Moderated Obama birth certificate CT / SSN CT / Birther discussion

[boyntonstu]

One thing bothers me; I have never seen a photocopy or a scan of a non-white document that had the cover of the machine the exact color of the document.

Every document that I have seen; copied or scanned, had white around the edges.

Why are the green security marks outside the borders of the Obama document?

 

[A'isha]

Yes, that seems reasonable.

Also, what is the difference between an photocopy and a pdf document produced by a scan, just the compression algorithm which is pretty much immaterial IMO?

No. A photocopier (generally, depending on type and model) uses a xerographic to make a toner-ink copy on paper based simply on the areas of light and dark on the document being copied.

The PDF was produced by a digitized scan of the original being disassembled into layers via an OCR process, then the layers being run through a compression process and then reassembled to form a reasonably-sized PDF file.

So, your theory is that Hawaii produced a black and white scan or photocopy on security paper. Copies of which was what was handed out to reporters.

Not a theory. That happened.

But, the original request was for a photocopy of the BC, not a photocopy printed on security paper. So, there is an ambiguity there.

No, the original request said nothing about photocopies, so there's no ambiguity. In fact, what was specifically requested was a certified copy. Every single certified copy that's been produced by the Hawaii Department of Health since sometime before 2001 has been on security paper.

And, I am reduced to my original argument that a B/W scan printed on security paper would not have white borders around characters.

Probably not, but irrelevant, since the borders are only known to appear on the layered PDF.

Also, there is the TickerGuy's argument that a color scan of a physical document will produce color artifacts around black characters which do not appear in the WH posted document. This could also be tested at home, by printing the WH posted document and rescanning it, to see if color artifacts appear around the black characters.

Unnecessary, since the white borders are most likely the result of the OCR process cutting out the black letters from the background and placing them in a separate layer, leaving white holes in the first layer. When the layers are re-stacked in the final PDF, the black letters end up not on the green background as in the original document that was scanned, but in those white holes. Therefore, borders.

 

[SpitfireIX]

The big difference is Obama provided all the documentation required to prove his place of birth and it was not accepted.

That is a significant difference; however, my point was that such treatment of a white President is hardly "inconceivable," and I stand by that assertion. I would also point out that charges of racism in this case might have more traction if certain elements had not routinely labeled general opposition to Obama's policies as "racist."

 

[SpitfireIX]

I'm getting to that point myself. It's pretty much just the MA that's keeping me from calling them all .... Well.

It's been clear to me for quite some time that the vast majority of birther nonsense was purely racist in motive, but now, with them having been given exactly what they always claimed they wanted, and still not being happy, I can hope that the non-racist birther apologists who have tried to insist it wasn't all about racism will finally see the light.

Birthers = Racist ****s.


There, I said it.

I have no doubt that there are some racist birthers, and that racists in general are more likely to be birthers, but I feel that it's inaccurate to generalize that they're all racists. What about all the nuts who accuse the Clintons of multiple murders, and those who accuse Bush, Cheney, et al. of having allowed or staged the September 11 attacks? Few, if any, of them were motivated by racism.

 

[grmcdorman]

Discussed at length in the Obama birth certificate CT / SSN CT / Birther discussion thread. This should be merged with said thread.

Quick synopsis on what others have said of the video (I did not watch it): it's a usual AJ claim, i.e. nonsense. Primarily based on the application adding layers when the document is opened (via OCR).

 

[Bob001]

[qimg]http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/birth-certificate-long-form_Page_1_Image_0001.jpg[/qimg]

[qimg]http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/birth-certificate-long-form_Page_1_Image_0002.jpg[/qimg]

I am a software illiterate. I do not understand what is actually happening here. What kind of program would create separate files or layers for "BA ACK" and "R," or for "TANLEY" and "S"? Why would it pick up the full printed word "Signature" in some places but read it as "S ture" in another, or would separate the "K" from "[K]enya" and "[K]ansas"? Why would it separate the first and second parts of Mom's signature, and drop other signatures completely? This is like looking at a scan of a family photograph that separates ears, noses, shirts and shoes, but doesn't do it consistently. How could a program like this be useful for anything?

 

[jadebox]

interesting analysis



http://www.kjct8.com/news/27711049/detail.html

This guy doesn't even sound like he was a birther but just looked at the doc and says it looks like a fake because it's been edited so much.

I suspect he's as much an "expert" as those "experts" on the news broadcasts a while back who insisted that a video of a jet's contrail was really showing a "mystery missile" launched near California.

-- Roger

 

[A'isha]

I am a software illiterate. I do not understand what is actually happening here. What kind of program would create separate files or layers for "BA ACK" and "R," or for "TANLEY" and "S"? Why would it pick up the full printed word "Signature" in some places but read it as "S ture" in another, or would separate the "K" from "[K]enya" and "[K]ansas"? Why would it separate the first and second parts of Mom's signature, and drop other signatures completely? This is like looking at a scan of a family photograph that separates ears, noses, shirts and shoes, but doesn't do it consistently. How could a program like this be useful for anything?

In order to create a smaller final PDF file, what the software is doing is separating the part of the image that needs to remain as legible as possible (the actual text) from the part that doesn't need to be so perfectly preserved (the patterned background). An Optical Character Recognition algorithm identified and separated out what it determined was text. It did a pretty good job, but it of course wasn't perfect - due to variations in the way the document was printed and scanned, it missed a few things.

However, it did manage to grab most of the text, keeping it in a legible format, while the background was then highly compressed to save space. Then the layers were added together to form the final PDF.

 

[Swagomatic]

That is a significant difference; however, my point was that such treatment of a white President is hardly "inconceivable," and I stand by that assertion. I would also point out that charges of racism in this case might have more traction if certain elements had not routinely labeled general opposition to Obama's policies as "racist."

Are you willing to admit Obama is eligible to be president?

If another president had been hounded so, after producing all required legal
documents, would you say say he/she was treated unfairly?

 

[Horatius]

I have no doubt that there are some racist birthers, and that racists in general are more likely to be birthers, but I feel that it's inaccurate to generalize that they're all racists.

Sorry. Anyone who's still promoting birtherism at this point is a *********** racist. The fact that other people have attacked other Presidents for other reasons doesn't change the fact that this President is being attacked for "not being American". The others were attacked for what they (allegedly) had done, that is, their actions.

Obama is being attacked for being the son of an African.

By *********** racists.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Are you willing to admit Obama is eligible to be president?

If another president had been hounded so, after producing all required legal
documents, would you say say he/she was treated unfairly?

I never said I don't believe that Obama is eligible to be President, and I never said the way Obama has been treated is even remotely fair. Is it possible that you're jumping to conclusions about me just because I don't agree with you that birtherism = racism?

 

[Swagomatic]

I never said I don't believe that Obama is eligible to be President, and I never said the way Obama has been treated is even remotely fair. Is it possible that you're jumping to conclusions about me just because I don't agree with you that birtherism = racism?

No, actually, I was trying to understand exactly where you stand. I take it by your last post that you agree that birtherism is nonsense and is a ridiculous distraction that this country cannot afford right now. As for the racism, it's certainly possible that some of the birthers are not racist. The ones I have met and talked to, however, are racist. That is a fact.

 

[Bob001]

In order to create a smaller final PDF file, what the software is doing is separating the part of the image that needs to remain as legible as possible (the actual text) from the part that doesn't need to be so perfectly preserved (the patterned background). An Optical Character Recognition algorithm identified and separated out what it determined was text. It did a pretty good job, but it of course wasn't perfect - due to variations in the way the document was printed and scanned, it missed a few things.

However, it did manage to grab most of the text, keeping it in a legible format, while the background was then highly compressed to save space. Then the layers were added together to form the final PDF.

Thank you for this clear, concise explanation. I think I get it. It sounds like the pdf software is intended primarily to be used for things like scanning printed book pages or documents, rather than papers that combine printing, typing, handwriting and ink stamps. Is there any good reason why the WH couldn't have simply posted a photograph of the BC, like the photographs of smiling kids at the Easter Egg Roll? Or would that create a different set of questions? What would you use for a hand-written letter?

 

[A'isha]

Thank you for this clear, concise explanation. I think I get it. It sounds like the pdf software is intended primarily to be used for things like scanning printed book pages or documents, rather than papers that combine printing, typing, handwriting and ink stamps.

Pretty much. The more irregular a document, the more imprecise the resulting layer separation will be.

Is there any good reason why the WH couldn't have simply posted a photograph of the BC, like the photographs of smiling kids at the Easter Egg Roll? Or would that create a different set of questions? What would you use for a hand-written letter?

Well, PDF is pretty much the standard format for posting full documents online (note that the copies of the correspondence between the President and the Director of the Hawaii DOH are also in PDF format). I can't really think of a reason why they would have posted a photograph instead of a PDF, if the intention was to display the document in full.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Sorry. Anyone who's still promoting birtherism at this point is a *********** racist.

I never said I was only talking about the die-hards who still adhere to birtherism.

The fact that other people have attacked other Presidents for other reasons doesn't change the fact that this President is being attacked for "not being American". The others were attacked for what they (allegedly) had done, that is, their actions.

Obama is being attacked for being the son of an African.

By *********** racists.

I see your point about actions vs. birth. Again, however, Chester Arthur, a white man, was attacked for allegedly "not being American." On a related point, it occured to me that Arthur's father was an Irish Protestant, and therefore would have been much less of an object of prejudice than an Irish Catholic.

 

[Horatius]

I never said I was only talking about the die-hards who still adhere to birtherism.

Well, I did.

I see your point about actions vs. birth. Again, however, Chester Arthur, a white man, was attacked for allegedly "not being American." On a related point, it occured to me that Arthur's father was an Irish Protestant, and therefore would have been much less of an object of prejudice than an Irish Catholic.

Actually, there seem to have been lots of candidates for President who had questions about their eligibility on the basis of the circumstances of their birth.

Asking if someone is eligible isn't an inherently crazy question. It isn't an inherently racist question. But you'll notice, in all those earlier cases, when reasonable answers were given to reasonable questions, the vast majority of people accepted those answers, and they moved on.

But now, in this one case, not only have they rejected the reasonable answers (that is, the original certified certificate he presented in 2008), they've also rejected the extraordinary, unprecedented, unreasonable answer, that is, a special copy of the original certificate, for which he had to make a special request to the highest authorities in Hawaii, which those authorities have gone out of their way to attest is an accurate copy of the original document.

Just this one case.

Why is that?

*********** racists.

 

[SpitfireIX]

No, actually, I was trying to understand exactly where you stand. I take it by your last post that you agree that birtherism is nonsense and is a ridiculous distraction that this country cannot afford right now.

I most certainly do agree that it's nonsense, and I've agreed with that ever since I first heard of it. In fact, I'll go you one better. I'm a Republican, and even if I knew that he had been born in Kenya, and if that technically made him ineligible, I still wouldn't care. Although I vehemently disagree with many of his policies, Obama is just as American as I am (no known immigrants in my family tree back to at least the late 19th Century, plus 1/32 Native American). Chances are that I wouldn't like whoever was President in his place any better, but more to the point, I don't feel it would be fair to penalize him for the actions of his parents which were totally out of his control.

As for the racism, it's certainly possible that some of the birthers are not racist. The ones I have met and talked to, however, are racist. That is a fact.

As I said, I have no doubt that most racists are (or at least have been) birthers, and that racists are overrepresented among birthers. But I feel that some of the "birther=racist" comments that I've seen in this thread are not only inaccurate, but also counterproductive. I don't feel that distorting and/or oversimplifying the conspiracists' motivation is a helpful strategy for fighting conspiracism.

 

[Taarkin]

Here's a crazy theory: wouldn't a much easier and completely undetectable method of forgery be just getting a blank form and writing whatever you want on it?

 

[BeAChooser]

Duly noted, but as the Fox article you pointed to mentioned: ... snip ...

But that didn't stop the president from requesting last week two certified copies of certificate of live birth from Director of Health Loretta J. Fuddy. On Monday, Fuddy complied.

As director of health for the state of Hawaii, I have the legal authority to approve the process by which copies of such records are made. Through that authority, in recognition of your status as president of the United States, I am making an exception to the current departmental policy which is to issue a computer-generated certified copy,

So Fuddy made an exception to the policy.

And obviously doing so was not against the law (as repeatedly noted by randman and I). Whereas numerous posters, such as ANTPogo, insisted (and still insist) that doing so violates Hawaii's law. If they really think this violates *the law*, then why aren't these posters demanding this be investigated and someone be punished for violating the law? Or does their concern for the law only depend on which party is benefited?

 

[BeAChooser]

Two certified photocopies were released.

Actually, only one was certified. The other was an abomination by people who don't know the definition of "certified copy". By people who were quite happy when Clinton changed the definition of "is".