Posted on 11/21/2005 2:17:55 PM PST by kristinn
Ever since the controversy over the CBS use of forged memos erupted, those disappointed by the exposure of the forgeries have wondered if the whole thing wasn't some sort of set up perpetrated by the Dark Lord, Karl Rove. Integral to this paranoid theorizing was their slack-jawed amazement that anyone could have observed and commented that the documents were fake based on typography as quickly as I did. How could anyone not on the inside have articulated a technical and convincing explanation that the documents were fake within a few hours of the broadcast? Well, here's your answer. It's probably too late to make any difference, but I am no longer able to stifle myself now that Mary Mapes' has written a several hundred page book parading her venomous disregard for those who exposed her lies and her delusional self-image as the Joan of Arc of investigative journalism.
So, how did I know?
The short answer is that I am 47 years old and I am not a blithering idiot.
A more elaborate answer is this:
I have been interested in computers since 1979. I have used dot matrix, mainframe line printers, daisy wheel, ink jet, & laser printers. I have worked in an office environment from 1980 forward, except for 3 years of law school from 1982-1985. I have typed thousands of pages on IBM Selectrics, and a few hundred on various mechanical and electric typewriters of the conventional variety. I have changed the type ball and pitch on Selectrics many, many times. I have changed the daisy wheel on daisy wheel printers. I have typed at least a thousand pages on a Wang word processing system, and had typed for me many thousands more. I was one of two people in our small firm that spearheaded the purchase and installation of a Apple Macintosh computer network in 1989. I was the office computer geek for 8 years. I read the manual for Microsoft Word 4 for the Macintosh. The manual has a discussion in the beginning explaining that with personal computers, word processing software and laser printers, typeset print quality and proportionally spaced fonts were available to everyone and not just those who could afford typesetting machines, and how this was a Great New Thing. The manual distinguished between monospaced fonts and proportionally spaced fonts. I immediately began using proportionally spaced fonts and have done so to this day. The distinction between monospaced and proportionally spaced fonts is very noticeable to me.
I have been typing my own documents in various versions of Microsoft Word, using proportionally spaced fonts, since 1989. In the 16 years since then, I have myself typed, prepared, and signed many thousands of pages using MS Word.
In my work career, especially the law practice, I have reviewed several hundred thousand, maybe more than a million, pages of documents prepared by businesses and government agencies from many time periods prepared on all manner of machines. I have many times reviewed documents that were multiple generation copies of the original, and bear the distortions that go along with that.
I have been a litigator for 20 years. I have encountered a lot of fancy and not so fancy lies.
In 1999, I filed a brief with the U.S. District Court, Northern Dist. of Ga., in Times New Roman 12. I used that font, which is rather small, to fit within the page limit, which I could not otherwise do using my preferred font, Palatino 12. (Most courts now specify font and type size by rule to preclude this ruse. Ask any litigator.) In any case, the other side objected to the brief on the grounds that it did not comply with the local court rule specifying that there could be no more than 10 printed characters per inch - a rule of which I was not aware at the time. I filed a brief in response to the objection. Trust me, the prospect of losing a contingency case over a font rule when you have invested years of work in the case will galvanize your attention on the subject of fonts. A pdf scan of a certified copy of that brief is available here at the link above to "1999 Brief." Compare what I said about typewriters, monospaced fonts and proportionally spaced fonts in the brief filed in 1999 with what I said in post # 47, on 9/8/04. I knew what I knew a long time ago, and the brief proves it definitively. So long, conspiracy theory.
I relied upon no one and nothing other than what I already knew and what I saw when I looked at the documents. I acted entirely alone, with no advance knowledge or warning of any kind or nature whatsoever from anyone anywhere at any time prior to the post. After the post, the blogosphere was on the case, and I was no longer alone at that point.
The notion that the ability to spot these memos as fakes for the reasons I articulated in that post is some kind of dark art limited to a select priesthood of credentialed experts in forensic typography is totally false and, on a moment's reflection, completely ridiculous. Any person who worked in an office before, during and after the desktop printing revolution and who was awake for more than a few minutes during that period could tell immediately that the documents were not from 1972. There are many millions of such people. If you read the thread you will see that less than seven minutes after my post another poster, NYCVirago, said "You're exactly correct." http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210662/posts#49. There are many such comments later in the thread and in a later research thread on the subject, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210702/posts. Many such comments were posted before 6:00 AM the following morning, which proves that the knowledge is common and widespread. The outpouring on the rest of the web, at Powerline, Little Green Footballs, INDC Journal, etc., proves the same thing. The problems with the documents that I identified were obvious to millions of people and that is one reason that the story took off like it did. That it was me rather than someone else who first noticed the font problem is pure coincidence. It would have been picked up by someone else in a few minutes if I just gone to bed instead that night.
But I didn't, and so Mary Mapes hates Buckhead along with everyone else that has participated in refuting her lies.
The corporation abandoned this business in the early 80's I think it was. To us geeks, it seemed that the Xerox corporate management had no idea of the value of what they abandoned.
I reread both threads. On the longer one, I noticed a number of drive by posts by signed-up-the-same-day (or not long before) posters. Almost as if the usual suspects had people proactively monitoring after the 60 Minutes 2 showing, and then, when Buckhead blew the whistle, signing up ad hoc to try and "manage" the thread and of course to monitor it specifically. Just like what happened with the NCPAC / MD4Bush case! HAVE THEY NO SHAME? [he asked rhetorically! ...]
It's even more difficult than you describe. In my typing class in high school the drill was to center the platen (or the IBM 'golf ball'), figure out the number of character in the line (including spaces) then divide by two. You then backspace by that number and the line you then type will be centered on the paper. Why does this work? Because in mono-spaced fonts each character is the SAME width.
If you then try proportional fonts (like the fake memos) where each character will vary in unit widths from (3 of 9) to (9 of 9) units you would have to have a photographic memory to know the unit widths of each character in the line you wish to center. Let's see the capital "A" character is 8 units, the "i" is 3 units, the "c" is four units etc. Then when you have all the units added properly, divide by two and hope that when you "backspace" on your proportional fonts typewriter that it actually "backspaces" in the font unit-widths that you are using...
Now imagine that you repeat this on four separate memos over many months in the early 1970s and after 30 years they JUST happen to match up perfectly with the output of the Microsoft Word proportional font centering algorithm for the 'Times' font... Pretty amazing, huh...
Here is another memo/font analysis from someone not in the blogosphere - a Mr. Thomas Phinney: font program manager of Adobe Systems Inc. who was contacted by the Washington Post last year...
Source: CreativePro - September 24th, 2004
Mary Mapes and all the old CBS retired sycophants are uninformed fools and liars who simply refuse to believe that the forged memos are proof of their stupidity. When you hear them discourse on the subject they dismiss the 'font controversy' without realizing that there is no 'he said/she said' two sides to the story. The memo controversy has been resolved simply by the application of technological knowledge. Those who are older enough to straddle the age of the typewriter and the word processing program know the difference instantly - those who always had others to do their typing would have had the apparent discrepancies pass right over their heads...
dvwjr
In retrospect, looking back at the threads with a year plus behind me, I now have noticed that said libs were actually doing drive by posts on the second, longer thread, trying to pretend they "were in the AF in the early 70s" and other malarchy. The posts in question all attempt the throw in doubt and spin. Just like the MD4Bush case! Probably included our buds Novak and Mosk at the WaPo as well as multiple electronic MSMers as well!
In much the same way they did on the initial MD4Bush threads, operatives from the MSM and the left also came in on the Buckhead / Rathergate thread and tried to sow disinfo, spin and doubt. They must have been monitoring as well. I never really noticed it at the time. I linked the two threads somewhere in the low 600s of this thread. Fascinating!
Correction, the links are at 165 of this thread ....
We like you Buckhead!!
September 9 was the day after the 60 Minutes 2 showing. The initial sneak previews of the 60 Minutes 2 content would have been during 60 Minutes on Sunday the 5th. So, the time frame for the Wild Bill guy would be right for general monitoring of FR Vs that news cycle. Then, the multitude of rats arrived after Buckheads initial comment on Pikamax' thread of the NYT story on the 9th.
You have to prove to us there was no font like that in that time. We want a Back to the Future time warp DeLorean so we can verify your claims. It is up to you to prove to us that MSM doesn't have to prove anything to us.
Sincerely,
Journalism student
So give it a rest, smart a$$.
Buckhead's post needs nothing. The truth doesn't care about an extra space or two.
Kristinn thank you for your long years of service to the Republic.
I posted to the thread about 40 entries later. . .
To: Buckhead
OH Rah Buckhead You are rady for your 15 minutes of Fame. What is your real name for the History books.
YOU TOOK DAN RATHER DOWN.
He must resign.
83 posted on 09/09/2004 4:22:17 PM PDT by jokar (On line data base http://www.trackingthethreat.com/db/index.htm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies ]
Of course I was wrong, Danno did not resign.
Congratulations again Buckhead.
I don't know. I use Word Perfect, and it doesn't have it either.
schweet.
I'm also 47, a computer user since 1979, by no means an expert and no legal training. But I could see the problem when it was first brought up. Must have something to do with being 47.
You honestly don't think a post about proportional typesetting isn't lessened in its impact by extra spaces between the words?!!? In retrospect, I thought it ironic..........
'Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman.
In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts.
The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts.
I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old.
This should be pursued aggressively.
47 posted on 09/08/2004 11:59:43 PM EDT by Buckhead '
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Do we have a Wall of Fame?
We don't hate you Buckhead; we love you. You proved that Mary Mapes is just another sockhead who thinks she is smarter than anyone else out there. This is usually guarantees eventual failure as she is experiencing now.
I just wonder when it's going to hit the Clintons and their ilk?
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