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The President's bulge: a first debate SNAFU? 2004-10-08 - 1:32 p.m. 
As you can see from one of my favorite sites, Electoral-Vote.com, Kerry continues to gather strength from the first debate performance and what can only be described as a geyser of minority voter registration--sometimes reaching into thousands and maybe even tens of thousands on a daily basis.But that isn't what has me tickled pink. Recently, Salon.com ran a story about the President's having a radio-transmitter strapped to his back during the first debate. The written agreement between the two candidates had been that absolutely no notes or devices of any kind could be used to aid either of the candidates. But oddly, there was a provision that there would be no back shots of either of the candidates. But a "pool camera" got this image: A blocky bulge pushing out at the President's jacket. How was this image obtained? The non-partisan moderator of electoral-vote.com got the unaltered verson from Salon.com, used Red Hawk image intensification software (developed for NASA), which combines multiple images into a sharper image and then had the contrast enhanced with Photoshop. Other than cropping and resizing of the image, no other manipulation was done. Frankly, I know photoshop and editing software quite well from my photography experience--and I believe it'd be next to impossible to create the crease lines of the jacket material around the alleged transmitter, let alone how the jacket minutely bulges from what looks like a cord. Something is quite likely there--and it's rectangular and a cord device of some kind is coming from it. If other investigative reporters can confirm this, the election is off. Kerry's people would have a FIELD DAY and throw so much (well-deserved) trash on the President's way that he'd never recover. I can only hope. Really, really, really hope. I don't care for the idea of getting drafted and dying in a country like Syria or Iran--among a list of other things. So I'm going to stop studying around 6:30, get a bite, then head over to Mr. Teagles' apartment to get politically snarky with a bunch of other graduate students. The second debate begins tonight at 9pm EST, you see. If you want to watch the whole thing without commentary or bizarre camera shots, got to C-SPAN.org and get a live feed. C-SPAN is about as non-partisan as you can get. In short: I am so incredibly amused and happy. |
