The main stream media keeps telling us that Barack Obama is an outstanding athlete and a studly kind of manly-man. Yet, no evidence of that is ever forthcoming. Yes, there are pictures of him walking around topless on the beach. There’s staged basketball shots that took 11 takes and no media allow in order to produce a propaganda film of Obama dunking a basketball in allegedly one shot. But then, there’s also that bowling thing he did a while back that was really embarrassing to watch.
Now, we have Obama throwing out the first pitch at the 2009 All-Star game. It was painful. Truly painful. He got booed and we learned that Obama throws like a girl.
That’s okay in the big scheme of things. Our presidents aren’t elected on their athletic prowess. They are elected for their leadership abilities, their skills at backing down our enemies and supporting our friends. They are elected to represent America in a positive light and to stand in defense of our great nation. Whoops on all accounts.
We’ve had some athletic presidents over the years. Reagan played football. George W. Bush was a baseball player (check out what happened when he threw out the first pitch at a baseball game!). Gerald Ford was a well known athlete. I’m sure there’s more, but you get the point. Franklin Roosevelt was confined to a wheelchair. Abraham Lincoln was too tall and lanky, giving him an awkward gait. Its really not necessary to be a great athlete to be president, so it would be okay for Obama to be the nerd-ish kind of bookworm that he is, except they keep telling us he’s not. Kind of like they keep telling us that Michelle Obama is a world class beauty. She’s an attractive woman, but not a world class beauty and she doesn’t have to be to be First Lady. Its not part of the job description.
I just wish they’d quit telling us something when we can see that its obviously not the case.
Be that as it may. You can see Obama throwing out the first pitch at the ballgame the other night. You will notice that the camera angle is such that it doesn’t show the home plate. I doubt that’s accidental. We’d hate to see where the ball landed. It’d be embarrassing if he didn’t do any better than John Edwards did when he threw out the first pitch at a ballgame in as girlie a manner as is possible for someone of the male species.
When it came to be Obama’s turn to show his baseball skills, he pranced out to get the ball, then pranced to the pitchers mound. Then threw the pitch. CRINGE. It turns out Obama throws like a girl.
Check out the video below and see what everyone is talking about..
Obama Throws Like a Girl - Video
July 18th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Maybe he should get out on the ice with some farm boys from the Canadian Prairie Provinces. Those were some of the toughest and rowdiest guys I ever tangled with when the puck dropped. It could be fun, dontcha think?
July 18th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I am in my late fifties and I have thrown pretty badly for a couple of decades already. I don’t see where that attribute has any bearing on a person’s qualifications for president.
I suppose Beth just couldn’t take the time to respond to valid legal arguments about why a certain Birth Certificate may be considered legal under the law. She has decided that making disparaging remarks about a person’s throwing style will be more productive (for her anyway) than providing any valid argument as to why she considers a Birth Certificate that meets the proof requirements under US law is still ILLIGITIMATE.
She even goes so far as to call the Constitution, and the laws made pursuant to it, SPIN.
It would seem that she is now searching for her level of competence in this baseball arena. Perhaps she prefers to stay out of areas where it is obvious that she lacks sufficient knowledge to discuss the issues objectively, or has any desire to learn from a discussion of those issues.
We bought them books, and we sent them to school. What did they do?
They burned the books and ate the teacher!
July 18th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Dennis F. - his ability to throw a ball has nothing to do with his qualifications to be president - I said that in the post I wrote. Its just funny - plus, the media likes to sale him as such a great athlete - which makes it all the more funny.
July 18th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Beth,
I saw him throw that ball before the All Star game and when you consider the fact that he is a 48 year-old man, he did not look that bad. You don’t seem to understand the difference between the skills required to play hoops and the skills required to pitch at a major league level. It is not surprising that you would not have a clue how to evaluate an athlete.
To play as a catcher, or as a pitcher at the major league level you need to be able to throw the ball from home plate, all the way to second base, a distance of 127.28 feet. That does not sound like it is very difficult, does it?
Of course, the fact that you need to be able to make that throw while someone is holding your forearm motionless is something that you would not know, because you have no idea what it takes to play at that level. If you can’t make that throw from home plate to second base on wrist alone, you will never get to the major leagues. You have to remember when you watch someone throw that ball from the mound to the plate; you are comparing their wrist strength to the wrist strength of people who can regularly make that throw from the plate to second base on wrist strength alone. That is the strength that you normally see when you watch a major league pitcher throw the ball. Did you think that the strength that is required to throw a baseball at a speed of 90 to 100 miles an hour was really all in the arm alone?
If a pitcher relies too much on arm strength to pitch at that speed, the walls in their blood vessels would eventually weaken, and possibly burst, from the stress that they would be place under.
Someone who plays hoops would never have to build that specific level of strength into their wrist. Of course, a baseball player does not need to have the endurance that a basketball player has, although the ability to jump and get your hand up over eleven feet in the air would be of great benefit when trying to snag that line drive going over the shortstop’s head to center or left field.
Beth, it looks like your ability to evaluate athletic talent is about as good as your ability to evaluate a legal argument.
July 19th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Beth said:
Be that as it may. You can see Obama throwing out the first pitch at the ballgame the other night. You will notice that the camera angle is such that it doesn’t show the home plate. I doubt that’s accidental. We’d hate to see where the ball landed. It’d be embarrassing if he didn’t do any better than John Edwards did when he threw out the first pitch at a ballgame in as girlie a manner as is possible for someone of the male species.
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Beth,
Here is another example of the way you twist things. I don’t know if you are twisting this on purpose, or if that twist is only a result of your political leaning, combined with a mild case of ignorance.
You stated that You will notice that the camera angle is such that it doesn’t show the home plate. I doubt that’s accidental. We would hate to see where the ball landed. The obvious implication of your statements are that the media purposefully tried to hide something.
I have a question Beth. Where have you been for the last decade? Have you heard anything about HDTV? Did you know that HDTV has an aspect ratio of 1.777 to 1, while SDTV only has an aspect ratio of 1.333 to 1? Do you understand what that even means?
You probably don’t, so I will have to spell it out for you. The aspect ration is the relationship between the width and the height of the picture. An aspect ratio of 1.777 to one means that the width of the picture is 1.777 times its height, while an aspect ratio of 1.333 to 1 means the width is 1.333 times its height. If the broadcast is in HD, and it is viewed on a SDTV receiver, the only way that the full width of the picture will be seen is if the SDTV displays it as a ‘Letterbox’ picture. You know what that means don’t you? The top and bottom of the TV screen are left as dark bands so that the entire picture may be seen horizontally.
In order for the SDTV to display as a ‘Letterbox’, the broadcast image must be electronically formatted to allow it to display as a letterbox. If the picture is not electronically formatted for the letterbox, then the SDTV will simply cut off the right and left sides of the picture. The resulting picture will be missing one quarter of the image, with one eighth of the image missing from the left side, and the other one-eighth of the image missing from the right side.
The All-Star game is now broadcast in HD, with an aspect ration of 1.777 to 1. If you have an SDTV, you will be missing that 25% of the picture. The video that you posted in your blog for this thread is in SD format. It has the 1.333 to 1 aspect ratio, and because of that, the plate has disappeared from the picture.
Beth, the camera angle you saw was not accidental. It was just the result of the natural cropping that occurs when an HD picture is viewed on an SD television. Leave it to someone who is so paranoid that they see conspiracies everywhere they look to see something politically motivated in that.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:52 am
PLEASE COPY & PASTE THE FOLLOWING TEXT (between dotted lines), OR SIMILAR TEXT, AND SEND VIA EMAIL OR FAX TO YOUR SENATORS & REPS, TO PROTEST THE UNREALISTIC HEALTH & ENERGY BILLS. YOU CAN ALSO PRINT IT OUT AND SNAIL-MAIL IT. DO THIS ASAP!, IF YOU WANT TO PRESERVE OUR BELOVED COUNTRY!
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Dear Legislator,
I am completely against the current ram-rodding through Congress of two very significant pieces of legislation: healthcare reform and energy/carbon reduction. I urge you to VOTE NO on both Bills. These issues are too important to be rushed through without a thorough discussion in the public realm. We need to get it RIGHT, not just get it done! Additionally, both of these bills appear to be way too complex and expensive (and with too much pork, especially the energy/carbon bill).
1. On healthcare: It’s one thing for the government to regulate private enterprise, another for the government to get into the healthcare business. We don’t need everybody in the country on Medicare! We must preserve private enterprise and try to reduce taxes, not increase them. And please: no illegal aliens on my tax nickel! Finally, any provision that would take benefits away from our SENIOR CITIZENS in order to try to finance this Health Bill must be removed, and any “END OF LIFE” COUNSELING that would try to pressure SENIORS into foregoing health treatment must be not only removed but strongly CONDEMNED. This Bill is a legislative nightmare that must not pass.
2. On energy/carbon: Where are the nuclear power plants, the obvious low-hanging fruit? Nuclear is not the dangerous proposition it perhaps once was (look at France, et al.). For starters, there are numerous approved sites that could be expanded or up-graded (or where this is no current plant at all). And I am highly dubious of carbon trading: From what I can see, it is not working in Europe (Scientific American). Also, the major emerging markets (China, India, etc.) are not going to participate anytime soon. Further, WHY PENALIZE HOMEOWNERS, many of whom are under-water with diminishing home values, with a scheme to force them to upgrade their houses before they can put them on the market for sale? This Bill is ill-conceived.
Please take seriously my concerns, as your response to the above will determine whether you will be removed or voted back into office next time around.
Thank you for your time in reading my concerns,
Sincerely,
An Irate American-Voter-Taxpayer
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July 22nd, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Pass it on said:
On energy/carbon: Where are the nuclear power plants, the obvious low-hanging fruit? Nuclear is not the dangerous proposition it perhaps once was (look at France, et al.)
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When I was in the fourth grade, my favorite sport was baseball. I loved the game and learned as much as I could about the game. A few years later I was invited to attend a baseball camp that was run by the old Washington Senators. This was not a camp that the player put on as a PR thing, it was a camp that was run by the scouts. That is where I learned about the wrist strength that I would need in order to play at the major league level. That is one of the reasons that I responded to Beth on this thread.
As to the statement made by ‘Pass it on’ above.
As I said, my favorite sport in the fourth grade was baseball, but my favorite author was Enrico Fermi. (Yes, I was just like that kid with the physics book that Will Smith put the bullet through in the movie ‘Men in Black’). The reason that my favorite author was Enrico Fermi was because my father was responsible for Reactor Safety for the Engineer Reactors Group of the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1960s and early 70s, and some of that nuclear stuff rubbed off on me.
My father’s responsibilities included testifying before the old AEC (Atomic Energy Commission), the forerunner to the current NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commision). He spent a lot of time testifying before the AEC, and most of it was centered on what they called the ‘Maximum Credible Incident’ that might happen with a fission-type Nuclear power plant.
I will listen to what my father told me about nuclear reactor safety long before I take the word of some ‘parrot’. One of the things that they were learning about at the time was the phenomenon known as ‘Neutron Embrittlement’. This is something that happens to steel when it has been subjected to high levels of neutron radiation and it causes the steel to become brittle. It is more prevalent in Pressurized Water Reactors and is also more dangerous because brittle steel is not a good thing to apply a sudden thermal shock to as would be the case in an emergency reactor shutdown (AKA a reactor SCRAM).
The solution for this problem is to anneal the steel, but this is a corrective measure and must be performed after the reactor vessel has been in service for a length if time and is considered ‘hot’ in a radiation sense.
Well, the jury is still out on how effective this is, and as my father told me, it is something that not only increases the risk of a ‘Maximum credible incident’, but also increases the effect of it.
I am all for letting the French experiment with their own people for a few more decades before we go that route. In the meantime, we need to put more money into fusion research. It holds more promise with fewer dangers (I said fewer dangers…not no dangers) associated with its use.