First, this photo has not been "Photoshopped" which is taken to mean altered in some way. (Like putting someone's head on another body, or removing blemishes from a girl's senior picture.) What we've done is altered settings (specifically brightness and contrast) which allows us to see detail that is already present in the digital data of the photo that you can't see at the "standard" settings.
This photo is available from a public source. Anyone who wants can download the photo. I will tell you what settings were used to achieve our effects; if you have Photoshop you should be able to duplicate this exactly. If you have another photoediting software, you may have to use slightly different numbers but I would guess you will be able to get very similar results.
Here's the photo. (Larger versions of each photo are available by clicking.)
Here's the original source. This photo was taken on 3/14/2008, exactly 35 days before Gov. Palin allegedly gave birth to a six pound child. She was allegedly in her seventh month here, 31 weeks gestation. This was roughly one week after she announced that she was pregnant.
Most people's first response would be: You can't see anything. And it's true. You can't. You have pretty much a mass of black around her midsection. We can see she's wearing a jacket and (probably) a skirt, along with her signature scarf, but pretty much the tummy region is a mass of black.
But with the magic of Photoshop, we can see more than we ever dreamed possible. By adjusting the brightness and contrast, we can see clearly what is jacket, what is scarf (and there's a black stripe at the bottom of the scarf... can't see that on the original picture, can you?), and what is skirt. We can see shadowing and delineation between them. Because we are shooting up at the Governor, you can also get a good clear shot of her tummy.
Here's the first iteration.
This photo has the brightness upped to +80 with the contrast left at 0. The jacket, skirt, and black stripe at the bottom of the scarf are now visible.
Now, our next version.
This version has the brightness set to +80 and the contrast set to +85. The shadowed space between the jacket and the skirt is now well defined, and the line of the front of her stomach is clearly visible. And... in my opinion... clearly very flat.
183 comments:
It is flat as a board... She stands as if she pushes her belly out a bit, arching her back, but she is DEFINITELY FLAT AS A BOARD!
Great work, Audrey and Jen! I think this image clearly shows that there is no belly. I guess Sarah must have left the fake one at home that day. The Photoshop enhancements are great to drive your point home, but even the 'naked' eye can see that her hands are lying flat against her midsection. This is not a pregnant woman, and certainly not a pregnant woman who delivered 35 days after this photo.
Nice one. Also, the inward curve of the side of her jacket is not what it would be if she were pregnant.
Who tucks their shirt into a pencil skirt at 7 months pregnant anyway? Wouldn't that be rather uncomfortable? And if I was trying to fake a pregnancy, wouldn't I wear a loose blouse left untucked at the very least? The fact that she didn't buy any big shirts or maternity tops after the big announcement leads me to one of two conclusions. She really was pregnant and never got big enough to need them. Or she was faking a pregnancy and felt too silly about the whole thing to go that far. Or she's just a dummy. But that's three conclusions. Curios. I wonder how many more of her photos can be altered this way?
Wow. Nice work, Audrey. The nail goes deeper into the coffin.
And I have to add: As much as I want Palin brought down politically, I am so relieved that she did not risk the life of a soon-to-be-born child by flying from Texas to Alaska after her water had broken. Her lies and the possible risk to Trig had both been driving me crazy. At this point, only one of those is.
MUCH better than the mystery of the necklace. Excellent work.
That's pretty damn flat. I don't like the things that can lead to speculation but you can't talk around the fact that there is no baby bump here.
Jennifer
Audrey, I just sent you an e-mail with a JPEG showing an adjustment to the perspective of this picture of Palin.
It doesn't change your findings, but it's interesting in that her face and body appear more "normal", and less distorted by the wide-angle camera lens.
Okay, at 7 months along - you cannot even wear that kind of skirt! Where's the stretchy tummy panel? That is a flat, toned stomach. Most telling is how far down her abdomen the tauntness of her belly remains. The Governor has a nice figure - a nice non-pregnant figure.
I am 5' 10" tall and slender; I didn't show with either of my 2 prenancies until the very end. People were shocked to learn I was pregnant at 8 months along. But I DID NOT DRESS LIKE THIS! A tailored waistband? A tucked in blouse? No way! I couldn't have. And, based on the photo from her earlier pregnancy - she surely couldn't have either.
Gina in Fairbanks
Thank you for all of your work on this issue. This piece of evidence is just one more reason why, I believe that, Bristol has been AWOL for a while. SP and her crew may not be really sharp- but they know that if you are going to fake a pregnancy, the fewer photos, the better. They are, perhaps, learning from their mistakes the first time around.
Others comments on the previous post doubted that SP and crew would be organized and astute enough to pull off such a charade, given the turkey slaughter "oops" publicity shot. - These are very different issues. For SP, who lives in an area where folks hunt and "field dress" their own kills, watching a turkey being killed is no big deal. ...BUT the key here is that SP cannot see the world through any other eyes but her own. She didn't understand that something she was comfortable with might cause others to react differently. THAT IS WHY MANY OF US DO NOT WANT HER IN ANY POSITION OF NATIONAL POLITICAL POWER-- BECAUSE SHE IS UNABLE TO THINK OUT OF HER OWN BOX.
But this narrow perspective on SP's part would not preclude her from faking a pregnancy-- (for reasons I am not totally clear about.) She is power hungry and already drunk on the power she has--she thinks she can do anything.
So thank you for investigating this issue - you are helping to preserve our democracy.
My wife's carried two.
Photoshop or no, this Gov's not preggo.
She just simply ain't.
Great work Audrey. This photo definitely goes in the "NO WAY" she was pregnant column.
A little OT but there was a comment on the previous post about Gov. Palin's Christmas Open House and it troubled me. Why are they hiding Bristol?
Whilst the naysayers on this blog believe we are chasing a non-story, this is soooo far from over. If Bristol really is pregnant (and I don't believe she is), why has she been sequestered? There is a picture of her from the Republican convention where the poor girl looked positively terrified. What are they going to do with this piece of the puzzle? Time will tell. In the meantime I pray those kids, especially Bristol, will be OK.
Truthseeker
Yep, that sure is a flat stomach. And in her 32nd week of pregnancy. Wow, just amazing abs, huh!??!
Well, I long ago called "BS" on her Trig story, but with this photo and the 3/26 photo, I'm convinced without a doubt that SP is not Trig's bio mom.
BTW, doubters: this pic is directly from the ADN (Anchorage Daily News) site. No photoshopping or editing.
If she's adopted Trig, then her lie is only a lie and not a crime, and I wish she would just come clean. But if records were falsified to cover up the lie, then THERE is the crime.
In March 2008, shortly after Palin announced that she was 7 months pregnant, an Anchorage Daily News commentator wrote: "Where does she have that baby? In her pocket?" I guess so!
Mary g.
Now, THERE's a smoking nail for that coffin.
A-girl, you are awesome!
the guy in the middle looks more preggo than she does.
I used both Photoshop and Google's Picasa photo organizer and could easily duplicate both iterations.
Good work! There is nothing there, figuratively and literally.
Only 35 days from birth? Not even close.
BeeJay
this one TRULY NAILS IT!!!
wow... no ambiguity there.
there is NO baby there.
I use gamma and histogram adjustments that focus in on specific tonal ranges. One can lighten shadows and midtones and not "blow out" the lighter areas of the pic. Usually just boosting the mid grey levels brings out lots of missing details. keep on keepin' on nailin' Palin!
Great work Audrey!
By the way, I think that the jacket is the same one she wore in the pictures where she was wearing the sympathy suit in the staged news shot.
People asking questions about Bristol: Remember, SP or at least some of her minions are most likely reading this blog, so they can check everything and dot their 'i's and cross their 't's!
Kathy
An adoption does not happen over night. There are many procedures to adoption. Even if it is a family member adopting. A lawyer has to be involved. It has to go to court in front of a judge. It takes at least 6 months for things to finalize and that would be the easy route.
Social workers have to do routine checks. Sarah and Todd would have to have physicals and psychological exams. Their kids would also have to under go these. Their house would have to be evaluatd by a social worker....
A real adoption usually takes a yr or two.
Is it possible that someone (preferably in AK) could file a public records request just for any and all photos of SP from the period of February through April 2008 that were posted on the official state website?
Just a tip for your photoshop users that using shadow/highlight and adjusting the shadows will yield much better and more accurate sleuthing results than adjusting brightness/contrast. Go Audrey and team!
More pics of a non-pregnant belly! Good work.
I echo other women's sentiments about wearing this type of clothing over a 33 week belly...no way. It's just not comforable...it doesn't feel right.
And what is that black thing under her scarf? A belt? That would be the absolute LAST thing I would have thought about putting on my belly at 33 weeks.
"Governing and the Art of Not Looking Pregnant".
Available at your local RNC office.
Off-topic, what is your comment on that Texas picture, Audrey? Despite the dark outfit, the way Palin places her hands oddly just under her chest gives the impression that she might be resting them just above a protruding belly area.
I'm sure you've addressed it before, but I don't think I've read any remarks on it.
Anon @ 7:07pm,
Yep, an adoption takes months. And that could be in the works right now (after all, I don't believe that paperwork is available for public view). My point is: it's only a lie ... unless legal documents were falsified.
I believe the way it went is that she didn't know she was going to "have" Trig until "the mother" (please keep Bristol out of this ... she did nothing wrong) was about 7 mos along. I think SP panicked and just went with the "I'm pregnant" lie without thinking it through. Just think of how many examples we already have of SP speaking without thinking first. And, well "I'm pregnant" is a bell you can't unring. So after that, she and her "group" either had to admit she lied or just shore up her story with "fix its" along the way. It looks like those 2 "pregnant" photos were part of that shoring up.
Sigh. How much easier the truth would have been. To adopt a DS baby, well that's very admirable. Nobody needed to know who the birth mother was.
Congratulations, Audrey and Jen. So flat. So flat. What a great find! Yes!
Here's to blind alleys, too! Right Alex!?! I bet if it hadn't been for so many people's contributions to the whole photoshopping discussion (the necklace discussion is when it started to get really detailed and rigorous) this line of thought might not have come to A+J's brilliant minds, who applied it all to this one perfect example. A wonderful job of connecting the dots, A+J!
The irony, the delicious irony, is let's assume the "three amigos" and "SP + Gusty" photos are staged, taken in August. Let's assume we would never be able to prove it (bad assumption, but work with me here). But now, with Jen and Audrey's great work, there is just that much much MORE explaining to do, since those two Aug photos are the only really biggest-preg photos, right?
Instead of SP saying "I just never got very big, and the existing photos prove it," now there is this flat stomach, then (4 weeks later, March 14-->April 13) the "three amigos" stomach. A PROBLEM OF THEIR OWN MAKING! Geez, this is just like in the novels. You get tripped up by your own sordid efforts as much as by the outsider who does the sleuthing.
Of course we will be hearing a rebuttal, or more than one. I wonder what it will be!
Are there any vulnerabilities here? Like any qu at all about date, place? I can't think what else could be claimed as a rebuttal.
Long ago I read someone speculate that the reason SP returned to work immed is she was trying to avoid doing illegal things, like time-card fraud. Maternity leave with no baby would qualify. (Yet one does get maternity leave for an adopted baby. Go figure. Maybe the adoption is not completed.) Of course, she did the same for Piper.
On a serious note: Let's try to keep our focus on the lie of the pregnancy and leave the kids out of it. There's so much more there, we all know it, but let's take the higher road and say it is off limits, none of our beeswax.
--Amy the first
ABS, I think the ends of the scarf have a wide stripe of black.
Here's a question: if/when Bristol delivers her baby, how will we know? I seriously doubt an unwed teenaged mother is going to do an official birth announcement....thoughts?
ABS (7:34 PM), that's the black border of the scarf you see.
------------
Maybe we Photoshop artists should go back and look at ALL the Palin pix from January through April, change the shadow/highlight and/or contrast/brightness, and see what else there is to see...
hrh made an excellent point earlier that people are paid to go to websites and cause distraction and chaos and are paid for every response to their comments.
Please consider refraining from trying to get others to "see it our way." Let's stay focused on helping Audrey bring out the truth.
L.
re: Craig at 7:37 pm.
I was curious about your comment so I went back and looked at the Texas photo. If you zoom in on Sarah's hands, you can see that she is holding the edges of her jacket. Her fingers are wrapped around the edge.
Okay. I've been following this for quite some time and the jury was out. But if this photo can be absolutely proven to be taken on the date shown, there is no way this woman is pregnant to the extent she claims. Not 7 months. Not 6 months. Not even 5 months considering she's already had 4 kids.
Anon at 8:32:
I don't know how we can be more sure. But I now see what I did. I linked directly to the large version of the photo instead of to the article which in turn links to the large version of the photo. I will correct that in the blog.
ADN identifies it as 3/14. They identify the event and who else was there. There's no way the dating of this photo can be questioned.
for those who think everyone at this blog (and primarily me) belong either in the nut-house or on the moon or both,
None of the above. I think you guys are just REALLY obsessed with Sarah Palin's body, and this tempest in a teapot provides a great excuse to keep your eyes affixed to pictures of her.
It only stands to reason: she really does have a nice body. There's nothing wrong with admiring it.
There's something else that I need to point out. I've said this before but it should be reiterated. I believe that the baby was really not due until mid May. If, as I strongly strongly suspect, Gov. Sarah Palin faked this pregnancy, she BELIEVED that she was going to have four more weeks ... perhaps even more ... after returning from Texas to "cement" the deception.
Although I have questioned the veracity of the photos we posted the other day taken allegedly on the last day of the session (4/13) where she'd gotten so big so fast, it could be that what we were seeing was the start of "really pregnant Sarah." She intended to be "really pregnant Sarah" from then on (except of course not on the plane.)
We look at the photos from 3/14 and say, "Wow, that was dumb." But don't forget, we know the end of the story. We know Trig was born 4/18 or thereabouts. On 3/14, Sarah Palin had NO way of knowing that. On 3/14 Sarah would have been assuming two months - maybe more - to go. Plenty of time to wear the padding.
Only something got in the way of the "big plan."
Biology.
It does that sometimes.
resonance,
Hmmmm, maybe so. Yet it still seems like an odd thing to be doing with your hands. Is she feeling a little self-concious about her looks, if she is standing in front of a group of people and photographers? Kinda like she is trying to cover herself up?
That hand positioning just strikes me as strange.
But that is the trouble with still pictures. They capture only a moment in time. You can't get the context of body movement before and after that moment.
She looks a little big in that picture, but what do I know? That's why this picture-staring stuff just doesn't do much for me.
OK...now THATS a nail in the coffin! Excellent work! Even if she truly had tight abs throughout the pregnancy and suddenly 'blossomed' 3 weeks later there is no way she would be comfortably wearing a slim skirt without serious binding of her midsection and even then you wouldnt have 'flat'. Can't defy the laws of physics.
I think the other definitive evidence is the fact that 12 hours before she gave birth the flight attendants had no clue she was pregnant. If we look at the picture taken a week earlier in AK she looks clearly pregnant and there's no way those flight attendants could have missed that.
My theory is that she was called while in Texas that the mother (whether it was Bristol or not remains to be seen) was in labor and she needed to get back ASAP in order to complete the ruse. I've postured this theory since learning of Palin's nomination and it still seems the most plausible to me.
Audrey, et al - posting photoshopped pictures to make your point is a bit counterintuitive, don't you think?
Audrey, in one of your posts, you said you were a labor coach. In this situation, you are the labor coach for the Truth. Your leadership is assisting our group to "birth" the Truth.
We witnessed untruths and other behavior during the campaign that shocked our consciences. Consequently, we are willing to search for the Truth.
Thank you Audrey, and I salute you, for your noble efforts. You rock!!!!!
L.
Good point, Craig --
Does anyone know if it is possible to do the same kind of adjusting/enhancement to reveal what video would tell us? Of course video frames are such bad resolution + blurry; I know so little about it -- it's just a thought.
--Amy the first
The pictures are NOT "Photoshopped." That implies the pictures have been altered somehow, as it says in my post.
These pictures have had settings in photoshop adjusted to bring out light and dark contrasts which exist in the photo's digital data. The information which allows these highlights to be seen exists in the digital information that makes up the picture. It was captured when the photo was taken. Intellectually, you know that, in the picture we are discussing, if you were standing in front of her, your eye could probably detect a distinction between the bottom edge of her scarf and her skirt. That distinction is there, it's real, and information about it is captured when the digital photo is taken. You just can't see the contrasts when the settings are at one point, but can when they are at another.
That's all we've done. We up the contrast so the information that already exists in the photo can be seen. Anyone can download the photo from ADN's site and reproduce our results.
Audrey,
We up the contrast so the information that already exists in the photo can be seen.
Yeah. Again, that is "photoshopping", i.e. manipulating/modifying/altering/editing an image in Photoshop or other image manipulation app. That is what Photoshop does, it's what it's there for.
That you did so (and seem to do it a lot) undermines the argument about all those other images being manipulated by Palin's camp/flunkies/whatever to create an effect or impression.
I think you may be limiting "photoshop" as a verb to the definition in your 2nd paragraph.
That's at least a 3rd base hit, Audrey and Jen.
Love your strikes and hits.
Audrey -- I see. Now people who don't understand how digital photos work or how Photoshop (and its many equivalents with another brand name) work will come out of the woodwork and say YOU created what is on the photo with your adjustment.
I was wondering what the rebuttal could possibly be.
While it's nice/kind to explain it, I think non-computer people may have trouble grasping it if they don't have some experience with it, and I bet there will be the disingenuous (the deliberately unclever; the deliberate obfuscators') response that it's all voodoo and fake, what you revealed to us.
I'd say it's almost not worth responding to that, esp if what L (anon 8:10) says is correct.
Anyone who understands this technology at all can immediately see that this is bona-fide proof, better than an eye witness. Especially since it's repeatable, as BeeJay 6:48 told us.
--Amy the first
Anon, at 9:08. There is a difference between adding or subtracting and adjusting the light to bring something into view.
If you have a cat in a dark room that you can't see and you turn the light on and see the cat, you've changed nothing. You can just see the cat now.
I understand this has got to be uncomfortable for those who don't want to believe Sarah could lie, but even the True Palinites have to wonder - if they're honest - about the lack of a baby bump so close to delivery.
One of the things I've urged people on both sides of this issue to do is to retain their objectivity. Audrey has done a stellar job of presenting facts in a rational, thoughtful way. I'd ask you to view them in the same manner.
Everybody knows Sarah Palin lies - she does it right on television and radio.
But manipulating images in photoshop and gazing at them isn't going to get her to tell the truth about this issue, much less any other.
Anon, at 9:08. There is a difference between adding or subtracting and adjusting the light to bring something into view.
Both actions are "photoshopping".
Image-manipulation is what Photoshop DOES. Any time an image is edited in photoshop, it's, well, being "photoshopped". There is no way around this.
The images posted in this thread are every bit as "photoshopped" as SP's head pasted and merged down and saved onto some pornstar.
Maybe the baby was having a low amniotic fluid day.
:)
Well, I guess if semantics is what you have left to cling to...
You seem to be pretty hung up on "Photoshopping" as a verb. Photoshop is a program that can either be used to manipulate (i.e., change) a picture or used to bring out details by adjusting the brightness and contrast.
If it makes you feel better, Audrey is guilty of using Photoshop, but she did not alter the details of the photo. What you see is what is there. The only thing Audrey did was adjust the contrast and brightness so that you could see the details of where Sarah's jacket and scarf ended and where the top of the skirt began.
Just because it also revealed the absence of the bump some people so desperately want to see is no reason to take it out on her.
The woman clearly isn't heavily pregnant in that picture. Deal.
"'Maybe the baby was having a low amniotic fluid day."
ROFL. Wiseass.
Uh-huh. So now pointing out Audrey's own selective use of "photoshop" as a verb is picking on her.
No, I will say it again, I would love to see Palin come clean about what happened on Trig's b-day, as well as a lot of other things.
But photoshopping photos and posting them on the internet, and then complaining that other internet photos have been photoshopped undermines the argument, and will do nothing in the service of actually getting to the reality behind the stories that do not add up.
Consider this.
Trig was born, and then Sarah announces she is pregnant.
Baby stays in hospital 35 days.
Not unrealistic that a DS baby would require an extended hospital stay.
And obvioully need more care than a very young person could afford, or provide.
Thank you so much, Audrey and friends. Excellent work!!!
On December 19, 2007, when visiting Mountain View, Palin made an unexpected visit to see the Special Olympics kids.
My theory, she knew about a fetus with Down Syndrome prior to that visit.
If I am not mistaken, both of the older children were out of the house, which left only the two little ones. That is even better.
I really don't know if the baby is her grandchild or not. It is possible another person allowed Palin to step in and assume motherhood at birth. I think that Palin was notified about the labor, but she wanted so much to give her little speech, that she pushed the clock. But we all know that babies don't go by a clock. And I don't think she expected her father to mention to the press that her water broke.
I think the purpose was to make sure she generated enough votes to win the election. That is fraudulent.
Palin is associated with a religio-political movement. She is in the prayer group of Mary Glazier, the Alaska Director, US Global Apostolic Prayer Network, World Prayer Center International, in Colorado Springs, and their goal--eradicating all other religious expressions other than their own, and enforcing a government based on their specific beliefs. They advocate seizing the wealth of the godless, they call it wealth transfer. For more information, check out...
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/10/27/115813/98
So zealous in their cause, such deception and all the lies are okay because their are doing God's work--fighting demons and witchcraft. All for the purpose of creating a unified end time church that will help usher in the Kingdom of God.
So, Audrey, if that is all true, you have been doing God's work all along, and didn't know it.
Please check out the site above.
I had adjusted this photo a few days ago and am also completely convinced there is nothing there. For those who doubt it - a couple points.
First - Palin is twisted a bit, but she is almost as tall as the other woman. Now draw a line from the other woman's crotch area to where Palin's would approximately start.
Then go look at this collection of pregnant bellies from the last trimester. Almost every belly starts the curve from just above the crotch area.
http://tinyurl.com/6xbgpl
To give Palin the benefit of the doubt, here is the least pregnant woman I could find, and it says she is at 31 weeks. There is still a definite protrusion from just above her crotch area.
http://tinyurl.com/6ngk68
I know it is pretty much an old wives tale that boys carry low, but often they do. On March 14th - there would have HAD to be some, even slight, protrusion from the lower forty!
I have been lurking on this website since it began, and a few days ago was going to suggest that you look at this picture. It really is the nail in the coffin. You might also look at the group shot of govenors, taken the same day -- although it is taken at a distance because they had to include 50 people, it shows that that SP looks nowhere close to pregnant.
My theory is that SP knew at this point that she should start looking pregnant, but her vanity at being in the public eye as a "rising star" govenor led her to prevent putting on the padding. By the time she realized that a baby might come sooner than later, she had to jump from zero padding to the ready-to-burst model.
Audrey, I appreciate all your hard work on this topic. While the Palinites may try to convince us that the election is over and we should leave the family alone, I think it is vital to show Palin for the liar she is so this "rising star" rises no further.
low amniotic fluid day was used on another blog as an excuse for Palin - anon was making a funny here.
For those who think adoptions always take 6 months, they don't. Relative adoptions, including grandparents, can occur very quickly in Alaska, and no home study is required. Yes, a lawyer and a judge would have to be involved but my sources (adoption lawyers in Anchorage) said the court appearance could take place telephonically. And the whole thing could be accomplished in under a month.
I like the analogy of a cat in a dark room, and you turn on the light. Nothing has changed except the light. Same in how Audrey used the enhancement program. She id not add or take away any details. Just turned the light up a bit.
I think the use of the term "photoshop" is confusing people. Yes, any form of alternating a photo is technically "photoshopping" it... changing a photo from its original into something else.
However, I believe colloquially the term is now used to mean altering a photo beyond simple enhancements. Airbrushing a model, removing wrinkles, changing the color of ones clothing, changing the background of a photo... I think (correct me if I'm wrong) this is how Audrey is using the term. To simply change the brightness and contrast is not altering a photo that drastically... my generic photo viewer can do that, can't change heads or airbrush though!
Audry, I hope you can do this to a couple of other pics, too.
Question: What are you going to do when (not *if*! ;) ) you show conclusive proof that it was not SP who was pregnant?
Unless she is wearing a parka, or something very informal, are there ANY photos from the day of her "I'm pregnant" announcement until the birth where she is not wearing this same black jacket? The length, the collar, the buttons, are all the same in this photo, the 2 pudgy-fake photos, the Newsweek interview, the Alaska Repugs convention, the Americorps thing and even the last photo from Texas before the grand escapade. Only 1 jacket?? Isn't that a bit odd? Even if she gave all her pregnancy clothes away after Piper, couldn't someone have loaned her something back? I mean, she was the governor! I was poor during my pregnancy but I had more than one jacket!!
I wouldn't worry about the naysayers who are ignorant of what "Photoshop" and image enhancement means.
After all these are the same people that think the Earth is 6,000 years old and that humans and dinosaurs were around at the same time!
In other words, to them the world is flat.
Look, I'm not a doctor and I have a ding-a-ling so I'm that which is farthest from an expert on pregnancy, but I can use "the google" to look up all kinds of photos of pregnant gals bellies at 30 weeks or so. Palin is NOT 31 weeks pregnant in that photo. It's NOT POSSIBLE.
No way, no how, no 31 weeks.
Something is rotten in Wasilla.
Comment @ 9.08
The facts are these -
Jen and Audrey did not use Photoshop to brush away SP's bump and so therefore they were not manipulating the actual image.
What they did do (and have freely admitted to doing) was lighten the contrast and brightness in order to allow viewers a better image of SP's very, very flat stomach.
I do not think that anyone here believes that Jen and Audrey manipulated the image in order to conceal something. Rather they
used photoshop settings in order to reveal a hidden fact. Nice work girls.
Kathleen
DON'T READ THIS IF YOU UNDERSTAND PHOTOSHOP!
I have learned re electronics that "everybody doesn't know something" (sung to the tune of the old Sara Lee cake commercial). And that's nothing to feel shy about, because we each really know only our own little area well in this techno-specialized age.
And if one hasn't worked with digital stuff, it would be easy to say it's all voodoo.
So I'm going to try to explain it. If I don't do well, please help me out, the many of you who know more. Because there surely are a lot of smart readers out there who just haven't used this stuff, so how could they understand it?
Taking a photo is like making a sound recording. You are capturing/recording a bunch of stuff. Once you have recorded it, it does not, cannot change. (Except to degrade over time, as the thing you recorded it on falls apart with age or damage: like a negative that get scratched or fades; ditto for a record or audio tape.)(But unlike wine, it never improves over time; the info never grows with time.)
As we know from the bass/treble knobs on even simple radios, we can easily change the part we hear on any recording. We can turn the treble knob way up and the high squeaky notes are really clear now, but we lose the richness of the low notes; we can turn treble down and bass up, and we hear the low all the more clearly, but the high notes are compromised -- too quiet, too squeaky. So we seek a balance, the basic setting. The balance can be different from one type of music to another, depending on what you want to hear. That's for sound data that is captured.
Visual data is the same. You capture something (take a photo), and then you choose which part of what you captured you want to see, but you actually change nothing. It's a lot like you are looking thru a magnifying glass -- sometimes you see this area, and then you move the glass and you see another area -- but the previous area is still there, although you no longer see it. Yes, it's like the cat in the room with the lights on or off, or anywhere in between -- a hazy cat in a hazy light is still the exact same cat. It's like you have multi-colored flowers in your garden, but as dusk and then dark falls, you no longer see the red and blue blossoms, only the white ones, until they fade too. But they're all still there. Nothing has changed, only the light with which we view it.
Most of the time, we set the equivalent of treble/bass for graphics to a setting that makes people look good. Nice skin tones. Years ago there was a fad for making cover girl photos really pink, because pink facial imperfections don't show much then. The zits were still there, they just didn't show. This was when photo-retouching was a lot more klutzy than it is now, so this overly pink thing was a good alternative. Sometimes you make a garden shot really extra green, so all the foliage looks great. But you have not changed the info in the photo, just chosen how you want to look at it.
In the SP photo in this thread, it was originally the faces and surroundings that one wanted to see. No one would normally care about the exact info in one of the dark areas, like a shadowy black skirt. But in this case we care, so Audrey and Jen twiddled the bass/treble knobs, so we could see that part best. Other experts noted that if you used this or that OTHER adjusting scale, you'd have better results. They were saying "Wait, there is a better magnifying glass you could use. We have 14 different magnifying glasses you can use, each one being good/bad at seeing some different aspect of the recorded data." But remember, THE DATA DOES NOT CHANGE, just the way you look at it.
You can never see what is not there -- what was not there when the photo was taken.
What's confusing is that one can also -- very easily today -- ADD a layer of new information to the original photo or sound track. So someone might record a whole new tune right over your original audio recording. Maybe just in spots.
Or someone might take that photo of SP and put a new belly over hers -- one that is bigger or smaller, or purple, or anything at all. And then you lock the addition onto the original. This is called altering the original. Some people call it photoshopping, as in "I'll photoshop Mom into our Xmas group shot, so it doesn't matter that she's not here now." Almost always, a careful look at a greatly enlarged version of an altered photo will reveal whether it was altered. Remember Nixon's Watergate audio tapes? Someone was suspected of altering them (not reducing static or making some sounds easier to hear, but adding new/different info, and an expert review of the tapes demonstrated that this was so). You CAN tell, usually. You've noticed us in this blog discussing the various clues about whether something was changed. WE are not sure because we are not experts, but an expert could tell almost 100% of the time if something was changed or not.
It's true that we are pretty fast and loose with these terms, like "photoshopping," which is sometimes used to mean both "adjust" and "add/delete." But I assure those of you who are new to this, that the distinction is clear to any user of this technology. And I can assure you that very, very few contributors to our discussion here seemed to be "blowing smoke." IMHO.
The thing to know is that Audrey's adjustments allowed us to see WHAT WAS ALREADY THERE. She did not change the info in the photo. The proof of that? Anyone else can do the same, just like anyone can twiddle the bass/treble dials and get a different sound without changing the record.Turn the volume up and down. And then go back to the original, with nothing lost or altered. We're all used to that idea re audio.
That's why Audrey made the point about linking to the ADN site (and then one clicks on the ADN's photo, stored in their server); ADN put up the original photo and has possession of it. Only they could change that photo; no one else can. And we attribute to a newspaper an ethical stance about no alterations on photos unless they say so.
Undoubtedly, people will look at any photo to see if it has been altered in a context like ours here. And they should. As we did.
That's why we discussed whether the MD's letter was altered, and if yes, by whom. The MD can alter it all she wants until she is done. But if someone alters it later, it is forgery. Like using an eraser. Depends on who uses it, and when, and even why.
The why part is like this -- if the ADN got a copy of the MD's letter and it had a big coffee stain in the top blank 1" of the image, they might choose to clean it up. Now it's altered, changed. But not maliciously. But another expert can probably blow it up and tell where it was changed. And then wonder whether anything elsee was changed. For that reason, one would not alter a legal document in any way (although one is free to view it at high/low contrast, BECAUSE THAT CHANGES NOTHING). Just think about how you'd use an eraser, and how you might look at something with lights on, off, or pink.
I'm apologize for a loooooong post, and I further apologize if this was too simple-minded. I was thinking of any number of older people I know -- incredibly bright and wise and well educated in their time but just do not understand the basic new tools of our age because they have never used them.
--Amy the first
To Anon at 9:08: You're just being silly. If you declare to a group people, "That photo has been Photoshopped!", the commonly understood meaning is that it has been altered to deceive. Because that is true, it makes much more sense to not use that verb (which is a neologism anyway) in cases where an image-editing program has been used to enhance a photo or bring out hidden detail. Pretty much all photography that appears in mass media is enhanced in Photoshop before being published, but it is a violation of news photographers' ethics to alter a picture in order to deceive; it's a firing offense at the top newspapers in the country. So no, Audrey did not engage in "Photoshopping" as the term is almost always used. Why are you so desperate to hang a pejorative on her skillful efforts to bring out the truth?
Brad
I did the same exercise of adjusting the brightness and contrast in MS Word, using the format menu, and got a similar result. It's like printing a conventional photo from a negative, giving more exposure or less, on more or less contrasty paper -- the image on the paper will appear different, but it doesn't change the original negative.
If she were 7 months pregnant she'd be wearing a maternity skirt with the flexible panel in front. She's wearing an a-line skirt and it is as flat as a board, even with her pushing herself outward due to her "stance".
I think what is also interesting is something else I found in my image editing program.
(I use PAINT.net, a free program similar to but not as comprehensive as Photoshop)
I set the settings to exactly what Audrey had, and got the same result.
What interested me was you can see a small wrinkle in her skirt, likely just below her lower stomach, where the skirt would fold when she sits down. I thought to myself, "You know, that could likely be bordering the edge of a small baby bump."
So, I took the color selecting took, and on either side of the "fold", I selected the color, and analyzed the values I was given (the amount of red, green, blue, hue, saturation, and value).
While to the naked eye, on the picture itself, the areas directly above and below this fold appear the same color, they are not.
Now, if she had a baby bump, you would expect the area ABOVE to be lighter, as it is nearer to the flash.
However, according to the color values I received, it is clear that the area directly BELOW the fold is lighter than the area above. Although you can't tell on the original picture, if you select the two colors, and put them side by side, you can clearly see that one is lighter than the other. The values just confirm the visual finding.
Now, what does this mean?
Not much, perhaps. The photo is clearly taken at a strange angle, so it is possible that the lower part of her body is closer to the flash of the camera that took this picture. However, I don't think this is the case.
From the direction of their faces in the picture, plus the fact that the higher you move on their bodies the lighter the colors become, I would say that likely there is a large photographer's strobe behind a videographer. And that strobe would negate any flash of a still camera.
Therefore, why in the world is there no evidence that the fabric pushes out at ALL above the crease in her skirt?
You can claim the shadow of her scarf - but I was very careful to select the area directly above the crease, which is a significant distance from her scarf.
Try it yourself.
Puzzling.
Wouldn't it be great if SP got pregnant again (a real pregnancy) and started getting HUGE at 5 months? Watch the spin machine go crazy with that one. But something tells me she make be rethinking the whole birth control issue right about now.
Oh, and to Craig:
About her hand position in the Texas picture, here's my take:
Her scarf looks a bit askew, so my guess is she had just been called up to speak, and was adjusting her jacket as she headed to the podium.
You know, shaking it out, straightening it, after she stood up, so when she was done the scarf would probably be inside the jacket.
To Anon@8:38
Window on the Body
The Church says: The body is a sin
Science says: The body is a machine
Advertising says: The body is a business
The body says: I am a fiesta.
--Eduardo Galeano
In art and life, the human body is a fascination and an enigma. I am no more interested in a governor's body than I am in a t.v. personality's individual body, so I find your charge mere provocation. Palin has placed her body on display throughout her life and has offered an impossible tale about a beautiful but obvious, public, sometimes uncomfortable event: pregnancy.
Mary g.
To the posters who are crying "Photoshop!"
I am a photographer.
I have been published in newspapers, and on websites and blogs.
In the professional photography world, when submitting a photograph to a media outlet, it is completely unacceptable to change the content of the photo (i.e. add a person, remove a light post [even if it's ugly]), however, adjusting brightness, contrast, white balance, RGB settings, etc. is acceptable.
Many pro-photographers shoot in RAW format, which requires the use of a conversion program (such as, yes, photoshop). While converting, it is possible to manipulate things such as brightness, but it's NOT possible to add or subtract things (like a belly) without additional steps.
I guarantee that any photo you see in a newspaper or on a website has been run through some sort of photo-editing software to adjust levels and crop.
THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS EDITING THE CONTENT OF THE PHOTO
(sorry to shout - but I need you to get it through your heads!)
Additionally, the contrast/brightness adjustments I'm talking about (including what Audrey did to the photo) could all have been done in the days of film and darkrooms during the developing and/or printing process.
Even without the enhancement the change in her body "shape" between this photo and the 4/13 photo are remarkable.
Back to a question, based on the 4/13 photo, did the flight attendents on the flights from TX to AK really not think she was pregnant? Really?
BTW that is one ugly black jacket!
I have been searching the old adn newspaper comments and found this picture. You have probably seen it already and it does cut off at the belly but I wanted to share anyway. Here is the link:
http://www.polartrec.com/node/3944
Kathy said...
"I believe the way it went is that she didn't know she was going to "have" Trig until "the mother" (please keep Bristol out of this ... she did nothing wrong) was about 7 mos along. I think SP panicked and just went with the "I'm pregnant" lie without thinking it through."
i am certain this is how the whole fiasco originated. TRIG's mom did not let on until it was absolutely impossible to cover it up any longer.
then SP overreacted and off she went without properly thinking it all the way through:
which is her typical MO.
i also believe they assumed wrong as to how advance the pregnancy was. which is why sarah thought she had plenty of time to 'tailor' her false tummy.
with the baby being birthed while she was in texas; it took the whole false story down the drain and she had to improvise, at which we all know she is totally inept.
Big thanks, and some great chuckles here. Audrey, bless you! Jen, Morgan, Patrick and Kathleen thanks, also. And Amy the first, thanks for your time explaining the photoshop thing. Yes, you aimed at exactly my group: aging, eyes failing, and nearly cyber-illiterate.
The mysteries that have been created by the political people are fascinating; I'm getting a lot of mental exercise with this blog. The "elephant in the room" for instance. I'm old enough to remember that Al Capone was charged and convicted on income tax evasion -- because everyone who could have testified to his violent crimes was too loyal or afraid. And as for Sarah Palin legally adopting Trig, maybe that's the whole scam: she didn't bother. She just assumed that she could get away with something. Hadn't she always done so? That 'Warrior Princess of God' delusion is powerful.
And today's photo is more powerful. Thanks, all of you. grammy
I say enough with the explanations re Photoshop. Anybody who doesn't get it is choosing to be provocative. Her stomach is flat. Period. Now, how do we get the MSM to take this gift and run with it?
To Amy the first and Judy:
Thanks for sharing your expertise and taking the time to explain (very patiently!) some Photoshop basics to those of us who are less familiar with its capabilities. The music/sound recording analogy was great - I appreciate the info!
Eva in New Orleans 6:26:
I am not sure if everybody is aware of it: This picture thag t you mentioned - this one:
http://www.polartrec.com/node/3944
...corresponds with this one:
http://flickr.com/photos/32527116@N06/3062308236/sizes/o/in/photostream/
It was taken at the Fur and Ince reception in Fairbanks on 8 March 2008. Sarah Palins is wears the same jacket in both pictures.
It is extremely likely that both pictures were taken at the same day. I am sure that somebody else could confirm that after some research, or maybe it was confirmed somewhere in this blog before.
Patrick
One of the things that strikes me is that Sarah Palin is a dressy lady. She buys, we're told, from an upscale consignment shop; when she got access to money, she really spent on clothes. It is beyond my ability to accept that she would get pregnant and not stock up on a few dressy, professional maternity outfits. Here, at seven months, she's impossibly wearing a non-maternity pencil skirt. If she had any pregnancy bump,even a small one, she'd be wearing a dress that fits slightly loose. It would be more comfortable and far more disguising than this outfit.
And then again, the question is, why would she disguise the pregnancy after it's been announced?
Ivy Freeborn
Not everybody has Photoshop on their PC, but most PC's have a "Paint" program.
Rightclick the photo, copy and paste it into Paint. Then go up to "Image" and click on "Invert Colors".
This turns the picture into a negative. The flat belly is VERY obvious, and it even looks like she has something (keys? Blackberry?) in her right-hand pocket.
To enlarge the image, click on "Image" again, then "Stretch/Skew". Type 200 or 300 (up to 500) in the Horizontal and Vertical percentage boxes.
It's amazing, Audrey.. keep 'em coming.
Off topic, but interesting. There's an interview with the pricey Hollywood make-up artist posted on Huffington Post today, and she gushes on about how Palin's complexion was the most perfect one she's ever seen, and attributes it to her fitness, healthy eating habits and the outdoor life in Alaska. That's intriguing to me because you wouldn't necessarily think great, flawless skin would be an attribute of a 4-6 month post-partum woman, who are often dealing with hyperpigmentation and possibly other hormone-related issues. Just a thought to add to the puzzle.
A question for you insiders:
The photos of the Gusty Interview showing SP really pregnant. Where did they first appear? Are they dated? Is the only instance of them on the erik flickr site? Did they appear along with Gusty's comments about SP looking pregnant? Or did they only surface later with her comment that Gusty was surprised, thinking she had the only copies.
Is all this what fuels your belief that SP didn't have time to "show more pregnant?" That she started too slow, then later had to produce proof that she truly had been 8 mo pregnant?
(I like whoever commented about SP acting hastily, without thinking it all through. Yes, impulsive and erratic seem to be main character traits of this woman.)
I hope you follow my question(s). I just want to understand your logic in thinking this. Thanks!
Interesting, to say the least. I'm not sure if it's a nail in the coffin pic, but close. The reason I'm not sure is the image is a seems a bit distorted from the angle the pic was shot at, and maybe the type of lens used. How close was the person taking the pic to the Gov.? Did they use the zoom function on the camera at all. Was it a special lens on the camera?
The contrast/highlight is interesting to say the least.
I think it was Craig who mentioned Palin's arm position that it looked strange (or something like that--not sure which post it was in now, since there's so many) I'm not sure what she's holding in her hands, there, but the way she's holding her arms isn't strange. I've held my hands/arms like that when holding something. It's comfortable, and I'm not pregnant. I've done that for years. Maybe it's just a woman-thing. :)
Gonna play a bit of a devil's advocate here. I haven't seen this theory out there yet, either here on this blog or on other sites (I might have missed it though). Been thinking on this for days. We know Palin lies--erm 'stretches the truth' lol. So, let's say she really was pregnant and due in May. She goes to Texas, does her thing, and leaves early not because she had any leaking/labor but just because. She and hubby didn't want to stick around because the conference was boring. Her big moment in the spotlight was done--her speech, and she didn't feel the need to stay any longer but that's not a good enough reason to leave (or they leave for any other types of reasons. But no leakage or labor is involved in the initial reasoning and it's not a good enough one to actually leave the conference with), so she calls CBJ to talk about inducing sometime soon after she gets home to AK. The doctor protests, but Palin doesn't care, she has to have a reason go home. So she concocts the 'wild ride' story to cover for their leaving. It was unknown at that time that Trig has DS.
There could be other reasons why Palin had to induce in April. Was there anything coming up in May that her being pregnant then would have interfered with? That it was better to give birth early than to wait?
At any rate, this still just proves that she's reckless, and doesn't care about anyone else but herself. Just an alternative theory I had rattling around my brain. Thought I'd throw it out there :)
For me the interesting part of this picture is the way the jacket cuts in on her right side (the picture's left side). I don't believe that would be affected by depth of field issues.
That strongly suggests that if she was 7 months pregnant, she wasn't carrying the baby wide, but rather she was carrying all in front (if at all).
One of the questions that I had after the prior "nail in the coffin" picture was that the wide winter coat could've been obscuring how much she was carrying (and thus showing) out to the sides.
This photo suggests the answer: not much, if at all.
I don't think this locks down either picture, but it would seem to make at least one plausible challenge to the "nail in the coffin" picture less compelling.
I had written a long comment that expanded on Ivy Freeborn's comment, albeit before I had read it. Unfortunately, my internet crashed so I lost it, but I sent an email to Audrey hoping she would post it.
My opinion is that all the photoshop issues are irrelevant, but this photo is critical on its face because it raises two key questions that doubters can't answer, and neither can SP herself.
Ivy Freeborn posed one, almost verbatim to what I had written in my lost post:
Why would SP have to disguise a pregnancy she announced?
The other, predicate, question is:
Before she announced the pregnancy, why did SP feel she had to camouflage a pregnancy that camouflaged itself!?
And here's one more question:
What are the odds that a woman who WANTS to disguise a pregnancy would get one that was so easily disguised?
To Craig and other doubters, please answer these circumstantial questions based on the direct evidence, including SP's own statement.
We can answer them. She was never pregnant. She was hiding her true condition from the point in time when she knew she'd have to fake a pregnancy and explain why she didn't look pregnant.
Checkmate.
Dangerous
This keeps coming up: As I recall, the flight attendants on the wild ride were not aware of Sarah's "condition." That could mean her condition of being in labor rather than of being pregnant. So she could have been flying fully padded.
Not sure how security scanning would be handled, whether pregnant women can opt out of the machine and have a pat down, whether empathy pads will pass a pat down, etc.
The attendants' statements would be more damning to Palin if she was supposed to be as big as the AK Lege pics and they said they didn't even know she was pregnant. But they didn't say that. -B.
Look, the belly is one thing, but what about the face? The camera angle could be enlarging the jowls, but it looks to me like a pregnant woman's face. There's another photo from Texas, pre-flight to Alaska, that shows the same kind of jowliness (?). Yeah, she might have deliberately gained weight as part of the charade, but in the end...why to to all this trouble to cover up your daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and then announce it to the world a matter of months later?
Still not convinced, but want to be.
anon @ 9:21 a.m. wrote: "Yeah, she might have deliberately gained weight as part of the charade, but in the end...why to to all this trouble to cover up your daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and then announce it to the world a matter of months later?"
Speaking from a legal standpoint, we cannot possibly know the details of "Palin's state of mind." We have at least fifteen theories ongoing here, though, and they don't all have to do with Palin's daughters.
I'd like to remind everyone that NO ONE believed Richard Nixon would have okayed a bunch of burglars to break into the Watergate Hotel. Everyone said "Why? Why would he do that? He had no reason to do that!" Even today, people don't understand Nixon's motive.
It was insecurity, pure and simple, related to public perception. That's right: the President of the United States was insecure. No doubt, the final solution to this case will likely be steeped in a psychological weakness as well: insecurity related to public perception. I'll bet on that one.
Sunshine: The picture seems to exhibit a bit of "pincushioning" (pinching toward the middle and bowing out near the corners) but her belly is a rather small part of the picture and the effect on that part due to lens distortion would be negligible.
Brad
regarding all the conflicting info about the birth story and sarah's face this and sarah's face that...
no doctor under any circumstances would induce a woman at 35 weeks unless there was a medically necessary reason to do so, especially not one who has DS and certainly NOT at a hospital that does not have the facilities to take care of a baby that needs help (i've called and verified that Mat-su is NOT equipped to deal with NICU issues, and that babies are immediately transferred to providence -- where btw, CBJ is an active and participatory doctor, so no reason for the baby not to be delivered there).
2ndly, there was no reason to skip out after the conference... sarah goes into detail in her radio interview about how there was to be an evening reception afterwards and that todd spent the day trying to change their airline plans to earlier (i.e., earlier than they had them, which leads u to assume that they had intended on staying at the reception).
there is no way, no how that sarah concocted the wild ride story for any other purpose than we believe that she told her Father, Chuck Heath, that her water had broken and that's why the baby was coming...Chuck, then, let the beans spill, and when Sarah was cornered on it by the radio interview, she first try to weasel out of it, and then when the radio guy said, but your dad is the one who told us, she relented and then her story went from:
amnio leaking + contractions
to
contractions weren't that strong
to
contractions were different than the braxton-hicks i was having for MONTHS before hand
to
they weren't really contractions, i know what full labor feels like
to
well the contractions were there, but they had slowed to 1 or 2 an hour
to
my abs were tight so i could hide it
to
i didn't really hide it, i just wore scarves and big jackets
the only problem is, #1 she never re-addresses the AMNIO LEAK, only the contractions, cuz she knows that the 'guy' interviewer isn't going to go into detail about her water leaking, #2 she only started wearing the scarves shortly before she announced (first instance i can find is the governor's conference from 2/23-2/25), followed by the LA trip, and then she announces and then suddenly it's scarves and the SAME DAMN BLACK JACKET over and over again, almost every single day.
so why is she hiding it AFTER she announced and not before?
Dangerous,
You seem very sure of yourself with your pronouncements of "checkmate" and such. There is nothing I can say to you, frankly, that will alter your thinking. So I say, go for it. Take your evidence and get the legal process started. You say you are confident of having enough for an indictment, so let the lawyers apply the screws and put some pressure on Sarah to come clean.
Just had a totally odd idea of another possible person who could be Trig's birth mother -
What if Track (is that his name? - oldest son who is no in Iraq) - had a girlfriend who got prgenant?
Has this idea been discussed and\or debunked already?
Comment@9.21
Perhaps she just has a jowly face????
Emily at 5:15 : Maybe she is wearing an oldfashioned kind of underwear that bulged? HUGE pads maybe? Or she had some stuff on her lap when she sat down that left a shiny impression (something hot maybe, or something that ever-so-slightly stained her skirt at that point?
Patrick at December 11, 2008 7:42 AM : Why would she wear two different scarfs if it was on the same day?
anonymous at 9:19 said:
This keeps coming up: As I recall, the flight attendants on the wild ride were not aware of Sarah's "condition." That could mean her condition of being in labor rather than of being pregnant. So she could have been flying fully padded.
The actual quote doesn't say anything at all about her "condition" and is pretty clear that "observation" (which is specific to visual input) gave no indication she was 7 months along. Had she boarded the plane looking like she did in the eric picture, there is no doubt that "the stage of her pregnancy" would be apparent.
"The stage of her pregnancy was not apparent by observation. She did not show any signs of distress," Boren said.
http://www.adn.com/626/story/382864.html
Hello Everybody!
Well Done, Audrey! Please do not pay attention to those uneducated people who make stupid remarks about Photoshop because they don't know WTF they're talking about(sorry for the language). Anyone who has Paint, IPhoto and similar software can also see what you've seen on that photo and we all see it. It was beautifully explained by you Audrey, and many on this thread including Judy, Amy and others. You've done a fantastic work, Audrey . Kudos to you!
If Sarah Palin says she is the woman in those official photos(and also in Texas), she must come out and say that she was not pregnant. It's not a big deal since the world know Sarah Palin lies. One more lie wouldn't make any difference. Since she doesn't, she is protecting somebody, something big... oh no wait she is protecting her political career and future ambitions to run fo the highest office in the world.
Those who scream about "photoshopping" should be worried about their own staged photos of Sarah Palin that show her 'pregnant". That's fraud. That's deception. That's illegal. Yes, I also would like to know who took those fake photos that show her "pregnant" and who introduced them to the Internet (conveniently after she was nominated as McCain's running mate).
BTW, it was me who wrote in one of the earlier posts that Sarah Palin doesn't give a thought before she acts or talks. This is exactly what revealed her many lies and manipulations. Interesting enough, her aides seem to be in the same way.
In my opinion her biggest mistake was to promise people of Alaska that she is gonna run an open and transparent government. See, she won't release her and her husband's Troopergate testimony.
You know, I find it amazing that she still has ambitions in politics. Quite unbeliavable! Also how a woman who says her family is her number one priority, lets her children to be subjected to so much pressure. Look at the face of her children. Do you see any happiness? They all look so sad and stressed out behind forced smiles. If her family was her number one priority, she would continue to work as the Mayor of Wasilla and take care of her children. What was Track Palin doing in MIchigan? Why was Bristol Palin absent for 5 months? Why was she living with Sarah Palin's sister? Studying, going to college is not important in the Palin family? Well, obviously not!
I think Trig Palin was born earlier than April 18, 2008. I happen to have seen some newborn babies in the past. So I don't believe he was born on April 18, 2008. Why the bizarre story from Texas to Alaska? Well, for some unknown reasons to the world, she did choose to have a dramatic story to give birth on that day. I think this must have something to do with her connections with the mainland as her being the strongest candidate as VP. Perhaps that's what she found out when she was in Texas. She knew she had to have the baby. I don't think McCain would pick her as his running mate shortly after she gave birth. Sure, it's still possible Trig Palin was born a month earlier than expected, but not on April 18.
Palin looks as pregnant as Parnell does. Good work, Audrey.
Anonymous said...
Patrick at December 11, 2008 7:42 AM : Why would she wear two different scarfs if it was on the same day?
December 11, 2008 10:12 AM
----------
actually it was 2 separate days... there are 2 pics of sarah inside at the fur/ice event with piper.
the captions on the original pics are very specific...
she greeted someone in the hallway and then she went and met with all the foreign diginitaries and took a 2nd pic...
in both those pics, she and piper are in the same outfits + their coats and hats, when everyone else is wearing dresses and/or suits.
the time on the clock says 5pm.
that was on 3/7 or 3/8 -- i believe 3/8 -- the pic in the airport was 3/9 when she ran into that lady who was leaving her polartec orientation that ran till 3/9.
To Anonymous @ 10:02:
The only reason I can think of is that she is a runner who has muscular thighs, therefore the muscles protrude further towards the camera than her flat belly.
I'm not Craig, but allow me to take a shot at this:
"Why would SP have to disguise a pregnancy she announced?"
Modesty, embarassment with getting bigger, etc. (not all women consider the pregnant body a thing of beauty.)
"The other, predicate, question is:
Before she announced the pregnancy, why did SP feel she had to camouflage a pregnancy that camouflaged itself!?"
We don't know how much was camouflaged by the clothes and how much was camouflaged by the pregnancy itself. I'm assuming a woman who knows her own body can detect changes before anyone else can see them. That could've prompted her to start trying to camouflage.
"And here's one more question:
What are the odds that a woman who WANTS to disguise a pregnancy would get one that was so easily disguised?"
I have no idea. The two things aren't correlated at all statistically.
@anon at 11:16
I think the use of the term "photoshop" is confusing people. Yes, any form of alternating a photo is technically "photoshopping" it... changing a photo from its original into something else.
The point is more that once one starts fiddling with photos to use as some kind of evidence, while accusing the opponent of the same, it undermines the argument.
Also, on a practical level, once a photo is altered from what was supposedly an original, it calls into question the integrity of the saved image.
Audrey has said that the experiment can be reproduced, which is helpful. Question is, how can this be used as evidence of anything. It's been tampered with.
Audrey,
I admire your tenacity and want to ask if you have seen the video of Gov. Palin's April 8 press conference promoting the natural gas pipeline? It is on the Juneau Empire site under their Multimedia/videos link. I'm curious because she appears smaller there compared with the KTVU still photo with Andrea Gusty. Also, there were lots of photographers there snapping pictures but, I haven't seen these photos published anywhere. Just another thing to make you go hmmmm.
"Audrey has said that the experiment can be reproduced, which is helpful. Question is, how can this be used as evidence of anything. It's been tampered with."
*sigh*
If this photo has been "tampered with" by upping the brightness and contrast then you "tamper" with your living room when you walk in and turn on the light.
I mean, really people...this isn't rocket science.
Translation for you who persist with the tampering argument: It's not rocket surgery.
d
When you listen to SP's first discussion about leaving the gov's conference, there is a giant false note that's always bugged me.
She says (re the amniotic fluid leak and whatever kind of contractions she is specifying) that they reviewed airline options and the fact that they really had already done the work they wanted to do at the conference, made the contacts, so they didn't need to be at that dinner that evening.
This is the voice of someone considering whether it's okay to cut it short, taking ordinary circumstances into account. It is not the voice of a woman whose water has broken, who is risking bad complications, who is risking labor and gushing of all the fluids and gunk at any unpredictable future moment, possibly within the hour.
When my water broke one morning, I did not deliberate whether it would be okay to skip the dinner party that night, whether I had met my goals re a conversation with this person or that person at that night's dinner. I did not then conclude, "well, yes, I guess it's okay to have this baby now. It fits fine into my other obligations."
That's one of the many false notes that has had us all thinking: this woman was not about to deliver at that moment. She knew it. She hoped we would not.
Did she wear her fake belly on the plane? Maybe a small one? Or maybe took it off. And wore a big fluffy coat getting onto the plane. Lots of ways that no one would notice. Eventually, one of the airline staff will come forward with a quote, when it's not so pivotal anymore.
Palin's Pregnancy does not play in Peoria.
Yeah, No. She is not pregnant in this picture.
The baby is not hers. I believe it belongs to the middle daughter. Now her oldest daughter is pregnant out of wedlock.
What Sarah Palin is hiding is her horrible parenting skills (or lack thereof). Her children have clearly been neglected and deprived of attention from there uber busy parents. Todd out on in the fishing and snow boarding (or whatever) like a spoiled playboy, which Sarah ran around like a power hungry, religious zealot trying to take over the world.
Although nobody speaks of it, I am sure you all have seen the photos from her daughter's MySpace pages with all of the liquor and partying that appears to be taking place at the Governor's home.
Open liquor all over the place, the photos showed the girls, the friends and boy friends with open liquor. We know where there is liquor and no parents, there is premarital sex.
I believe that the only Palin daughter who has not been impregnated yet would be her youngest.
From Stella, Peoria, Illinois
The photo has not been tampered with!!!!
The photo is in the custody of the ADN. It lives there. Audrey took a COPY of the photo and looked at it in different lights. She took a copy of it and walked from one room to another, into a dark closet, and then outside, to see if it would look different with different light. It did. She looked at a copy. The original is unchanged.
She COULD have changed the copy, but if she did, anyone comparing it to the original that the ADN owns could see the difference. We can all do what she did. We can alter our copy of it (our view of it on the web), we can delete it! We can make 100 copies and alter those copies in every way possible, but the original remains the same, untouched, at ADN.
And it is easy to tell even tiny differences between the original and a copy with a computer-assisted comparison.
ajesquire,
As a lawyer I think you know that those explanation are not particularly strong and would not hold up under cross.
Even if she didn't want people to think she was pregnant for appearance (not the reason SP gave), did she think she would be able to hide it forever? Your suggested defensive answer just raises more contradictions.
We do have an answer of how much was natural and how much was camouflage.
On Feb 5 SP was neither camouflaging nor visibly pregnant. On March 5 SP admitted that she had been camouflaging, which was confirmed by staff.
On March 14 she was still camouflaging but was not obviously pregnant.
On March 26 she was still camouflaging and appeared a little pregnant, but not convincingly.
SP also stated after the birth that "I never got big with this pregnancy."
You are correct that the non-random circumstance of wanting not to appear pregnant and the random circumstance of how one's body reacts are not statistically related. I'm point out the unusual luck SP had in her stated motivation after the fact and the direct evidence that she didn't appear pregnant so late in the 'term'. Doesn't seem like anyone is that lucky.
So like Tom Cruise versus Jack Nicholson:
Why did she give two contradictory explanations for people being surprised at her announcement? Was it because she hid it so well or because she didn't really show?
Again, her testimony wouldn't hold up under cross.
And to Craig -- if I had standing to press a claim in court, I would. But I don't. So I'm going to pursue the truth in the only forum available to me: freedom of speech and of the press.
Dangerous
In case you haven't seen it - Silicon Alley Insider has posted a lengthly article on this topic with a call for help in solving the mystery (dated 12/8/08)
link:
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/please-help-solve-sarah-palin-baby-mystery
no new info., but who knows what they might undercover.
Speaking of the polarTREC photo that eva brought up. The polarTrec orientation took place March 2-9, so the blogger/photographer would have taken this photo about march 10, 11th at the latest.
http://www.polartrec.com/node/3944
This is several days before this photo under discussion. In her journal she states, "I quickly turned to see her pregnant with bags and daughter". But she is wearing the usual attire of black, big coat, and scarf. She then goes on to say that she approached her, chatted and posed for a picture. I would assume that Palin was wearing this coat the whole time because A: she seems to have taken a liking to wearing heavy coats indoors or B: Why would you put on a coat and scarf just before boarding an airplane when you already had it off? And, lets not forget, she had to be AT LEAST as flat as the other March photos, if not more so. Why did she assume that she was pregnant?
For me, the fact that Sarah Palin did not physically birth Trig is a given, and deserves no further comment.
Those that doubt that will always doubt.
And those that understand the impossibility need to open their minds to consider other things.
Baby could have been in the nursery at the hosp. all the while Sarah Palin was in Texas.
Sarah knew it was time for the baby to finally be released, so when she returned to Alaska, she went to the hosp.
There is no way that baby that Sarah's parents are shown holding on April 18, is a few hours old,and four week early.
If the baby had been born weeks earlier, the mom would have had a chance to regain her figure, as a reporter had mentioned.
Sarah went to work three days after she brought Trig home from hospital.
Not too likely that you would just put a four week early DS infant in a bassenet in your office, and go on about your life.
Yes, Im a mom (11 children) I am an RN. Also one of my sons, and his wife had a DS child when they were in their early 20's.
So Sarah, you didn't fool me, or any of the DR.'s at my work.
I think this picture, or that picture are so unnecessary.
Those that know the truth already do, and those that don't, never will.
Like the group that followed their leader to Jones town. They will continue to drink the cool aid.
"Why would SP have to disguise a pregnancy she announced?"
Modesty, embarassment with getting bigger, etc. (not all women consider the pregnant body a thing of beauty.)
In my opinion, that's not Sarah Palin. She seems like the type who would be very proud to show off a small tummy late in her pregnancy. Not cover up with a big, ugly black suit jacket and distracting scarves. Especially after she had announced it and the media was all a twitter about how tiny she still was. She has a huge ego.
Now, in the ADN announcement article printed March 6th, she expresses surprise that no one noticed given that she has given up running and was eating more. So why did she suddenly give up running just a few weeks after she told that filmmaker visiting her in the capital that she ran regularly because "it thrashes your guts..."?
Plenty of dedicated runners continue on into the 7th month and we are to believe that THE FRONTIER WOMAN OF THE YEAR just quit?? With no outward sign of a pregnancy belly to slow her down? The woman who treks across the country with leaking amniotic fluid and no doctor checkup? She just quits running and starts eating more- just like that? I don't believe it.
She quit running and starting eating more so that she could gain the necessary weight to pull this stunt off.
artful_dodger said...
Speaking of the polarTREC photo that eva brought up. The polarTrec orientation took place March 2-9, so the blogger/photographer would have taken this photo about march 10, 11th at the latest.
http://www.polartrec.com/node/3944
This is several days before this photo under discussion. In her journal she states, "I quickly turned to see her pregnant with bags and daughter". But she is wearing the usual attire of black, big coat, and scarf. She then goes on to say that she approached her, chatted and posed for a picture. I would assume that Palin was wearing this coat the whole time because A: she seems to have taken a liking to wearing heavy coats indoors or B: Why would you put on a coat and scarf just before boarding an airplane when you already had it off? And, lets not forget, she had to be AT LEAST as flat as the other March photos, if not more so. Why did she assume that she was pregnant?
--------------
the polartec lady met sarah and piper inside the airport...they were both leaving fairbanks, ak on the evening of 3/9.
now this lady claims that she saw sarah looking pregnant, only problem was, NOBODY else ever did, and the lady probably just thought she did because she heard later that she had had the baby.
sarah had only announced it 4 days later and that lady was at the orientation or on her way there when the news hit... and unless you were really into republican politics or alaskan politics, you wouldn't have heard of it -- i sure never did and i'm a political junkie
""Why would SP have to disguise a pregnancy she announced?"
Modesty, embarassment with getting bigger, etc. (not all women consider the pregnant body a thing of beauty.)"
This would have been Sarah's fifth pregnancy. This isn't the 1950s. Sarah Palin is so comfortable with pregnancy in general that she announced her teenage daughter's pregnancy without a tremor. There's no reason for her to be modest, and it hasn't been her outstanding trait so far.
Ivy Freeborn
I'm not aware of anyone on this blog seeking to prosecute SP.
For what? Lying? Not a crime unless you are under oath, and she was not. Doing a baby-switch to offer a good home to a baby who is in a difficult parental situation? There's prob some laws broken there, but I would look upon that very sympathetically and support a good intention.
We do all want to know if our politicians lie to us. We want to know how they live their stated ethics. If they are honest or not.
No one sought to prosecute Bill Clinton for his thing with Lewinski, however much they might have disapproved of his behavior, only for lying about it under oath.
No one seeks to prosecute Edwards for his affair, or even for his lying about it. But it does wreck his cred for me, especially how he spoke about it once caught. He may have been involved in criminal acts re using campaign money to fund the mistress, and someone may wish to prosecute that, but not me.
If SP committed a crime re this "pregnancy" (like falsifying her gov't time card re maternity leave, which she prob did not; or something to do with insurance), then someone may want to prosecute, and I suppose they should, but I personally have little interest in that.
I just wanted to know (about all the candidates, about all our leaders and wanna-be leaders): can I believe what they say? are they ethical? do their actions match their words? I esp want to know that about presidential candidates.
I will bet that many of us on this blog have this same interest. It's not about crime or punishment. It's about credibility, ethics, and trust.
--Amy the first
Since hearing Palin's dubious labor and delivery story and the even more dubious story of how no one around her noticed a pregnancy, even at 7 months, I've been paying attention to how women in that 30-35 week range appear. Every one of them is very noticably pregnant, regardless of body type. I had two babies in my 30's, am very fit, and didn't gain much weight either time. I definitely "looked pregnant" by 25 weeks, no question. The only excuse I could have used would have been very strange weight gain. Can anyone produce a verifiable picture of a woman 30-32weeks pregnant whose belly looks like Palin's in that picture? Or the earlier "nail in the coffin" shot? I don't think anyone can.
I've seen several comments about the possibility that SP chose to adopt a DS child and then tried to pass this child off as her own, for whatever reason. What in the world would give anyone cause to think this? I can just see her drumming her fingers on the big, government desk, looking dreamily off into the distance..."Hmmm, I'm 42 years old, my youngest child is finally starting to become independent, I've just been elected to my first term as Governor and I'm in the potential position of becoming one of the most powerful rulers of the world someday. But something is missing...Hmmm....what could it be? I know! I don't have an adopted,highly dependent special needs infant! That's what I need! AND, I'll fake that it's my own because I certainly wouldn't want to get any credit for such a selfless act, would I?"
C'mon. Likely possibly of this scenario = ZERO.
There are only three people Sarah Palin would fake a pregnancy for and those three people are her daughters. And the only reason she would do it is to spare her own reputation as politician and a religious conservative. Period.
anon @ 10.58 am:
An ENHANCED photo can be used for legal evidence (and if you enhance the photo in photoshop, YES that is photoshoppping). I have several immediate family members who have been lawyers and one a judge for decades. However, I will direct you to an article from the Defense Council Journal where it states:
8 The most common of these programs is Adobe Photoshop, which allows a user to make a wide range of changes to a digital photograph, including contrast and tone adjustment, enlargement, removal of unwanted portions of the image, and rotation of the image.9
Using this or similar software, an advocate can focus a jury's attention on a particular area of a photograph, or, in some cases, "reveal" information that was not otherwise discernable.
(http://www.allbusiness.com/public-administration/justice-public-order-safety/4062233-1.html)
ALTERING a photo is not admissible in court (swapping heads, etc) however ENHANCING is. That is the difference here. If you use photoshop, yeah, you're photoshopping it. But as legal evidence, it DOES make sense to "photoshop" an image to enhance versus photoshopping to alter (aka tampering).
Stella:
Those photos posted all over the web drinking and partying are not of Bristol, but rather Mercedes Johnston, Levi's younger sister.
They were mistakenly labeled as Bristol.
I meant to include this earlier in my post:
An opposing party may attempt to exclude enhanced digital photographs by challenging the reliability of the enhancement process. However, courts have found digitally enhanced photograph evidence to be sufficiently reliable to meet the requirements of both the Daubert and the more restrictive Frye tests commonly applied to scientific evidence.11 The leading case on the issue is the Washington Supreme Court decision in State v. Hayden. . . Specifically, the court first found that neither digital photography nor the use of computer software to enhance such photographs is a novel process.17 The court continued its Frye analysis by stating that no "significant dispute among qualified experts as to the validity of enhanced digital imaging performed by qualified experts using appropriate software" and holding that "the process is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community."
on page 3 and 4, from the same source at: (http://www.allbusiness.com/public-administration/justice-public-order-safety/4062233-1.html)
or for people having problems with the long URL: http://tinyurl.com/6ne24u
Sorry, Delta. I should have taken the time to look up that it wasn't the word "condition." Still my point holds, that "stage of her pregnancy" could refer to the labor stage of her pregnancy. That would be why they further explained their statement by saying she showed no signs of distress. Distress wouldn't go with size of pregnancy but with her labor pains. Labor is what the airline was asked about, wasn't it, since that airline allows late-stage pregnant women to fly? -B.
I HID IT UNDER SCARVES
Scarves don't hide pregnancies, they hide hickies.
-gina in fairbanks
Anonymous said...
Sorry, Delta. I should have taken the time to look up that it wasn't the word "condition." Still my point holds, that "stage of her pregnancy" could refer to the labor stage of her pregnancy. That would be why they further explained their statement by saying she showed no signs of distress. Distress wouldn't go with size of pregnancy but with her labor pains. Labor is what the airline was asked about, wasn't it, since that airline allows late-stage pregnant women to fly? -B.
December 11, 2008 1:04 PM
------
everybody needs to stop focusing on 'labor contractions'
it's about the amnio leaking... she obviously exhibited NO behavior that would have led the airline stewardesses to believe that ANYTHING physical was going on with her...
btw, she flies coach, so it's not like she was up in nice first class maybe hiding under a big blankie in her own pullout seat or something.
there aint no way to miss a 8+ month pregnant woman who keeps getting up and down to the bathroom, not just on 1 flight, but 2.
and how she explains she 'never got that big' with this pregnancy and then there she is on 4/13 looking as big as a house
-gina in fairbanks, said,
"Scarves don't hide pregnancies, they hide hickies."
Here is how it's done:
http://www.newyorker.com/images/2007/05/14/p646/070514_banksy10_p646.jpg
Pretty effective, no?
I know everyone is talking about editing pictures right now but I want to comment on the comments regarding the age of Trig in the hospital picture and in the MySpace picture. I have been interested in that too and I wanted something to compare them to.
I should be able to pull out my own pictures but they were lost in the catastrophe we do not name.
My daughter just came home from her grandfather's funeral and was given a big stack of his pictures - pictures I hadn't seen in years.
My husband took practically a whole role of film the day my daughters were born. He took about a dozen pictures of me in the bed with all the tubes coming out of my hand and he even got pictures of each of the nurses holding the babies.
My daughters were full term twins, one six lbs and one seven lbs, born via c-section and they do look smaller than Trig looks in his picture and their faces show the stress of being born that day even though they were not squished by the birth canal. People who have seen just born children know what I mean.
There were also pictures of my mother holding one or the other of the girls about a week or so after they were born and those pictures have the same look as the pictures of Trig do.
And something else I noticed in my old pictures - the way I was looking at and holding my babies.
I think one of the most telling signs is the way the teen girl holds her baby, the way she looks at him. That has struck me from the very beginning of the saga.
I definitely saw pictures of Bristol partying and drinking (not just Mercedes), but they have been taken down from the websites. She was a major partier, with lots of drinking, and I'm not talking beer or wine.
Re the people SP would cover for: you need to add Track and his girlfriend to the list. I still think Bristol is more likely, but my second choice would be Track and his unnamed girlfriend.
Also, while I agree that it's likely that few people actually knew the truth, it may also be that the relatively successful cone of silence may be an attempt to protect someone from legal trouble.
Of course, the key issue is that SP was not pregnant, which is frankly proven at this point except to those who refuse to accept reality. It is not essential to know who gave birth to Trig.
Finally, I thought it was interesting that the pipeline website that someone referenced here also edited its Sarah Palin articles on August 29th. The timing is quite a coincidence!
Anonymous said...
Sorry, Delta. I should have taken the time to look up that it wasn't the word "condition." Still my point holds, that "stage of her pregnancy" could refer to the labor stage of her pregnancy. That would be why they further explained their statement by saying she showed no signs of distress. Distress wouldn't go with size of pregnancy but with her labor pains. Labor is what the airline was asked about, wasn't it, since that airline allows late-stage pregnant women to fly? -B.
December 11, 2008 1:04 PM
*****************************
Actually, no, they weren't asked about labor, they were asked about their policy on pregnant women flying. Alaska Airlines also said they don't allow women whose water has broken to fly, but they rely on the truthfulness of the woman herself to tell them that.
[i]“We leave the decision to fly up to our customers and their medical advisers,” according to Alaska Airlines representative Caroline Boren.
Palin told her staff that she would not have boarded the plane had she thought she or her baby were in danger.
Had Palin needed medical assistance during the flight, [b]ground agents and flight attendants for the airline are highly trained to look for signs of distress or other concerns with a passenger’s condition,[/b] Boren said.
“Governor Palin was extremely pleasant to flight attendants and her stage of pregnancy was not apparent by observation. She didn’t show any signs of distress,” Boren said.
http://www.newsminer.com/news/2008/apr/22/palins-flight-labor-falls-under-scrutiny/[/i]
So you're saying that their "highly trained" staff completely missed the fact that she was 8 months pregnant? Totally ignoring the fact that she apparently lied about her water breaking to even get on the flight, don't you think that maybe the flight attendants would have paid a little more attention to her had they realized she was pregnant, just in case something did go wrong? I'd be willing to bet they were aware she was the governor of their fair state too, so might even be paying a little extra attention to her anyway. And yet they STILL didn't realize she was pregnant.
If they were speaking of labor, why not say 'her stage of labor' instead? The spokeswoman specifically addresses pregnancy, not labor. A distinction that even most men would make.
The mind, it boggles.
It is kind of strange that the flight attendants wouldn't notice Palin's pregnancy, considering they're looking at that area to see if seat belts are fastened. And if she WERE pregnant, I wouldn't want to be sitting in that airline seat later!
Any volunteers?
Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to recreate this photo. We just need a 31 week or so pregnant gal similar in size to Palin dressed up in a similar outfit and position and then take some photos.
It will reveal in pictures (yet again) that something is probably not quite right with Palin's pregnancy story.
To the person who said that he/she would like to see a close-up of the face of SP on 14 March 2008: Your wish has been granted! There were actually two picture published from this event.
See here:
http://flickr.com/photos/32527116@N06/3100599125/
Patrick
For those looking at Palin's face, Terry Gross's interview with Tina Fey on Fresh Air might be worth a listen. It was quite interesting to hear Fey's recounting of her & her make-up artists observations of how to make Fey look more lantern-jawed than she is; one technique included angling the camera shots from below. In any case, I don't think too much can be read into Palin's face--pregnant or not.
See here:
http://flickr.com/photos/32527116@N06/3100599125/
Patrick
*************************
I guess that blows the theory of her not wanting to 'offend' anyone by wearing a cross. Why airbrush a cross necklace out of the Gusty pics but not the much more obvious cross earrings in this one?
Totally OT, but my word verification word is bristoal. Too funny.
OK, I have posted before that something does not sound right with SP wearing that heavy coat indoors when everyone else is wearing just T-Shirts or thin sweaters. My point was that when you are pregnant - especially late-term, you have a much higher blood supply than if you are not pregnant (after all, you are carrying a developing human being inside you that needs its own blood supply!).
Someone earlier stated that SP was an avid runner. THAT is even more unlikely then, that she would wear such a heavy coat indoors. I know, after I come from exercising, I feel HOT, and want to STRIP - not add on extra layers! When you are an athlete, your metabolism is much higher, and thus you also feel much hotter than 'regular' people.
TWO points that go AGAINST her being pregnant in these pics!
Just Me
Oh, someone (Emily?) mentioned that they had reverse-something or another with the picture, and saw that the skirt was shiny *below* the fold and was wondering why that could be. FWIW, I have a maybe silly answer: SP at one point or another had the skirt on backwards and sat on it. (You know how the seat of clothing usually gets a bit shiny before the rest?)Why would she do that? Who knows... maybe she wanted to get a bit more mileage out of the skirt, maybe she inadverdently did it in that picture. That would also explain the wrinkles - the back of a skirt is often cut a bit bigger to accomodate the butt...
"Alaska Airlines ... leaves the decision to the woman and her doctor, said spokeswoman Caroline Boren. Palin was very pleasant to the gate agents and flight attendants, as always, Boren said. "The stage of her pregnancy was not apparent by observation. She did not show any signs of distress," Boren said."
Guess what: According to the pic with the two guys, she was VERY preggo, and an airline attendant WOULD HAVE NOTICED THIS - IF she had been pregnant. But she wasn't, and wasn't wearing her pregnancy belly pads.
I agree 100% with Amy the first re this not being about prosecuting anyone, but knowing the level of integrity and honesty of people who want to represent us, and the level of risk someone is willing to take, especially with the lives of those s/he loves and is responsible for. SP either lied about delivering Trig on 4/18, lied about the amniotic fluid/10+ hour plane rides home/inducing labor story, or took incredible risks with the life of her an unborn child. One of those statements is 100% true. I’d like to believe it’s the wild ride story, but fear it isn’t.
Re the long, black (and yes, ugly) jacket. I've puzzled over this every time I see it. It appears a few sizes too big (as if it's a tall) and thus, out of style--and completely different than the jackets she wore post VP selection (ok, maybe you chalk that up to stylists), and from what I can tell, before March. But, honestly, how many women do you know who wear jackets that look like they are from the 80's/90's every day? Especially women who pride themselves on “shopping at high-end consignment stores”? Especially governors who are in the spotlight and have the means for current styles? Compare the jacket at the Feb governors’ conference, and other things she wore pre-March. These jackets and vest, and every single suit jacket I found on several fashionable online department stores' websites end absolutely no lower than the crotch--most (80+%) are shorter than that.
So, why were a butt ugly jacket every day, as some have pointed out, almost exclusively since March? Because it not only camouflaged her belly/scarf, especially with her wearing it open like that, but also her hips and butt. True, some women don’t change much in the butt, but they are the ones who carry the baby all in the belly. If she doesn’t have a big belly, she can claim she’s carrying it wide. But, if no noticeable difference in butt, hips or belly, where is it (other than her pocket)?
Look at the photos from April at http://www.palindeception.com/subpages/april.html, especially the one from behind. It sure doesn't look like she's gotten any wider. Audrey, maybe you can do your photoshop process on that photo, too.
Delta says: "So you're saying that their "highly trained" staff completely missed the fact that she was 8 months pregnant? Totally ignoring the fact that she apparently lied about her water breaking to even get on the flight, don't you think that maybe the flight attendants would have paid a little more attention to her had they realized she was pregnant, just in case something did go wrong? I'd be willing to bet they were aware she was the governor of their fair state too, so might even be paying a little extra attention to her anyway. And yet they STILL didn't realize she was pregnant."
Delta, I'm not saying the flight attendants missed the fact that Palin was pregnant. Being Alaskan Airlines, they probably already knew she was pregnant, because her announcement had been a big deal. (In fact, they might have noticed if she didn't wear her belly pads.)
I am saying that we can't conclude from the airlines' statement that the attendants did or didn't notice she was pregnant or that she was 8 months pregnant. We don't know what they thought about her pregnancy. We just know that they thought she wasn't in distress.
I agree that their statement goes against Palin's claims that her water had already broken or that her labor had started. They would have seen signs of discomfort.
This picture and the nail-in-the-coffin picture are relevant to whether or not she looked as pregnant as she should have, but the flight attendant's statement does not directly address that. -B.
Even if your seemingly insane delusions turn out to be true, the only horrifying truth you will have uncovered is that a couple adopted a severely handicapped child and chose to raise him as their own. You do realize that, right?
What on earth is the point?
Re comments from Eva at 2:11 re photos of baby.
I’ve been thinking about the photos of baby Trig as well. The photos of him taken within a few days of 4/18 are suspicious, for the reasons you noted above.
What also strikes me is the change in his size from the photos taken with Mercedes in the Palin’s house and at his baby shower 5/5, a max of 16 days after he was born (since he didn’t go home the first day). It appears as if he grew way too much for 16 days. My child, born on her due date weighed just under 6 lbs. I compared photos of her and she was nowhere near as big as he is in these shower pictures, at 17 days old, and the change in size in that time period was nowhere near as dramatic. In fact, she was almost too small for newborn clothes when born—they hung off her for at least a month. Hmmm ... I wonder if the clothes baby Trig is wearing came in preemie sizes? Then again, do we know for sure the photos with Mercedes are of this particular baby Trig?
Anyone else have thoughts on size difference between 4/19 and 5/5?
There are several pictures like this one that make her story at least visually implausible. I have created a timeline of Sarah's pregancy photos to view. Notice the one from March 11th where she is in a black jacket. How do you attach the zipper at the bottom of a jacket that far into a pregnancy?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33163903@N05/
Found another picture: it's at http://community.livejournal.com/palin_confusion/5222.html -- entitled "The sexiest Yukon-Alaska Summit Ever!!!" The original site for the pic is http://www.eco.gov.yk.ca/images/fentie_palin.jpg
The blogger says, "Let me show off my Canadian pride for just a second - look at what I dug up on the "international relations" section of Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie's website." The note is dated Sept. 17, 2008.
I went looking myself, but the archives for the news bulletin "Alaska-Yukon Intergovernmental Accord Renewed in Anchorage
March 03, 2008" have been taken down, although the picture itself hasn't.
First, ---> http://www.eco.gov.yk.ca/news/index.html then --> http://www.eco.gov.yk.ca/images/fentie_palin.jpg
One of the follow-up commentors unearthed a PDF of the accord Fentie and Palin signed -- it's dated Feb. 29, 2008.
So, this picture is between that date and March 3, 2008, the date of the news bulletin.
Regarding why this matters to me: on a personal level, it doesn't. I don't care who sleeps with whom so long as I'm not required to clean up the mess later. I got interested in this because of Sarah Palin's hypocrisy and/or totally bad decision-making skills, as exemplified by the Flight Out of Texas. Say she's prolife... but she risks a premature high-risk birth aboard a plane. ...mm... WHAT? For that matter, WTF???? She cares so much to have the baby born in Alaska that she doesn't care if he dies at birth? How does she know he's not going to have cardiac complications?
And then she said she had the doctor's advice that the trip would be safe. That's totally insane. That's so seriously ignorant that we'd have to create a whole new category of dumb in order to handle it. We're supposed to believe that a woman in her fifth pregnancy, facing a high-risk birth PREMATURELY, and leaking amniotic fluid, is going to spend a day traveling to get back to Alaska, and the doctor thinks that's all right? And she expects us to believe that? When I heard that story, that's when I thought: this woman's deranged. No way would an MD authorize a day-long flight on a fifth-term primip who's leaking amniotic fluid. Ain't gonna happen.
So I got interested. I'm still interested. And she thinks she's going to run in 2012, and the Republicans seem to feel that's possible. So... yeah, I'm interested.
Ivy Freeborn
This picture of Sarah on huffington post today looks a lot like one you have been investigating. It gives a perspective of what Sarah looks like with her hair down.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/11/sarah-palins-emails-10000_n_150335.html
That's "fourth-term multigravida", not "fifth-term primip", Ivy...she's both multigravida and multiparous (3 or more, I believe is the designation).
Re 5:26 p.m., the point is that that the abstinence only education that Sarah wants to cram down America's throat doesn't work. It didn't work for old Sarah when she wed Todd already preggers with Track and it didn't work for the undoubtedly unwed woman who actually bore Trig.
What else is the point? We're sick of Sarah prattling on about the "real" small town America versus those awful libertine big cities. It seems in her small town America all the parents are too self-involved to supervise their drunken sexually-active kids. Oh, as Colin Powell said today, I'm from the South Bronx and there isn't anything wrong with my values.
Look in the mirror Sarah. Despite the botox and lip liner, it ain't pretty.
FYI..not that it matters much, but Alaska Airlines is headquartered in Seattle, and most of the crews are based at Sea-Tac or LAX. They fly all over the US (Alaskan Air has about a dozen flights a day out of Reagan National in DC), so crew knowledge of Alaskan politics might be limited.
Anonymous at 5:26 asks,"What on earth is the point?" I have wondered the same myself.
I am hooked on this whodunnit. I am mystified that Palin hasn't done a few simple things to un-hook me. So I am further hooked wondering what she is hiding.
When the rumor broke, I thought it might not matter if she were lying about Trig. Had she been anti-choice and we found that she or her daughter had an abortion, that would be hypocritical, and thus relevant. Not the case.
The truth is relevant to whether Palin is honest, however. I disagree with her political positions, so perhaps her honesty doesn't matter to me. But potential Palin voters should know whether she speaks the truth. A friend who is a "values voter" and voted for Palin assured me that it would have mattered to her if Palin lied about Trig. She deserves to know.
If you are right that the worst case is "a couple adopted a severely handicapped child and chose to raise him as their own," why not tell us that? -B.
5:26
Even if Sarah adopted someone's baby why in the heck would she claim she was preggo. Why cause the drama the charade? For what PORPOSE and INTENTIONS?
Someone asked why she didn't buy maternity clothes.
Because she wasn't yet the VP nominee and didn't have the RNC to pay for them!
People are still asking why this (who is Trig's mom?) matters.
Because she wants no reproductive choice for other women; she wants to force women to give birth against their will. If she becomes president (as some web sites are promoting), she could have the power to force her will upon others.
Because she believes in the ridiculous "abstinence-only" sex ed. Again, she could have the power to impose her will on others.
Because her fake pregnancy story could make it harder for other women to get maternity leave or other considerations for family situations. (Gov. Palin held back her labor to travel 12 hours? Why can't you? Gov. Palin took NO maternity leave! Why do you need it?)
Because politicians who lie should be exposed. I'm from Illinois; look at our governor!
What is the point?
1. You have to be sickly delusional to have run for VP with a whopper of lie in your closet like having birthed Trig. It is one thing to foist your lie on sparsely populated undereducated Alaska. It is another thing to foist your lie on the entire United States of America.
You have to be sickly delusional to think that your lie wouldn't come out once you were playing on the big stage with the big boys. You have to be used to lying and getting a pass in life because of your good looks.
We can't afford to have a sickly delusional individual in charge of our sick economy or anywhere near the nuclear codes.
2. This isn't the first whopper that Sarah has told. I sold the plane on Ebay. I said no that bridge to nowhere. I'm an expert on energy (no, you happen to live in a state that has oil and that profited, at least for awhile, from high prices for oil). If Sarah Palin is a leading expert on energy, I am the Queen of Sheba.
As Mary McCarthy famously said about Lillian Hellman: "Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the." Everything that comes out of Palin's lip tattooed mouth is a lie.
Why does it matter? I prefer not to have liars in charge.
And spare me the violins about Palin's good deed adopting a severely handicapped child. With Track's drinking and anger management problems and Bristol's drinking and pregnancy (or two), Sarah's not exactly going to win any mother of the year awards. I truly believe she is certifiable DSM narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic people don't make good parents.
And maybe I would be more into the heroic Sarah narrative if she actually spent more time with Trig and didn't carry him around like a sack of potatoes (but only for photo op purposes - otherwise handed off to the nanny). Please.
KaJo at 6:13--incredible picture!! Patrick and Flikr folks--please download before it disappears like so many others have.
L.
Kajo at 6.13
Sorry but I can absolutely confirm that this photo was taken in 2007 in Anchorage.
http://www.eco.gov.yk.ca/igr/international.html
Kathleen
Interesting that the Huff post is more than willing to examine Sarah's supposed tattooed lips and yet unwilling to examine photos of her flat pregnant stomach. Sheesh!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/30/is-sarah-palins-lipliner_n_130352.html
Kathleen
To Anonymous @ 9:05 PM who said:
"It is one thing to foist your lie on sparsely populated undereducated Alaska."
We may have our problems, and under the current State administration the performance of our public schools may be lacking; but, we actually have one of the most educated populations in the country. PhDs run rampant around here!
-gina in fairbanks
About hiding Bristol: I don't' believe Palin tells the truth about anything at all, but maybe a fat pregnant teen would avoid photos herself, just from vanity?
Gina at 8:39am:
What would be the correlation between having "PhDs running rampant around here" and
Alaska having the highest rate of incest and rape in the US?
Palin's Holiday Open House...
I noticed that Bristol was not one of the children present at for this event. It would be a good opportunity to demonstrate that she is about ready to deliver the child due this month.
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/617789.html
With regard to the flight attendants: wouldn't SP have to ask one of them for a seat belt extender to fit around her preg belly?
Diana, I like your April 13, 2008 picture (http://www.flickr.com/photos/33163903@N05/3093329621/)...
Might be a good idea to do the contratsing on it!
SP definitely does not look as pregnant as she does in the staged picture with the 2 guys...
Gina in Fairbanks says:
"PhDs running rampant around here"
Oohhhhkkkaaaay, but I'm willing to bet they're not educated there.
said lightheartedly, now ;-)
To Anon @ 4:00 PM,
What I said was, when you adjust the brightness, you can tell that the fabric below the crease (a normal crease caused by sitting in a pencil skirt) appears lighter in color than the fabric above.
Now, if she had a baby bump, no matter how small, because that bump stretches against the fabric of her skirt, the color of the fabric above the crease would appear lighter (the fabric being stretched, further towards the light source of the picture - the opposite of a shadow).
However, it is the fabric BELOW the crease that appears lighter.
There are only two ways I can rationalize this:
- There was a light source aimed upwards at her that would hit her thighs before her belly (however from shadows, and the direction they are facing, we can dismiss this as unlikely...any flash from the camera that took that picture would be overpowered by the photographer's strobe located behind the videographer).
- As a runner, she has well-developed thigh muscles that themselves protrude as much as if not a little more than her small baby bump.
Otherwise, it's just a little confusing.
BACK AT YOU REGARDING ALASKAN PhDs:
University of Alaska Graduate Programs:
Anthropology - Ph.D.
Biochemistry &
Molecular Biology - Ph.D.
Biological Sciences - Ph.D.
Engineering - Ph.D.
Environmental Chemistry - Ph.D.
Fisheries - Ph.D.
Geology - Ph.D.
Geophysics - Ph.D.
Interdisciplinary - Ph.D.
Marine Biology - Ph.D.
Mathematics - Ph.D.
Natural Resources and Sustainability - Ph.D.
Oceanography - Ph.D.
Psychology, Clinical-Community - Ph.D.
Physics - Ph.D.
Space Physics - Ph.D.
What we do know for sure: Sarah didn't obtain any of these degrees!
PHD = "piled higher and deeper" ... as a follow-on to a "BS" degree.
Seriously, pathological liars can fool people EVERYWHERE. I'm sure all of us have known one or two. However, this particular pathological liar almost got to the Presidency of the US. And there is STILL talk of her running in 2012. The mainstream media DOES have a responsibility to investigate this subterfuge and uncover the lies. I truly believe SP is "not right" psychologically and we, the people, cannot allow such a damaged person to assume the reins of power. Anywhere. Really, AK journalists need to take a stand and say: "no more" to this idiocy.
Could the line on the skirt, rather than being a crease, be where the expandable fabric of a maternity skirt ends? (She just forgot to pad to expand it.) -B.
Kathy said...
PHD = "piled higher and deeper" ... as a follow-on to a "BS" degree.
OT, I learned that a MS between the BS and PhD was More of the Same.
Most Rethugs (79%) want Palin to run in 2012.
About 100% of Democrats want her to!
I hold a PhD (in mass communications) and I have never engaged in rape or incest. So, extrapolating from my (admittedly) small sample, I would argue there is no apparent correlation between PhDs and sexual deviancy. (But I don't live in Alaska, so I can't test that part of the above hypothesis that says some of the weirdness in Alaska is due to the over-education of many of its citizens.) Does anyone else out there holding an advanced degree want to fess up about your sexual proclivities?
Brad
Anonymous said...
Even if your seemingly insane delusions turn out to be true, the only horrifying truth you will have uncovered is that a couple adopted a severely handicapped child and chose to raise him as their own. You do realize that, right?
What on earth is the point?
December 11, 2008 5:26 PM
------------------
and who prevented them from doing that to begin with? it sure wasn't me.
not anybody on this site made sarah palin lie about being pregnant. lie to her friends, her family, her co-workers, the american public.
if she did, FINE, why doesn't she just say so? and why didn't she from the beginning?
you're right, it's not a big deal that they are going to raise Trig as their own, though I'd like to know when she's going to get started, it's a big deal that she lied/deceived/lied some more...
the thing is, i have great respect for mothers that make the tough choice to raise their children's children, whatever the circumstances be, i have personal experience with this... it's the LYING that's wrong.
sorry you can't see that. and if she didn't lie, then i have actually LESS respect for her because of the danger she put Trig and herself and the flight crew and passengers, all so she could sit in on a republican governors conference and discuss her VP potential -- it's true, go find the news articles, happened on 4/17 in grapevine, texas.
so what do u think is more dillusional -- a woman that lied about a pregnancy to either cover for her daughter, to cover her butt for political reasons, OR a woman that didn't seek medical attention for nearly 24 hours after her water had broken 5 weeks early to a DS baby?
chew on that for awhile and get back to me.
I hope that several people are storing legally verified archival copies of the starting point photos so they cannot disappear or be tinkered with to invalidate them as evidence.
"That's "fourth-term multigravida", not "fifth-term primip", Ivy...she's both multigravida and multiparous (3 or more, I believe is the designation)."
And you're absolutely right. I hated OB and have never worked it since I graduated some 35 years ago, but I still shouldn't have gotten that wrong. Sarah Palin is a multip.
Ivy Freeborn
Anon @
December 12, 2008 5:55 PM
I agree with you 100%. That light part is the stretchy pregnant part of the skirt that is obviously vacant.
There were 6 babies born on April 18 at Mat-Su Hospital according to the Frontiersman Newspaper. This listing includes Trig Palin.
http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2008/05/06/local_news/new_faces/doc481ffb5722548564626298.txt
Perhaps some of these parents would have seen something...
-Ivy
It's not a maternity skirt with a panel -- it's just a skirt that has a few wrinkles, probably from sitting previously.
Ivy (December 13, 2008 8:26 PM) :
First public record... Wonder why it is such a late publication - almost one month after the fact.
I just checked and found this earlier report: http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2008/04/18/breaking_news/doc48093d9e5ef8f350867945.txt
Note that it is a statement released by Palin's office, NOT by the doctor or hospital...
Bristol is probably wearing SP's fake pregnancy suit.
For those implying that the image is photoshopped:
http://media.adn.com/smedia/2008/03/14/16/395-parnellhm.standalone.prod_affiliate.7.jpg
is the original ADN image
Launch this site:
http://webresizer.com/resizer/
Copy the image above into the script line of browse then upload.
On the tools after it has loaded, set the exposure to 80.
See it for yourself w/o any so called cheats.
Kate @ 9.06
To ease your mind -
All photos/videos etc have been screensaved, pdf filed, saved etc by several people.
Kathleen
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