Iran: Something about to happen?

The White Man stocked up on gasoline recently, due in part to a rumor from the Pentagon that something big was about to go down that would put a big squeeze on the supply of crude oil. Whatever the case, there is enough information starting to come out from unclassified sources to indicate that a war with Iran could be sooner than we think.

1) An annual intelligence report to Congress has dropped language stating that Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions are a future option and speaks in terms of the present, indicating a radical switch in US policy on Iran. As rocketing oil prices triggered by Arab uprisings wiped out the sanctions damage to Iran, Washington confirmed the worst Saudi and Israeli suspicions that Barack Obama had come to terms with a nuclear-armed Iran, after the US long restrained Israel from nipping this menace in the bud. --debka.com

2) The two Iranian warships that transited the Suez Canal to Syria were carrying weapons to supply terrorists in Lebanon and Gaza. They have been permanently assigned to the Syrian port of Latkieh.

3) Israeli warplanes recently struck a Hamas supply column in Sudan, wiping it out in two passes. This operation involved aerial refueling.

4) The IDF war games in Crete in 2008, dubbed "Glorious Spartan," were primarily for the purpose of practicing penetration of Iran's new S-300 missile defense system, one of which was conveniently located "temporarily" in Crete--exactly as far from Israel as are Iran's nuclear targets.

5) Events in Japan have shown that a direct hit on a nuclear reactor is not necessary to render it inoperative; simply shutting off its cooling system precipitously can lead to a meltdown within minutes. There are many ways of accomplishing this, short of an all-out aerial attack.

If men were still on the moon

This is a copy of the letter that was prepared for President Nixon to read to the nation in the event that the Apollo 11 astronauts couldn't get off the moon. Note that they are still alive, but beyond hope of rescue.

As I think about it, I wonder if this letter really ever would have been read. At least I doubt that it was part of an automatic plan to be put in place in the event that the Lunar Module couldn't take off. In life, it seems, there seldom are automatic plans. Instead there are "options still on the table." Reading this letter was probably never more than one of several different options on the table.

It's really amazing, fifty years into manned space flight, that no astronaut has ever died outside the earth's atmosphere; none have ever been abandoned in space.

Had the Apollo 11 astronauts died on the moon, I expect that one of the subsequent Lunar Missions would have been tasked with retrieving their bodies. But, unless man does indeed return to the moon, we'll never again be faced with that possibility.

The wolf-child phenomenon: a modern view

Anyone familiar with Mowgli of Kipling's Jungle Book has heard of such a thing as a wolf-child. The idea of a child being raised by wolves runs deep in human experience, dating back to the founding of Rome. But on more of an historical note, I recently came across this tidbit in a 1930 book by E. Stanley Jones, an incarnational missionary to British India:

A wolf-child, captured near where I live in India, had lived with wolves from the age of two to the age of eleven. It ran on all fours. Its knee joints were stiff and enlarged from running in this fashion. It would eat only raw meat, and when it was put on a more civilized diet, it took dysentery and died.

Now, Jones never said that he himself witnessed any of this, so we are forced to first examine this story for apparent veracity. Let's begin by listing the alleged facts:

1) Nine years previous to a given date, a two-year-old child had disappeared from society.
2) Shortly before the given date, a being was captured in the wild who met the description of a wolf-child.
3) This creature was identified as being the lost child, now age eleven.
4) The child was then brought back into society, whereupon it died of dysentery.

Now, notice the inferences made from these facts:
1) The child had lived among wolves for nine years.
2) The child had eaten nothing but raw meat for nine years.
3) The child could only walk on all fours, due to its being raised by wolves.
4) The child could only tolerate a diet of raw meat, due to being raised by wolves.

Well, these may or may not be true. All humans start out without the ability to walk upright, and some never attain it; others lose it quite early. Without studying a wolf-child in its natural habitat--something that has never been done by a scientist--it's impossible to say for sure which of these were true. In researching the subject of wolf-children, I found that one universal characteristic is that they lack human language--so Mowgli heads back to the fairy tales where he belongs. It's also rather common in a wolf-child narrative that the child spends somewhere between eight and fifteen years in the wild before making contact with society.

One glaring problem with the veracity of the wolf-child phenomenon is that it has never been studied scientifically. The closest anyone has come is in the case of a Los Angeles girl known as "Genie," who was kept locked in a bedroom by her father until she was 13 years of age. Although she learned some speech after being brought out into society, she has never progressed beyond a most rudimentary level of communication. And she was so traumatized by scientists squabbling over the exclusive rights to study her that she regressed as an adult to the autistic state in which they had found her.

Many 'wolf child' stories can be attributed to an autistic child who is abandoned in the wild but manages to survive until later discovery. His autism makes any transition back to civilised life all but impossible, and he often dies from the sudden change in diet. One should therefore not approach a 'wolf-child' account as showing what happens to someone who is raised in the wild; rather, it shows how animalistic autistic children are by nature, making it all the easier for them to live among animals than among humans.

The idea of a child being raised by wolves runs deep in the human psyche. But when examined in the light of science, it turns out to mostly just be a good story.

The Mark of the Beast

. . . that the Image of the beast should both speake, and cause that as many as would not worship the Image of the beast, should be killed. 16 And he causeth all, both smal and great rich and poore, free and bond, to receiue a marke in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, saue he that had the marke, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisedome. Let him that hath vnderstanding, count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man, and his number is, sixe hundred threescore and sixe. --Revelation 13, OKJV

It's been close to forty years now since A Thief in the Night came out. I recently watched it again, realizing that back when I first saw it, I couldn't imagine that the world would last another forty years. One of the lines in the film is that "the antichrist could be alive right now and we don't even know it." Well, the likelihood now is that he wasn't, but I sure thought at the time that he might well be.

There were a lot of things in the movie that seem out of place in today's world; the clothing styles are embarrassingly out of date, for example. Interestingly, the designs of vans and helicopters haven't changed much since then, but the villan who spoke into a walkie-talkie would most likely be using a cell phone if it were filmed today. One of the most striking things about the film, looking back all these years later, was the way the Mark of the Beast was portrayed. It was a tattoo physically imprinted on the skin in a quick and painless procedure, consisting of three alternating rows of lines and circles. The heroine says of it, "You know that's computer code for six six six." After escaping from jail, she finds it impossible to enter any store without having received the Mark.

In other words, the Mark of the Beast was a symbol recognisable to a computer, but read manually. In a sequel that came out several years later--after bar code scanning had become common in grocery stores--the hero makes a "counterfeit mark" that he and the heroine can use to buy food and calculator batteries. So the Mark had moved from simply being a computer-generated symbol of loyalty to an actual computer interface that allowed one to pay for a purchase.

So the question is, is the Mark of the Beast simply a symbol of loyalty, or a computer interface? It may be a bit of both.

If the Mark is simply a symbol of loyalty, it would be impossible to counterfeit. It would be like flying a counterfeit American Flag; there's no discernible difference between an authorized flag and an unauthorized duplicate, for purposes of showing one's patriotism. After 9/11, Americans thought nothing of flying American flags that had been made in China, a country at active war with the US in cyberspace. If the Mark is a computer interface, then it doesn't appear that having a counterfeit would help any in avoiding the wrath of God upon all who bear the Mark; it would still indicate tacit submission to The Beast.

Now we bring in the National ID number and its increasing control over every aspect of an American's life. It is now required to disclose one's National ID number to:
-register a birth with the government
-receive medical care paid for by any government agency
-get government help in finding a job
-get government help in heating a home
-get government help in buying food
-get government help in paying a phone bill
-get reimbursed by the government for traveling to a VA appointment
-live in a house where any of the above government involvement is directed
-get credit
-purchase anything electronically
-use a bank account
-buy a car
-register a car
-drive a car
-receive an ID card, without which one cannot vote
-buy real property
-earn wages
-pay taxes on wages
-pay wages
-deduct taxes from wages
-leave the country
-re-enter the country

A few of these can still be done without a National ID number, but only by claiming that one's Number is 000-00-0000. It would be perjury to have any other number and not disclose it. This is obviously only a temporary situation; the Number will eventually become mandatory for everyone, and this is something that was impossible before the ubiquity of computers.

By the time the Mark of the Beast comes out, it will not be necessary for identifying anyone; his National ID Number, with Biometric Encoded Data, will take care of that. It will simply function as a sign of outward loyalty; a sign, moreover, that will be also entered into the database tied to one's National ID. Thus, without the Mark, no one will be able to do anything that isn't possible now for someone who doesn't have the National ID Number.

Which is pretty much everything, or soon will be. In a way that was not possible even 30 years ago, the road is now paved for implementation of the Mark of the Beast.

Update June 6, 2011: This website, last updated on Feb 09, 2011, states that the SSA will, as of June 3, 2007, issue 666-prefix numbers "on a random basis." 99,999 of these will be available.

UPDATE Nov 3, 2011: The above website was updated again 10 days later, on June 13.

UPDATE July 2012: I'm looking at the above website (as updated June 29th, 2012), and noticing something I never did before: the 666 prefix is specifically excluded from the new randomization policy! I quote:
"Previously unassigned area numbers were introduced for assignment excluding area numbers 000, 666 and 900-999."
So, Uncle Sam is not yet ready to play the role of The Beast. I guess that's good--for now.

Martyrdom as a weapon: it works both ways, Efendi.

The Main Square of Zawiyah, Libya has been re-named Martyrs Square in honor of the protesters killed by forces loyal to Muammar Gadaffi. "People want martyrdom. There were children out protesting," reported a resident.

For decades, Islamist propaganda has urged young Muslims to aspire to martyrdom--that is, risking, or in many cases deliberately losing, their lives to kill the evil forces of Judaism and Christianity. But it appears that this pedagogy is coming back to bite, as evil forces perceived within the Dar as Salaam are its new targets.

There is absolutely no way to stop someone who's not afraid to die. And there is no greater danger to the powers that be than a populace that doesn't fear them. Gadaffi is determined not to go down without a fight, but as long as only a few thousand of his people--say, around one-half to one per cent of all Libyans--are willing to walk into firing range and keep going as he mows them down, he will run out of ammunition before they run out of resolve.

And of course, it only takes one person, not afraid to risk seeing his entire family slaughtered if he fails, to fire the deadly shot that will take out Gadaffi for good.

A logical and electrocodicological examination of the email with all of Obama's Birth Certificate information on it

For background on this post, see:
http://whitemail.blogspot.com/2009/10/man-without-country.html
http://whitemail.blogspot.com/2010/06/barack-hussein-obamas-birth-certificate.html

A few days ago I received an email showing more details on Barack Hussein Obama II's Kenyan birth certificate than I had seen yet. I attempted to copy it here, but the graphics didn't come through. I then emailed it to my blog, which worked a little better, but the photos were cut off due to column restrictions. Now that I found the whole thing at this website, I'm deleting the graphics from my original post, leaving in just the text and my comments. I'm still willing to email it to anyone upon request, but for now let's just go with my analysis.

"Here it is, folks! The document we have been waiting for!Now if only SOMEONE in Congress or the Supreme Court will act on this!
Spread this around.....if these documents are as authentic as they certainly seem to be, Obama is NOT qualified to be our President and he sits in the White House illegally!This is what Obama has spent almost $2M (so far) to hide."

Note that two allegations are being made:
1) these documents are authentic;
2) Obama has spent almost two million dollars to suppress the fact of his Kenyan birth.

In response,
1) Snopes has provided evidence that the Certified Copy of Registration of Birth is a forgery. I believe they're probably right, for several reasons:
a) The artifact has been traced back to a particular online image (an Australian CCRB) that was manipulated with information available online. In other words, there is no provenance for the image as presented, but there is provenance for the image as manipulated. Like moveon.org's fake Hawaiian certificate, it's an electronic forgery.
b) The number and other background information exactly match those of the online Australian exemplar. In other words, it was a rushed job by a careless forger.
c) The Certificate mentions the Republic of Kenya, which didn't apparently exist as such on the date specified. In other words, the forger didn't do his homework.

Okay, so much for one piece of evidence. But remember that in a court of law, the nullification of one piece of evidence has no bearing on the authenticity of any other piece of evidence. Mere intrusion of falsified evidence into a case does not cast doubt on any other piece of evidence, unless it can be independently brought under suspicion. So, on to the other document, the Coast Province General Hospital Certificate of Birth.

First of all, in examining this photograph I was amazed to find out how accurately my first depiction of it had been, based totally on a screen capture from a video actually filmed in Kenya. The Rense image is, naturally, much clearer--which most likely indicates that it is an actual photo of a physical object, not a manipulated screen image. Furthermore, we have full provenance for this artifact: it was obtained by a named individual on a specified date from a given location in Kenya--exactly where it would be expected to be found. Nobody could expect to make this all up just from information available online. So on its face, it shows no signs of forgery. But let's go on to see what Snopes has to say about it:

"This document exhibited many of the same red flags as the previous forgery. . ."

This assertion absolutely defies logic. Snopes listed only three red flags for the previous document, and only one of them is shared by both. Under no stretch of the imagination could one out of three be considered "many of the same." So those of us committed to the truth can stop right there. Snopes is carrying water for the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Nothing Snopes has to say on the matter can be trusted. But we'll analyse it regardless:

". . . including its identification of the location of Barack Obama's birth as Mombasa . . . a thousand miles to the east. It didn't even have an international airport until 1979."

There are several problems with this assertion, starting with a very basic math problem: Kenya is only five hundred miles wide (which comes out to about 1000 kilometers from Nyanza to Mombasa--hmmm). And due east of Nyanza is not Mombasa, Kenya, but Kismaayo, Somalia; some 300 miles up the coast from Mombasa. So Snopes apparently quoted this 'authoritative' source without even so much as a cursory glance at a map of Kenya--one measured in miles, that is. It doesn't appear that Snopes has much regard for the truth at this point, but we'll keep going.

The 'authoritative' but unnamed source (probably David Weigel) makes much of there not being an international airport in Mombasa. That's totally beside the point; there's an international airport in Nairobi, and it's only fifteen hours by train from Mombasa; that's shorter than the flight from Nairobi to Honolulu. That leaves enough time for three days in the hospital and one more to get out of the country by Barry's fourth day. And as for Mombasa being such a suspicious location in which to be born, guess what: a lot of births happen at surprising times and locations. The whole point of the story is that Barry's birth came somewhat unexpectedly, and Ann was taken to the nearest hospital to have him. And furthermore, Snopes has the whole scenario backwards: this isn't a 'second' document, but the original with which the whole fury erupted, and the primary source for the information incorporated into the subsequent forgery. We could question Orly Taitz' intelligence for accepting the latter at face value, but no more so than Snopes for doing the same with their woefully inaccurate source.

So, to conclude, the original email brushed aside questions about the authenticity of the documents establishing Barack Hussein Obama as having been born in Mombasa, Kenya. Snopes asserted their inauthenticity, using untruthful information to support this claim. Both were wrong. There is almost no chance that the document without provenance is authentic; but almost no chance that the provenanced document isn't. (Briefly, for those wondering what 'provenanced' means, it refers to knowing where something came from--not something that 'just appeared' from who knows when and where, as did the online forged Certificates from Mombasa and Honolulu). On to the next point.

Secondly, did Barack Obama spend 2 million dollars to suppress this information? The answer is a bit nuanced: Obama does have a legal fund, and has paid lawyers to take steps to make his records unavailable for public review. While none of that money has been recorded as being spent on these specific two documents, he has apparently ordered suppression or even deletion of the following records:
All Presidential Archives relating to him (one of his very first executive orders as president)
His hospital birth records
His mother's passport records prior to 1965
His kindergarten records from Honolulu, Hawaii
His Foreign Student application
His records from Occidental College and Columbia University
His Columbia thesis
His Harvard Law School records
His Harvard Law Review articles
His scholarly articles from the University of Chicago
His passport records
His medical records
His files from his years as an Illinois state senator
His Illinois State Bar Association records
His Indonesian adoption records

I can imagine that all this could well have cost $2 million, and as far as I know no one in the Obama camp is even willing to discuss this claim, much less refute it.
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2014: This whole list has been shown to be specious.

Okay, back to the email.

"A British history buff was asked if he could find out who the colonial registrar was for Mombasa in 1961. After only a few minutes of research, he called back and said "Sir Edward F. Lavender” Note the same name near the bottom of the photo above. Source(s): “ Kenya Dominion Record 4667 Australian library."

This all relates to the forged document, the provenance of which was an altered Australian certificate. Nothing about this smacks of authenticity, but it's only a red herring to distract from the authentic Kenyan birth certificate.

"The Mombasa Registrar of Births has testified that Obama's birth certificate from Coast Province General Hospital in Mombasa is genuine. This copy was obtained by Lucas Smith through the help of a Kenyan Colonel who recently got it directly from the Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya.

Lucas Smith, of course, is the man who originally obtained the Kenyan Birth Certificate. Any information about him would best come directly from him, but the email appears to have gotten this pretty close.

"The local Muslim Imam in Mombasa named Barack with his Muslim middle name Hussein so his official name on this certificate is Barack Hussein Obama II."

There's no evidence behind this statement as far as I know, just speculation.

The grandmother of Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. reveals the story of his birth in Mombasa , Kenya , a seaport, after his mother suffered labor pains while swimming at ocean beach in Mombasa. . . On August 4, 1961 Obama's mother, father and grandmother were attending a Muslim festival in Mombasa, Kenya."

I still don't know where this tidbit came from, but it's easily falsifiable. Was there a Muslim festival on August 4, 1961 in Mombasa? I haven't seen any evidence pro or con. One would think the debunkers could answer the question fairly easily. As for myself, I doubt there was. This statement is not provenanced and was probably made up off the top of someone's head. This doesn't prove that Barack Obama was never born, however! It's pretty obvious that he was born; the only question is, where? Obama has made a point not to answer that question to any reasonable person's satisfaction.

"Mother had been refused entry to airplanes due to her nine month pregnancy. It was a hot August day at the festival so the Obama’s went to the beach to cool off. While swimming in the ocean his mother experienced labor pains so was rushed to the Coast Provincial General Hospital, Mombasa, Kenya where Obama was born a few hours later at 7:21 pm on August 4, 1961(what a sad day for the USA!)"

I suspect this was made up based on a couple observations. Yes, obviously pregnant women were barred from air travel in those days, but first births, especially to teenagers, are almost never that fast, and any given day in Mombasa is hot; it's nearly on the equator! And there was nothing intrinsically sad for the USA that a boy was born in Kenya on that day or any other.

"Four days later his mother flew to Hawaii and registered his birth in Honolulu as a certificate of live birth which omitted the place and hospital of birth."

We won't know if this is true until we are allowed to see the actual certificate. But who could have known this information? His grandmother, for one, but she conveniently died just before this question was raised. I'm afraid this is not the statement of an eyewitness.


"Letter from Kitau in Mombasa , Kenya:
I happen to be Kenyan. I was born 1 month before Obama at Mombasa medical center. I am a teacher here at the MM Shaw Primary School in Kenya. I compared my birth certificate to the one that has been put out by Taitz and mine is exactly the same. I even have the same registrar and format. The type is identical."

We could really stand to examine this witness in court, inasmuch as he provides a key to one of the stickiest problems of the Kenyan Certificate: the dating scheme. The Certificate bears the dates 11/29/1942, 8/5/1961, and 8/7/1961. In the standard British format, these would have read 29/11/1942, 5/8/1961, and 7/8/1961. It would seem most peculiar that James Ang'Awa, John Odongo, and the Mombasa registration clerk all used the American format. We would practically need another birth certificate from the same period, bearing the same signatures, to be assured that this was not an American forgery. Thus Kitau's verbal and material testimony is essential. Where is he?

"I am by nature a skeptical person. I teach science here and challenge most things that cannot be proven. So I went to an official registrar today and pulled up the picture on the web. They magnified it and determined it to be authentic. There is even a plaque with Registrar Lavenders name on it as he was a Brit and was in charge of the Registrar office from 1959 until January of 1964. The reason the date on the certificate says republic of Kenya is that we were a republic when the "copy" of the original was ordered. I stress the word "copy". My copy also has republic of Kenya. So what you say is true about Kenya not being a republic at the time of Obama's birth, however it was a republic when the copy was ordered."

Kitau is here a witness for the authenticity of the forged Copy. Alas, it doesn't look like his testimony in favor of authenticity is worth anything. Instead, he provides testimony that casts doubt on the authenticity, not of the forged document, but of the provenanced one. He needs to be cross-examined to settle the question.

"The birth certificate is genuine. I assure you it will be authenticated by a forensic auditor. We are very proud Obama was born here. We have a shrine for him and there are many people who remember his birth here as he had a white mother. They are being interviewed now by one of your media outlets. Fortunately they even have pictures of his parents with him immediately after his birth at the Mombasa hospital with the hospital in the back ground. It will be a proud day for us when it is proven that he was born here and a Kenyan became the most powerful man in the world. I encourage anyone to come here and visit. I will be happy to take you and show you the pictures at the hospital myself as well as my document and many others that are identical to what Taitz posted. God Bless. Kitau"

Well, this is all very well and good, except that we have no way of identifying Kitau in order to take him up on his offer. Strike his testimony from the record until it can be somehow verified.

"So, how much more proof do we need? Well, Here it is...
This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name Barry Soetoro made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro.
Name: Barry Soetoro Religion: Islam
Nationality: Indonesian
How did this little INDONESIAN Muslim child - Barry Soetoro, (A.K.A. Barack Obama) get around the issue of nationality to become President of the United States of America?"

There are several allegations being made here; I should note that NONE of them have been specifically disputed by the Obama camp.

1) This is an authentic copy of Obama's school registration.
2) Obama was, at the time of his residence there, a citizen of Indonesia.
3) Obama was presented as the legal son of Lolo Soetoro.

So--forget, for a moment, all the accusations of forgery. This one undisputed document is enough to prove that Barack Obama is a foreigner--and as such is not qualified to serve as the President of the United States. Regardless of how he pulled it off, or how long he can expect to get away with it, he is a usurper: a Pseudo-president.

National ID: now and later

I was recently reading from a dystopian novel that got a lot of bad reviews due to the shallowness of the story line. I generally notice a lot of defects in fiction books, which is only one reason why I don't recommend them. At any rate, one defect not mentioned was the idea that in some future Big Brother state, a person could stay off the government's radar by living in a rural location. Ha.

I'll give a brief glimpse of my view of the future when I am an old man, sometime in the middle of this century.

Every adult will have a cell phone. But it won't just be a simple cell phone, it will be a computer registered to and usable by only one person. Everyone will have a Facebook account, and only one; it will be linked to the person's ID Number (formerly known as Social Security Number). There will be no such a thing as anonymous web surfing (except for geeks and/or Party Members with an incognito override password); everything anyone does online will be subject to instant recall for investigation, coercion, or prosecution. Logging on will be automatic; one's palm will be scanned to ensure identity as soon as the phone is picked up.

It will no longer be necessary to give your Social Security number over the phone, or to enter a credit card number for a purchase. This information will be part of your login. If your phone is stolen, it won't be able to be used without your unique palm print. There will be no pay phones or private land lines, making it virtually impossible to make an anonymous phone call. All remaining phones will have a finger scanning device that must be activated to make a call, facilitating Caller ID on the other end.

Physical credit cards won't be necessary; at checkout, you'll have your fingerprint scanned and your designated account will be debited the correct amount. Library cards likewise.

As you can see, it won't be possible to 'hide' from Big Brother by living in a remote location. All stores will be linked to the National ID, so it won't be possible to buy or sell without one. Nor will it be possible to have Gainful Employment, or even to receive payment for goods or services rendered. Or to own property, or to drive, or to take public transport. Or to pass through any checkpoint. Or to vote. Without a National ID, even the most basic medical care will be unobtainable. Not having an ID will require the utmost in reclusivity: such a person will be subject to arrest at any time for vagrancy, and anyone whose finger scan comes up blank will be immediately suspected of terrorism.

I started thinking about this recently when I decided to test the theory that it's impossible to be paid by bank draft. Having in hand a draft made out to my order by a share draft account holder at a credit union, I headed into the local branch to be paid. The building was indistinguishable from a bank, even down to its designation as a "banking location" on the front door. I went up to a teller and presented the share draft. She asked for my account number, explaining that no one can collect on any of their drafts without an account number at their credit union (or one of the credit unions in their joint association). If I could prove that I had no such account, I would have to provide 2 pieces of ID and would be assigned a "guest account" through which to process my payment. But since it's impossible to have 2 forms of ID without a National Identification Number, the teller was admitting that it is now impossible to do business without one. And there is now no difference whatsoever in banking at a bank, versus banking at any other financial institution under the national thumb of the Patriot Act.

As of yet, it is not a crime to be without a National ID Number. But there's no need to make it one. Without having the number to serve as a gateway into the entire financial system, it is increasingly impossible to legally participate in society.