DADvocate

The Maysville Ledger-Independent website sports this ominous headline: Proclamation, bill focus on teen dating violence. The story begins as follows:

During February, a spotlight will shine on the issue of teen dating violence on all levels, from county to state.

Mason County Judge-Executive James "Buddy" Gallenstein signed a proclamation Friday declaring February Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention month, a move echoed by Gov. Steve Beshear who signed a similar proclamation for the state.

Shari Staff, director of the Buffalo Trace Women's Crisis Center, said the proclamations shed light "on the fact that adolescence and young adulthood are critical life stages in the prevention of violence against women and that dating violence is an issue that affects thousands of young Kentuckians."

In my 58 years of life, I've never seen a teenage boy slap or hit a girl. I've seen teenage girls, and adult women for that matte, slap, hit, kick boys or men plenty of times. (Of course, they "deserved" it.) Kentucky is the state that as recently as 10 years ago declared all domestic violence is male on female. They based this partially on a study where they asked only females if they had experienced domestic violence. Kentucky is also the state that, with great fanfare, released convicted murderers from prison because their victims were male. But, no mention anywhere of the problems males face, especially that a female can have them imprisoned or get away with killing them by making false allegations of abuse or rape.

More:

Additionally, the issue is getting attention in the state legislature with bills addressing domestic violence being considered by the House of Representatives next week. Specifically, House Bill 30 sponsored by Rep. Joni Jenkins and supported by Rep. Mike Denham would expand the protective order statute to allow those who are dating or have dated to petition for protective orders, even if they have never lived together or had a child together. The bill would also expand the warrantless arrest statute to cover those in dating relationships.

Becky Young, a representative for the Maysville Women's Crisis Center who serves as a liaison between the crisis center and law enforcement, said this is the first time a proclamation of this type has been made for teen dating violence.

Young had been conducting research when she came across statistics on teen dating violence.

"I didn't realize how big a problem it was," she said.

According to information provided by the Women's Crisis Center, young women between 16 and 24 experience the highest rate of domestic violence but lack access to protection. In House Bill 30, it is noted that 32 percent of college students report dating violence by a previous partner and 21 percent report violence by a current partner. Sixty percent of acquaintance rapes on college campuses occur in casual or dating relationship, according to the bill.

I can only imagine the quality of that research. I am reminded of the time I sat in the Kentucky protective services office in Maysville to report child abuse. I picked up a brochure where I first learned that Kentucky considered all domestic violence male on female. I told the worker I doubted that. She replied it was true. I asked her how she knew. She replied that an instructor in a workshop had told the group that. There you go. Intellectually lazy, biased female social workers unquestioningly accept what's told them.

It's also significant that Maysville has a women's crisis center and no comparable facility or services for men.

It appears Kentucky is quite proud in leading the way to further diminishing the male's status in our society, the persecution of males, making it ever easier to legally attack, imprison, or kill a man without moral justification, and ensuring a future for our young men that makes this a country not worth fighting for.

A Warm Springs, Ga mother came up with a horrific punishment for her son making a bad grade in school.

Police have arrested a Georgia woman who they say forced her son to kill his pet hamster with a hammer as punishment for earning a bad grade.

Meriwether County sheriff Steve Whitlock told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday that the 12-year-old boy told his teacher about the killing. The teacher reported it to the Division of Family and Child Services, who contacted police.

The pet's death allegedly took place at the family's Warm Springs home.

What can you say about such cruelty? Anyone who needs any clarification or morality lesson to understand the repugnant nature of this act is beyond hope anyway. I suppose we could put this woman in charge of raising the next generation of serial killers.

Next, South Carolina's Lt. Governor Andre Bauer (R) makes an Dickensesque comparison between the poor and animals.

My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.

Later, Bauer tried to clarify.

He also said he wasn't advocating the abolition of the federal school-lunch program or any other government aid. Bauer said he wants the state to rethink how those programs are administered.

"This is out of love and compassion," Bauer said. "If I have to take a hit, then fine. ... I will take short-term pain for long-term gain."

Bauer, 40, said the criticism of him is political opportunism. He said there is probably no one in South Carolina politics who identifies more with the plight of the poorest South Carolinians or who spends more time helping the needy.

Despite whether or not Bauer's claims of working for the poor are true or not, he's demonstrated he's not gubernatorial material.

Bauer once S.C. Governor Mark Sanford to resign. I urge Bauer to resign and give up his run for governor of South Carolina.

Watching the election results tonight with one eye open and the other closed like I did as a kid looking for the boogeyman, I saw the news I wanted but feared would never happen in my life time - a non-Democrat wins "Teddy Kennedy's seat" in the U.S. Senate. Now, we can hope for a slow down of the runaway train wreck that is the Democratic controlled federal government.

We'll see what happens next. I just saw Juan Williams on FoxNews saying that he thinks Obama will continue of his chosen path believing he will win the hearts of the American people when they suddenly realize the benefits of the programs he (Obama) hopes to ram down their throats. Probably not the kind of hope Obama supporters had hoped for.

Responding to my post about Ed Schultz endorsing voter cheating in the Massachusstets where I pointed out ACORN's involvement steve2 responds, "To the best of my knowledge, ACORN has never been involved in voter fraud (precise wording here)."

Seeing steve2's response, I was stunned. How could a supposedly well-informed, intelligent person, as steve2 claims to be, not be aware of the antics of ACORN? Perhaps, steve2 practices inferred justification, a closed minded process where the closed minded person seeks information to reinforce his/her closed minded view.

the "inferred justification" part is what I find most interesting. People believe whatever they want, and then search for things to back up those beliefs. They disregard information contrary or challenging to things they believe. This has far reaching effects for policy considerations and only increases divisions within the American population.

Indeed, reading steve2's comment, you can see from the "(precise wording here)" part that he's trying to nit pick over the word fraud for some reason. Apparently, the use of the term "fraud" carries more importance for steve2 than ACORN voter/election activities that led to investigations in 13 states. Perhaps, steve2 supports these actions because the ends justify the means. How can the ignorant masses know what is best for them? They should follow the path prescribed by the intelligentsia.

In a second comment steve2 asserts, "Yup, I actually read them. Like most accusations of voter fraud, they are not substantiated. In this particular case one, yes ONE person has been convicted, not ACORN." In the New Black Panther case no one was convicted because Obama's Department of Justice suddenly decided not to prosecute. Nothing to see here, move along.

And, of course, following the rules of inferred justification, steve2 apparently fails to do a simple search to find in any other ACORN convictions. He would find some in Missouri and Washington.

steve2's focus on convictions serves as a smoke screen to hide the many illegal activities of ACORN for which there is no conviction or prosecution. Yes, let's only look at prosecutions, not at the actual activities. It's like only looking at the number of times doctors pay malpractice damages or lose their license instead of the number of times a doctor messes up. The figures would make doctors look much better although medical treatment (not just doctors) lead to more than 200,000 deaths per year in the U.S.

Over the past 50 years, from the time I first started questioning what adults told me, I've learned skepticism of doctors' advice and treatment. Whether it was failed treatment for my prepatella bursitis or a woman who died from a brain tumor because her doctor insisted her headaches were simply the complaints of a histrionic women, rarely is the doctor sued, let alone prosecuted.

Like many, steve2 chooses his terms and definitions carefully and precisely in order to satisfy his inferred justification and to be "right."

Here Sarah Durand outlines the Democrat's strategies for more election mischief in 2010. The threat still stands. Despite this, people like steve2 and some of the other commenters to that post care more about splitting hairs of the meanings of a word, or winning elections at any cost than ensuring free and fair elections with one man one vote.

Apparently many people fail to understand the meaning of the word "totalitarianism." Mention totalitarianism and they envision scenes of goosestepping men in hobnailed boots, posters of Mussolini or communist regimes. Yet totalitarianism easily exists with none of this.

Let's look at definitions of totalitarianism from Dictionary.com.

Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed:

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Domination by a government of all political, social, and economic activities in a nation.

While we commonly associate totalitarianism with Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, no where do fascism, communism or Nazism become part of the definition. A democracy or a republic can also be a totalitarian state.

Considering the U.S. government's growing intrusion into "political, social, and economic activities," one easily sees a threat of growing totalitarianism in this country. During the past 50 years, government control over businesses, health care, financial institutions grew significantly. Our personal behaviors and activities come under ever increasing scrutiny, smoking, drinking, what light bulbs we use in our houses, how much money we withdraw or deposit in our bank accounts, etc.

Whether or not the increasing control is "good" or not matters not in defining a totalitarian state, just that the government has control or domination. Nor does it matter whether government officials are elected, appointed, enlightened despots or dictators, just that the government has control or domination.

We have yet to reach the level of control or domination described in Orwell's 1984 or Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, but we're far beyond where we were 50 or more years ago.

Curiously, many groups clamor for government control and domination. Numerous activists groups scream for more laws and government control on everything from our social interactions to what we eat. Is living in a free world such a scary thing that we can't tolerate someone eating a Big Mac, fries and Coke or need to prosecute someone for making an unpleasant comment?

Last night I was flipping through the channels on TV. Comedy Central was showing an old Chris Rock stand up performance. Part of Rock's show was talking about Obama running for president. Several times during this bit he joked that the Republicans would cheat to keep Obama from running.

Of course, anyone who keeps up with ACORN and the New Black Panthers knows where the real cheating occurred. Now, liberal talk radio host Ed Schultz, once on Air America and now MSNBC endorses cheating in the Massachusetts (or is that "Massachusettes?"), endorses cheating to keep "those bastards" from winning. Ah yes, the totalitarian goals of the left shouldn't let the truth or the choice of the people get in their way.

After years of alarmism over global warming, now we're being told that an ice age is threatening. Yes, Professor Mojib Latif

a professor at the Leibniz Institute at Germany's Kiel University and an author of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, believes the lengthy cold weather is merely a pause -- a 30-years-long blip -- in the larger cycle of global warming, which postulates that temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years.

In geologic time, 30 years is a mere half blink of an eye. But, the prediction of coming cold with, hopefully, returning warmth makes me wonder more about the whole climate modeling thing. Computer models of any sort depend on all the needed variables being present at the correct values. No small feat for climate predictions considering we easily may not know all the variables.

Mini ice ages are nothing new and Latif is not the only professor predicting colder weather to come.

The Little Ice Age is believed to have contributed to the end of the Norse colony in Greenland, which was founded during an interval of much warmer weather.

Latif cleverly keeps the specter of global warming alive to allow the fears to continue. Continued cold worries me more as it would greatly threaten the world food supply and could bring world wide famine.

I also wonder if mankind hasn't developed a god complex. Not only can we supposedly accurately predict climate changes and conditions (when we so obviously don't), we can control the climate. I'm all for efficient, renewable, clean energy sources and minimizing pollution, etc. But, I still wonder about the true motives of many global warming alarmists. And, after ten days of below freezing temps, I'm looking forward to a little warmth.

One of the reasons cited for hating Walmart is that Walmart destroys local businesses by under cutting prices. While this has not necessarily been my observation, I wonder what the Walmart haters do, if anything, to support local businesses. Or, is it just all about hating Walmart?

This Christmas a Walmart hater I know received (from himself or his equally Walmart hating wife) a Kindle or similar device for downloading and reading books. This will allow him to download books to read while bypassing any trips to the local bookstores. One store my local town no longer has is a bookstore, the last of which departed about 5 years ago.

No wonder, with Amazon.com available with its huge selection and fast delivery.

Amazon and other online retailers provide good prices and fast delivery of nearly any non-perishable product and for many perishables. My family commonly buys nutritional supplements and shoes online. We save lots of money on the supplements and finding a decent selection of size 14 shoes in local stores, even in Cincinnati, is difficult at best. Occasionally, I'll buy some other item which I can't find locally, which isn't uncommon in a small town.

As far as the Walmart haters go, are they making any extra efforts to support their local businesses which Walmart threatens? I see little sign of it from the blogging community. I buy a few items each year from our local Radio Shack affiliate, i.e. a store that carries Radio Shack merchandise but is locally owned and operated. (This owner is particularly savvy and has begun carrying Stihl and Cub Cadet power equipment to diversify is product selection.) I patronize a few other locally owned stores when possible because I like having them available for quickly needed items.

But, Walmart haters buying Kindles and all the other stuff online that they can doesn't show their supposed love of locally owned business. Quite the opposite.

A piece at the XX factor concludes...

The calculus of long-term commitment is just different when your country guarantees the basic necessities of an advanced civilization. When your government provides you, as they do in Canada and in Europe, with health care that is unlinked to a job or "productivity," subsidized prescription drugs, child care, free education through graduate school, and, finally, old-age pensions with visiting nurses if you need them to retain your health and a modicum of dignity.

This is an essay on why government should provide all the services listed "free" of charge so women can more easily find a mate and have a family.

The writer, a Canadian, complains that the U.S. doesn't provide all this like Canada does for her and France does for her French friend. Without intent she more aptly exposes her own conceit and sense of entitlement.

I'm always baffled that women here don't demand the same benefits on which we Canadian and European women rely. It would make dating and mating a lot easier, that's for certain.

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Now, we should be able to secure decent futures for ourselves, with or without male partners: We have Ivy League degrees, speak multiple languages, are savvy and entrepreneurial.

Commenters attempt to enlighten the writer.

The issue isn't whether or not we can keep up with the relationship while it is good; the issue is whether or not we are going to end up penniless, with children we aren't allowed to see, or even in jail on trumped up DV or molestation charges.

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Um, no, you're not. In fact, you don't even know what the word "entrepreneurial" means.

Entrepreneurs don't spend their lives glorying about sucking at the government tit. They take risks, they take chances, and the win or lose based on the results of their efforts.

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As a Canadian living in Canada, I can certainly understand Americans feeling irritation at a foreigner criticizing the US, all the while living and working in NYC. I would like to add that avoiding contribution to the Canadian tax base during your prime earning years, while planning on scuttling back to Canada when things get tough in the US, is pretty disgusting.

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many married women can support themselves (and do) as well as their husbands can, thank you very much. this article was condescending and obnoxious.

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ms canada and ms frenchy friend really do want a man to take care of them...or rather they want every other man and woman in their country to take care of them.

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Articles like this are so pointless, but what really drives me nuts is the attitude that somehow foreign is better. Ridiculous!

Women seem to have as much negative reaction to the article as men. (Thank goodness!) But, I'm still disturbed that two multi-lingual, Ivy leaguers are so shallow and believe the sun rises and sets in their armpits. For them, being female means life should provide a free cafeteria line of whatever life choices they wish.

We took the Scouts climbing last February and saw some good climbers. But, this guy is amazing.