It ain't over yet...

It is now known that CBS was coordinating the show with the Kerry campaign

http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+CBS+arranged+for+meeting+with+Lockhart&expire=&urlID=11703685&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fpoliticselections%2Fnation%2Fpresident%2F2004-09-20-cbs-documents_x.htm&partnerID=1660


jm


----- Original Message -----
From: "Denys Beauchemin" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2004 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Rathergate, the conclusion?


> I find it interesting to see otherwise highly intelligent and well
> educated people stubbornly cling to one flimsy premise when presented
> with a conundrum.  I think it is the foundation for the saying: "can't
> see the forest for the trees."
>
> Wirt's assertion is that since the lines on the memos are wavy, they
> could not come from an "electronic type-setting mechanism" such as a
> laser or inkjet printer, I presume.  These memos HAD to have been
> produced by a "mechanical typewriter."  Irrespective of the overwhelming
> mountain of evidence showing that these memos had to come from an MS
> Word driven device, that the content was not proper for the Air Force
> and that the secretary of the time said they were bogus, as long as the
> lines of text are wavy, they could only have come from a mechanical
> typewriter.
>
> A corollary to the statement would be why did the incredibly detailed
> web page not even address this issue of wavy lines?  The answer is
> simple, it is not an issue.  Let me explain.
>
> The typewriter I had at home in the late sixties and early seventies was
> an Olivetti machine.  I have absolutely no idea what model it was.  It
> was gray and had lots of keys.  It had the fonts for the letters at the
> end of long stems.  I am sure there are proper names for all these
> parts; I have no idea what they are.  It was a sleek machine, but it was
> all manual.  There was absolutely now power assist here.  :-)
>
> When I typed a text on the Olivetti, two things stood out when I looked
> at the completed product.  The first one was the appearance of some
> waves in the lines of text.  Closer examination of this phenomenon
> revealed that in fact these were not waves intrinsically built into the
> lines, but rather that some letters always typed at a position slightly
> above or below the others.  You see, if the stems with the characters
> were just a smidgen longer or shorter than they should be, the printed
> character would be a little higher or lower.  When viewed from above, it
> was interesting to see the arrangements of these stems.  Only the middle
> one was straight, all the others would have a bend to them, more
> pronounced the further away from the middle they found themselves.
>
> So, the characteristic of a mechanical typewriter would be to have
> specific letters out of step with the remainder and to varying degrees.
> In other words, if the letter 'h' typed lower than the others, it would
> ALWAYS be lower than the others.  If the letter 'k' typed a little
> higher, it would ALWAYS type a little higher.
>
> About the only time you would get a perfectly straight line was when you
> repeatedly typed the same character, as for example the underscore "_",
> because the carriage itself would not go up and down, producing waves.
>
> If you look at the fake memos, you can readily see that the "wave" is
> not repeated for specific characters.  Indeed it seems to affect
> portions of lines, including the ones above and below.  This is more
> consistent with someone producing a nice output and crumpling the page
> deliberately, flattening it out and then photocopying it.  Voila,
> instant old typewriter look.  Unless you look closely.
>
> I am not aware of ANY mechanical typewriter as I have described with
> proportional fonts and capable of kerning or even pseudo-kerning.
>
> I am aware that electric typewriters with the 'golf ball' head had the
> capability of producing proportional fonts, but certainly not kerning.
> However, one of the great benefits of these 'golf ball' typewriters was
> they virtually eliminated the wavy text.  The output they produced was
> far superior to what the mechanical ones produced and that was one of
> their main selling features.
>
> Now, by now, you probably think that I forgot to talk about the other
> characteristic of the output of a mechanical typewriter.  And you would
> be wrong.  Since the mechanical typewriter depended on human power to
> strike the letter, some letter would be struck more lightly than others.
> Therefore the text would have various degrees of character definition,
> so to speak but on a letter basis.  This was more pronounced with touch
> typists because certain fingers would be weaker than others.  If you
> look at the fake memos, you do not see that at all.
>
> But wait a hunt and peck typist would not produce a document where the
> characters would vary in intensity.  Since only one or perhaps two
> fingers would be used, the keys would all be struck with approximately
> the same force.  We all know that LtCol Killian hated to type.
> Therefore he must have been the one to type the fake memos, which is why
> the secretary could state that she didn't type these memos. (Let's
> ignore the fact she called them fake also.)
>
> Fair enough, except that now, we have someone who hates to type,
> probably because he does not have the skills to do so and maybe even
> considers the task to be beneath him, (and we all remember how Wirt
> feels about Colonels, right?) producing perfectly centered and
> letter-perfect memos.  Wirt has reviewed for us, and has had reinforced
> by private mail, how one can achieve such a feat with a typewriter.  At
> that time I responded to Wirt, expressing my veritable joy at being able
> to agree with him that these memos were fake.  I would have paid real
> money to see a Lieutenant Colonel in the Texas Air National Guard going
> through all the motions described by Wirt and his anonymous
> correspondent, to PERFECTLY center the heading of a memo to a
> subordinate and putting a fake address in the heading and mistyping his
> title at the bottom.  All this without a single typo.
>
>
> Denys
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Wirt Atmar
> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 11:09 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Rathergate, the conclusion?
>
> Denys writes:
>
> > I found this
> >
> >  http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/newcomer/index.htm
> >
> >  Warning, this page falls under the heading "more than you ever wanted
> to
> >  know about fonts."
>
> That page contains nothing but crap. No computer produced that text. All
> you need do is look at the baseline of the letters in the images. They
> vary up and down in the manner that mechanical typewriters produce text.
> No electronic text-setting mechanism has ever done anything like that.
>
> Wirt Atmar
>
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