Breakfast Scramble (Wednesday)

STFU, General, from David Nakamura and Javed Hamdar, Washington Post

KABUL – Gen. David H. Petraeus on Tuesday denounced plans by a Florida church to burn copies of the Koran this weekend, saying the demonstration could “endanger troops” and damage the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.

General with all due respect, you took  an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.   So butt out of domestic politics and mind your war.

Good luck with that, from Politico:

John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress and leader of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team, expects to see some “soul-searching” and “changes” in the White House after November’s elections.

With Democrats expected to lose dozens of seats in the midterms — and possibly control of Congress — Podesta believes Obama will have to make changes to adapt to the new political environment.

“After November, you’ll see some soul-searching and some changes particularly in the way that he’s talked to the American people and really communicated, particularly, I think, with the business community,” Podesta said Tuesday morning on MSNBC

You can’t search what you can not find, and nobody is going to find a soul at the Obama White House to search.

Fred knows number one from number two, from Politicio:

“Obama: some people in DC ‘talk about me like a dog.'” [Fred] Thompson wrote on his Twitter feed (@FredThompson). “Maybe it’s because he keeps treating this country like a fire hydrant.”

Thompson’s tweet followed a number of critical swings at the president’s announced plan Monday to request $50 billion in additional infrastructure funds.

Gee Eric, I just hate to keep pounding my chest.   However Fred doss seem to know when to use a piss analogy rather than a scat one.

Did you mean genocide or gynocide, Jay Tea  Wizbang:

Think about that. The pro-choice crowd touts abortion as the most important issue for women, the main thing that keeps women from being a slave, are now facing the uncomfortable fact that abortion is now being used as a de facto form of genocide against women.

This should come as no surprise. If one argues that abortion should always be legal, no matter the reason, then you’re going to have do accept that sometimes the reasons include “we don’t want a daughter, we want a son.” In fact, in a lot of cases around the world, that’s proving to be increasingly common.

While I do admit that a world with the cows, err the gender feminists does sound nice, a world without women would soon be world without people.

Hear the man who wrote Obama’s “They treat like a dog” speech, video:

I say no more.

Dumbo is not a dog, Dumbo, a/k/a Dim Won, b/k/a Barack Obama as attributed by CNN:

“Some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time and they’re not always happy with me. They talk about me like a dog. That’s not in my prepared remarks, but it’s true,”

Have never called Dumbo a dog.   A dog can be faithful, loyal and friendly.    Properly cared for a loved, a dog is man’s best friend.   I know dogs, and Dumbo you are no dog.

Nor is Dumbo a demon. William Jacobson, Legal Insurrection, offers his take on Dumbo’s, to wit “Demonizer-In-Chief Upset People Demonize Him”   Dumbo should not be thought of as a demon.     That would falsely infer that Dumbo was competent.  Rather Dumbo is a moron and is best used for sport.

However Dumbo is dumb, from Jay Tea, Wizbang:

Supporters of President Obama like to tout his intellectual credentials. Columbia, Harvard Law, Harvard Law Review Constitutional Law scholar, and so on. (Just don’t look too carefully for actual proof of his intellect — don’t ask for his grades, his writings, or stuff like that. Just take his success there at face value.)

…. and the light bulb you rode in on, video:

I will never consent to the CFL.  Will you?   What would be the charge for throwing  a CFL into Mrs. Pelosi’s office?

Hat tip: Rrick Erickson, Red State.

Hey, Barry…. some advice….

(CNN) – Those following President Obama’s prepared remarks during a speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Monday were thrown a bit of a curveball when it came to a description of his critics:

“Some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time and they’re not always happy with me.  They talk about me like a dog. That’s not in my prepared remarks, but it’s true,” he told a crowd largely consisting of union members.

If you want folks to not talk about you like you were a dog, stop crapping on the carpet.

See also, First Things, Tammy Bruce,,THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Sister Toldjah, Michelle Malkin

Mike Allen at The Politico:

(edit and addendum 14:20)

On Labor Day the it seems reasonable to do some research on recent history and on current plans within the unions.

So does Michelle Malkin, who  says today::

My syndicated column today takes on the rise of President Obama’s best new Big Labor buddy, Richard Trumka — whose looming presence on the political scene I first flagged in April. As we noted last week, he’s got a combined $88 million war chest with his labor alliance and a Marxist get-out-the-vote force behind him. When they are through, they’ll make the SEIU Purple Army’s political expenditures (and its thuggery) look like a pittance.

She also goes so far as to post her most recent Creators Syndicate column Big Labor’s legacy of violence.

All Americans who like freedom should be reading this and should be reacting to it.  Labor unions are not about freedom.  Labor unions are about force.  And they are not a force for good.  The fact that labor unions have attached themselves to Obama should be your first clue.  A look into the recent history of labor unions, however, should cinch the deal.

Code Pink where are you? Code Pink is not so much anti-war, as it is pro-liberal, form Jammie Wearing Fool:

As President Barack Obama formally declared an end to combat operations in Iraq this week, the anti-war movement that helped sweep him into office — and that worked for seven years to bring U.S. troops home — finds itself struggling for survival.

Several factors — war fatigue; a deep, lingering recession; and the presence of a Democratic president they helped elect — have drained the energy from organizations that led the fight against the Iraq war. Some of the most influential anti-war activist groups that once summoned half a million people to march against the Iraq war and the policies of President George W. Bush are straining to raise the money and attention to fight what they see as Obama’s military entrenchment in Afghanistan.

When republican fight it an evil war.   When democrats wage war, Code Pink thinks it just peace.

Bring on the Fat Lady, from Sheryl Gay Stolberg,   New York Slimes:

Despite stinging criticism of her summer vacation to Spain with daughter Sasha — aides warned her not to go, and the backlash was fiercer than they had imagined — Mrs. Obama is the most popular member of her husband’s administration. Having worked to build good will through nonideological causes like fighting obesity and assisting military families, aides say, she is ready to spend some of her political capital to advance President Obama’s agenda — and her own.

I make it rule never to take diet advise from a fat person.  Do you?

Ramble Back, Eric rambled:

Obama’s efforts at solving the financial crisis are less than successful because you can’t use government to solve a problem created by government. The president would like us to forget this fact because to admit it would mean he would have to confess that government was the problem. That is something a big government Democrat will never do.

It is certainly true that the Obama administration has done nothing to put an end to the Obama recession.  My question, is the Obama administration even interested in fixing the broken economy?    This item via Mark Hemingway, Washington Examiner, suggests not:

The White House said Aug. 9 that a successor to Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, would be named “by September 3rd, when Dr.  Romer leaves her post.” That’s today, and no announcement is planned before the holiday. The West Wing has been flummoxed over a replacement. The Chicago crowd likes campaign stalwart Austan Goolsbee, now working under Romer, and no obvious alternative to him emerged. Goolsbee’s good on TV, and they need a communicator. But some aides argue for keeping a woman on the econ.  team

Obama economy is dead in the water and his administration is concerned about the sex, and not the competency, of his economic advisers.

Stacy McCain kent spell, however he sure can write, from Other McCain:

Some things are predictable — i.e., that the Palin-haters would decide it was a good time to recycle the old SPLC/LGF attacks on me in order to exploit my interview with Todd Palin for a guilt-by-association smear. When Rachel Maddow tried the same trick last fall — based on my friend Lynn Vincent’s collaboration with Sarah Palin on Going Rogue — I made a few points in my response.

That is all.

Via “Young Americans for Liberty”:

Shocked to discover the statistic that 2 times more American soldiers that served in Iraq had died in 2009 by committing suicide than those killed in combat during that same year hadn't been properly addressed in the press and is unknown by a majority of the general population, New York-based installation artist Sebastian Errazuriz took to the wall outside of his studio in Brooklyn.

I suggest Obama and the left are to blame. We saw nothing of the sort before the left swept into power and the new attitudes about our soldiers and their job in Iraq. Given the lessons taught in Vietnam, I think the connection undeniable. It is clear to the soldiers who are committing suicide that they do not have the support of their government.  As with Vietnam. 

Sorry, but I lay this one directly at the feet of the Obama White House, and the leftist numbskulls therein.

Yep… no disconnect here.

Dan Miller over at Pajamas Media:

Some probably disagree, but I think President Obama’s race was the deciding factor in his election. Had he been Caucasian, Asian, or Hispanic, he probably would not have got the Democratic Party nomination, much less been elected president. President Hillary Clinton would likely be sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office.

The comment is probably spot on.  But I wonder; what does this give us of the future?  With the disaster that America’s first black in president has brought us has Obama done a disservice to race relations in this country?   Miller examines this question, thus…

I wonder whether a black conservative — LTC Allen West (U.S. Army, retired) for example — would have a chance as a presidential contender. He may be too black for some and too “Oreo” for others; if so, the poisoning of the well will be largely to blame and some of that blame must fall on President Obama.

…

President Obama need not shoulder all of the blame. His acolytes in the media and in politics disparage — increasingly, it seems — just about everyone who expresses disagreement with President Obama and his policies, such as they are or seem to be, as “racist.”

….which seems to me egregious in the extreme .

Allow me to be clear on this point:

While I tend to agree that Obama likely would not have been elected had he not been black, I suggest that race isn’t the core issue here. Certainly, it is Obama policies which are causing our current problems.  His race has nothing to do with that, anymore than would Mrs. Clinton’s sex were she following the likely path of implementing exactly the same policies on being elected as President.

Yet as Miller points out, anyone who finds fault with Obama and his policies are immediately and knee-jerkishly and almost gleefully  labeled as “racists”.  Similarly, were Mrs. Clinton in the White House we would be hearing arguments like “Well, you just don’t like a strong woman, you sexist” as we did when she was first lady.  I said at the time that the cause of equality of women in our society was not served well by such arguments.  I will say, then, that the cause of racial equality is not served by charges of racism when clearly race has nothing to do with the issue of hand.

I’ve said often enough in these spaces that charges of racism and sexism are all too often used as a foil to repel unpleasant facts. So it is with this case.

Given political realities, however, one cannot help but wonder if the well hasn’t been poisoned for conservative politicians who happen to be racial minorities?  I suppose that the voters simply cannot endure the kind of disaster that Obama policies have wrought on us,  without there being some psychological effect as one enters the voting booth.

One of my hobbies while out on the road is collecting photographs of trucks that catch my eye.  There’s a few photographs of my own truck mixed in with this collection. 

“a collection of trucks that have caught my eye”

From Trucks, posted by Eric Florack on 6/03/2010 (107 items)

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

Just going over some of my older writings and came across something at Pajamas Media:

Obama’s efforts at solving the financial crisis are less than successful because you can’t use government to solve a problem created by government. The president would like us to forget this fact because to admit it would mean he would have to confess that government was the problem. That is something a big government Democrat will never do.

Such an admission would also force the Democrats into the uncomfortable position of admitting there was a logical business reason for some folks not getting home loans — a reason that had nothing to do with the rich, racism, or any of the other Democratic Party codewords.  Since those same people who got loans they couldn’t afford are among the Democratic Party’s core group of voters, that’s not going to happen.

Clearly, it is in the political interests of the Democrats to make us forget it was government, and not the bankers or anyone else, who created this problem. This effort would doubtless be aided by the perception on the part of the voters that Obama’s not the problem but the solution, which was part of the president’s message in that “pitchfork” line.

It sure doesn’t help that we have so few true fiscal conservatives and free-market thinkers in government right now. If we had more of them (and people of courage to boot), we could see honest discussions of the problems and the solutions. We’d actually see people in government propose the unusual idea that government is the problem and thus can’t be the solution. Then again, given the Democrats’ hold on all three branches of government, one can hardly expect such miracles to occur within those marble halls.

But imagine what would have happened  if one or more of the bankers in that meeting with Mr. Obama had had the courage to stand up and remind him of of the facts:

“No, Mr. President. The only thing between the Democrats and the pitchforks is us, the bankers, and that’s the way it always has been.  You Democrats used us to buy votes with home loans, requiring us to lend money to people who could not pay it back. You left us holding the bag, Mr. President — you and the rest of the Democrats then in Congress. And you need our cooperation to save your political hide from the people with the pitchforks.”

One can only conclude we’d all be in better shape (both from a financial standpoint as well as from the standpoint of freedom) if the bankers showed that kind of  mettle. Trouble is, I fear, such courage is not in them.

As NAZI Germany taught us it’s always by far easier to go along with the wind that’s blowing from houses of government. So it was with the bankers and financial types on Wall Street, following the most recent presidential election.

Now it’s down to repairing the damage.

As I said back then, it’s impossible to use government to solve a problem created by the government.  That’s precisely what Obama has been trying to do.  And by now, I suspect that the message is quite clearly received that Obama is unable to solve the problems he and his fellow leftist Democrats created.

Mere words, from Salon:

Tonight at 8 p.m. President Obama will deliver a speech from the Oval Office on the end of “combat operations” in Iraq.

The first thing to know about this is that combat operations are not ending in Iraq.

There are still 50,000 U.S. troops, 11,000 armed security contractors, and lots of other DOD contract employees in Iraq. Those remaining troops will, incidentally, continue to receive combat pay

Saying  it, does not make it so.

Da pay gap, women’s earning differ from men’s not because of some nefarious plot, but because men  and women make different choices.   Who would have thunk, from Paul Wiseman, Useless Toady:

Single, childless women in their twenties are finding success in the city: They’re out-earning their male counterparts in the USA’s biggest metropolitan areas.

Women ages 22 to 30 with no husband and no kids earn a median $27,000 a year, 8% more than comparable men in the top 366 metropolitan areas, according to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau data crunched by the New York research firm Reach Advisors and released Wednesday. The women out-earn men in 39 of the 50 biggest cities and match them in another eight. The disparity is greatest in Atlanta, where young, childless single women earn 21% more than male counterparts

Never married women  with no children earn more than men.  No big deal, except if you are trying to claim some female pay disparity.   As marriage and chilld rearing are voluntary activities, nobody has to get married and nobody is forced to raise a child, the reason women earn less than men is the choices they make.

Smacking Stephen Hawking, from CNN:

Religious leaders in Britain on Friday hit back at claims by leading physicist Stephen Hawking that God had no role in the creation of the universe.

In his new book “The Grand Design,” Britain’s most famous scientist says that given the existence of gravity, “the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” according to an excerpt published in The Times of London.

“Spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,” he wrote.

“It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [fuse] and set the universe going.”

I don’t get to smack around Stephen Hawking too much. however smart Hawking may be, he is flat out wrong.  Science deduce from what it can observe.    At some point science runs out of ability make observations and deduction.   At the point science is force to stop, the existence of God can not be rejected.

A bit of programming and presto!   BitsBlog is now available on FaceBook.

I share something in common  with Dumbo, a/k/a Dim Won, b/k/a Barack Obama.  Neither one of  us is a Christian .   The difference is that while am smart enough to realize it, and honest enough to admit it, Obama  is not.    Obama professes in something called “collective salvation” article here and video here:

You are a Christian if you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, period.  The idea of  some collective salvation may not be without merit, but it sure is not Christianity.  While Glenn Beck is not a revered on this board as the real Beck, Beck the lesser does make a well argued point, is not he has his religious ducks lined up.