We’ve talked about polls saying 27% of Republicans think Barack Obama was not born in the United States. What can we infer from that? Let’s assume that this significant following of the idea is some measure of its truthfulness, so on a scale of 0 t0 100 (in a Republican world), the truth of the claim Obama was born in Africa is “27”.
About half of Republicans surveyed, almost twice as many as believe Obama wasn’t born in the US, also believe that the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) was enacted under the Obama administration, not Bush. This is, of course, historically false.
So, logically, we may assume that the probability of Obama being born in Africa is less than the TARP being enacted under his administration. Calibrating our 0-100 Republican belief scale in to real probabilities, we see that the probability of Obama being born outside the United States is actually zero.
[Note for the humor impaired: I don’t really believe that this is a rigorous mathematical argument.]
Update: One of the commenters here asked for sources for the figures used in this article. They come from the piece Building a Nation of Know-Nothings in the New York Times.
The other thing that has come to light is that some mathematically disinclined persons didn’t understand the argument. I don’t really want to try to explain it to folks who wouldn’t get it no matter what I said. For those who can:
I start with the assumption that the more Republicans believe something to be true, the more likely it is to be true and so the function mapping Republican belief to real probability is a monotone non-decreasing function. Given the one known point on the function (50, 0), a non-decreasing function would have a truth probability value of zero for every belief percentage less than 50 and therefore the value for 27% (the number that believe Obama was born outside the US) must also be 0. Once 51% of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States, we’re in trouble.
Let us suppose that 30% are diametrically opposed to Obama. That means he will be re-elected.
Enough said.
What percentage of Republicans think that The Flintstones was a historical documentary?
“[Note for the humor impaired: I don’t really believe that this is a rigorous mathematical argument.]”
Now this makes sense. The purpose of Dr. Conspiracy’s site is to provide humor for the Obots. At least that explains the amount of speculation required by Dr. Conspiracy to support his own theories.
Since we don’t know that Obama’s birth was attended to by a physician; what information is available to support his birth? (Please be honest enough to recognize that anything that would be the result of filing his birth with the DOH is not supporting documentation.)
Do you have?
(a) Physician’s office record.
(b) Hospital, nursing or clinic record.
(c) Baptismal record. (Is Obama the “Christian” who was never baptized?)
(d) Dated letters or telegrams.
No? That’s what I thought. The only “fact” you have is that “somebody” reported Obama’s birth to the DOH. Given that his certificate number is higher than that of the Nordyke twins, it even increases the chances that Obama’s birth was not reported by Kapi’olani hospital.
Can you provide us with one other instance of one person being born after another (in the same hospital) where their birth certificate number is lower?
Do birth registrations go to the local registrar, then the State Registrar, or is it the other way around?
Please provide hyperlinks to support your answers.
He exists. Therefore, he probably was born.
I admit that it is only a probability. I look at it as something like this:
Explanation / Probability:
A. The stork brought him: 0.02%
B. He was found in cabbage patch: 0.01%
C. He was found in a basket floating down a river: 0.01%
D. He arrived in a spaceship from another planet: 0.02%
E. He materialized, fully grown and naked, in a back alleyway, where he had been transported from the future: 0.05%
F. He was born. 99.89%
Hulu: Given that his certificate number is higher than that of the Nordyke twins, it even increases the chances that Obama’s birth was not reported by Kapi’olani hospital.
You presuppose that all certificates would be processed and numbered in the exact order in which they were received by the Hawaii Department of Health.
If you believe that there is evidence for this proposition, then please cite it. If there is not, then please explain why the Hawaii Department of Health would devote resources to ensure that every birth record is processed in the order of receipt. What would be the consequence of some certificates being processed out of the order of receipt and why would the Hawii Department of Health want to avoid it?
You’re missing a great many facts, such as:
1. The report was filed four days after Obama’s birth;
2. The fact of Obama’s birth on the Island of Oahu on 4 August 1961 was deemed proved by the Hawaii Department of Health; and
3. The Hawaii Department of Health’s certification of the above was and is sufficient to be treated as Primary Evidence of U.S. Citizenship by the US Department of State.
While I’m on the topic of acceptance of records by the US Department of State, I should note that such records as the following are only of use when applying for a passport as Secondary Evidence of U.S. Citizenship where primary evidence is not available:
Hulu:
Can you prove that you’re not a lunatic who’s just escaped from Arkham Asylum? Do you have?
(a) Physician’s office record.
(b) Hospital, nursing or clinic record.
(c) DNA testing
(d) Dated letters or telegrams from your relatives.
No? That’s what I thought. You are a lunatic on the loose.
Actually, Dr. Conspiracy calculations are sound and his conclusion is correct. Keep the short attention span of birthers he had to condense it.
I have none of those for myself, so I don’t exist. Why didn’t Descartes think of that?
What is with Hulu’s request for a link to “Dated letters or telegrams?”
You know a it’s a mindless, drooling troll when they keep asking the same questions (sometimes reworded slightly) and refuse to accept simple facts like a mentally challenged toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
Birther trolls are blatantly ignoring and disrespectful of U.S. law and the Constitution.
They are an embarrassing disgrace to the United States.
Their eligibility requirements are fictional and only to the satisfaction of an irrelevant, non-authoritative herd of hate driven dimwits devoid of reasoning skills and basic common sense.
Want to change the eligibility requirements for future Presidential candidates? Go for it. Petition Congress.
Want to retroactively change privacy laws and eligibility requirements? That’s a birther fantasy that sane people and those with legal authority will ignore and rightfully so.
We have all we need to support his birth. A COLB, which is prima facie evidence of the information contained on it. The proper question is, “what do you have to support the possibility that the COLB is unreliable?”
Which is sufficient under the law to establish the President’s status as a NBC. What do you have to counter? Oh…nothing….DOH!
And you base this on what exactly? Could you please provide us with what your source of knowldege is about the inner workings of the Hawaiian DOH in the early 1960s?
Again, since we have prima facie evidence of President Obama being born in Hawaii, it is up to you to provide this evidence. Please provide us evidence that the number anolomy is evidence of some sort of fraud, and renders the COLB unreliable, and please provide hyperlinks.
Descartes just thinks he exists.
Where’s his birth certificate?
By the way it’s interesting to hear birthers describing themselves as Christians. It means they follow someone who:
1. had no birth certificate- short, long or in-between
2. wasn’t born in a hospital
3. had unknown paternal ancestry
4. had no school records
No doctor’s signature either but a Baptismal record if the New Testament is allowed as evidence.
Why should we pay attention to someone named after an Internet site that allows one to watch mindless televised junk?
“I want ALL records pertaining to his birth. Everything–letters, email-o-grams, doctor’s notes–everything. Relevant or not. Now. And when I get any of these records YOU MUST provide me, I will denounce them as being Obotic and lies and internetswebs forgeries and let me fineesh because there is no way he was born here because he is a black Kenyan dual citizen with a British father and I said so.
“Furthermore, let me fineesh, if I do not get any of these records I ask you to give me I win the internets.”
But if he didn’t exist, someone must have tricked him into thinking that he existed.
So, even if he didn’t exist, the very fact that someone tricked him into thinking that he existed, he must exist for them to do that.
Gotta love Descartes
Here’s a little test for you, Hulu. Here are 2 numbers. Tell me which one is out of order.
37 49
Obama became a Christian as an adult. I’m Jewish, and was never baptized – and never will be.
Here’s something: Article 6 of the Constitution states: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
Here’s something you should be concerned about: Is LTC Lakin an undocumented worker? Click here to find out.
The problem is that the gospels are out of alphabetical order (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). That’s even worse than the registration #s on Obama and Nordyke twins b.c.s. The whole thing is fishy. When will the Pope open the records?
Speaking of someone who has something to hide…
And was someone loafing as well?
“Is Obama the “Christian” who was never baptized?”
I think you are displaying your ignorance of Christianity in all its forms here. Quick- do you know which Christian churches do not perform infant baptisms?
Today’s daily derangement from the Post and Fail…Sometimes we all need a good laugh…
ARE ISLAMISTS ATTEMPTING TO ESTABLISH A CALIPHATE IN THE U.S.?
by Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely (Ret.)
“The creator and purveyor of the new radical Muslim Global Caliphate is the Muslim Brotherhood based out of Medina and Mecca in Saudi. Their Troy is the Western World. Their Trojan Horses” are the Mosques funded by front organizations and Saudi money. It is now what many of us call “Stealth Jihad.” Muslims have been dreaming about a Caliphate that can unite the entire Muslim world and rule with strict Islamic code ever since the death of Muhammed. There have been coups, countercoups and civil wars because of disagreements over whether or not to install the Caliph. The dream of a caliphate is what is responsible for the Shia-Sunni split. Several Caliphates existed over time until 1924 when Mustafa Kamal Ataturk abolished the Ottoman Caliphate and established the secular Turkish Republic.”
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/08/26/mosques-are-the-%e2%80%9ctrojan-horses%e2%80%9d-of-the-global-caliphate/#comments
WE MUST PURGE OUR GOVERNMENT OF THE TRAITORS WHO HAVE SOUGHT TO ENSLAVE US
“Our Marxist Progressive Officials are Traitors, who have unconstitutionally seized our government and are killing us by a Thousand Cuts, with more every day. We can’t respond to daily slashings, so before we bleed to death, we must defeat them with just a few bold constitutional moves using the “Rule of Law” that experience has guaranteed will return us to unlimited prosperity and freedom under our Constitution.
If the Traitorous Marxist Officials continue to deny us the “Rule of Law” and try to defeat us with the “Barrel of a Gun” as they so often threaten, then many Americans will soon die; but the Marxists will all be dead, including the Union thugs, and members of the Elite Families who control the Marxist puppet traitors in government.
Your only choice is to live and die as a proud and free American, or to suffer in abject groveling poverty as a slave to the arrogant Marxist Heathens who despise ordinary working people. Most Blacks and Whites in the inner cities still support Marxist Progressives, formerly known as Democrats, even after 100 years of failed promises, poverty, persecution, contempt and attempts to kill the Blacks. Inner cities are actual Marxist utopias that will soon suffer cataclysmic declines in government support because of reduced contributions from working taxpayers.
Prosperity is also impossible for people of any race without (1) proper families, (2) God, and (3) an honest education, which the Marxist progressives have done everything possible to prevent and destroy
The mayors of New York, Chicago, Washington, DC and other sanctuary cities are doing everything they can to deny citizens their constitutional right to protect themselves from criminals and government tyranny by bearing arms. In these cities, there is no hope of arming honest citizens to support the police and protect themselves; so citizens and police in these cities who can, should practice self-preservation and move before the total collapse of society that is being deliberately caused by Marxism.”
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/08/26/rules-of-engagement-for-guaranteed-freedom-and-prosperity/
And in the comments….
David B says:
Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 7:53 PM
Far easier said than done. Make demands of lying Politicians??? That’s not even close to being realistic. Remember Scott Brown’s campaign? Look what we got out of THAT deal. The people we think we can trust… people like Sarah Palin and Jan Brewer turn around and campaign for John (RINO) McCain.
It’s a ‘good ol boy’ network and NONE of them can be trusted. All three branches of this government are corrupt to their very core. The system of checks and balances has become an absolute joke.
Something has to be done, that’s a fact, but I doubt that this type of evil understands but one thing. You fill in the rest.
It would roughly correspond with those classified as “evangelical.”
I’ve tried to educate these folks before but -here we go again. Some Christian denominations view baptism itself as the entry into faith. They tend to baprtize infants.Tthey tend to have certificates. Some denominations view baptism as a sign or confirmation of the believers proclomation of faith which precedes baptism. These denominations usually do not have baptismal certificates. So cut out the baptismal certificate stuff. Anyone who is a practicing Christian and has done any study or research should know this.
More to the point, the Gospels are out of chronological order (Mark should be first.) We all know that the Pope has the real gospels locked up in the top secret crypt under the Vatican library, or so the chief librarian Schneider told Rev. Mahan of Missouri back in the 19th century.
BRILLIANT.
Let’s see…
The Mormons, the Baptists, the Amish, certain varieties of Methodists….
The Mormons might baptize you after you’re dead.
Just one more thing to worry about….
The Mormons claim they stopped doing that, but it still goes on. That’s rubbing salt into wound.
When I was in a coma from the stroke, I heard a missionary say he wanted to baptize me in case I did not wake up. My wife told me she sent him away. After Auschwitz, forget it.
This is as crazy as ministers I have heard arguing about when and how to baptize.
Hulu argument is that if you aren’t my type of Christian you aren’t a Christian. I looked at the list and consider it just a ploy by a person who ignores everything.
Wow, I think Hulu is a very good troll.
Let’s take an informal poll: Who amongst us could supply any of these items on Hulu’s want list? I’ll go first.
(a) Physician’s office record.
No
(b) Hospital, nursing or clinic record.
No
(c) Baptismal record. (Is Obama the “Christian” who was never baptized?)
No
(d) Dated letters or telegrams.
No
I could provide 0/4 of those.
Who’s next?
But I want to know if he was sprinkled or dunked? Did they use consecrated oil? Was there incense? According to evangelicals if you are baptized as an infant it doesn’t count. You have to make a concious choice. According to Catholics you aren’t baptized unless it happens in their church. According to us whiskeypalians, just as long as some water somewhere was used and someone invoked our Lord’s name, well you’re good to go!
No hospital records
no doctor office records
mom has my baptismal cert somewhere
there’s some letters and cards my mom kept bit do I really know they are about me?
My mom is a control freak. She has the certified copy of my original 1962 bc in her important docs file but she won’t let me have it. When I needed it she made me order a colb. Me? Every year I had to get new ones for my daughters whenever they signed up for sports cause I kept losing them. Sometimes I had to get two in one year!
I actually have a copy of the hospital bill for my birth, 60 years ago. It was something like $28. How times have changed!
Not so good on the baptismal certificate. All the records were destroyed when the church burned.
Surely, the church was set on fire by someone who wanted to stop you from becoming president.
But by whom? Obviously by someone who knew that one day you would have this blog and prepare your run. The Illuminati? The Order of the Templars? The Priory of Zion?
No, personally I would go for aliens from the Planet Zog.
http://books.google.be/books?id=qMIDrggs8TsC&pg=PA758&lpg=PA758&dq=zog+jewish+conspiracy&source=bl&ots=teidVZxpB4&sig=t7b1dPVRCGtbN15beTYTe1oUBEc&hl=nl&ei=wMd4TKPgNtO6jAfmo9SWBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEMQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=zog%20jewish%20conspiracy&f=false
Medical records of my birth and healthcare that I received after my birth may well exist somewhere in a warehouse that contains the archives of the hospital where I was born. I certainly don’t have those recordsin my possession.
Not being Christian, I obviously don’t have a baptismal certificate. I don’t have any records of my circumcision.
I am reasonably certain that my parents never sent telegrams about my birth or early years. They surely would have communicated the news of my birth to relatives over the phone. They may well have sent letters enclosing photos, but I certainly have no such letters in my possession; my relatives probably kept some of the photos, but would most likely have discarded the letters.
I think my parents still have photos of me in hospital and being held by my mother whilst she was wearing a hospital gown bearing the hospital name. Sadly this is not on Hulu’s list. Plus, a birther could say, “That could have been any baby.” Furthermore, I have never needed to show these photos to anyone in order to prove the location of my birth because the handful of parties that have needed proof of the circumstances of my birth have always accepted a New York Certification of Birth or US Passport.
And even then you may not have seen enough of the world to really know what you were doing.
My parents have passed away. I don’t have any photos of my parents holding me as a baby or any baby lock of hair, footprints stuff, nothing.
I don’t have the long-form birth certificate. I do have what I got from the state when I sent for it to get a passport about 7 or 8 years ago. It lists my name, DOB, a couple of other dates. It does not name my parents, my weight, width, length, or anything other nonsense.
Birfers are crazy people.
As if the physical act of baptism by itself could confer some magical act. He could have tossed Misha into a baptismal pool and all that would have happened is that Misha would be wet and God would be very annoyed with a overzealous and clueless “missionary.”
(a) Physician’s office record. – No
(b) Hospital, nursing or clinic record. – No
(c) Baptismal record – Born and raised a Quaker (no outward sacraments), baptized as a young adult by UCC and have misplaced the little certificate. I do have my Book of Common Prayer signed by the Bishop at my confirmation (Episcopal). (And yes, to the observant, I have gone from completely non-sacramental to the smells and bells world of the church.)
(d) Dated letters or telegrams. – I think my parents probably called. I remember a baby book that had pictures and even the little bracelet from the hospital (boy) but I do not know whatever happened to that.
I might as well play too. Nope, I got nothing.
Physician’s office record – no. I do know the name of the doctor, but he’s probably passed away by now.
Hospital, nursing, or clinic record – no way.
Baptismal record – nope. I believe I was baptized as a baby, but I don’t know if there was a certificate. I’m not even sure what church. My mom could probably tell me.
Dated letters or telegrams – no.
My parents keep a lot of stuff, so theoretically some of this stuff could be in their house somewhere. They’re also, bless their hearts, not exactly the most organized people in the world, so finding it, if it exists, would be a nightmare.
I think I remember seeing a hospital certificate at one point, but I have no idea what ever happened to it. I’ve also seen my baby book (those diary things), but again, could I find it? Doubtful.
Ah, thanks be to the Quakers. They were the ones in early America whose records were complete & reliable. However, you do need to be careful & convert things like “10th month” to December, not October, when looking at records before 1758.
Maybe that’s why the Nixon tapes were missing 18 1/2 minutes. He removed the “inaccuracies.” Thanks be!
I also have still have the habit of referring to Sunday School as First Day School.
This may explain why I am such a pack rat.
I thank thee for thy comments… (okay, that part is not really in practice anymore, at least in my experience).
What state issued your birth certificate?
Mine does not name my parents, either. The state is right here.
I don’t know Mimi’s status, but many people who were adopted do not know the names of their birth parents. Does that make them ineligible to be President? How would such a person be able to satisfy you that he or she is natural born citizen>
In Illinois, they issue several types of birth certificates now, depending on why you need them (they ask). My mom sent for hers a few years ago, and she got a COLB similar to Obama’s that didn’t list her parents. I ordered mine two months ago when my dad died for inheritance purposes (which is the box I checked on the online order form) and they sent me a photocopy of my original typed/handwritten one, photocopied on some type of security paper with a colored border and a raised seal. It looks pretty fake, to tell the truth, but it lists my parents unlike my mom’s. I used to have the birth certificate they gave my mom when I was born until it vanished a few years ago (maybe ACORN stole it?), so I recognized mine for the photocopy it was.
Of course, this is Illinois, so it doesn’t apply to what Obama can or can’t get. Illinois uses a third party called Vitalchek for handling/filling orders. Many other states use them as well.
I am planning to scan them and post links on Politijab just to increase the knowledge about currently available birth certificates amongst us OBOT defenders. However, I have been told by James on this site that if I Photoshop out the cert number or any personal info on the scanned image, it somehow magically invalidates the original. I am very concerned about this. I suppose that if I scan in a twenty dollar bill and Photoshop out the serial, when I try to spend the bill itself the police will bust me for counterfeiting. I never knew that Photoshop was so powerful as to alter reality and the laws of physics itself. Can anyone harness this power for doing good for mankind?
I should also mention that I am relieved that the kind Politijabbers will allow me to post a scanned image to the internet, and not have me fly around the world to show it to each and everyone of them personally. Might get expensive otherwise.
VitalChek is just a broker. They take orders and batch them to the states who actually fill the orders and mail them out.
Maybe if you use another image program, such as Corel Photo House, various MS Office, etc. it will not invalidate your certificate. Obviously, it is a conspiracy of groups that have a 5 letter name starting with A (ACORN – Adobe). You should probably not use IPhoto for the same reasons (Apple).
I have tried many times to get an answer from the 2 citizen parent crowd to this question. I mean supposing a child was born in the US and is adopted. Who must be the 2 citizens, the birth parents (who may be unknown) or the adoptive parents or both? Even where no adoption occured there is always a possibility that the father named on the b.c. is not actually such. Is DNA testing mandatory? What if the putative father is dead or refuses to be tested? What if the test says he is not the father, and the actual father’s identity is unknown?
The very fate of the Universe rests on these questions. Birthers we need your answer.
You will never get birthers to answer that question, the simple reason that they could not possibly care less. The whole Obama’s ‘not a real American’ thing is not about anything but their horror that there’s a black man living in the White House.
Birthers will, of course, deny this. They’ll scream about their love for the Constitution, and claim they’re standing up for the rule of law. But they’re lying. It’s the black man.
During the campaign, I saw footage on Youtube of people waiting in line for McCain/Palin rally. One old man held up a stuffed monkey with an Obama bmper sticker stuck to its forhead. He was laughing and proud of himself. I guarantee, he’s a birther today.
Well, Doc, you’ve just shown once again that, as Douglas Adams proved, math can be used to establish anything. After all, there is no life in the universe.
It is known that there is an infinite number of worlds, but that not every one is
inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite nuber of inhabited worlds. Any finite
number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so if every planet
in the Universe has a populations of zero then the entire population of the Universe
must also be zero, and any people you may actually meet from time to time are merely
the products of a deranged imagination.
And yes, I ignored the Hulu nonsense, since, as neither of us exist, why bother?