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Obama releases his birth certificate

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Trebor

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It's definitely photoshopped. I can tell from the pixels and having seen quite a few shops in my time.

Well, here is what is to me the relevent question (as someone who while never a "birther" always thought it incredibly off that Obama didn't just release the damn thing if there was nothing to hide)

One would think that if anyone had the resources to produce a competent false document it would be the POTUS.

So what does this indicate?

Edited by SapereAude
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It's definitely photoshopped. I can tell from the pixels and having seen quite a few shops in my time.

Would you please be more specific? What pixels? Where? What is it that indicates to you, assuming that you're serious, that the document has been photoshopped?

Thank you.

Edit: On Neal Boortz' site, people are commenting. Here is one that is perhaps relevant to what you've said re photoshop

Edited by Trebor
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I was definitely joking. You can tell from the link at the end of my message, and from the fact that the whole discussion of Obama's birthplace is not important and will not change anything. :P

Ah! I missed the "period-link."

The Smoking Gun: "Will Release Of Obama's Purported Birth Certificate Give Rise To New "Certer" Movement?"

Edited by Trebor
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I do not have Adobe Illustrator, but one person, "ACdog," on Boortz' blog said this:

"Posted by ACdog at 11:44 a.m. April 27, 2011

This is a terrible fake. Here's how to tell... open the PDF up in Adobe Illustrator (not Photoshop). Click in the center of the image and then right click and select Release The Clipping Mask. Then you can start taking it apart piece by piece. A crude fabrication. The first thing to delete is the background. Then you can see type added piece by piece. Whoever did this should be embarrassed at such an amateur effort."

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I wonder why he released it. It made sense for him not to do so. The birther talk can only work in his favor. I'm guessing that he's confident that the birther talk will not go away with this release. Under that assumption, releasing it becomes a good idea, because he can add that he's released it and still the GOP won't let it rest.

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Perhaps this is part of his campaign. Remember when his advisers decided to "make Rush Limbaugh the spokesman of the Republican Party"? We know they follow strategy, so it is likely that this, as any other move, is a part of that strategy. I wonder how they think it will play out in their favor. Obviously it makes Obama look reasonable, it makes Trump look like "the face of the Republican Party" and the brunt of Republican criticism, or a substantial part of it the birthplace issue, as if it is an Official Republican Grievance, which obviously makes them look dumber than usual. It distracts at the very least. Don't talk about inflation, unemployment, higher taxes, the budget deficit and the national debt, all the non-spending cuts going on, the wars, etc.

Talk about something you can win on, get them having to answer for the wrong questions, get them talking about something that is clearly in your favor. Let your opponents have to answer for the birthplace question. Do YOU believe Barack Obama is an American citizen? Do you???! Answer! Do you repudiate your "fellow right wingers" or not?!!! Are you a racist or not?! Etc. Remember the whole "Do you repudiate the racist element in the Tea Party or not???!! Answer now, or take responsibility for their views!" strategy that was used a while back?

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I wonder why he released it. It made sense for him not to do so. The birther talk can only work in his favor. I'm guessing that he's confident that the birther talk will not go away with this release. Under that assumption, releasing it becomes a good idea, because he can add that he's released it and still the GOP won't let it rest.

It helps him. To the extent that there were reasonable people within the birther movement, they will now go away. The more irrational ones will continue to claim that he was born in Kenya, insist that the document is a fake, and further alienate the Republican party from independent voters.

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Such layers would be normal in a scanned (to PDF) document?

My own limited scanning experience has been to create simple, flat (non-layered) image files.

Many scanning softwares (and I believe the full version Acrobat) have OCR technology built in that identifies text and allows the user to select it as a separate layer. You can tell because when they turn the layers off, the green background doesn't show behind the text - instead it is empty white space, because there was not actually any data behind the text, because the layers were created after-the-fact by OCR.

Edited by brian0918
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Exactly! Obama's wish must be, "Please God, please let all the election talk be about my place of birth and nothing else'

I haven't kept up with the "birthers," but I have occasionally heard news reports that there were people questioning whether or not Obama was, due to the location of his birth, eligible to be (or have run for) president, constitutionally. So I'm aware that they've been around, in the news off and on, since he became president, if not even before.

It does seem strange that for some time Obama has not produced this document, seemingly unwilling to do so, but has suddenly released it after a couple of years of requests or demands for him to do so.

It also seems strange to me that the document, if it was in fact scanned in a manner so as to create layers, including editable text layers, does have layers. Why not just release a simple image scan with a single image layer? Or, why not flatten the image prior to release?

Perhaps, if Obama wanted to keep the "birther's" brouhaha going so as to make the republicans look rediculous, scanning the document in such a manner would serve such a purpose, keeping the focus and clamor over his place of birth going, leaving Obama holding the upper hand over what he knows to be a moot point and something he can later disprove in a simple manner, throwing it all into the republican's faces. Releasing it with layers continues to keep the suspicions going.

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You can't open a .pdf in Photoshop that already contains layers. Either it's what Brian said or they saved the image to their computer and then manipulated it themselves. A .pdf would open as the image and maybe a transparent background layer. Time to find another frivolous topic to focus on to distract America from real issues.<-this is a mirror of a comment on the youtube video posted, but I agree with it wholeheartedly. Now, I may be wrong about this, but this is what makes sense to me based on my several college classes I've taken in Photoshop and Illustrator, the experiences gained from those classes, and this was how things worked last time I looked. At any rate, I agree the last thing we need is for the debate to focus on his birth. That would be Obama's wet dream.

Edited by CapitalistSwine
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