Luke Scott
I applauded when MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann named WorldNetDaily publisher Joseph Farah the “Worst Person in the World.” But now I think Olbermann has cheapened that appellation by giving it to baseball player Luke Scott, who like Farah is a birther.
Read more points of view:
- Sportsgrid
- Black celebrity gossip and entertainment
- New York Daily News
- Fox News
- The Washington Post
Personally, I think Olbermann hit the nail right on the head when he said this:
“Mr. Scott is sticking to his beliefs, as his First Amendment right. Fair enough. And I believe that a guy who was a fringe role player with the Houston Astros who suddenly blossomed into a 20+ homer man in Baltimore must be using human growth hormone. Of course, that’s just my opinion, I don’t have any evidence. Just the First Amendment.”
Doc,
After reading the interview (not from one of your links), it seemed IMO that he wanted to lead to the birther question. I don’t follow sports interviews, but it seemed strange for the reporter to veer into politics, like asking Scott how he felt Obama was doing. I think the reporter’s sigh when Scott said he thought Obama was not born in this country was feigned. Also, Scott’s answer reflects someone who will not investigate all the details that you laid out on this site. I think he is representative of more than just a crazy fringe. People are simply not going to put the time into reading all the details. I used my m-i-l law as an example a couple of weeks ago. Here is another for ya.
I read that barnyard animals become skittish when Joseph Farah is near. I too, don’t have any evidence. Just the First Amendment.
Also, I read that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990. See for yourself:
http://didglennbeckrapeandmurderagirl.blogspot.com/
As an aside, I’ve started to wander through a selection of both Birfoon sites as well as a selection of high noise, low signal threads such as the ones noted on various non Birfoon sites.
I will not include debunker sites such as Dr C’s, Fogbow etc or ones with a substantial rational poster set such as CAAFLOG as they tend to chase off Birfoons quite rapidly.
The intent, to see if I can get a rough handle on the ACTUAL number of active Birfoons out there.
The basic methodology is to count out the number of unique handles/ID’s on each site/thread and compare against each other over a 3 month period.
For sites/threads where the name is different but the post content is identical AND not as a quote I assign a provisional “puppet” weighting of 0.5 that drops to a reasonably confirmed “puppet” count of 1.0 (and drop from count) if there are 3 such weighted posts.
For sites/threads where the names are the same and the post is different either in context, content or rationality I assume they are a unique but similar named individual
For sites/threads where posting as “anonymous” is allowed I will assign a 0.5 weighting per post unless they are substantially identical in post content across at least 3 posts in the same thread at which point I will collapse the multiple identical posts to a singular identity.
(Collating the names across multiple sites it is already plain that there are a small, vociferous and frequent posting coterie of Birfoons…..suprise.. 😎
Once I have a reasonably large sampled universe (at least 100 sites/threads and 10,000 individual post count) I’ll see about some number crunching. The numbers seem large but I’m only interested in threads that are directly Birfoon related and much is repetitive posting by the same individuals
VERY early days at the moment but it’s interesting that of the sites sampled, Gretawire (before its demise), P+E, WND, Orly, ORYR) the numbers of ACTIVE Birfoon users is very low, generally in the 25-35 unique users range with a 20% uncertainty due to probable “puppets”. There is a small number of low post names as well but in general they get lost in the S/N ratio…
Now, the Orioles one is interesting as there are a significantly higher number of previously unseen names/handles. The postings tend to be the same repetitive BS talking points and generally very short, 2 or 3 sentences at most. However, even in these cases the numbers are no higher than 200 at most after weighting for “anonymous” post names.
The “usual suspects” tend to longer and louder in posting and usually come in midway during the posting frenzy
If we use the Birfoons/Militia/RWNJ’ own thesis of the 3%’ers (3 % active with 97% really honestly gonna join with us) I’m seeing circa 600 “Active” leading to at most 20,000 potential real life birfers.
This DOES NOT attempt to parse out Trolls, Punkers, Stealth Obot’s etc which I conservatively estimate runs at 10%.
I do have a real live job of work but will spend a little time between Christmas and New Year seeing if I can flesh out the numbers
Misha,
Thanks for the video. I do love Gilbert Gottfried!
Great idea, I look forward to seeing how it develops…
Great way to use your Soros check. I haven’t decided how to use mine yet. Maybe another trip to Hawaii.
Bovril, I agree with previous posters–it should be an interesting study when finished. You must have a background in statistics.
Sef, regarding our checks from Comrade Soros, I donated mine to the MSM’s war on Xmas. There’s a nativity scene in Pumpkin Center, Alabama that’s about to come down!
Bovril
Great idea – I can hardly wait to see the results.
Arthur,
Some stats background from a loooooong time ago my primary role now revolves around Information Security, Controls Management, Regulatory, Privacy and Audit Management and you have to be able to winnow the wheat from the chaff PDQ…..
Don’t expect any results until some time after the New Year and I will have some fun looking at trends or otherwise during and post Lakin as well as the squeal level when the incoming Congress “betrays” the Birfoons by not promptly impeaching the President.
The advantage of this methodology over the “Do you believe the President was born in the USA” type of poll is that the unknowing participants are inherently self selected and I am making no assumptions about personal reasoning.
A Vattel’ist, a Kenya Bifer or a 14th Amendment Citizener all fall in the same bucket as “Birfoon” AND I am only interested in unique individuals not necessarily their posting behaviour although some of that may fall out during the gather and analysis.
A real difficult one will be Freeperville, it is a very complex environment from a data gather perspective with a substantial and active post and thread activity level and I am loath to use anything like a Web Spider to mine the data.
Don’t get me started on the made up “war on Christmas” stupidity”
It was my experience early on with the birther movement that some birthers seemed to write something and then post it everywhere they could find to put it.
With the constantly growing Soros payoff list, one wonders how he can do it. Really, $14 billion doesn’t go very far when you your list of those to paid off expands exponentially. Maybe this is another place where it is best to use “Birther Math” vs. ordinary math. Birther Mathâ„¢ always tells the user what they want to hear.
Kudos to you on your quest Bovril and I wish you lots of luck with what will very time consuming but fascinating research!
I’ll eagerly await any updates on your findings along the way and look forward to your eventual report! Take the time you need to do it right and not interfere too much with the rest of your work & personal life. The birfoons aren’t going anywhere…
Heck, your findings might even provide a starting data point to eventually sort out a broader understanding of the web of connections between who the real manipulators are, who are merely the foolish and slavishly devoted blind followers, who are mere agitated hangers on and who are the truly unhinged and dangerous that bear close monitoring…
I have a PhD in Mathematics, do mathematical modeling professionally, have a talent for analyzing and visualizing data, and a solid understanding of statistics. I think this project sounds very interesting and I’d like to help if I may. My name is Kevin Kesseler and my email address is:
(first name)@(last name).net
Let me know if you’re interested.
Slartibartfast
At the moment all the (limited amount of data) I have is what I feel is only one step up from informed supposition…..rather better than Birfoon guessing but more needs to be done… 😎
Do you have any tweaks to my proposed methodology?
I took an approach that I felt would be not overly arduous, appropriate, reasonably rigorous and likely to lead to argueably sound data sets……I am however not a statistician by any stretch of the imagination.
I would think the most obvious question is the 3% rule.
I had a hard time digging up a simple answer to the question…”what proportion of political activists are active vs passive”…..
In the end I had to parse a variety of sources where people have strong feelings but relatively small active participants. I am aware this might be assumption on my part.
Religious evangelicals and active mission work
Womans rights
Abortion activism, Pro and Anti
Gay rights activism
Town hall meetings turnout
Etc
The 3% figure is derived from these and is not a hard and fast figure. If someone has a better derivation for a percentage I’d be more than happy to use it.
I think your basic outline is sound. On the data collection side, I would recommend trying to collect as much data as possible while minimizing the number of human decisions necessary to collect that data. Once you’ve established what data you’re going to collect (and your standards for any judgement calls that need to be made) then you should automate the data collection as much as possible – you will be able to gather much more data if, say, you have a spider crawling through every post on every thread ofthe archives of every birther site you can identify feeding data to a parser with a GUI interface that does most of the sorting itself and presents any decisions that need to be made in an intuitive, easy to analyze manner or if you can simplify and standardize the data collection process enough that you could get others to do it too, than you could if you go and enter the information into a spreadsheet by hand. Any part of the process of collecting data and storing it in some sort of database that can be automated or streamlined will increase the amount of data you can collect (you can never have too much data… ;-)). If you let me know exactly what data you are planning on collecting and what web, programming, and software resources you have available, I’d be happy to give you more specific advice. As far as analyzing the data, for now the most important thing is to establish how you’re going to store your data – the more data you can collect and the more efficiently you can store it, the more flexibility you have in analyzing it later. The simple analysis methodology you suggested will serve fine in the beginning to give you a ‘reality check’ (no allusion to the poster of that name) on the data you’re collecting. Also, if you have the data, you can always try a new analysis of it, but you can’t analyze data you don’t have.
As far as a more sophisticated analysis of the data goes, my short suggestion is to ask me 😉 To give a more constructive answer, in general I think you should set up as flexible and comprehensive a model as possible to interpret your data with. To take Doc’s comment as an example, instead of using a fixed rule like ‘active birthers are 3% of the total’ you want to think of that as a parameter of your analysis and see how the analysis varies as it changes (or ideally find some sort of data that allows you to estimate the value empirically – which by your response to Doc is what you are trying to do).
I think one of the most important things is one you’ve already done – state your methodology and invite public criticism. You wouldn’t want the birthers to think you’re keeping any secrets… 😉
If 3% is a good estimate of these different kinds of activism, then that makes it a reasonable starting point. Off of the top of my head, I can’t think of any reason why this percentage should be substantially different for the birthers. I would think that the anit-abortion movement in particular would be of use in estimating the numbers along the full spectrum of ‘willing to say they doubt the president’s eligibility in a poll’ to ‘publicly inciting sedition with gun at the ready’.
My personal choice is to be as mechanistic as possible, as binary as I can….
The “anonymous” and “puppet” posts are the problem area where I have to inherently make some determination, which is where I came with the weighting method.
if I apply it consistently I feel it will be at the least honest.
The only other method that would allow a far greater certainty would be to set up a selection of honeypot sites calculated to appeal to as wide a range if Birthers as possible and compare IP addresses.
For various ethical reasons I shall eschew that route.. 😎
I would suggest applying the same standard (whatever that is) to both anonymous posts and suspected sock puppet posts – then just take the average number of posts by an anonymous poster as a parameter and divide by it. The more mechanistic approach you take, the better – ideally you want absolutely no judgement used in data collection. What information are you collecting for each post?
Borvil,
As I only tend to read a select few birther blogs which tend to have few, if any, anonymous posters, what do you see as the ‘typical’ anonymous poster profile? Do they hit and run (possibly on several sites) or do they get into extended exchanges on just one or two sites?
Random thought – one way to identify some posters on many sites is by their Gravatar – are you recording this when its available?
The “anonymous” posts tend be be on non birfer sites such as news sites where low post count users may only turn up and then vanish, see my original post.
The gravatar idea may work along with comparison of avatars and sig lines.
I actually ran into one of them at Staples a few weeks ago. I’d bought the holiday cards for my company to send out, and was telling the clerk that I was glad I’d gotten the “happy holidays” and “season’s greetings” cards because we have an international client list and a lot of non-Christians. This grim looking woman behind me started to give me a hard time, and I finally said, straight to her face, that she needed to watch something besides Bill O’Reilly and Fox News because sending non-religious holiday cards to business clients had been the norm for several decades…..
I think you have the makings of a really interesting research project here.
Perhaps you could interest Duncan Watts and Steven Strogatz
Their work on networks is the subject of this documentary How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer (some of which, at least, is on youtube.
Off topic,
Since Scientologists believe the souls of aliens were placed in the volcanos of Hawaii, I put forth the theory that Obama is a Scientologist, not a Muslim.
Let’s see if that one can sprout legs.
I don’t know how well that’ll play, Sean. But it does dovetail into my theory that there’s ONE Birther in the world, and he’s an alien that’s mind-controlling a number of weak-minded individuals into doing his dirty work for him.
Stop the alien invasion – oppose birthers.
From the Post and Fail another birther pretends that he is knowledgable about the law and the US Constitution…..The epic fail among the birthers is simply amazing….
“I sent the Lt. Col. Lakin team essential US Supreme Court cases to pound earlier in the year, and they blew it off. Yesterday, I tried sharing in their comment section something to the effect of what I have reconstructed below, that:
1. They need to cite where the Supreme Court says: “The burden of establishing a delegation of power to the United States, or the prohibition of power to the States, is upon those making the claim” (such as the President of the United States, or those aspiring to such office) and so stated in 333 US 640 @ 653 Bute v. Illinois (1948). This point should lead the Lakin defense argument.
2. The requirement of presenting an identification of person, and proof of birth is Supreme Court Law and follows 533 US 53 @ 54 and 62 Nguyen v. INS (2001) in which both hospital records of where born and witnesses to the birth are those REQUIRED BY LAW via the US Supreme Court to be a partial fulfillment of 333 US 640 @ 653, in which the Court would recognize such certification of identity as rising to the level of a de jure jus soli claim as identified as being born here on US soil.
3.There is a requirement in the Constitutional Article specified as 2.1.4. (now 2.1.5) in which a natural born Citizen, and those seeking the Presidency of the United States, have sole allegiance to the United States at birth, and the Supreme Court consistently says from the Founding to Perkins v. Elg that a US Citizen father (or the presumption of one in bastardization where the father is unknown and the mother is a US Citizen) is required every time someone is called a natural born Citizen. So a US soil or territory, sole allegiance birth AND a US Citizen father are required.
4. Raise the question, “Does a natural born allegiance follow the condition of the nationality and citizenship of the child’s father at birth or not?” Obama’s biological father was an alien national his entire life, a Kenyan national, and NEVER a US Citizen.
5. The US Constitution to be understood in the natural sense per South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437 @ 448 – 450 (1905), Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U. S. 1 (1824) @ 188-189, taking also into account the influence of Vattel — even as cited in The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253 @ 289-290 (1814) — on the definitions of the framers in using “natural born Citizen” in place of indigenes (indigenous) as used by Vattel.
6. Every word of the US Constitution is to have its due force, as stated by Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. (14 Peters) 540 @ 570-71 (1840); and again, it is the precept of interpretation of the US Constitution to this effect, where the phrase “natural born Citizen” means more than just a “born citizen” because “every word [of the US Constitution] must have its due force” active in the Rule of Law as even the Supreme Court of the United States says. This must also include the Constitutional Article 2.1.4 (now Article 2.1.5) “natural born Citizen.”
I also enclosed to them that they should read my October 24, 2010 blogpost on citing “due process” case law, etc. There is just so much info that can be argued, but if anything, Lakin’s defense needs to spearhead on 333 US 640 @ 653 and 533 US 53 @ 54 and 62. Lakin followed the pursuit of being faithful to the US Constitution as first and foremost demanded of him to uphold and protect it from DOMESTIC as well as foreign enemies. In other words, his oath demands that there will be unique DOMESTIC circumstances where he will have to follow the US Constitution first, and see that it is adhered to. So if the Army demands he come to deploy and bring along his birth certificate and re-identify after 18 years (or however many) of service, the US Army having already seen it way back when he (Lakin) enlisted…why shouldn’t Obama fulfill US Case Law on the books, de facto de jure since the bluebook printing of the Nguyen v. INS case back in 2001, i.e. 533 US 53 @ 54 and 62, and produce a HOSPITAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE WITH WITNESSES TO THE BIRTH at the very least?
Lt. General (Air Force – Retied) McInerney agreed he should, and believes Lakin will be Kangaroo convicted and later win exoneration following a Congressional Armed Services Committee Discovery and a subsequent three-judge court- martial oversight review panel on appeal. If the defense cites what I cite above, I believe Lakin will not only avoid conviction, but will allow the national debate that should have been had in 2007 when Obama announced his candidacy for an office he had no US Citizen father qualification to run for.
————————–
Editor’s Note: The following message was sent to The Post & Email on December 12, 2010, regarding the Lakin court-martial:
The Public Affairs people in the Army are trying to bury anybody looking at his case by having rescheduled Lakin’s court-martial for ten days before Christmas. The court-martial was pushed back for reason: to bury it with all the deflection that goes with the Christmas holidays. However, Lakin has an opportunity to speak out now, but
if he doesn’t use it, that’s his call.
He can also contact the FBI to request an investigation into what appears to be a premeditated conviction on the part of the U.S. Army, which is covering for a usurper to the office of President and Commander-in-Chief.
Col. Lakin not only has an opportunity here to break this thing wide open; he has an obligation to do it. The time is now.”
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/12/11/a-possible-defense-strategy-for-lt-col-terry-lakin/
And in the comments our old friend “Jedi Pauly” attempts to use the force to explain away his back lack of knowledge when it comes to the law and the Constitution….
“Jedi Pauly says:
Monday, December 13, 2010 at 11:20 AM
I am sorry to say that Brianroy fails to understand the issue, as do so many. I can understand why the defense team blew off his sent help. There is no support anywhere in law that says that a candidate for the office of President is supposed to be born without any conflicting allegiances at birth. This concept is a bogus figment of Brianroy’s and everyone else’s imagination. The only thing that is required in Article II is that you are created by, and born to, a citizen father. That is what “natural born Citizen” in Article II is clearly meant to relate. That is why it is spelled with a capitol “C” as a PROPER NOUN. Article II is meant to relate a specific one of the “natural born citizens”. It did not originally include females who were also “natural born Citizens” and it does not mean the ones created by soil or your mother which have nothing at all to do with the inheritance of a SOVEREIGN POLITICAL AUTHORITY.
Everyone that I have seen or talked to, like Orly Taitz, and Mario Apuzzo, and Mr. Kerchner, and Philip Berg, and Brianroy, etc., etc., all believe that “natural born Citizen” in Article II is some legal term to be defined by statutes or the opinions of mankind and debated by a court of law. WRONG. Nature already defines it as a scientific principle of Nature. What they all fail to realize is that the terms “natural born citizen” that is defined in U.S. case law by soil or your mom (Positive Law PRIVILEGE), and the term “natural born Citizen” (Natural Law NATURAL POLITICAL RIGHT the OPPOSITE OF POSITIVE LAW PRIVILEGE) in Article II are not the same terms or relating the same information. They are in fact legal HOMONYMS (sound and spelled the same but mean something different in different contexts) and also ANTONYMS (Natural Law and Positive Law are defined to be OPPOSITE and “opposed” jurisdictions making “natural born citizen” and “natural born Citizen” antonyms). The term “natural born Citizen” from Article II is actually already defined as a SCIENTIFIC TERM observed in NATURE and described in the Declaration of Independence. “Citizen” is capitalized because it is referring to a SOVEREIGN citizen that is created by natural birth inheritance (“natural born”). The context of Article II is a POLITICAL CONTEXT and “natural born Citizen” in Article II is meant to relate a NATURAL POLITICAL CONDITION that of POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY. The term “natural born citizen” from U.S. case law that defines citizenship by soil or your mother say nothing about the political rights of said citizens beyond simple citizenship and they are not even about the inheritance of Natural Sovereign Political Rights which are not inherited from soil jurisdictions (government is not God or the Laws of Nature) or from females (“all men are created equal” and “governments are instituted among Men” Declaration of Independence).
What everyone is missing is the scientific natural concept of SOVEREIGN POLITICAL RIGHTS. Sovereignty is a Natural Political Right clearly spelled out in the Declaration of Independence that is endowed (means inherited) from the Laws of Nature via males (father) as a self-evident fact of nature. This is not my or anyone’s opinion. It is just a simple observation of nature and fact of reality that anyone can observe for themselves. That is exactly what our forefathers observed and declared in the Declaration of Independence. Natural Rights do not come from soil jurisdictions which are just legal fictions, and we do not inherit our Sovereign Political Rights from females (mother). It is just a fact of nature that children inherit their Sovereign Political Rights from males (their sovereign citizen fathers). This is just a Law of Nature which is why it cannot be redefined or debated by humans. Nature already defines it. It is just supposed to be observed and accepted as a self-evident truth.
Any conflict in owed allegiances at birth is taken care of by the other provisions of Article II that require one to return to the U.S. and repatriate yourself as a U.S. citizen guaranteed by your citizen father, to return to the land of your father, and live in the U.S. for fourteen years. This allows one to sever any foreign owed loyalties and reestablish your allegiance and loyalty to the U.S. via your father from whom you inherited a Sovereign Political Authority as a U.S. citizen at birth according to the Laws of Nature. This is why your place of birth does not matter and your mother does not matter. You must have a sovereign citizen father so that you can inherit your Sovereign Political authority to be President which is a Sovereign Natural Right under Article II and under our Constitution which created a Sovereign Republic of Sovereign citizens. The entire problem is that Americans have forgotten where their freedom and Liberty comes from and how it was secured. We fought a war in 1776 to secure the recognition of this scientific principle that all children inherit from their sovereign citizen fathers LIBERTY which is secured by having your Sovereign Political Rights recognized.
The facts of natural reality that I have just described is the only correct defense that anyone can argue against the treason that we are all a witness to. Whether or not anyone is smart enough, or enlightened enough, to understand and accept reality and their own sovereignty and what I have just written here that our forefathers observed in Nature and described in the Declaration of Independence and codified in Article II, is another issue entirely.”
Black Lion, re: your last 2 posts (the commenter at the P&E and “Jedi Pauly”…
LOL! Wow, these people never fail to make up their own laws and their own bizarro-world interpretations of real law in their own imaginations and then demand that the rest of the world conform to their delusions…
Black Lion,
Am I wrong or does Jedi Pauly have a twofer here? Not only is President Obama ineligible because of his father, but it would have worked equally well on Hillary Clinton due to her gender (at least if I understand his bizzaro logic correctly). I’m sure that the complete absence of citations in support of his theory is in no way indicative of a lack of supporting citations – there were probably just too many to fit them all in… 😉
I find it amazing that bithers seem to honestly think that their naive legal analyses are better than those of actual lawyers – although with examples like Berg, Appuzo, Taitz, et al. I guess I can understand why they don’t see lawyers as highly trained…
Slart, I agree. As difficult as it was to follow Jedi Pauly, it seems like his NBC interpretation is based solely on the male and unless your father was a citizen you can’t be a NBC….And you need to have been born on US soil….Then he devolves into some strange mumbo jumbo that was just confusing. It is amazing how these birthers can even follow what they make up.
He is very specific about this, that natural born citizenship is derived strictly from the father.
When I confronted him, he claimed to be a law professor, and claimed that Apuzzo was his student. I suggested that I thought he might not be honest about this, and then he made some insulting responses and then stopped corresponding with me.
He at least responded to you. When I was on his youtube page he blocked me after one response. I posted a comment to the effect of When I want a nuclear device disarmed I would definitely look towards a lawyer just as when I need someone to defend me in a courtroom I’d definitely ask a physicist. Yeah he didn’t like that much
Jedi Pauly’s contention that citizens must be “made” by their fathers reminds of this refreshingly true statement by Rod Stewart, when asked if he planned to have another child:
“Don’t ask me, ask my wife. It’s ten minutes for me and nine months for her.”
> Jedi Pauly’s contention that citizens must be “made” by their fathers
His allegedly “scientific” approach actually breaks down to “it’s all nature’s law” and “it’s a self-evident truth because the Declaration of Independence said so”.
I think you can compare this to a physicist who claims Einstein is wrong because Newton said otherwise some 300 years ago.
Or to another scientist who says space travel is impossible because the cavemen said so.
His arguments are so full of crap that even the P&E allows comments attacking his stupid articles.
Funny article over at a birther site…I guess they are responding to an article from 2009 that was posted over at the Canada Free Press….
Threats, media manipulation on Obama eligibility – We have proof
Originally Posted By Director On August 4, 2009
“Isn’t about time Mr. Hagmann and Ms. McLeod reveal the name of the National Talk Show Host who has first-hand knowledge of the media cover-up re: Obama’s usurpation of the U.S. presidency? After all, “We’ve got a country and our children and grandchildren to think about!”…
http://giveusliberty1776.blogspot.com/2010/12/isnt-about-time-mr-hagmann-and-ms.html