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How about calling China the "Capitalist Dictatorship of China", or something along those lines. Not entirely accurate, but thought provoking.
I think Thom kind of flubbed the whole McCain birth "controversy" with that birther. No one questions McCain's birthplace. The question was is he eligible for presidency because of his birthplace. On the other hand, these birthers say Obama was born in Africa and that everyone who is sane is in on some grand conspiracy to say he was born in America.
On reading that again, there is no requirement for both parents needing to be citizens, only one, and it can be either the mother or the father as long as they are US citizens and have lived in the US for the required amount of time. But it could be that this still doesn't qualify a person to be a "Natural" born citizen. How do we figure that out?
mstaggerlee,
Boy are you sure right. Here it is straight from the US Governement.
http://travel.state.gov/law/info/info_609.html
The brithers don't seem to have any grounds for a lawsuit even IF Barack was born in Kenya, even though it's obvious that he was born in Hawaii. The "Natural" part of the requirement is pretty confusing. And does this description of the law seem to say that there is a different requirement for both parents needing to be citizens depending on whether or not the parents are married ? Very confusing.
I heard Thom mention Linux this morning and he needs to do some homework because market share is way higher than what you said. Currently Linux has a larger share of the market than Apple. This is mainly due to Linux being used on servers for many years and I believe even more share than Windows Server. It's also used in many consumer devices including Blu-Ray players.
Thom, you can download live CDs of various Linux distros to test drive. I would recomend going to Ubuntu.com so you can download the most popular version of Linux for desktop. You can pop the CD into your drive and reboot into Linux. Be advised that Linux will run much slower from a CD (Ubuntu installed boots in about one minute) but it will give you and idea of what Linux has to offer.
Linux usage, becaue it is open source and free is going to be hard to track but it has Microsoft running scared. It also has far more eyes on the source than Microsoft can ever afford to do. Apple is an also ran with its niche market. They may get a little more of a share as Vista was a massive failure for Microsoft and Apple reduced prices on some of its computers.
Linux is the platform for anti-corporate computer users. With your philosophies Thom that is what you should be running. I am typing this from my installation of Ubuntu which I run on my principal computer. I also run Linux off a netbook which boots up in 30 seconds. Why waste time on Windows when they have to download virus updates all the time. And Apple is just another large corporation too.
L. Grace
What you are calling my "arbitrary opinion" is from an article at factcheck.org that quotes two acts of Congress and a statement on the issue by the State Department of state. I also noted at the end of the second paragraph of my post that the article I quoted from states that the issue has never been ruled on by the courts.
So I not only supported my "arbitrary opinion" by an article that quoted an act of Congress, but I also acknowledged that the question might still be open.
But do you really think that it's possible that the law of the United States would declare that if a military family stationed overseas gave birth to a child in the country they were stationed in, that child wouldn't have all the rights and privileges of a child born in the United States. That would be quite upsetting to quite a few members of the military who are stationed abroad.
But the location of birth, whether inside or outside the borders of the United States is subordinate to the concept of "jus sanguinis" or "right of blood". Children born to parents who are American citizens are natural born citizens wherever they are born.
I could be wrong. My post was based on the article I quoted and linked to and that could be wrong as well as another source I read that stated the same information. That's how I go about forming my arbitrary opinions.
Kay,
You nailed an EXCELLENT point.
This is the exact point that you can challenge almost all conspiracy theorists on.
Conspiracy lover will raise doubt after doubt after doubt and put the demand of proof on OTHERS. If one doubt gets definitively de-bunked, they just move on to another, pretending like they weren't wrong before.
Quark,
Thanks. I've thought about some sort of vow to donate to the opposition. It's not in my personality to make threats but I just might. The trouble is I can't say for sure I've I'll have any money to spare!
>> chabuka July 28th, 2009, 9:27 am
>> The one thing the “birthers” will not take into consideration is the simple fact that it doesn’t matter where President Obama was born
But would this be "natural born" citizen or legal citizen?
I know everybody wants this to be perfectly clear but it isn't.
The Wkipedia entry on this is enlightening:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_born_citizen_of_the_United_States
But read the WHOLE THING ... don't just grab at a few sections that build your case.
But, in the case of Obama, being born in the USA, it's not debatable: he's is fully a citizen. Period. People who argue otherwise are walking jokes.
Loretta -
You've got that WAYYYY backwards - American citizenship (like Judiasm, BTW) is passed from MOTHER to child, not from father to child.
The reason is obvious - a mother can (and often does) lie about the fatherhood of her child, but questions about who the mother is are far less ambiguous.
L Grace,
Offer them the carrot AND the stick? (Explain you'll support their reelection if they support the legislation, work against them if they don't.)
Thom:
When people say, "Show me the birth certificate, just answer, "Show me the Kenya birth certificate." Speaking from experience--my daughter was born in 1971 in Nairobi, Kenya. She has THREE birth certificates: one from the U.S.Consulate, one from the U.S.Department of State, and one from the local Kenya Vital Statistics office. The latter was required for her Certificate of Citizenship processing. If someone is so sure that our president was born in Kenya, they have THREE ways to locate his Kenya birth certificate and prove it.
>> Richard Adlof July 28th, 2009, 9:57 am
>> Yo! Idiot claiming to be a legal beagle . . . Question asked and ANSWERED and you are too stupid to grok that the physical evidence has been submitted.
Yeah, I had to laugh at that guy, too. He reminds me of these guys who fancy themselves "military experts" because they did some time as a soldier.
Typically, they picked-up some military (or legal) jargon which they love to frequently use as "proof" of their expertise but you can tell they only have the narrowest grip on the subject they are pontificating about.
I want single-payer, universal health care.
I would compromise at "government option," universal health care.
Anything less is a failure in reform and I'd rather not have a bill.
Ive written this to my Representatives and Senators... what else can I do? Ideas anyone?
I love Ellen. I sure wish we could get her a better phone.
Barack Obama's father's name was Barack Hussein Obama. The president's full name is Barack Hussein Obama II
You know what., This is a sexist requirement too! Geeze. It's the father that determines if a baby is a natural Born Citizen? The father has to be a natural born citizen to hand down that status to a kid born outsiide the country? It doesn't count if the mother is a Natural Born Citizen living outside the country?
Hey wait a minute. Who is going through the horrible labor pains here, and will raise this kid when the father ups and leaves. I protest! That is a despicable law, if that's the case.
I think what the law used to say is that to give a kid born outside the US the status of being a Natural Born Citizen both parents had to be citizens but only the father had to be a Natural Born Citizen which is outrageous.
Thom,
President Obama is a #2, he has his fathers name. so he is a Jr.
also, why aren't people posting and pointing to the Constitution (other original documents from the beginning. I think it is in Amendments or Bill of Rights, i just don't have time to look right now. but it states it very clearly) ..it states what constitutes a citizen and there are like 7-9 ways. one is Mother is US Citizen.
end of story.
Pharmaceuticals and Marketing -
Being one of those lucky Americans who is (a) still employed, and (2) has health insurance, i went to see a urologist last week. He prescribed a drug for me to take named Proscar, for an enlarged prostate. Because I like to know at least a little what I'm putting into my body, I looked the drug up on the web. The real chemical name is Finasteride. One of the side effects listed is increased hair growth. And one of the warnings regarding the drug was this:
Women who are pregnant, or may become pregnant, should not HANDLE this drug (emphasis mine).
That warning sounded familiar to me. I was sure that I'd heard it before, in one of those TV advertisements/disclaimers for prescription drugs. But the name was unfamiliar - I was pretty sure that I'd never seen an ad for Proscar on TV.
Further research proved that I was right. The SAME COMPANY that markets Finasteride as Proscar, for enlarged prostate, also markets the same drug as Propecia, for Male Pattern Baldness, and includes the warning about women not handling it in the TV ad for it. The only mention about prostate effects on the Propecia site is a statement that if a doctor does a blood test to check your PSA level (a prostate cancer indicator) you should tell him you are taking it, because it can effect the results.
One drug - TWO products, targeted at different markets (one legit health concern, the other, VANITY!), and different information on the 2 sites about the substance. There's a good picture of the industry that many of the Rethugs and Blue-Cross Dems in our Congress seek to protect!
>> Richard Adlof July 28th, 2009, 10:09 am
>> @L Grace - “While many white people will acknowledge a problem with racism in arrests, they will NEVER EVER acknowledge it in a specific case.”
>> There was a racist component to this specific situation.
Yeah you! An fair-minded white guy!
I'm a white guy, too, and it's very hard for me to imagine that racism didn't play a role in the Harftord case. At the very least, stupidity played a role, just as Obama said in his press conference.
As a white guy, I can't imagine myself getting arrested breaking into my own home.
Sure, someone might call the cops. But, surely the cops would back-off as soon as it became clear this was my own home. Heck, they'd probably back-off as soon as they saw my race and age.
Thom,
Barack Obama's father's name is Barack Obama, Sr.
>> B Roll July 28th, 2009, 10:23 am
>> This is so distressing. People are more interested in their own opinions and supposed facts that support their opinions.
>> But McCain is a natural-born citizen, even though he was not born within this country’s borders, since his parents were citizens at the time of his birth. As a congressional act stated in 1790:
Ironically, your statement of "fact" about Mccain is actually your arbitrary opinion.
McCain's status as a "natural born citizen" is debatable.
Here is the Snopes article on the subject:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/mccain/citizen.asp
But there are plenty other articles by real lawyers who know this stuff. It's simply not as clear as you arbitrarily declare it.
THX for that reference B Roll I will twitter it search 'health care'.
P.S.; Adding to my post above.
I'm looking at an official copy of my birth certificate. It doesn't list the name of the doctor who smacked me because he was jealous of how good looking I was. It doesn't even name the hospital where I was born. I must be pretending to be alive.
This is so distressing. People are more interested in their own opinions and supposed facts that support their opinions. And to tell you the truth, I’m not sure that we are much better than those on the conservative side.
I think this would apply to both John McCain and Barack Obama since it predates both of their births by a long shot. It’s from an article about the question of McCain’s eligibility to be president at factcheck.org The article does state that the issue hasn’t been resolved in court.
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/how_can_panamanian-born_mccain_be_...
But McCain is a natural-born citizen, even though he was not born within this country's borders, since his parents were citizens at the time of his birth. As a congressional act stated in 1790:
Congress: "And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens."
Another congressional act in 1795 issued a similar assurance, though it changed the language from "natural born citizen" to "citizen."
But the State Department clarifies the issue, saying that the 1790 language is honored under section 301(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.