Posted on 11/15/2008 6:48:02 PM PST by palmer
It's apparent that a combination of fervent believers and a small number of psychopaths and/or infiltrators have dominated the birth certificate discussion. The early evidence was in their favor and everyone should have been skeptical of the low res images on Kos, smears and politifact. The new evidence is not and is not being addressed objectively.
But photo #5 (and some of the others) is a genuine photograph of an artifact. It was not created in photoshop. That doesn't mean photoshop was not involved. A plausible set of steps is
1. Scan a real COLB including the border
2. Import into photoshop and change the text to Obama's text
3. Print the result onto the cross hatched paper (could be forged separately)
4. Obtain a embossing seal and apply it to the printout 5. Fold it as if it came from an envelope and display it to the factcheck photographer.
Another plausible scenario is someone in the Hawaii office did all the forging but on the official equipment and using the official seal. Another possibility is someone stole a seal and sold it to a forger. It is certainly possible for a forger to make a seal using the right equipment (probably a laser etcher).
The Kenya trip meme seemed to turn into an established fact in early July when proposed by null and void and properly ridiculed. Even into November null and void can only repeat her hypothesis (a honeymoon) apparently unwilling or unable to embellish it further.
Polarik surrounds himself with a number of true believers and useful idiots. The useful idiots are the ones who validate or praise his analysis while obviously not knowing anything about it. The true believers have convinced themselves that Obama was not born in Honolulu and are unable to evaluate the evidence objectively.
In their favor, the true believers have established that Obama has potential Indonesian citizenship (courtesy of Soetoro) as well as potential Kenyan citizenship (courtesy of Obama Sr). These are true regardless of where Obama was born. For the former the Kenyan citizenship would have to be activated by Obama. For the latter, Soetoro would have had to apply to make Obama an Indonesian citizen, it does not happen automatically via adoption.
The bottom line for Polarik is he has yet to address the certificate linked above. He has promised to do this for weeks now and is instead disseminating and repeating his various diatribes against Obama. My guess based on his past behavior is that he will release a rehash of the evidence against the old scan (Kos, smears, politifact) with a bit of new verbiage against the factcheck photos. He will properly point out some oddities in some of the photos while ignoring the obvious salient features in the decent photos such as number 5.
He and I have already argued about the seal (embossing) in number 5 and he claims it is a perfect circle (therefore forged). I showed that it wasn't http://i433.photobucket.com/albums/qq51/palmer2/circle.jpg and he replied with a very similar result except he used some edge detection first. He obviously just fools with some tools, but doesn't obtain any useful results. When it comes to image analysis he is a dabbler, not an expert.
With cover from his defenders he establishes a "sensitive" personality claiming that he is being ruthlessly attacked. He says that as a result he will stop posting on the certificate issue when he is done with his final writeup. I don't know if that's a real sensitivity or faked, but even if it is faked there are thousands more that will step into his shoes if he disappears.
That thread and others contain useful nuggets about other Obama problems. There are alternative threads that speak to real evidence although some of those get beaten down by the Polarik army. Polarik's followers also use Freepmail to spread gossip about posters like myself and allegedly (according to them) posted about me on another forum.
That is all good. The more publicity I get on this particular issue, the better. But I remain concerned that FreeRepublic will have the appearance of a conspiracy site because only a rather intensive conspiracy could produce the evidence photographed by Factcheck.
I am also concerned that Factcheck and others might be deliberately planting poor quality evidence in an attempt to hook in the Polariks of the world and their followers. That would not necessarily require a conspiracy although I admit it has the flavor of one. It is to the liberal opposition's benefit to keep as many people on false trails as possible not just to waste their time but to portray them as unhinged. That result was detrimental in the last election and will be detrimental in 2010 and 2012.
IMO of course.
Your post sounds as if you're trying to shut down free and open discussion on FR by painting anybody questions Obama's qualifications as a nutcase and tin foil hat wearer. How do we know you're not the infiltrator trying to frame and sidetrack the debate? How do we know you're not on Obama's payroll?
People will keep questioning Obama's qualifications for the Presidency regardless of any attempts to make people sit down, shut up and accept it. It's the American way.
You should at least read the thread before you dismiss it. That's a big part of the problem, you are always ignoring the facts that I and few others are posting. The criticism in this thread is blunt, but that's why I put it in the Smokey Backroom. JimRob posted at #68 that he basically supports your research. If he didn't support my criticism of your research, he probably would have canned the thread then.
Correct. I don't say where he was born in my post. I acknowledge the possibility of forgery, but I point out how the document would have to be forged. Not a simple scan and photoshop of someone else's document, but a forgery requiring a seal (embossing stamp) that is stolen or forged. The paper that COLB is printed on would have to be separately forged. That is basically what I know but it is more than what has been posted, so I post it myself.
If he was, his real BC wouldn't need to be a secret, would it?
I've suggested one possibility which I admit is remote. It is that it preoccupies part of the opposition which allows Barack and the MSM to label them as fringe. Again, a remote possibility, but what if I am right?
I’m not interested in playing games with you. I don’t care who Jim Robinson defended, what your vanity says and you will not lure me into any of your bullshit.
I will freep mail Jim Robinson the case number I had to open right now. He has no idea the little nuances you added in your posts to get me over here have anything to do with something other than your little vanity crap.
I’m going to say this slowly for you....
Show me an example of the border Obama has on someone else’s COLB of the same vintage....
or in other words another 2007 edition printing with the same exact border and I will give up on this and my belief that Obama’s is a forgery.
You want facts, show me some facts, show me another document with the same border Obama has.
I’m not going to give you my opinion on how his was created, you don’t want opinions, you want facts.
Find them and prove everyone that believes that Obama’s COLB is wrong because of the most glaring flaw in it, the Original flaw that everyone noticed right away that caused them you look deeper into the document and find all the other flaws in it.
“This birth certificate nonsense is fool’s bait.”
“I agree. I’ve been called a troll and told to go back to DU for suggesting as much. “
I wasted 3 weeks of my entire spare time this summer trying to explain facts and logic on this, chasing down suppositions and claims, etc. Never was there any solid shred of evidence that came forward to show Obama born anywhere except Honolulu, just supposition build on the fantasy of constructed scenarios invented out of air. This is not reality-based, its “lets try to fit facts to make my fantasy scenario work”-based.
Obama has had a US passport for decades, and thus had to prove his US citizenship. He produced his birth certificate to obtain it. Had he not been a US citizen, he could not have made the overseas trips that he did. This includes his first trip to Kenya when he was an adult.
If he knew he was born in Kenya, it would have made for a much more exotic story in his 1995 autobiography. But he didnt because he wasnt, he was born in Honolulu.
For weeks, the “proof” that he was born in Kenya was that the pic of him with his Dad was supposedly actually taken in 1962, except when it was examined closely, it was clear it was 1972 and it was Barack and it was exactly as Barack had described in his autobiography, a visit from his father when he was 10.
People made the challenge “If he was born in Honolulu, how come we cant find a newspaper announcement of it? Huh?” Well, after a few weeks, a newspaper birth announcement in Honolulu was found. For me, that was a case closed moment. for the true believers? Always another excuse.
At some point, you got to start shaving with Ockam’s razor and realize the most simple and obvious explanation is the true one.
There are some people that just WANT to believe the real and official story is not true, as some kind of “Aha!” moment that will erase the fact that Obama wont be president for the next 4 years. It’s a fool’s errand indeed. It always was and always will be. He was born in Hawaii.
I was pinged on the list, but I am NOT interested in following this further or debating with any koolaid drinkers. Its a waste of time.
Okay, now it all makes sense. He WON'T show a certificate of birth from Hawaii because he WAS born in Hawaii. Wow, now I can sleep at night.
This COLB picture seems to address every issue raised by the skeptics.
Case Closed.
“The old posters who used to debate conservative ideas using truth and logic have melted away and the site has become conspiracy theory central. Some people have mentioned the “crypto-racist” remarks on many threads and that’s a fair criticism. It used to be that questionable news stories that couldn’t be supported would be shot down but now they are justified as “stirring the pot”.”
sad but true.
The GOP needs to do soul-searching.
Maybe FR needs the same.
“Obama has supplied little evidence. “
See post 209. He’s supplied the COLB.
“It’s muddled, it’s blurred, it’s misaligned, it is corrupted, it looks nothing like what we would could and should expect from a State or Federal Official document to which an official seal is stamped for the purposes of Identification.
It has none of the crispness of an official document printed for the sake of legality.”
Huh?!?
Look at the pic in #209 and here:
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_5.jpg
Those criticisms are no longer valid when applied to these pictures of the COLB that was released. Palmer’s point was that you have to look at the latest COLB released images.
Yeah, I'm not either. I'm going to try and stay away from the BC threads. You just can't reason with these so-called "freepers" (many of whom didn't even register here until after the Democratic Convention). They only appear on the BC threads and attack FReepers with long, established posting histories as trolls and DU plants.
This place has taken on quite an ugly tone lately with posters calling for violent insurrection and civil war while stammering about Obama sending us to concentration camps and then attacking the more rational, established posters as traitors and appeasers! FReepers who have been here for years! And then you click on these posters' names and see they signed up on November 5th! LOL!
Hopefully this place will settle down after inauguration day and some of the nutcases will get bored and leave. Then the adults can get on with the business of finding and promoting electable conservatives who can win congressional seats in 2010.
The idea is to prevent someone being prosecuted for an action that was legal at the time he did it--it's meant as a protection against the abuse of government power. I don't know if the "no ex post facto law" rule has ever been invoked in a general way, when no individual's life, liberty, and/or property were at risk.
Of course, all of our lives and liberties may be at risk under Obama, but perhaps no more so than they would be under Biden or were under Clinton.
Anyway, as the saying goes, "what's the Constitution between friends?"
My theory on API is that they have a tape, and it says almost exactly what they say it says. They used it to shake down Obama for $millions. The deal was that they had to prove they were willing to look like fools for that amount of money and that much importance. So there you have it. If the guys in charge at API received a hefty sum, their lifestiles will change or their next venture will be very well funded. Only time will tell on that one. My estimation is that it cost Obama $10M. Right afterwards, he started asking for money from his supporters even though he said he wouldn’t do that.
I know it’s a tinfoil hat theory, but it fits the facts as well as or better than other theories.
Here then are some basic facts:
I have not idea about which you are talking.
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