Flick past righwing talk radio, and I hear a caller say something to the effect of, “This marks a moment in time. We would have gotten the word out if it were not for the bloggers, instead everyone would’ve taken the so-called expert at CBS News.”

He’s referring to the sudden influx of experts on Vietnam-era Kerning. It so happens that what people know about Vietnam era kerning directly relates to whether they’re voting for Kerry or Bush, but… (And if you wish to know which side I’m going to tend toward: the side that is all about the warped Kerns all swear to the validity of The Swift Boat Veterans for Obfuscation.)

You know, I know about some obscure topics as well! Hopefully, one of these days, a political debate will rage (in a manner that can only happen on the Internet) that will require knowledge of the history of the bread-clip to sort out who’s telling the truth and who’s blowing smoke.

In the meantime…

# of posts on usenet that use the word “Kerning” posted between September 8 and September 11, 2004: 420.

# of posts on usenet that use the word “kerning” posted between August 1 and August 31, 2004: 291.

I’d venture to guess that you can count the number of the posts in August that discuss what the kerning looked like on Vietnam – era documents you can count on one hand… assuming the number doesn’t form a fist.

Here’s the wikki on Kerning. Just so you know: It is commonly confused with tracking, but these are two separate concepts. So make sure that you don’t mix those two terms up!

…

(As a aside, and as a rule, I find it difficult to care about Bush’s Vietnam – era controversy… don’t expect much from me on that topic.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 11th, 2004 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.