An 84-year-old Wisconsin woman, told she can’t vote for the first time in 75 years, because she lacks an “appropriate” birth certificate, and perhaps she’s been spelling her name differently from how Wisconsin wants her to spell it, for more than 80 years.
Meanwhile, has anyone ever found any voter fraud that I.D. can stop?
Since voting is a civil liberty, the ACLU is working to keep Ruthelle voting.
198 Comments | 
Civil Rights, Politics, Voting, Voting Rights Act | Tagged: Birth Certificate, Civil Rights, Politics, Voter ID Law, voting, Voting Rights Act, Wisconsin | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Odd as hell. It’s like Obi Wan Kenobi pulled the old mind-wave trick (“You don’t need to see his identification”), and the birthers suddenly forgot what they’ve been saying, doing and threatening, for three years.
Have you heard any of the most frantic, frenetic, dedicated birthers ask for the birth certificates of Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum?
Why all the tough questions for the Democrat, for the non-lunatic, for the Chicago guy, for the kid from the single-parent household, and none for the White Anglo-Saxon Catholic/Mormon/Lapsed Lutherans?
Where’s the birth certificate for Joe Arpaio? Could he be so tough on immigrants because, secretly, he is one, and hopes not to be discovered?
I think, perhaps, they weren’t really concerned about citizenship qualifications to be president, except to “get” Obama. If they can’t figure out a way to win — and therefore beat Obama — by cheating, they don’t want to play at all. Even Leo Donofrio is folding his tent.
If only Congress would get the message that America’s president is president of all of America, and their efforts to bring down the nation to “get” Obama are not working, and should be stopped, I’d be a lot happier guy.
Minor update, March 17, 2012: Sorta as I feared/expected/realized-from-years-of-experience, the birthers are letting the current group of Republicans slide, so far as I, or they, can tell. Most of them are completely unaware that at least one candidate has a foreign-born father, most of them don’t know where or when the candidates were born or naturalized, and of course, because the Republicans are not Obama, they don’t really care. One birther claims to be sure that “others” are looking hard into these questions, experts. Shades of that other Harrison Ford movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark:” What experts? “Top experts.” And shame on me for even asking the questions calling their bluff.
More (if you can stand it):
11 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility | Tagged: Birth Certificate, Birthers, Campaign 2012, Joe Arpaio, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Political Smears, Politics, President Obama, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Yes, really.
Despite dire warnings from an administrative law judge in the Georgia Secretary of State‘s office, Obama’s attorneys refused to even put in an appearance at the hearing to decide whether Barack Obama is eligible to run for president under the Constitution’s natural born citizen clause. Facing a contempt citation, they refused to lend the attention that an appearance by the president’s lawyer would give to such a circus trial.
Beautiful photo of an empty chair, by Jim Strong, copyright 2006 — go buy a print from him (click the picture), and have him autograph it. That empty chair’s cousin made better arguments in a Georgia courtroom that did Orly Taitz or any other birther.
Pleading their case before a judge mad at Obama, with no defense put up by Obama’s lawyers at all, the birthers still lost. Their case does not cross the threshold of credibility a case needs to be taken seriously, the judge ruled. Obama is a natural born citizen, Obama is perfectly eligible for the presidency due to his Hawaiian birth, and the birthers should fold their tents and go back to their figurative plows or knitting.
The birthers lost to a defense argued (badly) by an empty chair.
If your livelihood depends on their going back to their plows and needles, you’re in trouble.
Were you surprised? Birthers have lost every one of these suits. Birthers still don’t give up.
Here, read the decision at SCRIBD: Barack Obama is who he says he is.
Judge Michael Malihi was not pleased with Obama’s lawyers for their failure to show. That tactic force the judge to actually look at the evidence presented and rule that what was presented by the birthers not only does not make the case that Obama is not a natural born citizen, but that the evidence does not even make a prima facie case that further arguments are needed — the evidence sheds no light, it’s “not probative.”
Technically the ruling is advisory to the Georgia Secretary of State; no one expects the SOS to go completely off the rails, barking down the halls of the capitol building to graze the lawn, and decide contrary to the recommendation from Judge Malihi.
Several birthers allowed themselves to get excited that their string of bad luck and courtroom smackdowns might be changing. They have been disappointed.
The world works, and law again proves its value.
More, Resources:
Tip of the old scrub brush to reader Whatever4, who alerted us to the decision and gave us the link to Scribd.
7 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility | Tagged: Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Birthers, Georgia, Natural Born Citizen, Orly Taitz, Politics, Presidential Eligibility, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I get e-mail that makes me smile on a dreary day (everything below quoted from the e-mail):
Ed —
Let me introduce you to Jerome Corsi.
This week he released a new book that the publisher says will be a bestseller “of historic proportions.”
The title is “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” — yes, really.
Corsi’s work is a greatest-hits reel of delusions, ranging from 9/11 conspiracies to claiming that there is an infinite supply of oil in the Earth’s core. In 2008, he published a book about Barack Obama claiming, among other things, that he (a) is a secret Muslim; (b) is secretly anti-military; (c) secretly dealt drugs; and (d) secretly supported terrorist actions when he was eight years old. So many secrets!
FactCheck.org called Corsi’s work “a mishmash of unsupported conjecture, half-truths, logical fallacies and outright falsehoods.”
There’s really no way to make this stuff completely go away. The only thing we can do is laugh at it — and make sure as many other people as possible are in on the joke.
So let’s just do this — get your Obama birth certificate mug here:
Last year, the President said, “I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.”
This is about as close as we can get.
If the facts can’t make these ridiculous smears go away, we can at least have a little fun with it.
And then we’ll get back to the important work of supporting the President as he tackles real problems like high gas prices, the deficit, and unemployment.
Thanks,
Julianna
Julianna Smoot
Deputy Campaign Manager
Obama for AmericaP.S. — Mug not your thing? How about a T-shirt?
Contributions or gifts to Obama for America are not tax deductible.
Leave a Comment » | 2012 Campaigns, Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Campaigns, History, Humor, Politics, President Obama | Tagged: Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Campaign 2012, History, Humor, Politics, President Obama | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
More, Resources:
15 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility, Racism, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: 2012 Campaign, Birth Certificate, Birthers, Obama, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Racism, Rampant stupidity | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
No, it’s not particularly important, especially since we knew from so many other sources that Obama was, indeed, Honolulu born.
The White House pried the old birth certificate out of the records of the State of Hawaii, and released copies to the world today.
The White House video:
ABC Television’s report:
View a .pdf of the form here: President Obama\’s original Hawaiian birth certificate
I predict Orly Taitz, Donald Trump, and all the other sideshow freaks and carnival barkers, will continue to bark away. Remember, when P. T. Barnum made a copy of the hoax “Cardiff Giant,” people paid a premium to see the fake of the hoax. P. T. Barnum’s ghost stalks and stomps on Republican and birther grounds now.
More:
_____________
Boy, looking at this, you gotta know that Obama planned this all out, as Morgan claimed in comments below — just so he could get this story from Juan Williams and Shepard Smith at Fox News:
Oh, For Goodness Sake posted that video, without any other comment, as “National Mirror Moment.” Birthers, Palinistas and Republicans must be choking on their dinners from that report. Has the Fox turned on ’em?
Always a good site to expose the inanity and insanity of Obama’s critics, especially on the issues of Obama’s history, Oh, For Goodness Sake has a particular bead on the hypocrisy of those same critics:
How many times have you heard the promise: The president could end this today if he’d just release his long form birth certificate? So now they’ve got the f—ing long form birth certificate, is it done for the Birthers?
Bigots. Probably no small amount of racism in there, too. Plus, they’ve exposed themselves as genuinely opposed to America’s good health. David Gardner and Milton Goldstein pegged it, even if we have to paraphrase them a bit: Had a foreign government tried to do what the birthers are doing, we’d have considered it an act of war. History is not kind to idlers, those who fail to call out injustice, nor idiots.
11 Comments | Accuracy, Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, History, Hoaxes, Political Smear, Politics | Tagged: Accuracy, Birth Certificate, History, Hoaxes, Obama, Political Smears, Politics, President Obama | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I’ve got to stop looking over there.
Goddard’s got a post up showing the great disregard he has for the facts, and the law, and history, etc., etc., etc. It may be an unintentional showing, but there it sits, “like a mackerel in the moonlight, both shining and stinking.”
Jerome Corsi, that serial fictionalizer of vital issues, has a book out promoting his slimy schemes besmirch President Obama. Goddard urges people to buy it.
But they really pile on in the comments. It’s almost as if Casey Luskin had a whole family just like himself, and they got together to whine about Judge Roberts again.
Warming denialism, creationism and birthers — is it all just three minor variations on the same brain-sucking virus? Or could three different diseases produce the same sort of crazy on so many different issues?
I’m reminded of the old saw that you cannot reason a person out of a position he didn’t reach by reason. These guys will never see the light. Heaven knows, it ain’t evidence that gets ’em where they are now.
Previous posts at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
Special kind of birther crazy:
5 Comments | Birth Certificate, Bogus history, Climate change, climate_change, Creationism, denialism, History, Junk science, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Birth Certificate, Birthers, Bogus history, Casey Luskin, Creationism, denialism, Global warming, History, Junk science, Law, Rampant stupidity, Science, Steven Goddard, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The mystery deepens: Why is Donald Trump making an issue about this now?
After the Bathtub noted that we don’t know where Trump was born, and that the story of his life can’t be corroborated exactly as he claims, Trump released what he called a birth certificate.
But it turned out to be bogus.
What is Trump trying to hide, with all his pointless fulminations? At this point, anything he releases must be regarded as suspect.
2 Comments | Accuracy, Birth Certificate, History, Hoaxes, Voodoo history | Tagged: Birth Certificate, Bogus history, Donald Trump, Hoaxes, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Thursday evening WordPress had a glitch — a stray character in code caused the system to overwrite some material, to mess up a lot of blogs. It took a couple of hours to fix.
In the birther world, such things only happen “by design.” Because of a glitch that affected 50,000 blogs (including this one), the birthers feel singled out.
Seriously, at that site where the paranoia runs rampant, My Very Own Point of View, the discussion is on what can be discerned by differences in images from microfiche copies of the newspaper columns announcing births recorded in Honolulu, from the Hawaii Vital Records office, in 1961. In 5,000 words or so, the author determined that there are differences in the images because some of the microfiche is scratched, and some isn’t.
Ergo, the author says, Obama conspired to mess with every microfiche in the world, and he’s therefore an alien (probably from the planet Tralfamador, or maybe a waiter in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe).
I’ve read the piece three times trying to figure out what the point is, other than the author has never thought much about libraries or microfiche or newspapers ever before. Am I wrong?
No wonder there’s an aluminum foil shortage, eh?
Warning: Tinfoil Hat Wearers Too Close for Comfort
I suggested a less ominous meaning behind the scratches on the microfiche, but the blog owner found my comments offensive, and refused to post them. I asked why, and this was the response I got:
Because you are not civil. There is nothing about race in this material or in my posts. There is not a single “conclusion drawn”. If you have an INTELLIGENT debate to advance on the material then do so. If you do not, go post somewhere where your poison is not moderated.
Of course, I made no mention of race. I addressed solely the issues of library archival procedures and how they might make for differences in copies from different libraries. Here is the comment she’s talking about; you decide which of us is crazy, Dear Reader:
Why do you assume that microfilm copies should be the same in all locations? You’re assuming that there were not different editions of the same paper, which is incorrect; you’re assuming there is one source of microfilm copies, which is unlikely (many libraries used to make their own microfilm from paper copies in their collections — it’s unlikely, I think, that the Library of Congress would have used the same microfilm available at the University of Hawaii — in 1961 precedence was given to paper collections, and the microfilming was done later).
You assume that later flaws in the film are not introduced by dust, by reading machines that shred the film.
You assume much that is simply not so in the newspaper industry and in library archiving.
And in the end, what do you claim? A couple of periods disappear in photocopies? A new flyspeck appears?
You need to check the rules of civil procedure, specifically with regard to evidence and contemporary business records. I’ll wager you can figure out why most of what you worry about here is no issue in proving things up in a courtroom.
I don’t think I was uncivil. I think that birthers all fall into that category Euripides described, of those whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.
(And, please, if you can figure out what the complaint is about copies differing in quality at different libraries, please tell us what is going on, in comments.)
11 Comments | Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Hoaxes, Libraries, President Obama, Rampant stupidity, Weblogs | Tagged: Accuracy, Birth Certificate, Birthers, Hoaxes, Libraries, Politics, President Obama, Rampant stupidity, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Justice Holmes might have said, “Three generations of this imbecilic video is enough!”
Over at GetDClue.com, where the motto is “~*~ Get a clue & wake up! ~*~ The best way to lead a nation astray of its values is to keep it ignorant of its history,” author Lisa DeClue is doing her best to lead the nation astray by planting false history to keep us all ignorant.
Today, this reeker plopped into my e-mail box — it’s a hoax video. Repeat, it’s a hoax:
The only reason Obama wouldn’t want you to see that is because it’s a waste of your time. It would be laughable were it a high school student history video (I’d flunk it on accuracy and lack of citations). It’s a hoax from set up to wind down. It should be put down.
DeClue explains the video was struck down from some site (probably for reasons of taste; this is an assault on good taste and manners, just in the insulting way it assumes the viewer is too stupid to have read a newspaper in the past three years). It’s now up again on YouTube — a recycled hoax! This one isn’t nearly as funny nor witty as the Cardiff Giant, however.
DeClue sends out e-mails alerting warning of new posts.
Hello!
I’ve just come across a disturbing video you must watch that supposedly shows Obama’s dossier from the FBI. Apparently his actions we know about are only the tip of the iceburg and portend badly for Israel, the war on terror and other foreign policy issues. Not to mention his abuse of our economy and our rights. Please post your comments on the blog and let’s get a good discussion going! We need to come up with some ideas, fellow patriots! Thank you.
Disturbing in its dishonesty, sure. I took a look. I sent her an e-mail alerting her to the hoax, and I left this comment at her site:
This is one of the most irresponsible things you’ve ever posted.
How’s the ride with Osama? Or is the White Citizen’s Council? And if a hoax, so easily disprovable, suckers you in so easily, can it be for any reason other than your own nefarious goals?
FBI doesn’t release dossiers on active politicians, nor on active investigations. That’s the first clue that it’s complete bunk.
Occidental College has a special page answering the questions so stupidly asked in the video [now moved here.] (you didn’t bother to look; you didn’t bother to look)
You could call Columbia to confirm Obama’s attendance there. Lots of others have. You could call Harvard. For the sake of Jesus, he was president of the Harvard Law Review. Nobody but students get to write on to the law review, no one but an active student can even run for president of the organization.
Obama’s birth certificate has been vetted much more than the drilling plans of any oil company.
Shame on you for posting this.
Rewind. Reboot. Time to retract.
It’s probably still up. The true birther fanatics don’t care about getting the facts. They are desperate to do damage to Obama’s reputation, no matter how false their claims may be.
Ms. DeClue wrote back wondering how I could possibly know it’s a hoax. Naif. I wrote back with more hints:
You could call the FBI and ask. In fact, I recommend it.
I spent a decade in Washington, and among other duties, I staffed the confirmation hearings before the Senate Labor, and occasionally the Senate Judiciary Committee. I’ve read hundreds of the reports, I’ve been involved in Senate investigations of how the FBI compiles them, and I’ve followed the Freedom of Information issues on the stuff, especially from the Vietnam protests, for years.
But don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.
See this news story:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/06/16/kennedys_widow_asked_fbi_not_to_release_personal_files/[The FBI doesn’t release dossiers on living people. The claim in this film is that they got the dossier on Obama. We know that’s false from the get-go. The Kennedy story shows how a dossier might be released publicly — a process that is not alleged by the hoax videographer.]
See this non-governmental site on how to get your own file (but not the files of others):
http://www.getmyfbifile.com/Here’s the FBI’s FOIA reading room information:
http://foia.fbi.gov/How about criminal records on others? See here:
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/fprequest.htmI’ve listed several sites you can visit in a comment at the post — check them out, to see the education record. There’s a lot more.
It’s a hoax video.
Sorry you got taken in by it.
What is it with the birthers and other gullibles and hoaxsters around? Is the trouble we have, with Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf of Mexico, the mortgage and housing crisis, the banking crisis, our enormous debts, and a hundred other serious problems, not enough?
But then I listen to Mitch McConnell. He says he’s not so sure about working to make America energy independent, not when Obama can’t pull a Gandalf and wave the Gulf oil spill away.
Is crazy a virus?
How many errors did you find in that video? Does it beat Phelim McAleer’s record for errors/minute?
Get on over to Oh, For Goodness Sake, and get some real facts.
15 Comments | Accuracy, Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, History, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Presidents | Tagged: Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, History, Hoaxes, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
With Henry Louis Mencken as his father.
No, that’s not really what they claim (I think; sometimes it’s difficult to tell). But what happened, and how it spread virally through websites of birthers and Obama haters, should provide a moral to someone’s story.
To demonstrate how easy it is to create hoax claims about Obama and birth certificates, somebody created a false MySpace page, and a story of an office supply store employee who helped the Obama campaign generate a false birth certificate.
Birthers jumped on the story as proof that the Obama birth certificate is false. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up. Story at the aptly-named and fully entertaining Oh, For Goodness Sake! which seems dedicated to debunking all the birthers’ craziness (a mother lode of hoaxes and gullibility to be sure).
Santayana’s Ghost wags his finger, and Mencken’s Ghost has gone out in search of stronger beer. You tell ’em it’s voodoo history, you tell ’em it’s a hoax, they still suck it up. Dr. Kate, New Mexico Paralegal, Texas Darlin’, Free Republic, Orly Taitz, Tea Baggers, we know what you are and we don’t want to haggle about the price. We ain’t buyin’.
3 Comments | Accuracy, Birth Certificate, Historic documents, History, Hoaxes, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility, Presidents, Voodoo history | Tagged: Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Birthers, History, Hoaxes, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Birther “Dr. Kate” sez there’s a case coming to a hearing in Pennsylvania that will go to the Supreme Court no matter how this hearing turns out.
Here’s the table of contents to Kerchner v. Obama. Here’s the full complaint, according to Dr. Kate.
Probably the best thing going for the plaintiffs is that Orly Taitz only appears by name in a bizarre accounting of everything ever said on the issue (except for the lack of evidence and reasons this case will fail which, oddly, isn’t included in the complaint; everything else is included).
I predict the case will be dismissed, but it may be dismissed with prejudice. That is, if it really does come to a hearing. Is that really possible?
Warn others so they don’t get trampled:
17 Comments | Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, History, How do we know what we know, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility, Presidents, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Birthers, denialism, History, How do we know what we know, Jurisprudence, Kerchner v Obama, Law, Presidency, Rampant stupidity, Taitz | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
On the one hand it’s nice to see cool heads and wisdom prevail.
On the other hand, the Orly Taitz, Stumbling and Bumbling Bros., Barnyard Bailout Circus provided belly laughs for everyone who watched it. How can such outstanding legal pratfall comedy possibly be replaced? “Boston Legal” can’t hold a candle to Orly Taitz.
CNN and other sources report that Judge Carter booted the suit late Thursday, noting that the question is one for Congress, and Congress’s earlier decision sticks.
The lawsuit represented the claim by the so-called “birthers” movement that Obama was not born in Hawaii – despite a birth certificate to the contrary – or that if he was, his citizenship was invalidated by living overseas as a child.
In a 30-page ruling, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter of California said his court lacked the jurisdiction to rule on a case intended to unseat a sitting president.
Carter’s ruling said the plaintiffs were trying to persuade him to “disregard the constitutional procedures in place for the removal of a sitting president.”
“The process for removal of a sitting president – removal for any reason – is within the province of Congress, not the courts,” the ruling said.
Carter’s ruling also noted that the plaintiffs “have attacked the judiciary, including every prior court that has dismissed their claim, as unpatriotic and even treasonous for refusing to grant their requests and for adhering to the terms of the Constitution.”
“Respecting the constitutional role and jurisdiction of this court is not unpatriotic,” the ruling said. “Quite the contrary, this court considers commitment to that constitutional role to be the ultimate reflection of patriotism.”
Will Orly Taitz go quietly? How can she replace the daily adrenaline rush of knowing she’s earned the official ire of judges from Chesapeake Bay to Long Beach Harbor?
It may be unrelated, but sketchy early reports say Orly Taitz has climbed aboard a mylar balloon shaped like a flying saucer . . .
More information:
21 Comments | Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, History, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Birth Certificate, Birthers, Constitution, Justice, Orly Taitz, President Obama | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Looney Tunes should sue to get back the good name of “looney.”
1. Neil Simpson at Eternity Matters continues to court anti-socialism. No, not “contrary to socialism”, but “anti-social” raised to the maximum. Now Simpson disavows education quality and Boy Scout-style citizenship, all in a whiny complaint about President Obama’s actually paying attention to school kids. Simpson’s complaints in Texas are highly ironic, considering that conservatives in the Texas legislature demand that Texas kids participate in exactly the kind of discussions that the Department of Education now urges.
According to the U.S. Department of Education:
During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.
“Oh, noes!” we might hear Simpson say. We can’t have our nation’s youth “persisting and succeeding in school.” Can’t have them “work hard,” and “take responsibility for their learning.”
One more deeply hypocritical demonstration that, for Simpson and his colleagues in whine, it’s all about being a sore loser and a carbuncle on the derriere of America, and not about policy at all.
Obama might be expected to plug charter schools again, a position Simpson would find good if Simpson had a reasoning cell left in his body. Not that Obama’s support of charter schools is a good idea, just that Simpson previously has expressed similar views, which he now would have to eschew, since Obama adopted them. Of course, it’s not about Obama. Right.
The Department of Education release has other details you should check out, if you’re interested:
The U.S. Department of Education encourages students of all ages, teachers, and administrators to participate in this historic moment by watching the president deliver the address, which will be broadcast live on the White House Web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/) and on C-SPAN at 12:00 p.m., ET. We also encourage educators to use this moment to help students get focused and inspired to begin the new academic year. The Department of Education offers educators a menu of classroom activities—created by its teachers-in-residence, the Teaching Ambassador Fellows—to help engage students in the address and stimulate classroom discussions about the importance of education.
To learn more, please see the following:
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Classroom Activities (Pre-K – 6)
PDF (115K) | MS Word (119K)
- Classroom Activities (7 – 12)
That is, if you agree that education is important. (Oh, don’t even go to the post where Simpson starts arguing that “survival of the fittest” is tantamount to killing everybody else. Doesn’t this guy ever think?)
2. Making the case for Birther Control once more, Orly Taitz managed to get in front of a judge in some Texas court with her inane claims about Obama’s birth certificate. She’s not a Texas lawyer, she didn’t bother to get a Texas lawyer to sign in with her, she broke almost every rule possible, but the judge bent over backwards to be nice to her — and she still whines. Read the events at Dispatches from the the Culture Wars. You can almost decipher it at Orly Taitz’s blog, but she doesn’t even allow friendly posts without editing there. Get the facts from Brayton.
3. Meanwhile, riding the crest of the idiocy wave generated by inanities like Taitz’s and Simpson’s, these guys are gearing up for a violent confrontation with an evil, militant force, that isn’t even under discussion (if you read their links). Go read it. It’s the seedbed of homegrown terrorism.
4. GOP candidate for governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell repudiated the masters thesis he wrote for Pat Robertson’s Regent University. One by one, he disavows each of the offensive things he wrote then, claiming that he’s healed, or something, since then.
After McDonnell repudiates the education he got at Regent U, do you think the school will use him as an example of a graduate success in recruiting?
Already-elected GOP governors aren’t doing too well, either.
5. The Sedalia, Missouri band t-shirt flap keeps some people in stitches. I’m not sure whether it’s encouraging so many cross-stitchers show sanity on the issue, or discouraging that a few still remain deeply mired in darkness, claiming evolution is a problem. (See earlier post here.)
Sure, it’s all sign of apocalypse, but not the apocalypse most people worry about.
30 Comments | Birth Certificate, children, Citizenship, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, Government, Higher education, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Birth Certificate, Birthers, Education, Higher education, Politics, President Obama, Rampant stupidity, University Recruiting | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Fun discourse on the nature of what we know, and how we know it, at Alaska blog What do I know?
Steve makes his point with solid commentary on the birthers, gay marriage, and health care reform debates.
Why don’t other philosophers — Beckwith, Monton and Dembski come to mind — adopt similarly rational views?
As one born in Idaho, I love the title. No, you can’t see my birth certificate. You don’t think Idaho exists? Where, then, do the McDonald’s French Fries come from?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. Bumsted.
Share this story; who can prove Idaho exists?
1 Comment | Birth Certificate, denialism, History, Holocaust denial, How do we know what we know, medicine | Tagged: Birth Certificate, denialism, Health Care Reform, History, Philosophy, What do we know | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
(The Life of Reason, vol. 1: Reason in Common Sense)
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 