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Wednesday 16 July 2008

An Obama Chronology

CounterNote: These dates have all been compiled from online sources.

ETA: All information on Lolo Soetoro's time in Hawaii was corrected in September 2012 following the release of his INS file.

c. 1500. Sudanese tribal chieftain Isingoma Labongo Rukidi conquers the coastal area of Lake Victoria and establishes the Luo kingdom in what is now Kenya and Tanzania.

c. 1895. Nyaoke, one of the four wives of wealthy Luo tribesman Obama, gives birth to her fifth son, Onyango. Raised a pagan, he flirts with Christianity as a young adult.

1896-1914. The British build a railway from the Indian Ocean to Lake Victoria, gradually bringing the Luo kingdom under their influence and eventual control.

c. 1914. Onyango enlists in the British army as Private Johnson, serving in Europe and India before settling in Zanzibar, a Muslim sultanate just coming under the influence of the British, who had replaced Germany as the regional superpower.

October 3, 1915. Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham marries Ruth Lucille Armour in Wichita, Kansas. Their first son, Ralph Emerson Dunham, is born 11 months later.
March 23, 1918. Ruth Dunham gives birth to another son, Stanley Armour Dunham.

c. 1920's. Onyango coverts to Islam, takes the Islamic name Hussein, & marries Helima.

October 26, 1922. Madelyn Lee Payne is born to Kansans Rolla and Leola Payne.

November 25, 1926. Ruth Dunham is reported dead the morning after Thanksgiving; the local newspaper reports it as a case of inadvertent poisoning, but Barack Obama II later writes that it was self-inflicted. Ralph moves back with his parents and their two sons Ralph and Stanley are raised by Ruth's parents.

c. 1930. It becomes apparent that Helima is infertile. Hussein moves back to his ancestral homeland of Siaya, Nyanza Province, and marries Akumu, who takes the Muslim name Habiba. They settle in the village of Alego, which was notorious for its witchcraft. The area was nicknamed “Alego tat yien” (Alego, the roof of medicine”)

late June 1934 OR 1936 Hussein and Habiba's new son is given the Muslim name Barack Hussein.

Jan 2, 1935. Lolo Martodihardjo Soetoro born in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia.

May 5, 1940. Furniture salesman Stanley A. Dunham (age 22) marries high school senior Madelyn Lee Payne (age 17) in Wichita, KS, against the wishes of Madelyn's strict Methodist parents. Madelyn stays in school long enough to graduate.

c. March 1942. Madelyn becomes pregnant.

June 18, 1942. Stanley joins the Army. He is eventually stationed at Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas. Madelyn takes a job at a Boeing assembly plant in Wichita.

November 29, 1942. Stanley, hoping for a boy, names his newborn daughter Stanley A. Dunham. She will go by her middle name, Ann, all her life--but will later take on the last name of her Muslim husband. The Dunhams never have any other children.

c. 1945. Habiba Akumu Obama divorces Hussein Onyango Obama. Hussein's third wife Sarah, a Christian, raises Barack Hussein Obama.

c. 1946. Stanley finishes his army service and gets back into the furniture business.*

c. 1946. Lolo Soetoro's father and brother are killed in the Indonesian War of Independence.

1950's. The Dunhams move from KS to CA (where Madelyn [and Stanley*] attend Berkeley) to TX to WA. Stanley sells furniture and Madelyn works in restaurants. [ETA: in 1953 Ann is a student at a Catholic school in Beirut.*]

c. 1954. Barack Hussein Obama (age 18 or 20) marries Kezia before starting college.

1956. The Dunhams relocate* from Seattle to Mercer Island. Madelyn becomes an escrow officer in Bellevue and Ann attends Mercer Island High, where subjects taught include Marxism, taught by Jim Wichterman, and human sexuality a la Margaret Mead, taught by Val Foubert. John Stenhouse, the Chairman of the School Board, is a member of the Communist Party and president of the Dunham's Unitarian Church.

c. 1957. Barack and Kezia have their first son, whom they name Abongo. He goes by "Roy."

April 29, 1959 Barack receives a British Colonial Passport #84764, good for 10 years.

July 29, 1959 Barack receives an American F-1 student visa stamp in his British passport and is issued Alien Registration Number A11-983-537.

August 9, 1959. Barack Obama arrives in NYC on a BOAC flight from London. He left his pregnant wife behind to enroll in the University of Hawaii on an $1000 scholarship from the African American Institute. He also gets $190 from the University (raised to $200 the following year). The Territory of Hawaii was in the final process of joining the Union.

c. June 1960. Ann Dunham graduates from high school in Mercer Island, WA.

July 19, 1960. Apparently (all records of this have been deleted) Ann receives a 5-year passport in anticipation of traveling abroad while in college. It would have been issued in her maiden name, of course.

July 23, 1960. Barack is fingerprinted by the INS after requesting a work permit. His address is listed as 2036 Round Top Terrace, Honolulu.

August-September 1960 Barack claims living expenses of $2040 a year, so he gets permission to work for Dole Pineapple to cover the shortfall. He reports wages that "varied at $1.33 per hour."

September 26, 1960. The Dunham family moves to Hawaii, where Ann enrolls in the University. Madelyn finds work as a teller for the Bank of Hawaii.

c. September 1960. Ann, an anthropology major, meets Barack, an economics major, in a Russian class at the University of Hawaii. He pronounces his name with the accent on the first syllable, "Bear-ick." At that time the study of Russian was inextricably mixed up with communism. They hang around in the same group of anti-war students; she is the only female in it, and the only teenager. Barack is known for "his playboy ways" and is admonished to control them. He promises to try.

early to mid November 1960. UH freshman Ann Dunham (17) reportedly becomes pregnant by Barack Obama (24-26). Apparently after she refuses to abort their child, he agrees to marry her. At the time, he claims to have been divorced from Kezia.

c. December 1960. Ann drops out of UH after only one semester.

Feb 2, 1961. Barack reportedly marries Ann--an illegal marriage, even in progressive Hawaii. No records of their secret wedding on Maui are available.

March 3, 1961. In an application to extend his visa, Barack lists his address as 1704 Punahou St Apt #15. He leaves the lines for Spouse and Children blank.

c. May 1961 Barack is out of school for the summer; a good time to get home to visit his wife and children, including Auma, the daughter he's never met.

August 4, 1961. The date listed for the birth of Barack Hussein Obama II in Honolulu, Hawaii, on his Certificate of Live Birth (also on his Kenyan birth certificate). Later, his Hawaiian birth records are sealed by the Governor (in 2011, an extensively altered electronic copy is released by President Obama). No witness has come forward to testify having attended his birth in HI, but several of his Kenyan relatives insist that he was born in Mombasa, Kenya.

August 8, 1961. On this day, Barack's student visa was set to run out. Barack Hussein Obama II's Certificate of Live Birth is filed, showing parents as Stanley Ann and Barack Hussein Obama. They call their son "Barry," with the accent on the first syllable.

August 13, 1961. The Honolulu Advertiser lists among its birth announcements "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hwy, son, Aug. 4." Actually, Barack still maintains his own residence, and Ann lives with her parents at the above address. They are never to share a home.

September 6, 1961 Barack is living at 1482 Alancastre St, just outside the University of Hawaii. Ann has already returned to Washington, living at 516 13th Ave East, Apt #2 in Seattle. Barack receives permission to finish up his last year at UH. Ann, however, takes Barry to visit friends on Mercer Island and enrolls as an extension student at the University of Washington, completing 20 credits by the next summer.

June 1962. Barack graduates from UH with a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics and moves to Baltimore for the summer as a guest of the Koinonia Foundation. On his application to extend his student visa, he admits to being married but lists "Roy Obama" as his only son--no address given. He leaves the "Spouse" section blank.

Spring 1962. Moving back to Honolulu, Ann and her son move in with the Dunhams and enroll on welfare. Ann continues her studies at UH.

September 1962. Barack moves to Cambridge, MA to take a scholarship from Harvard for an MA in economics. He is not yet legally separated from Ann, who remains in Hawaii. Barack would be required to show an additional $1500 a year income in order for her to accompany him to Harvard. His scholarships total $3500 a year, only $300 over the required minimum for a single student. Meanwhile, he is known around Harvard as a womanizer.


December 12, 1963. Kenya assumes independence, led by a coalition of Kikuyu and Luo politicians, representing the first and second largest of over thirty ethnic groups in the highly divided country. On an INS extension request dated June 16, 1963, Barack had, for the first time, claimed Kenyan citizenship--and leaves the lines for "marital status" blank.

1963-64. At UH, Ann meets another student, Lolo Soetoro from Indonesia, there on a 2-year visa (A14 128 294) that expire June 14. Ann files for divorce in Hawaii. Barack signs the papers in Cambridge.

January 1964. Ann files for divorce. Barack's Kenyan girlfriend flies from New York to London for an abortion. The American Unitarian-Universalist Committee, which disapproved the flight, revokes their sponsorship of her and she is not permitted back in the US.

March 8, 1964. Barack and Ann's marriage is dissolved by order of Honolulu judge Samuel P. King Sr., for reasons of "grievous marital suffering inflicted Libellant by Libelee."

April 1964. Barack's request for another annual extension to his student visa is received by the INS. Their uncertainty over how many wives he has results in an exchange of correspondence with Harvard. Harvard, tired of his womanizing, agrees to expel him as a full-time student so the INS can deport him, but waits until after he has taken his final exams to tell him, "in case he might get upset and use that as an excuse for not passing." Barack appeals unsuccessfully.

June 15, 1964. Lolo Soetoro applies for a one-year extension on his student visa, in order to get a year's experience working at $2 an hour for Park Associates (his prospective job upon return to Indonesia with a masters in geology will only pay $2 to $10 a month). 

July 6, 1964. Having been deported by the INS when Harvard refused to sponsor his continuation in the US to work on his PhD in Economics, Barack returns to Kenya from NYC, his American girlfriend Ruth Nidesand following him. Barack goes on to marry her. They have two sons in Kenya before she divorces him to marry a Tanzanian. Barack goes on to marry at least 2 more Kenyan women.


December 1964. Lolo is laid off from his job at Park, but gets another one at Hawaii-Pacific Engineers.

1965 — Barack writes a paper titled "Problems Facing Our Socialism," published in the East Africa Journal, harshly criticizing the administration of then-President Jomo Kenyatta for moving the Third World country of Kenya away from socialism toward capitalism. At some point he is briefly jailed for his political views.

March 15, 1965. Ann marries Lolo Soetoro in Honolulu. Lolo Soetoro writes to Senator Fong to receive permission to overstay his extended visa, citing hardship on his wife if he is required to return to Indonesia without her.

June 4, 1965. Much to the frustration of Dr. Zumwinkle, Lolo Soetoro's visa extension is approved for another year by someone in INS acting outside of official channels.

July 1965. The Indonesian government recalls its foreign students, sending a cable to the UH demanding Lolo's return. Lolo appeals for another year to save the money to move Ann to Indonesia with him.

July 19, 1965. Ann receives US Passport F77788. The  application has been deleted from her passport file, apparently to conceal the fact that it was actually a passport renewal application. At any rate, it is not issued to Ann Soetoro, so she was not yet using her new married name.
June 1965-June 1966. Lolo continues to resist deportation, claiming that it would harm Ann's mental health to be left behind were he deported 'early.' Meanwhile, Ann is living with her parents--as she did during her marriage to Barack.

November 16, 1965. The Registrar at Harvard University advises Barack, now living in Nairobi, to finish up his PhD thesis in Kenya before trying to return to the US.

1966. Lolo is finally deported on June 20, after overstaying his 2-year visa by over 2 years, leaving Ann and Barack back in Honolulu, where she pays Barack's sitter $50 a month. Lolo, making $10 a month, lives with relative in Jakarta. He continues to spend the remainder of the year appealing for permission to return to the US before the mandatory 2-year absence. Ann applies for a job at the American embassy in Jakarta.

August 1966. Ann completes coursework from UH but does not have enough credits to graduate. She anticipates receiving a BA in Anthropology by the next February. Barack starts kindergarten at Noelani Elementary School in an upscale neighborhood of Honolulu.

February 28, 1967. Final rejection by INS of Lolo Soetoro's appeal. Ann is still short a few credits, but hopes to graduate in June (she doesn't).

June 29, 1967. Ann, still listed as living with her parents at 2234 University Ave, applies to amend her passport F77788 to the name Stanley Ann Soetoro. Her signature on this application isn't dated, so it's unsure if this was to replace a lost passport, or if she really changed her name twice while married to Lolo.

August 6, 1967. Ann finally accumulates the credits to graduate from UH.

August 21, 1967. INS official orders investigation into the citizenship and parenthood of Barack Obama II. It is concluded that he "is an American citizen by virtue of his birth in Honolulu Hawaii Aug. 4, 1961" and a stepson of Lolo Soetoro by virtue of his mother's marriage thereto. The INS copy of Barack's birth certificate has been withheld by the Department of Homeland Security on the grounds that its release "would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

October 1967. Ann and Barack travel to Indonesia to join her husband who has been there without her for a year. Ann finally gets a teaching job at the US embassy. The Soetoros settle on 16 Kyai Haji Ramli Tengah Street, in a poor Muslim neighborhood in Jakarta. Barry Soetoro enrolls in first grade at Franciscus Assisi Primary School, where he is listed as an Indonesian Muslim--in effect, having been adopted by his stepfather through marriage (Under Indonesian law, children could not inherit their mothers' citizenship, regardless of where they were born). Neighborhood children tease him for being a Catholic. He learns Indonesian at school; his mother tutors him in English at home.

August 1, 1968. Lolo's American residency is finally granted, expiring July 31, 1973.

August 13, 1968. Ann gets an amended passport in the name of Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro. She claims no plans to return to the US, based on her marriage to an Indonesian citizen--despite the fact that he has just that month been granted US residency! She lists Stanley Armour Dunham, Bank of Hawaii, as her contact person. She also starts to list as a dependent Barack Hussein Obama Soebarkah, but crosses the name out. Apparently this is when Barack gets his own US passport, which will expire in August 1973.

1968. Barack and Kezia have another son, Abo. Lolo Soetoro completes the mandatory 2-year absence and is eligible to return and reside in the US. But the Soetoros remain in Indonesia, even after Lolo receives residency status.

c. 1969. Barry writes in a third-grade essay that he wants to be President when he grows up.

1970. Madelyn Dunham becomes a vice president of her bank in Honolulu. Lolo gets a lucrative job with the Union Oil Company, and they move to 22 Taman Amir Hamzah Street in the upscale Matraman Dalam neighborhood, replacing their motorcycle with a car.

1970. Barack and Kezia have another son, Bernard.

July 18, 1970. Ann's passport expires. Apparently she doesn't bother to renew it. Barack spends the summer in Honolulu with his grandparents.

August 15, 1970. A daughter, Maya, is born to Lolo and Ann Soetoro. She will go on to marry Konrad Ng, a Bhuddist, and will give their daughter an Arabic name.

1970. Lolo's family moves to an upscale neighborhood on Dempo Street, and Barry Soetoro joins the 4th grade at the Besuki Primary School. He studies Indonesian and Arabic. His report card indicates that he makes faces while memorizing the Quran.

October 21, 1971. Ann, who supposedly couldn't bear the separation if her husband were deported to Indonesia, leaves him behind, taking Barry and Maya back to Hawaii with her. She has to pay a $25 fee to re-enter the country on an expired passport (she doesn't pay the bill for another month). Barry takes the last name Obama again. Lolo continues to hold US residency during this 5-year period.

December 1971. Barack Obama I swings through HI for a month--the only visit with him that Barry will remember.

Jan 4, 1972. Ann finally gets around to renewing her passport that expired 18 months earlier. She lists her permanent residence as DJL Taman Matraman Barat 22 Pav, Djakarta, Indonesia, to which she states an intent to return to within 3-5 years. The new passport C 030097 is approved that very day.

1972. Ann enrolls in UH to receive a master's degree in the anthropology of Indonesia.

1973.  Lolo Soetoro files for American income tax as a non-resident, thus disqualifying him for reentry to the US as the spouse of an American citizen. His residency permit is not renewed for this reason. Apparently this is the year Barack's passport is renewed until 1978.

May 21, 1974. Ann Soetoro, still married to Lolo whom she hasn't seen for several years, forwards a reentry permit application to him so he can return to Hawaii. He returns it, apologising for incorrectly (but factually) claiming to be a nonresident and promises to pay any back taxes due to his fraudulent filing. He never receives the extension.

September 1975. Ann returns briefly to Indonesia with Maya to research her PhD in anthropology. Barry stays in Honolulu with his grandparents while attending the prestigious and prohibitively expensive Punahou private school on scholarship. He plays on the varsity basketball team, where he is known as "Barry O'Bomber."

June 2, 1976. Ann is issued a new passport Z2433100 in Jakarta. Her former passport had expired 6 months earlier.

1977. Barry gets a job at a pizza shop, where he would supposedly have been required to furnish a Social Security number. No public record of this number exists.

1978. Apparently this is the year Barack's passport expires. He may have renewed it until 1983.

1979. Barry finishes his studies at Punahou School, where weekly chapel attendance is mandatory. His entry in the yearbook tributes "The Choom Gang," a maijuana smoking club to which he belonged, and Ray, their supplier. He also mentions his grandparents, but none of his parents.

1979-1981. Barry, now calling himself Barack, studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Evidence that he applied and received funding as a foreign student from Indonesia has been sealed by court order.

June 15, 1980 (approved August 28). Ann files for a no-fault, no-support divorce from Lolo in Hawaii. Barack is listed on the divorce decree as an adult student dependent of the marriage, with Ann retaining custody of the minor Maya. Ann's maiden name is restored, but she eventually changes her surname to Sutoro.
July 30, 1980. The date on Barry's Selective Service Registration form. He gives his address as 1617 Beretania Apt 1008, Honolulu, (808) 949-2317 (his grandmother's address and phone number at the time this record was made public in September 2008). Funny thing is--according to the postmark, he mailed it the day before signing it. The currently available copy of his Registration bears the last 4 digits of a Social Security Number issued in Connecticut to a man born in 1890, and later turns up on the deed to his Chicago home as belonging to Barack Soetoro.

Nov 5, 1980. The divorce becomes final.

January 1981- December 1982. Ann is under contract to the Ford Foundation as Program Officer.

April 28, 1981. Stanley Ann Dunham, living in Jakarta, is issued passport 3037221 before the expiration of her previous passport.

c. 1981. Ann Sutoro spends time developing a microfinance program in Pakistan as a consultant of the Asian Development Bank for Pakistan Agricultural Development Bank’s Agricultural Development Program. Her son Barack goes there to visit her. According to a later lawsuit, both used their Indonesian passports to travel to a country on the US State Department no-travel list. On the same trip, Barack travels to Kenya to meet his paternal relatives.

1981-1983. Barack Jr. finishes college at Columbia University in New York, majoring in political science with a specialization in international relations. His further education is financed by a Saudi billionaire. He has a Pakistani roommate. It is probably about the time his passport expires that he begins to use multiple identities, his currently available (forged) SS form now having been back-dated with a SSN he didn't have at the time.

1982. Political outcast Barack Hussein Obama I, a heavy drinker, dies as the result of an incident of drunken driving while engaged to his fourth wife Jael, with whom he has already had a child, George Obama. His son Barack does not attend the funeral.

1983-1985. Barack works in New York for the Business International Corporation and the New York Public Interest Research Group (Ralph Nader's organization).

December 18, 1983 Ann Sutoro graduates from UH with an M.A. in anthropology.

1984. Ann returns to Hawaii with 14 year old Maya.

1985. Barack first meets his older brother Abongo, now a fundamentalist Muslim known as Malik, in Washington DC, where Malik frequently travels on business.

March 1986. Stanley Ann Dunham, living at 1512 Spreckles St. in Honolulu, orders an expedited passport for travel to the Philippines.

1985-1988. Barack works in Chicago as a community organizer for Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation and Wade Rathke's ACORN, where he begins attending Trinity United Church of Christ in order to be able to answer the frequent question, "Where do you go to church?" He goes on to become director of Alinsky's Developing Communities Project, which receives funding from the Woods Fund of Chicago.

1987. Lolo Soetoro, a heavy drinker, dies in Indonesia of liver disease.

1987-1992. Ann Dunham, now styling herself as Ann Sutoro, returns to Indonesia to build a microfinance network.


mid-1988. Barack travels to Kenya to visit his father's family.

fall 1988. Barack enrolls in Harvard Law School.

1989. Barack wins the competition for editor of The Harvard Law Review as a first-year student. The next year he is elected "the first black president" of the Law Review. His bio claims he was born in Kenya.

1989. Barack works as a summer intern at Sidley and Austin in Chicago, where Princeton- and Harvard-educated lawyer Michelle Robinson is his supervisor, and where retired domestic terrorist Bernadine Dohrn had been employed.

1990. Barack works as a summer intern at Hopkins and Sutter in Chicago.

1991. Barack graduates with a J.D. and gets a fellowship at the University of Chicago Law School to write a book on race relations. He and Michelle get engaged.

c. 1991. Barack fills out an application to join the Illinois Bar, on which he affirms that he has never been known by any other name than Barack Hussein Obama.

Feb 8, 1992. Stanley Armour Dunham dies and is buried in Hawaii.

August 9, 1992. Ann graduates from UH with a PhD in anthropology on blacksmithing in Indonesia.

October 3, 1992. Barack and Michelle are married at Trinity United Church of Christ.

1992. Barack is the founding director of Public Allies, and serves on the board of numerous organizations. He directs Illinois Project Vote, a drive to get Carol Moseley Braun elected as the US's first black senator. Her term is so tainted with scandal (she is implicated in corruption of the Nigerian government) that she declines to run for re-election in 1998, leaving the Senate without any black senator.

1992-2004. Barack teaches constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.

1993-2002. Barack works for Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, becoming inactive in 2002 when his law license expires. He also serves on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, where William Ayers serves as chairman. Obama and Ayers approve funding for the Arab-American Action Network, an anti-Israel group created by mutual friend Rashid Khalidia.

1994. In one of his few courtroom appearances, Barack represents ACORN in a lawsuit to force Citibank to grant sub-prime mortgages to minorities--a policy that will eventually result in a worldwide economic meltdown that continues into his presidency.

1994. Barack moves to Bali to finish writing Dreams of My Father with help from his mother, whom he doesn't realize is dying. Ann, diagnosed with ovarian cancer, moves back in with her widowed mother.

November 7, 1995. Ann dies in Hawaii. Barack misses being at her deathbed but attends the memorial, in which her ashes are scattered in the Pacific.

1995-2001. Barack serves on the board of the Annenberg Challenge Grant, along with retired domestic terrorist and leading education theorist Bill Ayers, who receives 50 million dollars through the Grant. The Annenberg Challenge Grant was funded by the same organization that now funds FactCheck.org. Financial grants approved included $175,000 and $482,662 to groups founded by Ayers and run by former communist party leader Mike Klonsky.

1996. Barack Obama launches his first run for the Illinois Senate in the home of William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn — who hosted meetings to introduce Obama to their neighbors. He runs for what he expected to be an open seat, but when the incumbent, (whom he had been supporting as a candidate for a US House seat) decides to run for re-election anyway, he hires a political hit man to get her and the other three primary candidates removed from the ballot so he can run unopposed. He receives support for the general election from "The Democratic Socialists of America’s New Party,” a national organization based in Chicago of which he is a voting member.

1998. Barack is re-elected to the Illinois Senate. His daughter Malia Ann Obama is born.

2000. Barack runs for the US House of Representatives, overwhelmingly losing in the Democratic Primary.

2001. Natasha is born to Barack and Michelle Obama.

2002. Barack is re-elected to the Illinois Senate.

2003. Barack pushes through a 4.5 million earmark to build a cultural center for the Munta Dance Theater. His wife Michelle is on their board.

December 2003. Maya Kasandra Soetoro, a teacher at UH's charter high school, marries Konrad Ng, a Canadian of Chinese-Malaysian origin and a professor at the University of Hawaii. Half-brother Barack Obama gives the opening speech at the secular ceremony.

2004. Zeituni Onyango, Barack H. Obama I's half-sister, applies for asylum in the US. Her request is denied on the grounds that she could safely remain in Kenya. She defies the government's order to leave the country, and moves into government housing in Boston. She was mentioned in Dreams of My Father.

2004. Barack wins the Democratic Primary for an open Senate seat once held by Carol Moseley-Braun. Political hit man David Axelrod fights for a public release of all records pertaining to the divorce of the Republican candidate, Jack Ryan. Against the wishes of both parties to the divorce, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider orders the records opened. Allegations contained in these files paint Ryan as a sexual pervert, and he drops out of the race 3 months before the election.

summer 2004. Barack gives the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention and goes on to win election to the US Senate in a historic landslide against carpetbagger Alan Keyes in the first ever black-on-black Senate race. He pledges not to run for national office in 2008.

2006. Senator Obama travels to Kenya to get tested for AIDS along with his wife. While there, he interferes with the Presidential elections, supporting his cousin Raila Odinga against incumbent Kikuyu Mwai Kibaki.

February 2007. Barack Obama announces his candidacy for President of the United States on the 2008 Democrat ticket, and his resolve to quit smoking. He refuses to release his birth certificate or school records.

May 2007. Michelle Obama resigns from the board of TreeHouse Foods, a major Wal-Mart supplier, immediately following her husband's public remarks critical of Wal-Mart at an AFL-CIO forum in Trenton, NJ. TreeHouse paid her $51,200 in 2006. She reduces her other responsibilities, including the Vice Presidency of the University of Chicago Hospitals, in order to join his campaign full-time. She had earlier limited herself to 2 or 3 days a week, "for the children's sake."

December 2007. Senator Obama raises 1 million dollars for Odinga's campaign for the Kenyan Presidency. Genocidal riots break out across the country when Odinga loses to a Kikuyu. 800 churches are destroyed, but no mosques.

January 3, 2008. Obama edges past Clinton and Edwards by a single vote (56 to 55/54) in a crucial precinct of the Iowa caucuses. Due to Democrat primary rules, Clinton is never able to pull ahead, despite leading in the popular vote throughout the campaign.

June 2008. Obama emerges as the presumptive Democrat Nominee when Hilary Clinton grudgingly concedes the primary race. He encourages his supporters to pay off her $25 million campaign bill (most of which she had loaned herself), after which she pledges him her guarded support.

August 2008. Hillary gives her enthusiastic support to Obama at the Democrat National Convention. He picks Senator Joe Biden as his running mate and they receive the nomination, but not in time to legally qualify for the ballot in Texas. A legal attempt to keep them off the ballot is summarily dismissed.

August 21, 2008. At the Eastern District Court in Philadelphia, former State Deputy Attorney General Philip J. Berg, a Hillary supporter, files for a declaratory judgment and injunction against Barack Hussein Obama II's qualification for US President, on the grounds that having been born while Barack and Ann (a minor) were out of the country, he is not a natural born US citizen.

October 25, 2008. Philip Berg's suit is dismissed on technicalities. He appeals to the Supreme Court, case no. 08-cv-04083, Berg v. Obama.

October 2008. Barack suspends his campaign to visit his ailing grandmother in Honolulu, and to request that the governor seal his birth records. The stock market crashes due to the insolubility of major banks stung by the sub-prime mortgage debacle. Senators McCain and Obama suspend their campaigns to vote for a 1-trillion dollar bailout that includes the first step in monetizing the National Debt, printing dollars in exchange for worthless obligations held by the failed banks.

Oct. 28, 2008 — The Obama campaign passed the $660 million mark in contributions since the beginning of the 2008 election cycle — a record.

October 31, 2008. Barack's Aunt Zeituni is still living in Boston public housing, prompting a special directive from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement not to initiate deportation proceedings until after the Election. It is unknown whether or not she plans to vote for her nephew to become President; she isn't eligible to, of course.

November 3, 2008. Madelyn Lee Dunham, whom her grandson had referred to as "a typical white woman," dies in Honolulu, attended by her only granddaughter, Barack's half-sister Maya--now the only one of Barack's near relatives eligible to vote for him as President--and that only by virtue of their mother having lived in the United States for a couple of years after he was born.

November 3, 2008. Berg's petition denied by Justice Souder. Justice Souder also denies a similar petition by Leo C. Donofrio on November 6th.

November 4, 2008. An estimated 96% of Black voters choose Barack Obama for president, happy to be electing their first Black president. But Obama's connection to Black America is rather ironic: Obama's American ancestors weren't slaves, but slave owners. Some people are voting for a man who is descended from their ancestor's oppressors.

November 14, 2008. Leo C. Donofrio's petition refiled and submitted to Justice Thomas, who assigns it to Conference for December 5th.

December 8, 2008. The Supreme Court in Conference declines to hear Donofrio's case.

December 15, 2008. The Supreme Court in Conference declines to hear a similar lawsuit brought by Cort Wrotnowski.

January 20, 2009. Barack Hussein Obama II is inaugurated as the first Black President of the United States of America. CFR member and best-selling author Rick Warren gives the invocation. Atheist Michael Nedow files a suit to prevent him from mentioning Jesus in his prayer, and Obama from saying "so help me God" in his oath of office. Both happen anyway, and God blesses America.

There will be no further entries to this post.

ETA May 2011: Entries extracted from BHOI's Immigration File have been added chronologically.
*ETA 2014 or later:  Evidence has now come out showing that the Dunham family business, all the way down to grandson Barack, has been Company roughly since its inception. Stanley, for instance, took French and Poly Sci at Berkeley--not what you'd typically expect of somebody pursing a career in, say, furniture sales as opposed to, say, international intrigue. Ann worked for USAID, a known front organization. And Barack worked for another front. This, by the way, finally explains everything. All the obfuscation about his past turns out to be a cover-up to keep from blowing his cover.  I've written dozens of posts on the topic of his secret past, so please realize that this newest revelation puts everything I've said so far in a new light.

Tuesday 15 July 2008

Barack Obama used to be a Muslim

Counter

It's a fair guess that Michelle Obama will vote for her husband this fall, assuming he does clinch the Democratic Nomination. And I'd be rather surprised if Maya Soetoro-Ng didn't vote for her half-brother as well. As it happens, he is the candidate who best represents their political will.

But in a situation unprecedented in American politics, it's highly unlikely that any of his other immediate family members will even be able to vote for him. Malia and Sasha are both about a decade shy of being old enough to vote for their father; his mother and ex-brother David are dead; and none of his five African-European siblings are American citizens. He doesn't have any American first cousins. Of even his extended family, that leaves just his aged grandmother (in Hawaii) and his ex-brother Mark--who has spent almost all his life outside America and is now a permanent resident of China.

In short, Barack Obama is the least American presidential candidate since I don't know when. He was barely even born in the United States; Hawaii had been a member of the Union only two years when he was born as Barack Hussein Obama II at 7:24 pm on August 4, 1961. He was actually born a British subject--making him potentially the first such American president since William Henry Harrison, his fatherland not becoming independent until he was two years old.

Family has been something of an unknown entity to Barack Obama. Of his father's six wives, two of them were American, but he's never been anything but a stranger to his two half-American ex-brothers (who, unlike him, actually grew up in Africa). It wasn't until he was an adult that he finally met some of his Kenyan half-siblings (only one of whom still lives in Kenya), and he didn't even live in the same country as his half-Indonesian sister Maya for much of their brief shared childhood.

Yes, Barack Obama is the product of a broken home--and how. His mother was a pregnant teenage college dropout when she married his father--a fraudulent marriage under Hawaiian law, as his father already had a wife and two children back in Kenya (that marriage later produced two more offspring). Their marriage broke up not long after Barack was born, leaving no time for any full siblings to come along. His father went on to add another four wives to his collection: one American and three Kenyans. This is more wives than most Kenyans could ever hope to afford, putting Barack Sr. in the upper crust of Kenyan society and imparting Barack Jr. quite a bit of status should he ever chose to enter Kenyan politics. But if Barack has any idea of adding wife to wife, I would suggest he stay with Kenyans; none of his father's Kenyan wives ever divorced him (although his Barack Sr.'s mother did divorce his father, leaving him to be raised by another one of the Obama wives).

When Barack was about six years old, he finally got a poppa who would be part of the family circle: Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim who raised Barack as a Muslim son in a Muslim nation. Four years later--just about the time his only maternal sibling was born--Barack left that home for good to spend the rest of his childhood being raised by his American grandparents in Hawaii. They weren't known for going to church, but at least in their home he was finally free from the Islamic influence under which he had been raised for nearly half his life.

When he went off the the Mainland for college, Barack made a conscious decision to identify with his African heritage, but not to embrace the Muslim religion as had his African grandfather. Instead he worked at identifying himself as an African-American, eventually cementing that identity by joining a black church and marrying a black lawyer. But his staunch Muslim half-brother Malik served as best man. And ironically for the first African-American major-party presumptive presidential nominee, Barack is descended not from a line of American slaves*, but from a line of American slave owners.

For now, Barack Obama consistently denies that he is or ever has been a Muslim; it is obviously not in his best interests politically to do otherwise. But that his ancestry, upbringing, and family composition are significantly--if not overwhelmingly--Muslim, is undeniable.

*UPDATE: Barack Obama turns out to be possibly descended from one American slave.

Thursday 10 July 2008

Barack Obama is a Muslim

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I got an email today that brought to mind something I hadn't thought of: Barack Obama is on track to become America's first ethnically Muslim president. This is rather astounding, when one considers that although ethnic Jews are considerably overrepresented in Congress, not one has ever made it to the presidency; yet with Congress significantly underrepresented by ethnic Muslims, the front runner for the presidency is not only a Muslim by birth, he continues to go by his Islamic name.

This is much more significant than most Americans would realize. According to Islamic law, under which over a billion people live to one extent or another, a son into whose newborn ear his father breathes the shahada is a Muslim for life. Should he ever apostatize he is under penalty of death unless and until he recants. Obama's recent repudiation of his membership in a Chicago church--the only church to which he has ever belonged--could certainly be read by a billion Muslims as the first step in his return to the faith of his fathers. Should he ever need to make a state visit to an Islamic country, this step could end up saving his life.

I should add that it is nothing to the point that Obama's mother never embraced Islam, despite her marriages to two Muslim men. The mother's religion counts for nothing in Islamic law, and it is by no means uncommon for a staunch Muslim to have a mother who came from infidel stock. It was reported that the Sultan of Turkey who unleashed genocide on the Armenians in his country was himself the offspring of an Armenian member of his father's harem.

One other thing. This is what John McCain is reported to have said about Ted Sampley, who alerted America to the fact that it faced a serious threat from Muslim terrorists in its infancy, and found that the only effective response was "through the medium of war." Considering the source, I find Sampley to be all the more credible:
"I am well familiar with Mr. Sampley, and I know him to be one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. I consider him a fraud who preys on the hopes of family members of missing servicemen for his own profit. He is dishonorable, an enemy of the truth, and despite his claims, he does not speak for or represent the views of all but a few veterans. The many veterans I know would think it a disgrace to be considered a comrade or supporter of Ted Sampley."

John McCain obviously doesn't know this veteran.

Tuesday 8 July 2008

Myth: surfing in boiling water

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When I got married, I was astounded to discover that my wife didn't realize that it is impossible to heat anything wet above the boiling temperature of water, which is usually no more than 212 degrees Fahrenheit (or 100 degrees Celsius, but since this story takes place in one of the United States, we'll use Fahrenheit. Or at least try to . . .). I eventually realised that this was nothing unusual; most cooks express surprise that food could overcook at a setting of only 200º, or that it so easily burns to a black crisp at a setting of 350º.

So for the benefit of miseducated cooks, let me explain how it works:

Temperature is a way of measuring the rate at which molecules knock into each other. The faster they vibrate, the higher the temperature that can be measured. Also, the more furiously they knock into each other, the faster some of them are knocked loose. As a part of this process, crystalline and amorphous solids break down into liquids, and eventually liquids break down into gasses. At a high enough temperature, the only possible state of matter is known as plasma, and all molecules are energised.

Adding heat to a substance has one of two effects on it: it either makes its molecules vibrate faster (raising the temperature), or it breaks down the molecular bonds holding the substance together (thereby melting a solid or evaporating a liquid).

At sea level, this means that adding heat to ice warms it up, but only to 32º; at that point, all heat transferred into ice converts it to 32º water (It shouldn't be too hard to convert the realisation that ice can never be any hotter than 32º to one that anything wet--hence, containing water--can never be any hotter than 212º). Once all the ice has become water, the water itself begins to warm up from 32º. The water continues to absorb heat as its temperature approaches about 212º (slightly more if it is in solution), at which point it stops getting hotter and begins converting to 212º steam. Once all the water has become steam, then the steam can begin to heat up again; 600º steam is common in high-pressure turbines.

To apply this principle to food, take the example of making maple syrup from sap. It takes a tremendous amount of heat to raise the temperature of the sap from freezing to around 218º, during which time the sap evaporates at a faster and faster rate. Turning up the heat makes it boil all the more furiously, but it won't raise the temperature of the sap any higher. Since the goal is to remove all water from the sap, this is good. Once the water is gone, however, the sap starts heating up again, and unless it is taken off the fire, will quickly climb past 250º, past 300º, past 350º, and soon burst into flame. This is not good. Thus one who watches his boiling pot carefully will know that the syrup is done by the time it reaches 218º. Better yet, a thermostatic cutoff can accomplish the same thing without the need for such vigilance.

If the cook, however, wants to retain any amount of moisture in the food being cooked, it is counterproductive to heat any portion of it above about 212º. Even in the best-case scenario, the center of the dish may be stewing along at only about 180º, while the outer edges boil off all their moisture and rapidly shoot up to a black-crust-forming 350º. All this can happen even with the thermostat set at a lower temperature. For a cook who has lots of time and would rather have overcooked food than burnt food, a setting of 200º to 250º is best. The other alternative is to use a pressure cooker, which keeps the moisture from boiling off until a considerably higher temperature is reached. Since the goal is hot food, not dehydrated food, this is the most effective option, with the happy benefit of also being the fastest one.

This, by the way, is why microwave ovens can cook food without burning it; they heat up the entire substance, not just the outer surface. Thus by the time the outer surface reaches 212º, the inner portion is already long done. It takes a lot of work to burn something in a microwave oven, unless the substance needs a temperature of 212º to be fully cooked--popcorn being a prime example. Popcorn will not pop until the moisture inside the kernel reaches 212º, which is why it is usually cooked in oil. No other food ever needs to be heated that high; even maple syrup can be safely (but more slowly) made at temperatures as low as 140º.

One more thing to note, is that a pot of water will start to boil at temperatures a lot lower than 212º, but only because the flames (or heating coils) below the pot are transferring their over-1000º-heat into the base of the pot. The inside base of the pot reaches 212º long before the water above it does, forming steam bubbles on its surface that gradually start to break loose and rise to the top faster than they can collapse. While the water itself may still be 180º, the bubbles forming on the bottom are around 212º (actually a little hotter, since the water pressure at that depth has some effect).

Now, to the myth of 200 degree waves, as reported by Laura Clout in The Telegraph. The lava entering the Pacific at the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii is around 2000º. It instantly gives up a lot of heat into the water washing over the face of the lava flow, quickly forming 212º water and even hotter steam. As the lava cools, it stops glowing red and turns dark, being constantly pushed farther into the water by the hotter lava behind it. The water, in turn, is constantly losing its heat to the vast ocean behind it, so the water temperature drops rapidly with distance from the lava.

Laura quotes surfer CJ Kahuna as saying:
"I was tentative to get too close at first, and for good reason, the boiling water there is well over 200 hundred degrees in some spots, super hot, and it quickly melted the wax on the surfboard."

While water will melt wax at temperatures considerably below 200º, its boiling point at sea level (which this obviously was) is always pretty close to 212º--even given the dissolved salt level of ocean water, not any higher than 213º. CJ is exaggerating a bit in claiming that the "boiling water" was "way over 200º in spots." It was, in fact (at the surface anyway), no more than 213º where it boiled away in contact with the lava, and progressively cooler (and not boiling) as its distance from the lava increased. Since CJ never got closer than 20 feet from the lava, it's safe to say he never encountered water even as hot as 200 degrees. Certainly the water that splashed over his feet was significantly cooler than that, or he would have been speaking from a hospital bed. And Laura was exaggerating even more in claiming that CJ was "surfing in boiling water."

Update April 1, 2009
This just in:
"Tentative at first, the adrenalin-junkie paddled to within 20ft of the lava, before moving back from water that reached 200C in places, melting the wax on his surfboard and burning his feet in the process."

Yah, 200ºC. Must be the day of the year, eh?

That's right. Our reporterette used a temperature setting DOUBLE that of boiling water, when she failed to recognise the use of Faherenheit in America.

Monday 7 July 2008

Badgers, porpoises, or sea cows?

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"And thou shalt make a covering for the tent of rams skins dyed red, and a covering above of badgers skins."

Reading verses like Exodus 26:14, one might wonder just what animal is in view, especially when comparing various other translations:

RSV: goatskins (no linguistic or historical grounds whatsoever)
NRSV: fine leather (based on the ancient Egyptian word ths, stretched or woven leather)
NLT: fine goatskin leather (following the RSV even when the NRSV didn't!)
JPS, ASV: sealskin (based on the colloquial Arabic word tuhas)
NIV: sea cow hides (Same as above)
KJVII: dugong (Same as above)
NEB, NASB: porpoise skin (imaginative interpretation of the above)

There seems to be an interesting history behind the KJV reading; it seems to be a translation (from Latin!) of the word Taxus, first used in the Bishop's Bible as a transliteration of the Hebrew word. Earlier versions had "doe skins" or followed the Latin Vulgate, which followed the Septuagint, to read "hyacinth." Obviously this is a word that was already obsolete when the Bible was first translated--and why would this be the case, unless the object itself had also passed from use?

Seals, dugongs, and porpoises may produce durable leather that might be handy for a tent, but would be very expensive for the Israelites to procure, either in Egypt or in the wilderness. Why would God specify such an exotic material for covering the entire tabernacle, as well as many of its furnishings? More to the point, why on earth would God prescribe the hide of an unclean animal to cover the articles most closely associated with his holiness?

Given that it has now been established as a clean animal, it seems most likely that the 'takhas' of Numbers 4 was the giraffe.

Giraffe skins would have been common in Egypt, as giraffes populate the upper Nile in great numbers. They would have been taken from Egypt as part of the booty that the Israelites later donated for the tabernacle (Exodus 25:5), and as being both large in size and derived from clean animals, they were eminently suitable for use in covering both the tabernacle itself, and its holiest furnishings.

After entering Canaan, however, the Israelites were no longer able to procure giraffe hides in numbers sufficient for their sacred use, so both the object, and an understanding of the name for it, fell out of use hundreds of years before the Bible was first translated into another language.

Thursday 3 July 2008

They were wrong about the camelion

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A certain creationist organization, which has been mentioned previously on this blog, was wrong.

When confronted concerning the two giraffes in a large painting of Noah's Ark that they were offering as a premium to supporters, the Answers Department claimed that they were following rabbinical law in depicting giraffes as unclean (if clean, there would have been seven of them).

Well, the rabbis were wrong in the first place; they'd never bothered to check any giraffes to see if they could be kosher. Once they did--no surprise--the number of giraffes on Noah's Ark jumped to seven.

The Creationists were wrong to follow the rabbis. Had they read Deuteronomy 14:5 in the first Bible published in English, they would have already identified the camelion (giraffa camelopardalis) as a clean animal:

"a capret, a wielde oxe, tregelafun, Þat is, a beeste in parti lijk a buk of geet, and in parti liik an hert, a figarde, an ostrich, a camelioun, Þat is, a beeste lijk in the heed to a camel, and haÞ white spottis in Þe bodi as a parde, and is lijk an hors in Þe necke, and in the feet is lijc a wilde oxe."
--Revised Wycliffe Version, c. 1395