Just because he's crazy doesn't mean it's all not true.

It's a Twelve Monkeys sort of concept.

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Add Comment
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Too bad today didn't come last Friday or the election would have been over by 9pm sharp:

WASHINGTON — The number of new jobs soared in October by the highest amount in seven months, the government said Friday, helped by a surge in construction as hurricane-racked areas in the Southeast were rebuilt.
A surprisingly strong 337,000 jobs were added to payrolls last month — twice the 169,000-job growth that economists had forecast and the strongest since March, when 353,000 jobs were created, the Labor Department said.

The unemployment rate edged up to 5.5% from 5.4% in September, but that was because more people were looking for jobs, a potentially hopeful sign. Economists had expected the jobless rate to hold steady at 5.4%.

Not only was October strong, but the number of jobs created in the two prior months was revised up — to 139,000 in September fromf 96,000 and to 198,000 in August from 128,000.

Gold-plated diapers, babies.

Thanks to AS, BMC, and of course Deep Stoat for the tip.

MORE! INDC Journal crunches the numbers. Bush is ending up with positive job growth in his first term.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 AM | Comments (9)
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But she is still busily pecking, pecking, pecking at her typewriter, like a chicken who's mistaken the letter "a" for a kernel of corn:

W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.

The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.

...

Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: "This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world." Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And "confident" is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji.

Vice continued, "Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." Only Dick Cheney can make "to serve and to guard" sound like "to rape and to pillage."

He's creating the sort of "democracy" he likes. One party controls all power in the country. One network serves as state TV. One nation dominates the world as a hyperpower. One firm controls contracts in Iraq.

Man, I wish I had it in me to demolish her. But I don't. This was a blog-till-you-drop type week, and I got nothin'. I do, however, have an old rip on Maureen Dowd I like.

You will be shocked to learn that I am republishing an old piece. Hey, if she keeps writing the same silly fart of an article over and over again with a new title, why should I be expected to write new pieces attacking her?
more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:52 PM | Comments (28)
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Election over, now it's just about getting this country working at 100% again:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The productivity of America's workers grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the smallest gain since late 2002, the government reported Thursday.

The increase in productivity -- the amount an employee produces for every hour of work -- followed a brisk 3.9 percent pace registered in the second quarter, the Labor Department said. The figure for the July-to-September period was better than the 1.7 percent growth rate some economists were forecasting.

Analysts have been expecting productivity growth to slow somewhat based on the hope that businesses would seek to hire workers to help meet customer demand, rather than rely largely on greater efficiencies from fewer or existing workers to do that.

"There are some indications that job growth is going to continue and could pick up a bit of speed in the fourth quarter," said Sherry Cooper, chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns.

....

Initial claims for unemployment benefits plunged last week by a seasonally adjusted 19,000 to 332,000, the Labor Department said in a second report. A portion of the decline reflected fewer hurricane-related claims in Florida, a department analyst said. Even so, the figures -- better than economists expected -- offered hope that the recovery in the labor market may be gaining traction.

Incidentally, big jobs report tomorrow; consensus estimate is for 175,000 jobs created in October, up from September's lackluster 96,000.

Gene Frenkel's Farewell Tour

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 PM | Comments (6)
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Alas, we've only been fighting back since November 2001.

My Pet Jawa notices the anniversary. I wonder why no one in the MSM did.

Posted by: Ace at 06:49 PM | Comments (10)
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The Daily Recycler's video capture of Dan Rather's attack on "the blogging machine" is more captivating than my rush transcript. Worth watching, just to see this guy in action.

Let's be honest: he's a miserable partisan-hack crapbag.

Posted by: Ace at 05:48 PM | Comments (7)
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Bush is a new Hitler, except without the rakish moustache. But that's hardly news, right?

Greg Palast -- let's be honest, the most important reporter in the world today, a genius rivaled only by, I don't know, John Elway -- has the facts on the stolen election of 2004.

That's right: 2004. The one we just ended. The one that proceeded smoothly, and ended the normal way, with one man ahead in electoral and popular votes and the other man conceding.

But, see, it was stolen. We Republicans are getting so good at stealing elections that even the Democrats don't notice.

Now, you may say that Greg Palast is just a very low-rent leftist conspiracy-hustler trying to finally launch his career, which is, for all his ranting and raving and acting up and attention-seeking, at about on the level as mine. And that, some might say, is pretty damn sad.

But I know Greg Palast to be the finest throwback leftist working in British tabloid journalism today, and he also kisses like a dream. A dream who's very "handsy."

Anyway, on to the next bit of lunacy that will preoccupy the extra-chromosome left for the next thirty years:

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

...

Your Kerry Victory Party

So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry—if we count all the votes.

But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.

Any more of this nonsense and I think I will scream.

To those of you on the left:

You put an awful lot of stock in this moron's claims regarding the "stolen" 2000 election. Now that he's making near-identical claims about an election disputed by no one at all, including the DNC and Kerry himself, what does that say about his previous claims, and your eagerness to believe every idiotic lie he told you?

You been had. You been bamboozled.

Thanks, big time, to TLowery.

Posted by: Ace at 05:34 PM | Comments (14)
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Jim Lindgren at the Volokh Mega-Conspiracy says that if what AFP reports is accurate -- that Arafat is "merely" brain-dead -- then that's dead.

The body can be kept alive for a while to harvest organs. But brain-dead equals really, really actually honestly dead.

Update: The Rumor Mill Churns. Well, if he weren't a loathesome murderer, I guess I might hold back on rumor-peddling. But he is, and it's out there, so what the hell. Speculation: Bisexual Arafat is dying of AIDS.

Posted by: Ace at 04:24 PM | Comments (17)
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Kinda funny, but also kinda cocky. Pride goes before a fall.

Leave the "loser"/"douchebag" stuff to people like me, Arnold. You're a governor. Governate with some decorum.

Respectability quota filled; on to the fun stuff.

Short but chuckleworthy:

Schwarzenegger Calls Democrats 'Losers'

Once 'Girlie Men,' Dems May Also Be 'Losers' In Governor's Mind

LOS ANGELES -- Two days after the worst election defeat in decades for Democrats, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to them as "losers" in response to a reporter's question about tax increases.

...

"Why would I listen to losers?" the governor asked. "Let's be honest."

The best part of that is the "Let's be honest." That's the genius. Anyone can insult someone, but to then add in a "Let's be honest," as if you expect your opponent to agree with the insult because it's so obvious... that's what pushes it over the top.

Nancy Pelosi? You're an idiot. I mean-- let's be honest. There's no point maintaining this charade of your non-idiocy. It's the elephant in the room we've finally got to talk about.

Michael Moore? You smell like a wet camel. Let's be honest. We've got to get you to one of those industrial-sized circus showers and hose you down like the big sweaty filthbeast you are.

Oh, and you're not funny. You're snide. Snide can be funny, but it isn't necessarily funny. You're the non-funny, non-talented sort of snide. I mean-- let's be honest. You didn't really think people were actually laughing at your little nickle-and-dime home movies, did you? They're forcing laughs, to show they agree with your warmed-over New Socialist cant. Let's be honest: You're the leftist equivalent of Up With People.

Ventriloquists look down on you. Let's be honest.

Student loan guy? Yeah, bad news. You're not getting a single damn-bastard dime of that money I owe you. Let's be honest. If I was going to pay you, don't you think I would have done so already?

Seriously: think about it. Haven't you noticed this long-running game of phone-tag is entirely a one-sided affair? If I wanted to talk to you, don't you think I'd make the effort to call you up once in a while, just to see how you're doing? Oh, I hear your messages, all right. You know what I do during your messages? I'm not writing down your phone number and extension, as you so frequently urge me. I'm giggling.

Let's be honest: I laugh at your silly talk of "last warnings." You've got as many "last warnings" as the French.

I'm sorry, Student Loan Guy, but this relationship isn't working, and it's time we faced up to that. Let's be honest. This is a we're-going-to-have-to-agree-to-disagree type thing. Two words you're going to have to come to terms with: write off.

By the way, you sound kinda gay on the phone. Let's be honest. You might want to work on that. When you call up I don't know whether I'm dodging creditors or being invited to a select screening of Manhunt.

And, frankly, I'm tired of getting my hopes up every time you call.

Posted by: Ace at 03:45 PM | Comments (13)
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Yes, your man lost. And yes, I'd be depressed had my man lost.

But please stop with your arrogant statements about how you "don't know anyone who voted for Bush." You say that proudly; you ought to be ashamed of your insularity.

I know a lot of people who voted for Kerry. I know fewer people who voted for Bush (except, I guess, through this stupid blog).

51.5 - 48.

If you don't like this country, there are others. This country, however, is about half Republican leaning. If you find that too distasteful-- this isn't a police state. There is no wall.

Vote with your feet. Make your own happiness. Vaya con Dios, or, should I say, Vaya con Gaia.

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (19)
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