Conspiracy theories and Conspiracy theorists

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

35 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

but Bush did lie and people did die.  

Bob,

And Hillary Clinton did spearhead the dismantling of Libya among other Middle East disasters (all with lots of bombs), and children did die, and they got chopped to pieces and got raped.

They would still be alive and/or un-raped if Hillary Clinton had not done what she did.

That was Alex Jones's point and it is standard criticism, just like the stuff with Bush.

The point is that the mainstream media is spinning this as if Alex Jones were accusing Clinton of doing this stuff hands-on in the basement of a pizza parlor.

Nobody ever accused Bush of hacking people to pieces right in front of him, or worse.

Michael

[Peter]

Michael wrote: Bob, And Hillary Clinton did spearhead the dismantling of Libya among other Middle East disaster (all with lots of bombs), and children did die, and they got chopped to pieces and got raped. They would still be alive and/or un-raped if Hillary Clinton had not done what she did. end quote

 

Isolationism? What will our new President do? I know that stopping others from doing what they intend to do can lead to the good, the bad, and the ugly, but there are times decent people should intervene. I mentioned Isaac Asimov’s three laws of Robotics with its Zeroth Law and Star Trek’s ”Prime Directive with its additional Zeroth law to show when it is correct to interfere in other society’s actions. Of course, Saddam, Iran, or North Korea with their attempts to build a nuclear device are examples when we should violate the libertarian prime directive of the “non initiation of force.” It might be exploiting a nuance but a good argument could be made that it is not the initiation of force if truly evil people are developing and then, pointing a weapon at you. It is like the top of the wall of Troy being neared by a huge pile of dirt that the barbarians can use to enter the city . . . . or a tunnel being dug beneath our border’s walls. Or your crazy neighbor threatening to kill your kids and then you see him . . .      

Peter 

[william.scherk]

15 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 [...] other institutions that were notorious for spreading fakes news themselves (Snopes [...])

That is important, that Snopes is spreading false (fake) news, and I want to dig into the details. Later. 

I don't like the term 'Fake News,' since it fails to distinguish between different kinds of things. For me, false news is better, if only marginally; a 'false news' item is something containing incorrect information --whether by error,  invention, deception, or sloppy investigation.  So, I'd say, "In an erroneous report originating at X.com, blah blah blah" ... with aim of getting at what was falsely reported, which erroneous details were innocent of invention or deception. 

By that 'erroneous report' item-definition The Onion qualifies as false news (publishes complete confections, invents sources, quotes, locations, events and other story elements) -- although served up tongue  in cheek.

But to be fair then, a broader Fake News category will then also  include The Onion, which I think reveals the soft,  equivocal nature of the term.

I do think it pays off  to examine for differences within the category, examine motives, seek to sort out the 'fun' from the 'spun,'  the 'psy-ops' from plain old slop, misdirection from 'party' line, misperception from deliberate misinterpretation, sundry reasons why a given "news" story would be riddled with error, fallacy or plain old fraud. 

In a near orbit, some bigger "News" websites can be deemed unreliable or propaganda without being Fake News, amid a mix of heavily-slanted, soft-sourced and no-byline items tied to national interests. One large slice of this mix is found at Sputnik International. That site is at the edge of category I might call 'often slanted, misleading, ideological,' but not 'false.'  Kremlin-allied and directed but not fake in the sense of wholly-invented or always untrue by any means. There is a firm ideological goal (advance Russian interests) but a pretense of "independence" as a media force.

.....................................

Some newsy sites are indeed populated with confection and invention, but not ostensibly an inside-joke like The Onio.n

One type takes outward form of  a 'news' organization like Sputnik,  advertises itself unironically as a news site, but doesn't actually have reporters and editors in the professional sense -- this type is roughly represented by a place called National Report that publishes things like "Solar Panels Drain Sun's Energy, Experts Say." 

Quote

<National Report>This week, a scientific research facility in Wyoming made a startling discovery that is certain to change the way millions of Americans look at the environmentalism movement, after they found conclusive evidence that solar panels not only convert the sun’s energy into usable energy, but that they are also draining the sun of its own energy, possibly with catastrophic consequences far worse than global warming.

Scientists at the Wyoming Institute of Technology, a privately-owned think tank located in Cheyenne, Wyoming, discovered that energy radiated from the sun isn’t merely captured in solar panels, but that energy is directly physically drawn from the sun by those panels, in a process they refer to as “forced photovoltaic drainage.”

“Put into laymen’s terms, the solar panels capture the sun’s energy, but pull on the sun over time, forcing more energy to be released than the sun is actually producing,” WIT claims in a scientific white paper published on Wednesday.  “Imagine a waterfall, dumping water.  But you aren’t catching the water in buckets, but rather sucking it in with a vacuum cleaner.  Eventually, you’re going to suck in so much water that you drain the river above that waterfall completely.”

Now, what would make anybody give credence to this story, or on the other hand, suspect it of being invented, misleading -- unreliable as a report of true happenings?  Individuals will differ, but an Objectivish analysis will check important details or premises. A given story offered as reliable news comes under the same lens, regardless of its origin. You examine the W5 claims, the warrants and sources.

First things that my grab attention in this first run examination are names -- names of the researchers ('experts' at the Wyoming Institute of Technology)  name of their white paper and  name of the journal/website in which it appeared. Name of the additional experts consulted. Name and biography, contact details of the writer. Since all but the author byline and bio are missing, what we get is this:

Quote

Matt Rock

After studying journalism, political science, foreign affairs, and culinary arts, Matt Rock joined the staff at Epoch Times as a political analyst focused on India, before being assigned to cover North Korea. He left in 2008 to join MSNBC as an off-camera political analyst, where he earned multiple awards and was named MSNBC's top analyst four years in a row, from 2009 through 2012. He was hired in 2013 for a short stint at the Wall Street Journal, before ultimately deciding to write for National Report in 2014, feeling mainstream media sources were too invested in stories that didn't matter.

So ... what to conclude about this one story about Sun-Sucking Solar Panels?  Well, for me,  that it could be invented, not reported. I am not able to contact the journalist to follow-up with a question or two (any 'real' news site offers Twitter/email/etc direct access to the writer). I don't then going forward give the benefit of the doubt to this particular writer (if he is the actual writer). I think someone who would put together such crap in one instance is likely to pen crap reports elsewhere on the site. If an editor allows such egregious material, then why wouldn't the entire site be similarly crappy? I am okay with generalizing the rest of American Report as crap-sourced confection, false, and maybe on the edge of full-on Fake.

Anyhow, the lens, the premises, the checks.

Who what when where why and how.  Who? "Scientists" and "experts" unnamed. What?  A paper unnamed in venue unnamed, with no link to even a press-release announcing the findings.  When? Sometime.  Where?  Wyoming Institute of Technology.

Really? Yes, WIT has a website.  It isn't clear on first glance that the website is "real" -- in the sense of representing a real bricks and mortar institute, with an address, budget, history,  labs, staff, classes, 'scientists' and 'experts.'  Have a look for yourself. Look past this, from their 'About' page:

Quote

Founded in 1943 as one of America’s first independently-owned nuclear science facilities , The Wyoming Institute of Technology has been at the forefront of scientific research and advancement in the United States for more than seventy years, serving as a leading voice in a wide assortment of fields, from environmental issues to medical science to consumer tech and beyond.

How to approach further "truth-tests" of WIT?  Do I need go down that road any more?  

Yes, I need to apply the Onion test.  Have I missed a humorous, satirical, wink-wink we're-kidding undercurrent?  Is the falseness of the story and other site stories suggesting a fun, entertainment aspect to 'Nooz' that I am missing?  Is WIT a 'faker' site in relative comparison to MIT?

Probably, but I am not going to run down any more holes there. I now view American Reporter as essentially unreliable. I would not be surprised to see it appear in a FAKE NEWS retweet of a Snopes debunking. 

But Why? Why this site, whyfor, to what end?  Why put out Onion goods without giving the wink? Why cite such nebulous fakery sites as WIT  I don't know. Maybe the reason is multiplex (for a deeper larf, to gain an audience, clicks, ad revenue, prosper from the occasional 'run' on the product).

 

The 'sun-sucking solar' panels story was a scream, then.  To my mind, few would be fooled into thinking it was 'real.'  Since I know that a significant minority of Canadians/Americans already hold paranormal beliefs (in re Satan, aliens, angels, miracles, ghosts) there may occur a 'ghost zone' where a consumer suspends disbelief and lets all manner of spook tales become psychologically thrilling even if unreal -- where a fictional component is irrelevant to affective story hooks and rewards.

-- since 'fake news' is going to be the label anyway, I think maybe the Objectivish could come up with important qualifiers and criteria -- my above attempts are just rough sketches.

At the end of the day, I guess I would be force-choiced to  call American Reporter a Fake News Site because it purveys faked, phony news items among its stories.  The fakery is understood  in context. This would be fake in the sense of masquerade, impersonation, pretense.  The site wears some of the garb of an actual 'current event reporting' organ, but has none of the flesh inside. A scarecrow?  A scam? 

I may be misreading general usage.  If an item purporting to be news reportage is false in claim, unwarranted or invented, misleading  or fraudulent, what do you call it?  What do you call the site that is full of similar items?  Fake, false, erroneous, unreliable, unsupported, invented, pastiche, twaddle, crap?

-- at least one of us has moved Snopes into a Them category, colluding with mega-media in some manner to wrongfully denote sites and sources as "3rd party fact-check losers."  What is the basis of this allegation of wrongdoing?  What particular sites has Snopes snagged as scarecrow sources, masquerade sites, phony and unreliable? Of these sites, which pages, articles and stories have been unfairly tagged or snagged or denoted?

 

Edited December 17, 2016 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

If you can find a fundamental difference between the sun-sucking fake news and the fake news below from 2013, please enlighten me.

btw - I, for one, can find a difference, but not in the truthiness. It's in the effects they have on society. Most people think the sun-sucker is loopy and they get a good chuckle out of it, while the fringe does fringe stuff. The Susan Rice fake news gets oppressive laws passed, gets the government to spend gobs of money on bullshit, and gets people thrown in jail and others killed.

So please forgive me if I don't resonate with your linguistic attempt to make the first case a target for derision, but the second respectable, albeit misguided. If I only had that binary choice, I would choose the sun-sucker as more respectable than Susan Rice's bullshit any day and under any circumstance.

That's just one of the fake news items I could cite that you probably would like excluded from the term "fake news." There are a ton of them.

Here's a criterion I think you might find acceptable. When there is conservative bullshit, that's fake news. When there is progressive bullshit, that's not fake news. That's overreach.

Then, if you agree, breathe deeply in contentment. Smell the sweet smell of hypocrisy...

   

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

btw - I, for one, can find a difference, but not in the truthiness. It's in the effects they have on society. Most people think the sun-sucker is loopy and they get a good chuckle out of it, while the fringe does fringe stuff. The Susan Rice fake news gets oppressive laws passed, gets the government to spend gobs of money on bullshit, and gets people thrown in jail and others killed.

Quite.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

If sun sucking is valid then the whole planet is sucking it up.

__Brant

we are doomed!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

If sun sucking is valid then the whole planet is sucking it up.

__Brant

we are doomed!

Brant,

It could be worse.

We could all be living inside a YouTube video.

The Chinese sage Chuang Tzu once wrote that he dreamed he was a butterfly and it felt so real. But when he woke up, he wondered if he was actually a butterfly asleep and dreaming he was Chuang Tzu. That feels so real, too.

 

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I guess he didn't have anything better to do then grind out such nonsense.

--Brant

never smelt anything in a dream--or felt it

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

18 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

I guess he didn't have anything better to do then grind out such nonsense.

--Brant

never smelt anything in a dream--or felt it

Brant,

Actually, this guy's a hoot. He's an oldie, though. Fourth century BC, not long after Confucius. I like his stuff better than the Dao (kind of like a competitor, but not really) because it is so entertaining. Lots of stories like this.

You never smelt or felt anything in a dream, I get that. But how do we smell or feel to a butterfly? 

 

(Just messing with you.  )

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

58 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Brant,

Actually, this guy's a hoot. He's an oldie, though. Fourth century BC, not long after Confucius. I like his stuff better than the Dao (kind of like a competitor, but not really) because it is so entertaining. Lots of stories like this.

You never smelt or felt anything in a dream, I get that. But how do we smell or feel to a butterfly? 

 

(Just messing with you.  )

Michael

The butterfly does not experience our reality, but we can experience some of its.

We can say, "That's a beautiful butterfly." The butterfly does not say--or think--"That's a beautiful human."

The only way to mess with me is to tell me I'm a genius.

Then I'd have to go out and do genius things.

--Brant

"Does not compute! Does not compute!"

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

The butterfly does not experience our reality, but we can experience some of its.

Brant,

Especially if we are its dream.

 

(That was just too well set-up to resist.  )

Michael

[william.scherk]

I don't like the term Fake News, but bow to usage.

 

21 hours ago, william.scherk said:

On 12/16/2016 at 2:48 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 [...] other institutions that were notorious for spreading fakes news themselves (Snopes [...])

That is important, that Snopes is spreading false (fake) news, and I want to dig into the details. Later. 

I truncated Michael's comment to note the example of Snopes -- but there is a larger context and a larger claim.  I fished out the sense "Snopes is 'notorious for spreading fake news themselves'" but that might not do justice to Michael's argument, and he may not agree or elaborate on my sense.  I mean, going in I don't support that Snopes is "notorious for spreading false news" and I give Michael the benefit of a charitable reading and put Snopes aside as the exemplar of the class for the moment.

The context is the actual newsy moves inside the Facebook borg.   However you dub them, "truth censors" or "filter queens" or "sink strainers," a group composed of established 'fact-checking' bodies is going to be interposed between the consumer and the news. Facebook has just launched some tests of its strategic response to charges it fostered so-called Fake News.  The new tests supposedly help a Facebook mission to stress-test and flag fabricated or hoax claims masquerading as news. 

Here's a brief but informed take on the moves from Nieman Lab's  @laurahazardowen,  Clamping down on viral fake news, Facebook partners with sites like Snopes and adds new user reporting. 

Quote

 

A new system funnels fake news reports to fact-checkers from Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, ABC, and AP.

[...]

 

A Facebook spokesperson walked me through how the fact-checking process will work. Facebook is working with, to start, a handful of third-party, U.S.-based fact-checking organizations: ABC News, Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and AP. (The sites are part of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Network and have agreed to a “fact-checkers’ code of principles.”)[**]

Because the group of third-party fact-checkers is small at launch, and as part of its effort to focus on the highest-impact “worst of the worst,” Facebook is doing some sorting before the reported stories go to the fact-checkers. Its algorithm will look at whether a large number of people are reporting a particular article, whether or not the article is going viral, and whether the article has a high rate of shares. Facebook has also already had a system in place, for about a year, that uses signals around content (such as how people are responding to it in comments) to determine whether that content is a hoax. [...]

Decent reporting by Owen. See also the Wired story covering the issue.

Here is an example of the kind of thing you might see in your mobile Facebook experience, at end-of-process:

 

 

Quote

Now Facebook is coming out saying they are going to have truth censors to bury "fake news," etc., etc., etc.

It's true.

It all began about a month ago.

In the rest of Zuckerberg's post, after the boilerplate about freedom:

Quote

 

 I want to outline some of the projects we already have underway:

• - Stronger detection. The most important thing we can do is improve our ability to classify misinformation. This means better technical systems to detect what people will flag as false before they do it themselves.
• - Easy reporting. Making it much easier for people to report stories as fake will help us catch more misinformation faster.
• - Third party verification. There are many respected fact checking organizations and, while we have reached out to some, we plan to learn from many more.
• - Warnings. We are exploring labeling stories that have been flagged as false by third parties or our community, and showing warnings when people read or share them.
• - Related articles quality. We are raising the bar for stories that appear in related articles under links in News Feed.
• - Disrupting fake news economics. A lot of misinformation is driven by financially motivated spam. We're looking into disrupting the economics with ads policies like the one we announced earlier this week, and better ad farm detection.
• - Listening. We will continue to work with journalists and others in the news industry to get their input, in particular, to better understand their fact checking systems and learn from them.

Some of these ideas will work well, and some will not.

 

There has been a lot of movement since then. One point of information is a Facebook executive's blog posting, excerpted briefly below, and the work of such as Slate.  This posting is the source of the images and the video at bottom.

News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News
 

Quote

A few weeks ago we previewed some of the things we’re working on to address the issue of fake news and hoaxes. We’re committed to doing our part and today we’d like to share some updates we’re testing and starting to roll out.

We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves, so we’re approaching this problem carefully. We’ve focused our efforts on the worst of the worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain, and on engaging both our community and third party organizations.

The work falls into the following four areas. These are just some of the first steps we’re taking to improve the experience for people on Facebook. We’ll learn from these tests, and iterate and extend them over time.

Easier Reporting
We’re testing several ways to make it easier to report a hoax if you see one on Facebook, which you can do by clicking the upper right hand corner of a post. We’ve relied heavily on our community for help on this issue, and this can help us detect more fake news.

[...]

The last point is Disrupting Financial Incentives for Spammers. Cool?

Quote

We’ve found that a lot of fake news is financially motivated. Spammers make money by masquerading as well-known news organizations, and posting hoaxes that get people to visit to their sites, which are often mostly ads. So we’re doing several things to reduce the financial incentives. On the buying side we’ve eliminated the ability to spoof domains, which will reduce the prevalence of sites that pretend to be real publications. On the publisher side, we are analyzing publisher sites to detect where policy enforcement actions might be necessary.

It’s important to us that the stories you see on Facebook are authentic and meaningful. We’re excited about this progress, but we know there’s more to be done. We’re going to keep working on this problem for as long as it takes to get it right.

I just got acquainted with Slate's 'gift' to fact-checkers, the entity ThisIsFake.org and a Chrome extension that works to red-flag sites: Slate’s Chrome extension helps identify fake news on Facebook — and lets readers flag it themselves

Quote

 

“This is Fake,” a project that emerged from a post-election hack day at Slate, defines “fake” news as “something intentionally misleading, intentionally false.”

By SHAN WANG @shansquared Dec. 13, 2016, noon 

 This is Fake, which emerged out of a post-election hack day and was released this week, is a Chrome extension that slaps a warning label onto confirmed fake news stories and sites, 

[...]

This is Fake, however, is focusing on completely fraudulent, completely fake, no-kernel-of-truth-whatsoever stories — not inflammatory opinion pieces and not, at least at launch, conspiracy theories.

“We’re taking a pretty narrow definition of what is fake — something intentionally misleading, intentionally false. [For example], the Pope didn’t endorse Donald Trump, that’s just a blatantly false statement,” Dan Check, Slate’s vice chairman, said. “Divining people’s intentions may be hard, but the reality is, we’re a media company, and one of the things we do all day is separate fact from fiction. This is not a new problem for our staffers. It’s a set of judgments, a set of discernments, that we hire people to make.”

 

This is what the current FB tests will probably end up rendering:

Quote

Too bad they are going to use Soros-funded folks and other institutions that were notorious for spreading fakes news themselves (Snopes, ABC News, Poynter, Washington Post, etc.--what could possibly go wrong with those folks monitoring social media?)

What indeed could go wrong with ABC News, Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and AP being tasked with fact-checking stories flagged by readers?

I think the first thing to happen would be overwhelming the staff. "False Flag" so to speak. I think a good option will be open share-sourcing the fact checks. It's like we do here at OL often -- seek verification of claims made, and find them of X accuracy.  I am sure we could make it less messy.

........................................................

** -- a couple of pointers to Poynter. I hadn't heard of them till Michael's mention and wasn't sure just how bad their influence was. [(The sites are part of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Network and have agreed to a “fact-checkers’ code of principles.”)] Part of the funding of the Fact-Checking Network comes from the Open Society Foundations. Insert monster image here.

Politifact is okay by my lights, and so is FactCheck.org. The fact-check folks at WaPo presumably fail to do a good job on their own enormous production of would-be facts, or not. I don't know how bad their reputation is. Snopes as a 'fake news spreader' is still on my radar, but perhaps before I finish digging there, Michael will elaborate on his meaning, not my interpretation.  I will see who else is making similar noises about Snopes and report back.

Associated Press has I expect a similar record with own-goals, and may or may not be a terrible filter itself for inaccurate, erroneous, intentionally false fact claims in its output. I don't know.  That some of these award-wining outfits can't ever be trusted to fact-check is not yet in evidence.  Insert Satanic Cult reference here.

Alert!

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

To stick with my example above, all this Facebook policy means is that the sun-suckers are going to get tagged (as are probably items that over-favor Trump) and the Susan Rice-like people are going to get free reign to spread their propaganda.

As to Snopes, we could talk, but seeing is pretty easy. Do your own checking. But let me give you a start. Go here. I put the word "Benghazi" in the Snopes search field and that link should be the results. Not one article comes up about the YouTube video claim. At least I didn't find it. However, a lot of articles allegedly debunking criticisms of the Obama administration for the Benghazi attack are given. And some tangential ones where this person called that person something or that other person said something.

People who do this kind of thing are not unintelligent. They are whores who sell their intelligence for immoral purposes. Bah. They're worse than whores because I don't consider literal sex prostitution between consenting adults as immoral. (For some it's psychologically damaging, but that's another issue.)

So, no, I'm not fine with the Soros-sponsored fact-checkers, including Politifact.

I wish Facebook luck with the Trump administration, though. Especially if serious disagreements arise.

I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking about the following place:

See here from the federal government's Domestic Surveillance Directorate (yes, there is such a thing called that).

Under a Trump administration, I wonder what they're going to find on Zuckerberg himself if this crap goes too far, I wonder...

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The Facebook thing probably will not just censor the right, I predict it will go after the left, too.

For instance, I find value in a report like the following. I'm no fan of Jimmy Dore's politics, but he generally identifies facts well. In other words, he puts up correctly identified issues to talk about, but evaluates them in a manner I don't. And that falls very nicely in my cognitive before normative epistemological approach.

Now why would the Soros censors on Facebook go after the left (which I believe they will)? What do the ones on the left they will probably target have in common with the ones on the right they will probably target?

Oh...

It's the people on both sides who are not on board with globalism. Hell, they're not even related to folks in the ruling class...

Now I get it...

 

btw - Regarding the actual report, I don't know what to think yet. If anyone tries to tell me the Syrian mess does not involve oil, which is what the mainstream press keeps insinuating, I have to think that they are the ones perpetrating a conspiracy theory. Too many photos of bloody crying kids (a well-known propaganda tool) and not enough talk about the money. But going all in for Assad does not do it for me, either. Nor does the "America is terrorist" mantra. As with almost all these things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. So I'll listen to Jimmy Dore and Eva Bartlett along with those who present opposing views and come to my own conclusions.

But wait! Help is on the horizon! The shining knights of Truth and Critical Thinking, Snopes, will have none of it. So all we have to do is hold our noses every time the name Eva Bartlett comes up, turn off our brains and let the Snopes people tell us what is best to think.

We better get used to it, folks. These Soros puppets are the ones who will be controlling the political narrative on Facebook for awhile.

This is actually a good capitalism opportunity for anyone interested in building a social media platform. Remember when Henry Ford said you could have a Model T in any color you wanted so long as it was black? And that gave rise to other car companies? This looks like the same kind of opportunity.

Michael

[william.scherk]

On 12/16/2016 at 5:24 PM, william.scherk said:

-- since 'fake news' is going to be the label anyway, I think maybe the Objectivish could come up with important qualifiers and criteria -- my above attempts are just rough sketches. [...]

I may be misreading general usage.  If an item purporting to be news reportage is false in claim, unwarranted or invented, misleading  or fraudulent, what do you call it?  What do you call the site that is full of similar items?  Fake, false, erroneous, unreliable, unsupported, invented, pastiche, twaddle, crap?

I will be distinguishing in my mind between site and story item. Meaning, I can write off American Reporter as a 'false'/satiric/humour site.  A story item is distinct from a site. A single significantly wrong story item doesn't 'condemn' a site.

What I found in reviewing objections to the concept "Fake News" was an interpenetration between fact-checking and 'false information.' A body that is otherwise excellent at pure fact disputes in a news story can be shitty indeed when it takes on such as go by "political speech."  For some opinion-leaders, the very fact that Politifact and Factcheck.org and Snopes have 'debunked' opinion pieces or political claims means they require extra scrutiny for bias.  It is a fair point.

The scrutiny also extends to Associated Press and ABCnews (to a lesser degree). Why would they fact check particular opinions or campaign statements and claims -- what are the criteria for assigning staff to go fact-checking on Candidate Z or Campaign X? What puts what on top of the check-worthy list?  What would give them authority without review? 

One of the sharpest critiques of this Facebook test is by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway of the Federalist, "5 Major Problems With Facebook’s Attempt To Limit ‘Fake News’".

On 12/16/2016 at 5:24 PM, william.scherk said:

[I do think it pays off  to examine for differences within the category, examine motives, seek to sort out the 'fun' from the 'spun,'  the 'psy-ops' from plain old slop, misdirection from 'party' line, misperception from deliberate misinterpretation, sundry reasons why a given "news" story would be riddled with error, fallacy or plain old fraud. ]

The arguments put across in these various opinion pieces end in judgments and warnings. Against 'mission creep.' Against assuming a separate 'bureau' needs to be tasked with fact-checking -- where each journalist should be his or her own bulwark against  erroneous information ... against  over-broad generalization. 

Thinking about this, I will try not to use the 'false news' or 'fake news' except for Onion analogues and outright masquerade sites.  I think it is important to be skeptical/critical of claims and arguments when they are loosely supported.  Just sticking a "Fake News" label on something does no more work that sticking a "Soros Demon" label on it.  Whatever item come before us with a 'disputed' tag, that is when we can do some work. We can examine the disputed information. We can report our 'findings.'  We can go all cognitive before normative, as they say ...

What I don't like about the Facebook test flagging and debunking system ... is that it puts the onus on other than the individual reading a title in a news feed. The interposition's only good product for me is the requirement that the 'disputed' tag must give a link to a formal 'debunking.'  Somebody must have taken on the task of truth-testing an item, and done level-best to write out an analysis.

-- off-topic (or back on topic), outgoing Sheriff Joe Arpaio had a news conference to declare that his posse's investigation of the Obama birth certificate was done. I first saw mention of this press conference on my Facebook politics trending feed (which I normally disregard, it being such a truncated cheeseboard). The first thing that stuck out in commentary was that the Mainstream would be burying the event. Which might turn out to be true by week's end. The LA Times and USAToday and a few big boys were there -- and Fox local at least broadcast the entire event live, and it was frontal news in Arizona, in the local media.  

The point being that there would be no reason to tag that story or any other story on the press conference -- what happened, what was claimed, quotes, these are all already checkable/checked in record, bias-laden.

What was more interesting for me were the actual detailed claims, and how much digging and poking and searching would it take to find 'reaction' from The Debunkers.  It took half a day to track down the strongest arguments against the new 'proof,' and they were almost all embedded with concurrent commentary and refraction.   It wasn't "SoroSnopes" that did the investigating/fack-checking, but actual named guys who have been 'on the case' for years. They were ready for the final Posse press conference, but they weren't on the Poynter 'Circle of Trust' list.  

It told me that if I keep my eyes on an individual story item when grappling with the possibility of erroneous information, I am on a better track. Don't be so quick to slap a label on something or its spawn. Be alert to all manner of spin and deception from the spectrum of interested parties. Mind you, after reading The Debunkers take on the evidence, I can say I believe that the new investigation results are shite. References on request.

Before pasting in my offering of a conspiracy-theory for the day, what this kerfuffle about '3rd party disputed' is working out in me is a resolve to take each 'case' one at a time. And that I certainly should place in my interlocutors' hands the responsibility for 'fact checking' themselves -- in the sense of being their own first filter against erroneous information, their own investigator or verification-desk.  That responsibility well-used is when I can grant that So and So is a 'trusted source' ...

Anyway, trolling for commentary on this video, now that I am back from Debunker's Island.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 12/5/2016 at 5:43 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

If the funds for climate-related research were truly slashed, there would be scientists coming out of the woodwork to say that they were skeptical all along.

Ellen,

It starts.

(From a new "RealClear" site called Real Clear Investigations, which looked legit when I dug into it).

Skeptical Climate Scientists Coming In From the Cold

From the article by James Varney:

Quote

In the world of climate science, the skeptics are coming in from the cold.

Researchers who see global warming as something less than a planet-ending calamity believe the incoming Trump administration may allow their views to be developed and heard. This didn’t happen under the Obama administration, which denied that a debate even existed. Now, some scientists say, a more inclusive approach – and the billions of federal dollars that might support it – could be in the offing.

. . .

That sharp disagreements are real in the field may come as a shock to many people, who are regularly informed that climate science is settled and those who question this orthodoxy are akin to Holocaust deniers. 

Your friend Richard Lindzen stated a position on funding in this article I fully endorse:

Quote

Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT and a member of the National Academy of Sciences who has long questioned climate change orthodoxy, is skeptical that a sunnier outlook is upon us.

“I actually doubt that,” he said. Even if some of the roughly $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars currently spent on climate research across 13 different federal agencies now shifts to scientists less invested in the calamitous narrative, Lindzen believes groupthink has so corrupted the field that funding should be sharply curtailed rather than redirected.

“They should probably cut the funding by 80 to 90 percent until the field cleans up,” he said. “Climate science has been set back two generations, and they have destroyed its intellectual foundations.”

The field is cluttered with entrenched figures who must toe the established line, he said, pointing to a recent congressional report that found the Obama administration got a top Department of Energy scientist fired and generally intimidated the staff to conform with its politicized position on climate change.

“Remember this was a tiny field, a backwater, and then suddenly you increased the funding to billions and everyone got into it,” Lindzen said. “Even in 1990 no one at MIT called themselves a ‘climate scientist,’ and then all of a sudden everyone was. They only entered it because of the bucks; they realized it was a gravy train. You have to get it back to the people who only care about the science.”

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Ellen,

It starts.

(From a new "RealClear" site called Real Clear Investigations, which looked legit when I dug into it).

Skeptical Climate Scientists Coming In From the Cold

From the article by James Varney:

Your friend Richard Lindzen stated a position on funding in this article I fully endorse:

Michael

There's so much surfacing, scurrying, maneuvering going on I can't keep up with it.  

The APS leadership is engaging in backtracking maneuvers ("We never discouraged climate dissent" - the between-the-lines message).  Similar attempts elsewhere.

Chaotic ripples spreading - and Trump isn't even in office yet.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Ellen

[Peter]

Cold or hot we will survive. Let’s make a non apocalyptic movie about it.

We are all plane crash survivors in the Sahara. The sun is relentlessly beating down upon us as we squabble over the little covering available that is outside the closed in, stifling fuselage. Drinking water is scarce. Oh oh. That movie was already made and has even had a remake starring Matthew McConaughey. Was that “Sahara” or was it “Flight of the Phoenix?” Robert Tracinski thought the one starring Jimmy Stewart was one of his six best Randian type films NOT made by Ayn Rand.

I have mentioned that I made a few trips to Minneapolis / St. Paul and I was impressed by their ability to live good lifestyles even in subzero weather with long johns and weatherized walking tubes connecting buildings and even malls. In down town Minneapolis several tall buildings have those connections stretching across the roads, way up high. It was too warm inside. You needed a locker to lock up your parka once you were indoors. The first thing you did if you went into a supermarket, was to take your parka off and drape in over the back of the cart.

So Goldilocks, is too hot or too cold better? I would pick the "too cold."   

Peter

[Peter]

It’s a conspiracy I tell ya! Donald is making fun of his critics via Twitter! Are bouncers at malls needed? Racial discrimination? Sex discrimination? Keep all the black males out, but let the females in to buy stuff? Philly had a good alternative. Do ID checks at the entrance and if you were under 18 you needed to be accompanied by a parent or a guardian. No groups entered with just one phony 20 year old guardian.    

How about protected cameras at every Chicago street corner, like they have in London? Police snipers on the roof tops to take out anyone trying to kill someone? It might only take a few notches on the gun barrels to stop it. I remember convenience stores were being robbed frequently in New Castle County Delaware, so troopers sat behind glass mirrors. “Put DOWN your gun and lay on the floor” was shouted out and if you raised your gun you were shot gunned. Two robbers died in multiple incidents. The frequent robberies stopped but the bleeding heart, racist liberals went bananas.

Peter

[william.scherk]

On 12/18/2016 at 2:30 PM, william.scherk said:

-- off-topic (or back on topic), outgoing Sheriff Joe Arpaio had a news conference to declare that his posse's investigation of the Obama birth certificate was done. I first saw mention of this press conference on my Facebook politics trending feed (which I normally disregard, it being such a truncated cheeseboard). T

It took half a day to track down the strongest arguments against the new 'proof,' and they were almost all embedded with concurrent commentary and refraction.   It wasn't "SoroSnopes" that did the investigating/fack-checking, but actual named guys who have been 'on the case' for years. They were ready for the final Posse press conference, but they weren't on the Poynter 'Circle of Trust' list.  

It told me that if I keep my eyes on an individual story item when grappling with the possibility of erroneous information, I am on a better track. Don't be so quick to slap a label on something or its spawn.  [...]

Anyway, trolling for commentary on this video, now that I am back from Debunker's Island.

No reaction. But. I can see that this same claim is enjoying some OL whiplash.

On 12/16/2016 at 7:37 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

[...] when people choose to ignore reality [...]

Here's a helpful link and image for those who wondered like me if there was 'pushback' to the claims -- but who didn't apparently get a chance to look for critical comment.  Click image to visit the full-size version -- so you can do the same point to point comparisons the video suggests.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

I finally saw the video.

In my dark days, I used to mess with this stuff. Let's just say, I can see a whole lot more than the average citizen, including a hell of a lot more that the alleged debunkers are saying.

Without looking at the documents themselves, I can't say either side made their case. Both told good sanctimonious gotchas, duly tut-tut-tutted with subdued outrage and presented plausible stories, but both were sloppy as all hell. To start with, we're looking at digital copies, not paper ones. Just look at the goddam pixelation and the pixelation variations. Who scanned that shit?!!!

 

At least, if the birth certificate is a forgery, it's far better than the crap Dan Rather tried to pull on Bush. (I mean Times New Roman on a 1973 document? Come on. That level of amateurism was staggering.) 

If it's not a forgery, there are some perplexing coincidences.

My guess is that it is a forgery, and not just because of my bias against Obama. But like I said, I would need to look at the documents themselves.

Politically, it doesn't matter. Both cases have achieved their goal irrespective of the truth. They have shed doubt on the other side and that's all they need to do.

On another point, I tried to look around the news about this topic, but you can't find anything independent on it. Almost all of it is crap from partisans.

I suspect if the document is a forgery, or even if it isn't, the FBI will look into it under the Trump administration (but not as a priority--too much else to do at first). They have some serious-ass forgery detectors over there and if they don't think there will be political reprisals for showing their competence, they will show it. Proudly. And the chips will fall where they may.

Then we will be able to put this baby to bed with reasonable certainty.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Alex Jones cussin'.

I think he nipped some moonshine, then turned the camera on.

I saw a video with Alex cussin' about 10 times worse that this one when Trump won. He was obviously drunk and exhausted and took that one down fast.

If you are interested in seeing him act the fool for real, catch it while you can. It might not stay up, although there are over 1,300 likes so far and over 10,000 views and he only posted it this evening. That means there are lots of folks who feel exactly like he does.

Michael

[Peter]

I wonder how smart them, thar FBI guys might be about forgery?

A little old man walks up to the teller window with a withdrawal slip. The teller recognizes Mr. Holmes from past transactions.

He speaks. “Hello Hazel. I don’t know my account number but I want to withdraw this amount from my account. Can you help me?”

“Certainly, Mr. Holmes. Let me look it up. OK. All done. Here’s your money. Merry Christmas.”

“Thank you, honey.”

When next month’s statements are sent out a different Mr. Holmes notices a withdrawal that he did not do.

“Watson. Get over here. What else can go wrong? Look at this facsimile on my bank statement. A Mr. Sherlock A. Holmes has filled out a withdrawal slip but I am Sherlock B. Holmes . . . and his neat writing slants to the left. He must be left handed . . . but the account number which is written by hand, slants to the right and the numbers look different from the other handwritten words. What do you think happened, Watson?”

“It is skullduggery Holmes! Someone is stealing from you, knowing you are in retirement and perhaps not as sharp as you once were.”

"No, no, no, you are wrong Doctor. I hypothesize someone with my name but with a different middle initial walked into the Baker Street Bank and withdrew funds. They were known to the bank clerk, who looked up Sherlock Holmes’ bank account number. Several options were offered by one of those new fangled computers. There may be several Sherlock Holmes’ banking there. The clerk selected the name Sherlock on the computer with the initial ‘B’ in error, and filled in my account number by mistake.”

“Holmes, you are obviously right. Would you minding looking at these 100 birth certificates from a Honolulu hospital and tell me what you think. The American FBI will pay their customary advisory fee.”       

[Peter]

Darn. If you were President tomorrow, what would you demand to know the truth about? Area 51? Aliens? 

I have always thought there was something fishy about Obama. I could even make a case that while being President he has done the most he can to support his religious Muslim allies, hurt Israel, destroy the U.S. Constitution, and to help spread his vision for a socialist / communist world government . . . . without being caught, and found out to be, the traitor he may be. Maybe. Maybe, President Trump could look into that too while he supports the FBI’s continuing investigations into the Clintons. But there are perils to bringing *assumptions* to an investigation.

Peter 

Some excerpts from, “Forensic nightmare: The perils of touch DNA,” by Michelle Malkin. Have you heard of “touch DNA?” This mundane, yet menacing phenomenon exposes the double-edged sword of forensic science. With just an innocent handshake and indirect transfer of epithelial cells (tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of which we shed every day), you could find yourself suspected of heinous crimes. Charged with rape. Or convicted of murder. Jailed for life. Or sentenced to death.

. . . . But the mere presence of DNA does not prove a crime happened. It does not tell you how or when the material got to its discovered location. Contrary to Hollywood crime show oversimplifications, DNA is not a synonym for “guilty.”

. . . . At the annual American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference last February, experts spotlighted the case of a homeless man charged with murdering a Silicon Valley mogul at his mansion—despite the accused being hospitalized, nearly comatose, and under 24/7 medical supervision the night the crime occurred in 2012. As Scientific American reported, the defendant’s DNA had been transferred inadvertently by paramedics who had touched and treated him three hours before arriving at the businessman’s home. The EMTs used the same oxygen monitor on both men’s fingers, unknowingly transferring skin cell DNA from the homeless man to the multimillionaire he had never met. The case provided a definitive example of “a DNA transfer implicating an innocent person,” the journal noted, and illustrated “a growing opinion that the criminal justice system’s reliance on DNA evidence, often treated as infallible, actually carries significant risks.”

end quote 

[william.scherk]

23 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I can see a whole lot more than the average citizen, including a hell of a lot more that the alleged debunkers are saying.

Sure. There are people under the hat Debunker, people under the hat Average Citizen, and then there is You, the Eye.

  -- and I guess a person or two under the Citizen-Analyst hat. Like me!

 But before getting to the hell of a lot more you know than the other hatters, I'll try to establish what interested spectators and newly-hatted people can know about the video above -- the heart of the Posse's presentation at the press appearance last month.

I assume some readers will have watched the video through at least once -- enough to be able to restate the 'case made' in their own words. I don't assume anyone has gone further than the video, in the sense of trying to analyze elements of the video's "proof" with added software, or seeking out analyses offered elsewhere.

For those who haven't watched the video or followed any links from my posting above, a quick summary of contentions made. What are the basics? What is being argued, what is claimed as evidence?:

First, the two side-by-side documents.

 

In this snapshot the leftmost is a digital copy of the long-form birth certificate made available by the White House. The rightmost image is another digital copy of a Hawaiian birth certificate belonging to Johanna Ah'nee.  The provenance of the Ah'nee certificate copy is via Jerome Corsi, though Orly Taitz was the first person to make the Ah'Nee document public -- albeit  redacted.  Ah'Nee came into the Posse's hands in 2011.

So, two supposedly contemporaneous birth certificate copies.  Both ostensibly from Hawaiian officialdom, each showing similarities^† . We can set aside all the chain of custody attestations as not probative to the Posse. I mean, they do not introduce or discuss any evidence of malfeasance of named persons, bodies or office-holders. They don't get into the certification business. ** 

Okay, so -- the contention by the Posse is that the rightmost certificate is a 'source' document for the leftmost.  That seven idiosyncratic elements of the Ah'Nee document were 'lifted' and transposed over to the leftmost document.  That each of nine elements is an indication or item of evidence of forgery.

In other words there was an imperfect forgery.  The Obama birth certificate was confected long after his birth (wherever that was). 

Believe it or not, that is what the Posse claim. 

But then how does a reasonably intelligent person evaluate the central claim, the nine points?   I'd say start with a comparison between the two digital copies that are featured in the video ... sort of a follow along with their song kind of thing.  And then entertain plausible hypotheses to explain what might otherwise seem inexplicable similarities between the two images.

Since both images have been around for a few years, I started my comparison by acquiring the best, largest, most 'original' of the many reproductions. I wanted the Obama and Ah'Nee items to be clearer than the images in the video. I wanted to do my own overlay. I don't expect anyone else here to go to this length, but to be constrained by the video itself.  

Where to continue, then?  I'd say at the first major claim, wherein five of the seven points were forged in a single move.

1. The Posse video claims that five items were transposed at one time from the 'source' to the 'forgery.' This screenshot at 1:54 shows the block of five items being moved in his illustration of the 'forgery.'

Okay, but do the resultant overlays show an exact 'copy-over'?  That I will leave to individual comparators. To my eyes, nope.  There is one non-match that immediately sticks out: the Oahu from Ah'Nee is not the same as the 'forgery' ...

See for yourself:  the 'exact borrowing' from the one simply does not match the other once you zoom in on a large file image.  Look at the O in Oahu from the 'source' and look at the O in Oahu from the 'forgery.' I say the claim that they match is bullshit.

 

So, that item of 'evidence' does not correspond.  

At that point, I figured that if one of the seven transposition points was wrong, then the presenter of the video had perhaps misrepresented the degree of similarity within the remainder of the five-at-a-time supposed transposition as he had bullshitted about the first Oahu.  So, what about the other four 'transpositions'?

One by one ... three by three ...

 

-- here, to help those looking closely, check where the comma lies between Honolulu and Hawaii.  Note the distance of the comma from the bottom of the box (just above the L in Town Limits) in the first, notice the distance at the same place in the second. They are reasonably close. 

But then, remembering these three items were supposedly transposed as a group -- check the placement of the X in 7e. No match.  Check the position of the X in 7g. No match.

As part of this block of three, an eyeball and an over-lay indicates that 7e and 7g do not correspond.  And when you examine the portion of the Posse video where an 'eyeballing' is being sold to the viewer, their own animation shows the inexact correspondence.

In this extract, watch the Oahu in 7b. As the animation shows, 7b's Oahu jiggles up and down between the two placements.  7e jiggles. 7g jiggles.  Oahu and the other two jiggle in opposite directions.

All right -- a viewer can clearly see that not only does the first Oahu not match, the second Oahu jumps up and down a little bit and of the three remaining "exact" transpositions two also jig around.  And this is from the PROOF video!

Quote

Without looking at the documents themselves, I can't say either side made their case.

It doesn't matter. If the Posse didn't make a case, there is no case.  The other 'side' merely points out the problems with the claims.  Readers may not be interested in debunking, and may not be interested in reading any of the debunking.  But if the first party cannot make a case then the claim should be set aside at the very least as unproven. You don't need another 'side' outside OL to figure these things out to your own satisfaction.

Quote

To start with, we're looking at digital copies, not paper ones. Just look at the goddam pixelation and the pixelation variations. Who scanned that shit?!!!

Indeed we are looking at digital copies of certified documents. Only if one disputes the certification does it become necessary to delve into any of the claims of -- in this instance -- forgery.

Certainly, if one is interested in the whole issue of which person is bullshitting which audience, you could start from the standpoint that the very certification was fraudulent at each step:  Ie, there was no 1961 hospital birth recorded by Hawaiian vital statistics under the name Obama, so every person that certified the birth record in the Hawaiian state records was a conspirator, liar, fraudster, forger or dupe.

Me, I don't go that way. I have not ever seen compelling evidence against the null hypothesis.

 

Your question about 'who scanned that shit' is a good one. There are answers.  The same Posse abandoned some earlier forgery claims on the White House release, when it was explained (by 'debunkers') that it was a particular hardware and software in a White House scanner.  References on request (it's a lot of work by some independent experts).

In any case, again, nothing was released at the 'conference.'   It is unknown exactly what software scanned the Ah'Nee document obtained by Orly Taitz and given to the Posse by Corsi.

Quote

If it's not a forgery, there are some perplexing coincidences.

Like what?  That a stamp (with a different date) was at a similar angle  on both documents as examined? That the same typewriter was likely used (if not the same typist) to fill in the information on the long form on both documents?

I mean, there is no co-incidence  on the first Oahu (since they did not match), and the three other non-matching parts for the five 'exact' coincidences claimed clinch it for me -- that the Ah'Nee was not the source for a purported forgery.

Quote

My guess is that it is a forgery, and not just because of my bias against Obama.

My guess is that it is not a forgery. My guess is supported by my analysis and by further and more rigorous analyses performed by interested skeptics.

In any event, Sheriff Joe is finished. The Posse is finished. Not one charge was recommended officially. The case goes nowhere. If people still want to guess that Obama was not born where records show he was, and if they want to go down any appealing rabbithole to sustain that belief, the only thing that might overrule their guesswork is some hard slogging investigation of their own.  Who does that shit anymore? 

From Tea Party News: "‘Fake’ Obama Birth Certificate Was ‘Inside Job’"

Quote

Zullo explained the investigation found that some of the images on the Obama document image apparently were copied from an original birth certificate that belongs to a woman named Johanna Ah’nee.

But Ah’nee said she obtained a copy of her birth certificate and kept it locked in her own files until after the Obama image was released. At about that time, she revealed it to WND senior writer Jerry Corsi, who was reporting on the dispute.

Zullo told how the investigation launched by Arpaio at the request of constituents took him to Hawaii.

If Ah’nee’s copy of birth certificate had not been circulated, posted online or otherwise made available, he concludes that only the Hawaiian government, which had the document image, could have used it to copy elements onto Obama’s.

“These things start to grow hair and you start to work with it,” Zullo explained.

The evidence “pointed to an inside job,” he said.

Gallups said in the interview that now is the time for the questions to be expanded.

“They manufactured a document,” he said. “That’s astounding, because now you have to ask why. Why would people produce a forgery, a fraud, for the president of the United States and defraud the American people. The answers are not good,” he said.

A few other useful links ...

Remarkable dissimilarity between Ah’nee and Obama birth certificates
Looking at Zullo’s press conference more closely
All You Never Wanted to Know About President Obama’s Birth Certificates
Ah’Nee Birth Certificate Generates Layers When Scanned on a Xerox WorkCentre Just Like the President’s LFBC Does

And a final encouragement from the President-Elect:

Congratulations to @RealSheriffJoe on his successful Cold Case Posse investigation which claims @BarackObama's 'birth certificate' is fake

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2012

......................

† -- re "similarities" between two documents as purported by the conspirators:  two documents from The Book of Births collected at a similar time and place, I figure that there must be similarities.  In other words, if both 1961 births were duly registered records of actual events, then there must be formal similarities:  eg, the stamps, the typewriter, even the typist.  And if one might assume a duty of typing up the forms that went into The Book, one can safely assume a person then who could zip through these forms, with tabs set already on the machine, or at least have the facility to bang through the tabs and carriage-returns, if not a habitual 'hand' ...

(once more reminded that the of the two forensic inspections by document examiners cited in the press conference that took no questions -- nothing was released. No freaking case report was released by Zullo or Joe.  One more time: no document, no report, nothing in writing -- just the video and the blah blah blah. As Michael notes, the Posse at no time could supply the forensic examiners the original 'disputed' document -- so there is no case to take to court anywhere. My lurid imagination tells me that some nitwit congressperson may try to get an 'investigation' started, but also tells me that it will be a fitful attempt that goes exactly nowhere)

 

** "Dig into the old volumes (or digital copies in a database), find the frigging certificate as copied/entered/scanned, then print it out on 'safety paper' and then stamp it certified legally, sign it, seal it, let it out -- and then let the kooks have some fun. 

More seriously, the simplest story for me is the null hypothesis:  the President was born where and when his birth certificate indicates. In my opinion, Zullo has nothing but crap on offer on this subject.  

 

Edited January 5, 2017 by william.scherk
Indeed over-deed.