Its actually a sad commentary on how pathetic we’ve become:

Last week Florida Gators Quarterback Tim Tebow’s photo may have graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, the same magazine that is best known for its annual “swimsuit issue,” but the contrast between the two cover stories couldn’t have been more glaring.

At 21 years of age and graced with boyish good looks, Tebow is one of the most talked about rising stars of the NCAA; but the football superstar literally left reporters speechless last week when he answered a question during a press conference about whether or not he is “saving himself” for marriage.

“Yes I am,” said Tebow briefly, who then indicated he was ready for the next question. However, in the video of the press conference, a reporter is heard stumbling over his words in the background as he tries to ask a follow-up question. Tebow then laughs, obviously reacting to the reactions of the reporters in the room.

“I think y’all were stunned by that,” he says. “Y’all can’t even ask a question. Wow. I mean, I was ready for that question. I don’t think y’all were.”

It wasn’t the only controversial remark that Tebow made that day. In response to another question about whether or not people may be tired of the volume of coverage devoted to the young football star, Tebow, a devout Christian, said that the level of exposure he receives is a mixed blessing. However, he said, he looks at the positive side that, thanks to his fame, he has been able to share his Christian faith with so many people.

Tebow is also an abortion survivor – as the story goes on to note, Tebow’s mother was pressured to have an abortion due to infections during her pregnancy. She chose life, the world got a good quarterback and, more importantly, someone who is smarter than most of us.

I think all of us who convert or “revert” (as I did) to the Christian faith almost immediately realize that pre-conversion, we were a bunch of creeps and we’d give just about anything if we could make the past as if it had never been. Talking it over not too long ago with a single-mother friend of mine – shortly after I got married and after she became engaged to be married – we both realized that it is a very large regret that the particular aspect of physical intimacy would never be, for us, something we solely self-donated to the person we decided to marry. Tebow will, God willing, never have such issues. It is to be hoped that he’ll find himself a woman who is as wise as he’s been (though, of course, if God wills that it end up being a woman who gave herself to folly, then that will be fine, too; and Tebow will be a rock of support for such a woman rebuilding her life).

This is a man who is altogether admirable – doubly so because I’ll bet large amounts of money that he’d be the first person to deny anything special about himself. And in the larger sense he is right – he is the normal man; those of us who bought in to the lies of the modern world, we’re the abnormal ones…even if that means most people alive are abnormal.

God bless the Second American Revolution:

Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. – Samuel Adams

John Hawkins comments on the level of elite conservative vitriol directed at Sarah Palin:

…But why would the right have it in for Palin? The excessively vicious attacks on Palin from some quarters on the right make people scratch their heads — particularly since her critics claim to agree with her on the issues and so much of their criticism seems to be, at least on its face, completely irrational.

They said Sarah Palin wasn’t experienced enough — but, despite the fact that Obama has been in the White House for six months, he still has less executive experience than Palin. They said Palin spent too much time talking in platitudes — after America elected a man whose campaign primarily consisted of repeating the words “change” and “hope” over and over again. They got upset because Palin was parodied on Saturday Night Live — but what candidate isn’t going to be ripped to pieces on that show?

To many conservatives, those complaints didn’t seem to make sense when the people making them often seemed to give Obama a free pass for the very flaws they seemed to hate so much in Palin. Where did these strange complaints come from? …

…An unspoken assumption was made by many conservatives: Palin is like me and the real problem that Palin’s enemies on the right have with her is that they’re snobs and they don’t accept common people like me in their leadership.

Given the way that conservatives are regularly betrayed and the contempt for them that some Republicans have shown over the last few years, that assessment is probably correct more often than not.

Palin is, indeed, just like me. Just like most of the people I know. Quite honestly, whom do you want coming over for dinner – Sarah Palin, or John Kerry? The former has “American” on her like a crown; the later is barely identifiable as an American, at all. There are two Americas – that part which is proud to be American and that part which is not, or at least not so proud of being American that it trumps an Ivy League degree or the knowledge that the oyster fork is placed to the right of the plate. Palin is hated because she’s one of us who also has a chance of governing the elite – and they can’t stand it.

We are to sit down and shut up. Pay our taxes. Serve in the military/police/fire department. And leave governing to those who know better than us – and, sad to say, there is a substantial conservative elite who also feel this way. Even if they would agree to policies which allow the common man more leeway, they still don’t want that common man barging in and breaking wind in the palaces of the great (10 points to whomever can identify where I took that last bit from). This is why I characterize the real political battle of 2010 forward as “people vs powerful”.

The left is going to be excluded from this – they think that with Obama in charge they’ve got a seat at the table. They haven’t learned that their seat is in the corner where fund raising and volunteering is done…not where decisions are made. Conservatism may be excluded – to a degree – if the GOP leadership listens to the DC/NYC conservative elite and tries to shut out things like the TEA Party movement. The changes which are sought in the populace are revolutionary – no more tinkering about the edges and trying to figure out who gets what government subsidy. The desire is for a complete house cleaning and a re-emphasis on the rights of the people.

Scared to death of Palin and what she represents, the powerful are essentially closing ranks – preferring, to a certain extent, even the continuation of the Obama disaster if that is the only means of keeping the people out of power. Anything is better than some yokel like Palin (backed by a legion of House members and Senators elected first elected in 2010) actually ripping the government to shreds and insisting upon honesty and results. She must be stopped – and so they go after her thinking that if they get her, the danger is over (they forget people like Jindal – after his excruciating national debut, he’s discounted…but, he’s also of the people and, if you take any random 1,000 Americans, you’ll probably find he’s smarter than any of them…even if that 1,000 people were made up of Harvard and Yale PhD’s). Of course, she can be stopped – but what she stands for, can’t be. At best, the powerful will win a temporary reprieve – but the political executioner is not to be denied.

And they’ll be sure to buy it:

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday ramped up her criticism of insurance companies, accusing them of unethical behavior and working to kill a plan to create a new government-run health plan.

“It’s almost immoral what they are doing,” Pelosi said to reporters…

Meanwhile, Her Majesty has taken – over her career – $311,250.00 from the insurance industry, $176,450.00 from the pharmaceuticals industry, $542,250.00 from “health professionals” (which ain’t all selfless docs and nurses, ya know? A phrase like that covers a multitude of job descriptions…and sins) and $324,369.00 from lobbyists, some substantial part of which is sure to be insurance lobbyists.

She won’t be giving any of this money back.

Liberals will not put two and two together.

She’ll be thumpingly re-elected in 2010.

If a GOPer were in office, this would lead the news:

Regulators on Friday shut down banks in Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Oklahoma, boosting to 68 the number of federally insured banks to fail this year amid the pressures of the weak economy and mounting loan defaults.

We’re not even close to the bottom, good people – the second wave of foreclosures is hitting, and it will be accelerated by people just bailing out on their over-mortgaged properties. All Obama’s trillion or so in spending did was slow it down by a few months – and, in the end, make it worse than it had to be.

Meanwhile, as the economy contracts more than expected, Wall Street shows that the “Greater Fool” theory of stock investment is alive and well.

As we are about to get a dose of former hippies telling us what a wonderful, epoch-making event it was to have half a million unwashed stoners listening to rock and roll, the VFW magazine (article not yet available), notes that there is another group of 500,000+ Americans we should remember: those who were fighting in Vietnam during that four day mud-fest.

109 American servicemen died while draft dodgers got laid and listened to music over a bad sound system. Quoting from the article:

They mirrored the population of the time. A full 92% were white (seven of whom had Spanish surnames) and 8% black. Some 67% were Protestants; 28% Catholic. A disproportionate number – more than one third – hailed from the South. Over two-thirds were single; nearly one-third married. Now surprisingly, the vast majority (92%) were under the age of 30, with 78% between the ages of 18 and 22.

Overwhelmingly (87%), they were in the Army. Marines and airmen accounted for 8% and 4% of the deaths respectively, with sailors sustaining 1%. Again, not unexpectedly, two-thirds were infantrymen. That same proportion was lower ranking enlisted men. Enemy action claimed 84% of their lives; non-hostile causes, 16%. The preponderance (56%) had volunteered while 43% has been drafted. One was in the National Guard.

Whom do you think I’ll spend my time remembering?

Sorry guys and gals – I was out of blogging action for a little bit. Here’s an open thread until I can get back at it later.

The story:

Fr. John Malloy is a feisty priest, a Salesian of Don Bosco. He demonstrates the kind of courage so necessary in this new missionary age. This self described “87 years young” priest maintains a weblog entitled “A Shepherd’s Voice” where he updates the faithful on the latest fronts in the cultural struggle. On Wednesday he reported that “…board members of the Alameda Unified School District voted 3-2 to introduce a new curriculum that will expose children as young as five to homosexual activist propaganda. …The curriculum in question is defined as the “Safe Schools Curriculum Addressing Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.” However, a quick look at the lesson plans reveals that the issue of “safety” is being used as an excuse for indoctrination.”

He is correct…

Parents are the first teachers of their children. The family is the first school. To support “Parental Choice in Education” is to affirm that Parents should be able to make the choice of how to extend their own teaching mission by choosing a school for their children outside of the home. It is to support their right to participate in curriculum development. The teaching of the Catholic Church on this issue is crystal clear. The family is the first cell of society, the first church, first government, first school, first hospital, first economy, and the first mediating institution of society. That teaching is at the heart of Catholic Social Thought. It should also lay the foundation for building a truly just public policy in the area of education.

Which is why, of course, the left is so determined to war on the family – they don’t want Mom and Dad and those silly, old priests, pastors and nuns teaching the kiddies because that means the kiddies won’t be taught, to quote from the Grade 2 lesson plan:

Reinforce to students that in our school and community there are many varying family structures. Encourage students to notice that Roy and Silo were two male penguins but still were family…

…Reflect and Adjourn the Meeting

Reflect upon what is most important in a family is not who makes up the family but how they care for and love each other – just like Roy and Silo’s family…

And if that doesn’t work, there will always be re-education cam….errr…I mean, “sensitivity training” in high school and college if the message isn’t drilled in to their heads in grammar school: “Your family is not unique and beautiful, its just one of a swamp of human groupings, all of which are morally the same”.

The left hopes to use the public school system – very correctly identified these days by some as “government-funded indoctrination centers” – to create successive generations of people who are alienated from truth. Alienated from family, from God, from Church – enslaved to the flesh, dependent upon government and willing pawns of social control and leftist experimentation. Some people wonder why I keep battling it out – its because we have to stop these fools before they destroy all of us. Yes, even themselves – the dimwits don’t realize that the only reason they can be freakishly weird is because non-freak Christians, Jews, etc get the job of civilization done on a day to day basis. Some lefty’s understand this – and some get murdered for their trouble – but most seem to think you can have civil society absent civil observance of truth.

While I think Obama’s lame-ass attempt at damage control is inappropriate, I nonetheless am intrigued by this question, posed by FOX:

YOU DECIDE: If you could have a beer with any politician, living or dead, who would it be? Share your thoughts. Click on “Leave a Comment” below.

Now just to make things interesting, I want to know the answer to both, plus one other question.

Here are my answers:

1. If you could have a beer with any living politician, who would it be?

Answer: George W. Bush.

I think this is an easy one for people to understand. As most of you probably know, Blogs For Victory began as Blogs For Bush back in November 2003. I devoted a lot to helping his reelection in 2004, and that ultimately lead to be going to the 2004 Republican Convention, getting a book deal, and scores of things that began as a result of my blogging success. And, quite frankly, I greatly appreciate what he did for this country. I may not have always agreed with him, but I know he always did what he felt was the right thing to do. His leadership in the wake of the 9/11 attacks kept us safe. There is so much I’d love to talk to him about.

And, I know he doesn’t drink, but I would settle for coffee.

2. If you could have a beer with any dead politician, who would it be?

Answer: Ronald Reagan

I was born in 1980, so, there isn’t much I can really remember about Reagan’s presidency directly, but it is hard to deny the leadership he showed in the face of tough challenges. We all benefit today because of things he accomplished or set in motion.

3. What beer would you choose?

Answer: Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA or Victory Brewing Company Golden Monkey

There’s not much that needs to be said here… Awesome brews from awesome breweries.

How about you? Feel free to explain.

Good for Oklahoma:

Oklahoma’s bipartisan congressional delegation this week accused the Obama Justice Department of trying to strong-arm the state into rejecting an English-only referendum by saying it could cost Oklahoma federal funding.

In a stern letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the lawmakers – six Republicans and one Democrat – said Justice officials were meddling in Oklahoma affairs when they issued a pre-emptive April warning letter, well before any potential violation of law would take place.

“The Civil Rights Division letter was dubiously timed at the peak of legislative debate rather than in response to a particular state action,” the delegation wrote to Mr. Holder on Tuesday, questioning whether Oklahoma was being singled out and asking what funds would be jeopardized.

Obama’s “Justice” Department’s excuse is that they just wanted modifications to prevent conflict with federal laws – but that is pure, after-the-fact BS, if you ask me. Until a law is passed and enforcement is attempted – or, at least, a court case filed – there’s no way for Justice to determine if a law will violate some other provision of law. As the legislative process goes forward, Justice might be asked for an opinion, but it must not try to interfere with the process by threatening a loss of funding.

Obama’s Administration is getting a bad reputation for intimidation – they don’t want conservatism getting to the forefront because the liberals believe that conservatism was forever defeated in November, and thus liberalism should never have to argue with it, again, in the public square. All we’re supposed to argue about is the best means of implementing Obamunism – sticking to the “party line” as it were – we’re not supposed to do anything which might call in to question the underlying socialist, multi-culturalist and environmentalist assumptions of Obamunism. Oklahoma spoke out of turn, and His Majesty was not amused.

Three cheers for the courageous people of Oklahoma for standing up for their rights – and the rights of all Americans.