Sarah Palin has gone beyond even the extremes she has often lowered herself to, today joining the frothing, paranoid, hate-filled ranks of those who spread lies of such unbelievable magnitude that they’d be nothing more than pathetic jokes–if there weren’t so many addle-headed sheep among the right-wing who actually believe this pornographic drivel:

“[W]ho will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

These statements are so deranged that they truly do defy belief. Not belief in the statements, but that a major American political figure could actually be uttering them. This is the kind of thing you’d expect from extreme fringe crackpots. “Death Panel” euthanizing Down’s babies? Do I even have to point out what would have happened if a liberal of Palin’s stature had said anything even close to that about Bush?

More frighteningly, this could be more than just a simple case of a deranged political attention-whore trying to score a quick media flash. It might even be more than right-wingers trying to scare Americans before the upcoming vote. We have conservatives sending angry mobs to break up Democratic meetings, and Republican politicians joking about Democrats being “lynched.” And now a prominent Republican is sending a clear signal: Obama has a “Death Panel” which is going to kill your babies and put your grandparents down. This is exactly the kind of talk that O’Reilly, Limbaugh, and Randall Terry spouted before a right-wing extremist shot and killed Dr. George Tiller.

I’m probably just being a bit paranoid myself, but these people are truly getting into scary territory–shock troops to disrupt the opposition, reports of violence emerging, zealous followers weeping in rage at fictional claims–it really is looking more and more like violence is coming, and certain elements within the Republican Party are driving things closer and closer to that outcome.

Now, under other circumstances, I would be saying that Palin should immediately retract those remarks and apologize–but I am all too aware that Palin would never do so. This was not a mistake, her words were written, not spoken off the cuff–it was exactly what she wanted to do, and she will not be apologetic. Nor would the Republicans pressure her to do so. She would just reiterate the same vile trash and claim it’s true.

Hopefully, however, there are enough Republicans among the populace who have enough decency to reel back in shame and denounce Palin. Not that I’m expecting it.

Postscript: it has been pointed out that Palin is not only horrifically demented in her lies, she is also ironically wrong as well.

With current private insurance, babies with Down’s syndromes are often considered having a “pre-existing condition” and so are denied health care.

Obama’s health plan would actually forbid the use of “pre-existing conditions” as a means of denying people insurance–thus Obama’s plan would give health care to Trig while the private plans Palin is fighting for would deny him that same health care.

This is the polar opposite to what Palin claims: that Obama would deny her baby health care, when in fact he would force insurance companies to do the reverse. Since she considers any agency which would refuse such care to be a “Death Panel,” Palin is clearly labeling private health insurance companies as “evil” baby-killers with said “Death Panels.”

Amazing what you can wind up admitting to when you’re an unhinged pathological liar and a complete imbecile at the exact same time.

Democracy depends on you, and that is why, that’s why our troops are willing to die for you. So, how ’bout in honor of the American soldier, ya quit makin’ things up.

—Sarah Palin, July 27

Indeed.

What if the rumored Apple tablet is a subversive, anti-pirating transition device?

Apple has an extraordinary system built up with the iPhone, the best three points being (1) the App Store, (2) Multi-touch, and (3) style. The last point is more or less a given with Apple–they’ve always done style well. The first two are worth looking at.

Multi-touch I have reviewed previously, and it is just as valuable now as the Mouse and the GUI were in 1984; Apple stands to profit by being the first on the leading edge of a new interface revolution. Using your hands to interface with a computer is just shy of the perfect interface, the remainder being voice interaction. That’s how we interact with our world–through our hands and with our speech. Bringing Multi-touch to the PC will be a big thing, and Apple holds most of the patents on that.

But the secret weapon Apple wields is the App Store–or, more specifically, the new paradigm Apple has built for applications. Think about it: have you ever pirated an app? “Borrowed” an install CD of Microsoft Office from a friend or family member, or even downloaded something from the Internet via P2P? Most people have.

But who here has ever used a pirated iPhone app? Sure, the iPhone has the whole “jailbreak” thing, and it is possible to pirate iPhone apps–but it is not easy, nor is it common. It’s a very fringe thing, despite the widespread use of the iPhone.

The iPhone represents a software company’s dream: a closed system where users almost always pay for software.

The rumored Apple tablet could be a step toward standardizing that paradigm. If this takes over, then the days of easy pirating would be over; sure, you could do it, but it would be harder to do, and therefore less common.

But it’s not a loss to the casual pirate user; one of the reasons people pirate so often is because of the steep price of apps. Even cheap popular commercial apps usually cost more than a hundred dollars, and often more advanced software costs several hundred dollars, advancing to the four-digit range.

One of the reasons software costs so much: because so many people pirate it, software companies have to charge more to make up the difference. Why do so many people pirate it? Because it costs so much.

Enter the new Apple App Store paradigm. A system where most people pay for apps because (1) it’s harder to pirate apps, and (2) apps are much cheaper. That’s the key, breaking the cycle of expensive apps. If everyone paid full price for Adobe Creative Suite, it wouldn’t have to cost a thousand dollars. By starting with the iPhone app store, where the under-$10 price range is expected, Apple can build up from there. If the Apple tablet is a controlled app environment like the iPhone, it can engender cheaper apps.

Imagine the new Apple tablet coming out with iWork-for-Tablet being included free, along with iLife and Mail and Safari. And then you pay no more than $25 for new apps. Many people balk at buying PowerPoint for $100–but how about for $25? Most would probably say, “Hmmm, not so bad. Why not?” and plunk down the money.

Apple’s iTunes Store has made it clear that people will pay for something they could easily pirate, so long as the price tag is reasonable.

Is Apple’s new Tablet a step toward a closed, controlled, and pirate-free future for software?

If so, then Apple stands to profit enormously–as Microsoft does not seem to be poised to go the same way, and Apple stands to make a sweet 30% on all software sold–when currently, neither Microsoft nor Apple get a penny for third-party software sold for use on their OS.

Apple may be smarter than we give it credit for.

Atrios is making an excellent point.

In 2004, MoveOn.org sponsored a contest called “Bush in 30 Seconds,” asking for people to submit 30-second ads which criticized the Bush administration. The videos were submitted in an automatic fashion and were not reviewed by MoveOn.org before they were visible to the public. Two of the ads compared the president to Hitler and the Nazis. The reaction (Fox News story):

Republican groups and Jewish organizations expressed outrage over the ad, which has been removed from the MoveOn.org Web site. The Republican National Committee (search) called on all nine Democratic candidates to condemn the ads.

RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie (search) called the ad, “the worst and most vile form of political hate speech.” …

MoveOn.org noted that those ads were voted down by the group’s members and the public, who submitted nearly 3 million critiques while choosing the 15 finalist entries.

“We agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process,” the statement said. “In the future, if we publish or broadcast raw material, we will create a more effective filtering system.”

Right-wing organizations such as RightMarch.com issued ad campaigns demanding apologies. Other right-wing politicians and pollsters attacked the reference, calling it “hateful, vitriolic rhetoric” and worse. Right-wing pundits and representatives went ballistic–and claimed that Republicans would never stoop to calling the president a Nazi:

“[The Hitler references are evidince that] right now in America the Democratic party is being held captive by the far, far left.” —Bill O’Reilly

“You guys on the left are going so far over the cliff. You’re making comparisons to the president and Adolf Hitler.” —Sean Hannity

“If they stoop to the kind of despicable tactic like morphing a candidate into Adolf Hitler, yes, absolutely, I will tell you right here on the air. Have me back if any organization does that, I would repudiate it.” —Ed Gillespie, Chair of the Republican National Committee.

Republicans must really respect the office of the president; after all, this hyperbolic outrage was just because two ordinary Americans made 30-second videos which compared Bush to Hitler. MoveOn did not approve the ads nor did they air them (though Gillespie and other Republicans made sure the ads saw lots of air time), and no prominent liberal politician, pollster, or pundit even came close to endorsing them. MoveOn even apologized and made sure the content was taken down.

Well, Ed, time to get your soapbox out: four years later, the president is being called a Nazi again. Except this time, it’s not just by a few jokers with video cameras, it’s by a prominent radio personality, the unofficial head of the Republican Party, apparently with the full approval of his network, which is not punishing him:

“Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate. His Cabinet only met once. One day. That was it. Hitler said he didn’t need to meet with his Cabinet; he represented the will of the people. He was called the messiah. He said the people spoke through him. …

”Obama’s got a health care logo that’s right out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook. Now, what are the similarities between the Democrat Party of today and the Nazi Party in Germany? … Obama is asking citizens to rat each other out like Hitler did.“ —Rush Limbaugh

And Limbaugh is not the only one. Beck is making the comparison, and numerous right-wingers are making thinly veiled comparisons, some going with the outright message.

Ed? Ed? Where are you? Sean Hannity? Want to comment?

Of course not. Because It’s OK If You’re A Republican.

That is the question that right-wingers and health-care opponents are forwarding; you have probably heard the claim that Obama’s health care package would lead to the euthanization of seniors.

So, where does this claim come from? One front stems from the fact that Ezekiel Emanuel, noted bioethicist and Chair of the Department of Bioethics at The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health (and, least importantly, Rahm Emanuel’s brother) has been tapped as an advisor for the health care reform project. While right-wingers call him “top advisor to Obama,” he is in fact “Special Advisor to Peter R. Orszag, Director of the Office of Budget and Management (OMB),” which means that he’s on a panel of people who are providing input which will shape health care policy.

Why is this even an issue? Well, Dr. Emanuel, as a bioethicist, has naturally written papers on bioethics. When social health resources are limited, triage must be performed–for example, when there are ten candidates for a liver transplant but only one liver is available, who gets it? This is always a controversial subject, and I doubt it is possible to write anything specific which cannot in some way be easily twisted to suggest that the writer is a cold-hearted villain for denying a life-saving procedure to nine people. The fact is, we must choose–the very real application of the question “if you see ten people drowning and must save only one, how do you choose?” You have probably been asked that question at some point in your life and have had to think about how we prioritize life, but for you it was almost certainly a purely academic question. Not so for bioethicists.

The right wing is getting its ammo from a couple of papers written by Emanuel, in which he advocates a triage system which favors younger patients. In a paper titled “Where Civic Republicanism and Deliberative Democracy Meet” (PDF, hosted on a right-wing site) written 13 years ago, Emanuel wrote [emphasis on words highlighted by critics]:

This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity-those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations-are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. A less obvious example is guaranteeing neuropsychological services to ensure children with learning disabilities can read and learn to reason.

This has been taken to mean that Emanuel is suggesting that all health services should be taken away from the elderly and they be allowed to die. A bit of a stretch, of course; while Emanuel’s words “not guaranteeing health services” seem to suggest the removal of all health services, a read of the entire article suggests that he is talking about public-funded health care services which treat the specific irreversible illness–not euthanizing those with illnesses like dementia. Nor is it proffered as an absolute, but rather as a triage device when one must choose between providing government-subsidized care for one person or another in the context of preventing public health care from encompassing every single medical service available and thus breaking the bank (something that conservatives would demand).

A key point here is that the charge is one-sided, and completely ignores that there is a choice being made. The accusation that Emanuel is suggesting we do not provide public medical care for people at the end of their lives suffering from irreversible illnesses could be turned around, and the accusers could be characterized as wanting to deny treatment which could save the life of a child in favor of providing care to someone who is incurably ill and is going to die anyway. They’re baby-killers! Those bastards!!

This is why bioethics is sticky, and is easy fodder for politics: it deals with heart-wrenching decisions that we cannot avoid, and can easily taken out of context and used to wrongly accuse someone of being a cold-hearted killer.

Then consider that this is not being forwarded as the official policy of Obama’s health care plan, but rather is an opinion forwarded by one of many advisors to someone writing the plan in a paper written thirteen years ago. Emanuel is not fully in charge of the plan, is not dictating terms, and there is zero proof that what critics are blasting him for is being adopted in the plan currently before Congress.

A source of more hysterical right-wing frenzy on this is a provision in the health care bill which would add funding for extra optional counseling of people facing end-of-life circumstances:

… such consultation shall include the following: An explanation by the practitioner of advance care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to; an explanation by the practitioner of advance directives, including living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses; an explanation by the practitioner of the role and responsibilities of a health care proxy.

In essence, the section provides funding for seniors, if they so choose, to meet with health care providers about how to plan for their twilight years, to prepare for death and its consequences. The idea is to give people near the end of their lives all the information necessary to face their situation–not to give up fighting, not to surrender health care. In fact, quite the opposite–this would be an expansion of services for people nearing the end of their lives.

Right-wingers have twisted this into a “mandatory” counseling with government bureaucrats who will tell seniors “how to end their life sooner.”

Not exactly the same thing.

So, as it turns out, the criticisms are completely bogus. Obama is not out to hack grandma to pieces to save a few bucks.

Surprise!

When your antics have become so ludicrous that even the mainstream paranoid whack-job Birthers start calling you a “nutcase” and a “crackpot,” that’s a signal that your fifteen minutes are just about up.

And reading Taitz’s blog (I got a malware warning when trying to access it, but it seems to be harmless) and its fact-devoid paranoid ramblings, one begins to see that it’s no longer funny, that Taitz is a sad, pathetic individual who should simply be ignored instead of encouraged with all this attention.

There’s been a bit of noise concerning Charles Krauthammer’s assertion that Clinton must have paid a hefty ransom for the release of the two imprisoned reporters, despite the fact that North Korea’s desire for attention explains their move more than suitably enough, and that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that anything aside from attention was paid.

Many are scratching their heads over Krauthammer’s accusation–where could this come from, how could he seriously suggest this?

What needs to be remembered is that a common neurosis among conservatives is projection: one frequently sees right-wingers assuming that liberals will act exactly the way conservatives act, especially when it’s a questionable or objectionable action. Conservatives would let their bias bleed all over their reporting, and so assume liberals do the same; many conservatives would decide their vote regarding a black man because of the color of his skin, and so they assume liberals would have the same motivations; conservatives easily use the ends to justify the means, as in election fraud, so they just assume liberals do so too; conservatives would object to a woman or Hispanic nominee on the basis of gender and race, and so believe that’s the only reason that liberals would object; conservatives rewrite history with abandon, and so have trouble believing that liberals don’t as well. Conservative projection is easily observed in all areas of political discourse.

Krauthammer believes that Clinton paid a high price simply because that’s how a conservative would approach the situation if a direct use of force were not available. Look at how Reagan handled hostages in Iran.

True, it’s possible that Krauthammer is just making this up so he can attack Clinton and claim that an accomplishment by a liberal was in fact a scandalous failure, but the same principle of projection applies with the story made up about how Clinton is supposed to have failed; a conservative’s mindset makes a straight line to that solution.

Projection amongst conservatives can be seen very clearly among conservative Christians, in many ways. Take moral behavior as one example. They act in a way they believe if ‘moral’ for the primary reason that they believe god will punish them horrifically if they do not; as a result, they assume that atheists must be utterly immoral, because they don’t fear divine punishment for misbehavior. They project their own mechanism for morality on those different from them and can’t understand why it doesn’t apply. The same goes for religious belief itself; such people will puzzle over atheists not believing in god, asking the question, “what do you believe in?”–not comprehending that it is possible to go through life without believing in some kind of supreme being in the universe.

When trying to understand the views of conservatives regarding liberals, if you keep this fact in mind, a lot becomes much clearer and easier to understand.

How about this: Someone has stepped up claiming that the forged Kenyan Obama birth certificate is actually his birth certificate, from South Australia. He claims it has been freely available on a genealogy web site, and certainly is higher-resolution than Taitz’ version. While it could be a forgery based upon the forgery, I would not be in the least surprised if it were genuine and the template for the Taitz document.

Here are the two documents (click for larger version):

I had to use Photoshop to distort the Taitz document–shown only at an angle–to make the side-by-side comparison. Note that the Taitz document cuts out a section in the middle, but otherwise the two are identical. I would hazard a guess that if the Taitz document was copied, it was not a photographic copy, but simply a forgery based upon the appearance of the first one–lay the Australian document down in an app like InDesign and then create the forged one on top of it, the purpose being to simulate a real document in an attempt to make it look credible.

With every passing day, there is more and more reason to believe that the Taitz document is not only a forgery, but a poorly-made one as well. Within 24 hours, several points proving it to be fake surfaced, with many more coming every day thereafter.

But I have to admit, it is fun to go on about how pathetic these losers are.

Transparent Aluminum. Somebody count the whales.

When the memo came out among tea-baggers entailing how open, public town-hall meetings led by Democrats could be disrupted, I disregarded it. I wanted to be indignant at what asses these people were, but I concluded that it was some probably just some small-time staffer throwing out an idea that never would come to anything. Maybe I just did not want to believe that things had come to this.

Boy, was I wrong. Here’s a sample, from a town hall given by Senator Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:

The memo (scanned here), in short, gives a number of strategies for right-wingers to follow so they can infiltrate and disrupt meetings between Democratic politicians and their constituents, and to do so in such a way that it appears that their own people are against them. The activists are encouraged to find as many participants as they can, coordinate their agenda, distribute talking points so that aggressive questions can be hurled at the politician. Among the tactics: spread out amongst the audience so it looks like there are more of you; yell out and challenge the politician at every opportunity. Don’t wait until the audience is invited to participate–“the goal is to rattle him,” shouting stuff and then sitting down throughout the meeting.

And they’re doing it, in larger and larger numbers. Some of the events that were disrupted, detailed here: Saturday, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) was dogged by tea-baggers, while Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) found himself confronted by a mob of right-wingers when he tried to have a scheduled meeting with constituents; Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) stopped giving town halls a month and a half ago because of them; a month ago, Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY) stopped holding town halls because right-wingers disrupted any gathering he held; and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) was forced to leave a picnic event when a crowd of right-wingers started shouting the Pledge of Allegiance through bullhorns.

To me, this is even scarier than a lot of the disturbing stuff that right-wingers are doing. This is not just plain old dirty tricks, this goes against the very principles of Democracy. This is shock-troops stuff. Disrupt the Democratic process, don’t let the people hear and participate if you don’t like the message. Don’t just debate the opposition, shut them down. I hate making extreme charges, but I feel that this well warrants it. Because it cannot be easily countered or stopped, and because it deprives the public a chance to interact with their representatives, it is essentially an assault on Democracy itself.

When you match this with the Republican tendency to have members-only town hall meetings, to carefully screen the audience and only allow the faithful in, you begin to see the difference between conservatives and liberals today.

Republicans have started to leave the idea of true Democracy and are quickly devolving into the kind of party that should frighten you if it doesn’t already:

• Using extreme pejoratives: opponents are no longer “my colleague,” or “my respected opponent,” but are instead now tagged as “unpatriotic,” “un-American,” “socialist,” “communist,” “terrorist”;
• Appealing to fear, hurling hysterical accusations based on nothing but political opposition: the other side is “destroying America,” they want to “euthanize the elderly,” and so on;
• Appealing to hate: racial hatred, gender hatred, class hatred–Democrats are racist because they didn’t approve extremist Hispanic nominees, they’re sexist because they opposed an extremist woman nominee, they’re not from “Real America”;
• Whipping crowds into a frenzy: remember McCain and Palin last year, pouring on the invective so thick that participants in their crowds started shouting death threats against the opposition candidate?
• Appealing to the opposite of reason: the conservative side is more and more relying on fabrications, misleading insinuations, and outright lies to forward their case; Sarah Palin, for example, can hardly open her mouth without lying, and she was virtually idolized for it;
• Obstruction and disruption: block everything the opposition does, try to shut them down, don’t let them get a word in edgewise, as we see in the memo outlined above;
• Control the media: accuse it of having an imaginary left-wing bias so that in defense, it will show more right-wing bias to shunt the criticism, then pour money into creating right-wing media of your own, drowning the airwaves with propaganda;
• Control perception: make your opponents’ very name a pejorative, and carefully use language to define issues to your liking–see Newt Gingrich’s memo from the 1996 on this.

This is not a list of baseless charges–note the examples for each point, and you can probably think of many more for each case.

I am probably leaving out a few more key elements, but that’s a fair list right there. These are the characteristic strategies of the Republican party and of right-wing politics in general as of the past few decades–and the decline is only accelerating. More and more we are seeing this stuff, and it is only getting stronger and stronger. How far down the road before the violence we see in right-wing culture–the shooting of abortion doctors, the extremist, paranoid gun advocates going on violent sprees–become one more element in the arsenal of right-wing politics? Encourage the people at the fringe to commit acts of violence against the opposition and then sit back and claim you have nothing to do with it? How long before the mobs they send to meetings devolve into violence?

I truly hope I am over-reacting to all this, but I don’t think I am. The right wing of this country is starting to get seriously scary.

Aren’t Republicans, who make up nearly 100% of the Birther movement, all fired up to change the Constitution so that Arnold Schwarzenegger can become president?

Just checking.

Here we go again. The Birthers are all atwitter about a brand-new version of Obama’s Kenyan Birth Certificate. From World Net Daily, a.k.a. Birther Central Command:

WASHINGTON – California attorney Orly Taitz, who has filed a number of lawsuits demanding proof of Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as president, has released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth and has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court for its authentication.

Yes, because Orly Taitz is certainly the definitive source for unbiased material on this matter. Recall that she was the lawyer for the guy who volunteered for duty in Afghanistan and then sued the government not to force him to go because Obama could not legally give him orders to do so. After the fraudulent setup had been sprung, Taitz claimed victory when the military agreed to withdraw his assignment with “no explanation”–but the military had made clear they did so on the grounds that he had volunteered. That’s the first I had heard of Taitz, but it seemed clear that this person was a huckster on a loonie-fringe mission in the Birther community.

Se when Taitz reveals a “Kenyan birth certificate” and demands that courts confirm its authenticity, I am not exactly compelled to believe it. Strange how Birthers will not believe (a) an official birth certificate from Hawaii many times confirmed by state and federal governments as official, (b) two separate birth announcements in local newspapers from the time, and (c) multiple sworn statements from Hawaiian officials that Obama was indeed born there–but they will breathlessly expect to be real a piece of paper forwarded by someone already noted as forwarding false information on the matter, even after other forgeries have floated around even as recently as last week:

WND was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appear to be identical.

Last week, a counterfeit document purporting to be Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate made the rounds of the Internet, but was quickly determined to be fraudulent. The new document released by Taitz bears none of the obvious traits of a hoax.

Yes, because they checked so thoroughly, and the ink was dry. It’s so convincing!

Of course, it would help to know where the document came from, how Taitz got it in her hands. The answer: it was anonymous! That’s even more convincing! And you’ll love the reason why it’s anonymous:

Taitz told WND that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn’t want his name known because “he’s afraid for his life.”

Well, that’s believable! Because we all know that Obama, just like Clinton before him, is a vicious, ruthless killer who sends assassination squads to rub out anyone and everyone who dares expose their myriad lies and scandals!!

Or, maybe, the person is anonymous because making their name known would allow people to ask them where they got the document, and the fraud would fall apart even more quickly.

And it is falling apart quickly indeed. The announcement of the document is still just a day old, and already there are several powerful reasons to believe it is a forgery:

1. The document was purportedly made three years after Obama’s birth, with no reason given for the delay;
2. The hospital which the document claims as his birthplace has checked their record for that time period and has found no record of Obama’s birth;
3. The document purports to have been issued on February 17, 1964 by the Office of Principal Registrar, Coast Province, Republic of Kenya–but Kenya was not known as the “Republic of Kenya” until December 12, 1964, before which it was the “Dominion of Kenya.”

So, we have a document which was supposedly created three years after Obama’s birth in a country that would not exist for another ten months for a birth at a hospital which does not have any record of the event. Yes, World Net Daily is right, it is convincing!

Convincing evidence that the birthers are still as fake as ever.

One thing that kind of stands out is Taitz’s demands for court action, with which we may see the actual purpose behind the forgery:

Taitz’s motion, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, requests the purported evidence of Obama’s birth – both the alleged birth certificate and foreign records not yet obtained – be preserved from destruction, asks for permission to legally request documents from Kenya and seeks a subpoena for deposition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“I filed the motion with the court asking for expedited discovery, which would allow me to start subpoenas and depositions even before Obama and the government responds,” Taitz told WND. “I am asking the judge to give me the power to subpoena the documents from the Kenyan embassy and to require a deposition from Hillary Clinton so they will be forced to authenticate [the birth certificate].

”I’m forcing the issue, where Obama will have to respond,“ she said.

In short, Taitz is hoping to become the new Ken Starr, using a ginned-up false crime so she can start accessing the power of the court system. Little wonder that she wants Obama and Clinton to respond before authentication of the document is complete. You can see that she is hoping for another perjury trap, expecting that she can get some official on record saying something that she can claim is untrue and, well, you know the drill.

”Before, they said, ‘You don’t have anything backing your claims,’“ Taitz explained. ”Now I have something. In fact, I have posted on the Internet more than Obama has. My birth certificate actually has signatures.“

Oooh. Signatures. Well, I’m sold.

Late update:

You can see Taitz’s wingnuttery direct in the video below: note how she is asked a simple question, and half a sentence into her answer, takes a 90-degree turn into a rant about unrelated stuff and never actually answers the question–just keeps on (a) whining about how she isn’t being allowed to speak, and (2) just uses the time to use the TV interview as a platform to spew the Birther crap:

Note, by the way, that Taitz doesn’t even provide an actual document–just a color copy/photo of the document, meaning we can’t inspect the seal, check the quality of the type, etc.

And, to top it all off, several more signs of forgery have been noted:

The hospital in the document is identified as Coast General Hospital, but the real location is Coast Provincial General Hospital (or Coast Province General Hospital);

Mombasa belonged to Zanzibar when Obama was born, not Kenya.

The area was called the ”Central Nyanza District,“ not Nyanza Province. The regions were changed to provinces in 1970.

Obama’s father’s village would be nearer to Nairobi, not Mombasa.

The serial number on the document is 47O44; 47 is Obama’s age when elected, ”O“ (not ”0“) is for Obama, and 44 is the number president Obama is, after Bush 43.

”EF Lavender“ is a laundry detergent; officials rarely if ever put initials in official documents;

The document lists a ”Christian name,“ unlikely for an official document in a region that is mostly Muslim.

His father’s age is wrong; he would have been 24 or 25 when Obama was born, not 26.

World Net Daily is still not pronouncing it a fake, nor has Taitz withdrawn her court motions.

A big talking point of the Republicans is that Obama’s stimulus package has failed because the economy has failed to rebound, despite the fact that it’s only been a few months since the stimulus has been in effect. Even though preliminary signs were good–job losses turned around and started decreasing instead of increasing right after the stimulus passed–conservatives held that it had come and gone and, what, no effect. This despite giving Bush a far longer time to claim that his initiatives were successful, taking more than two years for most indicators, and even as late as 2004 Bush was still claiming that a job recovery was “just around the corner.” For Obama, right-wingers claimed that after three or four months, the game was over.

Now, many economists are saying that an economic rebound is in fact coming; indicators like the housing market and consumer spending are looking good.

So, how long until those very same conservatives who said no rebound meant Obama failed will now start claiming that the rebound has absolutely nothing to do with anything Obama has done? Three, two, one…

Don’t be surprised if many of them actually try to credit Bush for the rebound, claiming that Obama just wasted money on a stimulus that was not necessary after all. Now, the stimulus may not in fact turn out to have been the major reason for the rebound, in that there is usually not too much presidents can do to affect the economy positively (negatively is easy). But politically, presidents tend to get blamed for bad economies just by being there when it happens–look at how the right-wingers eagerly started calling it the “Obama Recession” just days after he got elected, months before he even took office–and, conversely, they get credit when economies are good. That’s simply how it works.

Whatever the case, if the economy does in fact rebound and things start clearing up, Obama will step up and take credit, and the Republicans will try to claim that somehow they were responsible (“we stopped him from making things worse with a bigger stimulus package!”). But since presidents historically get credit, and because Obama’s been the consistent one (conservatives not only have claimed that he is trying to destroy the country, but often claim that he has already destroyed it) in saying that things will get better. He has more cachet here.

How about this headline:

Saving Fish is Possible, Unless They’re Past the Tipping Point

Am I wrong, or can that headline be boiled down to, “Saving Fish is Possible, Unless It’s Not”?

For a few years now, I have been tracking Mac market share, using Net Applications’ market share reports. From the beginning, I tagged the measure as unreliable in terms of representing actual market share, but found it acceptable as a way of measuring relative growth. Kind of like Rasmussen polls–you know they’re slanted to the right, but if they maintain the same methodology, they can be a relatively accurate measure of change over time.

Well, Rasmussen recently changed their methodology and so made it look like Obama tanked in the polls–much to the delight of their right-wing audience–when in fact there has not been too much change.

And wouldn’t you know it, at right about the same time, Net Applications changed their methodology as well, giving greater weight to foreign web surfers, which gives greater weight to Windows and much less weight to Macs. Previously teetering at 10%, the Mac OS is now rated at less than 5%. This may be more reflective of a worldwide market share, but the whole point of using Net Application’s data was it’s relative worth; we knew all along that the way it gathered data already favored Windows users.

Had NA kept both methodologies, that would be of some use, but now, I’ll have to throw all the data from the past few years out the window. Thanks for nothing.

Some of the remaining bits & pieces now being tabulated in the Gates arrest drama are the side players who got involved in it for various reasons. One that’s a bit scary involves a police officer, Justin Barrett, who sent a letter to Boston Globe writer Yvonne Abraham, in which he said this:

His first priority of effort should be to get off the phone and comply with the police, for if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC [oleoresin caseinate aka pepper gas] deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.

Barrett also forwarded the letter (full text here) in an email to colleagues. When the inevitable fecal matter hit the fan, Barrett said of the letter, “I did not mean to offend anyone. The words were being used to characterize behavior, not describe anyone … I didn’t mean it in a racist way. I treat everyone with dignity and respect.” Later in the same email, he wrote to the female journalist:

You are a hot little bird with minimal experience in a harsh field. You are a fool. An infidel. You have no business writing for a US newspaper nevermind [sic] detailing and analyzing half truths. You should serve me coffee and donuts on Sunday morning.

Umm… Okay. “banana-eating jungle monkey” is not racist, and “hot little bird,” “infidel,” “fool,” and “you should serve me coffee and donuts” to a woman is treating her with “dignity and respect.” Gotcha.

Barrett described “jungle monkey” as a “poor choice of words,” and not racist, but he repeated the phrase four times, ending the letter with:

Your article title should read CONDUCT UNBECOMING A JUNGLE MONKEY –BACK TO ONE’S ROOTS.

Certainly, adding “back to one’s roots” dismisses all speculation that it’s about race.

Hoo boy.

Let’s set aside the “jungle monkey” thing for a moment and look at the rest, shall we? Spraying someone in the face with pepper spray in their own home because they accuse you of being racist? That’s quite something right there. But a lot can be gleaned from the expression, “belligerent non-compliance.” That’s a strongly loaded phrase, in part because he’s likely quoting a commonly-used police expression. Now, if a police officer is acting in the line of duty to accomplish a task necessary to the safety of the public or themselves, and a citizen angrily refuses to comply with a direct order necessary to accomplish that task, then “belligerent non-compliance” is in order. But remember, Crowley arrested Gates after it was firmly established that Gates was a college professor in his own home, and there was no crime involved; already, the situation was confirmed to be completely free of risk or danger, and all you’re left with is one pissed-off old man on a cane.

In exactly what terms was Gates supposed to be compliant? “Compliance” suggests that he had been ordered to do something–well, he had been asked to show ID, and he did. That’s all. After that, there was nothing.

But the reason that “belligerent non-compliance” is somewhat scary here is that it subtly suggests more than just professional police work; it hints at a mindset, hopefully not shared by too many in uniform, that police are less civil servants and more civil masters. That a citizen is expected to comply with any police request in any way, with a smile, or else.

How many think in this way? Crowley felt this strongly enough that he arrested Gates. One can only imagine what Barrett would have done if he were the officer at the scene. What percent of all police officers would have done less or more than Crowley did? How pervasive is the natural expectation of meek compliance by the public?

Think of the atmosphere in which police serve, understand that they are people just like everyone else, and it becomes easier to understand how many could easily be lured into a mindset that is less than appealing. You belong to a fraternity charged with public safety; like doctors, the power of life and death in your hands can attract or lead to the mightiest of egos. You carry a gun, and in terms of authority, you are high on the totem pole in society. People fear and respect you just for wearing the uniform. You are given a certain deal of latitude to act on that authority, and you have the solid support of the entire police force, often the prosecutors as well, in case you step over a line. Your word is far more often respected than that of an ordinary citizen if there is a disagreement. Culturally, you might even feel elevated to the role of hero; certainly, the role of cop is exhaustively expressed in all forms of entertainment in a manner that speaks directly to the male sense of dominance and ego.

In recent comments, a visitor to this blog and I had a discussion about how this relates to customer relations in retail work, where workers dealing with customers have to deal with various kinds of people on a daily basis. Most are non-offensive, some are very agreeable, and some are disagreeable. People in these jobs tend to become aggravated by the disagreeable ones, and much time is spent with co-workers carping on how stupid and unreasonable they are, with the worker usually holding back great resentment while having to be outwardly respectful while being abused by them.

Now put that into the context of police work, where the situation is greatly exaggerated. The disagreeable customers are often armed, dangerous, or aggressive in some way; a good part of your job is to deal with the worst and least respectful elements of society, and it is likely very easy to see anyone acting disagreeably with you–including Harvard professors–to be part of that overall group. You are Authority. You carry a gun. You are to be respected and obeyed. And here’s some ass giving you lip, after you put your life on the line to protect him. He should be grateful.

This is likely not helped by the other end of the spectrum: the respect, fear, and even adulation others show to you. People who automatically show great deference, who will comply readily with your requests, with “thank you” and “please.” That plus the general respect, recently enhanced (especially since 9/11) that police share with firefighters and soldiers, as being the segment of society that keeps everyone secure and alive, boldly patriotic, heralded as heroes and you’d better not disagree.

Enough of this sinks in with enough people that it comes to the point where some start abusing that authority, even in small ways. Here you are protecting this guy’s home and he thinks he can accuse you of being racist? Let’s show him the error of his ways.

I’m sure that many if not most police officers would read this and laugh. But I am just as sure that some, perhaps many, would feel the expressions resonate. That there is an entitlement that goes with the job. That citizens had better respect and obey. Certainly that was the case with Barrett; think you can talk back to me, jungle monkey? Enjoy some pepper spray, boy. And you, lady, you think he’s in the right here? Well, serve me coffee and donuts, hot little bird. And don’t forget to do my laundry. With all due dignity and respect.

Hopefully, Barrett represents the worst and nowhere near the norm. But Crowley, who comes across as much more reasonable, still let himself step over the line when he arrested Gates. And these are not isolated cases.

We probably have no choice but to accept a certain amount of this; police are not supermen, they have to deal with an insane amount of crap, and that kind of authority cannot be expected to have zero effect. But neither should the situation be ignored or dismissed when it does become a problem. Crowley should have been disciplined for the arrest. Barrett was very rightly suspended, but only because he clearly went too far and posed a greater risk.

And, as a co-worker pointed out, all of this is an excellent example of how we are not the “post-racial society” that many have suggested exists.

First the Birthers engage in ludicrous Conspiracy-theory opining with the entire “Obama’s not a citizen” twaddle. Then other right-wingers begin to make sense by calling these people loons–but then take a sharp right-turn into the Next Level of Conspiracy-theory thinking: that the Birthers are a left-wing plot orchestrated by the White House to make conservatives look bad.

Are right-wingers simply congenitally pre-disposed to making up absurd conspiracy theories, even when they’re trying to debunk absurd conspiracy theories?

Sorry guys, your side is filled with even more rabid nutballs than ours. Live with it.

Crowley has made a defiant point that he would not apologize for the arrest of Gates. He was almost certainly speaking in terms of apologizing to Gates for acting in a racist manner. Probably he would react the same way if asked to apologize for an unwarranted arrest.

The real question is, will he apologize to Lucia Whalen for falsely putting words in her mouth? In his police report, Crowley wrote:

As I reached the door, a female voice called out to me. I turned and looked in the direction of the voice and observed a white female, later identified as Lucia Whalen. Whalen, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the residence, held a wireless telephone in her hand and told me that it was she who called. She went on to tell me that the observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch of 17 Ware street. She told me that her suspicions were aroused when she observed one of the men wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry. Since I was the only police officer on location and had my back to the door as I spoke with her, I asked that she wait for other responding officers while I investigated further.

Whalen today claims that she never told him that; that instead, she simply said, “I was the 911 caller,” to which Crowley responded by pointing at her and saying, “Stay right there.”

One might call this a case of “he said, she said,” except for the rather significant example of the 911 call in which Whalen specifically mentions seeing luggage, suspects that the men might live in the house and not be intruders, and refuses to identify either as black, guessing instead that one might be Hispanic and she couldn’t see the other one. This is solid, being recorded on the 911 call. Which means that it is pretty much certain that Whalen did not, seconds later, change her story when she met Crowley. Of the two reports, Whalen’s is infinitely more credible.

This in turn means that Crowley simply fabricated that part of the police report. “Remembered wrongly” could be applied, but taking “I was the 911 caller” and translating it into a conversation which never took place in which Whalen identified “two black males with backpacks” is quite the case of remembering wrongly.

Whatever the case, and whatever Crowley’s intentions, one thing is crystal clear: Crowley’s false report made Whalen look very bad, even possibly racist, and being the public record which most people gave ultimate credence to, it amounted to libel against her. Whalen did not fail to see the luggage, she did not fail to consider that they might live there, she did not fail to see that one had gained entry before force was used, she did not report backpacks that weren’t there, she did not even make certain statements about race, however accurate they may have been to make. But by making the public claim that Whalen reported what was seen as “two black males with backpacks” forcing entry into a house when such was clearly not the case, Crowley made Whalen look like a borderline racist, for which she received a great deal of unjust criticism.

So: will Crowley apologize to Whalen for issuing a bad police report and making Whalen look bad?

Somehow I think not. Crowley does not strike me as the kind of guy who admits a mistake on the job, especially when his reputation is at stake. But then again, this tends to be par for the course with police and prosecutors in any case.

Can you spot what’s wrong with this Fox News map of the Middle East?

This from the broadcast corporation whose entertainment division runs a show called “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?” Who knew that the consolation prize was a job in their graphics department?

Here’s a question: let’s say that tomorrow, Obama says, “OK, just to clear the air and get past this ridiculousness, I am fully authorizing the State of Hawaii to take special measures and to make public the long form of my birth certificate, despite high officials in Hawaii solemnly swearing that the document exists and is in order.” Then Hawaii releases the document and it’s in order.

Then what? Would the Birthers all say, “Ah, well then, good,” and all go home?

Ha ha. Of course not. They would do what they have done every time a new, conclusive piece of evidence has been added to the pile: demand more. And if every definitive piece of evidence imaginable has been released, they would simply switch to “they’re all forgeries” mode. Let’s not fool ourselves here, these are not rational people trying to find the truth–these are among the craziest of the loons on the right wing desperate to not have Obama as president.

Nor should Obama cave, for three very good reasons. First, he has probably already provided more proof than any other president has ever provided regarding his birth; second, if you cave in to nincompoops like the Birthers, then you set the precedent for having to concede to similar whims of every group of dumbasses like them (and there are lots); and third, the Birthers are doing a fantastic job of making conservatives (and Lou Dobbs) look like complete imbeciles.

Right now, if I were someone who had any real suspicions about Barack Obama’s birth, I would shut up and not say a word, for fear of being classed along with that crowd of bozos.

Bill O’Reilly is a complete idiot. Literally. But then, you already knew that.