Comments on: Getting Technical about the Killian Memos

By: Harry

Harry — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 04:03:56 +0000

This thread should really be immortalized somewhere as a cautionary example of what happens when you give a determined child a hammer. No wonder philosophy is described as the cheapest department on campus to support.* Thanks for putting a smile on my face, gents! *For those unfamiliar with the joke—the second cheapest department is math, because all you need to supply are pencils, paper, and wastebaskets. The philosophy department doesn’t need the wastebaskets.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:25:11 +0000

Gee, now that we have more, like the secretary who would have typed the memo, etc. and know that they things are forgeries from a proven liar with an axe to grind, it is interesting to come back and read these posts. Now, is it a completely decisive argument? No. But don’t pretend to a “we philosophers” rigor that knocks this argument out of the ballpark. Here are two reasons why you should drop this pretension. First, because it is false. Second, academic humanities is generally regarded as intellectually sloppy, and while you and I know analytic philosophy has not succumbed to the rot, not everyone else does. So I would prefer that we not devalue the currency of our discipline. sure catches it the best.

By: Clark Goble

Clark Goble — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 04:15:25 +0000

I think that whether the argument of nearly exactly duplicating the memo with Word is a strong argument or not rests entirely with ones background of using different word processing / desktop publishing programs and similar fonts. In my experience (which from various discussions doesn’t match everyone) it was extremely unlikely for the line spacing and word breaks to be exact. Even between platforms (Mac and PCs before the Truetype fonts became standardized) spacing rarely matched. It is, as someone mentioned, an abductive argument. But one extremely strong in my eyes. Was it strong enough to establish that it was a forgery? Perhaps not. But it definitely was strong enough so as to put the burden of proof very far on CBS’ side. Further bloggers, well before the rest of the media, were contacting various document experts, typerwriter experts and the like. I think the error was to see it as a static argument. Rather as I mentioned, the argument was a distributed abductive one that would have made C. S. Peirce proud. (The philosophical blog, Siris, did a great commentary on it I thought) http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2004/09/cooperative-distributed-argumentation.html

By: james

james — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 22:39:11 +0000

http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm This link goes into excruciating detail as to why the documents are forgeries. The author makes dozens of points. The three primary points being, 1) Any 1972 typewriter capable of actually producing the entire memo would be so rare as to exclude use in the air force. 2) The document makes use of ABC dimensioning. This is what gives it the kern look. Non-publishing house typewriters did not have this ability. 3) The superscript.

By: Bernard Yomtov

Bernard Yomtov — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:36:31 +0000

dpu, My point was purely that just the fact that a document can be reproduced with word processing is not strong evidence that it was not typed. If it has other features that cannot be produced without word processing, then that is a different matter.

By: double-plus-ungood

double-plus-ungood — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 17:01:14 +0000

And of course it is likely that, given a document typed in 1972, there exists a way to reproduce it with some word-processing software. Certainly, but this is all beside the point. The real question is why does the alleged memo display pseudo-kerning with measurements exactly corresponding to TrueType specifications which were not available prior to the early 1990s? Typing the content into Word and overlaying the results onto an image of the memos is simply a way of verifying that the memo uses the same character spacing. The fact that Word’s default setting produce identical margins, leading, center justification, font and font size, and line breaks is just gravy.

By: Bernard Yomtov

Bernard Yomtov — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 15:20:47 +0000

I should have written, “how likely it is that Z holds under alternatives to A,” rather than “how likely A is ex ante.” Sebastian, Suppose that it had been discovered that the memos could be perfectly reproduced using, say, WordPerfect, with some minor change to the defaults. Then you would be saying, “How likely is it that an allegedly 35-year old document can be reproduced exactly with WordPerfect if you just change X?” In other words, if they could be reproduced with ANY word-processing software you would have exactly the same argument. This is Bible Code logic. “How likely is it that every seventh (or tenth or whatever it was) letter will spell out a name? Not very. But it is extremely likely that for some n every nth letter will spell out a name, especially. All yoou’ve done is find n. And of course it is likely that, given a document typed in 1972, there exists a way to reproduce it with some word-processing software.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 11:31:34 +0000

Three histories: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=14774 Yeah, I know; You want references from a source that LIKES Kerry, and therefor has no motive to cover this. Right?

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:03:26 +0000

“The question is “How likely is it that a 35-year old document can be reproduced exactly by modern word processing technology?” And the answer to that question seems to me to be “very likely,” which means the argument isn’t so hot after all.” Exciting, but doesn’t pertain to the issue. A more accurate question is “How likely is it that an allegedly 35-year old document can be reproduced exactly by the most common modern word processing program available when set at most of its default values” And the answer to that is not bloody likely.

By: Tom Doyle

Tom Doyle — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 05:03:57 +0000

“How true; Why some of Kerry’s medals have as many as THREE separate histories behind them, not just the conventional one. :lol:” As I said, shameful and ominous. “Brett Bellmore” is more the former than the latter.

By: Bernard Yomtov

Bernard Yomtov — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 03:23:07 +0000

they are identical to what Microsoft word would produce in more-or-less default mode. How likely is that? So far, that’s a great argument. And speaking as a representative of analytic philosophy, not as a political partisan, I would prefer you and Matt Y not make our field look like a haven of ninnies by denying that it’s a great argument. Well, I’m not an analytical philosopher, but it doesn’t strike me as a great argument on its face. If I understand your point, it’s this: Suppose we know that if A then Z. It does not automatically follow that if Z then A. But on a Bayesian basis, if we observe Z then there is a good likelihood of A. But this only holds if A is relatively unlikely ex ante. Say that it’s known, in addition to the above, that If B then Z If C then Z etc. Then the inference fails. It’s like saying if the world is flat the sun will rise tomorrow at 6:45, and then claiming that the fact the sun rose as predicted suggests the world is flat. Now you may say that it is in fact unlikely that a document allegedly typewritten in the early 70’s could be reproduced by “Microsoft Word in default mode.” But the whole business about Word is nonsense. Why is Word critical to the argument? There are any number of word processing programs, and using Word in non-default mode is not hard. The question is not “How likely is it that a 35-year old document can be reproduced exactly by Word in default mode?” The question is “How likely is it that a 35-year old document can be reproduced exactly by modern word processing technology?” And the answer to that question seems to me to be “very likely,” which means the argument isn’t so hot after all.

By: Anarch

Anarch — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 02:09:54 +0000

Brett Bellmore At this point enough evidence has accumulated to establish that at the very best 60 minutes proceeded with a reckless disregard for the truth, and more likely was engaged in deliberately defrauding the American people for political purposes. The very experts they claimed they were relying have now stated that they warned 60 Minutes that these memos were likely forgeries, or could be! You think this is likely the only time they’ve tried something like this? They HAVE been caught relying on forged documents before, you know. You think that, had they gotten away with it, they’d never do it again? Funny, I’ve been saying exactly the same thing about the Bush Administration for the past two years…

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 01:35:44 +0000

“The gaps in Bush’s history, military and otherwise, were and are unprecedented” How true; Why some of Kerry’s medals have as many as THREE separate histories behind them, not just the conventional one. :lol:

By: Tom Doyle

Tom Doyle — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:21:23 +0000

I was in the Marine Corps reserves from 65-71. The deal was 6 months initial active duty, one weekend “drill” (2 days and sometimes overnight) per month and 2 weeks “summer camp” each year, for six years. When I enlisted, we had to attend 90% of the week end drills (100% of everything else) to meet the commitment. If one didn’t or wouldn’t comply, one would be “called up” for two years active duty. That’s what it said on the enlistment contract that I signed. When I enlisted, getting in the reserves was easy. This was before the US started drafting people in huge numbers for Vietnam. A year or so into my enlistment, around the time major drafting began, Congress passed a law raising the 90% requirement to 100%. The policy was strictly enforced. If someone was late for drill, or sent to the barber shop because his hair exceeded Marine approved length, he had to make up the drill. In the units to which I belonged, this meant reporting to the training center on a weekday, and cleaning weapons and/or swabbing and buffing the deck (“floor” in army/civilian/air force talk) for 4 hours. I can understand Bush not wanting to play weekend warrior. Most all my fellow Marines complained more or less constantly about everything, denied being “gung ho,” said they couldn’t wait to get out, etc. This “discourse” is perhaps the most ancient and universal military tradition. However, the only options we were aware of were to fulfill the requirements for six years or get involuntarily activated. To the extent one found the former onerous and disagreeable, one would take exceptional care to avoid the latter. Bush and I were in different programs. He was an officer and a pilot in the Air National Guard. I was an enlisted infantry person in the Marine Corps Reserve. Both programs had mandatory participation requirements and the consequences of noncompliance appear identical. A Marine in my program with Bush’s apparent attendance record would have been ordered to involuntary active duty for two years. It is beyond belief that Bush’s service, whatever it is, cannot be documented. Military procedure being what it was and is, the presumption must be that the records were tampered with. Recall the detailed scrutiny that national candidates receive (e.g., Eagleton, Ferraro, Quale). The gaps in Bush’s history, military and otherwise, were and are unprecedented. For other candidates they would have been disqualifying. The ability of the Bush machine to cause Bush’s history to be a non-issue, however this was managed, is shameful and ominous.

By: asg

asg — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:58:12 +0000

forgot link: http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html