Let's see if I can stir the pot a bit. In the two years that I have been posting to this blog I have struck a sympathetic note with most people and occasionally initiated a discussion with some others. In most cases we agreed to disagree and every once in a while someone has pointed out an argument that in some way has caused me to revise my opinions. That hasn't happened a lot I must admit but it has happened. Unfortunately there has also been the occasional, in fact only three times and two of them have been by the same person, where someone has chosen to launch into what I can only call an attack rather than a discussion. In fairness, I suppose, I can see that on those occasions the subject that the blog has raised is near and dear to the heart of the attacker, so perhaps that is also why some of the people that are getting their 15 minutes of fame on TV these days are doing what they are doing. So, with apologies to anyone who might take offense in advance, here goes.....

There are two fairly major issues today that are on the mainstream media that absolutely astound me:

The first is this whole business about where President Obama was born. Was he or was he not born in the USA? Leaving aside how discriminatory that law would seem to be, it is the law, but how many previous presidents came under to much pressure to "prove" that they were born in the US? How many have had a segment of the populace demand to see an original copy of their hospital birth records in order to prove that their election was legitimate? Unless it was done quietly and behind closed doors, I can't think of any, at least within my recollection. So what's so different about this guy? Oh yeah. He's black. Any time that someone is singled out because of the colour of their skin, that's racism, I believe. Funny how the first one of nearly everything comes under a microscope and if there is nothing real there is always a segment of society that will make something up. Remember Kennedy? I seem to recall that when he was elected there was a blessedly short lived movement to find some way to turf him out because he was the first Catholic president. If you can't beat these guys in the ballot box so let's beat him with lies and innuendo. Or you assassinate him.

The other one is the issue of "terrorist babies". Have you heard about that one? This is supposed to be where foreign tourists are taking advantage of the American law whereby anyone born in the US is automatically an American citizen. Apparently tourist from those parts of the world unfriendly to the west and the US in particular bring their pregnant wives over to the USA to conveniently give birth whereupon they take their offspring home to be raised as American haters so they can return as adult US citizens to wreak havoc. Proponents of this claim state that they have FBI informants that have told them that this is so. Unfortunately the sources conveniently cannot be named, nor can any of the "information" be verified. I watched Anderson Cooper the other day where he interviewed a congressman who was spouting this rot and asked him to provide some kind of proof. Cooper stated that they had been informed by the former Assistant Director of the FBI that there had never been any report to the FBI that such a program was in place and yet the congressman continued to rave that he had FBI sources. In fact he got very defensive and even abusive and attacked Cooper for picking on him. I guess you are supposed to be able to stand up and spout whatever crap you want and the interviewer has to let you get away with it. Funny, this congressman used to be a judge. Kind of makes you wonder what sort of decisions he was making in his court room doesn't it? The real point, I guess, is that some folks are resorting to whatever means that they can to get the US Federal Government to tighten up the borders. Now there is something that I can relate to. We need that here in Canada too, only since the only real border that we have is with the US we don't have nearly the same issue with folks just taking a stroll across like they do down there. Any surprise immigrants that we have, arrive by boat or aircraft. Yesterday, for example, we had another shipload of Tamil refugees arrive on the west coast and by doing so have jumped the immigration queue. I guess that the part of this that really bothers me. I mean, this is a big mostly empty country so we have loads of room. But that's not where these folk will go. They will either head for the established Tamil communities in the larger cities either in Canada or they'll cross the boarder into the US. I don't think that there are too many Tamils prospecting in the Yukon. What a way to start life in a new country - ignore the laws.