You were born in Puerto Rico. Your existence is invalid.

“Y is a fact, [so] your x is invalid,” is only funny when y = something silly and x = your argument. Then we’re talking about the meme most likely to crack me up. Infinitely less hilarious is when y = you were born in Puerto Rico and x = your birth certificate. Then we’re talking about millions of people being utterly screwed.

The problem is that Puerto Rican birth certificates are somehow extra ripe for being spoofed, forged, and otherwise used for nefarious purposes. The US State Department and Department of Homeland Security estimate that around 40% of forged US passports were obtained using birth certificates from Puerto Rico. That’s obviously a very serious and scary thing. The government’s solution, though, seems particularly ham-fisted: they’re simply going to invalidate any Puerto Rican birth certificate issued before July 1, 2010.

From my reading of the article, it seems that a large part of the problem is the way that birth certificates are passed along to and for in Puerto Rican society. From the end of the article:

Only 45,622 children were born in Puerto Rico in 2008, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But more than 860,000 certified copies of birth certificates were issued by the Puerto Rican Office of Vital Statistics the same year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

That is an insane discrepancy between people born and birth certificate copies issued. Over the course of a lifetime, so many people in Puerto Rico request extra copies of their own and their children’s birth certificates, and really have no idea where the extras are now. Of course unscrupulous people are using Puerto Rican birth certificates; well-meaning citizens have made things easy for them by having so many extra copies of real birth certificates floating around. If that doesn’t change, will the goverment’s new measures make any difference in the long run?

What is that song?

While we were in Puerto Rico, there was one song that we heard ALL THE TIME. In stores, every time we turned on the radio, just walking down the street. So now, of course, it’s stuck in my head, and I have no idea what it is or who sings it. Added to that, I don’t remember any of words, just that it sounded like a power ballad and has a lot of OOOOHHs in it. I’m on the case, though!

Puerto Rico!

I love Puerto Rico. The weather is nice, and I’m not really expected to do anything other than veg. Being with other people means that said vegging is a mite more coordinated than I might prefer, but we’re having a great time together. More when I get back!