Obama's Citizenship

There's a very strange conspiracy theory making the rounds: Obama is not a US Citizen. This conspiracy theory hinges on a few scraps of positive information, basically (possibly correct or incorrect) statements by Obama's partially senile grandmother that he was born in Kenya. It also requires ignoring quite a bit of contradicting information: the "Certification of Live Birth" has been repeatedly verified by those who've seen it, by the Hawaii Secretary of State, etc. as well as the fact that two Honolulu papers published the birth announcement.

What's the actual conspiracy here? That his parents knew that it would be critical for little Obama to be a senator and eventually in the white house and went to extraordinary lengths to forge the conditions for him to have US citizenship at the time of his birth while making sure they were in Kenya (why?) instead of just staying at home and having the baby there... The arrival of a baby isn't a surprise to most women. If most women have a choice between having a baby in Kenya and having a baby in America, they will have the baby in America. So let's apply Occam's razor: clearly Obama's parents wanted US Citizenship (the birth announcements and whatever they did to get the birth info into the Hawaii system) and had a home in Hawaii. Did they 1) have the baby in Hawaii or 2) travel to Kenya for his birth and then execute various shady, illegal acts to make it look like he was born in Hawaii. Yeah, this whole theory is moronic.

So, what is the actual problem and the proposed solution that will mend it? Presumably, the problem has something to do with Obama's credibility and ability to obtain the necessary respect to do the job of President. Except that he's doing just fine being President both domestically and in foreign affairs and everyone who matters either thinks he's qualified or is acting as if he is (which amounts to the same thing). And what resolution can a court choose to right this "wrong"? If Obama's presidency is invalidated, the Constitutional rules on inheritance of presidential responsibilities will make Biden the president, not McCain and not anyone else. Since making Biden president (and Pelosi VP) doesn't fix anything that might be broken, it's not a real solution. And since there is no other Constitutionally consistent remedy, there is no credible remedy at all (remember that we have yet to discuss anything worth remedying). No credible remedy means that no court will take such an action, which means that Obama will serve out his term.

Besides, the Republican party really needs to focus on getting back to relevancy. At the moment, after the leadership of Cheney/Bush, the Republican party has retreated to being the party of Southern Christian whites. That's going to mean continued losses in 2010 and 2012. Every word spent on this conspiracy nonsense is a moment of media attention not spent on returning to political credibility, which is the real problem that Republicans need to face. The Republican party used to be a coalition of interests, a smart strategy that returned them to power in 1994 and seemed capable of maintaining Republican hegemony for a very long time. At least until they abandoned the strategy and have allowed the Democrats to build their own coalition of interests.

The real mystery to me is how such a stupid theory has acquired such traction given the paucity of credible information supporting it, the breadth of information contradicting it, the lack of an even theoretical harm to someone, and the complete lack of any realistic proposal to remedy the missing harm.

The Resurgence of Gout (joining obesity, diabetes and heart disease)

The IHT has an article about the increasing prevalence of gout in the middle class and how this resurgence is a mystery to modern medicine, requiring new drugs, new treatments, etc.

Except that it shouldn't be a mystery at all. In historical times, gout was the affliction of the rich, caused by:

"Indulging the appetite in rich foods, sweet wines, and malt liquors, with defective muscular exercise, is a prolific source of the disease, and occurs more frequently among the wealthy classes. It is not rare, however, to find gout among the poorer classes, who drink large quantities of malt liquors, and whose food is insufficient in quantity and quality."

As our modern diet has evolved, the "Standard American Diet" has shifted to nutrient poor processed foods containing added sugars, simple starches (indistinguishable from sugars in the gut), and vegetable sources of fat. Examine the macronutrient profiles of a modern, largely processed-food diet and the "rich, sweet foods and drinks" diet of the wealthy in times past. See if you can find a substantial difference. I can't. A diet high in fructose, specifically, seems to be the common factor.

People with gout don't need a drug, they need sound dietary advice*, and the real issue is how many people in the US are priced out of implementing that advice.

* Some sound dietary advice:

• Eat more whole foods (eggs, skin-on chicken, untrimmed beef, dairy, vegetables, fruit).


• Don't buy anything with words you don't understand in the ingredients list.


• Added sugar is dangerous, and sugar has a lot of names.
  
  
  • Corn Syrup (corn solids, HFCS, high-fructose corn syrup).
  
  
  • Concentrated grape/apple juice.
  
  
  • Any of the many "-ose" chemicals (dextrose, maltose, galactose, fructose, glucose).
  
  
  • refined sugar (sucrose, sugar, table sugar).
  
  
  • natural sugar (honey, cane juice, agave nectar, maple syrup).
  
  


• Avoid sugars and starches while avoiding grains and pulses in general.**


• Consume only small quantities of soy, and limit that to fermented soy products (soy sauce, tempeh, natto).**

** These two items, and a few missing items, are important. Most people, including any registered dietician, would also be forced to include at least one mention of "low fat" and one mention of "high fiber", usually while mentioning "whole grains"... For now, I'll just say that this controversy deserves it's own discussion, separate from whether people getting gout is suprising.

For now, I'll just put in a mildly controversial book recommendation.

Mystery solved! Which just leaves the mystery about Andrew Pollack (the author of the IHT article) not figuring this out or the IHT editor letting this article be published without any mention of a better solution than yet another drug.