While the Cold Case Posse remains quaking in the bunker putting up a brave front by issuing disingenuous statements of their lack of concern, the anti-birthers taste the blood in the water.
Was that too dramatic? Did I mix metaphors?
Two packages arrived today that I was very pleased to get. One was a genuine original Presto Salad Shooter®. I’ve been pining over the loss of the previous one since my son left with it to find his place in the world. The other was a package of genuine original Simpson DesignSecure™ Basketweave Pattern security paper. This paper is awesome, visually identical to the Hawaiian birth certificate security paper. (I’m not saying that it has the same security features, only that it looks the same.)
This paper is important for two reasons. First, it gives the anti-birthers something perfect to use for Xerox testing. If we have the real deal security paper and can print onto it something reasonably like the President’s birth certificate, then we can produce a PDF very much like the President’s birth certificate PDF file. I am confidant of that because blogger NBC has already provided ample proof of a technical nature that a Xerox machine like the WorkCentre 7655 was used by the White House to make the actual Obama PDF. The difference is that now we can not only produce a technically accurate certificate, but a visually impressive one as well. This will come as a shock to the birthers and bring dismay to the Cold Case Posse. I dropped some of this new paper in the mail to RC today.
There is another point, perhaps a little more subtle, about the paper. It’s easy to obtain: I ordered it on the Internet. You don’t have to be anybody special, not law enforcement, not a state vital records agency. It’s not expensive and it arrives quickly. Think about the incredible complexity of the birther forgery scenarios, with a forger painstakingly teasing every little bit of text from from the security paper image leaving a haloed hole, and then painstakingly reshaping the holes to fit in new text so precisely made that you can read the new text with just the outline of the hole in the basket weave pattern. In fact, the birther scenario is so impossible that to my knowledge, no birther has even attempted to follow it.
Compare that to the relatively simple task of printing what you want and then photocopying it onto real security paper (duh)! It would be so very much easier, and the results would be so much better—yet birthers cling to a nonsense scenario, forced onto them by ignorance of how MRC compression built into some Xerox machines works and reinforced by a bunch of know-nothing “experts.” Or put another way—birthers say the Obama certificate is a clumsy forgery, only a real “clumsy forgery” would be much better than the Obama certificate by birther criteria. It takes a dumb office machine to make a forgery as bad as the birthers imagine that they see.
In the great journey of life1, the whole birther business means little. On the playground where the Cold Case Posse plays cops, and folks like me play investigative journalists, it is a big deal.
1Dr. Who fans may recognize the reference to the Dr. Who serial, “The Horns of Nimon,” with the rather obvious comparison of Mike Zullo to the Nimon, and the birthers to the people of Planet Skonnos who sacrifice their welfare to an alien con man. One need but select a birther to play the role of Soldeed. Nominations?
Wonderful news Doc! I hope you are enjoying a celebratory salad right now!
The only downside I see to this whole exercise of getting real security paper as a control is the difficulty in getting the birthers to understand just how incredibly bad this is for their claims. Since they don’t understand the scientific method they don’t see how all of their hypotheses are being falsified.
Keep up the good work!
And I always love a good mixed metaphor, but we can burn that bridge when we get to it… 😉
This thing is grate for carrot salad or hash browns.
Looking forward to seeing the finished product..
The PDF or the carrot salad?
Security paper salad!
So what happens if you scan this paper or make a copy does the green basket weave disappear?
The Horns of Nimon is a classic! I love the Doctor’s line at the end, implying that he did a bit of meddling in ancient Greek history.
Well, the reality is that the birther meme has gotten tedious and boring. The lengths these to which these nuts will go to is tantamount to counting angels on the head of a pin.
Conducting tests with genuine security paper should produce fun results for those of us who still find this birther-debunking entertaining, but almost everyone else has moved on…that’s a good thing.
It seems to be very scanner/camera/setting dependent. I printed a color copy of the LFBC and ran it through my home all-in-one machine and when scanning in grayscale I got results almost the same as the AP JPEG. The green background just disappeared except in the area near the binder.
I tried a sample of Doc’s first batch of security paper and the basket weave almost disappears but a bunch of “void”‘s pop out.
I think the point is that security paper is designed to be hard to copy so it should be no surprise that it should disappear in certain circumstances.
Perhaps someone has already thought of this, but I haven’t seen it mentioned.
Why not ask the Hawaii DOH to help out? Ask them to make up realistic LFBC, for some guy named “For Forensic Purposes”, born in Lunar Colony Two in 2061.
Presumably, even if they had concerns, the safety paper features would keep it from being used for nefarious purposes, and the resulting evidence would help eliminate what has to be a major annoyance for them.
Might it just be possible that the HDOH has some real work to occupy their time?
Yes. And it’s likely that having a clerk spend a few minutes helping out would eliminate many hours spent dealing with birther nonsense.
Doc: The PDF or the carrot salad?
i was hoping for the carrot salad – mine is made with pineapple
Dare to dream, but I have to point out that there’s not a lot of supporting evidence for that conclusion.
With the Birther Loons, this act would only constitute more proof that the State of Hawaii is STILL conspiring to hide the high crimes and Mister Meanies of President Obama. Just like they probably see God as being “in the tank” for Obama because God is creatively responsible for the easily confirmed reality whose aspects contradict the lies and bizarre premises of the Obama-accusing Birther memes.
In fact, it depends very much on the scanner. On my HP scanner, it gets lighter and more yellow, consistent with how it works with other security paper. The other paper I had disappears, replaced with VOID.
One would expect that when you scan this paper on a Xerox WorkCentre, it looks like the PDF file of the President’s birth certificate published by the White House. 😯
I have had limited contacts with the DOH in the past and while they are polite, they are not going to go out of their way on this issue. For them, the issue was settled when they certified the copy, and reluctantly when they issued verifications to two states. I think they know by now that nothing will satisfy the birthers.
I use pineapple too, and I use orange juice instead of mayonnaise.
More likely just the opposite when they start getting hammered for more copies so every tin-foil basement dweller can do his own ‘forensic’ examination and prove that they are fraudulent forgers of fakes out to distract the sheeple.
Or whatever.
OT, but mahalo Doc for the Presto Salad Shooter info! The biggest challenge I have with eating healthy is lack of time (and interest) in doing all the chopping and so forth to make a nutritious and tasty meal. The reviews for this gadget are great! So one is in mail to me. (Sorry, I don’t think you’re getting a commission. 🙁 ) Recently I picked up a wonderful, easy to clean, juicer for a couple of dollars at a yard sale and have been regularly enjoying some great veggie drinks. I’ve starting adding some spices such as ginger or basil as well.
Got any other recommendations? 🙂
Doc: I use pineapple too, and I use orange juice instead of mayonnaise.
mine calls for pineapple juice, NO MAYO
or treading in hot water
No, it wouldn’t. The Birthers would put out there that, “See, the Hawaii Department of Health makes fake birth certificates all the time. That must mean that Obama’s birth certificate was faked using the same exact process that the Hawaii Department of Health used to make this one. This birth certificate says that it’s possible for the Hawaii Department of Health to make a birth certificate that is clearly a forgery, therefore we cannot trust anything that they put out.”
It would get nowhere, and eliminate nothing. You’re presuming that the birthers are reasonable people. They are not reasonable people. If they were reasonable, they would have been satisfied by the birth certificate released in 2008. If they were reasonable people, they would have accepted the statements from the director of the Hawaii Department of Health saying Obama was born in the United States. If they were reasonable people, they would have accepted the birth certificate released in 2011. If they were reasonable people, they wouldn’t be saying that they know the law better than every judge in America. At every turn, they prove that they are not reasonable people who accept evidence.
You see. the white house claimed they used 1961 safety paper when they got the LBC forged, so this isn’t a valid test.
Also, someone appears to have pored urine on my pants. Anyone know a good laundromat?
{/birther]
Well said! We are merely arguing with idiots who are impervious to the very reality around them. I think the exercise takes place because reasonable people have a hard time accepting that such levels of unreasonableness can exist in our population, here in the 21st Century. It seems to be an affront to everything that helps keep civilization and society together…
I just wanted to point out that this kind of security paper has been around for years in some form or another. I don’t think the background ink pattern was necessarily a foil for color copiers, since the color copiers I remember from back then were extremely expensive to operate and generally had lousy color rendition. A basic security pattern was there to make attempts to erase apparent, with the dye processed such that it only barely sits on the surface and is gone with attempts to erase.
The new version looks a lot like the old checks that I remember my folks used to use, and also similar to some bus transfers and admission tickets – especially the Disneyland tickets I remember as a really young child, which were made by Globe Ticket and Label. Of course the new papers have to deal with ink washing, so exposure to solvents will create starburst patterns or other evidence of tampering.
I believe the reason this type of paper was chosen was because it was cheap and could show evidence of attempts to alter or obliterate something that was on a genuinely issued document.
I find this song is very appropriate for the topic, AND describing birtherism in general.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMhwddNQSWQ
[Ban exception. Doc.]
Mr. C
Before you mess your pants over your claimed Xerox forger maybe you should tune in over at NBC’s blog. I just dropped the irrefutable hammer on his fairytale Muscatine Journal workflow. Now that I have irrefutable proof that the Muscatine Journal Staff could not have done the deed I can get back to my findings gleaned from the only PDFs from his Xerox trials that NBC has released. Now here’s a guy who never stands behind his work. Now of course he has released only PDFs that were purportedly produced by the Xerox 7535. He has conveniently not released any PDFs from his dozens of trial scans purportedly done on a Xerox 7655 just like the one that was used to print out the Obama tax forms. You really can’t make this stuff up. Only Obots can do that with a straight face. Talk about a delusional bunch.
Of course since I dropped the hammer on NBC he has refused to answer any of my questions and instead does what he always does when he’s feeling the heat —
HE HAS CHANGED THE SUBJECT TWICE SINCE I DROPPED THE HAMMER ON HIS MUSCATINE FAIRYTALE.
I expect he will also follow his usual script when I drop the hammer on his Xerox forger. Which will be coming soon.
{Ban exception. Doc.]
“Reality CheckSeptember 7, 2013 at 1:02 pm (Quote)#
“It seems to be very scanner/camera/setting dependent. I printed a color copy of the LFBC and ran it through my home all-in-one machine and when scanning in grayscale I got results almost the same as the AP JPEG. The green background just disappeared except in the area near the binder.
“I tried a sample of Doc’s first batch of security paper and the basket weave almost disappears but a bunch of “void”‘s pop out.
“I think the point is that security paper is designed to be hard to copy so it should be no surprise that it should disappear in certain circumstances.”
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
So what do you see when you examine you LFCOLB printouts made with the Simpson paper under a “Black” light source ?
How do you figure that the VOIDS would ever disapear ? Your logic as always is flawed RC.
So please please just release just one PDF scan made with an LFCOLB print out on Simpson paper.
I want to compare your cruddy images against my B&W scans made on a quality MFP. And once doubly compressed, the file size of my scan is about half that of the WH LFCOLB.
See: my images posted here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/163881244/Doubly-Compressed-B-W-Scan-to-PDF-vs-WH-LFCOLB-PDF
and here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/163781445/Re-Compressed-B-W-Scan-vs-Zerox-7535-Preview
and here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/163685155/BA-150-PPI
and here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/163631220/BA
and finally here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/163611339/Ob-1
So RC, I eagerly await your posting of links to your Xerox scans made on the Simpson paper.
By the way, what is your office number in the White House?
Maybe you could post your bio on your RC radio site ?
I’m sure you are a VIP !
gorefan:
So what happens if you scan this paper or make a copy does the green basket weave disappear?
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
My understanding is that RC will not be testing the Simpson paper on a Xerox machine until maybe October due to the lack of equipment availability. So it won’t be any day now.
When I scanned the paper on my HP scanner, it did not fade out, but was just a bit lighter and a bit more yellow. That doesn’t mean much because nobody is saying the White House used a cheap HP scanner like mine. According to manufacturer specifications, the Simpson paper doesn’t have a “VOID” feature, so that’s not an issue.
The Simpson paper is supposed to have UV threads, but since no one has reported what Obama’s certificate looks like under UV, there is nothing to compare the Simpson paper to. Add to that the fact that I don’t KNOW that the State of Hawaii uses the Simpson paper, just that it looks the same.
RC, of course, doesn’t work for the White House. If he did, we would have had the Xerox machine identified in April of 2011. Duh.
URL?
What are you talking about Hermy? I know that birthers are oblivious to the idea that the purpose of communicating is to convey their ideas to others, but if you’ve really “dropped the irrefutable hammer” on something then you should really at least make an attempt to specify exactly what it is you’ve managed to refute—to say nothing of explaining how you refudiated it. If I had an argument that stood on its merits, I would be trying to explain it as fully as possible, so your claims without links or explanation seem pretty suspicious to me. I’m willing to bet that, like most birther claims, you didn’t actually do what you say you did, but I’m curious to see exactly how you failed to refute NBC’s workflow.
Hermitian is living in fantasy world again. He found a .pdf and a .pdf.pdf extension for the same file and is all confused. He has made so many failed claims such as claiming that the WH LFBC requires two mask releases in Adobe Illustrator when it only requires one.
He has nothing left but minor confusions. Hermitian has been instrumental in debunking the Cold Case Posse, although he is still struggling with minor concepts such as why preview creates a PDF that illustrator opens up correctly. Various people have tried to explain these basic things to our friend but with limited success…
Poor Hermitian, he believes everything he does not understand must be because of some forgery…
He is lucky that his ‘affidavit’ in MS will never been taken seriously…
Fascinating, he has taken NO steps to try to repeat the work flow… None, other than point to minor confusions on his part that lead nowhere…
Given his accusations that remain totally unfounded, he is no longer welcome at my site.
nbc,
This is a response to Hermy from HistorianDude on your blog—as someone else pointed out, the birthers don’t do the scientific method very well and I thought he could use the repetition…
It really is sad that the birthers would probably have absolutely no idea how to discredit your work even if the evidence to do so actually existed.
My mental image is that before and after typing a post, Hermitian has to really clear out the ol’ bronchial tubes.
“HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
The phrase I like to use when mocking them is to say that their “case” is summed up as a Neanderthal-style “No understand. Must be witchcraft”.
Indeed! Herms is compressing in increased isolation …. how long till he pops? How long has he been talking to the isolation chamber about his Muscatine Journal fetish? On a site that (to my knowledge), has never discussed the PDF from the Muscatine Journal ?
Poor, self-absorbing sod.
Near as I can tell, unless it’s something NBC never released from moderation, it is not the Muscatine Journal pdf that is in question (also known as the AP White LFBC), but rather the ABC pdf (the so-called AP Blue LFBC). Hermie’s “irrefutable proof” is that Adobe Acrobat CC can’t change 300 ppi JPEGs into 200 ppi imbedded JPEGs while maintaining the pixel dimensions.
NBC showed that a tool used by several programs, including Gimp and Irfanview (the latter of which I believe Hermie claims to occasionally use), not only can change the ppi while maintianing the pixel dimensions, it uses the same quantization tables found in the JPEG imbedded in the ABC pdf.
It is possible that Hermie is babbling about something else, as he was on moderation and subsequently banned. I should point out that he is having the same problem as Doug Vogt had – when he downloads pdfs, he is accidentally modifying them, causing the structure and some of the metadata (such as creation or modify dates) to change.
This is what I think Hermie is babbling about:
http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/tracking-the-ap-jpeg-introduction/#comment-68113
Note that I have not attempted any workflows in Acrobat 9.0 – NBC found the workflow using the freeware tool first. So it’s entirely possible that Hermie is completely wrong about what Acrobat is capable of doing.
is hermie saying acrobat can’t do that? because it’s a trivial task for any graphics program. when you do that what changes is the final print size.
changing the document resolution from 300ppi to 200ppi will increase for example a letter-size form from 8.5 x 11 in to 12.75 x 16.5 in
that’s because 100 pixels = .33 in @ 300ppi, while 100 pixels = .5 in @ 200ppi
You think that’s crazy? You should see his shifting theories of how Andrew Breitbart died, all of it tied to Obama.
Even Herms wouldn’t commit those to a affidavit 😉
Keep inmind that what’s happening is that the original JPEG is at 300 ppi, whereas the embedded JPEG is at 200 ppi. It’s not just changing the final print size of the pdf, but the native resolution of the JPEG. Keep in mind that PDF essentially ignores the resolution of an embedded JPEG, so there would be no particular reason for Acrobat to change the internal resolution of the JPEG (however, it might do so as part of downsampling the chroma channels, which also happened). The structure of a PDF allows and requires it to set the resolution in the code external to the embedded JPEG. So Hermie’s claim is not as outlandish as it might seem, once you have the full context. Unfortunately for Hermie, he forgot that you aren’t restricted to single program processes: it is trivially easy to change the JPEG to the noted characteristics prior to importing it into Acrobat.
I have not found a way to do this in Acrobat. You can optimize and then compress images to 200ppi but the resulting image does not have the correct metadata. There is IRFANVIEW and GIMP that can do this and anything using the IJG library libjpeg. The jpegsnoop tool identifies the JPEG creator as a small list of libjpeg users.
The tool also does not recognize the creator of the Xerox jpegs. I believe it uses quantization matrix matches to do its ‘magic’.
Hermitian is all over the map trying to use a cup to prevent his ship from sinking… But there are just too many holes…
Yeah, he is now arguing that the Xerox/preview requires up to three different people and multiple presses on a button. Even though the Xerox scan itself explains 99% of the features…. His understanding of the scientific method is somewhat underwhelming as he lets his ignorance become a placeholder for ‘forgery’ rather than attempt to understand…
As far as I have been able to tell, he is still unable to repeat my experiments because he lacks a Xerox work centre and refuses to deal with a Mac… So he blames me for his lack of understanding… That’s too bad… But too much time is now being wasted on trying to bring him up to speed. He served his purposes well.