Posted on 09/11/2004 7:29:44 AM PDT by bikepacker67
First of all, thanks to the five people who have each pledged $100 a piece in addition to my $10,000 offering. Therefore, anyone who can reasonably recreate the CBS memos on equipment available in early 1972 will be receiving at least $10,500.
This is an unfair competition.
Dan will just DO WHAT HE DID BEFORE!!!!!
In case you aren't aware of it, an attempt has been made.
http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/
Scroll down to:
"The IBM Selectric Composer"
The money is safe so far. Occam's Razor holds the lead.
And Dan Rather needs to stay worried.
Is is you or is it ambrose that is putting up the 10,000?
Amazing how far we've come in small-scale publishing, able to produce high-quality documents and even whole books (if you have a cool program like Pagemaker) on a $1000 computer.
the doc's are fake. but You may donate the $10,500 to me so it wont be wasted. I have been laid off, maybe I should check out the resale stores with old typewriters.
What would be useful is for everyone to call CBS and Make sure Dan is also laid off.
And I guess it's still growing!
I'd like to add my own challlenge - but it is in the form of a bet. If some rash leftist wants to take it on and then fails to deliver, the challenger pays me.
The amount of the bet can be large, subject to negotiation.
My conditions:
1. The challenger must reproduce all four memos on a commercial 1972 era typewriter that the challenger must show was readily available to Lt.Col. Killian.
2. The typist must be a non-professional with typing skills similar to Lt. Col. Killian, but need not be the challenger.
3. No extraordinary efforts such as manual manipulaton of the type ball, replacing the type ball or daisy wheel during typing, marking the paper, or making manual calculation or formatting notes.
4. The challenger must duplicate insofar as reasonably possible the level of effort that would Lt. Col. Killian would have put into typing a private "memo to file", i.e. minimal; thus the challenger must walk up to the typewriter, put in a sheet of paper and type the memo forthwith.
Any takers? I thought not.
Maybe Larry Klayman can get to the bottom of this
Anyone check out the paper?
There are no originals--Rather admitted that much. So using the paper stock is impossible.
Dan Rather's stand
By Wolf Blitzer
CNN
http://cnn.usnews.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=CNN.com+-+Dan+Rather%27s+stand+-+Sep+10%2C+2004&expire=-1&urlID=11603991&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2004%2FUS%2F09%2F10%2Frather%2Findex.html&partnerID=2004
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- This is not the first time Dan Rather has found himself in a serious dispute with a U.S. president.
There was this exchange in 1974 during the height of the Watergate scandal with then-President Richard Nixon:
Nixon: Are you running for something?
Rather: No sir, are you?
And there was this exchange with then-Vice President George Bush in 1988 over the Iran-Contra scandal.
Rather: I don't want to be argumentative, Mr. vice president.
Bush: You do, Dan.
Rather: No -- no, sir, I don't.
Bush: This is not a great night, because I want to talk about why I want to be president, why those 41 percent of the people are supporting me. And I don't think it's fair to judge my whole career by a rehash of Iran. How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?
Now, the 72-year-old CBS News anchor finds himself in yet another confrontation with a Republican president.
"I want to emphasize: I stand by my president. We are in a time of war, and I stand behind my president. There is not joy in reporting such a story, but my job as a journalist is not to be afraid, and when we come with facts, and legitimate questions supported by witnesses and documents that we believe to be authentic, to raise those questions no matter how unpleasant they are," Rather said Friday.
At issue is his report on "60 Minutes" that aired Wednesday -- a report that included documents purporting to show that the current President Bush, while serving in the Texas Air National Guard, did not meet all his military obligations.
"They [the White House] have not answered the question of did or did the president not obey or obey an order? Was he or was he not suspended for failure to meet performance standards of the Air Force? If he didn't take the physical, why didn't he take the physical?" Rather said.
But now, there are questions about the authenticity of the documents released by "60 Minutes."
The Washington Post says the "60 Minutes" documents are not consistent with other documents released by Bush's Air National Guard unit in the early '70's.
"If you compare the documents that CBS produced with the documents that we know to be authentic, that did come from Bush's National Guard unit, none of those documents use proportionate spacing. And that's only one of the anomalies," says the Post's Michael Dobbs.
Experts contacted by CNN say there are some inconsistencies in the type style and formatting -- noting those styles then existed on typewriters but were not common. They also say only a review of the original documents -- not copies -- can completely resolve the matter.
Beyond that, surviving relatives of Bush's then commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the author of the purported documents, insist they are fake. They say Killian always believed Bush was an excellent pilot and that he never wrote these documents. Killian died in 1984.
"The story is true. The story is true," Rather said. "The questions raised in the story are serious and legitimate questions."
Rather denies there is any internal CBS News investigation under way -- a statement backed by the network.
Rather also said the possibility of issuing any kind of recant or apology was "not even discussed. Nor should it be."
> Basic premise: It's gotta be easy or it ain't a gonna happen.
That's what I meant by Occam's Razor. Also known a
Ockham's razor. A rule that entities are not to be
multiplied beyond necessity. The simplest of competing
theories is preferable. Explanations for the unknown
should first be attempted in terms of what is already
known. Also called law of parsimony.
On the one hand, we have the proven fact that any idiot
could have created these memos using MS Word on a PC at
any time in the last 15 years.
On the other hand, any historical scenario has to
surmount each and every hurdle on a growing list of
problems, over 50 at last count.
ROFLMAO!!!!
I have been over at DU, doing recon.
They are ROYALLY OUTRAGED at this reward being put up!!!
They are FALLING ALL OVER themselves to try and duplicate the "memo" and/or come up with excuses as to why they can't. "Rollerballs used to get dirty," "Similar typewriters are on Ebay but way too expensive after all that's happened," blahblahblah.
The Moderator over there has LOCKED the thread, because it was bringing the place down and causing too much in-fighting!!!
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