As many know, I have questioned the accusations that Obama's birth certificate was forged on two grounds. First, the evidence of forgery could still be easily explained as artifacts of digital reproduction. (As well as some of the original "irregularities" being proved normal with the surfacing of sample Hawaiian birth certificates.) Second, because it just doesn't matter. I really cannot believe Obama was not born in the US, as that would simply be too difficult to hide for all the time needed to run for office.

I now have seen a new article on a supposed "smoking gun", and it actually fails to impress me. Why? Because the article says Obama was born in Hawaii, had a new certificate issued in Indonesia when he was adopted, and thus he had to use a forged certificate.

That "thus" puzzles me. If he was adopted in Indonesia, why would he need a forged certificate? It isn't as if Hawaii was notified by Indonesia. They would still have the old certificate in the records and just use that. Recall in the 80's there was a huge stink over people using birth certificates for infant fatalities to create false IDs? There was no massive networking of record keeping systems within states, much less between states, or between Hawaii and another nation. So, Hawaii would know nothing of his second Indonesian certificate, and would reissue his old Hawaiian certificate based on the information it still had in its system.

Which would look a lot like the one on Obama's site. The supposed forgery.

Sorry, I know a lot of people have spent a lot of time on this, but I still just can't see it. Even assuming everything in the recent article is true, the certificate on Obama's site could easily be very real.

As I keep saying, fight the man on the issues, not on these secondary questions. There is plenty of reason to refuse to elect the man, we don't need to examine every pixel in his birth certificate. Why, just read his "Blueprint for Change", that is more damning than years of document analysis.

POSTSCRIPT

In an earlier post, I mentioned the possibility that lossy encryption could distort pictures, explaining the supposed missing background images. However, having downloaded the image from Obama's site, the explanation may be even more simple. The image is stored at 72 ppi. (For comparison, even the most mediocre "toy" digital camera stores images at 300 ppi, with most storing at least 1000 ppi or more.) With that relatively high granularity, a lot of detail can be lost, and the missing green could be explained by a coincidental alignment of the white on pixel boundaries. (There simply wasn't enough green in the area represented by each pixel to cause it to display as green.)

Of course, this is also the final image, after it has passed through one or more transformations from the original scan to the final website image, it is possible the original images were higher or lower quality and added more artifacts before being formed into this final JPEG. Without the entire chain of images form the original scan to this final image it is impossible to tell what happened, and what is part of the original scan and what is the result of lossy encryption, increased granularity, and so on. Digital images, unlike photographs, cannot be infinitely enlarged. Where individual molecules on the negative are the smallest unit on a photograph, a digital image is much more granular, in this case breaking down into units of only 1/72 of an inch.

That degree of granularity makes it very hard to apply the sort of analysis which has been done on these documents.

UPDATE

I suppose, from reading some comments on the new article, that the assumption was that either he was adopted in Hawaii by his Indonesian father or Hawaii was notified. In that case his birth certificate would have been altered in Hawaii. However, as far as I know adoptions are open court proceedings, so there would be a court record of this in the public records of Hawaii, meaning that we should be able to find evidence of this.

On the other hand, the article seems to suggest he was adopted in Indonesia, which would explain the lack of Hawaiian court records, but would also make it unlikely his birth certificate would have been changed in Hawaii. Honestly, how many parents, after going through an Indonesian court process to have their child adopted think "Oh, yeah, better notify Bureau of Vital Statistics in Hawaii about this too!" More likely the Indonesian government would issue new papers with the new name.

So, I stand by my original conclusion. Either the adoption was Indonesian, and my objections are unchanged, or it was in Hawaii, which the lack of court records argues against.

I was reading Buchanan's column today, and was fascinated to see how many, especially Europeans, were defending Russia and blaming Georgia for Russia's invasion. I must ask, now that Russia is threatening Poland as well, how are they going to explain that as Russian reaction? Did Poland "provoke" Russia by accepting a missile defense? Exactly how does a defensive weapon "threaten" Russia, unless Russia plans to invade?

I am sorry, but conservatives who once said Russia was just saber rattling and liberals who are trying to blame Georgia, or NATO, or the US, all of you are simply wrong. Putin's Russia is an expansionist power, hoping to restore the old borders, and to reassert control over the Warsaw Pact, and willing to do whatever it takes. The evidence is obvious to anyone who takes Putin at face value. The man is all but screaming "I am going to attack" and the West is racing one another to see who can be first with excuses.

Why do I suddenly feel so much empathy with Churchill?

POSTSCRIPT

My pain is actually getting worse, but I could not allow Putin's threat against Poland pass unmentioned. How can people excuse this man?

Well, one way or another I should feel better tomorrow, and I will reply then. (Coyote7's massive set of pro-green posts alone will take hours to rebut.)

To all my readers, regular and otherwise, I regret to say that this numbness in my hand is making typing harder. I see Coyote7 has replied, but I am afraid a response will have to wait, as will my long post on peak oil and my skepticism about the predictions.

Hopefully the numbness will pass, but for now writing is very uncomfortable. (Despite the length of this post.) I will try to write later this evening or tomorrow, so please check back if you are looking for a reply or promised post.

I think I have figured out why many will not accept the truth about rising oil prices, it doesn't give them a villain with whom they can be angry. It doesn't even give them a nonhuman antagonist against which we can "struggle". And we always seem to want someone or something to "blame". We may sometimes accept that it is simply nature against which we struggle, and we declare "war" on cancer or AIDS, but we can't stand it when a "problem" has no easy villain.

And that is the problem with the rising oil prices. It looks like a "crisis", people are upset, but the explanation is that demand rose quickly while supply has been largely stagnant. Worse yet, while we can blame to some degree the laws in the US that prevent new drilling, for the most part the lack of supply has no one to blame. Oil fields in Iraq still need repairs, Mexico's fields are aging and corruption is taking its toll, Venezuela is suffering the usual post-socialism decline, but for the most part, the fact is that oil is in short supply because it takes time to get new wells producing, so we will not see increased supply for a while.

But, with such a boring explanation, without a clear villain, people naturally feel a bit disappointed. They just can't accept that oil prices just are high, and may go higher, and that the only cure is time. That doesn't sound right, it gives them no one and nothing against which to rail, so they invent "speculators" and "Big Oil" conspiracies,  whatever they can make up to explain the rise in oil.

It doesn't make sense, but without a villain, people simply will not accept the truth.

POSTSCRIPT

Here, for your convenience, is a partial list of my most recent posts on energy:

G-d Save Us From Simple Solutions
Absurdities on Oil
Those Darn Speculators
Economic Illiteracy
Obama's (Lack of an) Energy Policy
One Specific Idiocy
A Thought on Solar Energy
Oil Logic
Solving High Food Prices
Several Convenient Untruths
It's Not An Energy Policy
A Question for Those Supporting Green Energy

There are many older posts, but I think this hits all the highlights.

POSTSCRIPT II

And, to address those who will mention "speculators", yes, as prices are likely to rise more before they fall, speculators are buying oil. And when it looks like oil will fall, speculators will sell, lowering prices. That is what speculators do, flatten out spikes in prices. But while they get blamed for price increases, they never seem to get credit for lowering prices as the peak nears. But, if you think logically, how else dot hey make money? Just buying and holding oil will not make anyone rich. Only by buying then selling do you make money, and the efforts of speculators, while increasing prices in troughs, also lower prices during spikes. That is hardly a sinister purpose.

Unfortunately, as prices are rising, speculators make an easy scapegoat for those seeking a human villain to blame. But I would point out that, though speculators do cause prices to rise somewhat, do not in themselves start movement. Speculators follow trends, they do not create them. At least successful speculators do. Those who try to start their own trends tend not to be speculators for long, just ask the Hunt Brothers.

Many of those supporting "green" energy argue that it will take "too long" to get oil form off shore drilling or drilling in ANWR. I have already argued against this, but let me ask a better question. If it will take too long to get oil out of the ground if we start drilling today, how long will it take for the technology to allow us to fill our current energy needs using solar energy without covering the entire state of California with collectors?

I think we will have drained ANWR completely before any of these anticipated green technologies is even competitive with petrochemicals, much less nuclear. So if waiting for ANWR to come on line is "unrealistic", how much more so are green technologies?

I was writing a comment on Buchanan's latest article when another poster replied "You're a sheep, following the anti-Russian position because you think it's conservative." Now, for the record, I am anti-Russia because I think Putin is a dangerous imperialist who could touch off a new cold war, and who would also not shy away from supporting anti-US terrorists or nations to keep us from interfering, but that is not my point here. My point is that, even if that were my motivation, it still is not an argument. Even if I am blindly repeating the party line, just pointing that out does not prove the party line wrong. (I also hate people who use the term "sheep", as I explained before.)

We see this a lot in the environmental field, where studies are "disproved' by showing that they were funded by oil companies. However, that really proves nothing. Just showing those who funded something have an interest in a specific outcome does not mean the study is invalid. You need to disprove the actual substance of the study, not just show the political bias of the sponsors. (It also ignores the fact that most of the studies supporting AGW were sponsored by the government which has a strong bias as well. So if bias invalidates a study, then those proving AGW are equally invalid.)

My point is simple, and should be self-evident, but sadly is not. If you want to argue, then take on the actual argument, not the man making the argument. Even if everything you say about the man making the argument is entirely true, what did you prove? If a genius or a cretin hands you a dictionary, it is equally valid. Attacking the messenger still says nothing about the validity of the message.

UPDATE

There is one variant on this that is particularly offensive, and especially common among European liberals, the argument "Americans are so stupid they can't even find X on a map, so..." This sort of sneering superiority still proves nothing, but it does serve to make the writer feel better about himself.

The problem is, anyone can find a subject on which others are not as well informed. "What is the definite integral from 1 to x of 1 over u du?" "Who was rumored to be the illegitimate son of the Empress Carlotta?" "What is the dative singular of senatus?" "Who was nudens?" "What are the four theological subjects a Jew is forbidden to study?" "What distinguishes the emperor Julian?"

Just because someone cannot answer those questions it does not follow that they are unable to discuss an unrelated topic. Likewise, an inability to find a specific nation on a map does not mean that the speaker is unable to discuss politics, even politics of that state. However, it is a quick and easy way for Europeans, and American liberals to feel better about themselves while running down the US. So I doubt we will ever see this argument go away, worthless as it may be.

(For those who are curious: 1. The natural log of x. 2. General Maxime Weygand. 3.  Senatui. 4. It is the alternate spelling of the Celtic deity Nodens.  5."What is above, what is below, what came before, and what comes after". 6. He was the last pagan emperor of the Roman Empire. Who says you can't learn anything useful on a blog?)

I know I swore never to mention Pat Buchanan again, but I think his most recent article deserves notice. Not because of his position, which is predictable, nor because of any errors, but because of the logical consequences of what Pat and the commenters on his article are proposing.

Pat, and many of those writing comments, argue that Ossetia "isn't part of Georgia". They claim that it was attached by Stalin and should be "allowed independence", by which they mean the Russian invasion and annexation should be allowed to proceed. Let us ignore that the exact same tactics and specious calls for "independence" were used by Hitler to annext the Sudetenland and later Bohemia, allow me to ask if those calling for us to allow the dismemberment of Georgia would be consistent in their application of this principle.

For example, Texas is not "really" part of the US, we took it form Mexico in a war. In addition, there are areas that are majority Hispanic. If they were to agitate for independence in some counties, declare themselves "independent" and then ask Mexico to invade, should we allow them to be annexed? Should we let Mexico invade San Diego? Corpus Christi?

The logic is the same. If we buy into Pat's nationalist theories (sounding like a throwback to the 1930's), any ethnic group can split off their own territory and hand it over to a neighbor. So, until your nation is composed of anything other than a single homogeneous ethnic group, you constantly runt he risk of invasion by neighbors at the request of a discontented minority.

I know some still buy into Pat's racial/cultural nationalist theories,  even if they say it is simply "pragmatic", but I would argue that nationalism is actually the cause of the problems, not the solution.  America is proof of that. We have existed peacefully for two centuries and more, with a heterogeneous ethnic and cultural makeup, while Europe, obsessed with nationalism, has been torn by war after war.  It appears obsessing on nationality is not "practical", but is the source of discontent.

Of course, the truth of the matter is, there is no real nationalist uprising, it is largely a faux uprising being used in Putin's efforts to return to the old imperial borders. He admitted as much when he called publicly for regime change in Georgia. So, why is Pat pretending otherwise? Is it perhaps that Putin, a nationalist mad man bent on expansion, is actually taking Hitler's place in Pat's heart? Will the swastika be removed from the secret shrine in Pat's basement to be replaced by the tsarist eagle? It isn't as far fetched as it sounds. Nazis and imperial Russia both hated Jews and Poles, both wanted the same land, and both fought to expand their empire.

Of course, it will mean Pat will have to do some new fabrication, I mean research, for his next book "Why the Tsars Were Right", but that is a small price to pay to replace a lost cause with a living tyrant to admire.

POSTSCRIPT

One problem with ethnic nationalism is that there is no end to it. Each group contains subgroups distinguishable only to their members, and those subgroups contain even smaller groups and so on. So, at no point will there really be an ethnic group which is no longer divisible. If we follow Pat and the "pragmatists" in arguing that ethnic unity is the basis for strong government, then we will need to establish a state for each household, otherwise the risk of ethnic strife will still exist within those states.

UPDATE

The clear evidence that Putin is in the wrong, besides the fact that pat Buchanan is siding with him, is to be found in the number of posters coming up with conspiracy theories explaining how the "neocons" forced reluctant Russia to invade. Once something is blamed on the "neocons", you can sleep easy knowing that it was the right thing to do.

Correction: Some may have noticed the original title was incorrect, reading "Pat Buchanan's Becomes Putin's Lord Haw Haw?". The reason was that originally it was entitled "Pat Buchanan's Neville Chamberlain Moment", but I decided that Buchanan is a small fry, not big enough to be Chaberlain, more in the realm of Lord Haw Haw, Tokyo Rose and Ezra Pound, not one who gives things away to dictators, just one who beats the drum for them and makes excuses. Unfortunately, the apostrophe and "S" remained after the title change. It has now been corrected.

I haven't mentioned this earlier, but I am a bit surprised that there has not been more coverage of the Gwatney murder. It seems tailor made for two specific groups. Those who insist on finding conspiracies around the Clintons (I mean beyond the proven conspiracies involving Whitewater, the PRC, and Monica) should be adding his name to the list of those supposedly killed by the Clintons, while the left should be crowing about the "Republican hate machine" and the way it drove this "poor deluded man" to kill a Democrat.

Well, to be honest, I have seen one or two posts on the latter topic, but nowhere near the number I would have expected, and the total absence of the former has surprised me. Then again, will the MSM in "All Obama, All The Time" mode, I suppose there isn't really time left for little things like murder.

Still, it is strange that an event like this passed with so little notice.

Sorry to all my regular readers for not responding to their posts and not posting new content. I had some out patient surgery today and I am still very sore. I should feel better later and till respond to your many posts, as well as posting new content. I had two ideas while waiting for my doctor, so it shouldn't be hard to get some new content up.

Until then, keep commenting. I will get back to you as soon as I feel better.

I was reading the Financial Times and the author is shocked that there is no furor over Mr. Suskind's allegations that Bush had documents forged showing a tie between Atta and Saddam. He admits the charges may be false, but then asks why there has been no uproar.

I think I can explain.

I know, first hand, that Obama was recruited by the KGB before the fall of the USSR to serve as a sleeper agent. When the Soviet Union fell, he was taken over by North Korean handlers, working through their own sleeper Michelle Obama, and he is currently running for president in order that he can weaken us sufficiently for the People's Republic of China to invade first Taiwan, then Japan, and eventually our own west coast.

My proof is in statements from several KGB agents, a member of North Korean intelligence and two CIA agents. They now all claim to know nothing about it, claim they don't even know who I am, but they said it.

Why is there no uproar over that?

Because I am making it up, you say? Well, Mr. Suskind's only evidence is HIS statement that it happened, now denied by his witnesses. Why is his statement any more valid than mine?

Some will say that he is a member of the press and hence trustworthy. I would argue instead that I never lie, yet the press has included men named Glass and Blair who made a career of lying, a career they only admit to when they were caught. So my statements should be given greater credence not less. And do not bring up his Pulitzer, as Duranty won a Pulitzer precisely because he lied to cover up Stalin's genocide in the Ukraine, so a Pulitzer is hardly the equivalent of a polygraph.

Could it be that the press simply loses any skepticism when they hear a claim of Bush administration wrong doing?

POSTSCRIPT

By the way, I was making up my story about Obama, something I doubt you will ever hear from Mr. Suskind, no matter how much evidence comes out showing his story to be false.

I have recently noticed a disturbing trend among so called conservatives, the tendency to accept the liberal fear of the "big". Whether "big" oil or "big" business and the "evil monopolies", many conservatives seem to have bought into the crude populism of the left. They have joined their libneral counterparts in maudlin laments over the "death of small business" and in formulating schemes to revive trust busting, while fearing every form of "bigness", except int he government, of course.

Now, it is sad that I should have to explain this to conservatives, but there is nothing inherently bad about big in economics, nor is there anything inherently noble or good about the small. A "mom and pop" shop is logically neither inherently better nor worse than a warehouse store. In many cases, the large store provides goods more cheaply, while in general the smaller store provides more service, with less selection and higher prices. But even those descriptions aren't always true. However, the choice of where to shop is up to the consumer. Just because you prefer browsing tiny shops and are willing to pay more for it does not make it "better' or give you the right to force that decision on others.

But I think I am getting ahead of myself. Since conservatives seem to have forgotten their basic tenets, let me start at the beginning. There is a huge difference between economic power and government power. Economic "power" shouldn't even be called that. The term is misused and so vaguely defined as to be meaningless. Sometimes it means simply the possess ion of more money, in other contexts, it means market share.

Let us assume in this case "economic power" means the amount of market share one controls. And how does a business get such market share? By providing a service and price combination which consumers prefer to all other options. Sometimes it is by providing better product, sometimes by providing something cheaper, sometimes a combination of the two, sometimes by providing better service. Ther eis no hard and fast rule. Even in the same general field. For example, while Wal Mart won out by providing the cheapest prices, Nordstroms did very well by providing customer service, even if the prices were slightly higher. Both have done well using very different models.

But the point is that there is a world of difference between "economic power' and "government power". Economic power is gained by providing for consumer desires better than anyone else. Government power is gained by forcing citizens to give up rights.

And that is not the only difference. Once government power is gained, it can be used to prevent its loss. In other words, government power is very difficult or impossible to reduce.

On the other hand, economic power only remains as long as the company continues to provide the best service. Should they fail to do so, they will lose their economic power and a competitor will take their place.

Now, I know many will argue about predatory practices, but they cannot continue to keep a monopoly in place. Any scheme to exclude competitors requires accepting losses. If they take these losses and then try to recoup when the competitors are gone,t hey will immediately face new competitors. In other words, trying to use market tactics to maintain a monopoly will quickly bankrupt any company.

There is one way (besides providing exceptional product at a good price) to keep a monopoly, and that is government power. But in the free market, there can exist monopoly, but they cannot charge monopoly prices, if they try they will be destroyed by competition.

And at one time conservatives knew all this. Unfortunately it appears that the combination of rising oil prices and sill populists disguised as "paleo-cons" have caused many conservatives to forget their dedication to freedom must include economic freedoms, and they now sound more like liberals than conservatives.

I have been posting questions asking Obama supporters to tell me, specifically, without using "new" or "change", why he is qualified to be president, or which specific policy of his they support. As of this moment, I have only one response, and it seems to mirror most of the arguments I have heard in favor of Obama. In my experience, it appears that the basic argument for Obama is that he is not Bush. Sometimes that eh is neither Bush nor Cheney.

So, I am going to list here, just a few of the many people who, by those criteria, ar ejust as qualified as Obama:

Mao
Hitler
Stalin
Heliogabalus
Caraclla
Caligula
Vlad the Impaler
Vladimir Putin
My three year old son
That guy who talks to himself and begs for change where Russel Street Meets MLK Boulevard
Jerry Springer
and Me

Now, I admit a few on my list are not eligible because they are not US citizens, and a few others are dead, and thus ineligible for office outside of Chicago. However, I could also have expanded the list quite a bit. I figure, based on the "not Bush or Cheney" criteria, there are at least 75 million US citizens both qualified to hold the office of president and just as qualified as Obama.

And what is the point of all this?

That's simple. If the best the Obama supporters can do to argue for their candidate is say "he's not Bush" or "he won't continue the failed policies of the Bush/Cheney reign of terror", then they are bound to lose.

Bush hatred may play well on the left end of the Democrat Party, but it won't even win over the blue collar wing of the party, much less the independents. And, while it may be good for filling up rallies and replenishing coffers, the left wing of the Democrats is not enough to win an election.

So, if they continue to run on "he's not Bush", I am afraid the Democrats are in for a rude awakening come November. The echo chamber of the press is still telling them Obama's coronation is on proceeding on schedule, but with the best argument being an appeal to Bush Derangement Syndrome, I don't think the rest of the nation is on board.

POSTSCRIPT

One other factor in the upcoming election is actually the media induced complacency. With much of his support coming from the fickle "youth vote", which has a poor turn out at the best of times, Obama had better watch all the press claims of a "sure thing". If enough of his supporters think his victory is assured, he may see his turnout dwindle, while those opposed to him turn out in record numbers. You need only look at the fate of Howard Dean's reliance on the youth vote to see how easily that "wave of support" can break, leaving you with absolutely nothing.

It is funny to hear the media reporting on the event sin Georgia. The two regions involved in the Russian invasion are described as "breakaway republics". In a tactic familiar from the Sudetenland crisis, Putin is using ethnic Russians transplanted during the Soviet era to stir up fabricated dissent in order to justify his invasion, yet the press is treating this as Georgian oppression of native people.

At first I dismissed this as the usual press ignorance of anything outside of the US and Western Europe, but then I heard Obama's call for "both sides" to exercise restraint. And those words were eerily familiar. Whenever Israel is attacked by terrorists who kill numerous civilians, the moment Israel harms a hair on the head of a single terrorist, we begin to hear calls for "restraint on both sides" and talk of the "cycle of violence".

All of which bodes ill for Georgia. Being cast in the role of Israel in international affairs is not a position any nation desires. Of course, at least McCain seems to understand that the invader is not exactly there to try to help some dissident freedom fighters, but is instead creating dissent and then exploiting it for his own benefit.

Well, at least Obama appears to have retreated form his "everybody's guilty, let the UN sort it out" position. The problem is, it took McCain to let him finally see the light. Were he president Obama, with no dissenting voices around him, witht he press telling him of breakaway republics and dissidents, would he ever have come to this realization?

I have written before to ask why Obama is qualified to be president and how he can engage in negotiations with other nations if he's afraid to debate his political opponents, but I think this may be the most telling question yet.

What I want to ask Obama supporters is this:

Both supporters and opponents must agree that Obama is not the most experienced candidate int he race, in fact he is rather inexperienced by almost any imaginable standard. And he doesn't really have exceptional experience in his life before politics either.

However, unlike many conservatives, I am willing to grant that an inexperienced candidate could still be a good president. That is, he could be, if he had some startling new insight into government, some novel approach which would change how we see things.

The problem is, I just don't see anything new in Obama's platform. When he bothers to provide any specifics at all, they sound just like the same old liberal plans we have been hearing for many years.

So, this is my question for Obama supporters: What in Obama's platform is so appealing? I admit that most of it is quite vague, so I know that anything you say will have to be at least partly supposition, but what precisely about the platform presented by Obama inspires you to vote for him?

Somehow, except "he's against the war" and maybe a handful of "he's for universal healthcare", I won't get many answers.

I already have one open question for Obama supporters, which none have yet tried to answer. However, while I wait for a reply to that question, I have another, shorter question.

Obama has made clear, that his foreign policy is based first and foremost on his belief in the omnipotence of negotiation, the idea that talk can resolve all our problems in international affairs.

Now, whether or not negotiation is as effective as he claims, how can he claim he will zealously represent the interests of our nation in such debates when he is afraid to face a fellow senator in townhall debates? When he is intimidated by mediators at primary debates with members of his own party? And when he can barely speak coherently when deprived of a teleprompter? Who insists even a fawning media must treat certain topics as off limits?

How do you expect a man so terrified of confronting difficult questions in the safe setting of a presidential election to face openly hostile negotiators when questions of life and death depend on his performance?

Even if he is right and negotiation is the best approach, is it possible to argue that Obama is the right man to carry on those negotiations?