Good catch!

BTW, doesn't CBS claim they have first generation copies? If so, why have they released copies that are so bad? Why don't they scan their first generation docs and release those?

There actually are some L's used as 1's in one of the memos, possibly two. Not that it helps their case any. It appears to be more of an amateurish attempt to defeat Word's automatic superscripting since it will only auto-superscript if the preceding text (not just preceding character) is a number.

If you'll notice in the Aug. 1 memo in the subject and 1st paragraph, the character used to represent the one in "1st" sits too close to the "s".

http://www.deadparrots.net/archives/media/0409of_ls_and_1s.html

Based on inflation that typewriter would cost $22,000 in 2004 dollars. Last time I checked Army bases weren't shelling out the big bucks for computers.

"They seem to have a flat, 90-degree-angle serif at the top, not the angled blade that Times New Roman 1's have."

You should really take a look at what effect faxing a document (and possibly copying, depending on the type of copier; whether it's digital or not) has on the serifs. As I say in the description, the following is a fax that was sent to me by my advisor a few years back. Look closely at the serifs. They lose their definition and shape rather quickly when faxed/copied/scanned.

http://www.deadparrots.net/archives/media/0409make_up_your_own_mind.html

If I keep up this pace, I can forsee getting banned soon.

I know it's a minor point, really (pun intended), but you state: "unscrewing one, screwing in the other".

If I remember correctly from my mother's old Selectrics (court reporter, she went through many of them), the ball had a little catch at the top that only required flipping up and pulling on to remove it. Reverse the process to put it back on.

Wait! That document was produced using LaTeX, which uses a different font than Word. Focus *only* on the 1's. The 1 has a slanted serif, while the l does not in LaTeX's default font. It does not diminish the quality of the argument, because you'll notice that many of the 1's now have serifs that look flat, making them look (disregarding the spacing) like l's. I will attach another screen cap of an unfaxed bit of LaTeX so that a fair comparison can be made.

Thanks for the link, btw.

I didn't think that that page was in in the same font, and I didn't say it was TNR.

It doesn't matter really what font it is-- one can easily see that some one's have bladed tops, whereas others have had their tops flattened by the faxing process.

Nevertheless, the text of the Rather forgery, typed out in MS Word Times New Roman, and then faxed would obviously constitute stronger proof.

For those running their own scanning experiments at home who are disturbed by the clarity of their results, keep in mind an important fact. The typical fax machine uses only 200 dpi quality vs. the much higher quality offered by a $50 Canon scanner, for example. Passing a pristing newly printed document through a typical fax machine provides an immediate 'aging through crappification' effect that includes a lot of artifacts that make it look more 'authentic' to the unwary eye. Say, Dan Rather's.

"I didn't think that that page was in in the same font, and I didn't say it was TNR."

Sorry. I wasn't trying to imply anything. I just wanted to make sure that everything was as transparent as possible. I wouldn't want someone moseying over to Dead Parrots, taking a casual look at the scan, and wondering what kind of flimflam is going on because it's not a Word document. But if anything, it makes the point even stronger. We start with two characters that do not look alike (unlike TNR), and run them through a fax and voila, many of them look the same now.

If you've got a fax, I'd be happy to shoot a fax of one of the memos in Word format over if you provide me with the number. It's a newer model, and I'm completely unfamiliar with faxes (other than they suck compared to scanners and printers as Eric pointed out), so I don't know what the results would be.

I know, I was just saying. I say it's a "Roman-looking" font (emphasis mine), but I'll edit to make it perfectly clear that it's not TNR.

Just wanted to throw in my two cents.

Here is my attemp at using Word to create the August 1 memo. Looks pretty close to me, and I used only the default Font, tab spacing (every column ends on an exact tab), centering, word wrap, etc.

ftp://earth.prohosting.com/august_1_memo_plus_word.gif

I also wanted to raise this question: The four memos released by CBS are not all the same scale.

See here:

http://earth.prohosting.com/erik144/size_mismatch.gif

For starters, it proves that (at least some of) the documents are not scanned to scale. What from of repodruction was used such that there is a 6% difference in magnification from one doc to the next?

An ideas?

Oops. I put the wrong URL for the August 1 docuemtnt Sorry. Try this one:

http://earth.prohosting.com/erik144/august_1_memo_plus_word.gif