What to do?

So, I was all writing this post in my head about my awesome hair and how only one person actually noticed something looked somehow brighter and that he never would have guessed it was dyed because the color was so layered, which was totally the best thing anyone could ever have said about my dye job, and he initially asked if I had been off somewhere sunny. I'll try to post pics when I'm not so morally outraged.

So I checked my email. After this summer's family reunion, I get all this quasi-political scare spam from one of my relatives, which is all very religious at it's core and appears to equate Democrats with Satan and Republicans with Jesus. I have managed to ignore most of it until today.

And maybe it's that I still am off my meds and that I have a cold and haven't slept and I am trying so hard to hold my shit together and that I fail miserably about 14 times a day. Maybe if this came on a different day, I wouldn't be so damn pissed off.

So today's email is supposedly a forwarded message from some missionaries in Kenya, Barack Obama's "home." They are claiming to be able to shed some light "first hand" on Obama's personal beliefs and those of his "family."

Here for your consumption, some gems from the email, along with my thoughts:

• Obama's "family," which they briefly mention being his "tribe," is behind the recent uprising following the Kenyan Presidential Elections. Obama was born in America to an American mother and a Kenyan father. He spent most of his childhood in America, raised by his white mother in Ohio until they moved to Jakarta, India, with his new stepfather. He rarely saw his father before his death in a car crash.
  Hundreds of thousands have been displaced by the unrest and many untold are dead. Violence did erupt when the election results were announced. According to the linked report from Reuters UK, the death toll was standing at about 100, although many resulted from local police shooting looters.
  
• Obama has personally given money to his cousin Raila Odinga, the leader of the group responsible for the unrest, whom they slanderously describe as "a socialist trained in East Germany." Although Odinga once claimed to be a cousin to Obama, he is merely from the same tribe as Obama's father. Conversely, Obama has been positively identified as a distant cousin to Dick Cheney. Odinga did report hearing from Senator Obama during the unrest after the election, during which he expressed his concern, and he also said that Obama told him he would be calling President Kibaki as well. As far as Odinga being a socialist trained in East Germany, he did attend school in Liepzig and Magdeburg, both of which are located in the former East Germany (which hasn't existed since I was in high school). And political scientists agree his politics are not Socialist, they are Populist.
  
• Their proof that Odinga could only mean trouble is that he has been trying to bring Kenya down for years and was thrown in jail by the current president for trying to "subvert the country." Let us not forget that Nelson Mandela was also jailed for trying to "subvert the country." So have many bhuddists been jailed, many human rights workers, and many Christian missionaries.
  
• These missionaries are sure that Obama will lose and then claim the election is rigged, just like they tried to claim in Kenya. Oh, and then he will possibly start a race war. The UK denounced the elections in Kenya as rigged and members of Kenya's own electoral committee questioned the results. Questioning the election on both sides appears to be appropriate, as some areas showed up to vote with OVER 100% of the populace. It is clear that the elections were rigged, although it is unclear on who should have prevailed. Should the presidency be decided based on who cheated less, or who got their cheating overlooked? Oddly, the US did not join the UK in denouncing the elections, but simply congratulated the declared winner with no regard to the questions of accuracy.
  
• The next claim is that - GASP! - the liberal media is trying to hide the fact that Obama is a MUSLIM and a RACIST and that all Muslims are set on jihad. (They should know, they have been missionaries in a Muslim country for 20 years.) Most scholars agree that 99% of Muslims believe in peace and loathe the actions that have been taken in their name. Oh, and my friends at Snopes.com have struck down the notion that Senator Obama is Muslim. Not that there would be anything wrong with it if he were, but if you're going to slander someone, at least paint them with the right brush. I doubt Senator Obama has been masquerading in the Church of Christ for 30 years just to be able to claim he is a Christian now.
  
• Here's the clincher - his name is Barack Hussein Muhammed Obama and he will insist on being sworn in on the Koran. The swearing in on the Koran was a mistaken reference to MN Congressman Keith Ellison, who is Muslim and was sworn into the MN House of Representatives with the Koran. Hussein and Muhammed are very common names in much of the world, especially Africa, although I cannot find a reference to Senator Obama having a middle name of Muhammed. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
  
• Final thoughts - "We are still fighting for our nation to withstand the same kind of assault that every nation, including America, is fighting - takeover from the outside to fit the new world order." I can't even tell you what this is referencing. Muslims taking over the world to create a new world order? I beg to differ, as Islam is quite a bit older than Christianity. And who is trying to take over America?
  

So, since they are cramming this crap down my throat, is it appropriate to respond and tell them just how wrong they are?

Oh, and to seal the deal, PolitiFact.com has posted this exact email as a scam to slander Obama. They have researched many of the claims with the originators of the email, who are actually missionaries in Africa (12 years, not 20), and found the claims to be fraudulent and inflamatory (there might be a mention to "pants on fire"). They have posted links to their research.