The birthers move on to Romney

Do they not have anything better to do?

Birther suit questions Romney eligibility

Take Note, Fidelity.com

Passwords are always silly, so I try to use one-off passwords. I'm resetting my password at Fidelity.com and they have a max of 12 characters with no spaces or punctuation allowed.

WEAK.

Plus, they have pre-set security questions.

DOUBLE WEAK.

This is insecure. Not horrible, but silly. I understand these are here for the convenience of the company -- not having to store question text, reducing the number of phone calls to reset passwords, but still.

WEAK.

I hope we, as security professionals, can do better. Here's a tip: If you have a password policy that requires say, numbers and has maximum length, and you publish that policy on your website, you have *reduced* the amount of work a hacker has to do to brute-force a password. You've helped them understand the key space to search. Sigh.

For now, I use random passwords and random answers.

Is the birther movement finally over?

Apparently not. Can someone show Rep. Leo Berman a copy of their own Certificate of Live Birth and have that guy explain why it's not valid. Because, as I previously mentioned, that is the very same document I got when Henry was born, after filling out the paperwork at the hospital for his birth certificate. And it's the same document I got for myself when I needed a copy of my birth certificate so I could obtain a passport.

HT: One Mr. B.E. Busby, who commented on a very old entry.

Glenn Beck & Donald Duck Remix

Take yourself over here and check out this cartoon. Awesome. Take a minute to listen to GB's response. What a loon.

Touché

I have been called out, people. Bruce had to go clear back to January to find a political post to share with me the following:

It is not for lack of material. My husband can attest to this, as I usually bombard him in the morning with a litany of my thoughts on various happenings. It's a time thing. I usually don't have enough of it. Just so happens I have a few seconds now, though.

Did you know there are folks called birthers who have latched on to this idea that Obama is not a natural born citizen and therefore ineligible to be our commander-in-chief? Well, probably you know this but I find it significant that they now have a name. I still don't understand why the Certificate of Live Birth isn't acceptable proof. And I am unable to accept statements of its purported lack of authenticity by people who have never seen the actual document. Where else does a Certificate of Live Birth come from except from the state in which you were born? You can question the reasons for Obama's refusal to issue a copy of his actual birth certificate but without proof it's all just innuendo, and not terribly productive.

As Darr put it over dinner tonight when I questioned why Obama might not want to release his birth certificate to put an end to the debate, he said "Maybe he's been busy."

Republicans: The Stupid Party

I realize that the numbers coming out of D.C. recently have been pretty scary, but I'm not sure that "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" is really the way to approach the problem:

"It Does Not Have, In the Sense of a Traditional Budget, Numbers." -- MSNBC

Unusual suspect

A rascally yea-forsooth knave

But yesternight: when all athwart there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;

Such beastly shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done as may not be
Without much shame retold or spoken of. 

Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh'd
Thy maiden sword.

Colour her working with such deadly wounds; 
Nor could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly:
Then let not him be slander'd with revolt.

I understand thy kisses and thou mine,
And that's a feeling disputation:
But I will never be a truant, love,

I cannot blame him: was not he proclaim'd
By Richard that dead is the next of blood?

Come, come, you paraquito, answer me
Directly unto this question that I ask:
Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at
the door: shall we be merry? But,
To play with mammets and to tilt with lips:
We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns?

This is the deadly spite that angers me;
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.

O, I am ignorance itself in this!

I confess

I'm completely swept up by the Obama birth certificate conspiracy.

In Donofrio v. Wells, Donofrio concedes Obama was born in Hawaii but argues that because Obama's Kenyan father was a British subject, Obama was also a British subject. (His mother was a U.S. citizen.) Obama's dual citizenship at birth prohibits him from being a natural born citizen of the U.S. This case just came up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and the court turned down the appeal to intervene in the presidential election. Here's what that likely means:

The Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction allows it to review state court decisions only if the state court adjudicated a federal right. Donofrio's complaint - notice it's Donofrio v. Wells, not Donofrio v. Obama - is that New Jersey's Secretary of State failed in her duties because she did not review Obama's eligibility. It's a state law on which his complaint rests, not a federal right. If I understand how this process works, that means the state's decision is final and this guy is out of gas. On a side note, I just read this guy is representing himself. Makes me think of the old adage, "a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client".

In Berg v. Obama, Berg questions the location of Obama's birth, argues Obama lost his citizenship when he moved to Indonesia with his mother, and takes issue with the fact that Obama refused to take the oath of allegiance upon returning to the States once he was 18 years of age. Berg references a source that seems HUGELY questionable to me: Wikipedia Italian Version. Wft? He has a list of other "suspicious" activity that would make Obama ineligible to run. To read the pdf, click here.

Anyway, I find all of this intriguing but the one thing that hasn't been explained well is this - Obama has released the Certificate of Live Birth which shows he was born in Hawaii. Why is this not sufficient proof that he is a natural born citizen? Just for the record, I think Obama is a natural born citizen.

Here's an interesting letter written by one of the electors who was inundated with emails regarding this issue that I thought was well written:

December 6, 2008

I have been asked by some concerned citizens as part of my Constitutional responsibility as a member of the College of Electors to review the evidence and make a determination regarding the natural born citizenship of Barack Hussein Obama II, or to join in a lawsuit against him in this matter. They have also forwarded a great deal of information to me which I have now reviewed.

After reading this information it is my opinion that none of it is conclusive in its own right. Most of it is speculation, rumor, or opinion rendered by “experts” or others whose qualifications and
motives are suspect. However, given the volume of information put forth, the question of Mr. Obama’s natural born citizenship was worth my understanding.

Since the United States Supreme Court has not rendered an opinion regarding the validity of the “natural born” status of a U.S. citizen or otherwise defined this term, I am therefore at liberty to make my own determination as a Presidential Elector. In my opinion a person is a natural born citizen if he or she is granted citizenship either at birth or at the age of majority by the United States government. And has never been required by the United States government to become
“naturalized” or take the oath of citizenship. This seems to me to be a straightforward and logical understanding of the term. If you are presumed to be a U.S. citizen at your birth, and no government entity says otherwise, then in fact you are.

If someone emigrates from another country to the United States, and wishes to become a citizen, that person must enter a legal process culminating in taking the oath of citizenship and being “naturalized.” This is why for example the current Governor of California cannot
claim “natural born” status and become the President of the United States. He was born an Austrian. He emigrated here. He sought citizenship. And he was “naturalized” in a ceremony conducted by United States officials.

And there is also in the United States the use of Common Law as a part of our judicial system. Most of the time the law is codified by us, but in fact there are traditions and understandings which have not always been codified. My point here is that for example if you have a right of way from your property across another person’s property to a road, that person after a specified period of time (dependent upon a particular state’s statutes) cannot suddenly decide that you cannot cross his property anymore to get to the road. It is presumed after a certain period of time that this right of way is a right that you retain since he did not protest your crossing his property for years.

These are the two bases upon which I have rendered my decision. Even if some or all of the scenarios to which these concerned citizens have pointed regarding Mr. Obama’s citizenship are true, two facts remain. The United States government has never required Mr. Obama to take the oath of citizenship, or even to render a decision at the age of majority between having U.S. citizenship and Kenyan citizenship, or U.S. citizenship and Indonesian citizenship. And he has lived here and been reared and educated as a U.S. citizen. It would seem to me that 47 years is a sufficient amount of time to have lived here as a U.S. citizen, with no government entity challenging it, for us and for Mr. Obama to presume that he is a natural born U.S. citizen.

Whether through clerical error, or bureaucratic malfeasance, or simply because it is actually true as was stated on October 31, 2008 by the Director of the Health Department for the State of Hawaii, that he was in fact born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Barack Hussein Obama II has been presumed by the United States government itself to be a natural born citizen of the United States for 47 years.

It issued him a Social Security number and a passport, obviously accepting his Hawaiian birth certificate without requiring a team of forensic scientists to examine it. He has lived in the United States as a U.S. citizen for his entire adult life. He has been not only a de facto U.S. citizen, he has been a de jure U.S. citizen. A citizenship conferred upon him by the United States government at his birth, and never questioned by any court, or executive branch official for 47 years. The United States government itself accepted his natural born citizenship when it issued him a passport without requiring him to take the oath of citizenship in a ceremony like all other immigrants to this country.

Therefore, as the Presidential Elector for the 6th Congressional District of North Carolina it is my Constitutional determination that Barack Hussein Obama II is a natural born citizen of the United States, and is qualified to become the 44th President of the United States of America. I will cast my Electoral College vote accordingly on December 15, 2008.

Sincerely,

Wayne Abraham