Lame Cherry says that the same felt tip pen that signed Barack Obama’s long form also signed the fake birth certificate that someone made in 2010 to embarrass the birthers. Lame cherry writes:
This blog exclusively noted the White House abstract was signed with the same felt tip pen, which there were not felt tip pens in 1961 America nor the world. The handwriting looks the same, and this is vital, as you will NOTICE THAT THE SAME PEN, SAME WRITING STYLE appear in the Gram Dunham original.
LC presents this image for comparison:
Click image to visit Lame Cherry article
Not even close
I must not understand what Lame Cherry is saying: the White House image is not an “abstract”; it is a copy of the full birth certifcate, and the fake Dunham signature is certainly not in the same writing style as Dr. Sinclair’s in the White House long form. Look at the letter “D” both upper and lower case for one of many variances.
What I wanted to discuss, however, is the issue of the “felt tip pen.” I wouldn’t argue with an assertion that the Dunham signature was signed with a felt tip pen because this is a modern fake and what it was signed with is not important. However, the pen that signed Obama’s certificate is important.
Let me call attention to the ending “d” in “David A. Sinclair.” Note that the vertical loop is thinner than the lower parts of the signature. Because “David” is part of my own signature, I can sign that word pretty darned fast. I tried signing it with a Sharpie Ultra Fine Point felt tip pen, and I was not able to make the vertical loop thinner than the rest. All the strokes were of uniform density. However, when I was signing my name back in 1961, I was not using a ball point pen, or a felt tip pen, but rather a fountain pen. Fountain pens do tend to make lighter strokes in the parts of the signature that are written faster, i.e., long loops.
So grasshopper, I think we are dealing with a fountain pen here, circa 1961.
Doc,
If I were you, I would be glad that you don’t understand Lame Cherry… Thanks for the quickie debunk!
It is intersting that these people tout a conspiracy theory that is described as powerful and devious. Then they put out something like this felt tip pen theory.
thats because their source is MSU
(Make Stuff Up, you can use another word for stuff)
As a proud Spartan alum who holds a BS and an MS from Michigan State University, I would appreciate it if you considered that particular TLA* DOA. Thanks.
*Three Letter Acronym
I am using the same Parker 51 that I used in high school, mumble years ago. It sat in a drawer for mumble years, and when I started getting hand cramps later in life, I remembered that fountain pen writing was an effortless thing. So I re-discovered fountain pens. Now my writing is distinctive because I have made a conscious effort to improve my penmanship (as part of my pen fetish) and because I use very personal ink colors (because I can!) that are subtle, and different from anyone else’s ink. I have a modest collection of other pens, but none that I like as much as my Parker — though the Lamy Safari in my day planner is a close contender, and is more practical since it will go for weeks between filling.
It probably won’t surprise anyone that I often get reactions ranging from keen interest to incredulity whenever someone sees me writing and recognizes my old (or old-fashioned) pen.
What matters to me is I don’t get hand cramps anymore.
The signature on the real BC was definitely written with a fountain pen. One characteristic of fountain pens is that the slower the writing, the heavier the ink. In this case the inserted name “Stanley” is significantly heavier than the rest of the signature, because writing the small and legible insertion required more time and concentration than writing the rest of the name.
Dr. Conspiracy,
What is your understanding, or the claim, or both … Was the recently released .pdf a record from 1961? That is, does it EXIST as a paper copy from 1961?
I think where I’m headed is fairly obvious, because the image released on the internet is clearly a newly created record, whatever it is.
What do you say?
It’s obvious to anyone who’s brain hasn’t been completely corrupted by birther lies that the Hawai’i DoH scanned the original 1961 BC and printed 2 copies onto security paper. These two copies were stamped and sealed and given to President Obama’s lawyer. They were then scanned and the resultant pdf was placed on the web – an image which the Hawai’i DoH linked as President Obama’s birth certificate. Feel free to keep questioning the LFBC, however – it makes birthers look like compete idiots… 😉
What is your understanding, or the claim, or both……that the birther klan was going to say that whatever he released is fake anyway?
I think where I’m headed is fairly obvious, because there is nothing he can release that will ever convince the klan to abandon their lies
Why would someone have forged it with the Stanley addendum? I’d think that was pretty sophisticated – building in mistakes to enhance the credibility. But, the sophisticated forger forgets to use a pen of the era?
And, please, explain how the felt pen fits with the layers?
I’m not Dr. C, but certainly the former Hawaii Director of Health claims that she’s personally gone to the archives and looked at the original birth record for President Obama. The current Director of Health claims that she personally oversaw the process for creating both certified birth certificate copies delivered to President Obama’s attorney. Since the Hawaii Department of Health is linking directly to the White House website’s page on the long-form, I would think that’s their indication that the scan accurately represents the document they issued. Think whatever you want, but I think those signs all point to the image hosted by the White House as being an accurate representation of what was issued by the State of Hawaii.
Of course it’s a newly created record. It’s no different than Bobby Jindal’s certified birth certificate. I’m pretty sure the original record of that exists too. It’s a contemporary birth record made from an original document composed in 1971. By the same token, the certified Illinois birth certificate at the Reagan Presidential Library is a document issued in 1991, but based off of a delayed birth certificate filed in 1931.
While the explanation that a fountain pen was probably used is most likely correct, I wish to add that, according to Wikipedia that the felt-tipped pen was invented in Japan in the 1960s and Papermate’s Flair hit the US markets in the 1960s. So in 1961 the doctor might have had a felt-tipped pen.
Reminds me of a discussion during rehearsals of The Merry Widow by a community theater group. There is a scene where, in the transcription we used, an aristocrat referred to his pen. The discussion backstage was that in the era of the play (1890s) that fountain pens were not around. In truth they had been introduced years earlier. An aristocrat would have proudly pulled out his Waterman. Anyway, the director changed the line to pencil in an attempt to be historically correct (even though he wasn’t).
Speaking of really lame crazy birther people, did anyone hear any updates about Theresa Cao’s day in court today ???
According to the Birther Calendar:
United States vs. Theresa Cao – Status Hearing
When: Mon, May 9, 9:30 – 9:30am
I haven’t heard anything on how the latest turn in this popcorn worthy debacle went today… I’m assuming she tried to fire her latest appointed attorney yet again…
It’s fairly straightforward. The Hawaii Department of Health photocopied the original birth certificate out of a bound volume onto security paper and then applied a signature stamp, a date stamp and a seal to it to certify the copy. Then the White House scanned the paper form and made a PDF file out of it for folks to look at.
I suggest you read the press release from the Hawaii Department of health:
http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/News_Release_Birth_Certificate_042711.pdf
I’ve explained before that that’s a common theme with most conspiracy theories. On the one hand, the conspiracy is all-powerful (being able to control just about everyone without anyone ever spilling the guts for 50, 100 or 200 years), yet constantly makes blunders typical of an incompetent fool.
So while it can control the media, subdue or buy off even the most honorable people and have anyone “disappear” who gets to close to the truth, forge evidence at the highest level – every now and then it “goofs” and is suddenly utterly unable to have the evidence of that goof disappear or silence the couple of people who “have seen through it all”.
Of course a conspiracy theory has to work this way. It isn’t consistent if the conspiracy is not all-powerful (because otherwise you couldn’t counter the sane argument “why is no-one ever speaking out, not even on his deathbed, even Scientology can’t keep its critics and former members silent”). It also isn’t consistent if the conspiracy doesn’t goof (because otherwise you’d wonder how someone can find “proof” of the conspiracy if it’s practically omnipotent and infallible).
Only in such a mindset could you believe that the all-powerful conspiracy, with all the resources of 50+ years of the Cold War, could not even forge a simple document. (And I’ve read really silly things on some birfer blogs, like “they had help from Iran which has the best forgers in the world”.)
In some conspiracy theories, there is an attempt to reconcile this dilemma: they claim that some participants of the conspiracy try to “drop hints” to the outside world, in this case making mistakes on purpose to help people detect a forgery.
Not that this makes any more sense, of course. 😉
Who bribed you to say this?
I throw this in for free out of respect for our alien overlords. They wanted to give me the birthers’ first-born, but I have enough trouble with the cat already. I suspect it’s not an NBC (natural born cat).
More remarkable to me is the people that claim that Obama’s “thugs” are so powerful that not one member of Congress, the mainstream media, well-known conservative columnist, or even Fox News, is willing to report on this.
I always respond to that by saying that if he was able to exert that much control over, to use an example, a news organization like Fox, you’d think he might use it to stop them from opposing everything else he ever does. I mean if this conspiracy is so powerful it can prevent Fox News from reporting on it, why can’t it stop them from opposing, say, health care reform?
Of course the more “savvy” (and I use that term very loosely – perhaps “crazy”) ones will say that Fox is in on it (Dr. Kate puts them as part of the New World Order). But let’s be honest – if there IS a conspiracy, and it is so prevalent that it controls the entire judiciary, the Congress, the executive branch of all 50 states and the federal government, the media on the left and right, and all mainstream opinion, then it’s over, that conspiracy is going to win.
Event Resulted – Release Status: PR. Case transferred due to request for a jury trial.
The following event: Status Hearing scheduled for 05/09/2011 at 9:30 am has been resulted as follows:
Result: Transferred Out To: JUDGE FLORENCE Y PAN
Judge: DEMEO, MARISA J Location: Courtroom 210
THERESA SALCEDO CAO (Defendant (Criminal)); ; Mr MARK L GOLDSTONE (Attorney) on behalf of THERESA SALCEDO CAO (Defendant (Criminal)); Judge MARISA J DEMEO on behalf of Judge FLORENCE Y PAN
> More remarkable to me is the people that claim that Obama’s “thugs” are so powerful that not one member of Congress, the mainstream media, well-known conservative columnist, or even Fox News, is willing to report on this.
That part of their conspiracy theory is not quite evolved yet. Some birfers claim everyone keeps silent because everyone played a part in “installing the usurper”. This however ignores the fact that everyone would have had to have a reason to stay quiet *before* Obama became President.
“(I swear I’ve seen this guy’s picture before.)”
Doc, here’s where you’ve seen him before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l69Vi5IDc0g
Butterdezillion says that Soros threaten the MSM and the GOP with destruction if they brought it up. Then to prove the point he collapsed the economy in October, 2008. Of course that doesn’t explain why the GOP became the party of no after the Inaugration. Obviously they were not afraid of a collapsing economy anymore.
Thanks!
I’ll bet her website bookmarks are interesting.
The cognitive dissonance that some birthers manage to build up without going into some sort of fugue state is amazing…
Soros.
Soros. (Sorry for the wrong post, above.)
> Butterdezillion says that Soros threaten the MSM and the GOP with destruction if they brought it up.
Sure, but that doesn’t explain why some birthers think Congress is only not acting because they’re afraid they might go down with Obama for complicity. That birfer argument does not make sense if the real threat is much larger.
Especially since it would take only *one* person participating in the conspiracy to say “I don’t care if I go to jail”.
I can only speculate the motivation is “I need to find an explanation that does not sound so nutty to the non-believers”.
It’s always funny to watch how many different explanations for the same thing the conspiracy believers can come up with.