another anonymous ‘expert’) at least tries to do some actual experiments. However his main conclusion, that all the black text moves into one layer not into different layers as in the WH PDF, is fundmentally flawed.
He is using all computer generated text, laser printed onto his original. He has NOT used actual typewritten text with all its mechanical imperfections. Nor is he using a third generation photocopy of that typewritten text.
I’d give his report a C minus, and his final conclusion a B.
Apple’s motto says, “Macs let you be your best.”
So as you can see, WND simply couldn’t be run on Macs.
OT apparently, it’s not just your President who can’t be black:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/08/02/fear-of-a-black-spider-man
Superheroes too.
All it says is: If I scan a document with Acrobat on a PC, I don’t get exactly the same results as the White House got scanning it with Quartz PDFContext software on a Mac.
Well duh.
Is this just a new black costume, or is the man inside black as well? Spidey wore black in the mid-80s, after the Secret Wars …. but of course that black costume turned out to be a malignant parasite from outer space … a black demon exorcised by the sound of church bells. Apply your own symbolism.
They also retconned Nick Fury, a cranky old white guy, into a bald, cranky old black guy. I don’t remember too much whine there … Mr. Jackson is just that cool?
Ought to make an Asian Spider-Man. All sorts of ready-made stereotypes there.
It really isn’t that freakin’ hard to make a decent approximation of what the file says about it’s origins. The collective failure to do so must be intentional. Still waiting for someone to make something up in any raster or vector image editor (preferably an Adobe product since the birthers love them so much (are they just ignorant of competing software, or ….. what?)), and attempt to cleanse the markup via Preview. WND says no problem, everyone knows it works that way ….. and provides no experimentation.
I know for a fact that what Corsi said isn’t true. The obvious exception is Zatkovich who wrote up a 12-page report that WND suppressed. There are others.
Not to be a stuck record but IT IS WHOLLY IRRELEVANT….. 😎
The only document that has any probative and legal value is the one with zip, zero, nada electronic elements. To whit, the two original, certified copies.
These documents are legal, valid, self authenticating and validated as such, on the record, by the DoH of Hawai’i
http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/obama.html
http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/News_Release_Birth_Certificate_042711.pdf
All this vomit from Birthers is precisely that, noise, semantically null, void of information, entropic to the max, a sack of cack……
Wow what a concept. Experts will only give their opinion on the actual document. Meanwhile WNDs internet people will call the original a fake based on a bad analysis of a computer file
😉 I must admit that I am somewhat proud of finding out that little tidbit. Back in 2010 WorldNetDaily was advertising for a graphic designer. Part of the ad said:
“We work on Macs, and use Adobe CS4 currently. YOU MUST KNOW INDESIGN!”
http://www.find-printdesign-jobs.com/graphic-designer-entry-level-print-work-from-home/
1) Spider-Man is a replacement for Peter Parker, and it’s not the outfit which is black.
2) I still laugh at the fact that WND quoted Victoria Nicks one day, and entirely ignores her every other day. She is more of an “expert” than those they normally parade, though even she doesn’t qualify for forensic analysis. What is interesting, however, is she shows she knows enough about computers to know the arguments over a digital file are absurd.
3) I own a computer. I know how to alter documents. Don’t let Corsi know!
It’s also a secret that I am good with ms paint, and know how to paint over scanned images, such as scanned cards, with it; it becomes a piece of art in my hands, if you like…
😉
They use ALL-CAPS in job listings? So that isn’t just practiced by their fans, it’s endemic? My God, they may not be just manipulative shills but genuinely, honestly stupid. This was a work-from-home position? Doing it on the cheap, another non-shocker. LOL!
Not to knock Macs, but they have appealed to the technically challenged for decades. It’s an interesting customer base …. techno-savvy early adopters and people who have used them for 20 years because PCs are scary.
Glad someone else noticed that! The change in tone of the comments on her posts changed so suddenly after WND “endorsed” her second post. I haven’t read the rest … did she ever disavow WND’s affection?
J. Potter
I do not know the connection between her and WND. I do remember one person on the WND thread said she didn’t write for WND and they just took her article and borrowed from it without asking her. It’s possible, I don’t know. It is possible she approved it for WND. What I do know is WND said she is an expert and WND ignored her conclusions…
Paranoid fools. It is a costume. There are many superheroes who aren’t white, but it is still only a costume.
Actually, you are incorrect. It is not merely a costume. The new Spider-Man in that comic reality (the “Ultimate” line of Marvel Comics takes place is an alternate-reality version to the main line of the comics…consider it a parallel world) will be a new person taking over the mantle for Peter Parker, who died recently in that Ultimate comics line. The new Spider-Man happens to be half-black and half-hispanic and his name is Miles Morales.
In the mainline Marvel comics continuity, Peter Parker is still alive and web-swinging as he always was.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/2011-08-01-black-spider-man_n.htm?csp=hf
With in the birther universe, it isn’t the State of Hawaii, it is the document.
As With Corsi’s article, he doesn’t care that Doc was able to use a repeatable method. Do produced a method to disprove a birther argument about Obama latest birth certificate. All they care about is arguing away the authenticity of Obama birth certificate. No substance, no facts, no logic, just pure birtherism.
Holy crap, I just went back and read the whole listing … laugh chuckle snort guffaw cry cry WHOOO!!
I highly recommend it for a morning pick-me-up. 😀
So, it is worse that I could have imaged. Spider-man has had different customers in the past. None, the less from reading the comments it people seem to react to the fact to the skin color under the costume, rather that what Spider-man stands for.
That’s what I thought and what struck me as strange is that WND says they have two new computer experts. One does a scan with MAC Preview, but doesn’t try to duplicate the results of the BC (or did and they are not reporting the results) and the other one who does the experiment but doesn’t use the MAC sotware.
“What Kent wears; the glasses, the business suit, that’s the costume; that’s the costume that Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us, and what are the characteristics of Clark Kent; he’s weak, he’s unsure of himself, he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race”Bill
What we got with the Long Form’s release was exactly what we said we would get from the birthers. That they would deny the validity of ANY document produced by Obama. Most of us always said that NOTHING would satisfy the birthers, and they have proven us correct.
I think if they hadn’t OCR’d the PDF in their attempt to replicate Obama’ PDF, they would have found more similarities. I have an unoptimized scanned PDF on the same security paper. When I optimize it, the content of the PDF, as shown in Acrobat, goes from 1 image to 24 images. When I then OCR it, it goes back to 2 images, one of which is a single pixel. In addition, post-OCR there is text content in the PDF. I bet that explains their inability to “move” the text and probably the white space as well. Of course, they may have foun this themselves and chosen not to release that analysis.
You think? Anyone want to lay odds? 🙂
Mmmmhhh! A conspiracy to hide the truth?
He makes a very fundamental mistake early on:
“Under the Description pane, the birth certificate indicates that its creating application is the Macintosh application “Preview.” […] The fact that the creating application is Preview just says that someone opened a PDF (which had already been through the wringer) in PDF and chose File > Print, then chose the “Save as PDF” option in the Print dialog.”
Well, no. As many people have pointed out, Preview can also be used to import directly from a scanner.
I have a Mac and a scanner (they just don’t happen to ever have been plugged into each other, but that can be quickly remedied). Would there be any value in me trying a science fair experiment, or has this been thoroughly enough beaten into the ground?
If “yes,” let me know what you’d like me to try.
I don’t know that I would spend to much time on it. But if you took the high resolution scan of the President’s BC and printed it onto a patterned color paper and then scanned that into the Mac and created a PDF, what would you get.
I don’t know if that would be worth the effort or not. Maybe someone with more knowledge about Macs and PDFs can respond.
Birthers would just claim, based on their vast computer expertise, that the layers were embedded in the paper when you printed it, so that is why they show up in your scan.
No question about that. That’s why I said I did know if it was worth the effort.
I recently attended a half-day seminar on document authentication given by a genuine document expert. The amount of detail she went into describing document analysis was enormous. She talked about her years of education in the field and the various law enforcement agencies she had worked for prior to opening her own business. She showed us only some of the many, many things such a career calls for experience in, including a number of old technology devices that were formerly used to create documents…because, of course, forged old documents often come to market or into the legal arena. So not only does one have to become intimately familiar with modern methods of document generation, one also has to spend years becoming acquainted with older methods.
Then she went into various methods of detecting fraud, which are legion. And learning how to interpret the findings, particularly not going beyond what the physical evidence indicates. One’s professional reputation rides on being trueful and exact, and not speculating beyond what the facts indicate. Something the birthers would never understand.
Speaking of birthers, during a break she overheard a person kidding me that I’d only attended because of my interest in birtherism. She warily asked me if I had an opinion on the birth certificate controversy, and I told her my opinion was that it was another crank conspiracy enthusiastically taken up by the paranoid. She visibly relaxed. I think she was afraid I was yet another kook showing up to harangue her on the subject. She told me that she, and virtually every actual document expert in the US had been approached by a couple of tv networks who had wanted to do shows on the birth certificate “controversy”, and that everyone approached had turned them down. The reason: none of these experts actually believed there was a controversy, and they insisted they could only render an opinion on the actual document. Not on any replicas.
And by the way, “anonymous expert” is an oxymoron. One establishes one’s expertise by providing credentials that outline one’s education and experience in the relevant field. If a person cannot or will establish his or her bona fides, and subject them to open appraisal, that person *by definition* is not an expert. We need to drive that point home.
Yeah, I like the part about putting in 20 hours a week and working their way up to a paying position. 🙄
Yes. No one has reported doing a scan of a birth certificate on a Mac. A certified copy of Obama’s long form would be the best sample document. Oh, you don’t have one? That’s a problem. All us Obots got copies, but I want to keep mine to sell on eBay after the election.
Maybe Mr. Potter or someone else could make a TIFF with the green background from the Obama COLB and the black stuff from the Press kit long form to experiment with. Put SPECIMEN in big red letters on it. Probably 300 PPI would be good.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/bo-birth-certificate.jpg
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/BirthCertificateHighResolution.jpg
You know, I was, as a joke, making a 600dpi compilation as a joke, but it was taking a long time to process, and oh, what was the point really. It wouldn’t be too much trouble to get my hands on a Mac and perform the tests we’re all looking for, but why go out of my way to demonstrate something that is beyond reason? What’s obvious to the rational, but wasted on the irrational?
I put together a recording I call the Tale of the Two Jimbots on my blog.
http://rcradioshow.blogspot.com/2011/08/jerome-corsi-ass-ace-reporter.html
Any discussion of Jerome Corsi should really include info on his shady past.
He swindled people in a scam and hid his assets in his wife’s name to avoid paying out judgments against him:
Failed venture follows anti-Obama author
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/08/20/failed_venture_follows_anti_obama_author/
Additional info on his scams and his racist history of posts online:
Jerome Corsi’s Long, Strange Trip
http://maxblumenthal.com/2008/08/jerome-corsis-long-strange-trip/#more-268
He is a real piece of work.
I notice recently when Neon called into a show he was on Corsi didn’t want to talk about his own past.
I have pointed his past out, and birthers decry it as merely “ad hominem”. It’s a central theme of the commentary on my Amazon “review” (rejection!) of WTBC? Unfortunately, the preferred reality is stronger than good information, once a willing believer is infected with bad information.
Thanks for providing links. Hope people spread them far and wide.
Wow, I knew that Corsi was a bigot, liar and a far right-wing nut job loon and smut peddling con artist but I had no idea exactly how extreme he was in all those areas until reading that article nor how much of a total conspiracy theory wacko he was either. What a despicable excuse for a human being! That crazy old man really is a pathetic stain of souless excrement.
[I moved this comment here because Frank was the other person mentioned in the WND article. Doc.]
Hey, check it out…
Ole Frankie Boy finally gets the 15 minutes of FAME he was CRAVING!
Looks like Horst is in T R O U B L E too!
Was Lakin conviction influenced by radical Obama supporter?
http://www.greeleygazette.com/press/?p=10572&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=was-lakin-conviction-influenced-by-radical-obama-supporter
The link made between Frank Arduini and Lakin is a good example of a conspiracy theorist connecting any old dot and not having the good sense to realize when they have made a mistake.
Those who followed the Lakin trial realize that nothing whatever out of order was done, so a claim of “undue influence” makes no sense.
The Greeley Gazette is, of course, one of Terry Lakin’s hometown newspapers.
KBOA thinks that Lakin is a liar and lied under oath when he admitted his guilt and explained it in great detail. By her reasoning, he should go back to jail for perjury.
I, however, think that is the only time Lakin told the truth.
And yes, KBOA and other birthers are delusional because they think that Obots employers must be seditionists like birthers, and they don’t understand why Obots aren’t fired for believing that Obama is eligible.
They don’t realize that they are in the tiny minority, and that is why nobody in Congress, the courts, or the press (including Fox) takes the birthers seriously.
This is what I would bet the phone calls to harass Obots employers by Corsi and KBOA sound like:
Employer: “Hello?”
KBOA/Corsi: “Hi, Does Obot X work there?”
Employer: “Yes.”
KBOA/Corsi: “Do you realize that Obot X refuses to call for the armed overthrow of the United States government?”
Employer: “What?!?”
KBOA/Corsi: “yes- and they refuse to call Obama a Marxist Niqqer, and don’t want to drag him and his family out of our White House and string them up from a tree!”
Employer: CLICK!
KBOA & Corsi’s petty campaign to silence Obots and harass their families and employers will fail, just like everything the birthers do ultimately fails.
Corsi knows he is finished as an author anyone will take seriously anymore- he will never get a real book deal again, so will have to resort to more scams to earn a living.
Like other birthers that cross the line and wind up in legal trouble, I’d bet money that down the road Corsi and KBOA wind up on the wrong side of a jail door.
Scratch any birther (with a very long pole; you don’t want to catch something) and I’m convinced you’ll find a horrible person underneath.
It shows you how weak their position and ability to promote it. That they have to try to harass and silence the free speech of the opposition, shows how desperate they really are and how little the really care about America.
Tracy is delusional, as usual. She thinks Horst is in trouble because she makes a charge against him with no evidence whatsoever. Making accusations with no evidence is called libel. This slimy paper think it protects itself by using the old “questions have arisen” method of sliming someone. Frank should take them all to court starting with Tracy. In addition, calling someone’s employer to try to get them fired could be criminal harassment as could Corsi telling his facebook friends to call Foggy business. We tried to tell Lakin what the law was, but he didn’t want to listen. He betrayed his country and paid the price. Tracy won’t listen either and she will probably also have to learn the hard way.
I’m still not sure what Tracy is even claiming. And is this even a real newspaper? A story title that starts with “Blgger Claims…” sounds more like something from the Onion than real journalism. You’re really basing a story based on a video from an anonomous source, with no evidence to back it up? Even the WND tries to at least pretend it’s less biased than this sorry excuse (their little bit OBOTs was too rediculous to believe).
And exactly is that accusation? That the General to whose command Lakin was transferred pending court martial, who had nothing to do with the conviction or trial, and merely signed off on the surprisingly light sentence the court martial order in response to Lakin’s guilty plea, might have been classmates over 30 years ago with someone who posts on Fogbow? And that his promotion, one that was recommended before Lakin disobeyed his orders or anyone even know who the hell Lakin was…a promotion that requires Congressional approval, and his transfer to Chief of Staff of CENTCOM (I don’t know if this exactly counts as a promtion….he was before, and still is a 2 star), were quid pro quos? Beyond being absolutely silly, why does anyone think that A) his actual promotion would be initiated by an event that has yet to happen in regards to someone no one has even heard of yet, and B) that you would really need to give a quid pro quo for the ministreal duty of signing off on a surprisingly short sentance to something someone pled guilty to?
Tracy needs to get a grip on reality….but we already knew that.
The Greeley Gazette is a weekly with a miniscule circulation. This website, which provides the circulation numbers for Colorado newspapers, doesn’t even list the Gazette.
http://www.mondonewspapers.com/usa/colorado.html
Of course, it’s difficult to take seriously a “reporter” who doesn’t know how to spell “publicly.”
And check out the weasel phrases:
“may have unduly influenced”
“Questions have arisen”
“may have been”
“It remains unclear what correspondence, if any, Arduini may have had with Horst”
“If Horst was under pressure ”
Pathetic. There is not a shred of evidence that Arduini ever spoke to Gen. Horst about Lakin.
Correct. More importantly, for those who haven’t seen this little amateur trash rag mentioned before, The Greeley Gazette has long been full of Birther nonsense and has been discussed here many times before. It has just been a number of months since we’ve had more of their stupidity reported upon.
Tracy quoting The Greeley Gazette as a source is as big a credibility FAIL as quoting the Post & Email, Canadian Free Press, Pravda or some other cheap trash tabloid.
That certainly seems to be the direction they are headed.
Sadly, this is the level the field of graphics has sunk to. Not at all an unusual arrangement. But, it is also a very get-what-you-pay-for proposition, as the appearance of WND itself will attest to!