[real life] about to curtail this blog

Most bloggers who've been at it for some time would claim that Real Life transcends any blog matters and yet it seems to me, from what I've seen, that many bloggers cannot let it go, even when they run out of things to say.

Let's face it, our blog is probably the only forum where more than our immediate circle get to hear [or read] our views on matters. That's at least so for the political blogger. The food and garden blogger is a different creature but his or her motivation might be the sense of community in that corner of the sphere. That's a motivation for many political bloggers as well.

Real Life does intrude and any day now it's going to with me.

Not to put too fine a point on it, when I go, my internet connection goes too. I don't think it's going to be a total thing, as there is always the local library membership which allows an hour a day and so I'd aim to keep one post up a day but it is going to severely curtail the research time. Quite frankly, I shouldn't be spending hours in the local library when I need to be out following the recovery plan.

I can't see it ever being permanent or even a hiatus but it's certainly going to be a dent in the output for some time, for very necessary reasons and it must be any day now. I now have a commitment to Bloghounds as well and there are advertisers starting to trickle in who are expecting the blog to be maintained.

I don't know how many of us consider our loyalty to the readers either; after all, a reader is a person who clicks in from time to time to see if anything interesting is happening but each of us, in these troubled times, does like to see certain faces in the blog firmament and are sad when they drop away.

So that's the current state of play.

[iran] are they gun running to gaza

The allegation that Iran is providing arms and assistance to Hamas has been denied as "illogical" by many pundits. Gaza is sealed, they say and so it is just not possible for Iran to get in there.

Here is another point of view:

Reva Bhalla, a Middle East analyst with the private intelligence firm Stratfor, said Iran uses a sophisticated Hezbollah smuggling network to get arms to Hamas.

"Basically, you'll have a bunch of Hezbollah agents who will procure arms through Sudan. They'll enter Egypt under forged documents, pay off disgruntled Bedouins in the Sinai with things like light arms, cash, Lebanese hashish - which they can sell in the black market - and pay off Egyptian security guards as well so that they can travel covertly into Gaza to pass off the weapons shipments through Hamas' pretty extensive underground tunnel network," she said.

But most analysts agree that even if Iran is arming Hamas, it would produce little practical gain for Tehran other than to make life difficult for Israel. It is on the political front, they say, where Iran looks to benefit from the crisis in Gaza as it tries to project itself as the leader of the Islamic world.

Analyst Reva Bhalla said Iran is trying boost its standing in the region by embarrassing moderate Arab states.

"It basically makes Iran stand apart from the Arab regimes. And note that the Arab regimes are the most silent on this issue. Most are quite happy seeing Hamas contained, [they] really have no problem with the Palestinians being contained in the region by the Israelis. It's that huge disconnect between what you hear in the Arab street and what you see being actually discussed within these regimes. And so Iran is trying to exploit that," she said.

[wordless wednesday] captions please

Oops - shouldn't have run this one at Christmas time [see next post].

[rfk] in the shadow of brother john

The assassination of RFK doesn't get the same attention as that of JFK or JFK Jnr's "accident". This is an interesting piece of investigation into RFK's demise:

And incidentally, that youtube on JFK I couldn't find has been found by a correspondent. It's a worry the way the investigator constantly speaks of "scientific, mathematical measurements" and "precise measurements" but he does seem to have the angle fairly right and more importantly - he shows, physically, that it was possible.

Combine that with the other video of a car going past from that pov and the sewer looks a bit difficult but the storm drain would have been quite possible.

[prat filter] early testing looks positive

The Cynical Dragon raises an issue of the greatest import - how to filter out George Galloway and other prats so that they gain no oxygen of publicity from actually being officially gagged.

Pre-filter: Initial filtration of the first bleatings is through a graded density 5-micron pre-filter that traps rhetoric, whining, mindless opinions and covert agendas that affect the atmosphere, tone, and overall appearance of your living space. It utilizes the revolutionary new Nano-bot search and destroy system.

Electrokinetic Absorption: The graded density main filter acquires a positive molecular charge as verbal bilge passes through it. Since most contaminants exhibit a negative charge in solution, the media fibers will electrokinetically attract charged gibes and asides too small for removal by the main filter. It's not unlike a liquid filter in some ways.

Anger-management post-filter: Foaming and frothing containment is achieved by the Kalashnikov head retention value measurement and by sampling a measured amount of bilge from the offending prat into a froth-cling deconstitutionalizer, to test residual "bitterness" of 2 to 3 BU [bitterness units].

Early testing indicates that the filter has possibilities and this blog wil bring your the news the moment PratFilterPlus [patent pending] is brought to the marketplace.

Cost should be in the region of 2.85% loss of sanity.

[vote jon swift] 2008 weblog awards

That talented satirist Jon Swift is in the Weblog Awards again, in the humour section. If you can see your way clear, click on the pic top left or in the sidebar and give him your vote. A blogosphere without humour and biting satire would be a poor place indeed.

[northern ireland] middle-east parallels

Wiki says that the population of Northern Ireland, at the UK Census in April 2001, was 1,685,000. Not many people for a province which has caused enormous headaches over a long period of time.

It's not necessary for me to have Irish blood, I contend, to write on Northern Ireland but as I do have Irish blood, then perhaps I can just feel what I write all the more in this matter. There's no doubting that the Irish can feel ... oh, they can feel and that's reflected in the Eurovision wins they've had, for one.

Agatha Christie put it well in N or M though when she said that the Irish have this knack of turning a dispute into the martyrdom of a national hero and weaving legend and song around it so that the slight is ne'er forgotten. The vehemence and provocation of the Orange marches, the Apprentice Boys or the Royal Black, the Ancient Order of Hibernian, Irish National Foresters or Republican parades are statements of intransigent positions and they raise issues.

The outside world

Just as with Israel and its legion of would-be-destroyers, it's fine for the world to say "ceasefire" but you have to be inside there to know the true nature of the conflict through their eyes. This is life and death for both sides. Also, you have to have grown up with the "hatred fed with their morning milk", as a journo whose name escapes me put it some years back, to understand and feel the issues deeply.

The Fields Of Athenry - Brian Kennedy

On the other hand, the outsider can see the forest away from the trees and provided he's not representing one side or the other, he can be an arbiter. Trouble is, especially in the middle-east and in Ireland, there doesn't seem to be an unpolarized position. I've had unpleasant experiences with both over-loud protestants and soft-spoken yet stubborn fenians over the years and from both sides, this word crops up again - intransigence.
The Irish will leap to say: "Well what about British intransigence?" True but this post is about the Irish.

Inside

My partner and I were "caught" in a restaurant in Germany with a party of Northern Irish protestants at our long table and I tried to strike up a conversation on non-Irish issues, which was fine at first but inevitably it came back round to The Troubles and there were two or three Paisleys at the table who made the whole experience of the meal unpleasant.

I've already mentioned that when I was a head teacher in London, our kids went to a basketball match near Canary Wharf and there was an IRA bomb scare. The kids were terrified, the police action was swift and we were kept in touch by mobile phone but what shocked everyone was when the geography teacher, named Brendan, said to the parents of the kids that the English had brought it all on themselves, they have, they have. Of particular interest to me was his term "they".



What can be done with such people? The dispute has become so deep that it's affected day to day life, even thinking on seemingly unrelated issues. A ceasefire is fine but then one of the parties does not respect it and the other does. One side is "just" trying to grab a little more land, a little more power before the heavy hand of reason descends.

And it's never as the arbiters portray it, a dispute between little boys. That's only to trivialize the issue and make the arbiters look like annoying lightweights in the eyes of the combatants.

On the other hand, do we all need constant supervision, a contention you could make after watching Lord of the Flies? Do we all need arbiters at hand the whole time?

Do we need apartheid with agreed, internationally acceptable boundaries?

Personally, I'd like to see a process whereby we could circumvent the lawyers and have travelling arbiters paid by the state, [along with the state's only other functions of defence, social security in a reduced form, education and representing the country internationally].

[unrequited love] the winter may pass ...

Kanskje vil der gå både Vinter og Vår,
og neste Sommer med og det hele År,
men en gang vil du komme, det vet jeg vist,
og jeg skal nok vente, for det lovte jeg sidst.

Gud styrke dig, hvor du i Verden går,
Gud glæde dig, hvis du for hans Fodskammel står.
Her skal jeg vente til du kommer igjen;
og venter du hist oppe, vi træffes der, min Ven!

The winter may pass and the spring disappear
The spring disappear
The summer too will vanish and then the year
And then the year
But this I know for certain: you'll come back again
You'll come back again
And even as I promised you'll find me waiting then
You'll find me waiting then


Sarah Brightman?

[obama] the missing six months

I'm not even going to start promoting the implications of this photo

Weatherman and Nation of Islam connection

The last post touched on the birth issue. Leaving that side for the moment, the story gets weirder:

Just prior to the Pennsylvania primary Barack Obama was asked at a Democratic debate about his relationship with unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers. Obama pretended that he was only casually acquainted with Ayers, describing him as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago...".

Hilary provided a bracing corrective, reminding people that the two men had served on a charitable board together, the Woods Fund of Chicago. This exchange was newsworthy enough to provoke coverage in the Chicago Sun-Times, and the NY Times; earlier stories had sparked The "Fact Checker" at the Washington post.

However:

Barack Obama and Bil Ayers worked together for several years on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational reform group co-founded in 1995 by Bill Ayers and chaired by Barack Obama. How did Obama forget this?

Plus:

In addition to Auchi, Ayers, Dohrn, Pfleger, Rezko, Wright, etc...we now have Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian bagman for Yassar Arafat that secured megabuck from the Woods Fund while Barack H. Obama and Ayers were on the board.

Barack and Michelle Obama and the Khalidis swapped dinner parties and Michelle Obama would babysit the Khalidi's kids, this was not some casual professional relationship they were good friends as Sean Hannity reports.

And:

I live in Obama's neighborhood and know some of the Obama / Ayers crowd. Ayers and Dohrn have babysat the Obama kids personally. The families are personal friends, not just professional acquaintances.

Posted by: hydeparker | August 13, 2008 at 01:41 PM

Bernadette Dohrn is the one who said, in response to the Manson family murders:

"Dig it! First they killed those pigs and then they put a fork in pig Tate's belly. Wild!"

Ayers claimed she'd only said it as a joke.

Dohrn went underground in early 1970, engaging in bombing activities. In a 1994 interview, Dohrn said that while the group carried out some bombings of buildings, it did not target people, and the group's actions were justified as a proper response to violent government actions.

Further, from Atlas Shrugs:

Dohrn was once on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the "most dangerous woman in America." Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 murder and robbery that left four people dead.

These were babysitters and dinner guests for the Obamas?

In a recent interview, Obama called his mother "the dominant figure in my formative years. . . . The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics."

Stanley Ann Dunham chronology

Obama born August 4, 1961.

“The University of Hawaii at Manoa is only able to provide the following information for Stanley Ann Dunham: Dates of attendance:

Fall 1960 (First day of instruction 9/26/1960)
Spring 1963 - Summer 1966
Fall 1972 - Fall 1974

Spring 1978
Fall 1984 - Summer 1992

Degrees awarded:
BA - Mathematics, Summer 1967 (August 6, 1967)
MA - Anthropology, Fall 1983 (December 18, 1983)
PhD - Anthropology, Summer 1992 (August 9, 1992)

Sincerely,
Stuart Lau”

Then:

Ms. Stanley Ann Dunham was enrolled at the University of Washington for:

Autumn 1961
Winter 1962
Spring 1962

The records responsive to your request from the University of Washington are above as provided by the Public Disclosure Laws of Washington State. This concludes the University’s response to your Public Records request. Please feel free to contact our office if you have any questions or concerns.

Madolyne Lawson Office of Public Records

Ann Dunham became pregnant approx. Nov 1st, 1960 while still 17 years old. This was while she was at UH.

What is unaccounted for is the period from February, 1961 to August, 1961 and at what point she split from Obama Snr. Here is a comment from DeadSerious 12/27/2008, 17:56:38:

Who remembers Stanley Ann Dunham (Obama) in Hawaii?

No relative or friend
No classmate or teacher
No neighbor or landlord
No prenatal care doctor or nurse
No delivery room doctor or nurse
No hosptial admit officer or attendant
No hospital room mate for the shared room
No post natal care for the mother or infant
No co-workers of Grandma's from Bank of Hawaii

Leaving wild theories aside and accepting the Obama camp line, she had the baby in August in Hawaii and then left husband and baby and attended college in Washington State shortly afterwards?

The whole bloody thing doesn't add up.

[obama] this question now becoming critical

Some of the documentation which would help decide this is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight:

"Even the Hawaii Department of Home Lands does not accept a certified copy of a birth certificate as conclusive evidence for its homestead program. From its web site: ‘In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.'"

The essence of the complaint is that the "Certification of Live Birth" that is used by FightTheSmears, the Annenberg Political FactCheck and others does not have the same information as an original birth certificate, including location of birth.

Surprisingly, Hawaii happens to issue birth certificates for babies born outside Hawaii. The Hawaiian law on that states:

"Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child."

In the comments section of a recent post, Ted Mathis stated:

3. BHO is therefore not a “natural born citizen” (irrespective of Hawaiian birth or whether he may be a 14th Amendment “citizen” of USA) — confirmed in the Senate’s own McCain qualification resolution (that both parents must be citizens of USA) co-authored by BHO.

4. Supreme Court has already docketed two upcoming conferences, 1/9/09 and 1/16/09 — between dates Congress counts electoral votes (1/8/09) and Presidential inauguration (1/20/09) — to address Berg Case and fashion relief on BHO’s eligibility to be President.

The 14th Amendment appears to scupper the Obama challenge until one returns to the material above. Hawaii issues certificates for births outside of Hawaii. My reading of this, to be fair, is that they may mean "in any other part of the United States" but they may also mean exactly what they say, with no futher stipulation. If Obama had been born in Kenya [grandmother and Kenyan Ambassador] or even in transit, then Hawaii would have been satisfied for their own purposes.

However, clearly, given link one above, he would be ineligible for natural born status, for the purposes of federal election. So there is a convoluted case here. SCOTUS accepts a Hawaiian assurance of his birth, as they have precedent in doing. Therefore he is natural born in their eyes and the case goes no further. However, to go back to the setting aside of Dred Scott [link four above], the differentiation between state and federal law was preserved, not overturned.

So there is a logical impossibility here. "Natural born" is not defined and depends on congressional statements or court interpretation and precedent. In federal law, if he was not born in a Hawaiian hospital but Hawaii accepted the "intent" of being Hawaiian, then he is natural born in terms of their acceptance of the Hawaiian statement to that effect but not natural born in terms of their own conditions.

At the very least, this requires a court case. However, private persons have been ruled to have no standing to bring a case against an elected federal official, e.g. Berg. Only congress has that standing and it is Democratic.

The clear answer to this is that Obama was born on Hawaiian soil.

But where? There is no Hawaiian hospital nor presiding doctor or nurse stated anywhere in the Obama camp reply. The name of the hospital has to be on the vault copy and Fact Check [an Obama camp website] says it has viewed it and yet it has not been stated. More than that, they are refusing to state it.

There is a case, with the grandmother and others, claiming he was born at Mombasa Coastal Hospital in Kenya. Records are now sealed in Kenya.

The official Obama camp claim is that he was born at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu. His sister Mary claimed he was born at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children. There is no record of either the birth or the mother having attended those hospitals.

These hospitals were contacted by Republicans and none had records of Obama's birth.

Many reference materials say Obama was born at Kapiolani, including Wikipedia English version under the subject “Barack Obama.” But under the subject “Queens Hospital,” Wikipedia says Obama was born there. And Wikipedia Italian says this:

Barack Obama nacque al Queen’s Medical Center di Honolulu da Barack Hussein Obama Sr….

Wikipedia Geneology says Queens too. And there’s this reference on Yahoo Answers:

Apparently, examination of the hospitals’ records in Hawaii have shown no birthing records for Ann Dunham Obama even though there is a registry of the birth in the public records office a week after his date of birth it does not show his place of birth.

Perhaps that Yahoo Answer explains Ann Dunham’s brief stop-over in Mercer Island with baby Barack when he was only a couple of weeks old. Is it possible that she was on her way back to Hawaii?

The State of Hawaii does provide for “late registration” births.

Does anyone know in which hospital Stanley Ann Dunham delivered Barack Obama?

UPDATE: A reader, Aragon, adds…

Alternatively, I ask, “Can anyone identify a written statement or interview or recorded statement wherein Obama, himself, identifies which hospital he was born in?” I’ve asked this question for a month now. No statement has been idenitified by anyone here or elsewhere. The inference to be drawn from this is obvious. He doesn’t identify a hospital because it is something that can be factually verified or debunked and this would compromise his aura of plausable deniability when it comes to issues of his true birth place.

Add to this the AFI tape. AFI originally produced a transcript in which Michelle Obama states:

My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband's adoption by his stepfather.

That one is easily solved. Did she say it or not? Produce the tapes where it was said and all is resolved. But this has not happened and it has gone into the same circular non-resolution in which all the other questions have now fallen.

This issue won't go away because it has not been resolved. Whatever is on that certificate is sufficiently important for the Obama camp to ignore a SCOTUS member demand that it be produced. At the very least, they are being secretive and it is no defence to say it is a private matter. To hell with that - this man is to become president.

This smells, it truly does. There is untruth by omission in here. It has to be resolved.

On a personal note, there's a very simple test of the intent of this blog on this and the Gaza matter, of whether this is a vendetta of mine. If you were to take out the name of Israel and Hamas and substitute Palestine and Irgun, would this blog's stance have been the same? Similarly, if it had been McCain in this situation and not Obama, would this have still been pursued as it has?

The answer is an emphatic yes. Damned right. This blog has no affiliation one way or the other, except to the ideal called the truth. This is not to say that I am a moral person or a saint - merely that I want to know the truth on any issue.