The birthers are back!

In the words of the immortal Stewie Griffin, “Oh this is rich”. Apparently the idea that the president is a foreign citizen (who managed to fool everyone from the Chicago electorate, the DNC, the popular vote and the electoral college) is gaining traction with some people.

I tried having a rational discussion with one and our conclusion was that my birther friend preferred ignoring pesky facts and doing her own research to going along with the Limbaugh crowd (where most of this is coming from, imho).

Rather than rehashing the debate here I will provide you folks with two resources.

a reputable, non partisan website that looks at the controversy using analytics and (some say pesky) facts

and

Jon Stewart who uses almost no facts but does point out that CNN’s resident idiot raises the question of Obama’s citizenship while his fill in anchor debunked the myth just three days prior ON HIS OWN SHOW.

And we’ll end with this quote by this person I know nothing about who said something pretty cool:

“There’s no amount of evidence or data that will change somebody’s mind,” says Michael Shermer, who is the publisher of Skeptic magazine and a columnist for Scientific American, and who holds an undergraduate and a master’s degree in psychology. “The more data you present a person, the more they doubt it … Once you’re committed, especially behaviorally committed or financially committed, the more impossible it becomes to change your mind.”
“Any inconvenient facts are irrelevant. People who believe in a conspiracy theory “develop a selective perception, their mind refuses to accept contrary evidence,” Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates who studies such theories, says. “As soon as you criticize a conspiracy theory, you become part of the conspiracy.”

Good shtuff.