DADvocate

In football parlance "pancaking" someone means forcefully knocking them to the ground. Friday night my son pancaked a linebacker so forcefully that his coach made a point of playing the video for the team today. Here's the video I took. He is the leftmost down lineman for the white team. He pulls to the right and goes up the middle for the strong block. The play went for a touchdown.

My son is a 6'3" 250 lb sophomore with lots of promise. He's getting plenty of playing time on a good varsity team. They are ranked 4th in the state in 3A schools with a 4-1 record. The one loss was to a strong 6A school.

One of the greatest indicators of who wins or loses a presidential election in the U.S. is the economic conditions of the country. When the economy is good, the party in office usually wins. Bad economy, the opposing party wins.

Consider Barack Obama's close ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives. Consider the six figure campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Democrats Chris Dodd, John Kerry and Barack Obama.

Consider Barack Obama's close relationship to ACORN and its role in relaxing mortgage requirements. Consider Nancy Pelosi's "harshly partisan" speech today, guaranteed to anger Republicans and lower the chance of the bail out bill passing.

I could go on for hours.

But look at the process and the context. The Democrats don't seem to want to drag out the process. The Democrats are spending more time pointing fingers than reaching solutions although they share as much or more of the guilt for policies dating back to Jimmy Carter leading to the crisis. Chris Dodd tried to earmark money for ACORN as a reward for them. Read the MSM. They're in hog heaven.

Look who's benefiting - the Democrats. They wanted this crisis. The MSM wanted this crisis. They wanted it hoping the economic conditions would give the election to Barack Obama. And, as shown my the actions of Pelosi and Dodd, they don't give a damn about you and me.

Watching Congress try to resolve the financial crisis is disheartening. Chris Dodd tries to divert money for a favorite liberal organization. The type of thing that contributed to the problem to begin with. Nancy Pelosi tries to play politics and calls Republicans unpatriotic. Funny how things have gone down hill so fast since the Democrats took over Congress.

I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around but John McCain did co-sponsor legislation in 2005 to try to avert such a crisis as we now have. Barack Obama took $105,849 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (At same link).

Ultimately, the people most responsible for the crisis are now "trying" to resolve it. Kinda like the fox guarding the hen house.

"Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper."

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Nathaniel Macon, January 12, 1819

Today we could substitute TV or radio broadcasts for newspaper.

Consider the above quote along with Obama and his thug's attempts to crush anti-Obama ads in Missouri. Given the tremendous bias in the MSM in Obama's favor, it's the truth in the advertising that he fears most. Neither CNN nor MSNBC doesn't appear to be covering this story.


The ad in question.


The response from the governor of Missouri. Gov. Blunt's scathing comments reminded me of the Jefferson quote. (I once won a contest for knowing the origin of this quote.)

Hat tip to Instapundit.

A vote for Obama is a vote for loss of personal freedoms. Here is an account one of Obama's latest attempts for silence freedom of speech. He wants to set up a "community service program tied to educational funding where young people can be indoctrinated in such beliefs as heterosexism being a negative byproduct of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege."

Obama's "responsible fatherhood" platform will surely lead to more burdens on fathers with no increase in equality in custody rights or protection under the law. I don't understand why any man votes Democratic. The Democratic Party has robbed men of many of their rights over the past 50 years and built a legal system heavily biased against them.

A simple truism is that the government can't do anything for you without taking something away. Many of Obama's proposals will take away our freedom. Every time you hear or read one of Obama's ideas consider its impact on your freedom. You'll find none that will increase freedom and several that will decrease freedom.

The freedoms guaranteed under the Bill of Rights are what make this country greater than any amount of wealth.

OK, it really wasn't a hurricane, just the remnants of one, Hurricane Ike. Winds were officially clocked at 74 mph. The gusts up rooted trees, tore siding and shingles off of buildings, spread fires and generally wreaked havoc. Power was knocked out to 1.25 million Duke Energy customers plus some others not served by Duke Energy (like me).

As of today at 6:30 PM, over 400,000 still have no electrical power.


Screen shot of power outages for Cincinnati (Hamilton County) and surrounding counties. To worsen matters, many of Duke Energy's maintenance and repair workers were on their way or already in Texas to help out with damage there leaving the Cincinnati area undermanned.

Schools and businesses were also closed. With many gas stations unable to operate, others sustained long lines.

Photos HERE and HERE.

Nothing like what Hurricane Ike did to Texas but quite a surprise for Midwesterners who expect a local tornado or severe thunderstorm occasionally.

News stories HERE and HERE.

Fortunately, I was only without power for 8 hours. Most of Maysville, KY had no interruption in power which is where most people in this area shop and buy gas. It was so windy, though less so than Cincinnati, at my house that I was afraid to mow my yard for fear a falling limb would hit me in the head.

Update: There's a certain irony of living within sight of a power plant and not having any power. Kentucky Power has a plant across the river from the mouth of the creek upon which I live, about 1.5 miles from where I live. New Richmond, OH has a power plant on it's western edge but the town was still without power when I drove home last night.

Listening to the news on the way home from work, I heard that many people in Galveston were staying home and riding out Hurricane Ike. Bad idea.

Galveston has a very bad history with hurricanes.

The Hurricane of 1900 made landfall on the city of Galveston, Texas on September 8, 1900. It had estimated winds of 135 mph (215 km/h) at landfall, making it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

The hurricane caused great loss of life with the estimated death toll between 6,000 and 12,000 individuals; the number most cited in official reports is 8,000, giving the storm the third-highest number of casualties of any Atlantic hurricane, after the Great Hurricane of 1780 and 1998’s Hurricane Mitch. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is to date the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States.

I watched a show about this hurricane on the History Channel (I think). The entire island of Galveston was under water. CNN has some excellent history on the Galveston Hurricane with video, pictures, etc.

I hope Galveston and Texas are spared serious damage but I wonder what it takes for some people learn that hurricanes are best watched from a great distance.

My oldest son mentioned this story to me the other day. Surprisingly, I'd never heard it.

In 1982, McCain ran as a Republican for an open seat in Arizona's 1st congressional district. A newcomer to the state, McCain was hit with repeated charges of being a carpetbagger. McCain responded to a voter making that charge with what a Phoenix Gazette columnist would later describe as "the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I've ever heard":

"Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi."

Emphasis added

He is the only candidate who has fought for you.

Obama gives Hillary the finger.


Obama's campaigned labeled a memo Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab).

Speaking to a group in San Francisco, Obama calls Pennsylvanians "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them..."

Obama has a long record for denying any personal responsibility for questionable friendships, earmarks, campaign gaffes, etc, etc.

I could go on for hours but what's the point?

The point is that Obama makes more than his share of "lipstick on a pig" comments and actions that strongly imply one thing (and his audiences cheer as if they get it), yet he claims innocence. He reminds me of the kid in middle school who makes the juvenile double entendre, gets a great laugh out of his classmates, and pleads his case to the teacher that he meant nothing.

Obama is obviously a narcissist, another sign of an immature personality. Glenn Reynolds wrote, "So much of "progressive" politics looks like the behavior of spoiled adolescents. and worse." Maybe Obama is the epitome of "progressive" politics.

Investor's Business Daily has an interesting series on Barack Obama.

Barack Obama has styled himself a centrist, but does his record support that claim?

In this series, we examine Senator Obama's past, his voting record and the people who've served as his advisers and mentors over the years. We'll show how the facts of Obama's actions and associations reveal a far more left-leaning tilt to his background — and to his politics.

The series includes

• Michelle's Boot Camps For Radicals
• Alice in Obamaland
• Findin Friends on Far, Far Left
• Obama's Radical Roots and Rules
• Reparations by Another Name
• Obamanomics Flunks the Test
• Obama's Global Tax

And more.

Katie Granju wrote a post today on the media treatment of Sarah Palin and her daughter. In the comments "Paula" addressed whether Palin was a "feminist" or not. Her main point -

The difference is, if Sarah Palin were in charge, and God helps us if she ever gets there, Palin will ensure that the poor and working class women of America have even less support, less help, less economic security, and less health care.

Paula offers no factual base to support her accusations, probably because there is none. But, the more interesting thing is to look at the crux of Paula's statement.

"less support, less help, less economic security, and less health care." I thought feminism was about equal opportunity for women, for women being able to have careers and compete with men in the work force on the same level. I thought it was about women having the same liberties as men to do what they please with their lives.

Of course, anyone who pays attention knows that feminism in its present form is not about that at all. But that's for another day.

According to Paula, feminism is not about these things at all. It's about getting support, getting help, being economically secure and having health care. Maybe this is an underlying difference in men and women. Men are taught to go out and support themselves, help themselves, create their own economic security and earn a good enough living for their families that their children and themselves can receive adequate health care.

Yes, there are times when many people need assistance from others. But, I refuse to be a part of any group that defines itself by needing support, help and assistance. Rather pathetic.

Overall I loved Palin's speech. Strong and straight forward.

Parts I liked:

You know, from the inside, no family ever seems typical, and that's how it is with us. Our family has the same ups and downs as any other, the same challenges and the same joys.

---

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.

---

I might add that, in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they're listening and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.

No, we tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

---

Harry Reid, the majority of the current do-nothing Senate ... he not long ago summed up his feelings about our nominee. He said, quote, "I can't stand John McCain."

Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps no accolade we hear this week is better proof that we've chosen the right man.

Clearly, what the majority leader was driving at is that he can't stand up to John McCain and that is only...

... that's only one more reason to take the maverick out of the Senate, put him in the White House.

---

And though both Senator Obama and Senator Biden have been going on lately about how they're always, quote, "fighting for you," let us face the matter squarely: There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you.

I also liked it when she blew a kiss to Tom Moe, one of John McCain's fellow prisoners of war.

Scary stuff. The APA believes it's OK for them to use behavioral control techniques without your consent or knowledge to influence your behavior regarding global warming. More at DrHelen.

I left a snarky comment at a post about Lindsey Lohan's opinion of Bristol Palin's pregnancy.

Referring to LL I asked, "Is she sober?"

The brilliant reply:

#
GoldnI writes
September 3rd, 2008 3:49 pm

Lindsey IS sober now. Her “girlfriend” Samantha Ronson has calmed her down. If you read Perez Hilton, you’d have known that by now.

As if I'm going to waste any time keeping up with LL or reading Perez Hilton.

GoldnI is mad at me because I pointed out that "explicit" and "comprehensive" aren't the same thing.

#
DADvocate writes
September 2nd, 2008 1:45 pm

Maybe you misunderstood me. Every 17 year old I have ever talked to knows how you get pregnant and how to prevent it. However, I’ve never done a survey. But my 12 year old daughter knows.

I was taught in public grade school in 1964 or ‘65. All my 4 kids were taught in public school. I think we may be arguing over the word “explicit.”

Palin said she wouldn’t support “explicit sex-education programs.” in response to the question below. “Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”

Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

I support a certain level of sex education in schools but the word “explicit” makes me wary.

#
GoldnI writes
September 2nd, 2008 2:10 pm

It doesn’t sound like “explicit” is meant to be in the same context as “explicit lyrics”. I think it means comprehensive in this instance. I take the context to mean that sex-ed programs should teach condoms and birth control, not obscenities. It was a weirdly-worded question, I’ll give you that.
#
DADvocate writes
September 2nd, 2008 2:39 pm

You’re inventing new definitions for the word “explicit.” Neither in the dictionary nor the thesaurus is comprehensive paired with explicit. If you’re going to redefine words you can explain anything as you wish.

GoldnI should have paid better attention during vocabulary.

Frequently Sarah Palin is referred to as a "beauty queen." The obvious reference is that beauty queens are dumb bimbos. Not the ones I've met. Maysville's Heather Renee French won Miss America in 2000. She is anything but a bimbo. (Plus, thanks to her my youngest son can honestly say he's been kissed my Miss Amerca.) I've known a few other beauty queens who are just as smart.

But, my question is this: how does the party of pretty boy candidates have the gall to belittle female beauty? John Kerry - pretty boy. John Edwards - pretty boy. Barack Obama - pretty boy. Joe Biden - old pretty boy.

My other question: Does Sarah Palin really eat mooseburgers?

Barack Hussein Obama brags...

“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,”

If this is an indication of Obama's debating powers, he's in trouble. He's afraid to compare his actual experience of Sarah Palin's actual experience.

First, he wants you to believe, although he never says, that he has hands dealing with his campaign's budget. Sure, he has lots of money but you can bet he isn't dealing directly with the budgeting of the money.

Second, Obama completely dodges the fact that Sarah Palin managed the budget for the State of Alaska of over 1.6 billion dollars. Does he think the American public is so naive as to fall for such a grade school trick?

Another budget lie being bandied around by the lefties is that Sarah Palin "Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms." "Slashing funds" implies cutting funding from the amount given the previous year. In this instance they are referring Covenant House which includes a transitional living program called Passage House. But that is not the case. Palin authorized far more money ($3,900,000) for Covenant House than Covenant House's entire revenues ($2,678,961) from all sources the year before.

The lefties are claiming Palin slashed funds because she did not authorize the entire amount proposed in the original budget proposals. Anyone who has worked in the not-for-profit arena, as I have, knows you routinely ask for more than you need. Of course, for minds filled with hate the truth makes no difference.

The left has lost all semblance of civility. They spout and spew the most vile, putrid, and disgusting lies about Palin and her family. Why are they so afraid of this woman? They'r more afraid of her than of John McCain.

Sarah Palin is a real woman with a real family and everything that entails. The left abandoned its supposed principles in a heartbeat (reference intended) when Sarah Palin became the vice presidential choice of John McCain.

So much of "progressive" politics looks like the behavior of spoiled adolescents. and worse.

Sally Quinn appeared on CNN cable news today. As with anyone not talking about hurricanes, Quinn was asked about Sarah Palin and Palin's family.

S. O'BRIEN: As I'm sure you know, Barack Obama has said he thinks that family is off-limits and has said that he will fire anybody in his campaign who he feels was sort of working behind the scenes to make this information about Palin's daughter, et cetera, public.

Do you think that these things should be off-limits?

QUINN: No, I do not.

---

So, I think we are so far beyond that issue of whether women should work or not, certainly, in your world and my world. But, in the world of evangelicals, that's not the case. Women are supposed to be subservient to their husbands and they are meant to be stay-at-home moms.

---

And everyone knows that women and men are different and that moms and dads are different and that women -- the burden of child care almost always falls on the woman. But I think, when you have five children, one a 4-month-old Down syndrome baby, and a daughter who is 17, who is also a child and who is going to need her mother very much in the next few months and years with her own baby coming, that I don't see how you cannot make your family your first priority.

And I think if you are going to be president of the United States, which she may well be, I think that's going to be a real stretch for her.

Read the whole thing, there's a lot more where this came from.

Quinn fits a lot of bigotry into a few words. Sexism against females and males, religious bias, ageism, etc. I just love how lefties love to create imaginary people and then act as if they are real. In stark contrast to Quinn's straw man of evangelicals, Marbel, at Two Kid Schoolhouse, reports the actual evangelical reaction by Dr. James Dobson.

We have always encouraged the parents to love and support their children and always advised the girls to see their pregnancies through, even though there will of course be challenges along the way. That is what the Palins are doing, and they should be commended once again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values, but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances.

I'm not a big Dobson fan. I've never mentioned his name before in my blog. But, he's a far sight more accepting and compassionate the a host of progressives and liberals including Sally Quinn.

Justin comments at Knoxviews Most likely. Although having a pregnant teenage daughter and a drunk for a husband (DUI) certainly wont help matters. I'm sure they both found Jesus so all is forgiven.

I wonder how many of you have had someone in your family pregnant out of wedlock or a brother/sister arrested for DUI. I happen to know that for the operators at Knoxviews the answer is "yes" to both questions, as it is in my family and my ex-wife's family and many other families. Will they speak up or allow the trashing of Sarah and Bristol Palin to continue because they're on the other side of the political spectrum?

The assault on Sarah and Bristol Palin, and their family in general, in the pregnancy issues are assaults on everyone whose had to face these situations and make the best of it they could. The gross insensitivity of many of the lefties is quite revealing but not surprising. Usually, they justify their statements with "If Chelsea had gotten pregnant..." or "Rush Limbaugh once said..." How easy it is to rationalize our own evil actions. Just because someone else has done evil or you imagine that someone else would have done evil, does it exonerate you when you do evil?

Where's the tolerance and acceptance liberals/progressives are always harping about?

Kos turns Bristol Palin's pregnancy into an issue of abstinence-only education.

Maybe one more abstinence-only supporting politicians will realize the limits of such an approach. Teens will do what they will do. It's obvious Bristol would've been better served with a discussion about safe sex. Instead, she's now facing a shotgun wedding to the baby's father.

If you follow the link Kos provides, you find a question/answer format sent to Alaska gubernatorial candidates. Palin's relevant response:

SP: I am pro-life. With the exception of a doctor’s determination that the mother’s life would end if the pregnancy continued. I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life.
SP: Yes. Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught.
SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.
(The question was "Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?" Rather broad, loaded question.)
SP: No, again, parents know better than government what is best for their children.

I don't know how Kos knows but evidently Kos has inside knowledge of conversations between Sarah and Bristol Palin.

It's obvious Bristol would've been better served with a discussion about safe sex. Instead, she's now facing a shotgun wedding to the baby's father.

As any intelligent person know, condoms break and the pill, in real life there is virtually no 100% effective method.

Perhaps, Bristol and her fiancee were using birth control in some form but it failed. But, I'm not Kos, I don't have access to this sort of insider information.

Unlike many lefties, I don't consider an unplanned pregnancy the end of the world even if it does interfere with my financial ability to buy lattes.

BTW - Does Daily Kos prevent some commenters from posting? I can't figure out how to leave a comment. Not that it really matters. I've commented there before but it's probably been over a year.

UPDATE - some comments from the Kos post:

• I think this is a disaster for Palin's image.
  
  (even assuming this is Bristol's first pregnancy).
• I believe this is Bristol's SECOND pregnancy. Look at her face, the same flushed / cholasma look.
• If only those kids had had the benefit of a properly administered sex education class then we wouldn't be having this morality play for our entertainment.
• if she had spent more time taking care of her family at home the way a "traditional wife and mother" should be doing, her daughter wouldn't have "got into trouble".
• I simply just love the "pro-lifers" especially when they drop their bombs on their own sorry-asses.
• It's also ironic that his name is Levi, and he couldn't keep it in his Levi blue jeans.
• Wait until America finds out that Bristol is actually the second coming of the Virgin Mary.
• Probably literally a shotgun wedding, from the looks of the Palin household. (I must admit I chuckled a little when I saw this one.)
• Sarah Palin is not only a mother also potentially a grandmother.
  "Liberal" blog rumor confirmed.
  Another yet unconfirmed rumor, is that her first son was conceived before marriage. Maybe it runs in the family.

It goes on nearly forever.

I have this self-revelation about the situation. When I was 19 my 17 year old girlfriend, whom I had been dating for over a year, became pregnant due to a broken condom. (Safe sex isn't always safe.) We married two months before our daughter was born and stayed married for 15 years. We endured some hardships but I don't regret any of them.

I worked my way through college, sometimes working full-time and going to school full-time. I eventually earned a M.S. degree. My liberal parents, who previously paying my college tuition, abandon all support. It was 10 months after the wedding before they gave us a combination Christmas/wedding present, a used sewing machine. To this day when I hear liberals in my family talk about selfishness and greed, I want to slap them silly.

My wife's conservative, and less affluent, parents gave us a house to live in rent free for 3 months while we got our feet on the ground. This was the beginning of the end of my liberal leanings.

Those making harsh judgments and crass jokes about Bristol's circumstances need to go look in the mirror until they realize they are no better. Bristol is fortunate to have a family that will be supportive.

UPDATE II - Good for Obama - "I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits," Obama said. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."

17 year old Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah Palin, is 5 months pregnant. I'm not 100% sure what to think about this. It doesn't change my position on McCain/Palin.

Ann Althouse posted earlier on how some lefties were claiming Sarah Palin was not the mother of her youngest son but that Trig was Bristol's child. Now these outrageous claims were proven to be a biological impossibility.

Teen pregnancy poses one of the formidable challenges of every parent. With so much blatant sexuality in our popular culture, preventing SRPs (Sexually Related Problems) challenges us frequently.

I'm curious how everyone will handle this news. Apparently, McCain was aware of the situation. I'm especially curious how the whacko lefties will react and NOW, who only support women on a certain side of the political spectrum.

In the words of Alice, "Curiouser and curiouser."