Balloon Juice has the run-down.

Via Protein Wisdom, who also has an electoral count round-up. Filet-O-Fish is mentioned.

Update: The amateur leftist webzine Slate has its own electoral count, and it finds that Kerry will likely win by a small EC margin.

Did I mention that every Republican or conservative or RINO really needs to vote?

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 AM | Comments (6)
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A couple of people have sent me the link to this video of John Edwards primping before a TV appearance.

Like Instapundit, I don't see what the big deal is.

Actually, I could easily see myself making a big deal over this, just to score a cheap shot, but unfortunately that would put me on the side of the unfunny poseur who calls himself an artist for putting together a rather banal video installation of pundits getting ready to go on the air. Harry Shearer, I mean.

Yeah, look, I know he was in Spinal Tap, but let's face it, Shearer wasn't just speaking in character when he said that Nigel/Guest was the fire and McKean/St. Hubbins was the ice and Shearer/Smalls was the "lukewarm water." He was also speaking of his personal contribution to every bit he's ever been in-- always, always he is the lukewarm water. He's always the guy you could easily swap out with any actor you could think of (off the top of my head-- Richard Roundtree-- why not?) and probably improve the comedy.

And yeah, the Male Synchronized Swimming bit was funny. But the man's been in show business (owing to a family connection, I think) his whole life. One would hope he'd have at least four or five minutes for his career highlights reel.

What keeps me from pouncing on this video is the smug and utterly unwarranted condescension of the Hollywood set, people who have been getting make-up nearly every day for their adult lives, now trying to pose as some sort of cutting-edge artistes by showing how foolish a non-SAG-member looks when he gets made-up. Yes, it's all a little effeminate; no man really wants to be seen getting made up (although, secretly, we all do want to be handsome; we just don't want to seem as if we care about it either way). But we're in the television age, and looks definitely count, and if John Edwards wants to play with his bangs to make sure they look just so, I can't really blame him.

You know what else would look foolish? Video of someone just waking up in the morning, drool coming out of the corner of the mouth, bed-head in full effect, the pattern from the afghan imprinted on puffy skin. It happens to all of us, of course; I just don't see what the big fuss would be if someone captured George Bush looking less than presidential before his first coffee of the day.

So, bravissimo, Harry Shearer. Lacking any genuine artistic talent, you've taken the normal avenue of those who seek attention but lack talent-- "conceptual art," art with no skill or craft behind it, just a sort-of cute idea and the money and name-recognition to get it installed in a gallery. And sure, I think Chris Matthews is a dope, but not because he's staring off into space as he waits for his live-shot; what the hell else should he be doing with the two minutes he has before air-time? Splitting atoms?

And yeah, John Edwards is a bit girly getting his hair sprayed. But honestly, when I do make my appearance on Paula Zahn, you can bet your ass I'm going to be all dolled up, girlfriend. The hair will be disheveled, but professionaly disheveled, the sort of carefree, natural look that takes a team of well-paid professionals two hours to acheive.

Anyway. Just a case where a hatred of the talentless but unjustly rewarded exceeds my love of political hackery. Sorry.

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 AM | Comments (19)
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My two favorite literary themes: elves and soft-core pornography. Plus, a dork in a crimson cape.

The chicks here might not be "babes" in the strictest sense of the word, but they all look a lot better with graph paper in their hands than my old buds Nelson and Stinky.

And the special effects here are superb. Outstanding. The whole production has a very Krull-like feel to it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:20 PM | Comments (10)
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Mason-Dixon will show narrow, very narrow Bush edge in Florida, 48-45.

WaPo tracking: B 51, K 46.

And most Americans expect Bush to win:

While the various national polls show that voters prefer the president over Mr. Kerry by an average of four points, those same surveys place Mr. Bush some 20 points ahead on the question of which candidate is expected to win.

...

"If more people (regardless of whom they support) don't start telling pollsters that they believe Kerry will win, he probably can't," Mr. Halperin wrote in ABC's the Note, an online political briefing.

...

Roughly one-quarter of Kerry supporters who have an opinion on the outcome of the election predict the Massachusetts Democrat will lose, according to polls by Fox News and the TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics (TIPP). By contrast, only one of 18 Bush supporters who have an opinion on the outcome expect the president to lose.

Whatever people expect, you've got to vote.

A friend of mine joked that voting was for dorks. Maybe so, but this time around, you've got to put on your velvet dice-pouch and Spock-ears and dork it up, big time.

Posted by: Ace at 10:06 PM | Comments (5)
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Alas, his role in the contribution is to simply cut and paste a letter from his reader, who deserves all the credit:

...

It is an old military maxim that blunders can be forgiven, but a lack of boldness cannot. There will always be blunders. The simple becomes difficult in war. Take for example the following question: what is 2+2 equal too? An easy question right? Now imagine I gave you 15 such questions and you had 2 seconds to answer them. Most likely you would answer some and leave the rest. Looking at those questions you missed in isolation I might say, "What kind of blathering idiot are you? You can't even answer simple questions like 2+2=4". That is why Armchair Generals are so annoying. They look at one thing in isolation with all the time in the world to think about it and say confidently "the answers obvious". But when you are out in the fight everything looks different. Nothing is ever seen in isolation. You never have enough time. You never know more than 1/10 what you need to know. There will always be blunders.

But the job has to get done anyway. And to get this kind of job done boldness is essential. A leader who never blunders, but who doesn't take the fight to the enemy is worthless. A leader who sets about to win - win ugly if needs be - is priceless.

One thing the Marine Corps taught me is that a 70% solution acted on immediately and violently is better than a perfect solution acted on later. My experience has proven this true time and again. The sad fact is however, that a 70% solution is a 30% mistake. And those mistakes can be hard to take. In WWII for example, 700 soldiers drowned in a training accident in preparation for D-Day (that is about how many combat deaths we've experienced so far in Iraq).

There is a scene in the movie "We were Soldiers" that says it better than I can. In the scene a young soldier on the ground is giving directions on enemy positions to aircraft flying overhead. The aircraft then dropped Napalm on the enemy. At one point the soldier gets the directions wrong and stares horrified as the Napalm is dropped on his own unit. The soldier is shaken beyond belief. He sat there doing nothing - paralyzed by his mistake. Then his Commanding Officer gave him the confidence to carry on. The CO told him to "forget about that last one" and "you're keeping us alive here". And so the soldier swallowed his guilt and kept doing his job and thereby saved the unit. That is what a 70% solution looks like in real life. And those are the 70% solutions that win wars.

Most people and events are beyond your control. Most questions you don't have time to answer. Most facts you will never know. But you have to press the attack anyway. No matter how ugly it gets, you keep going until you win.

Kerry doesn't understand that. Everything he did during the Cold War and everything he says about this one states as much. He represents those who would never blunder, but who would not take the fight to the enemy. He would just sit there - like the soldier in the movie - paralyzed by America's mistakes."

Posted by: Ace at 04:40 PM | Comments (14)
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You're on your own for the next one, Jean-Claude:

The German economy is recovering, but the modest upturn will lose momentum as early as next year as a result of surging oil prices and a slowdown in exports, leading economic research institutes said Tuesday.

In the traditional autumn report published by Germany's six leading economic research institutes, five of the think tanks -- Ifo in Munich, HWWA in Hamburg, RWI in Essen, IfW in Kiel and IWH in Halle -- said they expected growth to slow to 1.5 percent next year from an anticipated 1.8 percent this year.

One of the funniest things in the world is having one of the most arrogant people on earth -- a nation so arrogant it turned racial purity into a genocidal creed -- call the USA arrogant.

I'm ever so glad I don't have to hear much about precision German engineering anymore.

Fuck 'em.

Like a Viking.

Posted by: Ace at 01:42 PM | Comments (7)
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Contrary to liberal suspicions, the FoxNews OpinionDynamics poll have actually been more favorable to Kerry than most other national polls, but the latest one shows Bush with a 48 to 43 edge. And that's without Nader.

I don't know why they keep asking the question that way. The man IS running, right? With Nader, Bush beats Kerry comfortably, 49-42.

Meanwhile, he leads Kerry by five, 49-44, in almost-must-have Ohio.

Posted by: Ace at 01:15 PM | Comments (5)
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This guy's a liberal, but he's a stand-up guy. Why can't they just admit it? Why do they have to lie to us on a daily basis?

Thomas here reaffirms his belief that the media is in the bag for Kerry -- including his own magazine, Newsweek -- but scales back how much that media support is worth, from 15 points down to 5.

I think it's somewhere in the middle. I don't think most races would even be competitive with the ceaseless liberal-media pimping for Democrats.

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (4)
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From Drudge:

FLASHBACK: Stewart, during commencement address at the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, blasted Bush and war: 'We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror - it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui'...

"Terror" isn't a noun? When did this happen? I thought nouns were persons, places, or things, and terror would seem to be a "thing."

Main Entry: ter·ror
Pronunciation: 'ter-&r
Function: noun

Hmmmm... Merriam-Webster doesn't seem to have gotten the Stewart update on terror's new classification as a, what, precisely? What the fuck does he think "terror" is? An adverb? A conjunction? A... gerund of some sort, perhaps?

Fucking moron.

There are a lot of dumb people in the world. There's no point in insulting them, generally, just as there's no point in saying that someone is smelly or has a spooky-tooth somewhere in their mouth.

But what gets my goat (that's right-- gets my goat; I'll go that far, profanity-concerns be darned) is that there are a lot of people who are fucking morons but who are really convinced they're terribly bright and witty.

Posted by: Ace at 10:14 AM | Comments (39)
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I don't think it has much to do with "Ambassador" Keyes:

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) has doubled his support among blacks in four years and Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s backing among the key Democratic voting bloc is down slightly from the support Al Gore (news - web sites) won in 2000, according to a poll released Tuesday.

The Democratic presidential nominee holds a nearly 4-to-1 margin over Bush in the poll by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington-based research group that focuses on issues concerning blacks.

Bush got low marks for his handling of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) and his overall job performance. The Republican incumbent did gain more support than in 2000 from those age 50 and older and those who consider themselves Christian conservatives.

That helped the president narrow the still sizable gap with Kerry among blacks, who preferred the four-term Massachusetts senator over Bush, 69 percent to 18 percent. The group's poll before the 2000 election found Gore with a 74 percent to 9 percent lead over Bush.

Compare to the AP headline, found at Geraghty's KerrySpot:

Poll: Kerry Has Wide Support Among Blacks

Well yes, he does have wide support among blacks. But that's hardly the news, now is it?

Next up from AP: Kerry Has Overwhelming Support in Castro District of San Fransisco; Head-Shop Owners and GLBT Booksellers Give Kerry a 92-8 Edge

Update: Are Kerry-Edwards playing the lesbian-card to shore up support with culturally-conservative black Christians? James Taranto thinks so.

Posted by: Ace at 10:05 AM | Comments (2)
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