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Factcheck “Seal”
This entry was written by butterdezillion, posted on January 2, 2011 at 4:21 am, filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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34 Comments
What is this suppose to represent? I think I have missed a couple of your updates along the way. Please let me know so I can catch up. Thank you, Pat
Pat, see my response to Aussie.
Butter, what can you tell us about this seal? Do you think it is a fake?
Yes, Aussie, I do think it’s a fake. A colleague made a UIPA request to see the official Hawaii Department of Health seal. What she got for a response can be seen at http://obamasgarden.wordpress.com/about/facts-about-the-hdoh-official-seal/ . The Factcheck seal doesn’t match the official seal.
In addition, the Factcheck “seal” remains almost perfectly round even though the paper it’s on folds. I had traced the outline of both the “seal” and the pre-printed circle on the top fold of the Factcheck image onto a transparency and compared it to a perfect circle I had drawn with a compass. The circle on the top fold clearly distorts. The “seal” doesn’t. I was discussing this with someone at http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?thread=418886&offset=0&column=create_date&direction=DESC and had no way to show the tracings I had done so I tried doing the same thing on Paint. It’s too hard to keep the mouse steady so it doesn’t show as clearly as when traced on a transparency, but the image is round. When you look at the left edge of the paper you can see that the angle of the fold is nearly identical for the two folds so the degree of distortion in the top circle should also be seen in the “seal”.
I tested that by recreating a tri-folded paper with circles on the two folds, holding the paper to my computer screen so that the left edge exactly matched the left edge on the screen, and taking a photo of my tri-folded paper. Then I traced both circles. The distortion in all the circles matched, except for the alleged “seal” on the Factcheck COLB. I’ve done that experiment several times with the same result.
There is only one way you can hold the paper to get the left side to look like it looks on the Factcheck photo, and any time I’ve tried it with a real paper the “seal” ends up looking like the circle on the top fold. I can never get it to look round like the Factcheck image looks.
So basically we know it’s a fake because it doesn’t match the official seal of the HDOH, according to the HDOH’s own disclosure.
And because the “seal” doesn’t distort like a real circle on a fold would do we know that “seal” was never on that paper at all. It was digitally added after the photo was scanned. Which means that Factcheck never did see a paper with a seal on it. They lied. They participated in the forgery.
Sorry, Butter, but Miss Stickly is way off the mark and has no clue what she is talking about.
She has never seen the actual paper COLBs that were issued by the HDOH an in use this decade.
That makes here totally unqualified to talk about what it or is not a genuine COLB seal.
Secondly, as just as important, is her misreading of the law. Nowhere is it stated that ALL seals put in use by the HDOD have to look like the PENCIL-AND-PAPER SKETCH put in the Appendix as a SUGGESTION ONLY!!!!
It’s a guide, not a legal mandate, and it is shocking to me that someone could make that big of a mistake
and still be credited for “proving” something that has no basis in fact.
She made a comment about me, as to how she wasn’t going to believe any of the COLB’s I posted online.
That’s what trolls say – to discount the real truth.
The Factcheck COLB is a total fabrication – but the Seal on it is the same one used on real Hawaiian COLBs, BUT with some notable anomalies that “cast” doubt on the cast used to make the metal die stamp.
To repeat, The official Seal of Hawaii that lawmakers approved was not a finished product and not the only contender for this contract.
The lawmakers established a minimum set of qualifying features for the Seal in question – which is how it is done in every other state or local government that wants to create its own, unique Seal.
There are City Seals, County Seals, District and Jurisdictional Seals to go along with the State Seal, and you are more likely to see elements of continuity among them rather than idiosyncratic elements of diversity.
Oh, and the reasons why the Factcheck COLB is a colossal forgery have nothing to do with the way the Seal looks, vis-a-vis, an Etch-a-Sketch.
Does the HDOH change seals?
At the risk of being accused of being an Obot for the second time this week, I think the seal looks legit. I compared it to the seals on Patrica DeCosta’s and Corey James Hideo Tomoyasus’s COLBs, and it looks very similar. The size is right — about the distance from the DATE OF BIRTH to the MOTHER’S RACE headings — and the reversed word OF from DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH is clearly visible and in the correct position. The perspective distortion is difficult to judge because of the close camera position. Notice the lower right edge of the form is almost vertical while the left edge has a pronounced tilt
In order to verify my observation I analyzed the photo using the image editing program Paint Shop Pro. I almost certain the same steps could be done using Photoshop. First I applied a perspective correction to the bottom third of the document using the border and the lettering to align the quadrilateral that represents a pre-transformed rectangle. (I had to first increase the canvas size on the bottom and sides so the full image would appear in the transformed version). I then mirrored the transformed image so the seal was in the correct orientation. I used the magic wand, along with the “remove specks and holes from selection,” feature to select the brightly lit lower third of the document and adjusted the brightness, contrast, and saturation to approximate the middle third. Finally, I deselected the region and adjusted the overall brightness and contrast. The result is quite clearly Hawaii’s Dept. of Health seal.
If you wish, I’ll be happy to send you the .png file.
If you’d like, you could send the file to butterdezillion@hushmail.com and I can upload it to a post and link it here so that everyone can see what you’ve come up with.
Are you saying that the page is flat enough on the right side that there shouldn’t be distortion? I don’t know how the digital editing programs work so I can’t really comment much on that. I do know that I’ve not been able to duplicate a seal that looks like the Factcheck seal looks. To be honest, the perspective on the whole page doesn’t seem quite right. The way the lighting is, it must be held upright so that the middle third is in shadow. But there aren’t any fingers shown holding it up. How the border on the right lower third could be so straight up and down while the left side border on the same lower third would be at an angle doesn’t make sense to me.
A couple differences between the seal the HDOH disclosed and the seals on the COLB’s that are available online are the word “OF” being shorter lettering on the genuine seal but all the lettering on the online seals being the same height, and the genuine having one ring to form the edge whereas the online images have a double ring.
And the discrepancies between the images, quite frankly, illustrate the difficulty in figuring anything out on this. In an article on Christmas Day OIP Director Cathy Takase said the HDOH disclosed a pencil rubbing of an embossment rather than disclosing an image of the seal because if an image of the seal was disclosed they’re afraid people would be able to use it for forgeries. Sort of like they claimed that showing the certificate number would allow somebody to break into their computer even though they disclose the certificate number on every COLB they send out without worrying about that – just like they send out the actual stamped seal on every COLB they send out without worrying about it being used for a forgery. So the HDOH’s story doesn’t make sense. But in any event the HDOH seal is an official authenticating image. Whatever they’ve got for an embossment or for a seal should be identical, since it is an identifying, authenticating image – and that identifying, authenticating image is what was requested.
So – since the HDOH is supposed to be trustworthy (cough) – we SHOULD be able to use the authenticating image that they disclosed as a way to discern whether a seal we see on the internet is genuine. The fact that the COLB’s which are online all differ from what the HDOH disclosed as the genuine identifying authentication would logically mean that either the HDOH is screwed up, or the COLB’s online are screwed up.
My bent in all of this whole mess has been to say that there are so many discrepancies that we have no way of knowing what is true and what is not – AND THAT SHOULD COMPEL AN INVESTIGATION. I have no way of knowing who’s telling the truth because – quite frankly – the HDOH has done so much lying to me and their stories/responses contradict each other so much that there is no way a sane person would trust anything they say. Either the HDOH is obfuscating by showing an image that is not really the genuine image that is supposed to authenticate genuine documents from their office, or the online COLB’s are fabrications of some kind, or both.
What I’m saying is that there have been so many discrepancies, so much obfuscation, and so much outright law-breaking that the only way we can know ANYTHING is if a criminal investigation gets to the bottom of it all. I have been pointing out reasons for an investigation. The HDOH could have given all inaccurate responses all along and all these discrepancies are just their negligence. But we don’t know that unless and until we see the actual recrods, the actual embedded transaction logs for the records, etc. No average citizen can do that. We have to have a criminal investigation; it’s the only way any of these discrepancies are going to be ultimately resolved and the public can get answers that a sane person can trust.
I’ve been loathe to say that the people who have posted their COLB’s online have posted forgeries because – to be honest, I can’t trust the HDOH any more than I can trust a potentially-manipulated online image. And that’s a very, very sad thing for me to have to say. When our government is no more credible than a totally manipulable online image, we’ve got big problems – nobody we can trust. The HDOH has disclosed 3 different things that indirectly confirm that the Factcheck COLB is a forgery. SOMEBODY within law enforcement should care to find out which government character is committing perjury – the HDOH, or the POTUS. That is all the “birthers” are asking to be done. If that’s what you’re asking to be done then we can differ all we want on our opinions of who is telling the truth, realizing that we will only know who is right if a full criminal investigation is conducted.
The seal on the Obama COLB is definitely NOT the same as the seals on the DeCosta and Tomayasu COLBs. Obama’s has tiny bullet points in the outer ring. But those seals are irrelevant, because according to Cathy Takase at the HI OIP, the DOH sent Miss Tickly an image of the seal from Obama’s ACTUAL birth certificate and that seal obviously does NOT match the one on the COLB. You can’t have more direct proof of forgery than that.
Instead of mailing them, I decided to post them on the flickr.com website. This is the first time I’ve tried it, so I hope it works. The address is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/_mjw_
I’ve got the full image for context, and a close-up of the seal. Anyone is, of course, free to download them.
I think the unusual perspective of the Factcheck photo is due to the close camera position and the direction the camera is pointed. Since the seal looks round on the perspective-corrected view, I see no reason to doubt that it was embossed on the paper. You can tell by the background pattern and the text that I did a decent job of undoing the perspective distortion. (Unfortunately, neither of the free image processing programs I know of — The Gimp and Paint.NET — has a proper perspective correction. The Gimp has a pseudo perspective correction, but it’s useless for removing perspective.)
I doubt that every version of the health department’s seal looks precisely the same. I think it merely has to conform to the verbal description. I think the version of the seal they sent you does look like a pencil rubbing. As you point out, not showing the stamp version provides little security, since anyone who can obtain an embossed document could use it to duplicate the seal. I haven’t really seen clear examples of the DOH outright lying, but I’ve seen plenty of cases where they seemed to purposely misleading.
Not counting Obama’s, I’ve seen 6 Hawaiian COLBs with visible seals, and they all look the same. Perhaps they’re all fakes, but I’d bet against it. I know Hawaii if full of liberals, but if the seals were fake, I think there’d be at least one conservative Hawaiian with a COLB who’d mention it.
Thank you.
I’m really 3D-challenged. That was always the part of geometry that frustrated me; I just don’t do perspective well. And I don’t understand the graphic manipulations and corrections well enough to process it, so if I sound like I’m being deliberately obtuse it’s not because I’m trying. It comes naturally. lol.
It seems like the “seal” is the same with the perspective correction as it is without, which is what makes me wonder about it. It’s so different from the circle on the top fold. To my 3D-challenged mind, it seems like they’d just about have to be twisting the paper in order to get that much difference in distortion. But if they twisted the paper to that extent it doesn’t make sense for the left-hand edge to have the same angles for the top fold as for the bottom one. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
The only way I know how to process this in my mind is by trying to duplicate the result and see for myself how you could get this phenomenon in real life, and I’ve never been able to duplicate it in real life. Maybe I need to try to twist the paper and see if I can still get the left edge to line up?
It also doesn’t make sense to me for the HDOH to use different authenticating seals. The whole point of an authenticating seal is that it can be immediately known as either genuine or fake. Hmm. Now I’m remembering what Polarik was saying about the border and the seal being changed in different years. Shoot. I can’t remember all that. How did he say he found out about that? If they change the seals in different years then only the HDOH itself would know which seal they used for a given year.
You said you’ve seen 6 COLB’s with visible seals and they were all the same. Were they all printed in the same year? Is there a way to know what year they were printed?
Unfortunately, I don’t know when the six COLBs were printed, but I uploaded them to the Flickr site I mentioned earlier, so you can take a look at them. (I hope I’m not violating any copyright laws by doing so.)
You can see all of their dates of printing if you employ a few filters to bring them out – the date stamps are “bleeding through” from the reverse side, more so from being backlit by the scanner cover, than from using too much ink.
I have online both photos and images of every COLB that has ever appeared on the Internet along with all of the ones that were sent to me and used in my analyses.
PD was printed in 2002.
Dana’s in 2007.
Dan’s in 2007
Jim’s #1 in 2006
Jim’s #2 in 2008
Michele’s #1, #2, #3, and #4 were all printed in 2008 but in different months
Okubo’s in 2007
Jason’s in 2002
Jeremy’s in 2003
and the source image for Bozo’s COLB was alleged to be a 2007 creation.
In the photo of BO’s COLB, the printing is going from right to left and backwards. Where all the other photos of COLBs he is showing the writing as normal reading from left to right. If you are showing the backside of BO’s COLB, you shouldn’t be able to seeing the printing as dark as it is.
Actually, you would be able to see the front-side printing from the back side because the actual COLB paper is very thin. If you hold one up to a light, you can read everything on the front – assuming you are capable of reading reversed – and not in a dyslexic way.
Which explains why factlack dot org did not take a photograph of the entire back of the alleged Obama COLB.
If you want to put this puppy to bed, and learn the truth about how these forgeries were made, then you need to watch the video:
My computer still has a virus on it that keeps me from being able to get Flash Player installed, so I can’t see video on my computer. In the past I’ve used the computers of other people in my family but shortly after I use it those computers also end up getting hit and my husband is really tired of having to wipe hard drives and reinstall everything. The virus also apparently makes it so that the only program that rkill ever stops is rkill. So it won’t work to try to get the virus off of my computer, as I understand it. I need to find out some details about rules of evidence so I know whether or not it’s OK for me to wipe my hard drive; if so, then I can wipe the drive and start over which would allow me to see video.
The other option at this point is to look at the library, if it allows video to be viewed. I should call and ask them about that.
I’ve been meaning to see the video for a LONG time, and wanted you to understand why I haven’t yet seen it. I’ll check out the library and see if that works.
Wish I could offer advice on removing the virus. You’ve probably already tried Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool, but if you haven’t, you might give it a shot.
MJW, Butterdezillion,
I notice that on the 6 COLBs you have posted, three say “Date Filed” and three say “Date Accepted”. Is this random chance that some COLBs say “Filed” and others say “Accepted”?
If the HDOH has spoken accurately, “accepted” was used earlier and “filed” used after all the BC’s were being filed electronically so that there was no difference between when the BC was filed and when it was accepted, since it is all done instantaneously with electronic filing.
The images posted by MJW are as follows:
1930 – “Accepted”
1969 – “Filed”
1977 – “Accepted”
1983 – “Accepted”
1990 – “Filed”
These are all short form COLBs, presumably printed after 2000, so I’m not sure I understand what was the cutoff date for using “accepted” or “filed”.
Oh, please.
The seal is fake. And Polarik is fake. Polarik flooded the internet with all the bogus crappy COLBs people are using to judge whether the seal on Obama’s COLB is official or not. I go with the information provided directly by Hawaii:
Page 6 of this pdf shows an authentic COLB from 1991: http://hawaii.gov/dhs/quicklinks/peter_boy/pbkjr_vol5_p32.pdf
This COLB is actually downloadable STRAIGHT from a hawaii.gov website (DHS). Even back in 1991, this COLB displays security features in the background and border that should be found on an authentic COLB. No professional state health department would issue a certified copy of a vital record with ZERO security features. Especially not after 9/11.
Security did not get more lax since 1991, it grew more stringent. NAPHSIS’ website provides a lot of information on this. If there were copies of Hawaii’s current COLB format online, they would be yanked. It would ‘frustrate’ the function of the HDOH to issue SECURE certified copies.
Alvin Onaka is a respected and active member of NAPHSIS. He does not certify the back of COLBs, he does not certify COLBs with no security features. He does not certify COLBs that are not printed on regulated certificate security paper. He does not certify COLBs that can be made in Microsoft Word. The HDOH does not use multiple borders and seals. They do not use a seal that is not official or raised per the Hawaii vital statistics regulations. These ideas suggesting otherwise floated by Polarik are absolutely contrary to the idea of security. And they are lies.
Polarik has wasted countless hours with his bogus analysis. BTW, why does Polarik have TWO COLBs that have an ‘HOUR OF BIRTH’ that says ‘4:34 am?’
Because this close up (link below) that Polarik says came from this COLB (link below) has a green basketweave pattern that does not align at all with the full version of the COLB from which he claims he extracted it. Look carefully at the green background in these two images and see for yourself the fabricated evidence that Polarik used in his ‘Final Report.’
Close-up: http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn227/Polarik/small-COLBS/Dan-birth.jpg
Full view: http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn227/Polarik/small-COLBS/Dan-small.jpg
Polarik’s ‘Final Report’:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2084512/posts
And that’s not the only fabrication I found in his waste-of-time report.
Hawaii said the seal on Obama’s COLB is not their official seal but if someone wants to believe ‘Polarik’ and all the bogus COLBs that he and his paid obot friend(s) lay claim to instead of the HDOH and Cathy Takase of the OIP (http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/hawaiinews/20101225_requests_increase_for_obama_birth_proof.html) more power to you.
Personally, I am going with the Hawaii Department of Health over some obot online who flooded the internet with fake COLBs to prop up Obama’s phony alleged COLB.
Weak, crappy evidence of forgery (polarik’s work) is convenient corroboration of Obama’s COLB. Period. The seal is just not the official, authentic raised seal of the HDOH.
THEY say so–regardless of what Polarik says.
P.S. Onaka would NOT confirm telling Polarik any of the BS he claims he told him on the phone in 2008.
As if the HDOH just answers questions….ya, right.
And, I am not saying the ‘Obama Department of Health’ seal is photoshopped in. I am saying it appears to be real, just not authentic or the official HDOH seal. Certainly anyone can purchase a hand held embosser.
Personally, it does not look photoshopped to me though. That would take some kind of design skill to photoshop all that shadow and highlight and all the detail and make it look convincing. Especially when you can just go online and buy an embosser and save a million hours of design effort and avoid any telltale photoshop signs.
Polarik is a liar. Yes, I had a run-in with him, so I have direct knowledge of his lies. He knows how he tried to discredit me in July 2009 when I provided him a pdf of the the 7/27/2009 press release sent to me directly by the HDOH and he thanked me for and said he got it. Then the next day, there he was on a thread about Orly Taitz on FR to say I had no such press release and that no one had it because they had not released it publicly yet.
I sent that little sh*t a link the day before and he flat out thanked me for it. AND he even chastised me about not knowing how to use tiny URL. Then he tried to discredit me the NEXT day? Yeah, BDZ, he is a BS artist. Do not be fooled…unless you trust Obots. I do not.
Oddly enough, I have a full version of the COLB from which the dan-small.jpg close-up was taken. The background pattern matches the close-up but not the full-view. The name of the file on my computer is the rather non-descriptive “file0015-cropped.jpg”. The date is July 31, 2009. I have no idea where it came from. I uploaded it to my flickr.com page.
I don’t have time to analyze it right now, but I did notice that when I magnified it, the letters all appeared perfectly aligned with the x and y axes, suggesting they were added later by a computer instead of part of the original scan. Very strange.
I should have said “I have no idea from where I downloaded it.” Obviously I got it somewhere of the internet.
I found a copy!
Mentioned on:
Which links to:
(Perhaps someone ought to ask Dr. Conspiracy about it.)
After looking at the file0015 COLB more carefully, I’m less confident that it isn’t a legitimate scan. There does seem to be a slight upward tilt in both the border and the text that I didn’t notice initially. The date seems to be Mar. 22, 2007.
I intend to inspect it further.
I would like to point out a problem with the photos based on the background of photos #1 and #3. #1 is a daylight photo. The outside window can be seen and in fact the street below is E Wacker Place. The grayish building is the Carbine and Carbon building across the street from Obama Chicago HQs. Photo #3 is at night. Again, large outside windows are visible in the background but there is no light coming in and the reflection of the overhead lights in energy saving night mode are visible in the large outside windows. Yet, supposedly, these photos were taken only 1 minute and 19 seconds apart. The worlds fastest sunset that day.
Interesting. How can we be sure that the windows in photo #3 are to the outside?
Here are the links to the pages, for anybody who wants to compare (you can see any of Factcheck photos #1-8 by changing the number right before .jpg ):
#1: http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_1.jpg
#3: http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_3.jpg
Photos from Obama HQ and the Katie Couric Video with her bouncing around the HQ.
Video:
The half-height Steelcase cubes are only in the open landscape in the large ‘call center’ type area. The picture window in the background is an exterior window.
I have also been in a lot of call centers. Some in Chicago. The environment is a common set up.
The bright lighting in photo #3 is not sun light. That is artificial light that is almost horizontal. Likely media lights in the HQ.
Finally, there is no raised (or lowered) stamp on the file in #3. Some claim it is washed out by the bright light or the motion created by the low shutter speed. But there is no sign of a stamp in that photo.
Thanks. My computer has a virus that won’t allow Flash Player to be installed so I can’t watch any video on it. But I believe you.
How funny that a video of Katie Couric bouncing around trying to helpful to Obama would come back to bite him in the butt. lol. Sometimes life hands out such sweet irony that I just have to put my head back and laugh a while. lol.
After the latest comments by HI Gov Neil Abercrombie I’ve been doing a lot of that today. lol
The best set of pictures were from the Sun Times. But they are gone now.
Here are some very HQ photos of inside the HQ. Careful when you open this link – you get an eyeful a nude John Lennon.
http://www.shabooty.com/2008/02/18/i-am-teh-walrus-shabooty-exclusive-annie-leibovitz-pictures-barak-obama-campaign-headquarters.php
Here is some detail photo #3:
Thanks, and thanks for the warning too. My kids are with me sometimes and that wouldn’t have been good to try to explain. lol
Yeah, the only place I see where there is wall on the bottom with glass on top is the exterior wall.
The Factcheck photos are photos of a document that is a direct print from the Daily KOS image or a print of an image used to create the Daily KOS image.
This is a 100% certainty.
Here is the basics – elements that could not have been printed by Hawaii HDOH are present in the documents in the Factcheck photos (that were taken inside Obama HQ).