Half Sigma

The Obama Doctrine

Obama said we had to go into Libya to prevent a massacre, even though there was no evidence of any massacres and I don’t think Gadaffi was serious about that.

Right now, there’s a real massacre happening in Syria, and Obama does nothing. He won’t even say that Assad “must go now” like he did with Mubarak.

I am convinced that the Obama Doctrine is an anti-American doctrine in whose goal is to make the world less friendly to the United States. Why else would he encourage a revolution in Egypt which was friendly with us, while doing absolutely nothing to help a revolution in Syria, a country that is Iran’s best friend and that funds terrorists?

I say it’s Obama who must go now.

Wendy’s fries

The packaging has changed since the last time I’ve been to Wendy’s.

Introducing our natural-cut fries with sea salt. We slice up only whole Russet potatoes and leave the skin on to bring out their natural flavor. Then we cook them in 0 gram trans-fat oil until they’re golden brown and sprinkle them with sea salt. The result? Fries that are crispy, delicious, and totally irresistible?

It’s cute how they are “cooked” in oil rather than fried in oil. And how the fries have “natural” flavor. And is there anything more SWPL than sea salt?

Is this really what the typical Wendy’s customer wants? I think what has happened is that a bunch of SWPLs work at Wendy’s corporate headquarters and they can’t possibly imagine that the typical Wendy’s customer doesn’t care about this stuff. Or maybe they are embarrassed about working for a fast food company (which, in the SWPL world, is almost as bad as working for Adolf Hitler), so they compensate by trying to make the food sound more SWPLy. Despite these efforts, a true SWPL would never be caught dead eating at Wendy’s.

Russian Jews are Republican

So reports Tyler Cowen. If you want more Republican voters, then it would be smart to encourage immigration of Russian Jews.

This got me into thinking about a question about why non-Russian Jews are Democratic. I’ve previously explained that Jews fear Christianity. My old blog post is very similar to the Michael Medved essay quoted by Steve Sailer in a comment to Tyler Cowen’s post:

For most American Jews, the core of their Jewish identity isn’t solidarity with Israel; it’s rejection of Christianity. This observation may help to explain the otherwise puzzling political preferences of the Jewish community explored in Norman Podhoretz’s book. Jewish voters don’t embrace candidates based on their support for the state of Israel as much as they passionately oppose candidates based on their identification with Christianity—especially the fervent evangelicalism of the dreaded “Christian Right.” …

This political pattern reflects the fact that opposition to Christianity—not love for Judaism, Jews, or Israel—remains the sole unifying element in an increasingly fractious and secularized community. Imagine a dialogue between Woody Allen and a youthful, idealistic emissary of the Hasidic Chabad movement—who might well be the proud father of nine religiously devout children. Both the movie director and the Lubavitcher may be publicly identified as Jews, but they share nothing in terms of religious belief, political outlook, family values, or, for that matter, taste in movies. The one area where they find common ground—and differ (together) from the majority of their fellow citizens—is their dismissal of New Testament theology, with its messianic claims for Jesus.

Anyone who doubts that rejection of Jesus has replaced acceptance of Torah (or commitment to Israel) as the eekur sach—the essential element—of American Jewish identity should pause to consider an uncomfortable question. What is the one political or religious position that makes a Jew utterly unwelcome in the organized community? We accept atheist Jews, Buddhist Jews, pro-Palestinian Jews, Communist Jews, homosexual Jews, and even sanction Hindu-Jewish meditation societies. “Jews for Jesus,” however, or “Messianic Jews” face resistance and exclusion everywhere. In Left-leaning congregations, many rabbis welcome stridently anti-Israel speakers and even Palestinian apologists for Islamo-Nazi terror. But if they invited a “Messianic Jewish” missionary, they’d face indignant denunciation from their boards and, very probably, condemnation by their national denominational leadership. It is far more acceptable in the Jewish community today to denounce Israel (or the United States), to deny the existence of God, or to deride the validity of Torah than it is to affirm Jesus as Lord and Savior.

For many Americans, the last remaining scrap of Jewish distinctiveness involves our denial of New Testament claims, so any support for those claims becomes a threat to the very essence of our Jewish identity. Many Jews therefore view enthusiastic Christian believers—no matter how reliably they support Israel and American Jews—as enemies by definition.

Notice that both Medved and myself specifically mentioned “Jews for Jesus.” Nothing scares my Jewish mother more than Jews for Jesus. (But my mother is an atypical Jewish-American because she’s economically unsuccessful and she’s not any smarter than the average gentile white.)

Another fact worth pondering is how slowly political identification changes. Back in the 1970s, the South was still solidly Democratic because southern whites were still remembering the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. Stuff that happened a hundred years ago still influences voting patterns in the present.

In the early part of the 20th century, Jews were heavily discriminated against by the gentile majority. So Jews identify with Democrats because Democrats are against discrimination. Even today, many Jews feel that they are discriminated against because they are Jewish. I hear some people asking “But Jews are so economically successful, how can they possibly feel discriminated against?” Does the lack of economic success on the part of blacks mean that blacks are being discriminated against? The answer is no. Jewish success and black lack of success is caused by genetic IQ. So Jews could still be discriminated and their economic success is in spite of such discrimination.

In the early part of the 20th century, Jews were subject to extreme discrimination in Germany. But when Jews wanted to flee Germany and move to the United States, they couldn’t because the United States wasn’t allowing immigrants. Before the United States got tough on immigration, Jews moved here to escape persecution in Europe (at the hands of gentiles). So Jews have positive views of immigration, and they identify with Democrats because Democrats are in favor of immigration.

Now, this identification with the Democrats is not logical. The Democrats are all about giving affirmative action to blacks and this doesn’t benefit Jews at all. The immigration we have today is not beneficial to Jews who were born here any more than it’s beneficial to white gentiles who were born here. But this doesn’t have to make any sense. It didn’t make sense for white southerners to vote Democratic in the 1970s either.

Unfortunately, Jews are kept locked into the Democratic Party because of the Republican embrace of religious Christians who scare Jews away from being Republican. So Jews are not likely to switch, en masse, to the Republicans even as the events of the early 20th century fade away.

Is it really the real birth certificate?

raliv writes:

Karl Denninger thinks Obama's recently released birth certificate is a scam. watch the video http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=185119.

I haven’t bothered to click on the link myself, so I hope I’m not linking to porn.

Regarding this issue, there are three possibilities:

1. The “layers” in the PDF file were created automatically by the scanning software and don’t mean anything at all.

2. Obama the evil genius purposely had his staff add some stuff to the file to give people the impression that there were some shenanigans. This will make the right-wing continue to appear “unhinged,” and then sometime in the future Hawaii will allow the original document to be inspected and photographed and it will look identical to the PDF file released by the White House.

3. There was a really bad forgery because Obama couldn’t afford to hire good forgers.

* * *

MeMyselfI writes:

What about the part where he's actually a dual citizen by birth? Isn't this an *actual* constitutional question? Shouldn't this be the focus?

I agree that Obama’s eligibility is constitutionally suspect. The purpose of the Natural Born Citizen clause is to ensure that the President has no allegiances to any foreign governments. The President should be a real American.

Obama’s mother was allegedly married to a Kenyan citizen when Obama was born, and then Obama was adopted by an Indonesian and raised in Indonesia for several years. I think either of these facts, individually, should disqualify Obama.

I also think that Obama’s primary Democratic challenger, Hilary Clinton, was constitutionally suspect. The wife of a former President serving as President seems like a loophole to avoid the Presidential Term Limits Amendment.

Where’s Trig’s birth certificate?

Henry Blodget says that Obama has released his birth certificate; now it’s Sarah Palin’s turn to release Trig’s birth certificate.

The birth certificate is released!

Here. And I am shocked that I can't see anything wrong with it. Maybe I'm missing something.

* * *

Note that it’s a real birth certificate issued by a hospital, signed by a medical doctor. Stanley Ann signed her name “(Stanley) Ann Dunham Obama”; if she wasn’t really married, she’s not showing it here.

At least this demonstrates how wrong certain people were who insisted that Obama had already shown the only birth certificate available, or that Obama couldn’t possibly obtain this birth certificate. (To think that the President of the United States couldn’t obtain a copy of his own birth certificate from state records, if it existed, is ludicrous, yet people insisted that was the case.)

* * *

Jay writes:

I think the critiques and speculation over this issue were fair, but now it is really time to move on. Any more suspicion or outrage at this point is just truther-like conspiracy theorizing.

I’d still like to know the real story about Stanley Ann’s “marriage” to Barack Obama, Sr. And why she moved to Seattle a week or two after she gave birth. But it does seem a lot more certain now that Barack was born in a hospital in Hawaii.

This probably kills Donald Trump’s chances of winning the election.

* * *

I previously agreed with the logic that Barack wasn’t born in Kenya. But I did think that Obama must have been hiding something else. If not, why not produce this document?

I guess that the people who theorized that it was a brilliant strategy on the part of Obama to make the right wing look stupid were right. This demonstrates Obama’s superior IQ once again. He even fooled me.

* * *

Patrick writes:

No falsified "self-reported" birth as Half Sigma LUDICROUSLY suggested a mere week ago.

It wasn’t ludicrous at all, it was the most likely guess for what Obama might be hiding.

As I already wrote above, it appears that I was wrong that Obama was hiding something. Those who said that it was a scheme by Obama to make right-wingers appear to be “unhinged” are probably correct. No one should underestimate Obama. He’s not “in over his head” as people say. He knows exactly what he’s doing. I now consider him to be an evil anti-American genius.

* * *

RandyB writes:

Obama released it today because Trump had stopped talking about the foolish position of Obama's birth-citizenship, and started talking about the legitimate issue that he (Obama) wasn't qualified for the Ivy League, or to edit the Harvard Law Review, and has been effectively an affirmative action hire all his life (including his current job).

Maybe. Or maybe there’s something else in Jerome Corsi’s upcoming book. The release of the birth certificate will make all those other accusations seem “unhinged”. The MSM will say that Obama hs proven he’s not hiding anything. Obama won the round. Evil genius.

The story in Obama’s memoir about how he arrived in Manhattan with no money and no place to live seems rather weird. Wouldn’t Columbia make sure a promising affirmative action admit would have a dorm room? I’ve attended several colleges, and never was there not a place for me to live. I suspect that Obama just made that up to make the memoir more interesting. In reality, people’s lives are boring. I suspect that most of the best memoirs are works of fiction.

I would like to see Obama release all of his educational records, including test scores. I wish this were common. If private companies can make employees show their college and graduate school transcripts, why shouldn’t someone running for a high political office have to do the same? But there’s a conspiracy involving both political parties not to do this, because the secret they are hiding is that most politicians aren’t that smart. Obama, however, graduated from HLS magna cum laude. HLS confirmed it.

Nerds who give away their services for free

I found Steve Sailer’s musings about Wikipedia editors interesting.

For some reason, I’ve never had any desire at all to edit Wikipedia. Nerdy value-creation skills are undervalued as it is. Why should I do it for free?

Even nerdier than editing Wikipedia is working for free on Linux or some other open source project. I find it even more mystifying that people want to do that for free.

It's fun to imagine

In response to some negative comments I've gotten about my sudden interest in the circustances of Obama's life. I'm writing about this topic becuase it's FUN to imagine what he might be hiding about himself. I write this blog for my amusement. There's no other reason for it, because it's certainly not helping me socially or professionally. I can't even make any ad revenue from it anymore.

Also, I am fairly certain that Obama really is hiding something significant. What it is, I am not sure. When my friend B told me that Mike Davis was lying about his past because he was spotted in the financial aid line even though he said he was rich, I just ignored it. But B was right. Mike Davis was hiding the fact that he was a convicted murderer and his real name was Walter Waldhauser. From Mike Davis, I learned not to believe what people say about themselves when what they say doesn't add up.

Is Obama the Ultimate Saviour?

This is something I just discovered floating around the internet:

Is Barack Obama the "promised warrior" coming to help the Hidden Imam of Shiite Muslims conquer the world?

The question has made the rounds in Iran since last month, when a pro-government Web site published a Hadith (or tradition) from a Shiite text of the 17th century. The tradition comes from Bahar al-Anvar (meaning Oceans of Light) by Mullah Majlisi, a magnum opus in 132 volumes and the basis of modern Shiite Islam.

According to the tradition, Imam Ali Ibn Abi-Talib (the prophet's cousin and son-in-law) prophesied that at the End of Times and just before the return of the Mahdi, the Ultimate Saviour, a "tall black man will assume the reins of government in the West." Commanding "the strongest army on earth," the new ruler in the West will carry "a clear sign" from the third imam, whose name was Hussein Ibn Ali. The tradition concludes: "Shiites should have no doubt that he is with us."

In a curious coincidence Obama's first and second names--Barack Hussein--mean "the blessing of Hussein" in Arabic and Persian. His family name, Obama, written in the Persian alphabet, reads O Ba Ma, which means "he is with us," the magic formula in Majlisi's tradition.

This raises the following questions:

1. Does anyone in Iran believe this?

2. Does Obama himself believe this?

3. Is Obama hiding his birth certificate because it would somehow link him to the Twelfth Imam?

4. Is there any mention of this Hadith before Obama was a serious contender for the Democratic nomination? It has the feel of something that was made up.

* * *

There’s a blog post by Twelfth Imam expert who says this isn’t true. It does kind of remind me of Hitler making up fake quatrains of Nostradamus.

* * *

And Amir Taheri has been accused of fabricating other stuff. I guess this makes him a pretty unreliable source of information about the Hadiths.

What’s stupider than getting a tattoo?

What’s stupider than getting a tattoo? Getting a tattoo that depicts a crime that you committed.

We are lucky that criminals are so stupid. It would be pretty hard to catch them and convict them if they were smart.

Frank Marshall Davis, real father of Barrack “Obama”?

A commenter named “Contrarian” said I should look into this.

I found this blogger’s research. If you follow the links, you’ll also find nude photos of Stanley Ann Dunham. That’s right, not making it up.

Obama write in his memoirs that his mother was an au pair in Chicago, and during that summer she saw the movie Black Orpheum. Although the official US Release of Black Orpheus was December, 1959, she could have seen an early art house release during the summer of 1959. Did she work for Frank Marshall Davis, who lived in Chicago? Frank Marshall Davis wrote in his memoirs that he and his white wife had a threesome with an underaged white girl named Ann. That would have to have been Obama’s mother.

* * *

Are the nude photos of Stanley Ann Dunham or Marcy Moore?

Obama mysteries

Worldnet Daily has the only real investigative reporting about the circumstances of Obama’s birth. What you can learn is the following:

1. There’s practically no evidence that Stanley Ann and Barack, Sr. were ever married. No marriage certificate, no ceremony, no photographs, no witnesses from Hawaii who can recall Stanley Ann and Barack, Sr. presenting themselves as husband and wife.

2. Obama says that his parents split up in 1962, but this is a lie. Stanley Ann began evening classes at the University of Washington in Seattle for the fall semester of 1961, which began in August, 1961, the same month that Obama, Jr. was allegedly born.

3. There is no evidence that Stanley Ann and Barack, Sr. ever lived together. The address on Obama’s birth certificate (the computer printout version he released) is where his grandparents rented a house. Barack, Sr, always lived at an apartment near the University of Hawaii until he graduated.

Unfortunately, this means that Obama was probably not born in Kenya. If Stanley Ann was never married to Barack, Sr., then she would have had no reason to go to Kenya with him.

Then there is the mystery of Obama’s fake social security numbers, which he apparently purloined from a dead person. I’m having trouble thinking of Obama’s motive for using a stolen social security number. Wouldn’t he have gotten a social security number when he was living with his grandparents in Hawaii?

A CRAZY THEORY

Barack has another birth certificate somewhere which doesn’t list Obama, Sr. as his father. His mother obtained the Obama birth certificate because she fantasized about being married to Obama, Sr.

Barack, at some time in his life, became infatuated with Obama, Sr., and wanted go by the name Obama. And that’s when he switched to using the Obama birth certificate, and he switched social security numbers.

But if Barack just wanted to change his last name, why not do it legally by filing an application with the state where he lived?

If this story is true, what’s Barack’s true name? I think, if he never legally changed his name, it would be whatever is on the real birth certificate. Maybe Barrack Hussein Obama, Jr. is really Barry Dunham?

Comments about Trump

Quotes are from a Newsmax Article.

Donald Trump says his determination to conclusively resolve President Barack Obama’s place of birth resonates with GOP voters, and he doesn’t care if Karl Rove criticizes the effort, because it was the Republican strategist’s failures that led to a botched Obama presidency in the first place.

Trump deserves kudos for being his own man and not bowing down to Karl Rove, like all other mainstream Republicans seem to do.

“I would go in and take the oil — I would just go in and take the oil,” Trump replied. “We don’t know who the rebels are, we hear they come from Iran, we hear they’re influenced by Iran or al-Qaida, and, frankly I would go in, I would take the oil — and stop this baby stuff.

“We’re a bunch of babies — we have wars and we leave — we go in, we have wars, we lose lives, we lose money, and we leave,” Trump continued. “I would go in and take the oil and I’d clean up everything. I think he's weak and ineffective on almost every front, including Libya.”

Going in and “taking the oil” is a really bad idea. Our recent experiences with invading Muslim countries clearly demonstrate that it’s a lot less expensive to buy oil at market prices than it is to occupy a Muslim country.

Lawrence Auster’s take on this is that Trump at least deserves acclaim for putting America’s interests first. And I agree that the President should put America first, and this is something Obama doesn’t do at all. I think it was in America’s interests to do nothing about Libya. As long as Gadaffi was selling us oil and not funding terrorists, it was in our interests for him to remain in power. But it’s not in America’s long-run interests to occupy Muslim countries.

“Well, I think I'm getting the votes because of the fact that they see my stance on China. I’ve made a lot of money with China — I've done deals with China, which I’ll be exposing some day in the very near future, perhaps — and I'm very proud to expose it,” he said. “The fact is, people know that I will do a great job in stopping China from ripping us off, which is what they're doing.

It’s refreshing to see a politician get away from the “free trade is always good” line that both Republicans and Democrats tout.

“People know that I will do a great job with OPEC and I will stop this carnage . . . in terms of what they're doing with oil, what they're doing with our gasoline prices,” Trump continued.

Trump is pandering to populism by blaming OPEC for the price of oil. The price of oil has risen because of inflation created by quantitative easing, and by supply and demand forces (not helped by Democrats refusing to allow drilling in ANWAR and the moratorium on drilling int he Gulf).

The truth about poverty

The town of Kiryas Joel poses a mystery for the NY Times. How is it that it’s the poorest place in the country, but no one looks really poor?

The answer, which the NY Times will never give you, is that poverty is more than just about how much money you have, it’s about both values and genetics. The people who live here are middle-class people who have chosen to devote their life to religion instead of to making money. They’ve managed to solve the biggest problem of not having any money, which is that you have to live next to poor people. They’ve created a community where no one has any money, but no one is poor.

Are they taking advantage of the system by collecting welfare benefits to finance their religious lifestyle? Maybe, but there’s a strong case they aren’t:

Mr. Szegedin, the village administrator, said critics tended to forget that state taxpayers were generally spared because thousands of village children are enrolled in religious schools. Nearby, the Monroe-Woodbury school district, with roughly the same school-age population, spends about $150 million annually, about one-third of which comes from the state. (Albany provides about $5 million of Kiryas Joel’s $16 million public school budget.)

“You also have no drug-treatment programs, no juvenile delinquency program, we’re not clogging the court system with criminal cases, you’re not running programs for AIDS or teen pregnancy,” he said. “I haven’t run the numbers, but I think it’s a wash.”

Middle-class people who collect welfare are clearly much less of a burden on the taxpayer than poor people who collect welfare.

Denialism and higher education

This op-ed article in a Louisiana newspaper does a pretty good job of bring to light some important facts about student loans and the earnings prospects for college graduates.

But the op-ed doesn’t address the real issues because there’s so much denialism going on in our society.

First of all, there is HBD-denialism. What HBD teaches us is that intelligence is a genetically inherited trait and that some people just aren’t born smart enough to learn college-level material (or what we currently classify as college-level material: if in the future, everyone goes to college, you can be certain that college-level material will be a lot easier). Although HBD is denied most vigorously by liberals, the vast majority of conservatives also deny HBD.

Secondly, conservative-libertarian economists, who are influential in endorsing the “correct” economic views to be believed by Republicans, deny the inefficiency of markets. They believe that if someone earns X dollars per year, it’s because they create X dollars of value. If college graduates earn more money, then under this conservative-libertarian viewpoint, it must be because they are creating more value than non-college graduates, and that must be because college has taught them skills which enable them to create more value. The notions that our economic system is just very inefficient at aligning incomes with value created, or that businesses hire college graduates just because it’s the way things are done rather than for any scientific reason, is foreign to them. Conservative-libertarian economists find it much easier to buy into the leftist view that college makes you smart, and that’s why college graduates earn more money.

The reality of how our labor markets work is that the ability to create value is largely determined by IQ, but no one who does any hiring knows about this or cares about this. They care about credentials such as college degrees. After people are in the work force, they care mostly about what you did in your last job, but that’s determined indirectly by your credentials. A guy without a college degree can only find a job at Target or McDonalds, so when he applies for another job, he applies as a guy who stocked the shelves at Target. But the guy with the degree from Harvard who got hired into an investment bank applies for his next job as a guy with investment banking experience. This is an example of career tracks. One's career track is heavily influenced by one’s first job, and one’s first job is heavily influenced by one’s educational credentials.

It’s quite rational for individuals to pursue educational credentials even though the system, in aggregate, is wasteful.

New evidence that Palin faked pregnancy

Geoffrey Dunn has some new evidence that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy.

I always wondered whether the ADN story about how no one noticed Palin’s pregnancy was completely true, or exaggerated so the reporter would have something to write about. Dunn has interviewed people who knew Palin at the time.

Hoping to disprove the conspiracy theory when I initiated work on my book--and to put the story to bed once and for all--I interviewed several close associates of Palin's, including her friends and political allies. I was anticipating, perhaps even hoping, that they would tell me conclusively that Trig was her child.

I was shocked by the response. One close friend of Palin's--a widely respected woman who had given birth to several children as well and who had close contact with Palin in Juneau up until the time of Trig's birth--told me that "Palin did not look like she was pregnant. Ever. Even when she had the bulging belly, I never felt that the rest of her body, her face especially, looked like she was pregnant." When I asked her point-blank if she was certain the baby was Palin's, she said, "No. I don't know what to believe."

The news of Palin's pregnancy came as a complete surprise to Palin's State Trooper security detail Gary Wheeler, a well-liked, 26-year veteran of the Alaska State Troopers who worked under several administrations in Alaska state government, both Republicans and Democrats. Only two weeks earlier, in late February of 2008, Wheeler had accompanied Palin back to Washington, D.C. for a Republican Governors Association Conference, where she had just met John McCain and his campaign manager Rick Davis, who was to be in charge of the vice-presidential nomination selection process. Wheeler remembers that Palin had changed into jeans upon her arrival in Washington, with no apparent revelation of pregnancy.

Wheeler also said that his wife, Corky, actually made fun of him when the news came out because he was supposed to be a "trained observer." Wheeler simply shakes his head: "I had nary an idea she was packin'."

Also, it’s interesting how Palin normally flew with a security detail, but she made sure that no one but Todd flew with her to the conference in Dallas where she claimed that her water broke.

Palin was scheduled to make a speech at an RGA energy conference in Dallas on April 17, slightly less than eight months into her pregnancy. At the last moment before her trip to Texas--which involved a stopover in Seattle--Wheeler says that Palin made an "out-of-the-ordinary" announcement that she wouldn't be needing a Trooper to accompany her on her junket, and that her husband Todd would be traveling with her instead. An email written by Palin--obtained through a Alaska Public Records Act request--confirms Wheeler's recollection. At 9:26 on the morning of April 14, 2008, only a day before her scheduled departure, Palin sent the following email to her administrative assistant, Janice Mason:

J- instead of rga paying for staff, and/or rga (or state) paying for Security on this Texas trip, pis let them know First Spouse is available to travel instead - they can pay for Todd. Pls chk on flt availability for him (on my flts). [sic] Thanks

It's as if she knew she was planning to fake giving birth after the conference, and she wanted no witnesses around.

Whenever someone really tries to investigate this story and prove that Sarah Palin did not fake a pregnancy, the opposite happens and more evidence is uncovered that she did fake it.

What’s a Certificate of Live Birth?

What irks me is when people say “That’s not a birth certificate, that’s a Certificate of Live Birth! Where’s the birth certificate?”

As far as I can guess, the “Certificate of Live Birth” is intended to be a birth certificate, but some government worker in Hawaii thought that titling it as simply “Birth Certificate” didn’t sound pompous enough. I worked for the army once (as a contractor), so I know that government workers like to use big words whenever possible. Paul Fussell noted this in his book Class.

Does anyone even know the difference between a “live birth” and just a “birth”? Are there any other kinds of births? Can someone be born dead?

What birthers should be distinguishing is the computer printout and the original documentation from which the data was entered into the computer. That’s what is commonly called the long-form birth certificate.

I’ve seen my long-form birth certificate, my mother has a copy, but I discovered that it’s not a valid birth certificate because it doesn’t have a New York State seal on it. So some long time ago, I went to the office in New York City and paid the clerk some money to get a new birth certificate, which was a computer printout which looks a lot like the computer printout which Obama submitted as proof of his birth. The computer printout has a seal on it, and it’s good for all practical purposes such as getting a passport or a driver’s license.

What liberal supporters of Obama, including the MSM, refuse to understand is that birthers aren’t saying that the printout isn’t a real certified document provided by the state of Hawaii. Rather they are saying that, if they only could see the original long form birth certificate, this would cast doubts on whether Obama was born in Hawaii.

I strongly suspect that the birthers are right, that the original documentation would create doubts. Birther researchers have established that there were other ways to get an Hawaiian birth certificate besides being born in a hospital in Hawaii. Someone claiming to be the parent could fill out a form at the appropriate government office, and be issued a birth certificate. It would probably have violated some law to lie on such an application, but we know that people lie on government forms all the time.

Now, if it’s true that the original birth documentation wasn’t filled out by a hospital, but rather by someone claiming to be Stanley Ann Dunham filling out a form herself, this would not prove that Obama was born in Kenya, but it would be extremely shaky proof that Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. The birthers would say they were right. Donald Trump would become immensely popular for being the only guy willing to stand up against the MSM and get at the truth, and he would win the Republican nomination. No wonder why so many people are trying to keep the original birth certificate suppressed.

How the Palin pregnancy hoax may have happened

Andrew Sullivan prints a letter from a reader explaining how the Palin pregnancy hoax may have happened. I repeat it here:

Sarah Palin’s kids were typical Wasilla teenagers, partying a lot, more unsupervised than most because Palin was so busy and Todd was gone a lot. The Palin household was not close. Frank Bailey reported Palin telling him "Todd and I aren't like other couples. We don't talk." But the kids, like many kids in alcoholic or abusive families, were well trained to make everything look perfect to outsiders. This dynamic was enhanced by the Palin's celebrity and power and the fact that by all accounts Palin is secretive to an extreme, even to her parents. If Bristol is indeed the mother of Trig (which is by no means certain), she got pregnant when she was sixteen, but didn’t tell anyone until it was too late for an abortion, so the plan was to keep the pregnancy secret and adopt the baby out.

Palin’s ob-gyn, Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, founded The Children’s Place in Alaska for victims of sexual assault and molestation, and specializes in helping teenagers in trouble. In early 2008, Palin’s name was out as a potential VP nominee, so the national spotlight was already beginning to hit – Vogue magazine did a photo essay about her and Adam Brickley's "Draft Sarah Palin" website was getting thousands of page views. Really bad timing for a pregnant teenage daughter.

Bristol was sent to live with her aunt halfway through her junior year, transferring from Juneau to West High School in Anchorage in the winter of 2007-2008. Then, according to the principal of West High, she left that school after a couple of months, theoretically to be home schooled. I suspect Bristol had Trig in late February, at home or possibly in Anchorage as an anonymous teenager - perhaps under the care of Dr. Baldwin-Johnson. But she was one of the small but real group of teenagers to give birth to a baby with Down Syndrome, which threw a wrench in the adoption plans.

Trig stayed in the hospital in Anchorage and Bristol came home. Palin began to see a political opportunity in having a baby with Down Syndrome. The Palins decided that Sarah and Todd would adopt the baby and raise him as theirs, but they couldn't let the public know Bristol had been pregnant. Maybe Sarah’s doctor did not know about her plans either. Palin began wearing scarves all the time in mid-February. McCain got the nomination on March 5, and the next day Sarah went for it and gave a press conference saying she was seven months pregnant. No one could believe it. Perhaps even, I suspect, Palin's doctor.

She was planning to announce the birth in the middle of April, the earliest she could conceivably have a healthy baby, and the latest Trig would be able to pass as a newborn. But she really wanted to give the high profile speech in Dallas. So she gave flew there and gave it. On April 17th, she called her parents early in the morning and told her dad her water had broken so she was coming back early. If Palin was ever actually at Mat-Su hospital that night, then Cathy Baldwin-Johnson would have arranged for privacy for her high profile patient (a scenario that numerous nurses have reported happens with regularity).

In any event, at noon the next day, Palin's parents were photographed by KTUU in the halls holding a very chubby pink baby ... a baby that, according to Going Rogue, was a month premature with a hole in his heart and jaundice. No one would ever have been the wiser, except that in an interview three days later a reporter asked Palin if her water had broken while she was in Texas. Palin tried to deflect the question, and the reporter (the only reporter, I might add, who has ever asked Palin a pointed question on this) said "Well, your dad said that and I saw him say it so that’s why I asked." And out came the story of the Wild Ride.

After that, the doctor said "It was not unreasonable for her to fly back" with a lawyer present and then has refused all interviews since. And Bristol got knocked up sometime before April 1st with Tripp, which turned out to be very convenient for Palin as "proof" Bristol couldn't be the mother of Trig.

So. As the Internet heats up with arguments and counter arguments, I hope this will reinforce the difference between the Palin story and every other conspiracy I can think of. It's not a conspiracy.

Some evidence that Obama wasn't born in Kenya

Instead of standard liberal excuses for Obama’s birth, “look at the newspaper announcements, duh!” here’s an article with some actual logical reason for why Obama wasn’t born in Kenya. That reason is that there’s evidence that Barack Obama, Sr. never left Hawaii because he was enrolled in college the whole time.

On the other hand, this doesn’t prove that Obama was born in Hawaii. What we know about Stanley Ann Dunham’s whereabouts at the time is that she was enrolled at college at the University of Hawaii in the fall semester of 1960, and no one knows where she was in the spring or summer of 1961, but then she was enrolled as an evening student at the University of Washington in Seattle in the fall of 1961, just a few days after she allegedly gave birth to Barack, Jr. in Hawaii.

Back in 1961, it was a big scandal for someone of Stanley Ann’s social class to be an unwed teenage mother. Her parents may have sent her away somewhere to avoid the scandal. Stanley Ann’s marriage to Barack Obama, Sr. may have just been a fantasy she had and which she nurtured for long afterwards, a fantasy which Barack, Jr. actually believed. I know that women will make up fantasies about being married, because I know a woman who did exactly that.

Under this scenario, there’s a good possibility that Stanley Ann Dunham gave birth to Obama in Washington and not Hawaii (which, unfortunately, would mean that Obama is a natural-born American citizen), and that the birth certificate really is a fake, obtained by filling out a form and mailing it to the birth certificate office, and that would explain why Obama refuses to release it, because it would raise doubts about whether Obama was truly born in the United States.

* * *

Perhaps the more likely scenario is that Stanley Ann got pregnant before she moved to Hawaii, which means that Barack Obama, Sr. isn't Obama's father. Maybe the real father is Malcolm X who was known to be in Seattle in the summer of 1960? This explains why Obama wants to hide the truth; his entire memoir his bogus.

Palin hoax bandwagon

Another blogger jumps on the bandwagon:

I will preface my own take on this long-running story by noting that I was an investigative editor and reporter for many years. Series and stories that I supervised were nominated for four Pulitzer Prizes.

While that background does not make me omnipotent, I trust my instincts when wading through and weighing facts — or in this case the absence of them — which has taken me on a journey from being highly skeptical of there being a birth conspiracy hoax to conclusions that academic paper author Scharlott tells me he finds to be “incisive and correct.”

* * *

Sarah Palin wouldn't even be the first Republican governor to have faked a pregnancy.

Obama doublespeak on birth certificate

As reported in major newspapers:

President Obama said today that Donald Trump and other Republicans who challenge his U.S. citizenship may gain a short-term political benefit with conservative voters, but will suffer with the kinds of independent voters who decide general elections.

It "creates, I think, a problem for them when they want to actually run in a general election where most people feel pretty confident the President was born where he says he was, in Hawaii," Obama told ABC News in an interview.

The president added that he doesn't "have horns."

Obama added: "We may disagree with him on some issues and we may wish that you know, the unemployment rate was coming down faster and we want him to know his plan on gas prices. But we're not really worrying about conspiracy theories or birth certificates."

Obama didn’t offer proof that he was born in Hawaii, instead he said that “most people feel pretty confident that the President was born where he says he was.” This is actually a true statement. In other words, as long as people believe he was born in Hawaii, because the liberal-controlled MSM insists that those who want proof are mentally deranged, then he doesn’t need to prove he was born there.

Instead of offering proof, he uses the phrase “conspiracy theories” which creates the image of crazy people who don’t have a firm grip on reality. But if Obama knows he wasn’t born in Hawaii, and anyone else also knows this, then there really is a conspiracy.

The more I read about this so-called “birther” issue, the more I think that Obama is unable to prove he was born in Hawaii, which is why he does this doublespeak.

* * *

I also still want to see proof that Trig Palin was born when and where Sarah says he was.

Henry Blodget demands to see the birth certificates!

Henry Blodget writes:

This country faces huge, serious problems that will require a boatload of brainpower and cooperation to fix. No one in the country should have to waste even a moment wondering whether the President wasn't born here or a former Vice Presidential candidate (and possible Presidential candidate) lied to the entire nation.

What's more, we believe both questions could easily and permanently be put to rest by us (or any other investigators) spending a few minutes with two documents:

The original "long-form" birth certificate of Barack Obama, which is said to contain the hand-written notes of the doctor who helped bring him into the world and is said to be in a file somewhere in Honolulu, and

The original birth certificate of Sarah Palin's son Trig, which should say where he was born and when and who his parents are.

Representatives for President Obama and Possible Presidential Candidate Palin have dismissed the theories above as vindictive, politically motivated, and preposterous. Given this, we imagine that they, too, would like to see the theories put to rest.

So we are hereby launching a mission to be allowed to spend a few minutes examining the documents above, so can put the theories behind us and help the nation move on. We will pursue this mission through a number of different avenues, official and unofficial. And if and when we are successful in getting access to the documents, we will send our investigators to Hawaii and Alaska to examine them and finally reveal the truth.

I hope he manages to uncover the truth.

Palin baby hoax thoughts

Why I think that Trig is Bristol’s son and not Sarah’s:

1. There were rumors that Bristol was pregnant. Often, rumors get started because they are true.
2. Bristol was mysteriously pulled out of high school. For what reason would this happen? A likely reason is to spare her (and Sarah) the embarrassment of going to school while pregnant.
3. Bristol has a proven propensity for having unprotected sex, as demonstrated by what was probably her second pregnancy.
4. Pictures from the Republican convention show Bristol taking care of Trig and looking at him with the love of a mother. Sarah, on the other hand, seemed entirely indifferent to him.
5. Sarah brought Trig to work with her three days after he was allegedly born. I don’t think so. No doctor would let someone parade around a premature baby in public three days after he was born. This confirms that Trig was born before the alleged birthdate, and the most likely mother is Bristol. 6. Sarah is unable to produce a birth certificate for Trig because the real certificate has an earlier birth date and lists Bristol as the mother. 7. There was no birth announcement at the hospital because Trig wasn't born there on the date claimed by Sarah.

How it probably happened

Sarah arranged for a secret adoption of Bristol’s baby. Because girls Bristol’s age are not normally given an amniocentesis, no one knew that the baby would have Down Syndrome until he was born. Once this became known, the adoption fell through, because who would want to adopt a retarded baby? So now, how does Sarah keep Bristol's pregnancy secret? Sarah decided to arrange a scheme where people would think that Sarah gave birth to Trig.

Naysayers claim that because Trig has Down Syndrome, this proves that it’s Sarah’s baby. It proves no such thing, and in fact makes the charade all the more likely because there’s no problem in finding parents for a healthy white baby.

Did Sarah fake a preganancy?

I see that there are three ways that Sarah might have been able to convince everyone that she gave birth to Trig.

1. Fake the pregnancy, wear a fake baby bump.

2. Sarah really was pregnant, however she was earlier in her pregnancy than she claimed (which explains why her baby bump was never big enough). Instead of giving birth to Trig on that day in April, she actually had an abortion.

3. Sarah really was pregnant and really did give birth in April, but her real baby was secretly adopted by someone else, and Trig was switched in. Even under this scenario, Sarah’s water didn’t really break in Texas. Sarah told this story because she likes to embellish her stories, and she’s not smart enough to do this well.

What is Bill McAllister hiding?

Laura Novak interviews Brad Scharlott (he’s the journalism professor who has brought the possible Palin baby hoax back into the media spotlight):

LN: Brad, I had no sooner read about your paper than I found myself reading criticism of it. Let’s start with that. What’s the reaction been? Are you getting hammered? Is the mainstream media taking note of this paper?

BS: Well the first reaction was pretty odd. Last week I sent a copy of my paper to Sarah Palin’s former press secretary asking if he had any comments, since he is mentioned in an unflattering way. He went ballistic. He called me a “scumbag” who is “in the service of evil.” He said he would slap me if he ever saw me, and that in a former age he would have challenged me to a duel. And then, under the heading “Brad Scharlott disgraces your university” he sent that critique of me in an email to all my colleagues in my department. I’m guessing he was used to using strong-arm tactics like that in Alaska. I guess he didn’t realize that 1) I am a tenured professor who can research anything I want, and 2) no one in Kentucky gives a shit about what he thinks.

Bill McAllister sounds like a man with something to hide.

If he's not desperately trying to hide something, then it makes you wonder about what kind of people Palin hires to work for her.

Sarah Palin baby hoax back in the news!

Read here.

Was Half Sigma right all along?

* * *

As I wrote more than two years ago:

I thank Mike Davis (aka Walter Waldhauser) for opening my eyes to the world of BSAs (bullshit artists). Mike Davis told his fellow law students that he was a rich retired guy, but in fact he was convicted of murder who got out of prison early. Only my friend B knew something was up:

My friend B was the only person I know who was in any way suspicious of him. “There’s something suspicious about Mike Davis” he told me. “How so?” I asked. B explained that Mike Davis claimed to have a lot of money, but B saw him waiting on line at the financial aid office to pick up a student loan check.

B also knew that a woman we both knew was making up a story about being married:

... I realized that most of what Polly herself told me about her life was completely false. Yet another lying classmate from law school. Her biggest whopper is that she told me she was married. To a white guy construction worker with long blond hair and a tattoo. “Did you ever see the husband?” my friend B once asked me. “No” I said. “Then she’s probably making up the story.”

B knew long before I did that when people say stuff that doesn't really add up, they are probably lying about something. That's how I know that Palin is lying about something regarding her pregnancy, because all of the stories don't add up. Did she fake a pregnancy or is she hiding something else? Who knows. But if a woman can make up a story about being married, another woman can make up a story about being pregnant.

Iran and Syria

As reported by Reuters:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Anti-government demonstrations in Syria are part of a plot by the West to undermine a government that supports "resistance" in the Middle East, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.

Unlike uprisings in other parts of the Arab world which Tehran has applauded as an "Islamic awakening" of peoples against Western-backed oppressors, the protests in Syria have received little media attention or official comment in Iran.

But at his weekly news conference on Tuesday, Iran's spokesman said the protests in Syria over the last three weeks, in which 200 people died, according to a rights group, were not a spontaneous event but the result of foreign interference. Syria is Iran's closest Arab ally.

"What is happening in Syria is a mischievous act of Westerners, particularly Americans and Zionists," Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters.

I give Iran credit for knowing which revolutions are in its own interests, and which ones are not. The Occams’s Razor explanation for Iran’s foreign policy statements is that Iran has a simplistic approach to propaganda in which it praises developments that are good for Iran, and condemns developments which are bad for Iran. Iran isn’t sophisticated about hiding its cards and doesn’t ever use reverse psychology.

Iran is wrong about Syria. The uprisings in Syria are easily explained by a Sunni majority wanting to oust a Shiite dictator who doesn’t share their religious views. If the guy leading the United States was pro-American and had common sense, he’d be supporting the Syrian protesters in order to weaken Iran which is the most destabilizing country in the Middle East and actively pursues an anti-Western pro-terrorist foreign policy. It’s even possible that members of Iranian actually do believe the propaganda, because if they were in America’s shoes they would be giving support to the protesters, so they assume its happening. They don't understand Obama any better than Americans. Obama ignores Syria because it doesn’t fit into his anti-colonialist worldview.

Trump 2012?

I think that if Donald Trump can prove that Obama is hiding something about his birth certificate, he wins the Republican nomination. Unmasking Obama's deceptions will win him incredible loyalty from the Republican base.

Otherwise he loses, because being proved wrong about the birth certificate would seriously diminish his gravitas and make him unelectable.

But even if he loses, he's still not really a loser because he retires filthy rich.

* * *

Trump could be the first Republican presidential candidate to win the Jewish vote because his daughter is Jewish.

* * *

I also like the fact that Trump supports a wealth tax. “Some will say that my plan is unfair to the extremely wealthy. I say it is only reasonable to shift the burden to those most able to pay. The wealthy actually would not suffer severe repercussions.“

Obama's anti-colonialism

Here is a more detailed follow-up to my hastily-written previous post.

Last September, Dinesh D’Souza wrote an article for Forbes in which he explained that Obama is an anti-colonialist.

Here’s some follow-up commentary from Newt Gingrich:

"What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" Gingrich asked. "That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."

"This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president," Gingrich added.

"I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating -- none of which was true," Gingrich continues. "In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve. ... He was authentically dishonest."

In other words, I reached the same conclusion that Newt Gingrich reached many months ago. Obama’s foreign policy has nothing to do with him being stupid or out of his league. Rather, he secretly pursues an anti-colonialist foreign policy that few are smart enough to understand.

What the heck is anti-colonialism, you may ask? Well the radical left believes that the policies of European nations of prior centuries was about perpetrating great evils against the indigenous peoples of other continents.

Do you recall my previous post about Democrats and the wealthy? I wrote:

To the extent that Democrats believe in value creation at all, they believe that value is created by evil deeds such as enslaving black Africans, stealing land from the American Indians, and desecrating the planet in order to extract resources.

Unknowingly, I was explaining the concept of anti-colonialism. Anti-colonialists believe that the United States is rich not because we were better at creating value, but because of evil deeds we did in the past which involved abusing and even enslaving indigenous peoples for the benefit of white Europeans.

Anti-colonialists further believe that these evil policies continue to this day, and that the United States is the world’s major colonialist force. But today, instead of directly taking over countries, we indirectly take over countries by subverting their ruling classes with our wealth and influence. This is known as neocolonialism, and is described in a Wikipedia article:

[Kwame] Nkrumah [former president of Ghana] argues that "In place of colonialism as the main instrument of imperialism we have today neo-colonialism. … Neo-colonialism, like colonialism, is an attempt to export the social conflicts of the capitalist countries." He continues:

The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world. The struggle against neo-colonialism is not aimed at excluding the capital of the developed world from operating in less developed countries. It is aimed at preventing the financial power of the developed countries being used in such a way as to impoverish the less developed.

To the neo-colonialist, any undeveloped country which is friendly to the United States is only friendly because that country’s ruling elite are collaborating with the Americans to make themselves rich at the expense of the vast majority of the undeveloped country’s non-elite. The righteous countries are those which are anti-American.

Don’t you think that the philosophy of anti-colonialism explains everything Obama has done? Obama has encouraged revolutions in Egypt and Libya because they were friendly to the United States. Libya, especially, is an interesting case. Gadaffi used to be a righteous crusader against the United States, but he became seduced by the evil enticements of American money, so now he must be punished for his apostasy. In contrast, Obama doesn’t want to see a revolution in any countries that are hostile to the United States such as Iran or Syria.

Obama’s anti-colonialism also explains is actions against Honduras. As you recall, the democratically elected legislature ousted the anti-American president Zelaya who was violating the constitution of Honduras by taking actions to make himself a president for life. Obama sided with the anti-American Zelaya and demanded his reinstatement. Luckily for the people of Honduras, the legislature refused to acquiesce to Obama’s anti-American foreign policy.

* * *

Obama also supported the wrong side in the Ivory Coast (according to a Front Page Magazine article).

The Obama doctrine proves his genius

More news of brutal repression from Syria. This time, we learn that Syria has not allowed medical treatment for injured protesters.

When there were protests in Egypt, a friendly country, Obama said that Mubarak must go.

When there were protests in Libya, a friendly country (yes, Gadaffi made peace with us, he paid reparations for the Lockerbie bombing, he gave up his nuclear weapons program), Obama said that Gadaffi must go.

There are protests in Syria, ruled by Assad who is an enemy, a supporter of terrorism, an ally of Iran. But Obama says nothing.

Obviously, the Obama doctrine is to pull the rug out from under our friends (if Gadaffi wasn’t fully a “friend” he was no longer an enemy), while doing nothing to weaken our enemies.

Some conservatives say that “Obama is out of his league” or that his foreign policy blunders prove that Obama isn’t very smart. I say it proves that Obama is a genius. Only Obama is smart enough to intentionally pursue an anti-American foreign policy, but convince everyone that he’s not anti-American, he’s just out of his league.

Christianity proven!

I heard on the radio this morning that Jesus’ crucifixion nails were found.

Huh? Don’t all rational people know that an historical Jesus never even existed?

The Guardian has the other side of the story:

The Israel Antiquities Authority, which oversaw the excavation of the tomb – it has since been resealed – cast doubt upon suggestions that the grave was definitively the burial place of Caiaphas, and said nails are commonly found in such locations.

"There is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film with a real archaeological find at its centre," said a spokesman. "But the interpretation presented in it has no basis in archaeological findings or research."

But I’m sure the truth won’t stop stupid believers from watching the Simcha Jacobovici's movie, demonstrating once again that it’s more profitable to lie than it is to tell the truth.