Chasing the Wind

Heh. I thought this story was dead. Apparently Boston Globe was preparing to run a story tomorrow that the CBS memos are real after all, and they’re basing this opinion on a new study by Professor David Hailey of Utah State University.

Let’s just make this short and sweet. Here’s the study Professor Hailey put together.

Here’s a zoom in on Page 9 of the Bush memo font study:

And if that’s not enough evidence of a fake in progress, Professor Hailey did all his work on a publically accessible webserver. Here’s the whole folder, and here’s the work-in-progress Photoshop document.

At 5:50pm CST I verified all those documents are there, but I expect after the head of Prof. Hailey’s department calls him (Wizbang has already notified the head of Hailey’s acedemic misconduct), I expect those documents to disappear shortly.

Dang documents; by golly, we’ll make them real! Hehe.

Full story is available at Wizbang.

Update: Boston Globe has apparently reconsidered and is backing away from this story.

Update #2: The good professor is still editing his document at 6:07pm CST, so apparently he hasn’t gotten the word yet that he’s been outed. It took bloggers 24 hours to debunk the original memos; now they’re debunking them before they’re fully forged.

Update #3: Saturday morning and all those links are broken. I give it about a week before CBS runs with the story anyway.

CBS tries to float another bogus story Tuesday night, this time about a woman who fears her son is going to be drafted, just days after John Kerry says that it is “possible” George Bush will institute a draft. Dan Rather implied that the woman was just an average voter who normally votes for Bush but would vote for “Howdy Doody” if he was against the draft.

I guess that’s John Kerry’s new code name. “Howdy Doody.” CBS completely left out the part that the woman was an activist, head of the Pennsylvania People Against the Draft.

Nor did they mention that the only people proposing legislation for a draft are Democrats, something I mentioned over a week ago.

It’s shoddy journalism at it’s worst. They based the entire news story on, of all things, an email being passed around. Snopes.com debunked that months ago.

I guess next CBS will try to convince us that Bill Gates will give you $250 for every person you warn about the draft via email. And give you a Niemen Marcus cookie, too.

This looks like a) the Democratic National Committee (Rangal and Hollings) introducing draft legislation, b) John Kerry suggesting that Bush somehow is behind it, and c) CBS piling on to scare people that if Bush stays in office, you and your child will be drafted. And you won’t get a cookie, either.

Look, I’m an engineer, not a journalist. (Dang it, I sounded like Dr. McCoy of Star Trek when I said that.) But even a non-journalist like me can spend 10 minutes to write a better story than this fearmongering CBS crud. You know where I would start with my story?

I’d start with the ending of the last draft. Republican Richard Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Illinois congressman Donald Rumsfeld (Yes! that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld!) introduced the legislation for the all-volunteer military.

Once in office in 1969, Nixon found he had made a campaign promise opposed by much of the top military brass, many of his supporters in Congress and his two top military-oriented appointees, national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, and defense secretary, Mel Laird. A very vocal volunteer force supporter was a young congressman from Illinois, Don Rumsfeld, who introduced legislation supporting the proposal; and while Senate and House hearings were held on his bill, nothing happened. Rumsfeld later joined the Nixon staff.

Donald Rumsfeld has been a vocal supporter of an all-volunteer military force for over 30 years. If I can do that kind of research on my lunch hour, why can’t CBS?

Unplanned. Unscripted. So nothing happened yesterday. Frankly, I just wasn’t bloggable yesterday. Mikey needs a vacation.

I’m going to be watching the debates tonight. More about that later.

Here’s something I don’t want for Christmas: Tortilla Art. Here’s a picture of Emiliano Zapata, Mexican Revolutionary war hero.

“The preparation of the tortilla for painting is as important as the actual painting itself. I first bake several tortillas to get the right texture, shape and coloration for the image I want to paint.”

In back to back posts, Jo at Spin the Moon says she always dreams she’s looking for the right place to be.

In my dream, I’m always moving, always searching.

And in the next post, she buys a pedometer to see how many steps it takes her to get there.

For people like me who are mathmatically challenged, that means wearing a pedometer to keep count.

Can pedometers do that? Measure your dream steps?

My dream last night involved some sort of getaway – it’s mostly faded already – but I know I was wearing swim fins and going down a water chute. I don’t think a dream pedometer will help me.