“Peter Rehnquist” unmasked

Purveyor of fake Obama birth video used fake name

When I talked via a Skype™ video call to the purveyor of the Obama birth video today, my video recording setup was a total bust. Not having an image to work with, beyond my memory, I looked through all the images on the Internet until I found him1 so that I could let other people know what he looked like (and that he was not “Peter Rehnquist,” the former Supreme Court Justice’s son).

Put mine and @ronojoydam’s luggage together we’re sharing this space tonight (at Vice)

The only problem with this photo is that it appears to be a person identified as  Nimrod Kamer. I also found another interesting photo that appears to be of the same fellow:

No Apology (at News Corp Building)

Who knew? The photos are from Tumblr.

Read more:

image


1The description of how I made the connection between my caller and Mr. Kamer in the article is technically accurate, although some deductive reasoning steps that shortened the process have been omitted. At some point, I’ll explain how this remarkable-sounding identification was made. Until then you’ll just have to consider me superhuman. 🙄

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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55 Responses to “Peter Rehnquist” unmasked

  1. LW says:

    You looked through all the images on the Internet.

  2. Well obviously I didn’t personally look at every image on the Internet myself. I used Google.

    LW: You looked through all the images on the Internet.

  3. LW says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Well obviously I didn’t personally look at every image on the Internet myself. I used Google.

    Well, that would be faster, I suppose.

  4. bgansel9 says:

    I already considered you superhuman. LOL

  5. Thinker says:

    So, this guy seems to be some miscellaneous wannabe/gadfly/culture jammer.

    Weird.

  6. He well and truly got his 15 minutes of fame.

  7. bgansel9 says:

    Mr. Peter Rehnquist (the grandson of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice) is also the son of a defense attorney who used to be one hell of a prosecutor as I understand it, James Rehnquist. I wonder how he would feel about knowing this man tried to pass himself off as a Rehnquist who might confuse people with his son? Hmmmm! (I’m not going to email the man right this second, I’ll think it over for a while first and make a decision later).

  8. This is a great example of confirmation bias. Because a Kenyan scammer tried to scam me, I was biased as to what evidence I selected and what I ignored in the fake video. The thing that I downplayed was the source of that calendar image. It didn’t belong in Kenya, but I ignored that when concluding that the video was Kenyan in origin. I also made up a fact, that the Kenya flag pin would be hard to come by in the USA. Wrong again.

    I’m learning.

  9. aarrgghh says:

    the 70s called.

    they want their nimrod back.

  10. bgansel9 says:

    He is described online as an Israeli prankster? Who IS his guy? He’s got pictures of him with celebs… He’s apparently got an IMDb profile.

    Does he want to be known as the person who put this video out there?

    http://www.dailydot.com/society/nimrod-kamer-wikipedia-deletion-celebrity-prank/

    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2010008/

  11. bgansel9 says:

    I think he wouldn’t want to be known as the person who put out this lame video because it was far too easy to debunk. it shows little talent. This guy is in television and is an actor, director and producer. It appears he produced a loser on this deal.

  12. My only question is whether or not he is a birther.

    bgansel9: He is described online as an Israeli prankster? Who IS his guy?

  13. LW says:

    From the Daily Dot article:

    Kämer says he was also trying to point out how easy it is to make changes to Wikipedia.

    “Anyone can,” he said.

    Huh. They should mention that somewhere on the main page. Oh, wait.

    Waiting breathlessly for his exposé on how easy it is for anyone to add photos to Tumblr.

  14. bgansel9 says:

    His Twitter account: I can’t tell if he’s a real birther or just doing performance art. He described himself on one page as “a birther in Scotland”.

    https://twitter.com/nnimrodd

    Personally, I think this guy is just a bad rendition of Sasha Baron Cohen.

  15. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    You’re not superhuman…you’re GANDALF, or perhaps a fellow wizard who shops at the same store for mustache polish.

  16. Dr. Conspiracy:Well obviously I didn’t personally look at every image on the Internet myself. I used Google.

    There’s also TinEye: http://www.tineye.com

    “TinEye is a reverse image search engine built by Idée currently in beta. Give it an image and it will tell you where the image appears on the web.”

  17. bgansel9: He is described online as an Israeli prankster? Who IS his guy?

    He’s Nimrod who is a nimrod.

  18. bgansel9: I wonder how he would feel about knowing this man tried to pass himself off as a Rehnquist who might confuse people with his son?

    Oscar Kendall passed himself off as Richard Avedon, and swindled and raped women who believed him:

    http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19770920&id=ItRaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=uVkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5375,3654089

  19. Thinker says:

    Doc: You said in your previous article that you thought that Mr. Rehnquist/Kamer was sincere in his belief that this film is the real thing. Do you still believe that?

  20. Dr. Conspiracy: My only question is whether or not he is a birther.

    He’s a chameleon prankster, who finally figured out how to get his 15 minutes.

    Israeli? Romanian? Sounds about right.

  21. Mr. Nimrod: Orly Taitz called. She wants her thunder and limelight back.

  22. Daniel says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Well obviously I didn’t personally look at every image on the Internet myself.

    Just the naughty bits?

  23. Wile says:

    misha marinsky: He’s a chameleon prankster, who finally figured out how to get his 15 minutes.

    Israeli? Romanian? Sounds about right.

    Don’t forget French.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2148036/Pictured-The-bizarre-moment-Kelly-Brook-approached-French-businessman-offered-1million-night.html

    Love those britches!

  24. He should have read my article:

    http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/01/any-fool-can-change-the-wikipedia/

    LW: Kämer says he was also trying to point out how easy it is to make changes to Wikipedia.

  25. Nope.

    Thinker: Doc: You said in your previous article that you thought that Mr. Rehnquist/Kamer was sincere in his belief that this film is the real thing. Do you still believe that?

  26. Joe Acerbic says:

    …but no matter how many levels of obvious fraud/scam/spoof/douchebaggery are unmasked, a bunch of birfoons will fanatically believe this crap and repeat it forever as gospel truth. It will also be used as “evidence” in an Oily Titz lawsuit and not result in disbarment.

  27. SluggoJD says:

    All you folks involved in unmasking this goof ball should receive your George Soros bonus checks by next Friday. Please let me know if you don’t get them by then.

    Outstanding work. Even Loren would be proud.

  28. SluggoJD: All you folks involved in unmasking this goof ball should receive your George Soros bonus checks by next Friday.

    I’m on direct deposit.

  29. RuhRoh says:

    Nice work, Doc!

    I doubt it will matter to the birthers, who have been perfectly willing to believe felons, convicted forgers, disbarred attorneys and child molesters. Sadly, Kamer is a step up the food chain for them.

  30. Loren says:

    bgansel9:
    Mr. Peter Rehnquist (the grandson of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice) is also the son of a defense attorney who used to be one hell of a prosecutor as I understand it, James Rehnquist. I wonder how he would feel about knowing this man tried to pass himself off as a Rehnquist who might confuse people with his son?

    I seriously doubt that had much of anything to do with the hoax. In his video interview with TheBlaze, he claimed to be a Romanian citizen living in New York, and he had a heavy foreign accent.

    If he wanted people to think he was closely related to the late Chief Justice, he was doing a terrible job of it.

  31. Thinker says:

    Birfers do not seem to be falling for this video. I think if Mr. Kamer has used an actual newborn baby instead of one who was obviously several months old he might have sucked in morons like KBOA/Tracy Fair and the nutters at Dr. Kates hatefest. But, as it is, even freepers aren’t’ buying it.

  32. LW says:

    This has got to be a major disappointment to Kamer, whose entire shtick depends on him appearing smarter than and thus superior to his victims.

    I’m sure he was trying to calibrate this to be credible enough to lure in some percentage of birthers, but ludicrous enough for everyone else to congratulate him on his awesome prankosity. And he wound up aiming way too low.

    Understandable, I guess; until now it was unclear that you could actually do something so ridiculous that no birther would fall for it.

    We now have the exception that proves Poe’s Law.

  33. bgansel9 says:

    LW: Understandable, I guess; until now it was unclear that you could actually do something so ridiculous that no birther would fall for it.

    A few ARE falling for it, but only the dumbest of the dumb.

  34. Bob says:

    You Obots are blind. This video is just more proof of a conspiracy. Nobody would go to this much trouble to discredit Birtherism IF OBAMA HAD NOTHING TO HIDE!

  35. bgansel9 says:

    Bob: You Obots are blind. This video is just more proof of a conspiracy. Nobody would go to this much trouble to discredit Birtherism IF OBAMA HAD NOTHING TO HIDE!

    Except Performance Artists, they will do anything for attention.

  36. JPotter says:

    Bob: This video is just more proof of a conspiracy.

    You are ridiculed therefore you are right?

    I see you have found an answer in search of a question.

    Whatever did your logic do to deserve such torture? LOL!

    Bob, the ridiculous is ridiculed because …. it’s ridiculous.

  37. Loren: If he wanted people to think he was closely related to the late Chief Justice, he was doing a terrible job of it.

    Iranian claimed to be the nephew of Steven Spielberg

    Jonathan Taylor Spielberg, AKA Anoushirvan Fakhran, was already going by the name that he would legally switch to a year later — a name that has gotten him arrested three times in the past month in Fairfax City, Va. Authorities there allege that the Iranian-born man was just pretending to be related to the famous director.

    http://www.salon.com/2000/02/16/nephew/

  38. bgansel9 says:

    Maybe he just has a fascination with the Boston College basketball player who happens to be the grandson of a Supreme Court Chief Justice?

  39. The sun rising this morning is further proof.

    Bob: This video is just more proof of a conspiracy.

  40. bovril says:

    Wow,

    Now where have I seen this level of ” losing its winning”, magical classes of citizen and up is down logic…….Bob, is that you Mario….?

  41. The way I found Mr. Kamer was pretty pedestrian. I went back to my Skype call log and got the Skype ID. Then I went through the motions of adding “peterrehnquist” to my Skype contacts. When I did that, it displayed a small photo of the fellow that I was going to post to show what he looked like. Then I thought just for fun to try do a Google image search. I used screen capture to get the image, then uploaded it to Google for the search.

    It turns out that the Skype photo was cropped from a larger one that appears on several web pages with Nimrod Kamer, including his Tumblr page. It amazes me how Google can search for part of an image among all the ones on the Internet.

    http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbbgufY4Lp1r0vqbpo1_500.jpg

  42. Bob says:

    JPotter: You are ridiculed therefore you are right?

    My comment wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. I know it’s difficult to tell with Birthers. Sorry I didn’t indicate that.

  43. LW says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: It amazes me how Google can search for part of an image among all the ones on the Internet.

    Shazam also completely blows my mind.

  44. Personally I want to thank Mr. Kamer for a fun treasure hunt.

  45. US Citizen says:

    It amazes me how Google can search for part of an image among all the ones on the Internet.

    The amazing part is keeping all the machines cool.

    http://goo.gl/O0lg8

  46. Monkey Boy says:

    bgansel9: A few ARE falling for it, but only the dumbest of the dumb.

    Evidently, Donald Trump DID fall for it before somebody pulled his coat. Then he tried to cover up by a ridiculous proposal that made him even more of a laughing stock.

  47. bgansel9 says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Personally I want to thank Mr. Kamer for a fun treasure hunt.

    I would be saying the same thing except that Mr. Kamer used an artist’s creation and associated it with Birtherism, which the artist is not amused to find has happened. My thoughts are for the artist.

  48. bgansel9 says:

    Monkey Boy: Evidently, Donald Trump DID fall for it before…

    Doesn’t surprise me. Trump is just itching for confirmation bias of any sort.

  49. nbc says:

    Off topic but still interesting

    LW: Shazam also completely blows my mind.

    It’s actually quite simple, once you are told how it works. Given a signal it tries to identify unusual patterns and a sequence of such patterns is generated. Now you have to only search for a string within millions of strings.
    See How Shazam works

    The secret is how to define a pattern that is robust against noise, etc.

    Still pretty impressive as I too wondered how it could be done, until I researched it, and it was so ‘obvious’. Those are the greatest inventions of all.. .Obvious when shown but totally overlooked until someone claims the invention.

    Safety pin, the zipper are some examples which in retrospect appear to be so simple and yet.

  50. JPotter says:

    Bob: I know it’s difficult to tell with Birthers.

    Poe’d again! LOL!

  51. LW says:

    nbc:
    Off topic but still interesting

    […]

    See How Shazam works

    Very interesting — thanks for the pointer!

  52. The Magic M says:

    LW: Shazam also completely blows my mind.

    Years before Shazam, there was a service offered by a German cell phone provider. You could call a number, hold the phone next to the music source and it would reply with a text message telling you the name of the song. It cost about 50 Euro cents per call.
    I used it to win a private contest (in which 10 song snippets had to be identified and I couldn’t identify the last one, so I used that service with success) once; the next year, the contest had a noise overlayed on the music to feign any automated identification attempts.

  53. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    Doc there’s also a site I use called Tineye http://www.tineye.com where you can upload random pictures and it will try to identify on which sites the image is found.

  54. Paper says:

    Yes, because the sun doesn’t “rise.” The conspiracy is the New World Order tricking us into thinking it does! OMG! That means….that means…hold on…that means the birthers are right! 😉

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    The sun rising this morning is further proof.

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