patrick.net

"Have you ever experienced the situation where politicans you trusted lied about their intentions and created a mess?"

like...oh...iraq?

some pretty weak wind, there pal.

moke says

Everything Obama proposes will be dismissed by me. Why? Because he is a moron, just like George W Bush before him.
Obama does not understand capitalism. Until he does there is little chance of him proposing sensible health care reform. Here are ideas that make sense:

http://mises.org/story/3643

from the article:

"Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health-care personnel. Their supply would almost instantly increase, prices would fall, and a greater variety of health-care services would appear on the market.

Competing voluntary accreditation agencies would take the place of compulsory government licensing — if health-care providers believe that such accreditation would enhance their own reputation, and that their consumers care about reputation, and are willing to pay for it."

...while conveniently leaving out an enforcement mechanism for these "voluntary accreditation agencies". The penalty for practicing medicine without a license today is jail time. When some quack gives bogus medication to a patient in one state, what's stopping him from moving elsewhere and peddling the same garbage? His reputation isn't going to follow him. He can lie and say he's accredited by some agency (which would have the exact same role as the current medical boards anyway, anyway), and there's nothing to stop him.

"Eliminate all government restrictions on the production and sale of pharmaceutical products and medical devices. This means no more Food and Drug Administration, which presently hinders innovation and increases costs."

...and no mention about eliminating pharmaceutical patents. I wonder why? Patents are a form of artificial monopoly.

It's also interesting that they ignore all the problems that the food and medicine supply had before the FDA existed (hell, we have enough bullshit woo-woo like homeopathy and the like as is). Why, of course it's MY fault if I don't just know that my baby food has formaldehyde in it! Maybe I should have listened to my neighbor who fed her baby the formaldehyde-filled baby food and she could have told me how bad it was. Duh!

"Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy. Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized. Subsidies for the ill and diseased promote carelessness, indigence, and dependency. If we eliminate such subsidies, we would strengthen the will to live healthy lives and to work for a living. In the first instance, that means abolishing Medicare and Medicaid."

Yeah man, I can't wait to be old and sickly so that I can take advantage of that government gravy train. If only I had the WILL to live a healthy life when I'm 65+. I'll just will those tumors out of my body and will cellular degeneration into submission.

Your stance is that Obama is a "moron" because he doesn't "understand" capitalism, where you define "understand" as "agrees with economic theories that have never been put into practice and have nothing but data models and anecdotal data to back it up". That's the same kind of bullshit woo-woo as Marx was peddling. "B-b-but", you say, "the won't even TRY it!". Of course they won't, dipshit. Economic theories are little more than masturbatory fantasies. If the anarcho-capitalists got their way it would be the same basic problem as socialist states have faced, only instead of government fucking the people, unregulated businesses would fuck the people.

It's so incredibly easy to propose "solutions" that you know damned well have no chance in hell of being implemented and then point the finger back at the people trying to make the best of the heaping pile that we have and say "see, I told ya so!"

waterbaby says

“Have you ever experienced the situation where politicans you trusted lied about their intentions and created a mess?”
like…oh…iraq?
some pretty weak wind, there pal.

I do not understant this "weak wind" comment.
Are you saying that we should not learn from the Iraq war example? Should we follow the new administration blindly without any questioning?

Kevin says

moke says

Everything Obama proposes will be dismissed by me. Why? Because he is a moron, just like George W Bush before him.
Obama does not understand capitalism. Until he does there is little chance of him proposing sensible health care reform. Here are ideas that make sense:
http://mises.org/story/3643

from the article:

Your stance is that Obama is a “moron” because he doesn’t “understand” capitalism, where you define “understand” as “agrees with economic theories that have never been put into practice and have nothing but data models and anecdotal data to back it up”. That’s the same kind of bullshit woo-woo as Marx was peddling. “B-b-but”, you say, “the won’t even TRY it!”. Of course they won’t, dipshit. Economic theories are little more than masturbatory fantasies. If the anarcho-capitalists got their way it would be the same basic problem as socialist states have faced, only instead of government fucking the people, unregulated businesses would fuck the people.
It’s so incredibly easy to propose “solutions” that you know damned well have no chance in hell of being implemented and then point the finger back at the people trying to make the best of the heaping pile that we have and say “see, I told ya so!”

The solution to helth care costs is probably somewhere in the middle of these two opposites. We need increased compettion and price sensitivity to health care services.
If you look at the non-insured procedures like cosmetic surgeries and eye lasik surgeries, the costs have gone down in the last few years because of the increased competition. In addition, patient pay out of their own pockets - and doctors cannot simply charge more than market is willing to pay.
The problem with health care insurance is that we have no idea how much will certain procedure cost - and for most part we do not care because somebody else is paying for it. Add huge malpractice insurance premiums, high educational costs for doctors, an army of illegal aliens - the result is predictable.
I believe that majority of these issues could be addressed without government takeover of the health care system. There should be a regulatory framework to prevent abuses in the system and encourage competition and transparency in health care costs.

nosf41 says

If you look at the non-insured procedures like cosmetic surgeries and eye lasik surgeries, the costs have gone down in the last few years because of the increased competition. In addition, patient pay out of their own pockets - and doctors cannot simply charge more than market is willing to pay.

This applies for some procedures, but the vast majority of time spent with medical professionals for most people are going to be:

1. Regular check ups (for which insurance makes no sense, but should also be very inexpensive)
2. Emergency visits (for which it would be impossible to have competition)

There are definitely some procedures that are "voluntary" (in the sense that you get to choose when they happen), but that's rare. You definitely won't be in a position to negotiate when you're in a car accident, go into labor, or have heart attack.

There are some aspects of the modern economy that can't really have competition, and emergency medical care is one of them. Another is public utilities. Do you really want 10 different power grids running through your city?

nosf41 says

The problem with health care insurance is that we have no idea how much will certain procedure cost - and for most part we do not care because somebody else is paying for it. Add huge malpractice insurance premiums, high educational costs for doctors, an army of illegal aliens - the result is predictable.

Why do you keep repeating these falsehoods after being debunked again and again? I'll go ahead and grant the cost for doctors, but malpractice and illegal aliens are provably insignificant portions of our medical expenses.

“Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health-care personnel. Their supply would almost instantly increase, prices would fall, and a greater variety of health-care services would appear on the market.

Competing voluntary accreditation agencies would take the place of compulsory government licensing — if health-care providers believe that such accreditation would enhance their own reputation, and that their consumers care about reputation, and are willing to pay for it.”

Hey there are places that have ended licensing requirements for professionals. They also let business self regulate. Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Somalia come to mind. Anybody know how things working out for them health care wise?

What the article manages to overlook is that there is no shortage of doctors in the US. There is a severe maldistribution both geographically and by specialty, not a shortage. When foreign docs come to practice in the US they also tend to choose the same locations and specialties that are overcrowded already. Believe it or not a lot more doctors want to live in Manhattan NY than Manhattan Kansas. So the free market solution would be to have some government agency tell doctors where and what they can practice?

Another fly in this simplistic solution is the unfortunate fact that the highest cost per capita for medical care is in the areas with the highest number of doctors per capita. Should we continue to increase the supply in those area's to further drive down the costs? It's worked so well already.

Medical schools and residencies both have voluntary accreditation already, not licensing. See the AAMC and ACGME websites for more information. As Mark Twain once said "It is better to remain silent and appear to be a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt".

Yet another issue is the fact (I really hate when facts screw up a good demagogue's argument) that the supply of medical school grads is limited by the amount of money the states and federal government are willing to throw into medical education. You didn't realize almost all medical education is subsidized (pretty much everywhere around the world)? Oh my now that's a problem. We will have to cut out that government subsidy stuff right now!! So the first thing that happens in our search of ideological purity is to eliminate roughly 80% medical school grads. Now we're making progress on instantly increasing supply. Although I am a little mystified on how you "instantly" increase supply of people who have to go through 4 years of medical school and 3-7 years of residency training. After we eliminate that awful licensing stuff where people actually have to prove they know what they are doing (although I am pretty sure that knowing the difference between the stomach and liver is a much overrated skill anyway) they will perhaps be able to absorb all this training overnight somehow?

Who accredits the accrediting agencies? This would be like the NAR accredited realtors maybe? That's certainly worked out well.

There are no easy solutions. The cost problems of the US healthcare system are deep and very mutifaceted. Anyone that says the solution lies in a couple simple steps is just a fool.

Obama's plan is not a solution. It does nothing to tackle the cost side. The plan may help by getting uninsured people insured, which means they will seek care in doctor's offices while mildly sick, instead of in very expensive er's after getting very sick. Maybe. Maybe not. Obama should have gotten the plan completely together first, then explained the nuts and bolts of how it would work.

bob2356 says

Obama’s plan is not a solution. It does nothing to tackle the cost side. The plan may help by getting uninsured people insured, which means they will seek care in doctor’s offices while mildly sick, instead of in very expensive er’s after getting very sick. Maybe. Maybe not. Obama should have gotten the plan completely together first, then explained the nuts and bolts of how it would work.

That's not entirely accurate. Putting insurers out of business would certainly lower costs, as would curtailing medicare waste (though now the Republicans are rallying to save this waste for some reason)

Kevin makes a lot of sense. I agree, eliminating medicare/medicaid and insurance would solve all the problems with health care. The health care industry needs some competion for your interest. Under the current system (and Obama's), there is no competition for quality heath care, and I certainly don't envy what they do to their patients.

Everybody thinks that health reform is going to depend on the insurance industry or the drug industry submitting to the public will. But they never mention how basic costs are a function of the way the medical industry proceeds with disease... and how corrupt the AMA and other doctor's lobbying groups has effectively blocked changes for many decades. In fact, the AMA blocked socialized medicine since the 1960's.

In fact the entire medical system for the most part is working against the patients best interests in many cases (not individually, but as a Borg-like whole). From the top of the pyramid on down, everyone including nurses, techs, orderlies, hospital admins, are in it for the (often large) payday and pay check which never stops. They do not want to change the system and are content to pass the buck onto society (medicare, the ins. companies).

Doctors in the U.S. make more money than in other countries where there is socialized medicine. That is why people from all over the world study in the U.S. and want to practice here. Obviously these superstars do not want to give that lifestyle up, just as those practicing investment banking do not want to change their high-risk ways, because for so many years they have achieved spectacular success.

Ever wonder why doctors do not discuss or recommend alternative therapies such as medical cannabis in place of opoids (and fought tooth and nail to keep it illegal ), meditation in place of SSRIs, and stress reduction and other lifestyle changes which would many patients' chronic symptoms? Because it goes against their orthodoxy which has remained the same since the early 1900's -- in that I am the high-paid healer priest and you are the helpless patient. It would be like Catholic priests telling the parishioners to read the Bible and figure out how to wash away a Sin. Doctors see themselves as priestly and do not like anyone challenging their monopoly on Life any more than Goldman Sachs bankers wants to be told they can't make up new derivatives.

These doctors fail to see that they are the root cause, and that their hospital bureaucracies are enablers. The insurance companies are trying to stay in business and make money, but really they are only reacting to something they can't control.

The health debate irritates me because it seems these key people have been left out of the firing line.

Kevin says

There are some aspects of the modern economy that can’t really have competition, and emergency medical care is one of them. Another is public utilities. Do you really want 10 different power grids running through your city?

This may not be the best example for comparison. In many parts of the country customers can chose their power provider. There are regulations that open access to power lines to many suppliers. There is no need to have multiple grids to have a competition for power supply. Big power companies from the past have been forced to chose the area they want to compete in. They are now either distribution companies or power generation companies.

Kevin says

Why do you keep repeating these falsehoods after being debunked again and again? I’ll go ahead and grant the cost for doctors, but malpractice and illegal aliens are provably insignificant portions of our medical expenses.

This is your opinion, we may not agree on how severe the problem is. There are many news articles about Emergency Rooms closures (particularly in Southern California). The main reason is that those hospitals cannot afford to provide care for illegals and not be reimbursed for the service. When something causes multiple emergency room closures, I would not classify it as an insignifficant cost in the health care debate.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/28/local/me-erdoctors28

nosf41 says

This may not be the best example for comparison. In many parts of the country customers can chose their power provider. There are regulations that open access to power lines to many suppliers. There is no need to have multiple grids to have a competition for power supply. Big power companies from the past have been forced to chose the area they want to compete in. They are now either distribution companies or power generation companies.

Either way, not exactly a "free market". Companies kind of compete on generation (though due to the nature of the way that power grids work, they aren't really 'competing' on efficiency or normal merits), but they're all forced to use the same heavily regulated infrastructure.

A better example might be sewers though. I can't think of any place I've ever lived where you had a choice in sewage service.

nosf41 says

This is your opinion, we may not agree on how severe the problem is. There are many news articles about Emergency Rooms closures (particularly in Southern California). The main reason is that those hospitals cannot afford to provide care for illegals and not be reimbursed for the service. When something causes multiple emergency room closures, I would not classify it as an insignifficant cost in the health care debate.

It's not an opinion -- it's a fact that neither malpractice (suits, insurance, settlements, or anything related to it), nor illegal immigrants are a meaningful factor in the cost of medical care in the United States.

There are absolutely anecdotal cases of illegal immigration causing some issues, and even lawsuits closing down individual clinics, but as a whole the effect is meaningless. If you removed every malpractice suit and every illegal immigrant, we would still have a horribly expensive, shitty medical system.

Lastly, your attempting to link emergency room closures in california with illegal immigration is weak at best. The problem is poverty, not illegal immigration. Get rid of the illegals and you still have a massive poverty problems. Do you really believe that 3 million people out of a population of 37 million is going to have anywhere near the impact of a 12% unemployment rate and a 20% poverty rate?

Illegal immigrant scapegoating seems to be a popular pastime during difficult economic times. It's another one of those issues that you know damned well you can't do anything about (except maybe un-fucking mexico's government), but it's popular to bitch about.

"Ever wonder why doctors do not discuss or recommend alternative therapies such as medical cannabis in place of opoids (and fought tooth and nail to keep it illegal )"

Maybe because the DEA doesn't allow prescriptions of medical cannibis and any doctor prescribing it will lose their license. Big incentive. Ca,Ri,Nm, and Co get around this by allowing doctors to recommend as opposed to prescribe, but this is pretty shaky legal ground where most doctors are unwilling to go. Especially during the Bush administration. The DEA, FDA, Justice Department, and the legal/law enforcement establishment are the ones fighting tooth and nail. Considering how much money goes to the war on drugs this is not surprising.

You don't know what you are talking about. The AMA doesn't oppose medical cannabis. The official position is they would like to see results of controlled, peer reviewed studies before making a recommendation. This is the major paper on the subject from 2001 http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/no-index/about-ama/13625.shtml. Since doctors are the ones who will be sued if anything goes wrong and there is not a peer reviewed study to back them up this is a sensible position. Who says fear malpractice lawsuits doesn't add to the cost of medicine at every level? No one can even begin to calculate how much defensive medicine adds to the cost of health care. Both the Medical Students Society of the AMA and American College of Physicians have recently adopted resolutions calling for rescheduling medical cannabis allowing it to be available for prescription. That is hardly fighting tooth and nail.

It's opioids (the synthetics) and opiates (opium containing) by the way. FYI opiates/opoids and medical cannabis wouldn't be used to treat the same conditions anyway.

"Doctors in the U.S. make more money than in other countries where there is socialized medicine."

They also work a lot more hours. That also doesn't include what doctors in the public systems can make doing private practice. Doctors overseas who wish do private practice can make as much as US physicians if they want to work that hard. Most don't and are very glad to have the option. Of course doctors in socialized medicine countries don't have to pay 100,000 malpractice insurance every year or 300,000 in student loans either.

"The insurance companies are trying to stay in business and make money, but really they are only reacting to something they can’t control."

It's nice to know the insurance companies are benevolent Santa Claus like organizations committed to the public good and supporting girl scouts. They would certainly never lobby congress for laws that stifle competition or raise the cost of health care. You are aware that the insurance companies set the reimbursement rates for doctors aren't you?

Doctors are far from blameless in the cost of health care. Read this article http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande from the New Yorker for some good insight. But to claim insurance companies are helpless pawns of the AMA is so far beyond absurd that I have to assume this is satire.

Hey Birthers - Do you understand that Obama has to go through a massive background check by the FBI? Do you think that they would miss something like his birth records? Give me a break you morons!

campkel says

Hey Birthers - Do you understand that Obama has to go through a massive background check by the FBI? Do you think that they would miss something like his birth records? Give me a break you morons!

Really? Do you have any proof? Were those the same investigators who claimed that Iraq's possesion of WMDs was a slam dunk?
If you were right, it would have been trivial for Obama to address the eligibility lawsuits by submitting the evidence of being a natural-born citizen and let the court decide. Instead, he spent more than a 1M$ on lawyers who are trying to dismiss the eligibility lawsuits. What is your explanation for his behavior?
Keep in mind that this is the same Obama who used courts in 1996 to clear the field of his opponents in the primary elections for Illinois State Senate. He did it just few days before elections when his opponents did not have enough time to submit additional petitions to qualify to be on the ballot. He run unopposed in a heavily Democratic district - that is how he won his first public office.
It is interesting that courts could make a quick decision at that time, verify personal information for hundreds of voters, yet it is taking already more than a year (with no end in sight) to verify whether a single person (Obama) was indeed born in USA.
Before you start asking more questions, look at the "Birthers" thread, there is a chance that I have already answered your question.
If not, keep the civil tone and we can debate the issue. Usually those who have no arguments in a debate use foul language and ridicule the other side. I am sure you can articulate your opinion without dragging a discussion into a gutter.

nosf41 says

Really? Do you have any proof? Were those the same investigators who claimed that Iraq’s possesion of WMDs was a slam dunk?

No, the FBI and the CIA are completely separate entities. Again, I ask -- have you ever even been inside of the United States?

Kevin says

nosf41 says

Really? Do you have any proof? Were those the same investigators who claimed that Iraq’s possesion of WMDs was a slam dunk?

No, the FBI and the CIA are completely separate entities. Again, I ask — have you ever even been inside of the United States?

Yes, I have been resident/citizen of USA since 1995, and I know the difference between the two agencies.
I hope you'll give me some slack when it comes to writing; English is my second language. It is amusing to see that you are only interested in dealing with side issues (playing "gotcha games"). I tried to make a point that a government agency made strong claims that ended up being totally discredited.

Let me try to formulate my question a bit more precise and less metaphorical:
"Were those the same kind of investigators who claimed that Iraq’s possession of WMDs was a slam dunk?"

or even better one:
Was it the same FBI that had Zacarias Moussaoui in custody for almost one month prior to 9/11/2001 and could not even examine his laptop let alone conduct any effective investigation.

I am sure that there were some lower level agents eager to do the Obama background investigation. Would they have been allowed to do so by their superiors?

I can use my imagination to speculate all kinds of things related to FBI - yet it means nothing in the eligibility debate. The only tangible evidence we have so far is Obama's behavior, which is very unusual for a person claiming to be a natural-born citizen.

nosf41 says

Were those the same kind of investigators who claimed that Iraq’s possession of WMDs was a slam dunk?

And, again, I say "No, the FBI and the CIA are completely separate entities". If you don't understand the difference between the roles these groups play, the power structure, the political history (particularly why Bush took domestic counter terrorism responsibilities way from the FBI and created the DHS), you have no room to speak on the issue whatsoever.

And I'll also say "you have no idea what you're talking about".

Sorry, my point went above your head.
You focus on only one sentence of my answer. Whast happened to the second question about FBI?

In this discussion the agency (CIA vs. FBI) makes no difference. It is not the point of this discussion.
You can ony SPECULATE that there was an eligiblity investigation. I can equally SPECULATE that there was no investigation (by any agency). Neither of us has first hand knowledge about it.
Obama's behavior gives my theory more credibility - why would somone continue to fight eligibility lawsuits?
It makes no sense. If the document posed on the FactCheck.org site had any LEGAL weight - Obama would have sent it to the court - not a friendy web site.

I really hope that birthers are just plain old fashioned racists, not people who actually believe this stuff.

Besides birthers are just helpless pawns being manipulated by larger forces, the uberbirthers. Uberbirthers are of course aliens who while time traveling spotted 2008 as an ideal time for a cosmic intergalactic practical joke. First they went back in time to the constitutional convention to make sure that the founding fathers didn't actually define the term "Natural Born Citizen". Then racing back to the 1950's they implanted an alien fetus into the belly of a 17 year white college student married to a black kenyan all the while knowing that this baby would eventually become president of the united states, therefore driving all the right wingnuts to apoplexy. They then cleverly arranged for the couple to secretly fly to Kenya without leaving any written records of the flight so their son would actually be a british citizen (how the hell could a couple of college students afford plane tickets to Kenya at 1950's air travel prices anyway?) in order to further frustrate the birthers . Then the uberbirthers cleverly placed articles in the local newspapers and official documents in the states (yes you idiots Hawaii was a state for 2 years already when Obama was born) archives to cover up for this. See. it's all very simple.

nosf41 says

Obama’s behavior gives my theory more credibility - why would somone continue to fight eligibility lawsuits?

Nothing gives your theory any credibility. The world is laughing at you, and those of us who have the misfortune of sharing society with you are just hoping that you don't pull a von brunn.

bob2356 says

I really hope that birthers are just plain old fashioned racists, not people who actually believe this stuff.
Besides birthers are just helpless pawns being manipulated by larger forces, the uberbirthers. Uberbirthers are of course aliens who while time traveling spotted 2008 as an ideal time for a cosmic intergalactic practical joke. First they went back in time to the constitutional convention to make sure that the founding fathers didn’t actually define the term “Natural Born Citizen”. Then racing back to the 1950’s they implanted an alien fetus into the belly of a 17 year white college student married to a black kenyan all the while knowing that this baby would eventually become president of the united states, therefore driving all the right wingnuts to apoplexy. They then cleverly arranged for the couple to secretly fly to Kenya without leaving any written records of the flight so their son would actually be a british citizen (how the hell could a couple of college students afford plane tickets to Kenya at 1950’s air travel prices anyway?) in order to further frustrate the birthers . Then the uberbirthers cleverly placed articles in the local newspapers and official documents in the states (yes you idiots Hawaii was a state for 2 years already when Obama was born) archives to cover up for this. See. it’s all very simple.

I have already answered many of your questions in my posts on either this one or on the "Birthers" thread.
If you had a logical explanation for Obama's secrecy about his past, you would not need to resort to rants and ridiculing "birthers". The eligibility lawsuits are simple to resolve - Obama should release the original birth certificate and ask the Kapiolani Hospital to open the records for August 4, 1961.
Tell me what is irrational with this request? You actually have to be irrational to continue supporting Obama on this issue. You cannot explain how is it possible that Obama's kindergarthen records have been lost, his elementary and high school records (in Hawaii) have been sealed. The same is true for his college records (Occidental College, Columbia University and Harward Law School). It would be interesting to see whether he registered as a US citizen or foreigner. The only available document from his school years was registration at the elementary school in Indonesia where Obama (aka Barry Soetoro) was listed as an Indonesian citizen.
Other presidential candidates in the past were not as secretive as Obama when it came to ordinary documents like birth certificate or college records. Why is Obama an exception?
My doubts are not based on any conspiracy theory - just on observation of his behavior, and some rational thinking.

Why should anyone open their records. The state of Hawaii certified it. If this was not within the states normal procedures there would have been lawsuits all over. AP and CNN sent reporters to Indonesia and had no trouble seeing the schools or talking to teachers or former classmates. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/obama.madrassa/

Oh right, CNN and AP are also part of the grand Obama conspiracy. I forgot.

What do you mean his records are sealed? No one's school records are public information. Call up Harvard and ask for Bush's records. I'm sure they will sent them right out to you. I don't see where Obama is any more secretive than anyone else. I really don't remember any past president posting his college records or birth certificate to the press. Please tell me which ones did. Actually could you scan them and post them here, I would be very interested in seeing that.

It wasn't a rant, it was satire, look up what that means. Get a life.

Kevin says

nosf41 says

Obama’s behavior gives my theory more credibility - why would somone continue to fight eligibility lawsuits?

Nothing gives your theory any credibility. The world is laughing at you, and those of us who have the misfortune of sharing society with you are just hoping that you don’t pull a von brunn.

The only thing you could come up with was a baseless personal attack!
Don't be angry at me - ask Obama and his advisors to put this nonsense to an end by answering the questions in the proper forum - court.
It just shows that you have no logical arguments to explain Obama's behavior on eligibility issue.

Obama is a coward - he can dish it out but cannot take it. Let me give you an example:
Obama won his first public office seat (Illinois State Senate) by clearing the field in the primaries. How did he do it? He went to the Court and challenged the eligibility of his opponents to qualify to be on the ballot. The claim was that not enogh properly filed voter endorsements have been collected by his opponents.
After winning the primary elections unopposed - he won the general elections in a heavily Dem. district.
We got an interesting situation here: It was possible for a lower court to sort out through thousands of election forms and determine which ones were not properly filed. It was done just in time (before elections) to clear the field for Obama, yet it is taking more than a year now to estanlish the birthplace for a single person in a far more important election.
I was not born yesterday to naively accept Obama's attempt to create an image of eligibility. He is not a natural born citizen, he knows it and is trying to hide the evidence from public.
If there is nothing to hide - present the evidence in court.

nosf41 says

Tell me what is irrational with this request?

Quite frankly, they're a waste of the President's time, and he's got a lot of shit to clean up. The lawsuits will never stop, so it's easier to just ignore them.

nosf41 says

My doubts are not based on any conspiracy theory - just on observation of his behavior, and some rational thinking.

Your thinking is not "rational". You refuse to accept statements provided by the state of Hawaii confirming the time and place of Obama's birth because you believe in the nutjob conspiracy theory that Hawaii officials can't be trusted. Based on that, it's obvious that people like you wouldn't accept anything short of seeing the original paper birth certificate in person (which ain't gonna happen -- you just aren't that important), so it's a huge waste of time to even bother responding to your pointless claims.

You're a kook, my friend. You are not a rational person with rational ideas, you are a conspiracy theorist and you exhibit all of the classical symptoms of such a person:

1. You believe claims made by people with highly questionable motives and backgrounds.
2. You refuse to accept evidence based on perceived flaws or claims of fraud
3. Even when presented with irrefutable evidence you find some other approach to complain about the same issue (and then you'll claim that the new issue was "the real problem" all along).

Do you also believe that Flouride was added to drinking water to save money for aluminum companies? That the moon landings were fake?

You probably believed in the "Clinton Body Count" too, didn't you? Shit, you probably believe in perpetual motion machines.

Kevin says

nosf41 says

Tell me what is irrational with this request?

Quite frankly, they’re a waste of the President’s time, and he’s got a lot of shit to clean up. The lawsuits will never stop, so it’s easier to just ignore them.
nosf41 says

My doubts are not based on any conspiracy theory - just on observation of his behavior, and some rational thinking.

Your thinking is not “rational”. You refuse to accept statements provided by the state of Hawaii confirming the time and place of Obama’s birth because you believe in the nutjob conspiracy theory that Hawaii officials can’t be trusted. Based on that, it’s obvious that people like you wouldn’t accept anything short of seeing the original paper birth certificate in person (which ain’t gonna happen — you just aren’t that important), so it’s a huge waste of time to even bother responding to your pointless claims.
You’re a kook, my friend. You are not a rational person with rational ideas, you are a conspiracy theorist and you exhibit all of the classical symptoms of such a person:
1. You believe claims made by people with highly questionable motives and backgrounds.
2. You refuse to accept evidence based on perceived flaws or claims of fraud
3. Even when presented with irrefutable evidence you find some other approach to complain about the same issue (and then you’ll claim that the new issue was “the real problem” all along).
Do you also believe that Flouride was added to drinking water to save money for aluminum companies? That the moon landings were fake?
You probably believed in the “Clinton Body Count” too, didn’t you? Shit, you probably believe in perpetual motion machines.

I don't believe any claims. We have seen public officials lie in the past.
I have no first hand knowledge of Obama's birthplace. All I can do is observe his words and his behavior on this issue.
What happened to the "transparency" promise?
I will trust the courts to examine Obama's birth certificate. I am sure they have good enough experts to check the validity of any document submitted by Obama. It is not going to happen because Obama has no proof - that is why he is fighting eligibility lawsuits. I have no other explanation for his behavior. It is a TRIVIAL issue to prove; asuming he was born in the USA. There is no need to post a document on a friendly web site. It proves nothng. Obama should have sent the same document to the court, if he thought it was good enough to prove his eligibility. His own legal team does not think so - hence they fight for the dismissal of eligibility lawsuits - an obvious contradiction to anyone but a blind faith Obama supporter.
None of the other questions you asked are related to this issue. It is a poor attempt to ridicule me by claiming something in my name. I have never used such tactic in this debate. Why do you feel need to continue debate in such tone?

bob2356 says

Why should anyone open their records. The state of Hawaii certified it. If this was not within the states normal procedures there would have been lawsuits all over. AP and CNN sent reporters to Indonesia and had no trouble seeing the schools or talking to teachers or former classmates. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/obama.madrassa/
Oh right, CNN and AP are also part of the grand Obama conspiracy. I forgot.
What do you mean his records are sealed? No one’s school records are public information. Call up Harvard and ask for Bush’s records. I’m sure they will sent them right out to you. I don’t see where Obama is any more secretive than anyone else. I really don’t remember any past president posting his college records or birth certificate to the press. Please tell me which ones did. Actually could you scan them and post them here, I would be very interested in seeing that.
It wasn’t a rant, it was satire, look up what that means. Get a life.

A simple Google query on "Bush college records" will give you many links to check on his grades. Just one example:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/benedetto/2005-06-10-benedetto_x.htm

Try a similar search for Obama and see what you get.

A CNN and AP could do a story on Obama's birth hospital: Was it a Queens Hospital or Kapiolani or,...? Even Obama's web site was not sure either They first claimed Queens Hospital, then switched to Kapiolani. They could also tell us who the attending physician was.
I am sure that the birth hospital would not mind to be publicly honored of having delivered the future president of the USA.

This is a satire!? "...(yes you idiots Hawaii was a state for 2 years already when Obama was born)..."

There aren't any perpetual motion machines??? Really??? Next I suppose you're going to try to convince me the world is round.

No need to be paranoid nosf41, we really are laughing at you.

bob2356 says

There aren’t any perpetual motion machines??? Really??? Next I suppose you’re going to try to convince me the world is round.
No need to be paranoid nosf41, we really are laughing at you.

Just as I thought - you provided no arguments to explain Obama's behavior.
Your last post makes no sense. You are not doing well in expressing your thoughts clearly.

http://mises.org/story/3613
http://mises.org/story/3586

I can't believe this patrick guy is so ignorant of economics. He should read the above articles. We need free market health care reform.

Nomograph says

Good news! Nosf41’s hero and the leader of the Birthers, Orly Taitz, has managed to find yet ANOTHER African birth certificate. Except, once again, she forgot that Kenya was part of Zanzibar at the time. Darn.
http://www.examiner.com/x-19545-Anchorage-Liberal-Examiner~y2009m9d5-More-fraud-and-conspiracy-theories-from-antiObama-birthers

1. There is a better link about this story. World Net Daily published their analysis four days ago:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108773

When it comes to eligibility issue, judges are cowards for not allowing evidence to be presented in courts. Nobody has officially verified Obama's eligibility. He has posted a copy of the short form birth certificate on a friendly web site. That is not a sufficient proof. Actually, it could be a convincing evidence, if his other documents pointed out to the USA birth. The problem is, there are no other documents available to the public that would corroborate the so called "birth certificate".

2. Obama's behavior is very interesting. In his first run for the public office (in 1996), he used courts to disqualify opponents on techicalities and run unopposed in Dem. party primaries. This is a link to the CNN report on that race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3Ned5TQoW4

The same Barack Obama has been trying for more than a year to dismiss all eligibility lawsuits. He does not want evidence to be presented and heard in courts. Why? What is there to hide? If he was really born in the USA, it would have been a trivial thing to prove.

3. I have tried to limit the discussion on this forum to a very simple issue of a hidden birth certificate.
One of the reasons why McCain did not challenge Obama's eligibility is the line of thought expressed by Leo Donofrio (an attorney who filed an eligibility lawsuit against Obama based on the fact that his father was not a US citizen). Donofrio claims that only children of US citizens, born on US soil are natural born citizens, thus eligible to run for presidency. According to him, neither McCain nor Obama fulfill this requirement.
He also found errors on the FactCheck.org site (the same site who "verified" Obama's eligibility) related to Obama's Kenyan citizenship. The same day when Donofrio published his findings, FactCheck.org changed their web site. Here is the link to his blog where he presents evidence to support his claims:
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/

Thank you Nomo, for encouraging me to investigate the eligibility issue in more detail.

You keep repeating lies like a broken record.
Obama has NEVER shown the original birth certificate. The first Certification of Live Birth (COLB) document shown on the DailyKos website was proven to be fake. The second version posted on FactCheck.org is better but also questionable. For sure it is no more credible than the recent document you accused "birthers" of forging.
Obama's document had NOT listed birth hospital nor attending physician.
Given the historical fact that children of hawaiian residents who were born abroad were issued this document, it is very reasonable to ask for a proof of his birthplace.

Several eligibility lawsuits have been filed before Obama became a Democrat party nominee, several more have been filed before general election and some more before he was sworn into office. He is dragging his feet using delaying tactics - now you are accusing people of filing frivolous lawsuits against the "president"?
How much time does it take for him to order a release of the original birth certificate and hospital records?

You are quick to ridicule people who are trying to use their own heads - and not believe in propaganda put by Obama and his cronies in the media. Every day "usurper-in-chief" is doing more damage to this country. The unprecedented loot of public treasury without any transparency is going to bankrupt this country.

Why would we want to give a benefit of a doubt to Obama when he has proven time and again to have a bad judgement and contempt for the Constitution. That is why he is appointing communists to "czar" positions - to circumvent the vetting process during the Senate confrmation hearings.