Jesus Christ these people are morons [Update x3: The Seal appears!]

I know I said I’d try winding down how much I talk about No Quarter, but my god, every time I think about doing it, they come up with a brand new way to blow away what should be common sense.

And that’s what they’ve done with their lateast post on Obama’s birth certificate.

First there is this:

The first thing I noticed when I re-read the Kos story is that Kos does not explain how he acquired Obama’s certification, which seems curious given his alleged credentials as a serious blogger.

…

However, within the substantial body of comments (648 at this writing) to Kos’s diary, several posters referenced a comment by Kos in which he explains that he asked the Obama campaign for the certification via e-mail, and they sent it to him. The problem is that I cannot find the original comment from Kos which so many other posters reference; perhaps my search tool is not working well and I could not find it among the 648 comments, and someone else can locate it.

Here you go. OK that took about 10 seconds.

Second, there is this:

Second, this sentence by Kos caught my eye: “Note, I have trimmed the edges of the scan, so before someone tries to inevitably ‘debunk’ this based on the dimensions of a Hawaiian birth certificate, that should be noted.”

…

If the certification was sent to Kos by the Obama campaign electronically, why would he “trim” the “scan”? Why not just re-post the image that was sent to him the way that it was sent? Now, I write tons of html-coded diaries and all you need to do, if the original image is too big, is insert a measurement into the jpg code to decrease the size of the image.

Maybe to make it look better and cleaner, so it wouldn’t look like this? Maybe?  Oh the horror! He trimmed the edges!

Third:

Third, I found a comment by Opendna about a third of the way into the comments section of Kos’s story, posted at 4:35:46 PM EST on June 12….

Where did Opendna get that template, which JimJ pointed out shows the same time and county as Obama’s alleged certification? And why did he boldly publish this template in a comment?

Given that opendna appears to have posted it as a joke in response to someone asking “where is McCain’s birth certificate?,” my guess is that he took the one Kos had posted and used photoshop to create the “template.”  It wouldn’t be hard to do, and is supported by the fact that it was posted by opendna in his own photobucket account.  Even further proof of it can be a second birth certificate posted on the same photobucket account with the name “Haye I. B. Ahphorgerie” (Hey, I be a forgery).

As to why it has the same time and county on it…probably because Opendna left it on it.  In response, I would ask why would a “template” even have a time and county (but nothing else) on it to begin with?

Fourth, luckily not a major point:

Finally, I noticed that Kos posted his diary at 11:44:37 AM EST on June 12, according to the DailyKos site. For some reason, though, the first comment, by “Addison” shows an earlier time: Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 11:10:34 AM EST. I don’t know how Kos’s timestamps operate, but I thought it was strange. Maybe someone else can explain.

Just a quirk sometimes on the site. It’s not uncommon to have the datestamps on comments to be earlier than the post being commented on. Why it happens? I’m sure someone might know, but it isn’t a sign of foul play or anything.

Fifth:

Although the certification posted by Kos and the one posted by the Obama campaign appear to be identical, people who have “peered” inside the images say that each has been opened in Photoshop or some other Adobe program.

…

Why would “Ducky” be working on Obama’s birth certificate? To cover up the certificate number with a black block? If that’s the reason, and it was sent to Kos after the certificate number was hidden, why then would Kos open this image in Photoshop? To “trim” it? (See questions above about that).

Yes, exactly. It was opened up in an image editor to put a black box on in the Obama’s campaign. That should have been obvious from the start. The fact that they’re just now realizing that’s what happened seems to just show much little they know what they’re talking about. And yes, then kos opened it up again to trim it so that it was cleaner. I probably would have used photoshop myself for both of these tasks and it basically means absolutely zero.

And to just add to their stupidity, they add this:

Please note again the prominent language at the bottom of the form: “ANY ALTERATIONS INVALIDATE THIS CERTIFICATE”.

Um, yeah? Your point is what? The digital version wouldn’t be valid anyway in a court of law. The original, which I presume hasn’t been altered, would be.

Next:

If Barack Obama ordered his certificate of birth, one would logically presume that upon receipt of that actual document, a simple scan would be made of both sides, and the images from the scans then published. The certificate number could have been covered with a simple piece of black tape before scanning the document.

Instead, if one is to believe that this certification is authentic, it appears that the Obama campaign scanned the document sent by Hawaii OHSM, then altered the scanned image in some kind of Adobe program. This should be explained in light of the importance of presenting an authentic document that has not been altered.

Oh dear god stop the stupid.

First, no, one wouldn’t “logically presume” that a scan would be made of both sides. Why would they scan both sides, when one side doesn’t have any of the birth information on it? I wouldn’t have automatically scanned it.

Second, the very fact of the warning against altering the original is probably a good reason not to use a strip of black tape to cover the certificate number.

First off, if you left the tape on, it would obviously “alter” the document. Second, if they took the tape off and it ripped the paper, that would alter the document, making it invalid. Third, you’re almost certainly going to have to run it through Photoshop to resize and straighten the image out anyway, even if you used tape to cover over the number (so you just as well do it digitally).

This argument of “OMG THEY OPENED IT IN PHOTOSHOP” is so fake since it is pretty obvious that they would have opened/did open it in an image editor at some point along the way to make cosmetic changes (trimming, covering up personal info, resizing and possibly straightening the image out, since one almost never scans something perfectly straight).

Finally:

There has been much written, also, about the missing embossed seal and registrar’s stamp/signature on Obama’s document. If it’s on the back, let’s see the entire document in real time (like at a press conference)….Obama should make available the long version of his birth certificate, which includes more detail about his birth. The State of Hawaii should have that on file, in case he’s lost the original that he said he had located in High School (per Dreams From My Father).

Why should Obama go out of his way to satisfy your own personal paranoia. He’s released a certificate of birth. The State of Hawaii has confirmed it to be legitimate.  There is zero reason to doubt it’s authenticity other than continued and unfounded paranoia (though I do like their note about someone at the Hawaii Department of Health “backtracking” on the legitimacy of the certificate of birth with no link, no quote, no nothing to actually say this is what they actually did (and given No Quarter’s penchant for taking things out of context or otherwise picking and choosing, I think we definitely need an actual full quote in context of what was said to believe them).  Actually, I’d almost like a transcript of the entire conversation since No Quarter apparently called the Attorney General along the way too.  Did the Attorney General talk to the Department of Health, or did NQ talk to the Attorney General, then misrepresent to the Department of Health what the Attorney General told them?  We have no way to know.  Too bad they aren’t as transparent as they demand Obama to be).

And somehow I have a feeling that even if he did what they asked of him, they’d find some reason to doubt it.  (“Oh, he waved A document in the air, but was it his real birth certificate?  We couldn’t tell on TV!  We demand that he give his copy over to an unbiased media source (like us!) to check it out for themselves!” or “How do we know that that’s his REAL long birth certificate? How do we know he didn’t forge that too?)

See, even if he gave in and did that, they would just find another reason to doubt it, and it would give No Quarter and others the opportunity to challenge anything and everything of Obama’s, making them waste time and resources to debunk every little thing, no matter how silly (which is, of course, exactly the point).

Update

I ran across this post showing how manipulating the image can bring out the seal, so I did it myself (I ran it through find edges once) and what do you know:

You can barely see it, but it is there. You can do it yourself by downloading the digital copy of the image and running “find edges” on it in Photoshop.  I’m sure someone else can maniulate the image better than I get bring it out more.

Update 2

Apparently the new thing is to disprove the seal by going and using a copy of the birth certficate from Polarik at Town Hall which used the “original” copy of the birth certificate on kos’ site.

However, there are several problems with this:

First, the “last edited” date and time on Polarik’s image is June 16th:

While the version currently linked from kos’ post was last edited on June 12, the day kos posted the birth certificate:

Now, this means 1 of 2 things:

1) Either kos made an image on the 12, but linked it on the 16th or later, after Polarik grabbed his copy, or

2) Polarik’s grabbed a copy of what is currently linked from kos’ post

Also, you’ll notice another difference:

The size of the image on kos’ post is 2427×2369 while the resolution on Polarik’s post is 1024×1000.  In other words, the image has been resized.

Not only this, but it has been resaved as a jpg at a lower quality.  This could just be a byproduct of resaving the image after resizing it, but you can definitely see the difference here:

The top text is from kos’ version resized down to 1024×1000 in photoshop.  The second text is directly from Polarik’s copy with no alterations.  You can clearly see that the 2nd version has more pixilation and is of lower quality (with both samples enlarged at the same time to maintain consistency).

Given how faint the seal is on Obama’s certificate of birth, such a reduction in quality may very well be enough to obscure it if you try to run the same test that I did above on his version (and indeed, the seal doesn’t show up when one does it – though it also has the interesting side effect of being much darker when I run the “find edges” filter – probably due to the increased pixilization of the image.

So we have a situation where we have an image linked from kos’s site which either is the same version there originally, or was edited at the same time as the original, which shows a seal, or a version by Polarik which has been reduced in size and quality and created after kos’ version, which doesn’t show the seal.

To me the evidence on this one points in one direction -> the seal can’t be seen on Polarik’s version because of the increased pixilization on his copy due to resaving it.

Update 3

Indeed, saving the original copy at the same resolution as Polarik when doing “save for web” at 20% gets almost the same file size as the image Polarik has.  Indeed, saving it as such creates a similar amount of pixilation and, low and behold, if I run “find edges” on that image, the seal no longer appears.  I think this mystery is solved.

Running Away

I’ve stated before that I was never really enthusiastically on Obama’s bandwagon for a number of reasons in the primary, but now that he’s the nominee, it would be nice if he held his ground as much now as he did then:

“As he’s said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

I tend to agree with Josh Marshall’s characterization of this as “lame” and that this, along with his decision to vote in favor of FISA, makes Obama seem to really fear the patriosm card, and that’s just hightened by the fact that he felt compelled to give a speech on patriosm today.

Now,  giving such a speech, on it’s own, isn’t a bad thing, but that, in conjunction with his FISA stance and now standing back from Clark’s non-controversial-if-you-spend-3-seconds-thinking-about-it comment about McCain really makes Obama look as if he’s on the defensive (and helps even further alienate the blogosphere who has spent all morning supporting and defending Clark).  The more Obama looks like he’s on the defensive, the more the GOP is going to push the patriotism point to keep Obama there.

Oh, and saying that he disagrees with Clark’s statement gives Obama’s implicit agreement that McCain – by the very virtue of being in the military – has suprior foreign policy experience than he does.  Way to go agreeing to give McCain a head start in the general election.

I realize that candidate tend to moderate their positions from the primary to the general since they’re campaigning to different audiences, but Obama didn’t seem to have much of a problem picking up support from independents and republicans during his campaign in the primary.  I don’t see why he feels compelled to moderate this much, this fast, this early in the general.

Update:

I guess that means Clark is off the veep list now too.  How can you choose a running mate who, by your own implicit admission, has questioned the opposing candidate’s military service?

McCain plans to pick Veep After Obama

I’m not sure how they plan on having this work, but apparently that’s the plan:

Campaign insiders say McCain plans to name his running mate very shortly after Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) does, as part of what one campaign planner called a “bounce-mitigation strategy.”

The Democratic convention is in late August, a week ahead of the Republicans convention. That means McCain can size up the opposing ticket before locking in his own.

Forgetting, of course, that given the fact that the GOP convention starts 4 days after the Democratic convention ends, and we have 2 weeks of the Olympics immediately preceding the Democratic Convention, that makes August 7th the last operative day to choose a running mate (Olympic opening ceremonies are on the 8th).

This plan comes with several risks.

First, stepping on your opponent’s VP announcement may be considered bad form. In 2000, there were nearly 3 weeks between when Bush picked Cheney and when Gore picked Lieberman.  The gap was over a month in 1988. (Of course, in all the intervening elections an incumbent President was running who already had their VP.)

Second, Obama is likely to pick his VP, based on historical precidence, on or around August 5th – a mere 3 days before the Olympics start.  Waiting for Obama to pick risks McCain both being criticized for stepping on Obama’s announcement while having his own announcement being stepped on by the Olympics at the same time.

Third, I think McCain can come under attack immediately for wanting to wait until after Obama selects his veep.  After all, McCain will have had 5 months to pick a VP by the start of August while Obama would have had 9 weeks.  Why the hell should McCain pick 2nd unless the Democratic Convention just forces Obama to (which it doesn’t due to the Olympics).

The only possible argument McCain has is that the party in power has traditionally been able to pick their veep 2nd, but that is largely because candidates tend to lead into their national conventions by picking their running mate – and the party in power has traditionally always held their convention 2nd.  However, that dynamic is disrupted this year because of the Olympics.

I also find it facsinating that Mitt “non-proliferation is a liberal issue” Romney is the leading pick for the second spot.

Bush vs. Obama (or, the tale of idiots and asshats)

Note to No Quarter:

Bush’s problem wasn’t his inexperience.  The things Bush has done in the White House haven’t been done because he and his team haven’t known that they were doing – they’ve been done because they knew exactly what they were doing, and have been doing those things intentionally.

If Bush’s issues have been about experience, why has his presidency gotten worse and worse over time?  Shouldn’t it have gotten better?  That right there should show that experience isn’t the issue.

The real problem was his ideology and, thus, the people he surrounded himself with in his administration. Does No Quarter they really think that a President Obama, with people like Edwards, Clinton, Dodd, Clark, etc. as members of his administration and/or advisors, is going to be similar to a Presidency with Bush/Cheney/Rice et. al?

And no, I’m not saying the Democrats who refuse to vote for Obama are racist (isn’t this claim getting a little old?  Where has this even been claimed anyway?), I’m saying that they’re blithering morons and selfish asshats who are willing to vote for Bush’s third term just so they can get back at the Democratic Party for not nominating their chosen candidate.

Then there is this consistent thing about “giving a nod to Hillary’s 18 millin voters” or other claims that the Dems are tossing out Clinton’s 18 million voters, presumably because Clinton wasn’t nominated (and I guess had she been, how wouldn’t Obama’s 18 million voters not been tossed out, using the same logic?).  I’m not exactly sure what they want here.  I’m not sure how Clinton’s 18 million voters make it so that the nomination is her right, whereas Obama’s 18 million voters don’t do the same for him.  Otherwise, isn’t Obama and Clinton appearing together itself a recongition of her voters (of course not!).

And no, I’m not shy calling these people who they are now.  They’ve had their chance to unite, and they’ve chosen not to.  They’ve already said they’ll “never vote for Obama” so there is no longer a reason to pander to them.  Instead, they should be called out for who they are: a (very) small group of (very) loud selfish thugs who are trying to ruin the nation for everyone just because their candidate lost.

Luckily, thus far, this election looks like it will be a wide enough victory for Obama so that we don’t even have to think abou these people as a second thought on election day (well, other than to make fun of them some more).

I’m trying to wind down my complaints about this group because, frankly, it’s not worth it.  Polls have repeatedly found them such a small group that they’re obviously not impacting the election to any noticable amount, especially if you look at state-by-state polling.  All they’re being is loud, which is good for attracting attention and causing disrpution, but nothing else (and of course the media loves any story dealing with democratic disunity, however relegated to the deep, dark corners it is).

I will say this though: if they do somehow cost Obama the election, it will probably completely tear the Democratic Party apart, causing a political realignment in this nation – a realignment which will most likely be far from advantagous to them.

The wheels on the bus go round and round

This time the PUMA bus’ victim is Wes Clark.

Ironic that you can launch completely unfounded attacks on Obama about where he was born and demand that he tie himself in knots to satisfy one’s own personal crazy doubts, but saying that McCain flying an airplane doesn’t qualify him to be president…oh god forbid!

Update: The second, and perhaps more ironic, part of this is that Clark has been saying this for weeks if not months – including back when he supported Clinton.

I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president

I watched a replay of this part of Clark’s Face the Nation interview where he said this, and I could hear Bob Schaffer in the background saying “really?!” in amazement in the background as Clark said it.

Of course, the McCain camp immediately came out and condemned the remark, complaining that Clark was “questioning” McCain’s military service.

Of course, I have two questions for McCain’s campaign:

1. How, exactly, did Clark question McCain’s military service?  He never suggested that McCain didn’t do something that he claimed to do, nor did he say that McCain did anything dishonorably or anything of the like.  In fact, Clark went out of his way to say that McCain did act honorably.  All Clark said was that McCain’s military experience doesn’t give him the “commander in chief” experience McCain clams it does and that he’s running on.
2. How does “flying in a plane and getting shot down” automatically qualify you to be commander in chief?  As Clark says, being a soldier himself allows McCain to perhaps empathize with troops more, but that doesn’t mean he knows what the hell he’s doing as commander-in-chief.

I also find it ironic how McCain’s camp (and the media) is creating a fuss about whether being a fighter pilot qualifies one to be commander in chief after what the swift boaters did to Kerry in 2004.