OHSM 1.1 (Rev. 11/01) LASER

and

the stamped date that reads “Nov. 6 2007″

= recent copy from Office of Vital Statistics or whatever they call it in Hawaii.

Mrs. Happy Housewife on June 13, 2008 at 9:33 AM

How do you know that? What’s “official” about it? You can buy a date stamp at Wal-Mart or Staples and accomplish the same thing.

and

the stamped date that reads “Nov. 6 2007″

= recent copy from Office of Vital Statistics or whatever they call it in Hawaii.

but I also can’t think of a single logical reason (including filters, sharpening, or conversions) that a scan of an original document could result in the kind of selective pixelization/artifacting in evidence here. Pasting from one image into another, however, would produce precisely that effect. Maybe one of the professional photoshop gurus who used to proliferate around here can come up with something else, but I sure can’t.

JM Hanes on June 12, 2008 at 9:35 PM

To JM Hanes:

I took a close look at the jpg. Though retired, these old eyes still automatically relapse into the habit of looking for anomalies in things. Too many years looking for the little, unexplained squiggles on airphotos and geophysical maps.

So, though it doesn’t mean a thing, and is probably totally innocuous, my eyes immediately picked out a small anomaly in the border that is just one of those puzzeling things that makes one ask “for what purpose”. Surely the designer of the original document blanks would be able to explain this.

Click on the jpg to blow it up. Go to the lower right corner and look at the border. Start at the small horizontal line that defines the bottom of right vertical border. Count up the diagonals of four full *slanted* boxes. At the top of the forth one you will see a four digit number hidden in the background print. The three zeros are obvious. The first digit appears to be a four. Popping this into Photoshop and playing with the contrast, etc. makes in much more obvious.

Any printers know why? Doesn’t appear to be a watermark.

If this is a standard form upon which all Certifications are printed then all Hawaiian certificates from that period should exhibit that particular numerical anomaly.

I know… I have way too much time on my hands. ;-)

http://www.scdhec.gov/co/phsis/biostatistics/index.asp?page=faq

A Certificate of Live Birth is a legal abstract of the records established surrounding the birth of an infant. Original signatures of the attendant and/or the certifier should be recorded in either the mother’s medical record or the infant’s medical record. Therefore, original signatures are not required on the abstract.

I am sure the definition is the same or nearly the same in every other state in the Union….bottom line it is NOT a birth certificate therefore pertinent information regarding Obama’s “Natural-born” status is missing and his eligibilty for office is still in question!

Never having seen a real Hawaiian birth certificate, ca. ‘61, I have no idea really. Till the Fight/Smear version went up, I’d even have entertained the possibility that an Obamanaut somewhere was just trying to help.

It does seem odd that there are only two outlets that seem to have it, not to mention the fact that KOS is the one posting the high res version, and that both of them neglect to mention any source for the document at all. Does it, in fact, qualify as an official campaign release? Plenty of room for distancing there, no? I’d have thought putting Karen Tumulty, who was doing a piece on the new website at the time, on the PDF distribution list would have been a no brainer. She went back and corrected her column, after finding out it hadn’t shown up on the website yet when her piece came out. What we got later was a jpeg, of course, not a PDF at all.

It could all be a simple matter of Obama’s preference for avoidance vs. transparency, but who knows? I’m as much in the dark as anybody, but I’m beginning to suspect that there’s something about the original birth certificate that may be embarrassing, even if not particularly significant politically. Maybe Obama just doesn’t want to have to go back and start issuing errata sheets for his autobiography. The whole “letter from his doctor” in lieu of actual medical records has the same protectionist smell about it, though. Apparently, the New York Times only saw fit to demand a complete dossier from McCain.

In any case, if there’s a plausible explanation, I certainly wouldn’t mind hearing it. Otherwise, my trust-but-verify scorecard has a lot of blanks left.

Why hide it unless there is something to disqualify him from even running? Anyone think the Democratic party will uphold the Constution if they knew of something that would disqualify Obama?

Oh, never mind. I see you can possibly get the actual certificate using that number, and I understand him being protective of someone getting a certified copy of their own.

MayBee on June 12, 2008 at 7:55 PM

That’s the point…if you had the number you could get a certified copy which balantly proves that this is NOT a certified copy since there is nothing on the certificate that indicates that it is certified. The mere fact it would contain a number, a “certification” it does not make. There needs to be an “offical” certification (signed seal, stamp, etc.) from the local government (which it does not have) and to falsely put such a stamp on there would subject the forger to criminal sanctions. Hence the document is false!

I was able to see what you are explaining. If this is obviously doctored, and I am going with you on this one, why would they do it?

I checked out the version that Fight the Smears put up. It’s not the PDF Karen Tumulty was told they were planning to post, but a much reduced version of what looks like the same scan that KOS had access to. It’s entirely possible that the Obama folks were just too busy with getting their site up and running to post it first, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it ultimately disappeared, because I remain convinced that it’s hinky.

It’s more a puzzle than a issue, as far as I’m concerned, but it really bothers me when something like this simply makes no sense. I couldn’t begin to guess who would have fiddled with the document — or the when & why either — but I also can’t think of a single logical reason (including filters, sharpening, or conversions) that a scan of an original document could result in the kind of selective pixelization/artifacting in evidence here. Pasting from one image into another, however, would produce precisely that effect. Maybe one of the professional photoshop gurus who used to proliferate around here can come up with something else, but I sure can’t.

I thought by now Obama’s birth cert would be a non-issue, but if dKos posts it then something is up; where there’s smoke there’s either fire or someone who wants you to think there’s fire.

Passportgate and a possibly fraudulent birth record digest, as I’m guessing the so-called birth certification really is, aside, what matters to me is if Obama has been lying about or lying in an attempt to hide any of the following:
1- his parents being married;
2- his parents being unable to marry;
3- his parents not even trying to marry;
4- his bastardy (I remember when legitimacy was an issue);
5- his race of record (white? his father may have not been in the room and his father’s actual race is not listed on the recert);
6- his father’s renunciation of Islam;
7- his own religion of record, for reason’s I mentioned earlier;
8- proof of his place of birth;
9- and any changes that may have been made from the original document (as surmised due to the withholding of an original birth certificate) as well as when and why the changes were made.

Obama has a right to walk around the mall wearing a mu mu and spouting poetry if he wants to, but if he’s running for Pres. his words need to make sense and ring true.

A single fold through the middle or folded in thirds or quarters would be very common, but a single fold a couple inches from the top seems very unusual.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/birthcert

I find it plausible that Markos and crew are yanking our chain. It is also possible that Hawaii has settings on its scanner and/or post-scan save, that “refine” the documents (read: filter) in ways that strengthen contrast, blacken blacks, eliminate “purple fringing” with whites”, smooth or sharpen, etc. all to help make the document more readable according to some criteria. I don’t know.

I agree it is obviously unnatural. We don’t know if any of it is false.

Or was he still-born?