Monday, December 8, 2008

Photoshop Sleuths Strike

For several weeks, I have had a group of very sharp research assistants helping me with this blog and the website. Patrick and Kathleen's tireless searching of Flickr was solely responsible for the discovery of the previously undiscovered photograph of Sarah Palin taken on March 26th, in which, I believe, she does not look at all like a woman three weeks away from delivering a six pound child.

Patrick and Kathleen have done it again! Before I reveal their new discovery, however, I should say that throughout the day, as the two photos allegedly taken on April 13th have been pushed into the limelight again due to my post, and other blog posts which have revisited this story, numerous people have written to me with some very troubling observations about these two photos. So troubling, that several hours ago I made the decision to hire - at my own expense - an independent forensic Photoshop expert. I still intend to do that.

However, Patrick and Kathleen have discovered something concrete that I feel very comfortable about going with publicly prior to getting the opinion of the expert. Look at the two photos which follow carefully.



Now look at this photo:


There is absolutely no sign of the necklace. The earring may be missing as well.

So, what does this mean? I honestly don't know. But as my husband would say, "It ain't good."

I am sure that those who support the Governor will have some perfectly plausible explanation as for why she's got the necklace on in one and not the other. Some possibilities might be:
1. She forgot it in her office and ran back and put it on.
2. It itched and she took it off.
3. It's really there and we just can't see it.
4. Andrea Gusty admired it and Palin gave it to her.
5. The two photos were really not taken the same day. We just assumed they were based on her identical outfits, hair style, and location.

Except there's just one little teensy-weensy thing. Photos have something called EXIF data. Yes, I know that the EXIF data on these photos have the wrong date. This has been explained countless places by saying that the date on the camera is set wrong. Sounds plausible to me. I have a camera that for all I know is probably set to 1929. But the EXIF data also contains a time stamp. And while the date might be set wrong, the two photos are almost certainly correct vis a vis each other. If they are not, we really need to ask why. And the EXIF data on these two photos say that they were taken three minutes apart. Here's a little graphic that says it all:




So then, backed into the corner again, TeamSarah will tell us, vehemently, that yet another anomaly, yet another thing in this whole story that is just a little bit wrong, has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT SARAH PALIN IS TRIG PALIN'S MOTHER. NOTHING. It's just a coincidence or a fabrication or... something. She put a necklace on and that's the end of it and don't ask.

But I just want to remind everyone of an important reality. These two pictures are damn near the only photographic evidence that those who think Sarah Palin is Trig Palin's mother have. We are talking about the governor of Alaska here, theoretically one of the most photographed woman in the state, and there are THREE pictures in existence which show her indisputably appearing as if she's pregnant.

And these pictures are two of them. (The third is a single still shot, taken with Elan Frank, and that picture cuts off mid belly.) Let's review what we know about these pictures.

First, we don't know who took them. No one has ever come forward and said, "I took those photos."
Second, they never appeared anywhere until after Sarah Palin's nomination, until questions about Trig's birth had threatened to destroy Palin's nomination.
Third, they are still photos of a video shoot. As I pointed out in my last post, as far as I know, the video footage supposedly shot here is currently unavailable. I can't even determine if anyone ever saw it. Why not? Where is it?
And now, fourth, the "photo" anomalies themselves start to pour in.

And they call me crazy.

87 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh that pesky necklace! Where oh where is it? Did I leave it over here, under there, in the bathroom? Could it be under the carpet.....Oh God I am soooooo busted!

luna1580 said...

audrey, i'm not professional photoshop user, but i have used it independently and in commercial art/advertising university courses.

i hate to say it, but unless we can get the second "no-neckless" photo in higher resolution it's inconclusive.

why? look at the bridge piece of her glasses in photo one, it's thicker than her necklace, yet it too almost "disappears" in photo two, purely because of the lower resolution of picture two.

luna

Anonymous said...

I would not make too much of the seemingly missing necklace. I think it might just be obscured by her collar in the one photo.

What is much more interesting to me is that it seems to be Bill McAllister, Palin's press secretary, who is holding the video camera in the picture showing Sarah seemingly being Interviewed by Andrea Gusty. Go ahead and search Google/images using "Bill McAllister, Alaska" as search terms. You will find at least half a dozen pictures of McCallister. Now note the unique shape of his ear in the pretend-interview pic - and then focus on his ears in the Goggled pics. It certainly seems to be the same guy.



So this probably is a staged picture. He formerly worked at KTUU (same place Palin worked as a newscaster) but was hired by Palin before April. So it looks like he got some of his old friends in the media to help him stage a video news shoot. That's why you can't find the video from the scene in the TV station's archive -- the station did not shoot the video.


Brad S.

Anonymous said...

When you get your Photoshop person - have them blow up the reflection in her glasses! See what that is. And, someone call Dan Carpenter and see if he will comment!

GraceR said...

Audrey,do you know what time the 2 pictures were taken? Were they taken at the same time on the same day, or were they taken on the same day but at different times?

Anonymous said...

OK. Now I am confused. Something does not add up/make sense.
Why would she take a necklace OFF during a videoshoot, and put itON afterwards? Is the video-still maybe just too blurry?

Just Me

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... It's a little blurry, but I can unquestionably make out the line of her necklace in the second photo, running from collar bone towards cleavage. No mystery there, I think.

GraceR said...

Thanks for the time information, Audrey. That helps and discounts that one may have been taken in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Now, it looks like the necklace has a cross on it to me---is that what it is? If so, I don't think I've seen any official pics or film of SP with a cross or other jewelry with a religious "connotation." Could she have removed it for the TV shoot for that reason, not expecting the other pic with the 2 guys to be made public?

Just looking for the truth and playing devil's advocate here.

KaJo said...

Audrey, I'm admittedly an amateur photographer, but I do quite a bit of computer photo enhancement and "tweaking", just to improve the quality of the pix I save on my computer.

I have a basic Adobe Photoshop program, but I usually just use my printer's Image Zone software to: adjust photos for adaptive lighting, contrast, brightness, sharpness, need for cropping or rotation by degrees to vertical/horizontal, size, etc.

I enlarged the "original" picture of the lower Palin picture in this blog entry. I don't have such a sophisticated program so as to improve the pixilation, but when I enlarged the photo, I could see some variation in the skin color on Palin's neck, starting at the curve of her throat (on the right) and extending down in a 5 o'clock direction to just above that horizontal black line that is probably the neckline of her dress.

That line is what I'd expect a thin gold necklace to look like if it was at such an angle so as to not reflect any light in the photo.

Right offhand I'd say the pendant is hidden by the right collar of her jacket (on the left side of that dress neckline in the picture).

I'd be interested if someone with more sophisticated tools at their disposal sees what I see, or disagrees with me.

(I suscribe to the basic premise of this blog -- Palin's pregnancy deception -- but I don't think these two photographs are a mystery)

Anonymous said...

Yes, it was lucky that Kathleen spotted this peculiar difference between those pictures - a difference which more than 90.000 viewers (on the page of Erik99559) missed so far... ;-)

For further information about this issue, please visit my flickr-photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32527116@N06/

HERE IS THE DIRECT COMPARISON BETWEEN THE PICTURES:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32527116@N06/3093518201/

There is no necklace visible at all in the picture during the interview!

You can very clearly see in the comparison of the enhanced shots that there is no necklace in the picture during the interview (everything else stayed the same - contrast, brightness etc.).

It should also not be forgotten that this picture was uploaded to the internet by Erik99559 on 31th August 2008 - two days after Sarah Palin was nominated as John McCain's running mate! At this time, quite a lot of "strange occurences" on the internet took place - see the manipulation of Sarah Palins's Wikipedia entry etc.

Just through our research today I heard that it was Andrea Gusty herself (the journalist in the shot during the interview) that gave those pictures to www.factcheck.org - as a proof that Sarah Palin was "indeed" pregnant!

See this video here:

http://www.factcheck.org/just-the-facts/this_little_piggy_went_to_the_makeup.html

(starting at 1:19)

And factcheck.org swallowed the bait - killing the discussion about the pregnancy in the MSM.

May I also point to apparent anomalies regarding the EXIF-data (you get this information if you click on the original photographs on flickr under "more properties").

Here (for the original shots in the strea of Erik99559):


http://www.flickr.com/photos/30076181@N02/2814979078/meta/in/photostream


http://www.flickr.com/photos/30076181@N02/2814199887/meta/in/photostream


Here is the short version of the EXIF-data:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32527116@N06/3094757954/

It is not relevant in my opinion that the date shows a day in 2005. However, and may a more knowledgable person please correct me if I am wrong: The time (minutes, seconds) cannot easily be manipulated! The time keeps running.

The picture WITHOUT the necklace 23:26:00.

The picture WITH the necklace was taken at 23:29:14.

There was just 3 min 14 sec between those two shots! They show two completely different situations - and SP took the necklace on and off in between??

I hope that I could make clearer why we think that these observations are important.

Therefore, Andrea Gusty played an extremely important part in "debunking" the rumours that SP was not pregnant with Trig. Let's put her to the test now.

Patrick

Anonymous said...

In the blurry picture, it looks as if she is wearing a black blouse under the suit. In the picture with necklace, it looks like no blouse. Could be I'm wrong, since 2nd pic is blurry, but if I am right - is there a possibility she "leaked" a bit, quickly changed (putting on the blouse under jacket) and took off necklace while changing? I am so ignorant re leaking - does it happen while pregnant, or only after a baby's birth? (I have no children).

Anonymous said...

Audrey,

I'm usually on board but this one is way off. First of all, look at her bangs. They are almost precisely the same in the two photos. THat would have taken forever, but we are supposed to believe that they painstakingly got her hairstyle to exactly match, but they forgot a necklace in producing a staged photograph?

I think it's a lot more likely that you just can't see it because of the photo's resolution.

Second, it's become pretty clear that Palin was visibly pregnant (in one way or another) in April. Here's another pic:

http://gov.state.ak.us/
large_photo.php?id=116

THis is from early april 2008. It's hard to see unless you turn up the brightness, but there is a very clear baby bump on her in that picture.

In short, this is very flimsy evidence of a faked photograph, and I see absolutely no reason she would feel a need to fake this picture when there is plenty of evidence that she appeared pregnant over and over again in April 2008

Anonymous said...

Audrey, I am a Graphic Designer and Photoshop user and I can say for sure that the "no necklace" pic is inconclusive. The photo is far too blurry pick up a small detail like a thin gold chain. I'll have to disagree with you for the first time on this one.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Audrey - but I agree with KaJo and luna - I blew it up in my full Photoshop program and, though inconclusive, there is a lighter, glimmery effect in the pixels around where the necklace would be, different than the rest of the neck/skin area.

Anon - look at the almost white sideburn area of the hair on the cameraman - it totally doesn't match with McAllister's darker hair.

On the previous post, someone posted a link to the article Gusty filed about that late Sunday night end to the session and all the bills that were going on to Palin to sign. To get the complete article you have to pay the service - but it is clearly there.

Note - I read that Palin responded by cutting funding to house and support pregnant teenagers. That maverick!

Anonymous said...

Bill McAllister was appointed Palin's press secretary in August 2008, he wasn't her press secretary in April. Before that he worked for KTUU, not KTVA. I doubt that it's McAllister holding the camera in this picture.

http://gov.state.ak.us/archive.php?id=1405&type=1

Adrienne said...

I agree with others...I think the necklace is obscured by the quality of the photo.

Even if the necklace is there and the photos were indeed taken same time, same place...is it still possible that they were shot later to revise history?

I'm losing track of the details and timeline.

Brad S's point about McAllister is interesting.

Keep digging Audrey and team! The truth is there.

moseyon said...

Not only the necklace is wrong.
First photo face is fatter and
make up is different.
Second one the lips are more defined face looks thinner.Look like the second head was put on after she visited that makeup artist McCain hired for her.
At flickr it looks clearer.Just my opinion

Anonymous said...

The photos are so contrived. I would love to know what is in the reflections, too.
And why the scale is strange, and why Palin appears to be in a different focus from Gusty, the mystery videographer, etc., etc.

Anonymous said...

Audrey, I'm curious about the EXIF date/time. Has anyone checked with the camera manufacturer to see what the default date/time is out of the box? Assuming the date/time was never set, I wonder what 3/19/05 would be calculate to based on the default date. Of course, even if it were after the delivery date, it wouldn't be definitive proof, but one more straw on the camel's back ...

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, this blog entry only hurts your credibility. The necklace is simply too thin to be made out in the photo. But the naysayers and Palin apologists will use entries like this to attack your blog and make you seem crazy.

Anonymous said...

zabasearch.com shows a Daniel E. Carpenter living in Anchorage, born in 1981. Perhaps his middle name is Erik.

moseyon said...

I agree audrey no necklace.
Inthe one with the interview face is fatter hair a bit duller.Next on thinner faced lips more defined
looks like she had been to that makeup person McCain hired for her.
Good luck with your search.By the way she only had 3 minutes and 14 sec to add that cross

Anonymous said...

Audrey-

Is there a way (like paypal?) to contribute to a forensic photoshop (or other research projects that cost money)?

I really enjoy reading about your investigations (and commitment to accuracy), and am really curious how things develop...

House of Brat said...

I thought the weird thing in the second picture was the sudden appearance of a double chin on Palin, making her face look fatter/more weight to it. Her face looks normal in the first picture.

Anonymous said...

When I was browsing through flickr the other day, I swear I saw a bigger version of the hallway-with-boxes photo -- larger and better resolution. I looked for an hour today but could not find it again. Gone? Or maybe someone else will have better luck.

--Amy

Anonymous said...

I don't know about any necklace, but I do notice that Sarah looks kind of wrinkley and with tacky highlights in these pictures. Guess they couldn't afford those $600 an hour makeup artists and hairstylists that traveled with Sarah for the campaign (highest paid people on the RNC dole) for this photoshoot.

Anonymous said...

Audrey,

Have you seen this video (shows Palin at the Dallas convention):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvZeL-jFpF0

Anonymous said...

It is remarkable when you compare the two photos to see her hair with the same placement. It seems as if there was another still shot being made from the right side of the videographer but the men aren't in that picture.

The comparisons will be made of the shadows from her head on her neck area. Perhaps to make these consistent the necklace had to be brushed out.

The hair and expression in the two pictures are so much the same that you would expect less than three minutes difference in the shots.

Something is going on here. Good Luck.

sandra in oregon

Anonymous said...

If she put the necklace on for the second shot, her hair would have been disturbed.

sandra in oregon

Anonymous said...

Sorry to post again on the same picture, but I blew it up for another look. Can someone explain why SP is out of focus in the interview picture - compared to everything else? You could say it's because the focus is set on Gusty and SP is further away, but she's not much further, and the trim on the door frame behind her, to my eyes, is in better focus than her face.

Or maybe (somehow) she's actually closer to the camera? But the cameraman's shirt has got to be closer than she, and I see the wrinkles on the shirt clearly.

It also looks as if there is less contrast in SP's image than the rest of the picture. This reinforces what I said earlier on the other thread -- that it looks as if her image had been imported into a picture shot without her.

If there is a difference, it could be optical -- either the camera lens wasn't focused on her, which as I say seems unlikely, or a separate, less focused picture of SP was merged in. Or it could be electronic, i.e., SP's image was blown-up from a lower-resolution format. In that case, I'm guessing that a high magnification (which perhaps only a professional could do) would show a lower number of pixels in equal-size samples from the image of SP's face versus the rest of the picture, showing it was taken with a different camera (or the same camera with a lower resolution setting or further away and enlarged) and not part of the original picture --unless the image as we have it has already been compressed enough to make that impossible to distinguish. Comments from someone who knows what he/she is talking about?

Anonymous said...

Just to ask the obvious--why is Palin out of focus in the picture with the reporter? She is apparently at the same distance from the camera as the reporter. The picture on the wall behind the reporter seems in focus. The cameraman is in focus. One can focus a camera tightly but this one doesn't seem to be, only Palin is blurry. Has someone already addressed this and I missed it?

Anonymous said...

I'm sticking to my original observation and that is that these pictures are one and the same with different people staged beside this same image.
She hasn't moved an inch.
All is the same in each (I think the necklace IS there).
Except for Sarah's angle, I see nothing different.

I promise to stop the ranting if a photo expert deterimes this to be otherwise.

If an experts tells me it's impossible to change the angle of one given picture and I'll shut up and apologize.

Anonymous said...

I think KaJo's analysis is correct - there is no particular mystery about the necklace in the photos - it's likely just obscured in the "interview" photo. FYI: pictures posted to the Web generally have lost much of their original detail because they have been resized to 72 pixels per inch, which is typical screen resolution. Hence, without access to the original picture files, there is no way to recover the lost detail. However, sometimes clever contrast/brightness etc. manipulations can help you see subtle things that may at first seem hidden.
Brad S

Emily Z said...

Yeah, no offense, but I think this is pretty weak.

The picture is way too blurry to conclusively say anything....and even if she wasn't wearing a necklace.......so what?

I agree with GraceR...it's possible they had her take it off for the video shoot, but for the other picture, which could possibly have just been a, "Hey, can we get a picture with you?", they didn't care.

We don't know what the video shoot was about, do we? I mean, we all know Sarah's professed support for Israel...maybe it was something related, and they thought it'd be a little insensitive if she wore a big distracting cross while talking about Israel?

Weak, but entirely possible. Or perhaps it was too shiny, and the lights on the camera reflected off it strangely.

So many explanations. None of which really matter in the context of "is Trig her baby?".

Anonymous said...

In you zeal to take this woman down, you're seeing ghosts now. The pictures are inconclusive. I'm not a fan of Palin either, I agree that the birth story is not accurate, but the "evidence" is really obscure here.

Respectfully I would encourage you all to take your time, only present compelling evidence that is beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I still maintain that Palin wanted to hide her pregnancy to get the VP nod.

We all want to expose her, but this kind of evidence only hurts the cause and stokes her nasty rhetoric when she returns to the campaign; she will happily talk about how she was victimized by this ridiculous campaign to uncover the "mystery of the necklace."

Anonymous said...

The chain of the necklace may be fine but the cross itself is not and is of substantive width and thickness to still be visible. I agree - no necklace! What this means I do not know but it means something.

Anonymous said...

http://gov.state.ak.us/
large_photo.php?id=116

This picture is from April 11, so 2 days earlier than the photo in question & she would appear to be wearing the same jacket, at the very least.

Anonymous said...

Patrick tried to buy the article mentioned at 9.17 several times but for some reason the payment kept calling up an error message. Perhaps someone else might try.

Kathleen

Sunshine1970 said...

Audrey:

I love your site, and all the info you've gathered through the months on this. I don't--no I can't--believe that Trig is SP's biological son due to her labor story, but I will have to agree with Anon @ December 8, 2008 10:15 PM. This is a bit too far fetched.

The necklace is there, just can't be seen due to how far back the person was from her taking the photo, and the quality settings he/she snapped the shot with his Fujifilm S9000.

Anonymous said...

Anon at 8.47.

Unfortunately according to the timeline between these two shots she would have only had a little over three minutes to clean herself up, change the necklace and get back into pose for the next shot. Why take photos anyway if they were shooting a tv clip? This point alone seems to me to be rather strange.

As for the necklace I have played with photoshop myself and by changing contrast and brightness on this picture I have been unable to see any necklace or cross.

If there was a fine line in the original shot I would have expected that it would be obvious if it were there when I manipulated the brighness and contrast.

So I would disagree with those who say that the chain is there. Then again I am no expert and believe that Audrey is correct to employ someone in order to give a definitive view of this. As ever Audrey has kept her credibility by saying that she would do so.

Nice work by all involved for highlighting the innaccuracies in these pictures.

Anonymous said...

I am sure that I read somewhere that Gusty denied releasing the picture herself. Have we caught dear Gusty in a lie?

Nice work

Anonymous said...

I'm going with Audrey on this one, big time. The chain might not show up clearly on the grainier picture, sure. But look at the necklace in the clearer picture carefully. This is a short necklace. The chain is short.

If the cross had slipped under collar on either side in the interview picture, the angle of the chain across the base of her neck would have changed. This is simple math because the length of the chain has to be consistent. The chain would be running sharply across her neck high up. Probably someone who is sharper with math than I am can explain it better, but it's just not open for argument.

I think if the chain was running sharply across her neck, it would be visible even given the unclearness of the photo.

But I don't get what it means. When I first looked at these photos, I thought what a lot of people said. That this was exactly the same picture of her taken from different angles. I mean her bangs look identical. Not "similar." Identical. But if there is some monkey business here, I don't get why or how?

Anonymous said...

While I am convinced that Sarah was not pregnant, I think this thread is a dead end. I enlarged the photo and the reporter is quite blurry too, which might account for the lack of sufficient sharpness to show "wisps" of her hair. I acknowledge that Sarah is blurrier, though. The plane of focus seems to be set too close -- the man's left arm is a little sharper than the two women. I also see a "hint" of a line which could be the necklace, just too out of focus to really be visible. The pendant could have slipped behind the edge of her clothes. I think you have much stronger evidence than this; and if you were going to spend money, I think it is not the best place to invest. However, a blogger yesterday sent links to a lot of new (to me) photos, including one dated 4/18 (presumably meant to be 4/17) allegedly from the RGA mtg. Not sure this location is accurate, but if so, that would be important. Also, just for the sake of accuracy, there are more than 3 photos of Sarah "pregnant," albeit not without scarfs. The strongest item so far, and to my eyes absolutely conclusive, is the definitely non-pregnant photo from 3/26.
--Truthseeker

Anonymous said...

While not expert in PhotoShop, I was a professional photographer. Re the similarity of the 2 photos, I think it's not surprising that the 2 photos, taken 3 minutes apart, would be very similar. Sarah has the same frozen smile, but she is not exactly the same in both -- her hair is slightly different.

I looked for signs of photo-editing in the photos with the two men, and if it was done, it was very well done, because I can't see it. Sarah is looking slightly away from the camera, causing a reflection (of the lights?) in her glasses, but the overall lighting is the same on the 3 of them.

I agree Sarah is the blurriest person in the other photo, and that she and the reporter are similar distances from the camera -- so that is a little odd -- but the photo overall is pretty poor, so even substantive things like chains and hair wisps can disappear due to the lack of sharpness. I would put it on the back burner, and hesitate to read too much into it.

Anonymous said...

I'm still bothered by Palin being out of focus in the first shot while Gusty is in focus.

Also, does anyone know if these two women are the same height? They look to be in the photo - but in reality! Palin looks as if she has been dropped into that first shot.

Thirdly, the perspective looks odd in both photos. In the first one, her head is a good bit below the top of the picture. In the second, it seems nearly level to the top of the pic. McAllister also seems unusually tall when compared to the door frame. I know it is hard to judge what angle the photos were taken from, but these are things that I'm noticing!

Anonymous said...

Three times is a charm.

For the third time I have to say that this is the exact same photo image of Sarah.

The first photo was the one with the 2 guys by her side. It has somehow been "lifted" or "overlayed" or "imposed" or "interlaced" or "merged" onto the interview picture with Andrea Gusty.

*That is why she is looking straight ahead and not at the camera man.

*That is why the clothes are laying exactly the same way.

*That is why her hair is exactly the same.

*That is why her expression is exactly the same.

The necklace? I think it's lost in the quality of the "lifted" picture.

Can angles of subjects be changed as it is superimposed? If so, then that is the answer to this one particular mystery.

Sorry to be so persistent.

Anonymous said...

So if there were three minutes or so between photographs then the men also changed there clothes in that 3 minutes?

sissy

Anonymous said...

I think somebody is messing with you guys. Looks to me like the cross/necklace in the blurry screenshot was itself photoshopped out.

Anonymous said...

I want so badly to learn the truth whatever the truth is. I believe she lied about something. But I just don't think photos are the way we're going to learn anything. I think photos can be scrutinized too subjectively. Some want to know why this or why that and it's all spectulation. We all want to find the smoking gun and are seeing the Virgin Mary in the smoke.

This story won't break until someone with knowledge breaks. At this point there are so many references to so many things said and done that are based on sparse knowldge. Some sites mistake Willow for Bristol, people question why one would wear a jacket inside, some question if hair highlights match, would she use pregnancy stuffing boarding a plane?

As Audrey has said, the real question is in the labor story. THAT is the ground zero. Her doctor is at the middle of that issue. Her doctor lied to the press or she admittedly risked her patients' safety. At some point the doctor will be the key. No matter what photos are found or what kind of suspicion is around the lack of photos, these pictures are worth a thousand words but none are the right words.

Maybe we can gain some insight when Bristol's baby is born. But the way things go with this family, something weird will surround that announcement.

As Fox Mulder says, "I want to believe" but I want to believe in something tangible not something fraught with what if's and wishful interpretations.

As much as we all want the pictures to be something, let's try to be 110% objective and less presumptive. I want the country to know our instincts were right when we have something to take seriously. I don't want to look goofy. I want America to say, "Holy crap!! They were right about her." If we get distracted by the wrong things we just look petty.

Jennifer

Anonymous said...

Who are the people we see reflected in the mirror behind Sarah Palin? That might be more useful than checking the reflection in her glasses.

Ivy Freeborn

Anonymous said...

We should ot forget that it was Andrea Gusty herself that supplied this picture to www.factcheck.org in order to "debunk" the rumour that SP was not pregnant.

What was Andrea's motivation to do that?

See here the report here:

http://wire.factcheck.org/2008/09/16/forget-it-jake/

Full article (from Sep 16 2008)

+++

"Muting the Mommy Melodrama

The Internet is abuzz with the rumor that Palin’s youngest child, Trig, is not actually her son but her grandson, born to her teenage daughter Bristol and adopted by Palin to cover up the scandal. Aside from a DNA test, it’s unlikely we’ll convince the hard-core conspiracy theorists and skeptics that this rumor is totally false (it could be argued that not even a DNA test would suffice for some). But this photo, which has been making its way around the Web, shows a very pregnant Palin alongside CBS’ KTVA 11 reporter Andrea Gusty:
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with CBS KTVA 11 reporter Andrea Gusty

We spoke with Gusty, who sent us this copy of the photo, and she told us she was surprised the photo had made it onto the Internet. “I was under the impression that nobody had it except for me.” When we asked her if the photo circulating online had been altered in any way, she said there was “no photoshopping,” and that the photo was taken during a live interview with Palin in mid-April 2008, at the end of the state Legislature’s regular session. “About a week after that picture was taken, [Palin] actually gave birth to Trig,” Gusty told FactCheck.org. “I actually did an interview with her about two or three days after she had given birth. And that’s when she and Todd introduced the baby to the world.” The Palins formally announced the birth of their fifth child on April 18.

Aside from the photo, the rumor is also contradicted by Palin’s recent announcement of Bristol’s (confirmable) pregnancy. If Bristol is in fact five months pregnant – and again, we’re not obstetricians either – then she couldn’t be 5-month-old Trig’s mother.

–Emi Kolawole and Jess Henig"

+++

Why is she saying “I was under the impression that nobody had it except for me.”??? What does that mean? Where does this picture come from anyway? Is it her "private" picture? Wasn't she aware that it was posted on flickr on 31st August 2008?

Many open questions there.

Patrick

Anonymous said...

These shots were uplifted directly from the site and we have also checked this against the shot that Gusty hereself released to Fact org. The exif content is the exact same. If the shot has been photoshopped as anonymous at 6.32 claims, then they must have been photoshopped before they were put on the site.

Kathleen

Anonymous said...

I do take this seriously- clearly Sarah Palin is, in fact, a whack job, as the McCain staffers succinctly put it, and of course I don't want SP in any office or position of leadership. But it's tremendous fun to follow this along. Audrey, not to put down the sterling work you're doing, but there's a Lifetime movie here!

Ivy Freeborn

Anonymous said...

Oliver Stone and "No Way Out" rolled up into one!

Waiting...

Anonymous said...

Oops! I apparently got a fact wrong in a post above. I said that Bill McAllister was already working as SP's press secretary in April when the two pics in question were taken. I was misremembering the date of the article where I first saw him cited as press secretary. (The article was titled "Rumor Patrol -- Baby drama" in Alaska Daily News, 8/31/08, which addressed the rumors that arose last spring.) A post after mine said McAllister became press secretary in August; I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that.

But if, as I argued, that is indeed Bill McAllister holding the video camera, it remains a very strange and suggestive fact. He was a reporter/columnist for KTUU, an NBC affiliate; why in the world would he be shooting video for KTVA, a CBS affiliate? It makes no sense. So if that is in fact McAllister holding the video camera, the best explanation still is that the whole scene was staged. Also, the fact that he got a plum state job working for Palin raises the question of tit-for-tat.

I'd be interested in whether others reach the same conclusion I did about the shooter being McAllister. Just do a search of Google/images using "Bill McAllister, Alaska" as your search terms, then compare his appearance in those pics of him you find with that of the the shooter, paying very close attention to the somewhat oddly shaped ear, as well head shape, hair color, etc.

Brad

Anonymous said...

I agree with Audrey that even if the chain is not there, the cross would likely be visible.

I have been looking at this photo off and on for a couple days and something kept bugging me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Today I noticed that my eyes kept being drawn to Palin's shoulder area so I pulled the picture into my graphics program to take a closer look.

I have uploaded 2 cut outs from this photo here:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/morissia/

The bottom one is the 100% size crop out and it shows the area around her shoulder where you can see it looks a little off..like there is something behind her or something. It's lumpy behind her shoulder.

The larger picture is a crop out of the area enlarged to 600% which, of course, makes it quite grainy (particularly given the already poor quality of the picture), but you can really see that there is something odd in her shoulder area (at least to my eyes).

It can't be part of the door frame as it doesn't look "solid" to me and it looks to be black vs the brown of the door frame.

As I was typing this post up, I had a thought and just tested it out. I can't get it conclusive enough that I want to post it, but maybe someone else can and I will keep trying.

If you look at the picture where she is standing between the 2 men, her shoulder is against the gentleman's suit coat.

The pictures are not the same size so I took my cutout and enlarged it to close to the same size as Palin in the Gusty pic.

I think make it more transparent and started trying to line it up. I wouldn't swear to it in a court of law or anything, but it lines up very interestingly and that dark "soft" splotchy area that kept drawing my eye lines up right on the guys suit jacket.

The angle of her arm is also *really* close to the same and the angle of her neckline can be lined up almost exactly (probably even closer if the pics were the exact same size), thanks to that little notch in the collar of her coat.

Things that make you go hmmm......

Anonymous said...

I'm going to post my comments from the prior article to this thread--this relates to the THREE pictures accompanying the Gusty news report originally posted online by KTVA but REMOVED from the internet. I think one of the pictures was of Gusty and the cameraman--without the Governor---and someone (possibly the young man in the other questionable picture with a smile looking like he's been let in on a huge secret)put her in the picture.
(thanks to Ski-Daddle for the lead!)

I purchased the text of the Gusty news article; here it is: KTVA - www.ktva.com (Anchorage, Alaska)
Date: April 14, 2008
Section: News
Article ID: 8925182

90-day session wraps with more than 700 bills introduced and less than half voted on
Author: Andrea Gusty, CBS 11 News Reporter
The halls are silent in our state Capitol after a bustling 90-day session wrapped up late Sunday night.
More than 700 bills were introduced and less than half were voted on. Those that did make it are headed to the governor's desk for approval.
The halls that were bustling just Sunday, are now silent. Lawmakers have finished the state's business in 90 days. It was a jam-packed 90 days. All in all, 186 bills passed. Most lawmakers call the session a success, but they admit they had some disappointments as well.
We saw approval for forward funding for schools, municipal revenue sharing, several crime bills and an effort to save a record five billion dollars.
"We took the task on of working, not on Republican issues or Democratic issues, but on Alaskan issues. And I think that was the key to the success of our group," said Senator Lyman Hoffman (D), Bethel.
"We did some things I didn't like, but we did some good things. And overall, we are going down the road in a good direction," said Representative David Guttenberg (D), Fairbanks.
Along with its successes, the shortened 90-day session had its disappointments for lawmakers: bills that just could make it though because of time constraints.
"We found out this year that there is only time to work on the really big ideas: we worked on savings, education. We worked on the budget. And a lot of little ideas just didn't make it through the system," said the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Senator Hollis French.
Of the 731 bills introduced, only 186 made it through. There wasn't even enough time to get some to a vote, like funding for Denali Kid Care and an energy credit bill for all Alaskans.
"I don't care what anybody else says, chopping 30 days off the session means you get less done," said Representative Mike Doogan (D), Anchorage.
As always, the budgets were hotly debated by lawmakers. In the end, they approved record spending: more than 13.9 billion in the operating and capital budgets. Governor Palin says both are too high.
"This is where the checks and balances come in. If I take some actions that lawmakers are not pleased with, in terms of vetoing, streamlining or creating efficiencies, if lawmakers don't like that, there is always the veto override that can take place," said Governor Sarah Palin (R), Alaska.
With the session now in the books, the next phase of the work begins: deciding to either institute the new bills and laws, or to veto.
Governor Palin now has 20 workdays to veto any piece of legislation, including the budgets. As for lawmakers, they're now looking toward the upcoming gas pipeline special session, which is set to convene in about a month. But they could call themselves right back to Juneau before then and get back to work.
To contact Andrea Gusty, call 907-273-3186.


Photo:

Photo:

Photo:

(c) 2008 KTVA. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.

I tried to click on the photo links but of course they have been pulled:

The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
________________________________________
Please try the following:
• Make sure that the Web site address displayed in the address bar of your browser is spelled and formatted correctly.
• If you reached this page by clicking a link, contact the Web site administrator to alert them that the link is incorrectly formatted.
• Click the Back button to try another link.
HTTP Error 404 - File or directory not found.
Internet Information Services (IIS)


In the picture Sarah looks like a proud mom-to-be—projecting sweetness and accentuating her belly by resting her hands on it. This demeanor is totally inconsistent with the subject matter of the article---the busy legislative session just ended; now the Governor (not the mommy) will review the bills and determine what to veto and what to sign into law.

Not to mention that Gusty twice mentions that the "halls are silent."

Hmmm; more inconsistencies.

L.

Anonymous said...

Please consider the authenticity ??of the picture of three people: (1) Bill McAllister, hired by Palin from KTUU after she approached him and commented that the rumors about Bristol aren't true; (2) Dan Carpenter? cameraman for KTUU-here is a link provided by thegatekey yesterday showing him getting the BEST shot of Palin of all the photogs present: http://gov.state.ak.us/large_photo.php?id=202
and (3)Governor Palin, projecting the most NONGOVERNOR-like, most MOMMY-like image she can muster.

My post from last night:
Some thoughts regarding the picture with three people: The body position of Sarah doesn’ t look life-like with respect to her proximity to the two men:

(1) Would a young cameraman look that “cool” if he were really being photographed standing next to the Governor? He [Dan Carpenter] looks kind of cocky—head tilted and arms bent with hands in his pockets. (That plus his thumbs sticking out of his pockets probably mean something to experts in body language.)

(2)During my pregnancies, I never wanted my pregnant belly to touch others (especially men) whom I was with on a professional basis. I would have turned my belly toward the front, toward the camera—not towards McAllister’s arm, where Sarah’s belly is positioned.

(3) I also think the Governor would have stood in front of the other two men—she’s the boss—she has the most power in the group.

(4) Palin usually smiles crisply for the camera; this is a soft, un-focused gaze like she’s alone in her own world, contrasted with the two men who have crisp smiles directed toward the camera.

L.

Sunshine1970 said...

Out of curiosity, I blew up the image in something called the Gimp 2.6.1 (a free photo editor similar to Photoshop--probably the equivalent would be PS 7, maybe 6--it can be downloaded from here: The Gimp). I zoomed in to 469% on the image and I do see a slightly different coloration on her neck where a necklace might be, like a light shining on it. It's right in the area where the necklace was in the 2nd photos.

Also, every person's monitor is different, color calibration, whether using a CRT or a FP, so that is something to take into consideration when looking at photos.

I'm not sure what, if anything this has to do with whether or not Palin was pregnant (or faking) There's no way to date these photos, since the exif date and possibly time is incorrect. All these two photos show that at some time before it was uploaded in August that there was a woman who was either pregnant or wearing an empathy belly. Nothing more or less.

*shrugs*

Anonymous said...

may be completely irrelevant, but i noticed that the dimensions of the two pictures are different. one is 1024x768, the other 1000x750. Had they both been from the same camera and just whisked straight to an upload, the pic dimensions would be the same. but at least one of them was resized.

Anonymous said...

fwiw, in photoshop, if you resize the necklace pic to 50% (bicubic-smooth gradient), she is then the same size in both pics. then if you apply a lens blur filter with a radius of 5 (shape hexagon 6), she's blurred to a degree comparable if not worse than the non-necklace pic. YET, in this substantially lens blurred pic, you can still make out the necklace.

Anonymous said...

Let's analyze this statement:

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with CBS KTVA 11 reporter Andrea Gusty

We spoke with Gusty, who sent us this copy of the photo, and she told us she was surprised the photo had made it onto the Internet. “I was under the impression that nobody had it except for me.” When we asked her if the photo circulating online had been altered in any way, she said there was “no photoshopping,” and that the photo was taken during a live interview with Palin in mid-April 2008, at the end of the state Legislature’s regular session. “About a week after that picture was taken, [Palin] actually gave birth to Trig,” Gusty told FactCheck.org. “I actually did an interview with her about two or three days after she had given birth. And that’s when she and Todd introduced the baby to the world.” The Palins formally announced the birth of their fifth child on April 18.

Aside from the photo, the rumor is also contradicted by Palin’s recent announcement of Bristol’s (confirmable) pregnancy. If Bristol is in fact five months pregnant – and again, we’re not obstetricians either – then she couldn’t be 5-month-old Trig’s mother.
************
First let's assume no photoshop. It can be detected.
Mid April is? April 13-17?
The "end of the Legislature's session" is not necessarily the same as AFTER it ended. (The end of the session could actually be the last 3-4 weeks.)
Read this closely:
“About a week after that picture was taken, [Palin] actually gave birth to Trig,” Gusty told FactCheck.org.
It does not say "Sarah." What was the original term used? She or Palin could easily refer to Bristol.
***********
“I actually did an interview with her about two or three days after she had given birth. And that’s when she and Todd introduced the baby to the world.”
The press interviewed Bristol at the hospital where she declined (on orders?) from having her picture taken with Trig. So Bristol could still be the "she" referenced here. She and Todd introduced "the baby" doesn't say "their" baby to the world. Wasn't the Heath "hospital visit" the introduction to the world?
***********
The Palins formally announced the birth of their fifth child on April 18.
Note the above sentence is worded so that it does not say the "fifth" child was born on April 18, rather it says the child was announced on April 18. If deception is involved, the plan would have been to announce the birth after the return from Texas.
If Trig is adopted he is still accurately called Sarah & Todd's fish picker "child."

If Gusty is in on the secret, she may well have been speaking the truth that a week after the picture of Palin was taken at the Statehouse a Palin gave birth, and that she interviewed that Palin.

About 2 or 3 days could really be 4 or five days. Otherwise one would merely say 2 or 3 days rather than using the qualifier, "about."
********
If Bristol is in fact five months pregnant – and again, we’re not obstetricians either – then she couldn’t be 5-month-old Trig’s mother.
Of course Bristol could have been 4 month's pregnant OR she could have been 6 month-old Trig's mother. Neither precludes Gusty's quote.

Anonymous said...

anon. at 6:21 a.m. yes!!!!

"The first photo was the one with the 2 guys by her side. It has somehow been "lifted" or "overlayed" or "imposed" or "interlaced" or "merged" onto the interview picture with Andrea Gusty."

I bet a KTUU photographer/cameraman knows how to do that---how to reverse or manipulate photographic or digital images. I bet that someone could lift an image from one media, turn it or manipulate it a little, then insert it into another picture.

Remember, the 3 pictures accompanying the 4/14/08 KTUU/Andrea Gusty report on the ending of the leg. session have been REMOVED from the KTUU archives. I'd sure wish I could have seen those 3 orignal pictures.

Also remember, the guy on the left in the pic. with Palin and McAllister is a CAMERAMAN for KTUU. See thegatekey's earlier links (on yesterday's thread) to his picture filming Palin. (both links still work--pic. not pulled yet!!)here is one:
http://tinyurl.com/5kx949

http://gov.state.ak.us/photos/govpalinreturn_nov7_p03.jpg

Okay, now we're getting somewhere!

L.

Cynthia Rose said...

Regarding the photo mentioned in a previous comment located at http://gov.state.ak.us/
large_photo.php?id=116

how is this proof when she is standing behind a podium?

luna1580 said...

ok, now i understand anon's repeated comments about the "exactly the same" photos. i didn't get what you were implying before.

so here's the answer: there is no way to "lift and spin" an image from front to profile (or 3/4 profile) from single existing image. none. impossible.

here is how to understand why:

look at something you can only see one side of, right now, from where you're sitting (or standing, reclining, whatever). a camera (film or digital) works like your eyes -it focuses the light reflecting from objects and records them as data. your brain interprets the data, a camera just records it.

look back at your object -i'm looking at a door painted white- you can mentally "spin" it because your mind remembers or imagines what the other side (which you can NOT actually see from your angle) looks like.

a camera cannot do this. it cannot "show" the subject angled from a new view unless the camera moves and records the reflected light, the data, from the object at the new angle.

there is no software (unless it's unreleased at some private programer's house, or classified military) that could project or "imagine" what the new data would look like on the unrecorded angle unless it had an IMMENSE amount of very similar other data (in our case other camera shots) to draw from and make estimates using mathematical formulas to create the "unseen" shot, and it would only be the best estimate of reality those formulas could make. this is how they add digital effects to movies and we know some are better than others.

if the person who "created" this pic had the THOUSANDS of frames of data of sarah's head and body from every angle -and in front of a green screen- such a program would need to "imagine" an unseen side of her face they would just publish that side shot. sheesh.

really, i think someone just took 2 snap-shots at and after gusty's interview.

the first is auto-focused on gusty's face which left the governor blurry, maybe they had the depth of field set wrong. MAYBE they did that on purpose to make the photo look like it was snapped on the fly as an after thought -not staged carefully to "prove" SP's "pregnancy"- it's possible.

and then 3 minutes later they took another SP photo from a new angle with the guys. and her hair looks the same. how messed up do your bangs get inside a building with no wind blowing (obviously) in 3 minutes?

i want SP to go down, but i don't think these shots have been altered. i DO think they may have been staged, but i don't know how that could be proved by analyzing the pixels. looks like audrey's going to try, though.

luna

Anonymous said...

I agree that the necklace issue doesn't seem very big, but I think the point Audrey is making w/out saying it directly is that she's asking an expert to see if the photo has been photoshopped. I'm sure they will not look at only the necklace, but the blurriness of Sarah relative to the others etc. At least I hope they won't just look at the necklace. My personal opinion is that this is a staged shot after the fact.

I just watched the video of her from the Dallas conference. She looks extremely uncomfortable up there. She doesn't have her cheery face on, it looks like her smile plastered on, and keeps fidgeting with her hair (nervous gesture.)

ANON: GREAT IDEA!!!!!

"Audrey, I'm curious about the EXIF date/time. Has anyone checked with the camera manufacturer to see what the default date/time is out of the box? Assuming the date/time was never set, I wonder what 3/19/05 would be calculate to based on the default date. Of course, even if it were after the delivery date, it wouldn't be definitive proof, but one more straw on the camel's back ..."

Please pursue this someone!!! That and looking for the offices these pix were shot in front of seem like the best tactics to deal w/these photos/verifying authenticity.

Anonymous said...

OK. I was just on the 'BREAKING NEWS: KTVA Has LOTS of unseen footage o... ' site and someone pointed out that the photographer ahd a different shirt on from the first to the second picture (besides the seeming fact that he seems to be of different ages in both pics). I don't know if anyone has mentioned it here yet, but that definitely caught my eye, and it would make the exif info given on here totally not valid - the pics could not/would not have been able to be taken within 3 minutes, would they?

Just Me

Anonymous said...

Patrick and I would like to say that we are pleased that our observation with regard to the supposed missing necklace photo has led to such a stimulating discussion and examination of it.

It was never our intention to state that my observation of the apparent absence of the necklace in the second blurred photo of SP was a material piece of evidence and that it could lead to any conclusive facts. Neither of us are that naive. Rather we hoped that my observation would draw attention to the other anomalies that we believe are present in these photographs. Anomalies that have been alluded to and are indeed being discussed on Audrey's blog both here and on other posts.

We support Audrey 100 per cent in her search for the truth and applaud her for taking the action of having a professional person examine these photos which have in themselves raised so much speculation.

Well done Audrey.

Kathleen and Patrick

Anonymous said...

Again: Check out the different shirts/different hairstyles/colors that one guy has - all within supposedly 3 minutes. His hair in the second pic looks shorter, and is wet, too

Anonymous said...

Ellie,

Do you have a link to the video of Palin at the Dallas conference? I'd like to see that as well.

To be frank, I don't believe Palin's committed any crime by lying about giving birth to Trig. Yes, she's been a "naughty girl", but were any laws broken? Be that as it may, I'm glad you are pursuing this, since Palin very nearly became this country's leader (SHUDDER!). And the key with Audrey's approach that it's simply assembling a set of facts and evidence. A simple statement from the doc "I attended the delivery and Sarah is the bio mom of Trig" would shut this down. So, doc, come forward and state that. If you can.

I find Palin fascinating, because she's so obvious in her deceits. The "wild ride" story, the "breast-pump at night" claim, the video with her stating "I could hide my pregnancy because I have great abs", etc., just scream "BS!". What I find truly appalling is that many choose not to see the deceit, simply because Palin's views on religion/abortion/politics agree with theirs. The Republican party had a number of qualified VP candidates; they didn't need to nominate a nut-case.

And I feel dreadfully sorry for her kids, who appear to suffer greatly from having a "drama queen" mom.

luna1580 said...

kathy, some on this blog have speculated that it would be insurance fraud for SP to claim trig as her son if he is not. it would give him access to her state plan and the coverage todd receives in alaska because of his native blood, which he wouldn't be entitled to if not their child.

the thing with this is, wouldn't their legally adopted child have the same rights to any coverage, with the exception of the "native blood part"? and i can't imagine the coverage offered to the descendants of alaska's first peoples is gold plated -this is a state where some people in the bush have no plumbing and have to pay $10-$20/gallon for heating oil or milk, it's not like the state is showering everyone with social services, i don't think a native health plan would be an exception. but "stealing" access to it would still be fraud.

Anonymous said...

I realize that it makes sense that different people can see different things in this photo. I have a very high resolution monitor on one computer, and I can see a faint but distinct line that looks like the necklace. It is not visible with screen on another computer. I think there are legitimate questions about many things that don't add up, but this necklace thing is not one of them.

BodieP said...

About those photos: I'm something of a Photoshop Phreak (I'm a designer who's been working with the program since it was Photoshop. Period. That's a long time. Here are a few questions:

1. Resolution. I'm thinking that the second photo must be cropped from a much larger image. If not, it might be a "picture of a picture," which could account for the degraded image, if the two photos were taken on the same camera at the same time.

2. The amazing inflatable Sarah thing. The full-face image shows clear, spare lines on her face, INCLUDING her jaw line. Even allowing for the fuzziness of the second image, it looks to me like there's a double chin that descends low enough to be visible front on. Where did it go? Even if we don't see the chin per se, that second image would seem to indicate a significantly softer face--again, even allowing for the poor resolution.

luna1580 said...

nothing to do w/the necklace, but a follow-up on the "native blood" insurance thing.

uhm, it doesn't exist. this is as close as you'll get, treatment at alaska native medical center in anchorage, and it won't be free.
ANMC

in fact, 38% of alaska's natives under 65 have no form of medical insurance, according to the CDC.

so whoever was pushing that as the motivation for the whole deception (it was in another comment thread) can throw it out the window.

Anonymous said...

Just a quick note to say the hair is not identical in the two photos. Note in the sharper image, her hair drapes over her neck (and the famous necklace chain) but in the other photo, it does not. But, if the photos are actually taken 3 minutes apart, there is no reason why her hair would not look quite similar.

Anonymous said...

Brodie, would a picture of a picture be a cunning way to conceal any photoshop activity in the exif data?

What is your take on the first photo - why is the resolution better than the second photo?

Would this help explain the short time frame between the images?

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Patrick & Kathleen--

the "More Properties" of the pictures states that "Flash did not fire" on both pictures.

Sounds interesting (?), especially with respect to the picture of 3 people, since no other source of lighting is apparent.

L.

Anonymous said...

What about a picture of a picture of a picture?

How far are people willing to bank their reputations on random images from Flickr accounts?

I too would love to see Sarah squirm at some pointed questions about what happened on the day Trig was born, but if this is as close as the opposition gets to making a case, it's no wonder she doesn't.

Anonymous said...

So...factcheck decided that Sarah must be Trig's mom because Gusty said so? So Gusty is the doctor who delivered Trig?

Sounds like factcheck just caved in on that one.

Anonymous said...

Comment at 8.35

"How far are people willing to bank their reputations on random images from Flickr accounts?"

Hah! This an easy question to answer.

Andrea gave the picture to factcheck.org and that was good enough to debunk the rumours.

See here

http://wire.factcheck.org/2008/09/16/forget-it-jake/

Anonymous said...

Hah! This an easy question to answer.

Who goes to factcheck.org for anything?

Just proves my point, that ANYBODY can put ANYTHING on the internet and claim it's credible.

Anonymous said...

From http://www.adn.com/palinfamily/story/336402.html :
"Palin said she's already about seven months along, with the baby due to arrive in mid-May.

That the pregnancy is so advanced astonished all who heard the news. The governor, a runner who's always been trim, simply doesn't look pregnant.

Even close members of her staff said they only learned this week their boss was expecting.

"I thought it was becoming obvious," Palin said. "You know, clothes getting snugger and snugger."

But people just couldn't believe the news.

"Really? No!" said Bethel state Rep. Mary Nelson, who is close to giving birth herself.


"It's wonderful. She's very well-disguised," said Senate President Lyda Green, a mother of three who has sometimes sparred with Palin politically. "When I was five months pregnant, there was absolutely no question that I was with child." "

BodieP said...

Taking a picture of a picture would, I believe, change the exif info, since the camera wouldn't know it was shooting a picture; it would only register the data about an image being shot. That seems like a weird thing for a photographer to do (also pretty calculated--it would seem to imply that the photographer was in on the hoax, and if that were the case, why not shoot a clear picture?) The image inconsistencies are interesting, but given the poor quality of the one I wouldn't want to hang my hat on a comparison.

Anonymous said...

Something that perplexes me about the photo of the two men and SP is how the men are dressed. Even the cameraman is all dressed up in a pinstripe suit -- not what he normally wears on the job, based on other photos. Why? Was there some news organizations awards dinner or a party for the end of the legislative session, or some other event that would warrant the finery? If so, there must be photos and perhaps they would allow accurate dating of this photo.

Anonymous said...

As far as medical ins. I think that is a viable "deception" since Trig is a special needs child. SP was associated with a (Christian) teen pregnancy counseling center, That anywhere else would be similar to a Planned Parenthood place, but this place counseled the teens to have the child and give them up for adoption (to Christian families) but since they tested and saw Trig has DS he would not of been adoptable, so SP is "suddenly pregnant" and "has" Trig, she Has gov. ins that all Gov. people have. If Bristol is/was covered it would of ended in Oct when she turned 18. Pictures nowadays are not creditable "evidence" with photoshop. Need eye witnesses, and I still believe ADN sitting on something, or the Enquirer, but were threatened with legal issues from McCains goons. (maybe SP too)
Someone, in Wasilla knows the truth!
~crystalwolf

Anonymous said...

anon 6.04

"Why? Was there some news organizations awards dinner or a party for the end of the legislative session, or some other event that would warrant the finery?"

Ugh! Did you see the stain on his tie?

Anonymous said...

My feeling is that everyone is getting too ditracted by the phot's. we know they show that she definately was not pregnant. There was a story that was going to come out in Alaska and that story was bought and is being kept quiet somewhere. Others have to now try to come forward wtih their stories. People will pay for them! Just because the first one was covered up does not mean if you know something you should keep it quiet. Come forward!! Do not let Sarah Palin's bulling tactics win. They will only get worse for more people in Alaska.