This is just too hilarious

For words!

Sorry, WorldNetDaily: Kenya wasn't a republic until Dec. 1964

WorldNetDaily and the right-wing fringe are very excited about their scoop that Orly Taitz has "released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth" for President Obama. According to WND, "Taitz told WND that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn't want his name known because 'he's afraid for his life.' " So in order to believe Taitz and WND, one would have to assume that this document was requested 45 years ago, preserved that entire time, withheld through the entire election and transition period, and yet somehow ended up in the hands of someone sympathetic to Orly Taitz.

DailyKos' David Waldman has identified what appears to be an even more glaring problem with WND's latest smoking gun. The document posted by WND purports to have been produced by the "Republic of Kenya" on February 17, 1964. But Kenya didn't even become a republic until December 12, 1964. An article from that day's Washington Post, for example, reported that "Kenya became the newest republic within the British Commonwealth at midnight."

Because they are insisting Obama was born in Kenya

Everybody needs to be born in Kenya! Make your own birth certificate!

Blog sprinkles

Via JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie: Weird News from all over the globe. I'll say! Warning: really weird.

Hipparchia of Over the Cliff, Onto the Rocks notes that McCain is a Manchurian candidate:

Yet despite McCain's tough talk, behind the scenes his top advisers have cultivated deep ties with Russia's oligarchy--indeed, they have promoted the Kremlin's geopolitical and economic interests, as well as some of its most unsavory business figures, through greedy cynicism and geopolitical stupor. The most notable example is the tale of how McCain and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, advanced what became a key victory for the Kremlin: gaining control over the small but strategically important country of Montenegro.

Eli of Multi Medium notices that Kenya has detained Jerome Corsi who has written a book about Obama filled with falsehoods and innuendos. Awww...

Via Ripley at Zen Cabin: An excellent bumpersticker!

Also via JJ, JABbering Stooge has a list we can refer to if McCain really wants to start throwing shit:

And if that’s the game John McCain wants to play, we’ll be happy to play it. We can talk about his role in the Keating Five. We can talk about his “palling around” with anti-Semitic Rapture Cheerleaders like Rev. John Hagee and Rev. Rod Parsley. We can talk about his time on the board of the United States Council for World Freedom, a far-right fringe group with ties to the Moonies that the ADL castigated as “a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-semites.” We could also talk about McCain’s ties to Italian con man Raffaello Follieri.

Mapaghimagsik's cartoons are always on target.

Cookie Jill at skippy the bush kangaroo has the Tom Hartmann interview with Naomi Wolf.

PSoTD has the scariest Halloween costume ever. I'd worry if you had to provide the sound effects yourself....

Warren Street of They Gave Us a Republic asks a question as he described the activity seen at thrift stores:

Seems like a pretty good anecdotal way to gauge what is going on in the economy. But it could be evidence that Americans are simply living beyond their means. If things continue, a lot of "taboos" about second-hand stores, austerity, and making do are going to fall away. Things like backyard gardens, rummage sales, and actually putting off a major purchase are going to be fashionable. What will the neighbors think? Are we actually going to go from a nation where outspending the Joneses is going to be replaced by seeing who can scrimp and save?

When I grew up, there were plenty of old people who wouldn't throw away string; they had that Depression mentality of saving everything useful. Could it be coming back?

The answer I hope is yes.

crossposted at American Street

Evolution is not tidy

And our family tree has many dead branches:

WASHINGTON - Surprising research based on two African fossils suggests our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, challenging what had been common thinking on how early humans evolved.

The discovery by Meave Leakey, a member of a famous family of paleontologists, shows that two species of early human ancestors lived at the same time in Kenya. That pokes holes in the chief theory of man's early evolution — that one of those species evolved from the other.

And it further discredits that iconic illustration of human evolution that begins with a knuckle-dragging ape and ends with a briefcase-carrying man.

The old theory is that the first and oldest species in our family tree, Homo habilis, evolved into Homo erectus, which then became human, Homo sapiens. But Leakey's find suggests those two earlier species lived side-by-side about 1.5 million years ago in parts of Kenya for at least half a million years. She and her research colleagues report the discovery in a paper published in Thursday's journal Nature.

The paper is based on fossilized bones found in 2000. The complete skull of Homo erectus was found within walking distance of an upper jaw of Homo habilis, and both dated from the same general time period. That makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis, researchers said.

[snip]

Overall what it paints for human evolution is a "chaotic kind of looking evolutionary tree rather than this heroic march that you see with the cartoons of an early ancestor evolving into some intermediate and eventually unto us," Spoor said in a phone interview from a field office of the Koobi Fora Research Project in northern Kenya.

Evolution under attack in Kenya

Where ancient fossils support the evolutionary development of man:

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya's national museum, locked away in a plain-looking cabinet, is one of mankind's oldest relics: Turkana Boy, as he is known, the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found.

But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm - one pitting scientists against Kenya's powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement. The debate over evolution vs. creationism - once largely confined to the United States - has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.

"I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it," says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya's 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims have 10 million followers. "These sorts of silly views are killing our faith."

[snip]

Among the 160,000 fossils due to go on display is an imprint of a lizard left in sedimentary rock, dating back 200 million years, at a time when the Earth's continents were only beginning to separate.

Dinosaur fossils and a bone from an early human ancestor, dating back 7 million years, will also be on show along with the bones of short-necked giraffes and elephants whose tusks protrude from their lower jaws.

They provide the clearest and unrivaled record yet of evolution and the origins of man, say scientists.

But the highlight will be the 5-foot-3 Turkana Boy, who died at age 12 and whose skeleton had been preserved in marshland before its discovery.

It will form the center stage of the exhibition to be launched in July following a $10.5 million renovation of the National Museums of Kenya, financed by the European Union. The EU says it has no concerns over the displays and that the museum was free to exhibit what it wished.

Followers of creationism believe in the literal truth of the Genesis account in the Bible that God created the world in six days. Bishop Adoyo believes the world was created 12,000 years ago, with man appearing 6,000 years later. He says each biblical day was equivalent to 1,000 Earth years.