A picture is worth a thousand words.

[chrismb]

Here you go. This appears to be a well written argument for forgery by a man who appears to have the credentials of an expert. .

I didn't find it all that convincing, but could someone please explain how 'figure 12' could possibly come to look like that!!?

[Betruger]

OCR

This whole stupid mess can be put to bed by simply showing a single-layer scan of the document with the resolution maxed right down to the paper fibers.

[Diogenes]

I prefer to let others do it and report back to me.

Here you go. This appears to be a well written argument for forgery by a man who appears to have the credentials of an expert.

He sounds like a bit of a grandstanding nut, but he has some interesting points.

Expert? He made a fundamental beginners error:

If there are photos or other halftone graphics on the page, it may be scanned in as a grayscale which consists of 256 levels of gray going from 0 for white to 256 for black.

0 for white - 255 for black.

I've seen this gray scale argument from several different sources and it seems reasonable to me. It IS unlikely to have one group of numbers pixels being a mixture of dark color values, while the others be completely black. Also I think the color scheme is the other way around. Black is all bits=zero, and White is all bits= 1.

Anyways, it makes no sense why anyone would produce this document, unless they are just TRYING to fan the fires of curiosity. It's certainly not something *I* would have done if I wanted this story to go away.

[Diogenes]

OCR

Why would OCR cause white halos around the letters? Back when I was doing graphical programing you could set the alpha bit(s) (depending on your graphics mode) for transparency. The black letters should have transferred perfectly to the green background without any white area around them.

This whole stupid mess can be put to bed by simply showing a single-layer scan of the document with the resolution maxed right down to the paper fibers.

Yes it could. (This aspect of it anyway.) Makes me wonder why they didn't?

Stupidity or a clever plan? It's a toss up.

[D Tibbets]

I prefer to let others do it and report back to me.

Here you go. This appears to be a well written argument for forgery by a man who appears to have the credentials of an expert.

He sounds like a bit of a grandstanding nut, but he has some interesting points.

Expert? He made a fundamental beginners error:

If there are photos or other halftone graphics on the page, it may be scanned in as a grayscale which consists of 256 levels of gray going from 0 for white to 256 for black.

0 for white - 255 for black.

Not to mention that 8 bit gray scales is not the only gray scale. I still have some programs that use 6 bit gray scales (64 levels), and I remember 4 bit (16 shades). The assumption is made that the original document was scanned ~ 2004 because of federal law then coming into effect, but actually this only sets a probable latest date that the document could have been scanned into a computer database. Electronic document keeping was present in the 1990's and possibly sooner. Also, the computer document may actually have been made from a photocopy in the State's offices.
The black and white, to up to 256 gray shades that may be present on the computer document is at best a computer guess of the contrast of the original sample, which may have already undergone one or more photo coying steps. That some letters/ numbers have only a few shades, while others have more shades is more a matter of contrast of the characters- due to original typewriter variations, and how hard the typist pressed the keys, how hard they pressed down on the shift key, etc. A demonstration of the contrast / shades of gray is that the rubber stamp dates have larger gray shading, is presumably due to the less contrast present in the original stamp.

I might add that his argument that the B&W characters represent forgeries as that was the only way they could do it is silly. A program could place chariters of any shading desired. Global or local post processing could also change the appearance however it was desired.

As I've said before the quality or appearance of a document needs to be certified. If you are attacking the authenticity of a document that cannot be ignored. Frankly with modern computer technology, it is easy to create any document, and manipulate it anyway desired so that it looks authentic. Security paper is a joke with modern computer imaging. That is why counterfeiters like modern copiers. It is more difficult to match paper texture, water marks, etc. Perhaps the they should print out originals, and have the registrar stamp 10 million of them so that doubters could finger them. Of course that would not satisfy those who chose to disbelieve as a matter of faith.

Then there is the supporting evidence. Some are mentioned on this site:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/bi ... ficate.asp

Birthers will find something that they claim is "proof", only to have the proof exposed as a lie or meaningless . That doesn't satisfy them though, it only drives them on, it is an obsession as much as anything.

Dan Tibbets

[Ivy Matt]

they keep finding interesting but not always compelling things.

A theory is no substitute for irrefutable facts. ...

Barring some sort of bombshell piece of information, this issue is only of interest as an intellectual puzzle, and will have no impact on his election prospects.

In other words, just for curiosity and kicks.

In other words, there's no compelling evidence so far that Obama is hiding any significant secret from his past. It's just a thought experiment game some people like to play...although some of them can get pretty worked up about it for some reason.

[MSimon]

In other words, there's no compelling evidence so far that Obama is hiding any significant secret from his past.

If it is secret how would you know whether or not it is significant?

Gotcha!

Now, about gasoline prices.

[Ivy Matt]

If it is secret how would you know whether or not it is significant?

Gotcha!

I think the question is, if it's a secret, why would there be any evidence of it? And the answer to that is, if there's no evidence, how can we presume there's any secret at all? And the answer to that...

Oil prices, yeah, but they're just a part of it. To get back on topic to the parent thread of this one, I have suspicions that Obama is a full-fledged S—wait, I better not say that. Seedload might not call me a racist.

[mvanwink5]

Roll around with the dogs and don't be surprised if flees hitch a ride, and Obama has made a life long habit of rolling around with special friends. In a common way, he still does. I particularly liked the Bill Ayers birth certificate angle; it made me want to shower just thinking about Obama and the people he rolled with.

Gas prices as we all know are tied to the Fed, and the Fed is now monetizing Obama's instigated massive US debt increase, which I find hard to differentiate from that characterizing the world's piigs. Socialist dogs really all do the same everywhere, make noise, make street garbage, make crime, make war, and make people poor.

Birth certificate, oil prices, same flee vector, different resulting disease.

[Diogenes]

they keep finding interesting but not always compelling things.

A theory is no substitute for irrefutable facts. ...

Barring some sort of bombshell piece of information, this issue is only of interest as an intellectual puzzle, and will have no impact on his election prospects.

In other words, just for curiosity and kicks.

In other words, there's no compelling evidence so far that Obama is hiding any significant secret from his past.

Ya gotta be kiddin me! Yeah, there's plenty of evidence he's hiding secrets (don't know how significant they are because we don't know WHAT they are.) from his past. Everything the man has done shows how much he hides his past. It took over two years (and a man had to go to prison) before Obama finally produced SOMETHING that resembles a birth certificate. Had he produced this in the first place, no one would have bothered digging and there never would have been a "birther" issue.

There are all sorts of evidence that he's up to his neck in skullduggery, (Rezco, Blagoyavich, Annenburg Fund, Law License, Bill Ayers, Mansur, that bank in Chicago, Social Security numbers, etc.)

What i'm getting at, is the birth certificate issue has been knocked off the public radar, (because most people accept what he has produced at face value) and it won't be back on the radar unless some really compelling information is obtained. So at this point, conjecture about it is more out of intellectual curiosity than it is for any benefit which might be had from proving that he is lying again.

It's just a thought experiment game some people like to play...although some of them can get pretty worked up about it for some reason.

A lot of people believe the country has abandoned the rule of law and replaced it with the rule of men. Laws only apply to the "little people" and not to the well connected movers and shakers. (such as Obama) The country was founded as an experiment to replace Monarchy with governance by a Republic, and now the people are acquiescing to move back to the old Monarchy and Nobles form of governance. Yeah, a lot of people can get worked up about that.

[bcglorf]

It took over two years (and a man had to go to prison) before Obama finally produced SOMETHING that resembles a birth certificate. Had he produced this in the first place, no one would have bothered digging and there never would have been a "birther" issue.

13 pages of this thread disagree with your assessment.

Had Obama released this document on the same day he announced his candidacy people would've started in with all the same arguments this thread already has thrown against him, including the compelling 'evidence' offered up by internet pornography and how it is akin to dental records in authority, trumping his 'so called' official certified copy of his birth certificate.

There's plenty of things to attack any person or president on. But don't pretend that makes it cool to refuse to acknowledge an officially certified copy of a birth certificate, attested to as accurate by Hawaii's state officials while at the exact same time vehemently acknowledging pornographic images resembling his mother as irrefutable evidence.

[Ivy Matt]

Ya gotta be kiddin me! Yeah, there's plenty of evidence he's hiding secrets (don't know how significant they are because we don't know WHAT they are.) from his past.

Which is why I said significant. Of course he's hiding secrets. He's a politician. But their significance so far is a matter of speculation—speculation that could turn out to be very wrong. His "pragmatic moderate" voting record, on the other hand, was not a matter of speculation during the 2008 election, but how often did people hammer on that? No, too busy looking for shocking secrets.

A lot of people believe the country has abandoned the rule of law and replaced it with the rule of men. Laws only apply to the "little people" and not to the well connected movers and shakers. (such as Obama) The country was founded as an experiment to replace Monarchy with governance by a Republic, and now the people are acquiescing to move back to the old Monarchy and Nobles form of governance. Yeah, a lot of people can get worked up about that.

Maybe so, but Obama is a symptom of that, not the original cause. One of the reasons the "racism" charge has some sticking power is that Americans in general have been slow to sit up and take notice till we elected a mixed-race president. And as far as this whole birth certificate deal is concerned, I'm slightly annoyed that Obama was able to obtain his certificate of live birth from Hawaii. I think Hawaii should have just said, "Sorry, doesn't matter who you are. We only issue certifications of live birth now." But maybe that's just me.

I just think Obama needs to find a career more suitable for him. Maybe once Americans realize he's a full-fledged Stagflationist, they'll agree.

Oops, did I just say that?

[Diogenes]

It took over two years (and a man had to go to prison) before Obama finally produced SOMETHING that resembles a birth certificate. Had he produced this in the first place, no one would have bothered digging and there never would have been a "birther" issue.

13 pages of this thread disagree with your assessment.

Everyone on the planet could say I was wrong. It would only matter if I WERE actually wrong. I have been in the position of being the minority of one, (who happened to be correct) with everyone else being wrong, many times before. It is comfortable territory for me.

Perhaps you haven't heard of argumentum ad populum?

Had Obama released this document on the same day he announced his candidacy people would've started in with all the same arguments this thread already has thrown against him, including the compelling 'evidence' offered up by internet pornography and how it is akin to dental records in authority, trumping his 'so called' official certified copy of his birth certificate.

Much of Obama's problems with this issue are of his own self making. Claims that he was born in Kenya have been published in several publications around the world (since before he ran for office) and even AP asserted this several years ago. He and Michelle both implied that he was from Kenya, so you can excuse people for being confused about this. (No, i'm not going to bother providing links.) Obama even implied in his debate with Allen Keys for the U.S. Sentate that it didn't matter if he was from Kenya or not because he wasn't running for President. A mess of his own making.

There's plenty of things to attack any person or president on. But don't pretend that makes it cool to refuse to acknowledge an officially certified copy of a birth certificate, attested to as accurate by Hawaii's state officials while at the exact same time vehemently acknowledging pornographic images resembling his mother as irrefutable evidence.

At this point I have ZERO faith in the veracity of Hawaiian bureaucrats. They may or may not be telling the truth, but their behavior has led me to believe their word is not to be trusted. (Nor their competence.)

You can dismiss those pictures if you like, but they are far more consistent with the story of Obama which has been uncovered than is that "anchor baby" birth certificate, of which we may never see the original.

[bcglorf]

You can dismiss those pictures if you like, but they are far more consistent with the story of Obama which has been uncovered than is that "anchor baby" birth certificate, of which we may never see the original.

And this is your insanity in a nutshell.

You don't accept a certified copy of birth certificate attested to by the only relevant, available and existent authority for issuing same, BECAUSE it is inconsistent with The story of Obama which you have uncovered.

You do accept as accurate naked pictures resembling Obama's mother as proof that his real father is NOT the one that would appear on his real birth certificate, which you don't believe you have seen, and all this BECAUSE it is consistent with The story of Obama which you have uncovered.

Google confirmation bias, it has you by the throat in the deepest possible way.

[D Tibbets]

Here you go. This appears to be a well written argument for forgery by a man who appears to have the credentials of an expert.

He sounds like a bit of a grandstanding nut, but he has some interesting points.

Expert? He made a fundamental beginners error:

If there are photos or other halftone graphics on the page, it may be scanned in as a grayscale which consists of 256 levels of gray going from 0 for white to 256 for black.

0 for white - 255 for black.

I've seen this gray scale argument from several different sources and it seems reasonable to me. It IS unlikely to have one group of numbers pixels being a mixture of dark color values, while the others be completely black. Also I think the color scheme is the other way around. Black is all bits=zero, and White is all bits= 1.

Anyways, it makes no sense why anyone would produce this document, unless they are just TRYING to fan the fires of curiosity. It's certainly not something *I* would have done if I wanted this story to go away.

Wrong again. A single bit B&W image is indeed only two possible shades. But once it is processed by any computer program and converted to more gray shades, generally the software does an anti alias manipulation to avoid digitalization artifacts due to the finite number of pixels. A black line if not perfectly aligned horizontally or vertically with the pixel arrays will result in unpleasing artifacts. Anti aliasing tries to mitigate this by adding shades of gray where a high contrast edge lies at an angle compared to the pixels. There are many other edge manipulation effects that may be applied based on image characteristics and how creative the programer wishes to be.

Dan Tibbets