We blog (We do)

Iran has shot off some missiles, and the lied about how many, by faking the image with Photoshop or some program like it.  Of course, we all know the ICBM’s Iran is developing are for generating electricity, right?

This is all getting out of hand.  The New York Times reports that McCain’s legal problems regarding his eligiility to be President are worse than we thought.

The US Constitution declares that you have to be a ‘Natural Born’ citizen to be President.  The Federal laws determine the definition of ‘Natural Born’.  According to Professor Chin at the University of Arizona, the law doesn’t clearly make McCain eligible.  The article goes on to say this simply doesn’t matter because the courts will not want to handle the issue.  This seems very odd, but apparently makes sense to the legal in-crowd.  Prof. Chin points out that a law passed when John McCain was 11 months old made him a citizen, and he concludes that McCain was not a citizen at birth.

There is an argument that since there are only two ways to be a citizen, be ‘Natural Born’ or be naturalized, and since neither Obama nor McCain were naturalized, then they must both be Natural Born Citizens, or not citizens at all.  This may be a pernicious argument, but it may hold up in court.  This opens up the possibility that one or the other of them is not a citizen at all.  They are both US Senators, but I don’t think there’s a law that says being elected Senator makes you any kind of citizen.  But I’m sure people are looking.

When we get around to the “Politics of Personal Destruction” phase of the next Presidency, this will all come up again.  There’s always the possibility that a serving US President will be thrown in prison; That seems to be the goal of about half the bloggers, anyway.  Which half of the bloggers depends on which party is in the White House, of course.

I’d like to repeat my earlier prediction that this US Presidential election will go to the courts, and that means the Supreme Court.  However, the Supreme Court would have to dance some fancy steps to argue that Guantánamo was Constitutionally part of the US (and therefore under it’s jurisdiction) while the Canal Zone was not.  Even though the US control of Guantanamo is the same now as the Canal Zone was back then.  But come to think of it, they’re pretty fancy steppers over at SCOTUS.

UPDATE: If you actually go over and read Professor Chin’s analysis, you’ll see that my analysis above is rather, uh, naive.  Consider it for entertainment value only.

Despite being a “Democracy”, Mauritania has a long-standing problem with slavery.  Whole families are born into slavery, and don’t know anything else.

Background 1: Hawaii, like many (most?) US states, has two kinds of birth documents.  One is a certified computer printout of their records, Hawaii calls this a “Certificate of Live Birth”.  The other is a reproduction of the hand-written form filled out in pen and ink when the baby was born, Hawaii calls this a “Birth Certificate”.

Background 2: The USA has 2 kinds of citizenship, ‘Natural Born’ citizens and ‘Naturalized’ citizens.  Only ‘Natural Born’ citizens can be President.

The whole Obama-Birth Certificate-Certification of Live Birth thing has got me thinking again.  Without a court order, the only way to get any of the birth documents from somebody born in Hawaii, like Obama, is to ask them.  Hawaii keeps them secret.

So, for a Presidential candidate, the campaign is the only source of documents.  The Presidency of the US is easily worth billions of dollars; More so for any foreign power you’d care to name.  For this much money, you can get birth documents as good or better than those produced by the State of Hawaii.

If a Hawaiian wins the election, they are more likely to be challenged (because their birth documents aren’t public).  The political parties will eventually figure out to avoid nominating Hawaiians.  This will have a chilling effect on the basic civil rights of Hawaiians.

The State of Hawaii may have inadvertantly made it exceptionally difficult for a Hawaiian to be President.  Does Hawaii have the constitutional power to do this?  Probably not.  I wonder if the US Supreme Court will force Hawaii to open it’s birth records to the public.

Would a politician or political party con their way to the Presidency?  Would some districts (like, say, Chicago) stuff the ballot boxes?  Can you spell gerrymander? Do you know of anyone so clueless that they still trust computerized voting machines?

Will people be skeptical?  If Obama wins, will he be challenged?  Do the Democrats still bring up the “Stolen” election of 2000? Will the rumors persist?

Unless the State of Hawaii coughs up the documents, this will be a sword hanging over any Obama Presidency.  The current governor of Hawaii is a Republican; Hiding any documents she has could make her a Republican hero.  But some of the state employees must be Democrats; Will they leak?  Would you trust leaked documents?  If the Republican governor of Hawaii, testifying against interest, certifies Obama’s birth documents in public, under oath, then maybe the issue will go away.

Bill Clinton was impeached.  There’s an impeachment movement against George W Bush.  If the impeachers get to work on Obama, the birth document thing will come up again.

However, this will not be an issue in the campaign, as McCain’s birth documents aren’t in such good shape either.  While the basic logic applies to both candidates (in terms of rumors, impeachment, court challanges), in Obama’s case there are documents just beyond reach, in the files of Hawaii; it’s conceivable that he’ll be proved ineligible.  In McCain’s case, there is no further discovery available; What you get is what you got.  Another difference is that in McCain’s case, the facts are agreed but the law is at issue; In Obama’s case the law is agreed but the facts are in dispute.

One more thing:  In Arizona, they have a ‘Voter ID’ law, you have to have documented ID to vote.  It’s constitutional, last I heard; the SCOTUS accepted it.  So what ID do you need to run for President?  If the rules for the electoral college vary from state to state, could the ID requirements vary too?

Details: I don’t know of any other Presidential candidate who has been asked to provide birth documents,   I am not a lawyer or a professional document analyst.  A computer image is not a real birth document.

Update: According to this Wall Street Journal article, Barack Obama sponsored the Senate resolution declaring John McCain a ‘Natural Born’ US citizen.  I just ran across it.

I have a blender.  Actually, I had two, both from the bargain shelf.

One was the stick kind, you put it in a big glass together with your stuff and you bash it about.  It had a small motor and it was the cheapest brand. The stick worked fine until some water got in it.  It rusted stuck.  I opened it, lubed it, twisted the motor shaft with a pair of pliars to unstick it, lubed it some more, and I even put it back together.  The stick worked fine for a few months until it began to emit smoke and fire.  It still blended fine, but I didn’t like the big sparks that shone through the case.  Who even knew it was translucent?  And the smell of smoke made my smoothies less appetizing.  Into the trash.  Gone.  I got my year out of it.

The other blender is a traditional glass jar nestled over a big motor, with big rotating blades at the bottom.  A classic.  It has only 5 speeds, but that’s really 4 too many.  I decided to go for the big motor but the no-name brand.  This big hefty blender easily handled everything I put into it.  Until it stopped working.  Completely.  And it required a special screwdriver to take apart, so I found a repair shop.

Now, the geniuses of electronics are working on quantum computers and advanced chips, they don’t sit in little shops filled with broken appliances on side streets waiting for me to bop in with my broken blender.  I know that.  We all know that.  I should have seen it coming.  I did, but not exactly.

Cleverly, I left the big heavy, breakable, glass top at home, and carried in the broken bottom section with the motor.  He took it.  I came back when he said.  He demonstrated it working, I paid him.  There’s a little switch on the top of the thing, like the button switch in the fridge door that turns on the light.  This switch prevents the motor from turning when the glass top is not attached.  He just pushed it down with his finger to make it work.  That was the switch that was broken, that he replaced.

So I took it home, put the glass jar on top, and it sprang to life!  After playing with the speeds I realized what this genius had done.  The new switch was in backwards.  When it’s turned off, the blender is on.  But when set to one of it’s many speeds, it’s off. So, now I have 4 or 5 settings for off.  One for on.  Off is on.  And all the ons are off. 

I could have brought it back, but what the heck.  It works great and I just have to remember to work it backward.  There are more ways for a machine to not work than to work.  This reminds me of that.  I should keep it in mind every day.  It even applies to my body.  There are more ways to say the wrong thing than to say the right thing.  It’s very cultural; Even wise.

I’ll keep it.

This is a hot topic.  George W Bush believes that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and missiles, and supports terrorism around the world, especially Hezbollah and Hamas.  Most people agree with this general analysis, differing mainly on timing.  The 64 billion dollar question is “Will Iran give nuclear weapons to terrorists?”.

One overlooked factor is Bush’s view of McCain and Obama.  If McCain is winning or nearly so, an attack on Iran would put McCain behind, so don’t attack.  Plus, if McCain is winning, Bush will believe he can wait on hitting Iran.  But if Obama looks to win, then there isn’t as much to lose (in terms of the Presidential race), so Bush, also doubtful of Obama’s toughness on Iran, would be more likely to launch an attack.

The other factors include the current state of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  If there’s big media splash about some disaster or other, or something that looks like a disaster, that will slow things down.  It’s fair to say that oil prices will jump if Iran gets attacked; They might try to stop all oil exports for a while.  This consideraton militates toward capturing and controlling the oil fields.  The resulting inflation would be bad for McCain, so only a late attack seems politically possible.  And, of course, if infantry is needed, it would have to come from either Afghanistan or Iraq, and they’re still needed there, especially Afghanistan.

But if Bush was wrong about Iraq’s nuclear materials, how can he know what to target in Iran?  This is the other 64 billion dollar question.  Has intelligence improved that much in 5 years?  It’s possible, but I wouldn’t know.  There could be a new type of ultra-secret radiation detector, or something, that’s just become available.  Another way to think, is that the US really has super-duper detectors, and was not at all confused about what Saddam had, but didn’t want to tell.  This would imply that an attack on Iran will be on-target.  If there is an attack, and it is on-target, it can then be argued that the US intelligence on Iraq’s (lack of) nuclear weapons was also accurate.  Alternatively, the US has no good idea of where all the Iran nuke stuff is, and the only way to take it all down is to conquer the whole country.  Finally, it is possible that Iran is being dumb about hiding it’s nukes, and satellite imagery is telling Bush all he needs to know.

I cannot predict the future, but I’ll try anyway:  Bush won’t attack Iran before election day, November 4th, 2008.  Yeah, I know, not too startling.  Nostradamus, I am not.  But then, neither was he.

The US Constitution has rules about who can be President.  You have to be a natural born citizen.  For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger can be the governor of California but cannot be the President of the US, because he was born in Austria.

Is John McCain a Natural Born US Citizen?

McCain was born outside the US, in the Canal Zone, while his father was there on active duty.  Both his parents were US Citizens at the time.  Yet, the question arose, is he a “Natural born” citizen according to the Constitution?  The answer is an ambiguous yes.  Ambiguous because, should he be elected, there is enough of a question to get the issue before the Supreme Court.  The US Senate has passed a toothless resolution to the effect that McCain is a natural born US citizen.  This is not binding on The Court and certainly is no legal barrier to a challenge.  And McCain’s birth was not properly recorded in the registry of the Canal Zone at the time, just to make things interesting.

Is Barack Obama a Natural Born US Citizen?

Obama’s birth certificate is not yet available.  But his problem is more severe than McCain’s.  Obama’s father was not a US citizen.  And if only one parent is a citizen, there are additional rules to follow.  The citizen parent must have been a citizen for 5 years after the age of 16.  Obama’s mother does not qualify, as she was only 18 when he was born. One of the questions, of course, which law applies, the law at the time of Obama’s birth, or the law today?  At this point I am completely over my head, as I am not, I promise you, a lawyer.  But I do think that there is more than enough of a question, that, should Obama be elected, it will be challenged up to the Supreme Court.

And just for fun, there are the possibilities that Obama’s certificate says he’s white, or the certificate is missing, or that his mother was really 16, or whatever you can imagine.   Hawaii, which was a State when Obama was born, does not make birth certificates public.  Eventually, though, it will leak.  If it doesn’t leak, people will say it doesn’t exist.

This election could last another two years, if it keeps on going the way it has been.  Oh joy.

UPDATE:  The left-of-center, pro-Democratic web site “The Daily Kos” has, they say, Obama’s Birth Certificate, online.  I have no way of knowing if it’s right, of course.  Click on the link to see the image.

The reason that you have never heard of The Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is that they have no oil money, no ICBM’s, and no nukes.  Our friends at the CIA say that the country is a democracy, of all things, with no US attack needed.   This is kind of cool, really, except that the Mauritanians are as poor as dirt.  Poorer, actually, as they are rich in locusts.  The Mauritanian locusts, however, have their own problems, as there is little for them to eat.

Iran, on the other hand, is rolling in western cash, and uses it to buy and build western technology, like nukes, ICBM’s, and all the rest. Can you see the benefits of pouring tons of western cash on an otherwise poor desert nation?  Here’s a hint:  Nuclear Armageddon.

Iraq and Iran have had, at various times, vigorous nuclear weapons programs, paid for by the West.  Poor Mauritania has never had a nuclear weapons program, despite being more Islamic than Iraq.  The Mullahs of Iran are Islamic, Shia and Persian, Saddam Hussein was secular, Sunni and Arab.  The common factors between Iran and Iraq are Islam, the tons of cash,  the ambitions of their leaders, and the (attempted) construction of nuclear weapons.  So, no cash, no nukes.  To get rid of the nasty nukes, take away the cash.  The cash comes from the West.  It’s up to the West.

There is one caveat: Pakistan.  The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has made their own nukes without having any appreciable oil.  The cost is high and I don’t know where they got the money.  Our friends at Wikipedia say the US helped out with guarding the nuclear facilities to the tune of $100 million.  That’s a tenth of a billion dollars.  Peanuts, as they say in the nuclear game.

And yes, I do know,  that Saddam Hussein did not have nukes when the US invaded in 2003, and that his nuclear program was moribund.   In 2003 the sanctions against Saddam were crumbling, but still in place, and 100,000 US troops were sitting in Kuwait, a pistol pointed at his head.  The situation was not sustainable.

It is completely clear from his history that if Saddam were left completely alone, he would have restarted his nuclear program and the US, or somebody, would eventually have had to intervene.  It looks like 2003 was the wrong year, and GW Bush the wrong leader, to take down Saddam Hussein.  My point is only that somebody would have to do it sometime.  And, of course, if Saddam died, his evil sons would have followed in his footsteps.  The lesson of Saddam’s use of gas warfare, twice, is that there was no red line for him between ordinary weapons and weapons of mass destruction; Any weapon he had, would be used.  This is the opposite of the situation in Pakistan and India, for example, where the leaders fully understand the consequences of nuclear war.

The local stores have, this June, acquired a good supply of fresh fruit. And at the fruit stands, they will, for a small amount of money, give you more grapes or strawberries than is safe to eat.

So, I’ve been sampling. I never knew this, but if you ask the guy at the fruit stand what is good to eat today, he will tell you. And he knows his stuff.

Since fruit is basically good for you, I just enjoy. Fruit can be better than chocolate, when it’s good, and nowadays, it’s often good. And carrot juice often tastes like chocolate, year round.

It’s all very shocking. I’m a guy who has to tell himself to drink more; I buy a six pack of beer and it takes me six months to finish it. And here I am, indulging myself.

Free tip: If the fruit you get is a little on the tart or sour side, but otherwise good (and it’s hard tell just by looking) just put a little sugar in a saucer and dip the fruit in the sugar before each bite. In the long run you’ll still end up with fewer calories.

In a previous message, I wrote, never thinking it would come true so soon:

“But, if Olmert has been found giving or taking bribes, or raping the help, I won’t be able to resist blogging about it.”

Well, little did I know.  But I was wrong. I have been able to resist blogging about it.  And I will continue to try.  For a while.

I see in the blogs, that a Canadian conservative, or maybe neo-con, columnist has got himself in trouble with the government.  They have a poorly written law against hate speech that allows people to punish anybody they don’t like.  Mr. Steyn quoted an Imam, saying about other Muslims, that “They breed like mosquitos”.  The Canadian Muslims have brought Mr. Steyn to court for hate speech.  And apparently, the way the law is written, there is no chance for him to win. In fact, I think he’s already officially lost.  Up there in the Great White North they have a sort of Marsupial Tribunal for Mr. Steyn.  That’s a kangaroo court, for you in the cheap seats.

Maybe he should have said it the other way around, that the mosquitos are breeding like Muslims.  Let the bugs bring him to court.

Steyn himself is a more than adequate writer, take a look at his stuff.  Or better yet, look at this page. He’s taking an easy and cheap shot against the US government, for sure.  He found a dumb law passed by the US Congress, not that hard to do, really, and banged away at it.  I guess he considers himself an American, too.

Now, the news media in the West, left and right, are generally on his side because it’s their bread and butter and don’t want any rules of any kind.  The media generally, is not objective nor disinterested about free speech.  And what do we read or watch that isn’t media?  And they leave out the possible punishment.  So I don’t know what it can be.  Hard time?