Woodman and some of the work by "Raised On Hoecakes" show more and more a picture where the analysis was constrained by the poor resolution of a copy of a copy (AP B&W PDF) which appears to have been at best a copy of the copy (Long Form) of the original (under DOH of HI control).

Dropping grey scales and changes in DPI also make any further analysis more complicated and then finally, the fact that the document was not electronically produced but rather using a typewriter with known issues relating to ink ribbon degradation, letter degradation, variations in 'strike pressure' and variations in typing speed, make the whole analysis quite a bit more complex.

Going back to two available copies of the Obama copy (photograph by reporter and a scan) shows how several of these issues raised by 'examiners' can be attributed to the copying/scanning process.

Irey counters that he had to work with what was made available, but that is no excuse when reaching a conclusion of fraud which may or may not be attributable to other factors, hidden by the poor resolution of the resources.

Given what I have seen so far, there appears to be limited foundation to support fraud and a much much stronger case that the document is indeed accurate. The fact that several DOH officials have vowed for its accuracy makes the whole issue mostly moot.

IMHO of course.

Started working for me last time I checked in the wee hours last night.

Woodman: Paul Irey Refuses to Publicly Debate the Fonts

Corsi sure goes out of his way to control the birfer message, doesn't he! Orly: shut up about that SSN thing; I own Sheriff Arpaio. Paul: don't you go runnin' around yappin'; that didn't work out so well on RC Radio!

Man, I can't wait for that huge Birfer Summit. These united folks will whip out their "Declaration" in a matter of minutes.

Oh-oh... Orly not gonna like that! She IS, of course, the queen of the birthers. Corsi is just some idiot who wrote a book, but hasn't put any real time or effort into the cause.

Cross posted from the WND topic:

We now know the last name on the WND "mystery birth certificate". It is for the baby daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James K. Ah'nee, born August 23, 1961. This information was in the birth announcements pages published by Lucas Smith on his blog. Go to page 37. Gorefan at Obamaconspiracy.org pointed this out in a comment. Note that this bit of data supports the monthly alphabetical assignment of certificate numbers. I believe this theory was first proposed by Doc C:

Ah’Nee – 09945 – August 23rd
Nordyke, Susan – 10637 – August 5th
Nordyke, Gretchen – 10638 – August 5th
Obama, Barack – 10641 – August 4th
Waidelich, Stig – 10920 – August 5th

Can we now bury the certificate number out of sequence nonsense once and for all?

Um, we're talking about birthers. We can't even bury "travel ban to Pakistan in 1981".

Or, his father is Malcolm X or Stanley Dunham.

Woodman's back!: Presidential Candidate Laurie Roth Ignores Reality, Continues to Claim Obama Birth Certificate Is “Verified Forgery”:

Bonus:

It is not clear to me how we connected those dots.

How do we know this is Ah'Nee's BC?

We can make out the certificate number and part of the parents names from the scan of the back side of the birth certificate in the Paul Irey - WND article. The newspaper announcement of the August 23 birth of Ah'nee as posted by Lucas Smith matches. No other birth from August 23 matches.

Hi,

First, I would like to apologize for not doing a better job of following and responding to this thread. I read some of it earlier, and meant to respond to June bug, at least, then -- and just never managed it.

Actually, going through June bug's post and trying to write a response, it seems to me that she mostly just doesn't like me because I'm a conservative. There doesn't seem to be any useful response I can make to that, so I'll just leave things as is.

kate520 said:

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we, the bad liberals whom everyone has learned to hate the last few decades, who were actually the most respectful to him, are still considered by him to be beneath ...something. Him, his friends, I don't know, but something. The folks who called him names and doubted his character, are still people he admires and respects, while we are not. I know, I know, he didn't say so, I'm reading between lines here. He's kind of apologizing to them for "siding" with us.

Kate, one thing you should understand is that since I'm a conservative, conservatives are who I naturally identify with. All of my family that I can think of -- except for one particular cousin -- are conservatives. Most of my friends are conservatives. Actually, since I live in a pretty conservative town, most of the people I do business with are conservative as well. And when I write something, I'm more likely to address it to fellow conservatives. I doubt any liberals would listen to me in the first place.

And my own personal political philosophy, yes, is pretty conservative. So that means that I believe conservatives generally tend to have a more accurate view of life than liberals. I'm sure you believe the opposite, that liberals have a more accurate view of life.

But that's a matter of philosophies. Kate, I can assure you, I'm not impressed with conservatives who call people names, besmirch their character, etc. And I am impressed with people who treat others with respect, even though they may be of hugely different political philosophy. It doesn't escape me how individuals treat other individuals. But if I'm talking about groups, I will naturally tend to identify more with conservatives as a group, just as I'm sure you identify more with liberals as a group.

I hope that helps.

Finally, Epectitus asked:

How do we know this is Ah'Nee's BC?

To which Reality Check replied:

We can make out the certificate number and part of the parents names from the scan of the back side of the birth certificate in the Paul Irey - WND article. The newspaper announcement of the August 23 birth of Ah'nee as posted by Lucas Smith matches. No other birth from August 23 matches.

Yes, and actually a bit more than that. If you flip and enhance all the graphics of the back of the page, there are other things you can make out as well. I could make out a significant amount of the address, including I think, the full house number. I could make out the baby's mother's name. As I recall without taking the time to go back and look at it, I believe I was able to make our her father's first name as well. There was plenty of information to be able to confirm, on seeing the actual birth announcement, that this was the certificate for baby Ah'Nee.

jmw -- I think the biggest problem is what we saw as a very dismissive attitude.

jmw -- I think the biggest problem is what we saw as a very dismissive attitude.

No, not at all.

Any more questions?










JUST KIDDING!

Okay, back to more serious conversation. I assume you're talking about a dismissive attitude on my part.

I think, from what I've seen, that it's pretty easy for people of different political persuasions to completely misunderstand each other. But I'm not sure what you would mean by a dismissive attitude on my part. Dismissive of what? Liberals? Of Fogbow folks? I will confess that I've never seen the Fogbow as a place that I would probably regularly hang out. Nor did I see, starting at the beginning, what seems to be the goal here (to debunk the birthers) as my own goal. I also am not in favor of things like providing false information to the birthers, which I understand has been done a time or two. That's just not my way of doing things.

My own goal was to get at the truth, whatever that was, and promote that. I'm still open to becoming a birther myself, if anyone can produce any genuine, solid evidence to convince me. I think the odds of that happening are exceedingly small, but I try to keep an open mind.

I will say something else: I haven't necessarily seen the response here as all that inviting for a conservative who is definitely not pro-Obama.

Here I've gone out on a huge limb both professionally and politically for the sake of the truth, ended up taking your position on the birth certificate, also ended up taking all kinds of heat for it, and what do I get from folks like June bug? More heat.

I also had an interview with Reality Check, and we had one caller call in who asked me why people were demanding that Obama release his birth certificate, and I told him why I thought that was. The answer wasn't good enough. He kept pressing me for a different answer. Sorry, but I gave you my honest opinion already. That's the only answer I have. If you want a different answer, you'll have to ask someone else. The answer he really seemed to be fishing for was,"Obama's being asked for his papers because he's black, and all the people demanding Obama's papers are just a bunch of racist Tea Partiers." Sorry, but I know conservatives very well. A lot of people I knew had questions about Obama's birth certificate. And while I'm sure there may be a few racists on the birther bandwagon, I happen to think that "you're all racists" theory is not that much more in touch with reality than a lot of the birther stuff.

Well, I could tell that the person who asked the question (and who kept wanting an answer that he wasn't going to get) basically had to hold himself back from attacking with both barrels. So while I had some very good and even enjoyable conversation with others, such as the person who commented it was good to talk to a reality-based conservative (and I don't want to lose sight of the many more good conversations), I couldn't say the reception was universally positive.

I'd like to add one more note for Foggy --

I long ago read your post, where I had mentioned you by name, and you said you wished I hadn't. That was back in September or so, and I immediately edited that and used your handle instead. But I don't know that I ever told you I'd done that.

Mr. Woodman,

Speaking for myself, I am certainly aware that not all birthers are racists, but I'm also aware that all birthers are bigots due to their baseless animus against President Obama--not a single one of them can even bring themselves to use his title, let alone say even a single positive thing about him (can you?) Can you admit that asking the first African American president for his papers when: (a) none of his predecessors had ever been asked for theirs; and (b) he had already provided proof of his natural born citizenship before the question was even asked has to seem more than a little suspicious to a minority community with good reason to distrust people on the right who claim not to be racists?

You say that you are "open to being a birhter"--in response I would say that a good scientist, once all of the data is in, doesn't sit on the fence, they choose the side to which the empirical evidence points. Have you seen a single allegation by a birther which has merit? Doesn't it seem disingenuous to you to raise the exact same argument used to deny Dred Scott citizenship and claim it to be mainstream reasoning? The majority in Dred Scott cites the same mis-translation of Vattel made a decade after the Constitution was ratified that forms the cornerstone of the birther arguments. As this is the only citation of Vattel on the subject of citizenship by the SCOTUS, it seems like any birther with a shred of integrity should be aware of where their argument comes from.

As long as conservatives fail to denounce the extremists amongst them (as they did with the John Birch Society years ago), I think that it's fair game to point out that they are tacitly (or overtly) supporting a movement of fringe crazies characterized by ignorance, stupidity, and dishonesty. Politically I think that conservatives taking conciliatory positions like yours is advantageous for President Obama, but I would still rather see the responsible conservatives (if, indeed, there are any left) marginalize the crazies and restore a modicum of civility to our national debate--instead the Republicans have made every effort to poison our political dialogue in an attempt to make President Obama fail for their own political gain--even if that means that the country fails, too. So keep being "fair" to the birthers who are "just asking questions"--you're helping re-elect President Obama and destroying the conservative movement. Don't worry, you'll start getting your Soros check any... day... now...

Actually, I disagree on that. I think Republicans taking a rational stand on a basic issue of fact is advantageous for Republicans. The crazy birther claptrap may play well to the foaming at the mouth base, but it drives away the critically important independent voters in droves. The complete irrationality of the current Republican Party is causing it grave harm, as people see a group uniformly against doing anything at all, even things they supported previously, even ideas Republicans themselves came up with back when they still had ideas.

Actually, Loh, I disagree that you disagree because I agree with everything you just said. Denouncing the birthers would be good for Republicans as the more attention they garner the bigger wedge they are to drive away independents. Even so, I would welcome the Republicans purging the wignuts as it would be a badly needed step in the direction of restoring civility. Want to argue about something else we agree on? (we can probably agree that my writing is not as clear as it could be...)

To Slartibartfast --

First, I've enjoyed many of the comments you've made at my own web site. Thanks for dropping by and participating!

Mr. Woodman,

"John" will do.

Speaking for myself, I am certainly aware that not all birthers are racists, but I'm also aware that all birthers are bigots due to their baseless animus against President Obama--not a single one of them can even bring themselves to use his title, let alone say even a single positive thing about him (can you?)

I don't know that their animus against President Obama necessarily makes them bigots. I personally didn't refer to President Obama as President Obama during the period at which I doubted his eligibility -- because I honestly didn't know whether he was legally President.

Can you admit that asking the first African American president for his papers when: (a) none of his predecessors had ever been asked for theirs; and (b) he had [i]already provided proof of his natural born citizenship before the question was even asked has to seem more than a little suspicious to a minority community with good reason to distrust people on the right who claim not to be racists?[/i]

Sure I can admit that seems suspicious to some. However, some of Mr. Obama's behavior seems suspicious to others. There's distrust on both sides.

You say that you are "open to being a birhter"--in response I would say that a good scientist, once all of the data is in, doesn't sit on the fence, they choose the side to which the empirical evidence points.

Obviously, I've chosen a side. I wrote a book on it. I've challenged the guys on the other side to a debate. But I think a good scientist, even having chosen a side, remains open to changing his mind on the basis of new evidence.

And I say this as someone with something of a scientific background. I studied physics at university, up through modern physics including quantum mechanics. I derived Einstein's famous E=mc2 equation in one of my classes.

Have you seen a single allegation by a birther which has merit?

Yes. I've seen one today by Leo Donofrio -- which could be a first. He complains that Maskell makes it sound as if a particular case had to do with a man born of Chinese alien parents was ruled a natural born citizen, when in fact the case states that the man's father was native-born. He attributes this to evil on the part of Maskell; I attribute it to Maskell probably not reading the case thoroughly enough. In any event, Donofrio (in this case) is right about the man's father being native-born.

Granted, an allegation by a birther which has merit is rare. I haven't seen very many of them.

Doesn't it seem disingenuous to you to raise the exact same argument used to deny Dred Scott citizenship and claim it to be mainstream reasoning?

Yes.

As far as who's being harmed by the birther issue, I'm sure the birthers think President Obama's being harmed by it. I don't think so. I agree with you guys that it's probably Republicans and conservatives who are being harmed by the birthers. I don't think it's huge damage, but on the whole I think the birther phenomenon is a bit more negative for conservatives than it is for President Obama.

Hi, John. I first wanted to say I bought and read your book and enjoyed it. You did an excellent job.



Although that omission by Mr. Maskell makes absolutely no difference to the proposition of natural-born citizenship nor the holding in the case. Leo is dead wrong, as is Mr. Apuzzo, in their reading of Minor v Happersett, and having legal training they know, or should know they are wrong. I am convinced one or both only promote that nonsense to keep the birthers (and perhaps others) stirred up.

I notice upthread you stated you did not call President Obama "President" Obama as you were not sure he was legally the president. This is the sort of thing that makes my blood boil. Whether you (and others who to this day do the same thing) believed he was legally president or not is, frankly, immaterial. He was duly (and legally) elected by the voters and he is (and was) indeed the President of the United States and should be respected as such. Even Mr. Donofrio agrees with that. That sort of attitude is part of what divides and prevents rational discourse.

There is no credible evidence whatsoever that President Obama is not the legal president and there never was. This continued attack on his birth, his parents and yes his honesty in that regard is demeaning (as it's meant to be) and utterly ridiculous. Just as we watch what goes on around the world so does the world watch us. This birther nonsense only shows us in a bad light around the world (at least to the portion of the populace which believe it or believe it "could" be true) and bolsters our enemies.

There is more known about this president than any in history. If indeed the "birthers" are so concerned with the Constitution, then why has no one asked for any of the current Republican candidates (or others they are championing for no other reason that to challenge Obama's legality to appear on the ballot) for proof of their citizenship and indeed that of their parents. They've not because it's not about the Constitution. It never has been. Those involved have proven they know little or nothing about the Constitution its history nor indeed the history of this country.

That said, there are many posters here who are not "bleeding heart liberals" nor indeed liberals at all. There are many here who do not like Obama, his policies nor his politics. We are able to have discourse together as a group, and are (and were) drawn together over the "birther" 'issue which is utter nonsense and always has been. There perhaps may be some that just initially said it was ridiculous without investigating, but I dare say most did not just blindly accept that he was eligible. Most here researched initially and sought out others who did the same, and indeed as other issues have come up those too have been investigated.

I will admit when you joined the forum I did not pay a lot of attention to some of the remarks you apparently took offense to, as I was more interested in how your investigation would progress and what your conclusions would be. I will also be the first to admit that when new people join the forum there is a tendency to attack in many cases, and attack the person rather than their ideas, and I've taken some heat from time to time for pointing that out. There are those who obviously come here just to spam and flame and so many approach anyone new with the suspicion that that is their purpose. If that's how you were treated by some (and I admit I do not know) then that too was wrong, in my opinion.

I wish you luck in your debate if it happens. If it's on Mr. Gillar's show, then I would strongly suggest you record the debate, as Mr. Gillar records in advance and then edits the show... heavily. I admire you for taking them on and defending your research. I suspect, however, if the debate is aired at all, and if you are successful in driving your points home (as I know you will be) it will not appear so in the show that is aired to the public if it indeed ever is.

I'm glad you stopped by. It's nice to see you again. I hope you come back on occasion. You might be surprised at how much agreement there is to some of your political ideals.

/ramble

Can you elaborate a little bit more on this? Are we talking in general or in regards to birther claims? I haven't seen anything really suspicious that the President has done in regards to the birthers. He showed his birth certificate publicly back in 2008 when he didn't have to and no previous President has done so while in office. If what the President has done is seen as suspicious then by that measure all previous Presidents can be seen as suspicious.

Yes, please elaborate on this "suspicious" behavior.

When I praised you for being a "reality-based conservative," I did so because I didn't see you spewing any of these bullshit generic rationalizations like FOX promulgates.

In your book, you do well to question and debunk untruths using facts - not innuendo.

This statement is just a safety net for conservatives who don't want to seem like they're falling off the party line. "Some say..."; "Some experts have speculated that..."; "There is talk of..."; "Well, others do find his behavior suspicious..."; all are cheap ways to deflect the criticism of the weakness of the information being falsely promoted. Spreading innuendo without regard to facts or sources.

Mr. Woodman, why don't you cite some "others" who find President Obama's behavior "suspicious", and tell us why (it would help to point to someone who had a legitimate claim, as we know every birther with false accusations finds his behavior suspicious).

John,

As indicated by Bob's comment:



the only fair standard by which to judge President Obama is by that of his predecessors (to use a different standard begs the question "why is he different?"). I believe that it is degrading that President Obama, after releasing prima facie evidence of his Hawai'ian birth (which was further confirmed by official statements and sworn***** testimony of multiple officials from the Hawai'i DoH under administrations of both parties) was forced to release his LFBC to counter birther lies which resulted in another wave of birther lies that you yourself have shown to be completely baseless.

Perhaps a mirror analogy will help to demonstrate what I would do (and have, in fact, done) were I in a similar position to you--possessed of evidence that the conspiracy theories of moonbats* regarding a president I detest lack merit. While the truthers lack the racial element which makes the birtherstani particularly despicable, the charges they explicitly (MIHOP) or implicitly (LIHOP) lay on President Bush and Dick the War Criminal** are much worse than any of the fallacious crap that the birthers have accused President Obama of. While the truthers are not that political and the birthers can't be separated from politics, I think that this example demonstrates what I would do similarly and differently were I in your shoes.

In response to someone being wrong on the internet, I looked in to the collapse of the Twin Towers from a conservation of energy perspective and showed evidence that any energetic materials didn't do a significant amount of work in the collapse and that all of the observations were consistent with a collapse caused by planes hitting buildings. While I probably started with more of a predisposition against truthers (due to previous experience with the 9/11 truth movement), I proceeded by the same method you did--the scientific one--I made a hypothesis (that all of the observed effects could be powered by the TeraJoule of gravitational potential energy that was released*** in the collapse.

I'm sure that I see the people espousing controlled demolition theories about 9/11 in a way similar to how you see birther forgery "experts". Where we differ is that you have maintained your scientific detachment while I have applied my scientific conclusions in my evaluation of the truthers (and the birthers) and my reactions to them. I think your impulse to maintain your impartiality has worked against you personally as well as politically. Personally, you were never going to have much luck generating interest in your book in the birther community--your scientific integrity and their confirmation biases cannot comfortably coexist. On the other hand, as a conservative obot****, you immediately gain credibility as any statement regarding President Obama's eligibility is a statement against your interests. I think that your planned debate is a good idea (and will be highly entertaining), but I think you're going to get nothing but flack from the birthers (and I would take the advice above about recording it if at all possible), whereas I'm sure there will be interesting discussions about it here. Politically, I think conservatives will pay a price (as will the nation as a whole) for letting the batshit crazy wing of their movement have as much influence as it has been afforded recently.

In my opinion, when the opponents go from the loyal opposition who, while possibly mistaken in their means, have the country's best interests at heart, to evil librul/socialist/communist/facist/Marxist/Nazis bent on utterly destroying everything "American", then there is a serious problem. Your opponent is someone with whom you can work together for your mutual benefit (even if that sometimes benefits them more than it does you) while compromise with the enemy that you've been vilifying doesn't play well with the crowds that former half-governor Palin and her ilk have been feeding red meat. I believe that most conservatives incorrectly apply their principles or stand by their principles when empirical evidence suggests that they are wrong far too often (I'm sure you have similar feelings about liberals...), but I don't believe that they are intentionally trying to destroy the country (although there are monied interests I believe to be purely motivated by greed with a level of influence I find harmful to the fabric of our Republic).

Anyway, I think that if you are trying to engage people in substantive discussion regarding your work, you'll have much more success on the Fogbow than you will on any conservative site (most birther sites wont let you comment at all). I'm not sure what the point of all of this was, but it seemed to make sense while I was writing it. Look at it this way, if you argue with a bunch of mostly liberals then you'll either sharpen your arguments by defending them from good faith criticism or you'll find that your arguments fail to win the day on their merits--aren't both of those useful outcomes?

* It may be archaic, but I make the distinction between "moonbats" on the left and "wingnuts" on the right--I believe that it is a useful distinction to make as the two groups, while similar in some ways, also have some major differences (one being that wingnuts presently have much more influence on the right than moonbats currently have on the left).

** Even though I believe that he will go down in history as the worst president ever, I refer to President Bush with the respect that I believe you (and others) should show to President Obama. I do, however, draw the line at showing any respect to Dick the War Criminal due to his admitted actions which I believe constitute war crimes and have been highly injurious to the Constitution--some may see this as hypocritical, but at least I'm honest about it.

*** That's about 1/20^th the energy released by the Hiroshima bomb, by the way...

**** "Obot" in the sense that you believe President Obama to be eligible, not in the sense that you support his polices in any way.