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One moral of this story: If you put a picture of a chimpanzee next to a picture of George W. Bush, line them up exactly, and shrink them down to only a few pixels across, they'll look pretty much the same, at that resolution. Whether you think that proves anything depends on your point of view.
If this post has served any useful purpose, recommend it, and we'll start updating it with new information as it comes up. (We need a clearing-house thread for this crap?) Otherwise, we can let it die.
by Hunter on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 12:54:28 AM PDT
Prof. McCainIraq is to Pakistan's rear,While Czechoslovakia's here.Sunnis are Shi'a,Sudan is Somalia,and Putin's the German premier.
by Michael D on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 01:02:10 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
Even if these things are bogus we still have some key undisputable facts to fall back on:
Old Man McCain.com - the best anti-McCain blog on the web!
by existenz on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 01:21:18 AM PDT
by Kalki on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:42:26 AM PDT
by Kalki on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:46:16 AM PDT
by Kalki on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:53:36 AM PDT
"Lash those traitors and conservatives with the pen of gall and wormwood. Let them feel -- no temporising!" - Andrew Jackson to Francis Preston Blair, 1835
by Ivan on Sat Sep 11, 2004 at 07:26:19 AM PDT
by legadillo on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 06:29:42 PM PDT
It is also not Georgia or Palatino. New York also does not jive as in that the descender in cap "J" falls below the regular baseline.
Sorry to be pendantic but these experts are offending everything I know about type.
Okay I will try to let this die now.
by zane on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 01:07:46 AM PDT
Me, I have no clue.
"[Republicans] swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose." --Alan Greenspan
by lanshark on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 01:59:28 AM PDT
I was trying this with the standard PC and MAC fonts, and since they don't match I don't believe the computer type theory.
by zane on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 02:13:44 AM PDT
The same document lists the Air National Guard so I would imagine the Air Force handled procurement for the ANG as well. This at least confirms the Selectric Composer was in use by the Air Force in 1969.
I also found an anecdotal reference (scroll down to yellow highlight) to Selectrics in use by the Air Force by Neil Franklin, Group Historian, Maxwell AFB, Gunter Annex, Alabama:
At the time of the AFSCOASO's birth, creating printed matter on paper was called typing. If you were really fortunate, your office had an IBM Selectric and plenty of correction ribbon.
This Neil Franklin is an Air Force Historian specializing in documents and technology and some intrepid reporter should contact him about the use of Selectrics in the Vietnam Era, presupposing the Selectric Composer could have typed the Bush TANG documents.
John McCain
by joejoejoe on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 02:58:57 AM PDT
All it took was that there be one year some time after 1966 when there was some leftover money at the end of the fiscal year. A primary maxim of any government organization is not to have any money leftover because it makes next year's budget smaller. In fact, end of fiscal year splurges are a common joke in the military.
And this was the colonel's secretary, one of the bigwigs in the secretarial staff. (Remember that back in the 60s and 70s, extremely talented and competant women did not have the career choices of today, so she may well have been both an extremely hard worker and a genius. It seems she was the kind of person who would switch out the ball to make the superscript 'th').
So at the end of one of these fiscal years, they had a few thousand dollars to get rid of, and the colonel decided to get his secretary the best typewriter on the market. Hell, she deserved it! And this would have the ancillary benefit of letting them produce documents that appeared typeset if necessary (for letters to the generals!)
Aloha!
by wetzel on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 03:35:53 AM PDT
Cost and complication are irrelevant. If the Air Force bought these typewriters (proven above) then they surely had personnel skilled enough to use them. They were buying million dollar fighter jets during wartime - I'm sure a topline IBM typewriter was within the grasp of the TXANG.
by joejoejoe on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 03:51:47 AM PDT
"And don't concede the too expensive point"
My comment was meant to further support your points not argue them.
The quote is from Hunter's diary.
by wetzel on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 04:05:34 AM PDT
Photo
Looks like a regular damn typewriter to me...
by joejoejoe on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 04:46:18 AM PDT
"When IBM announced plans for its new Austin manufacturing plant in the 1960s, city leaders began to see real potential to complement Tracor's high tech presence. IBM's first 30 or so employees, who had to wait to move into the new facility, spent their first couple of months tearing down fences and building work benches and file cabinets. They operated out of a farm house, using a dairy barn for storage. "It was in the country. There was nothing there but grass and grass and more grass," Wormley says. IBM's first product was the Selectric Composer, a typewriter with memory. That was followed by the Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer and the Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter in 1968.
"It was in the country. There was nothing there but grass and grass and more grass," Wormley says.
IBM's first product was the Selectric Composer, a typewriter with memory. That was followed by the Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer and the Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter in 1968.
by joejoejoe on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:06:16 AM PDT
If nothing else than as a political favor to the powers that be?
After all political games are played with major weapon systems, why not office equipment?
by ces on Sat Sep 11, 2004 at 11:53:54 AM PDT
The point being that if an underfunded state university in 1976 had excess IBM selectric typewriters to provide junkers/beaters for the use of grad students, it's entirely likely that the Air National Guard in 1972 had them available for a Colenel's secretary.
Local Stores, local schools, local work
by Menachem Mavet on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 04:53:19 AM PDT
My mom's whole office had IBM Selectrics. I know this because my mom would sit me down at one to keep me busy and out of her hair for the day. I know they couldn't have been all that expensive, because they allowed a bookkeepers kid to sit down at their IBM Seletrics and play all day. They all had the interchangeable ball typing unit that you are all mentioning.
...and get rid of these gawd damn voting machines. Blackboxvoting.org
by nyetsoup4you on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 05:39:05 AM PDT
by Borealis on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 04:51:00 PM PDT
by Damon on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 07:16:02 AM PDT
That's ridiculous.
by nyetsoup4you on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 07:51:29 AM PDT
Then why did my mom have an IBM Selectric at her desk in 1973 if they were so rare and outrageouly priced?
by nyetsoup4you on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 07:56:03 AM PDT
Link below with some of his material.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/35559/9134
The IBM Selectric Composer, first marketed in 1966, is capable of producing a scalable memo in the particular font we see. The memos are available here: The manual for that typewriter can be found here: The manual for that typewriter can be found here: http://ibmcomposer.org/docs/Electronic%20Composer%20Operating%20Instructions.pdf. The font available for that typewriter that is used in the memo is called "Aldine Roman". See a replication of it here called Bembo (you have to scroll down a bit): http://graphicdesign.sfcc.spokane.cc.wa.us/tutorials/process/type_basics/type_families.htm. You'll see that it better matches the font in the Killian memos. Times Roman in Word has too fine of serifs for what is created in the memos. The fonts are very similar however. If you go to page 168 (173 of the pdf), you'll see that Aldine Roman is available in three sizes: 8, 10, and 12. The superscript is made with the 8-point size element font ball.
The manual for that typewriter can be found here:
The manual for that typewriter can be found here: http://ibmcomposer.org/docs/Electronic%20Composer%20Operating%20Instructions.pdf.
The font available for that typewriter that is used in the memo is called "Aldine Roman". See a replication of it here called Bembo (you have to scroll down a bit): http://graphicdesign.sfcc.spokane.cc.wa.us/tutorials/process/type_basics/type_families.htm. You'll see that it better matches the font in the Killian memos. Times Roman in Word has too fine of serifs for what is created in the memos. The fonts are very similar however. If you go to page 168 (173 of the pdf), you'll see that Aldine Roman is available in three sizes: 8, 10, and 12. The superscript is made with the 8-point size element font ball.
I went to college in the mid to late sixties. The first year I had a used manual typewriter. Cost $40. I worked that summer I bought an IBM Selectric. It cost either a couple hundred dollars but less then three hundred. I had it for many years. By 1973 they could easily have been bought new ones for much less or used ones for even less than that. The military could easily have afforded one.
Recommend kj's diary; it's a good supplement to this one. And it seems to be proof that there was such a typewriter. The papers should have waited and gotten their facts straight before they jumped the gun. They sure hop to it for Republicans while it took a couple of weeks for them to get data about the Swift Boat Liars
PS I posted a version of this at kj's. forgive me!
Debra
by debcoop on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:09:14 AM PDT
If that's the typewriter he used to type up the Bush documents, chances are there are plenty of other documents produced by him, with the same font, and from the same time period, floating around out there. I mean, I'm sure he typed a lot of things for his job and not just these particular docs in question.
Bernie Sanders for president!
by SoCalSista on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 12:53:50 PM PDT
From my earliest childhood (which would be around 1972 or 1973) I remember my family having a Selectric. Not sure what model, but it was pretty swank, and I think it had a lot of these featres.
We weren't poor and the folks both worked for IBM. But honestly, if this thing was so expensive, there's no chance we would have had one stuck in our basement getting rusty.
This is the way democracy ends Not with a bomb But with a gavel -Max Baucus
by emptywheel on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 06:21:07 AM PDT
But to add my useless knowledge, I was a legal secretary from 1964 to 1993. One of the first machines I used was the IBM selectric with "executive" typface. It was a KILLER to use. You really needed to be an excellent typist because to make a correction on those beasts took much skill and experience.
If I remember, the "i" had 1 point of space, the "e" and most other letters had 3 points of space, and the "m" had 5 points of space. Heaven forbid you tped an "i" where an "m" should go -- erase the whole word and try again but you would still have to squeeze the word in a smaller space.
Any evidence of typos on this memo? Really really good typists could do that, no typos I mean. If this memo was typed by a military man, I would expect typos. If this was typed by his clerk, I would expect none.
by GrandmaJ on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 07:24:12 AM PDT
by nyetsoup4you on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 07:59:47 AM PDT
The world won't get no better if we just let it be.
by drewthaler on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:33:29 AM PDT
"Too expensive" refers to a different machine, the Selectric Composer. The Selectric Composer cost more like $3000, something like the price of a new car back then. I promise that your family didn't have a Selectric Composer. It wasn't an office typewriter. I've used one a few times because the company I worked at had one for doing sales brochures for publication. It's overclaiming to say that it was too big to put in an office, but it was a lot bigger than a normal Selectric. It had extremely tight mechanical tolerances and therefore it needed maintenance all the time if you used it a lot. It needed special typeballs that were bigger than Selectric typeballs. It may have needed special ribbons. We used special paper with it for doing the brochures, but that can't have been mandatory.
In my opinion, believing that Killian would have used a Selectric Composer for that memo borders on conspiracy theory. Yeah, it's theoretically possible. But it would have been completely bizarre.
I'm just about certain that Kevin Drum's commenter got it right. If the memos are real, they were done on an IBM Executive that was equipped with the superscript "th" and whatever font those memos are done in. I had wanted to spend part of today researching whether such machines existed (see my comments in the typewriter threads last night), but Kevin Drum's commenter, for my purposes, has put the matter completely to rest. The Model D Executive could be ordered that way, and in my mind it's just about certain that the earlier Model C which would have been more common at the time could also be ordered that way (there was nothing exotic about those features).
So, if you ask me, the "specially-ordered IBM Executive" theory is about 100 times as plausible as the "Selectric Composer" theory.
Hawkish on impeachment.
by clyde on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 12:32:29 PM PDT
And in 1972-73 when I had opportunity to use one, they were, new, as said, about $3-400, used $150. I recall as I wanted one.
(I shortly settled on an electric Smith-Corona -- with new thingy called a "cartridge") which cost about $150 new. [It's been in the closet, unused, since 1987, when I got my first computer -- for word processing, the idea being to save paper and ribbons ("You wouldn't know it to look at me now" -- Firesign Theatre) -- a Commodore 64.
(But, yes, the non-Composer Selectric was sweet, and lusted after by anyone worth their secretarial abilities or writer's dreams.
(Gad, I still have a number of letters and draft poems typed on the thing from early 1973 . . .)
A lie is halfway around the world before the truth can get its shoes on -- Mark Twain
by jnagarya2 on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 07:19:03 PM PDT
by clyde on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:04:37 PM PDT
by Chips on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 09:40:50 AM PDT
by yourEvilTwin on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 02:41:00 PM PDT
Don Imus has been reporting all morning that the wife of this colnel, and several officer's that worked for/with him are denying he wrote the memo. Imus is an RNC media hack so I guess people should take it with a grain of salt.
by SteveLCo on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 04:21:38 AM PDT
this is a colonel for chrissakes, not Leave It To Beaver.
I seriously doubt the wife or son have any idea of any memo that the colonel, in a culture notorious for memos to cover ass (and other reasons), may have drafted with his secretary.
they may not know that the colonel was banging his secretary either.
free the information
by freelixir on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 04:29:45 AM PDT
by SteveLCo on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 05:21:40 AM PDT
by pellucidity on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 01:42:22 PM PDT
Second, I write letters and memos all the time in my work. I'm trying to think of any reasonable circumstance where my wife, or hypothetical child (we've no children yet), would be able to say in 20 or 30 years whether I did or did not write something work-related. I say "reasonable" circumstance: sure, if a letter of memo attributed to me surfaced 10 years after my demise evidencing that I lead a secret, double-life as a CIA operative posing as a Sicilian fishmonger who'd recently returned from a "wet-job" in East Buddha, Equador, then, O.K., I can see my wife doubting the authenticity of such a document (but you never know . . . ), but, c'mon, a 1-page memo about some clown-of-a-subordinate who's skipping work, um, I don't think my wife would have too much insight into the authenticity of such a document.
Third, heaven forbid a host of Democratic surrogates flood the cable channels to SLAM this stupid thing with words substantively akin to yours /and TURN THIS AROUND on Bush to show, once again, how this cowardly fraud is able to almost magically conjure up a bunch of thugs, half-wits and other sorts of "protectors" to try 'n' pull his wussy self out of the fire. Heaven forbid!
"We in the gloam, old buddy," he said, "We definitely right in the middle of it." -Larry Brown
by BenGoshi on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 09:18:47 AM PDT
"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." - Benjamin Franklin
by CaptUnderpants on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 04:56:45 AM PDT
Netroots Nation: Changing the face of progressive politics.
by pontificator on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 06:35:46 AM PDT
By getting this 'forgery' BS retort into the media, people have begun to either dismiss the charges or withdrawn interest. They knew that by the time their empty charges were proved hollow, most people would have lost interest.
Plus, the Republikkans favorite lapdogs - the media - enjoy spouting out Jerry Springer-esque charges full of 'gotcha!' sensationalism rather than actually research & determine fact from fiction.
It's not like its their job to investigate the journalism they produce. It's our job now. Welcome to the new ownership society.
Hunter, you did an utterly amazing job in researching this, and I appreciate your efforts greatly. Thank you!
"I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV."
by zeitshabba on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:04:11 AM PDT
Both the Associated Press and the Washington Post have published stories now with experts making demonstrably false statements.
When CBS lays this to rest, they are going to do so in a prominent way, and they are going to demand that AP and the Washington Post prominently correct.
AP and Washington Post have attacked CBS' reputation very strongly, and it is obvious that they did not conduct proper research. CBS will surely demand that they eat what they have shat in the punchbowl of their profession.
by wetzel on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:09:33 AM PDT
Just a suggestion, mind you...
"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -Albus Dumbledore ~~~~~~~~~ http://slugcrossings.blogspot.com/
by Lainie on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 09:38:10 AM PDT
As CBS is currently standing alone and conspicuous with this, it would likely apprecite the information. "Help". Might even create a convenient openning for someone here with the skills to accomplish that.
And, defeinately, it should be submitted to Washington Post, NY Times, and any other malingering media organization who prefers "Gotcha!" to journalism.
CBS has it right. So whoever can accomplish, give them the help and support they deserve in this instance.
I'm sure a few there will appreciate that, and the good faith of it.
Also get copy to the DNC, or whatever element of that Politce society Club likely to make most aggressive use of it.
by jnagarya2 on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 07:29:03 PM PDT
IMHO typewriters sit alongside steam locomotives, Linotype machines, and variable pitch propellers as things which no normal human being would ever think could work, but which some set of people continued beating on until they WERE made to work. A true testament to human ingenuity.
sPh
by sphealey on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 08:46:20 AM PDT
Now I'm no expert, but usually what this means is that there's a spot on the drum of your printer, and each time it goes around, it leaks a bit there. Or something.
I count about 5 distinct sets of these, so I'd estimate that it makes a complete cycle every 2 inches or so? Haven't tried printing it out yet.
Anyhow, unless office equipment did this in 1973, it screams "printer" to me, which can't be good. At least for those two documents.
by pb on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 11:04:31 AM PDT
by Sanity on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 11:47:32 AM PDT
I guess we'd need to see scans of the originals to make sure, which is what I'd hope those PDFs would be. For that matter, I'd think you'd want the originals (if possible) for the document experts to verify it.
by pb on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 12:18:13 PM PDT
by JetTredmont on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 12:46:35 PM PDT
So your presentation is lovely, "pretty"! The love and respect for detail (and skills at research, and drawing up the results) is obvious.
As for keeping it? I think it should be updated when/as necessary -- shouldn't take long over a few days/weeks, until the nonsense blows over -- and brought to fruition, and kept for future "demolition work".
Might even forward such to CBS, and other media outlets. And media mavens who sit on their asses playing with their microphones and daydreaming instead of doing fact checking.
Appreciated, and thank you! for the aesthetics!
by jnagarya2 on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 06:53:01 PM PDT
wide narrow
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