Wow. After I wrote a post last week about the "birthers," cranks who believe that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii, and therefore is not a natural born U.S. citizen, and therefore is not eligible to be President of the United States. Like all good conspiracy theorist cranks, they trot out all sorts of reasons why all the evidence showing that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii 48 years ago today is invalid or how there is a huge coverup. (Isn't there always in any good conspiracy theory?) Meanwhile, they constantly demand that they be "shown the birth certificate." As if that would shut them up. If anyone would show them what they wanted, they'd look it over and piously declare it a forgery.
Yes, for sheer craziness birthers are hard to beat, and my interest in skepticism and critical thinking has led me to pay a bit more attention to them than I did before, particularly today, which happens to be Barack Obama's 48th birthday. After all, how on earth can they believe something for which there is no evidence and against which there is a lot of evidence? Lately, they've even released an alleged Kenyan birth certificate for Barack Obama, which is an obvious and blatant forgery, with others identifying the likely source. In response, Birther-In-Chief Orly Taitz had a hissy fit.
The more I look at the depths of looniness to which birthers are willing to descend, the more I see alien abductees, JFK conspiracy theorists, moon hoaxers, Holocaust deniers, and 9/11 Truthers. They're all playing from the same playbook.
Here's what I say. If you're going to forge a birth certificate, do it right. I've found the most convincing document yet proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that President Obama is an alien--and I do mean alien:
The conspiracy runs far deeper than even birthers can know, and Jesus' General manfully (as usual) concurs. No, Obama is not even the Antichrist. You pathetic birthers have no chance against the might of the this conspiracy. It won't be long before the lizard men and black oil are revealed. Barack Obama's ascension to the Presidency is just the beginning. Muhahahahahahaha!
You know, I'm starting to feel sorry for the birthers. They're making moon hoax conspiracy theorists seem sane by comparison.
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The birther phenomenon is equal parts scary and hilarious. On one hand, it drowns out legitimate criticism from the right and might have the effect of driving a wedge in the GOP and alienating moderates. This I like. On the other hand, it is really scary because of the xenophobic undertones. Many people argue that there are racist undertones, but I can't help think that it's more xenophobic/islamophobic. Either way, it's scary, particularly in desperate, blame-happy context of an economic recession. On the third hand (I read that the Anti-Christ has three hands) these people are absolutely hilarious. These days I can't decide if I like Sarah Palin or Orly Taitz interviews more. Keep the forged birth certificates coming, you lunatics!
237-74-12009854
TO: OREC
Dear Sir, Madam, or Thing,
As a senior member of the Information Security Service of the Reptillian Overlord favtion of the Illuminati, I feel it my duty to inform you that the consequences of your continued exposre of this very secret deeply hidden information may result in the implantation of your circuits into a homanid.
Respectfully,
#
Some of them instead (or also) argue that:
1) "Natural born citizen" means "both parents were citizens at the time of birth" (or even "both parents were citizen who were themselves born in the United States").
2) That when Obama was adopted by his stepfather he gained Indonesian citizenship, and since (at the time) Indonesia didn't recognize dual citizenship that his stepfather's adoption meant that his stepfather implicitly rejected his U.S. citizenship for him.
I don't see why they don't concentrate on purely legal arguments like that, since then they wouldn't come off as a bunch of loons. I guess "he wasn't born in the U.S." has more drama and emotional impact.
I consider myself generally pro-Israel, but in this case, shouldn't we be looking at Orly's alleged AIPAC connections, and asking whether right-winger Netenyahu and his rabid US lobby may have something to do with all the airtime the birfers are getting? They've had a compliant Republican ally in the US for eight years, so the sudden replacement of that ally by a man of some Arab background, whose supporters tend to be a bit more critical of Israel's policies, has probably scared them enough that they'd do just about anything to discredit the new regime.
Oh, thanks Orac! Now my whole lab thinks I am : choking, crying, or crazy. That was hilarious! I must ask my friend who grew up on Kenya about what her birth certificate looks like!
It's interesting that the loony train just keeps getting longer. People add new wacky conspiracies all the time, but we never loose the old stuff. Moon landing hoax *and* flat-earthers.
Happy B'day B.O.!
Matthew Cline @3:
The reason they don't stick to the "purely legal arguments" is that the "purely legal arguments" are all crap. For example, even if Indonesia didn't recognize dual citizenship, that has nothing to do with whether or not the US government does, or with the US's rules for how citizenship can be renounced. As it happens, only you can renounce your own US citizenship and you have to be 21 to do it. So Obama's stepfather (or his mother) could not have done it for him.
The "natural born" thing is also garbage; the 14th Amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to mean that if you're born on US soil, you're a natural-born citizen. Period, end of story.
Their other arguments are equally invalid; so they still wind up looking like a bunch of loons. Quite rightly.
cue Bruce Springsteen:
"Born in the USA"
Submitted for your amusement: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/
As a side note, I can't read Orly Taitz's name without pronouncing it "oh really" in my head. Thanks, internet memes!
I have a feeling I may have to pull that one out, since I'm thinking of making my own thread about the Birthers, now that I've read some variety of troll arguments to get a better feel for the whole phenomenon.
Got a good source for this opinion/interpretation/ruling so that I can inevitably shove it in some nut's face?
Bronze Dog:
some relevant SCOTUS cases:
1857 â Dred Scott v. Sandford
1884 â Elk v. Wilkins
1898 â United States v. Wong Kim Ark
1964 â Schneider v. Rusk
1967 â Afroyim v. Rusk
1980 â Vance v. Terrazas
1982 â Plyler v. Doe
details available through the FindLaw search engine
Thank you. :)
I'm Canadian, but I'm only about 10 years Barrack's junior, and I've just pulled out my birth certificate to see what kind of vital information is listed. It's just my name, some rather boring vitals, dates, and certificate number. No doctor's name, no real signature (just one that was printed on the document already), and nothing really interesting. I'd likely get something more if I went to the hospital or government with that document number, but even then, it would just be a typed form listing my rather outdated vitals...
More information on a document doesn't make it more real.
I read in a few places that, according to some treaty the U.S. government signed, that a minor's legal guardians can renounce the minor's citizenship for them, and that if this happens when the minor reaches majority they can then sign a governmental form saying "I don't agree with my parents, I want my citizenship back". According to some birthers: 1) he hasn't gone through that formality, 2) even if he had, he permanently lost his "natural born" citizenship and got back a "naturalized" citizenship.
Wait, wait. I'm confounded. Let's say my great-grandma was born in Canada, then went to Louisiana and had my grandpa. Despite being born on US soil, would he not be a citizen, since one of his parents wasn't? Or would he be some variety of citizen, just not a "natural born" one, despite being a citizen from the moment of his birth? And if he weren't a citizen, when he had kids, since one of their parents was a man without a country, would they be non-natural borns-but-citizens, non-citizens, or would they be natural-born citizens since both their parents were born in the US, even though one of them was not, it seems, a citizen? How many generations would this last?
So basically what I'm asking is, can I get Canadian healthcare?
Why is everyone blowing off the fact that the Hawaii "birth certificate" isn't a copy of the original document? It's obvious at a glance that it wasn't printed in 1961. I don't doubt for a second that Obama was born where and when he claims to be, but I think it's peculiar that the original document remains hidden. This leads one to suspect that there is something embarrassing on that document that was later amended. Perhaps it relates to Obama's paternity, perhaps to his name (Barry Dunham?). I'm brainstorming. Who knows? Is it unreasonable to suspect something is fishy because the original document won't be released?
If you are born on US soil you are an American! But it is a nice conspiracy theory, I am sure Hollywood could make a great movie out of this idea.
Slash:
Yes. Go to your own state's vital records department and order a copy of your own birth certificate. Chances are it will not be the original document but a certified copy.
How many people actually own their original birth certificate from 50 years ago? I used to have mine, but with all the moving around I've done, who knows where it is now. Maybe it's in a box somewhere in my house, but no guarantees.
This post wins eleventy billion brownie points for the X-Files reference.
These people are worrying, most of this is really funny but it's only a matter of time until some one does something stupid. Well they're already being pretty stupid, I mean the dangerous kind of stupid, the kind that gets people hurt.
"Is it unreasonable to suspect something is fishy because the original document won't be released?"
Yes it is. For a start, the purpose of the document is to remain in a secure location to act as a reliable and official proof or birth. Access to the archives is strictly limited. There is no mechanism for release of the document, especially not as it's entire purpose is to be archived in the registry and only in the registry.
Secondly, there is already a 'release' of the document. That is the entire purpose of a birth certificate - to act as the 'release' of the pertinent parts of the main document. Anyone who went to get a copy of the document would only be entitled to what's on the already published and officially validated birth certificate.
Basically, yes, it is a bit silly to whine and moan about 'not releasing the official documents. At best is an arrogant assertion that Joe Bloggs somehow has the right to personal information of the PUSA, but by dismissing the certificate as insufficient, people are dismissing the authourity of the very officials whose departments form the basis of the authourity of the original document.
It's not just unreasonable, but it's actually quite stupid, self-contradictory, implicitly libellious (of the officials involved and Obama) and arrogant.
To the doubters...
Scramble "Barack Hussein Obama" and suprise, suprise...you get "US has a nice 'A' bomb".
Undoubtedly part of the master plan.
Left over is "ark"..which had me fooled. That was until they slipped up and went and got a Portuguese water dog and named him "Bo".
"Barko"...Portuguese for bark.
He was born in Portugal and Portugal thinks we have a nice A bomb.
I'm surprised that the birthers don't just claim that the birth certificate has the birthdate wrong (or that our Reptilian Overlords decreed that it should be changed). If he was 2 years older he would've been born before Hawaii became a state, on August 21, 1959. Are you a citizen if you're born in a United States territory?
Oh man, I hope I didn't give them a new shovelful to throw around...
I have been wondering for a while if these birthers think the president is all powerful, I am not sure how they expect Obama to even get his long form. Do they believe he has the power to force any state official to do his bidding?
I haven't really been following this nonstory; I just something about it when it first hit the news and then bits and pieces since then. However, the phrase "these people have entirely too much free time" springs to mind. Don't these birthers have jobs? It seems to me that they spend an awful lot of time on this stuff. I'm just sayin'...
@Stephanie W.:
According to some, your grandfather would be a citizen, but not a "natural born" citizen. I'm not sure what the term is for "citizen by birth who isn't natural-born".
CulturalIconography :
Well, if the birther is Orly Taitz, not anymore.
Would you seriously want her to be your lawyer, or working around in your mouth as a dentist?! I don't know where I saw it, but apparently she did cancel many appointments for her trip to Tel Aviv.
Don't these birthers have jobs?
Not if they have Taitz for a lawyer.
http://washingtonindependent.com/52415/birther-soldiers-newest-lawsuit-…
Conspiracy theorists always demand evidence, then when they get it, they claim it's fabricated. They have made sure that they can never change their minds.
Rachel Maddow said that Obama was born in 1861 at 00:20 in the clip. Obama looks good for 148 years old. XD
"I think it's peculiar that the original document remains hidden."
The Democrats want the birther thing to run and run. Why stop something that embarrasses their opponents? That makes them look loony, frankly?
I wouldn't pay the birthers any mind. Let them waste their money and time on their bogus suspicions. Unlike the anti-vaxxers, I don't really think the "idea" they're spreading is terribly dangerous. Of course, there are always kooks who will find any excuse for violence, but if these people believe that the Obama presidency is unconstitutional, presumably they'd only try to "remove" him from office via constitutional means (and if a birther lacks the ability to reason this out, then I'd say his problem started way before, and is much larger than any birther rumor). So let these people waste their money on lawsuits.
Thank god someone is worse than some of the autism parents.
Remember that both Honolulu papers had announcements of Obama's birth, as reported by the hospital, officially. So there, neener neener neener.
"Remember that both Honolulu papers had announcements of Obama's birth, as reported by the hospital, officially."
obviously the conspiracy runs deeper than we think, if they had those newspaper ads prepared. I woldn't be surprised to find out that there's a whole string of newspaper articles waiting to be uncovered at the right time.
Raging Bee: why do you say that Obama has "some Arab background"?
By Orly Taitz's logic all UK birth certificates are fake as they only record date, town of birth, country and your parents names (and then the father may be missing).
Elaine @20
In the UK nearly everyone of Obama's age will have their original birth certificate.
When my parents retired and claimed the state pension, they were asked for their birth certificates.
@ Stephanie W.
A friend of mine from Switzerland was telling me that determining citizenship is very convoluted there. One could be born on Swiss soil and have their grandparents and parents also born there and still not be a Swiss citizen because their great-grandparents weren't citizens. By the end of his explaination, I still wasn't sure how one got to be Swiss!
by dismissing the certificate as insufficient, people are dismissing the authourity of the very officials whose departments form the basis of the authourity of the original document.
Excellently spoken! The birthers are basically saying "We will put perfect trust in what you say but only when what you're telling us is what we want to hear!"
Nash@no40
Being somewhat pedantic your parents don't have "original" birth certificates. They will each have a certificate which records the information on them in the register of births and it is the register which counts as the "original". They may well happen to have the first certificate produced from the register for their own births but as they can ask for a new one at any time it is not necessarily the one their parents would have got at the time of registration. That said I agree most UK citizens will have a birth certificate somewhere.
I just heard a news item saying that Obama is getting about 30 death threats per day, and the rate at which he gets them is up by 400% over Bush's term. These death threats, and the relentless phony attacks on the target's legitimacy as President, are not unconnected.
@17 "Why is everyone blowing off the fact that the Hawaii "birth certificate" isn't a copy of the original document?"
Because Hawaii computerized their records and this is what they are issuing now as proof of birth in their state.
I have my "original" birth certificate - it's just a certified with raised seal photocopy of the form that was filed with the state of Montana. That form was typed up by my dad, and signed by the doctor who wasn't there until a week or so after my birth. (so much for reliable - they could have snuck me across the Canadian border in a warming pan)
If I were to ask for a new "birth certificate" from Montana, I would get something that looks a lot like Obama's because Montana also converted most of their birth records to a database. Somewhere in their archives is the actual, paper original, but I'll never get another copy of it.
E. Gordon Liddy spewed forth to Chris Matthews on MSNBC the other week that a Certificate of Live Birth is not the same as a birth certificate.
Coulda fooled me. My NY birth certificate says Certificate of Live Birth right there at the top, and the US Department of State issued me a passport. Ditto for my brother born in Maryland, my daughter born in California, and my daughter born in New Jersey.
This conspiracy is HUGE.
Oh and @Tsu Dho Nimh, even before records were digitized, all I got from NY was a certified copy. Same for the birth certificates from the other states. Just sayin'.
It's a good thing I'm not running for President. Birthers would have a field day with mine. It contains a typographic error, and an amendment to correct the typographic error.
Calli Arcale
It would only be a problem if you ran as a Democrat.
Dave, @#7:
and even then, such an act doesn't necessarily have any legal weight whatsoever. once you hold U.S. citizenship --- on whatever basis --- the only entity that can take it away from you is the U.S. government; there's nothing you can unilaterally do to rid yourself of it.
formally renouncing your citizenship might make the government sit up and notice you long enough to humor your wish to no longer be a citizen. or, then again, it might not; in the end it's up to Uncle Sam, not you.
(most countries' citizenship laws work that way, in fact. this is why the naturalization ceremony's formal abjuration of foreign citizenships when taking on U.S. citizenship is considered in effect legally null, a ritual simply for the form of things, and nobody seriously tries to make it stick in any court of law. they couldn't, anyway, and everybody knows it. this is also most of the reason dual citizenships really can't ever be banned, no matter what any given country might say about them.)
Phil @ 36:
Oh no, Orly has that all worked out. Y'see, Obama's mama clearly was a dishonest criminal sort (being one o' THEM...y'know, Muslim or black, take your pick) and so she wanted to cheat the system by not paying immigration fees for baby Barack, so she filed fake birth announcements, got someone to forge a certificate (much cheaper I'm sure) and covered it all up! It's so blindingly obvious!
At least, something like that is what she babbled out. It was a little hard to follow the full thread. But yeah, basically she's claiming the birth announcements were indeed a fraud, just of some unrelated kind.
Does anyone know how much we really KNOW about Orly? Has she been around for a long time? I ask because frankly, she raises a lot of red flags in this context. She's too good to be true, like a Kaufman or a Borat satire. I can't really believe she IS--I mean, aren't there major consequences for filing frivolous lawsuits as part of some elaborate act, not to mention lots of potential fraud? Yet still. "Orly?" Seriously? O rly? Is Orly a known Russian name? And "Taitz" could be another meme, "tits!" Then there's the irony of an apparent immigrant talking about natural-born citizenship, and apparently pushing a concept of citizenship more like the Swiss example above which would exclude her and many of her theoretical allies. Or this bizarre dentist/lawyer/realtor thing, her artificial physical appearance (I don't mean that as an insult...I mean she simply looks fake, disguised), or her truly over-the-top language...
I'm assuming political wonks know her and that she's genuine. Either way I must agree that this is gold for liberals--the more Orlys, Bachmanns, etc. that they associate themselves with, the better. But I also must agree with some commenters that in this case I'd rather it stopped. This kind of constant whipping up of the fringe is the sort of thing that helps push some nut over the edge into deciding it'd be a great idea to take potshots from a book depository.
Only one thing for it.. ANYONE in the US who cannot produce their original (non computerised, non-copied) birth certificate must immediately return to their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents/n-generation-grandparent's country of origin. If that's the standard of evidence the birthers want..
Only problem could be fitting all the Irish back into Ireland.
I saw an item on the BBC a few years ago which reported that it was impossible for all the Americans who actually claim Irish antecedents to actually have them. It seems that the immigration patterns and the time since the mass emigration from Ireland simply do not allow for the numbers now claiming to have Irish ancestors. Interestingly it seems this only applies for those claiming descent from Catholic Irish immigrants.
Orac:
Glad to see that you like Little Green Footballs.
The truth is really coming out, now. See, Video: Obama Debunks Birth Certificate Conspiracy (Aug. 4, 2009), http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/34365_Video-_Obama_Debunks_Birt…
Among other things, he also debunks the claim that he's a Vampire. However, he admits that he's a -- well -- "alein". Still, there's no prohibition on a "natural born" alein being President.
Actually, I"m not a huge fan of LGF, but this time it produced something pretty funny.
That's because there isn't one. "Natural born" means a citizen from birth, as opposed to "naturalized" which means somebody who acquired citizenship after birth.
Meanwhile, it looks like Orly Taitz went to Australia to get the "Kenyan birth certificate" he's flapping around. See, Is This the Source of the Forged âKenyan Birth Certificate?â (3 Aug. 2009)
http://washingtonindependent.com/53658/is-this-the-source-of-the-forged…
It would be interesting to learn how folks who do things like this make money at it. Is there some Moonbat Sugar Daddy who sends checks to the wierd?
Considering the jokes that have been made about SuperBarack, artistic humorists might benefit from noting that the font DC Comics uses for Kryptonian can be downloaded from numerous places on the web....
Orly Taitz (or Squirrelly T'aints) is a she... and she looks just as sane as she sounds - brittle bleach blonde riot of hair with raccoon lined eyes that tend to show too much white around the pupils.
(And Fred Thompson is a balding, jowly British bulldog with saggy moobs and a pot belly, equal time for those concerned ConcernTrolls&trade who feel criticisms towards a female loon's appearance to be misogynistic)
Well, in Orly's case, if the birther thing doesn't pan out she can always fall back on dentist or real estate careers...
When I requested them I received certified copies (photocopies) of my original North Carolina birth certificate, which was form, that had been completed on a typewriter, and signed by a physician and my mother. Presumably a similar document, or photocopy of said document, exists somewhere in an archive in Hawaii. I understand that Hawaii provides a computerized printout that provides legal certification of birth, and that's what they routinely send when a "birth certificate" is requested. But it's not a copy of the original form. Perhaps most Hawaiians could not obtain a copy of their original birth certificate. But the President? I suspect that the President of the United States could somehow wrangle access to a copy of the actual document, if he wanted to. Like I said earlier, I don't doubt that he was born in Hawaii. But it's possible that there's something embarrassing on that document, related to his name, or to his paternity. And that's why it hasn't been released.
Best conspiracy theory ever. It's flypaper for crazy.
Thanks EV & James. And folks wonder why I've always believed that mind altering drugs are a waste of time. Reality is much too strange. Dr. Orly Taitz, D.D.S., J.D. Her law degree is from a non-accredited correspondence school. Anyone know where her DDS is from? I like the "Dr." prefix -- reminded me of the character in "Wild Hogs". "MEET ORLY TAITZ, QUEEN BEE OF PEOPLE OBSESSED WITH BARACK OBAMA'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE" BY SPENCER KORNHABER,
June 17, 2009, at www.ocweekly.com/2009-06-18/news/orly-taitz/ So she and Phil Berg are suing each other -- for plagiarism! "Curiouser and curiouser."
"But it's possible that there's something embarrassing on that document, related to his name, or to his paternity. And that's why it hasn't been released."
Or it could be that the birth certificate is, you know, a certificate certifying that the details therein are a accurate summary of the details on the birth record.
I know that sounds crazy - what with that being the purpose of a birth certificate and all - but it just might be that a official document that holds the purpose of acting as certifying what is held on the official records is generally considered to be.......wait for it......a official document signed by a qualified official declaring - from an official standpoint - that it is an accurate summary of the official record.
No-one has yet to explain how they can dismiss the authourity of the Hawaiin official registry by dismissing the validity of the published birth certificate yet also hold the original document to be valid, when the validity of the original documant is derived from the authourity of the official registry.
In essence, the official record hasn't been released because - wait for it - the only way it can be released is through the channels that it already has been. No-one has yet to quote the law, statute or policy that would allow for gross public release.
Slash said "When I requested them I received certified copies (photocopies) of my original North Carolina birth certificate, which was form, that had been completed on a typewriter, and signed by a physician and my mother."
It may depend on the state. I have a thirty-five year old certified copy of my birth certificate from the Panama Canal Zone. The only signature is that of the vital statistics clerk. Yes, it does note the name of person attending the birth, but it is typed. I am pretty sure if I order another copy from Washington, DC (where the records were transferred after 1999) it would be in a form similar to what was provided for Obama by Hawaii.
My children have certificate of live births from that have the same information as the the president's. What is interesting is that my place of birth was listed as "Other Foreign" on a copy I got almost twenty years ago, and when I got another five years later for the next child my place of birth was listed as "Panama."
Oh, and I am a natural born American citizen. Both my parents were born in the USA, my father was in the Canal Zone as an Army Officer.
The fact is, which the birthers refuse to acknowledge, is that if one requests a copy of their birth certificate from the State of Hawaii, they will receive the same form that President Obama received and published on his web site.
The thing I don't understand is, isn't US citizenship at birth determined both by soil and blood? That is, even if the insane birthers were right and he wasn't born in the US, wouldn't he be a US citizen from birth just because his mother was?
Jason Dick said "That is, even if the insane birthers were right and he wasn't born in the US, wouldn't he be a US citizen from birth just because his mother was?"
Well, um, yeah. Though they try to do some hand waving about her age, 18, and that it is not five years after age 14.
Of course, these are the same people who believed a Kenya birth certificate with lots of errors, and even a Canadian one signed by Dudley Doright.
Hey! Well what do ya know? This is the same conversation I was banned from at the far left site Pharyngula. HUH! I wonder is PZ Myers has copied and pasted this unique and peer reviewed blog posting? I wonder if his slaves and thugs and such have followed him to this site to continue their fecal debate with me over this posting since I was banned? Do you have the courage? Do I get first amendment rights, or is that amemdment only reserved for marxist leftists and not real America patriots?
Any takers on continuing the delicate and extrememly politically incorrect conversation? Anyone at fornicatyngula interested?
PZ, did you copy and paste this article? AWW! I bet you did.
I ... wow. #68 proves that you don't have to be able to read to be able to type relatively coherently on the internet. I mean, I knew the ability to think wasn't required, everyone knows that, but honestly, being unable to read...?
Reading will be illegal under Obamarule. Reading promotes individual thinking and individualism is a bad thing. We might learn how to cure a disease and will not need Obama' anti-healthcare mandate - aka population control program.
Isn't that right my silent little fornicatyngulites? PZ can tell you about Obama's anti-healthcare plan. As a matter of fact, that is why I was banned from his poll fornication forum. Where is smoggy and Nerd of Redreahd whneI need them. Oh, nd I will miss Dracula too (Janine). She was fun to debate, but she had a weird obsession wih soiled underwear. I guess liberals are just weird like that.
Great. I'm getting PZ's troll sloppy seconds.
"Isn't that right my silent little fornicatyngulites?" erm, I think you may be a little lost. And possibly loony.
for us readers, there's firefox, greasemonkey and killfile. together, the three make the blessed music of selective silence. what there might be for blog authors, i couldn't say.
I'm calling it now, if this conversation goes on, Guardian of the poll will fail the turing test.
What's a turing test?
Is it anything like a poll fornicator?
A darwinist?
A fornicatyngulite?
A conservative troll-bot, now there is a scary concept.
And an illiterate one. Let us not feed the troll.
Are there any poll fornicators out there?
I seek your assistance.
Sincerely,
banned Guardian of the Poll
Any type of fornicatyngulation would be helpful.
Hey! You can get your own birth certificate here!
http://kenyanbirthcertificategenerator.com/
I suspect our troll is completely unaware of why he was really banned. Of course, you always get trolls who deliberately push the common rules of comment threads and forums specifically to get legitimate bans so that they can stroke their egos and martyr complexes.
That's one reason Wo(is)MI back in his glory days on my blog got shriller and shriller to the point of copy-pasting 100+ old comments instead of a link to the unaltered thread, as well as posting so many copypasta insults that made Firefox think he hacked an infinite script. He was desperate to get banned. He couldn't stand the fact that I was enjoying roasting him, and that I found his comments so self-destructive it was better to leave the ones with actual content up than delete them.
Speaking of Obama, a great healthcare discussion blog is
http://robhood.us/weblog.php
Fools! This entire controversy has been manufactured by the Lizard Men to distract you from the REAL issue: That Barrack Obama doesn't have a Certificate of Live Birth Certificate (Certified) because he was never actually BORN. No, he was in fact decanted from a vat of ichor in the ghastly, non-euclidean horrors of R'lyeh! Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn! Who shall have the honour and mercy of being eaten first?
"Yes, for sheer craziness birthers are hard to beat,..."
Really?
Man, you guys suck.
My certificate of live birth has my father's name wrong. I've been told by some that because it doesn't spell his name correctly, I'll never be able to inherit from him.
Well... I've already got his temper, so I'm not too worried about this. Perhaps I should be concerned about the contents of his will, but I'm not.
One the other side of the coin, my mother's 'long form' birth certificate lists her parents birthplace wrong.
While one would think that government record keeping would have vastly improved between 1923 and 1953... it didn't. Why should we expect it to have improved so greatly by 1961?
I actually don't care where Obama was born, or where his parents were born. I do care about how he was raised and the politics he inherited from various people and institutions. I often don't agree with those, but it has nothing to do with where he was born, which was Hawaii... 99 44/100 sure of that, I am.
"Healthcare guru" is a troll. There is no discussion, and Mercola is referenced as a viable source of information.
'nuff said.
Just a quick glance at the blog shows that absolutely nobody comments there.
Discussion indeed.
Shiplord Kirel?
In the Worldwar series, by Harry Turtledove, Shiplord Kirel was 2nd-in-command leader in an invasion fleet of lizard-like aliens. Later he got promoted to Fleetlord.
@snerd - exactly - Why ask Obama to prove is a natural born citizen when he can't even prove he is a mammal.
"The Voice" that introduces the CBC news program The Current had this to say
My great-grandparent's wedding license is wrong, my grandmother discovered one year. As the story goes, Marie's brother went with her fiance to get the license. The form asked for her middle name, which Great-grandfather didn't know, so he asked her brother, who answered it was "Helene", so that's what was put on the form. Unfortunately, her middle name was Henrietta. The family always joked that the license was invalid and that none of the kids were legitimate. So much for accuracy.
hahahahahaha, nice.
So since birth I have an American passport, social security number, etc. I was born in Saudi Arabia to an American mother and a British Father.
Am I natural born or naturalised? I only ask cos I have major dreams to be president......
oooooooooooooooooooooo you and your birth certificate..... both are great..............
Enkidu, when my daughter was born in Switzerland the only way to automatically become Swiss was to have a Swiss father. All other ways involved long and complicated applications, "Swissness" tests (wonderful movie "Die Schweizermacher") and significant sums of money (depending on age and income), as well as doing your military service if you were male and under a certain age (mid 40ies, I think). Still, people are confused when I tell them that DD does not have Swiss citizenship.
maxh, a U.S. social security number means nothing; even non-immigrant aliens can get those. but if you were a naturalized citizen, then either you or your parent/guardian would have had to go through a naturalization process at some point --- if you got a passport (or the right to receive one) at birth, you're natural-born.
My Québec baptismal certificate, which I used for years as a legal ID -- it got me my Canadian passport -- spells my first name as "Marie" rather than "Mary", and also misspells my anglophone mother's last name. When I finally got a certified copy of my birth certificate a couple of years ago, I annotated the application like mad, saying that I didn't know if my first name was actually what I have used for years or what was on the baptismal certificate, and pointing out the spelling error in my mother's name.
The first birth certificate I got back from the province had the correct spelling of my mother's name and confirmed that I'm "Mary", but they transposed my first and middle names. I had them send back a corrected version, but even now, I'm left with some nagging doubts about my true identity.