Three weeds from the same root

[hoodwink]

Seems more like a case of reductio ad absurdum, but it still gave me a chuckle.

Many anthropologists argue that we are all related -- it's called the "Eve Theory." But this is almost too much. A genealogist, going back several centuries, says President Obama is distantly related to Sarah Palin on his mother's side, and is a 10th cousin once removed of one of his arch-critics, fiery conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh.

Utah-based Ancestry.com said it examined Obama's family tree and found he has a common matriarchal ancestor to Palin named John Smith, a 17th-century pastor in Massachusetts who opposed the persecution of Quakers, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. "He was a very socially conscious man," said genealogist Anastasia Tyler.

President ObamaLimbaugh, who declared last year that he hoped Obama's presidency would fail, is said to be related through a man named Richmond Terrell, a landowner in 17th-century Virginia.

Obama's late mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was from Wichita, Kan., and of English, Irish and German descent.

Genealogists find ancestors by tracing family trees back as far as possible. Connecting well known people through distant cousins is a time-honored exercise.

Palin, for instance, is said to be distantly related to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a man she is trying to defeat in Nevada by backing his Republican rival, Sharron Angle. Obama is believed to have a great-great-great-grandfather in County Offaly, Ireland. And Lynne Cheney, wife of former Vice President Dick Cheney, believes Cheney and Obama are eighth cousins (The Chicago Sun-times says they're ninth cousins, once removed). And finally, former President George W. Bush is related -- going way back -- to both Obama and Palin, according to Ancestry.com.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/10/13/obama-related-to-palin-limbaugh-maybe-but-theyre-not-kissin/

[Humanicide]

A lot of those comments seem to be OMG ITZ TEH ILLUMINATIZ.

But I don't really find myself to be all that surprised.

[hoodwink]

A lot of those comments seem to be OMG ITZ TEH ILLUMINATIZ.

But I don't really find myself to be all that surprised.

I'd be lying if I said the news isn't particularly surprising to me either.  Whether or not you require a reptilian agenda or global ruling elite to make sense of how things work, the most naive assumption is that anyone who winds up in positions of power is chosen arbitrarily.

[Mikey]

it could be complete bs, has anyone verified that all of  those people were even dna tested in the first place? dna testing is very expensive and most people are not even interested in it.

[Conservationist]

Whether or not you require a reptilian agenda or global ruling elite to make sense of how things work, the most naive assumption is that anyone who winds up in positions of power is chosen arbitrarily.

Or even more cynically: once the peasants deposed the aristocracy, they had a small group of people among whom they could find friends, and that group shows up everywhere because (a) it's nepotistic and self-perpetuating but more importantly, (b) 98.6% of humanity are TOTALLY FUCKING INCOMPETENT at anything more complex than checking FaceBook, posting their tits, drinking like boars and rutting like hyenas, then passing out and when they wake up caked in fluids and feces, blaming the government.

Sad but true