Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Arizona Cold Case Posse created quite a bit of media attention, and a spike of traffic here, when they held a press conference to publicize their investigation into President Obama’s birth certificate. I certainly got revved up about it and turned out a series of articles.
When I look back over the Google alerts, I find that media attention came in two waves. The first wave consisted of stories that said roughly “long-debunked claims repeated in investigation by sheriff with his own legal problems.” The second wave dealt with the fact that the “chief investigator” was selling a book about the investigation. I, along with a lot of other folks, felt that the commercial relationship between Corsi and Zullo was improper (perhaps “stinks to high heaven” expresses it better).
John Woodman, the author of a competing book (one that is far superior both in its production value and in its integrity), commented here, and when I learned that his review had been pulled from Amazon.com, I resolved to write my own review – not derivative of what John had written, but based on my own critical evaluation of A Question of Eligibility. I got rather worked up about it; I stayed up past 4 AM that night, reading the book, editing the review, and engaging with other reviewers and commenters on Amazon.
In the past couple of days, only one additional review of the book has been added at Amazon, bringing the total to 11 highly positive reviews and 13 highly negative reviews (one of the 5-star reviews is actually a highly-negative review given 5-stars to trick the birthers into reading it). None of the positive reviews have details from the book and consist more of fawning praise for the book being written and accusations that those Obots who attack the book haven’t read it.
The Amazon rank for the book is steadily falling (it’s #5,621 as of this moment down from number four thousand something yesterday). It’s been a day since the last review. It looks to me like the book has fizzled, which is what it deserves.
I’m reading a new book now; stay tuned.
I believe I saw it in the low 2,000’s at one point a couple days ago…..FWIW.
Does anyone have any idea how Amazon’s rankings translate into unit sales?
Makes sense…since it is an e-book, you can’t even be bothered to keep it on the toilet for proper usage.
Keep buying it John, keep buying it. The Sheriff needs your money, er, support!
Of course it has fizzled. This whole WND propaganda & book sale attempt was a DUD from the beginning. Other than a few additional purchases from debunking researchers such as yourself and Mr. Woodman, all of this junk only appeals to the same small Cult hard-core Birther flock that already was fleeced by these same reports the first time WND tried to pimp them.
WND was simply trying to re-ignite a dead horse to start a new line of Swift Boating. The media has now become wise to these stunts and is not going to be suckered into them anymore. They have nowhere to go with their dead movement anymore, besides continuing to chat up myth and rumour amongst themselves. The whole thing is otherwise DOA and will not go anywhere.
Still I expect WND to crank up the level of related articles in the next 2-3 weeks trying to get as much money out of it as possible.
Then likely rinse and repeat with a second press conference and a second “book” until they’ve covered all of Corsi’s talking points.
How is it a donation to the Cold Case Posse is tax deductible? I was just checking out an article and saw that. Maybe another thing that needs to be checked out.
Supposedly set up as a 501c(3) …. a non profit …. thus my name for it …. the Non profit Posse 😉
Since this is an e-book, could WND even run their bulk-buying trick? Not sure how that would work.
Hey, its only the preliminary report don’t forget.
I predict a trilogy –
1. A Question of Eligibility
2. A Question of Accuracy
3. Our Bad – or – Boooyah, Suckers!
This doesn’t bode well for the rest of the series… if you look at Amazon, they’ve already got some of the titles up:
Sheriff Joe and the Secret of the Old Datestamp
Sheriff Joe and the Half-Blood President
Sheriff Joe and the Case of the Muckraker Who Stuck His Nose Where It Didn’t Belong
Posses for Dummies
M ke Y urwn Wbca !
Untitled WND Project
lol
i’ll wait for the MOVIE VERSION on COMEDY CENTRAL
Hi Doc,
Been Posting here for years, but just noticed today that your background is the same as an HI certificate. Good for you. That’s four moves ahead chess.
Not surprised. It was patently obvious to most impartial observers from the very start of his so-called “press conference” that Sheriff Joe was about to unload a bunch of bull.
In reality what the good Sheriff did was simply accept verbatim what his highly questionable “cold case posse” produced. Were he a competent law enforcement officer he would have recognized immediately that Zullo’s “report” was a bunch of junk. And, naturally, the good Sheriff did question the ethics of having one of “cold case posse” leaders produce a “book” the very next day.
What is truly amusing is that all Sheriff Joe really needed to do was contact the Attorney General for the State of Hawaii as ask him about the veracity of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate. Answering the question about “forgery” could have been resolved with a simple ten minute telephone call. Instead, the good Sheriff took months to regurgitate claims that had long since been thoroughly debunked.
What’s frightening though is that this idiot is the chief law enforcement office for a county of some 2.2 million souls – all of whom just want to know that their Sheriff is both sane and competent. I am sure most aren’t sleeping particularly well lately.
It would always be a guess. There is a web site that makes an informed guess, novelrank.com, but it doesn’t list this one. See also my article:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2011/07/what-does-it-take-to-be-1-on-amazon-com/
That citadel of conservative thought, The National Review takes on Sheriff Joe today. All you need to know about what the editors of America’s leading conservative periodical think of the Cold Case Posse’ is that they call Sheriff Joe a clown.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/292780/conspiracy-again-editors
It is soooooo good to see other conservatives — and especially as authoritative a conservative voice as National Review — beating the anti-truth squad down.
donna: “i’ll wait for the MOVIE VERSION on COMEDY CENTRAL
No waiting needed. You’re already part of Comedy Central in this forum.
There’s been an unlimited amount of humor coming from the forums of Dr. Conspiracy, Fog Bow, Bad Fiction.
Now if any of yas actually had in-hand 0bumm0’s original birth document & hospital admission record then you could be seen as serious.
Rambo Ike: Our local station did an interview of one of the reporters that viewed Obama’s LFBC and that plus Hawaii’s certifications are good enough for me. If not good enough for you than vote for someone else and don’t waste our time with your blather.
.
As for the hospital records my daughter was born at Kapio’lani in 1965, her records are no longer available, they purge older records If you don’t like that then go vote for someone else.. The posse is beating a dead horse.
Just when you think it can’t get any crazier……it does.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/did-threats-silence-media-on-obama-probe/
WorldNetDaily is going with a story tonight that the media were silenced on the Cold Case Posse story…………….
“During our investigation, we actually were told [that media] had been threatened with FTC investigations. Commentators [had been] threatened with their jobs,” (posse leader Mike) Zullo said. The threats were so intimidating that some individuals quit their positions over safety concerns for their families, he said.”
Yes, the quote from WND says “FTC”,,,,as in the Federal Trade Commission.
As with the posse’s report there are no specifics: Who threatened who. Who quit what jobs out of fear for their families, etc., etc., etc.
Other than that it’s a hell of a story.
WND: ‘During our investigation, we actually were told [that media] had been threatened with FTC investigations”
Now that was funny, they probably don’t know what th FTC does, does Orly now work for WND?
After reading this piece, I too was heartened to realize that there might be some sane folks in the Republican party.
Then you read this and say, not so fast.
A little background story. I was a student at the University of Hawaii, I Started in the summer session of 1961. I was heavy into Asian studies and could speak and write Japanese. I primarily ate at the foreign exchange cafeteria as it was less expensive so I got to know almost all of the foreign students. There were a few Africans and one of them was married to a white girl and he told us how he visited his newborn son at Kapio’lani. I’ve forgotten most of the details and can’t remember his name but my wife insists it was Obama Sr. and that little boy he brought to the cafeteria with him was Barack Obama . I tend to think my wife is right on this and that I actually met the baby Obama. I could be mistaken but my wife insists it was Obama.
No, there’s no physical product. The bulk-buying scam involved buying the book back in order to sell it at cost or a loss through another channel. Can’t resell a file download!
They could buy it for themselves, for multiple accounts, gift it to other accounts, made up accounts … “gifting” it to their readership would undermine their market, Farah’s too cheap.
The upside to these ebooks: zero risk to the publisher. THey can be on the “shelf” FOREVER. No production costs. No capital risked or tied up. Only cost is time, and that’s on the “authors”. Every sale is found money. rags like WND love ebooks for the same reasons wannabe authors and small publishers do. Drastically different risk/benefit analysis.
Finally, this isn’t about rankings, only finding that found money.
Have Gary Johnson as the candidate, and I’ll sign up tomorrow.
Will I be the first to vehemently object to this unprovoked and slanderous attack against clowns?
For their safety, we’re thinking of moving them to a small but cozy reservation in Delaware. Tea or coffee in the morning?
I second it. A clown is an honorable profession in France.
True story: In high school, I was the class clown.
In addition there is the original press briefing where the press were shown one of the certified copies.
Q You’ve got two certified copies, according to this study. You have these physical –
MR. PFEIFFER: Yes. I showed you one. Just one.
Q You showed us a photocopy of one.
MR. PFEIFFER: No, I showed you —
Q Does that have a stamp?
MR. PFEIFFER: It has a seal on it.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/04/27/press-gaggle-press-secretary-jay-carney-4272011
Consider me serious. Not only did I hold the documents, I was there in person at the birth and remember it very well. Too bad for you….
0bumm0? Wow childish name calling of the President. I’m starting to think the birther movement consists mainly of 12 year olds.
In fact, I believe 100% of the creativity left in the birfers’ brains (since they obviously don’t use it during their mindless parroting of same-old same-old) goes into making up childish names for Obama (like OZero, OWhodat, Obitler, Obozo, Obimbo, Obat, Obummo, …). Otherwise I suppose they would simply explode from all the stoked-up hatred…
I have to express my dismay at this so-called Sheriff Arpaio. Here we are, a full week after he uncovered these heinous crimes and no arrest. Not only that, I see the suspect on TV every day, like nothing happened. Now the Sheriff might say, “We know where he lives and can pick him up any time.” That might be true, but I happen to know the suspect has his own airplane, a BIG one, and can flee the country anytime he feels like it.
What gives?
Don’t hate the player (the National Review), hate the game (political invective)! The editors of the National Review have never been known for being shrinking violets.
I think they decided that it was time to take Sheriff Joe down a peg.
On top of that, what law enforcement officer tips off the alleged perpetrator to the exact nature of the charges against him before the end of the investigation? This is Amateur Hour policing at its worst.
Use of a non-profit for political activity is improper. 501(c)(3) organizations that engage in any political activity may at the discretion of the IRS either immediately lose their tax-exempt status recognition, or be compelled to pay fines. These take the form of excise taxes, described in IRC 4955, levied against both the organization itself and the organization managers responsible for the illegal activity.
Use of a non-profit organization to the profit of its members, officers, or directors (like, I dunno, providing resources to produce a book that is then sold by members for a profit?) is also improper.
Members of the public may send information that raises questions about an exempt organization’s compliance with the Internal Revenue Code by submitting Form 13909, Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form.
Just sayin’
An excellent suggestion, for this case and many others! But first would have to confirm is actually is incorporated as a non-profit.
Questions about why an investigation, if real / legit, would need such incorporation aside …
Seriously, if not actually an issue organization, why would an investigative team, under the direction of an elected law enforcement official, be incorporated?!? Not that I would know, but I can’t think of any precedent.
I’ll wait for the movie.
Part one of my study of the PDF and claims by Mara Zebest can be found here where I show that her attempt to create a halo cut-out does not match with the data.
I also attempt to show how a compression method commonly used by PDF programs, called MRC would explain the halo as well as the ‘cut-out’ as the picture is separated into a background and foreground, the latter as a bitmap, the former as a jpeg.
This opens up a whole new Universe of scams (sorry, business opportunities). Everybody has someone they don’t like-a colleague, a neighbor, a local TV newsperson. So, set up a 501c(3) “posse” to investigate them. For example, do they pay every penny they owe in incoome taxes? Who knows? So, solicit donations for investigative trips to the Caymans and Switzerland to check where they might be stashing their ill-gotten cash. When you’re done (or even before), write a book. Brilliant!!
You got me! I don’t pay a in ‘incoome’ tax! never have and never will! Not gonna take me alive, copper!
Top of the world, MA!!!
(sorry, that typo tickled me funny)
Sorry about that… hit the submit too soon.
IIRC, one of the very first rumors back in 2008 was that a source said that an anchor/reporter was threatened by The Government not to report on the birther story. I’ll look around for it. (I don’t think it was Lou Dobbs, he was warned by his less credulous boss.)
I keep hoping that one of the 0b0t sites would beable to produce some irrefutable proof, like the ‘original birth certificate’ that is alleged to be on file at the HDOH, but to my dismay, no such luck.
I see many making claims that they can’t back up with any proof – just hearsay & opinions. Present Hawaiian Gov. Abercommie originally made similar claims but when crunch time came he had to admit he wasn’t there for the birth, and went further in saying ‘there wasn’t any birth certificate on file, only some scribbled notes’. That coincides with the notorized affidavit Tim Adams signed, stating; as an Hawaiian election official his supervisors told him there was no birth certificate – they had checked it out.
Then we have MR. PFEIFFER telling a WHOPPER in the link that gorefan provided. The 4th paragraph tells the story: if it’s as Pfeiffer said, ‘campaign requested the document in June 2008’, then why is that COLB date-stamped ‘Jun -6 2007’?. Didn’t the director of the HDOH state, that ‘the 0bumm0 campaign requested in June of 2008 a “copy” of the birth certificate’? Also, at the time the image of the COLB was 1st put out, both Republicans & DemoRats claimed it wasn’t the ‘original birth certificate’.
One seems to be offended by my use of the term ‘0bumm0’ for their Leader. It’s just my ‘pet name’ for him – no different than what the 0b0ts are doing with many of the Birthers.
My position has always been, since Oct. 2008, independent from both sides on this ongoing issue over 0bumm0’s documents/records. I believe both sides should come together and work towards getting them released. Play it like a game of poker and let the “original” documents/records [cards] stand for the TRUTH. On that note, it puts me with the Birthers who have had as their objective ‘getting them released’.
During the month of February I tried at one of your affiliated sites to see if they had any irrefutable proof – bad move on my part because it descended down to a low level of civility from the get-go. By the middle of the month they were doing selective editing of my replies, which continued thru to the end of the month. One can only surmise their reason for such action was their embarrassment at not being knowledegable on the matters discussed. Example: confusing US Constitutional Law with municipal/domestic [federal, state,& local] laws, bogus chart on philosophers, and a warped belief of the Swiftboat Vets. I don’t believe they were trying to deceive, it’s just that they didn’t know any better.
In the world of conspiracies the fact that your story has no legs is never considered. (See current story about 1990 video of Obama at Harvard). Lack of coverage is always the result of the grand liberal media conspiracy or, every once in a while, threats from the unnamed “they” who control everything.
And by “humor” you mean the constant stream of laughs over the zero court cases your bretheren have won? That is indeed comedy gold.
Oh, and talking like 2nd grader isn’t winning you any smart points.
My my, we like to project don’t we? 😀
Sorry genius, but the “irrefutable proof” came last year – you may have missed it if you just watch fox news – Obama released his BC, chain of custody and Hawaii backs it up, and every court in the country agrees. Too bad, so sad, for you.
So please – let us know when you prove this in a court of law.
PROVE IT IN A COURT OF LAW AND PREVAIL. We’re all waiting, as we have for 3 years now, champ.
Yep, kinda hard Bimbo as the original is the property of the State of Hawai’i and is never released as it is a permanent record of the the state. That’s why ya gets certified copies that in law are regarded as the same thing.
Now, do tell what is the name of this “Affilliated site” as the only example I have ever seen of outight censorship and lies on a site have come from the RWNJ sites you frequent.
So come on, fess up, where is this evil Obot site?
That is a whopper that you made up. Show a link to a quote, you cannot because he never said anything even remotely like that.
As to Mr. Pfeiffer these are grown ups living in the real world dealing with real issues. If he misremembered a trivial date from three years earlier, big deal, you never misspeak.
You aslo ignore the fact that twice Mr. Pfeiffer indicates that he is showing them the real certificate of birth. As he puts it one of the two they received from hawaii.
Actually, that is completely false. He never said there wasn’t a birth certificate, only that he couldn’t release anything due to the laws of Hawaii….but don’t let the truth stand in the way of your diatribe. Where is your “irrefutable proof” that this is what the governor said?
Wheren’t you just whining about hearsay? What do you think his “notarized affidavit” was? It was pure, inadmissable hearsay (if not double hearsay). He said some unnamed individual (who, btw, wouldn’t have access to the records anyway, since no one in that office did), told him that he heard there was no birth certificate. No one checked anything. The office he was a temp at did not have access to vital records. But again, don’t let the truth stand in the way of your story.
Me thinks you’re putting far too much weight on the words “original” and “copy.” A certified copy, even an abstract, like what is called the “short form” carries the same legal weight as a certified copy of the long form. No one ever claimed that either document was anything but a legal birth certificate from the state of Hawaii.
This President was the first President (or candidate for that matter) in our history to publish a copy of his birth certificate. In fact, none of the Republican candidates have even done so in this election cycle. Not a shred of evidence has been provided to even imply a birth anywere but Hawaii. He’s posted two versions of the document on the interent. What more do you want? Do you expect him to provide a certified copy to you personally? Sorry, you’re just not the special. You don’t get to tell the duly elected, and sworn president of the United States, “show me your papers, boy.”
The problem with words like “irrefutable proof” is that they mean whatever you want them to. I suppose some would claim that unless they were in the birthing room, there is no irrefutable proof. But considering all the evidence, supports a Hawaiian birth (the records made public via interent, the statements of two governors and their directors of DOH, contemporaneous newspaper articles, the Hawaiian birth index, and just logistics of the President being born beyond our borders), and not an iota of anything resembling evidence of a foreign birth, I would say his Hawaiian birth is better established than the birth of any President or candidate for President before him, or any candidate currently running for office.
Or perhaps they just got tired of the lies you posted, as you did in your first few sentances above?
I find it’s usually the birthers that seem to have problems understanding the law….and to be honest, I’m not expecting you to be the exception.
Sadly, I can’t say the same for you. Considering your first few statements only would have taken a few minutes for you to find out they are false, I have to conclude either you are trying to deceive, or you really have no interest in the truth.
I think the point here is that with the release of the original short form bc, the burden of proof certainly went toward the birthers.
And that was further clarified by the release of the long form birth certificate.
Now if the birthers had any real evidence of forgery (and therefore fraud in the Presidential election), then I would be on their side. But they don’t. None of the garbage that they’ve brought forward is any good — at all. This is shown by the way that they have been thoroughly debunked on pretty much every point Nor do I see any additional points that give them the faintest hope of producing any real evidence.
Birthers like Ike here, of course, won’t accept that. For one thing, they haven’t read the debunkings (and don’t want to). If they have read the debunkings, they simply won’t accept the facts. There’s something they want to believe, therefore it must be believed, regardless of what the truth is.
Actually, it’s a whopper that Jerome Corsi made up.
Celebrity Journalist: I Never Spoke to Hawaii Gov About Obama Birth Certificate
A celebrity journalist now claims he misspoke when he said last week that Hawaii’s governor told him he was unable to find President Barack Obama’s original birth certificate after a search of state and hospital archives.
Mike Evans told FoxNews.com on Wednesday he was remorseful and embarrassed that he appeared to have given the impression that he had discussed the search for Obama’s birth certificate with Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/26/celebrity-journalist-says-he-never-talked-hawaii-governor-obama-birth/
Will you admit your “mistake” and apologize, RamboIke?
I realized that RamboIkea doesn’t think for himself or actually do any research.
Found it. http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/14089
From August 2009, these events allegedly happened between the election and the Inauguration.
“A major TV talk-show host reported that he was ordered not to raise the birth certificate issue or risk losing his job.”
“FCC officials threatened to yank broadcasting licenses, break up conglomerates, and make the enactment of the Fairness Doctrine “look mild” in comparison to other consequences.”
“In at least one corporate TV headquarters, memos were circulated to all on-air employees not to mention the birth certificate issue, as well as other specific subjects like Obama’s Illinois lawyer’s license, his college records, etc., under both implied and explicit threats.”
This rumor hasn’t changed or been added to since then.
Actually, he dropped out of school at age 12.
…or home schooled – same diff 😀
The entire story was comprehensively debunked in my book.
Abercrombie was a bit unclear in his wording in an interview he did for a Hawaii newspaper.
Jerome Corsi seized on that to write an article claiming that the Governor had implied that there was no birth certificate — when the Governor had implied no such thing.
Mike Evans read Corsi’s article and apparently believed it. He called the Governor’s office to ask about it, but the Governor didn’t return his call.
A day or so later, Evans got on the radio shooting his mouth off, attributing to the Governor Corsi’s statement that there was no birth certificate.
Evans was called on it and admitted he misspoke.
Jerome Corsi then went on the radio claiming (not a verbatim quote but close) “This is what happens any time anyone starts telling the truth about this issue. Someone gets to them and shuts them up.”
Bill, I frankly don’t appreciate your ugly and unwarranted remark regarding home schoolers.
My oldest daughter first set foot in a classroom the fall of her junior year in high school. She enrolled in a college-freshman-chemistry-major-level chemistry class.
The next summer, between her junior and senior year in high school, she studied nanotechnology at a local research institute.
She turned down a full-ride National Merit Scholarship at the University of Alabama to go to the State University, where — at 18 — she is currently finishing up her sophomore year, pursuing a chemistry major, with an expected cumulative 4.0 GPA to date.
All of the research indicates that the average homeschooler clearly outperforms the average institutionally-schooled student, both in academic performance and in social skills.
I would suggest you think before you go insulting random groups of people.
Obama’s birth in Hawaii has been legally established and confirmed. The birther meme is very silly, why do they wish to be so silly, why is Obama’s Hawaiian birth such a big threat to them. Will this stuff continue after Obama is re-elected?
Um, John, while I greatly respect your work, I have no qualms about pointing out the incredible disparity of education that today’s homeschooled children of folks we would consider to be right wing and anti-government. That’s absolutely great that your daughter had an enriching and full home schooling experience, and kudos to you for accomplishing such a thing – it is to be commended.
So, I will apologize for offending your own experience and that of a lot of other positive experiences in home schooling, and I guess I should narrow that to “home schooled anti-goverment bigots” like Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum. For that, I will never apologize and will call a spade a spade when I see it.
billthecat’s opinion may be based on the small amount of homeschoolers that are not quite up to par. For example, the home schooled teen said to me “If evolution is true then why are there still monkeys”
The burden of proof was ALWAYS with the birthers. No “went toward” ever happened. Well, maybe in some people’s mind, but not reality.
He could have said “Why are there still dinosaurs?”
I see that World Net Daily is now claiming that media outlets were intimidated into not covering the Cold Case Posse report and activities…
Not to continue the thread jack, but that’s sort of my point. MANY home schooling proponents as of late have made it crystal clear that their agenda is to eliminate things like sciences, evolution, political history that they don’t approve of, and sex ed. This breeds ignorance and further dumbs-down the country. I certainly should not lump them all as one group, as there are good home schoolers out there.
Basic standard operating procedure. WND gets advertising dollars from their traffic, as well as publicity wherever they can get it. That’s what this conspiracy is all about anyway. Drive traffic, drive book sales, drive t-shirts, sweaters, glasses, mugs. At the start of this, WND called Orly nuts and had an expert say the COLB was genuine. That was until they saw that the bigots would pay…then they started sponsoring Orly, had their expert reverse his decision and started selling all the garbage. They probably got a warehouse full of the junk someplace that they’re still trying to get rid of. So, I now do my part…No Orly, No WND, and definitely no junk! But hey Doc, glad to help you out!!!
Of course! All the evidence is still secreted away……awaiting…….hmmm, awaiting what???
Yes, and they are the norm.
There are Hispanics who are criminals. That doesn’t justify a comment painting all Hispanics as criminals.
There are graduates of MIT who are evil people. That doesn’t justify a comment painting MIT graduates as evil people.
I often wonder how many converts ObamaConspiracies has made.
One occasionally sees a poster here that previously espoused birtherism, then later appeared wth the opposite mindset.
I could name names, but wouldn’t want to call out members and put some on the defensive.
However, it seems to me that no- my memory isn’t failing me- there *are* a few posters here who have “flipped.”
(Doc now takes the member list and makes a bar chart of those that were never birthers, always birthers and sometimes birthers, replete with dates and links to posts… j/k… 😉
I was going to say “that’s one of their more outrageous claims” but then after consideration, I realized that it’s not.
I’ve noticed that too…
Good analogies as to why generalizations and stereotypes are almost always a bad idea.
I see RamMyPipe is back. What happened, smeggylips… somebody finally put a padlock on the horse stable down the road so you can’t accommodate the stallions anymore? Run out of KY jelly? Waiting to be fitted for a new, larger bushing? Gotta be something like that or you wouldn’t have the time to spew your drivel here among the humans.
Not the type of prose I come to OCT to read. Thankfully it is a unique exception.
My wife has been a college professor for over 40 years, so we have encountered quite a goodly number of home-schooled students over the years. As a demographic, they are almost impossible to characterize.
Some parents home-school to give their children an education that is superior to anything else available to them, and are capable of doing so. At the other end, there are those who keep their kids home claiming to be home-schooling them, but who are neither qualified nor diligent enough to do a good job. Then there is a group who home-school to prevent their kids from being exposed to such corrosive influences as earth science, evolution, other cultures, etc. They often show up with good grammar and math skills, and a thorough knowledge of the Bible, but little else. It goes on from there; an impressively large variety of descriptions.
So to back John W. up on this, there is nothing intelligent you can say encompassing home-schooled kids as a group generally, and scathing remarks about them are indeed misplaced.
That said, it makes me wonder about the assessment of “average” home-schooled kids cited by John W. in his response. I would be interested in the hard data on that. In my experience, they are all over the map, and so I would expect their average level of accomplishment to be roughly the same as the overall population.
Sorry. RamboIke insults the President in the vilest terms, insults us and Doc on a regular basis, and has no interest in an honest exchange of ideas. I get so tired of his crap sometimes that I eventually succumb to giving him a taste of his own attitude.
I really should have more self-control; for your sake I will try harder to ignore his insults and not return them. It won’t be easy. I only intended it for his derision and the amusement of those who are also sick to death of his knee-jerk ad hominem attacks.
Objection noted, without prejudice.
Any such data would have a lot of caveats. The schools have to educate large numbers of kids from low income single parent households, households where the parents didn’t graduate high school, households with immigrant parents who speak little English and so on. Almost none of those households would even attempt home schooling. Home schoolers are virtually all two parent families of middle-to-upper-middle income and where the parents are mostly college grads. So, John’s figures might be correct comparing home school kids to the total public school population. I believe if you demographically match the populations, home schoolers would not do better.
Just to pile on here: my wife home-schooled one of our sons for most of the second grade, because of learning difficulties he was having at that time. A few observations:
First and foremost, the amount of work she put into this was phenomenal, and I stand in awe of her achievement, and I try to remember to thank her for this often, even all these years later.
(First corollary: Because of this, I stand even more in awe of teachers in general than I had before.)
(Second corollary: I cannot imagine how families that home school their kids every year manage to adequately fill the role of a teacher for each and every year level, each and every subject, without going mad. There is something to be said for specialization.)
In order to supplement his experience that year, we joined a local homeschool group and we participated in lots of activities with them. One of the kids in the group was this guy — who we all knew, even when he was just 7, was right off the charts.
From what I witnessed there and on the various mailing lists and forums, it was clear that different people home school for different reasons. We did it because our son was making zero progress in a classroom setting at that point. We met other people who poured their lives into providing more for their children than they felt a school could offer. We also encountered, more in mailing lists than in person, people who were trying to shield their children from the eevulls of secular edumacation.
We also met, both online and in person, people who were so ill-prepared to teach anything that I despaired for their children’s future. I worry about them.
(By the way, it was our extremely good fortune that our school district actually had two home school specialists, who stood by to provide home school parents with as many resources as they could. By coincidence, we read just today that those positions are being eliminated. Argh.)
My son re-entered public schooling in third grade, and is now in college, majoring in engineering and thriving there.
Taking all of the above into account, I am not comfortable with the use of “homeschool” as a blanket pejorative.
One final comment: for the remainder of his elementary school career, my son participated in a program that was not available at our local school, so a bus picked him up at our home each morning to take him to another school in town. That bus was not long.
So there’s another phrase that ticks me off.
By the way, starting in middle school, one of my son’s hobbies has been swatting down multiple flavors of conspiracy wingnuts on Answerbag. I couldn’t be prouder. 🙂
I will agree there is a variety of results from home schooled kids. But there’s also a variety of results from kids in public and private schools. Each “system” of schooling has washouts and people who do exceptionally well.
I recommend anyone interested in the research on home education start at nheri.org.
I recognize the question of whether the same kids, with involved parents, would do as well in the public schools. I don’t know the answer to that. I will say that in our own experience, I feel we have gotten very good results educating our children at home up to a certain point, and then transferring into a good public school.
So while our kids have eventually ended up in a good public school, they’ve all gone a pretty good distance at home. We’ve had one join the public school in 11th grade, one in 8th grade, and one in 7th grade. Might we have one go all the way through high school at home? Might we have one return from PS and resume education at home? Don’t know. Depends on the student.
You still are 😎
Thank you. I try. My wife has to live with this 24/7. She never met anyone like me in
Kaohsiung.
True story: Chinese are afraid of dogs. In the People’s Daily, westerners were always refered to as “the running dogs of the West,” and ‘dogs are being trained in the West to attack Chinese.’ They ran stories just like in Der Stürmer: They would run a photograph of a policeman and his dog attacking a civil rights worker, with the caption “Dog trained to attack Communist Party member.” Plus, they eat dogs. You don’t see any stray dogs or cats in Taiwan.
One day Angel and I were in the bank, around the corner. A woman in front of me looked at Angel, and was terrified. Afghans are the gentlest, and most regal, of all. She said in Mandarin, to the woman in front of her, could she go in front – she did not want to be next to the dog. The woman let her. She peered around that customer, keeping a safe distance. I said to her, “this dog is blood thirsty. I’ve seen her rip out people’s throats.” Her eyes became like saucers. I then said, “Angel, kill her.” The customer started howling.
Another time, a Chinese man on the street hit her with his cane. I said, “don’t do that. She won’t hurt you.” He replied, “Bu ingwan” – no English. How convenient.
So many people have recoiled from Angel in fear, my wife decided on this phrase for patches on Angel’s vest:
我 是 的 朋 友 “I am your friend”
Much thanks to all, especially Woodman & JoZeppy, that had strong disagreements with what I posted.
Once again, as has happened many times in the past, it contributes more fuel to the position I’ve had going back to 2008. You all helped make my case. I do appreciate it.
You are soooooo welcome, Ike.
Since you’re a die-hard birther, nobody expected that when presented with facts contrary to your preferred beliefs, you would do anything other than double down and push the same debunked nonsense even harder.
See ya. After you have a good round of delusions and you have a chance to huddle with a couple more Birthers to brag about how much you pwned those idiot Obots, remember that:
1) Birthers have not won a single case in court.
2) Not one of the 435 members of the House of Representatives has started impeachment proceedings.
3) Notoriously conservative media outlets such as Fox News and the National Review think you’re wrong.
4) Barack Obama is still president.
Your delusions, as divorced as they are from reality, have no actual impact on reality. Sorry.
You’re welcome. And yes, I do have strong disagreements with people who post things that are demonstrably untrue, and could have been easily uncovered if the person had any interest in actually finding the truth. I suppose having a viseral reaction to dishonesty comes from my upbringing.
And was your position since 2008 that coming to a blog, and posting a series of lies results in a strong rebuke?
And I suppose I owe you some thanks as well. With the release of the long form and the constant beat down in the courts, birther true believers are becoming scarce…and without the odd birther coming here saying the most silly things, this place would become a bit boring.
You all make a big mistake saying you debunked me.
I read your replies again and don’t see anything debunked, just alot of spin from BillTheCat, bovril, gorefan, JoZeppy, Obsolete.
John Woodman is a super-spinner projecting his own made-up beliefs without anything to back it up.
Thomas Brown makes a habit of going into the gutter. He done the same in other forums. I think he sees himself as the praetorian guard for his emperor in our Whitehouse and feel violated if anything negative is said about him. In other words; he lives on the emotional edge & could go off at anytime.
Ike, shouldn’t you be under a bridge somewhere threatening billy goats?
One of the odder kinds of emperors: elected by a wide margin in a popular election, and will leave office by either not being re-elected, or (more likely at this point) being termed out.
Really, he’s almost as bad at being an emperor as he is at being a Muslim.
I have a 221-page book, 32 posts at my blog, at least 5 hours of radio interviews (many of which also discussed the technical particulars of the birth certificate), and numerous factual comments here and at other places on the web.
Once you’ve come up with a way to factually debunk that, get back with me. So far, your fellow birthers have failed to prove me wrong on even one significant point.
The one thing I can think of that I’ve had to retract so far was a misstatement of what I mistakenly thought was the correct name for the Democratic Party.
Yeah, I think you’ve got him about right.
John
You are making me blush. I found the only error in your book. I accept that one because that his how every conservative refers to the Democratic Party. All the substantive conclusions remain unchallenged to date.
Silly birther sputters, “You all make a big mistake saying you debunked me.”
Rambone, aside from those who have debunked you on this site, you’ve also been debunked by assorted state courts, various federal courts, the state of Hawaii, the Supreme Court of the United States, and reality itself.
Not guaranteed to be the only error. I did definitely try hard to stick to the verifiable facts, though.
And there is a substantive conclusion that was “challenged.” Zebest and Arpaio’s posse claimed that the example of optimization that I presented in the book showed that optimization only produced a small number of layers for a very “simple” file.
The number of layers really isn’t based on “complexity” (per se); it seems to be based much more on the number of different colors that are distinguished as things that ought to be separated out into their own distinct layers. It also very much appears to be based a bit on whether you have the same tones spread out over a large area, or just a couple of blobs that are far apart (the latter will produce two layers).
All of that aside, even from a “complexity” point of view, the page I showed had 5 layers. Obama’s birth certificate — which might be “twice as complex” — had 9 layers. So I don’t see that they debunked anything at all.
In fact, what they ought to have done is flatten the image from my book and run the exact same optimization process they used on the birth certificate image. There is no indication that they did this. I’d be willing to bet money that if you do this, you end up with more layers than 5 on the same image that I showed had 5 layers.
That result would be a clear indicator that they were using the wrong optimization process.
More publicity for Sheriff Joe: Joe Arpaio, Longtime Maricopa County Sheriff, Faces 2 Challengers Who See Opening To Take Him Down