Meanwhile, of course, there's a war going on.

Now, we know we're not supposed to treat bodycounts as victories, but let's face it, it's better to kill a bunch of enemies than to have one's own troops be killed. And by that metric, it seems like our boys are winning:

US tanks have surged into the Iraqi holy city of Najaf to take control of the governor's office amid fierce fighting with Shia gunmen.

Troops moved into the city's suburbs to draw out militiamen loyal to cleric Moqtada Sadr and allow the armour to sweep in largely unopposed.

The US military reported killing 41 militiamen in Kufa, just outside Najaf.

...

In other developments:

-- An attack on US and Polish troops in the Shia holy city of Karbala leaves one MA gunman dead and nine people wounded, Iraqi doctors say

-- US troops clash with the MA in Baghdad's Sadr City district, killing 10 gunmen

Unfortuntanely, a suicide bomber killed five Iraqis and one US soldier in Baghdad.

Just for Earl:

Do you honestly draw hope, even pleasure, from the terrible fact that we've slaughtered dozens of "dark-skinned people" today?

Yes, Earl. Yes we do.

Although we're saddened that five innocent "dark-skinned people," and one American soldier of undetermined facial hue, were killed. We've got this crazy idea that people ought to be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Some racist said that. We forget who. Maybe Charleton Heston.

Thanks to Allah, Who Is Wise and Very Scrupulous About Reading the Foreign Wires.

Posted by: Ace at 07:59 PM | Comments (15)
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Everyone's always asking us, Ace of Spades HQ, what's the real deal on the songs of humpback whales? Are they signalling each other as to the location of a tasty school of krill, or what?

Well, it turns out they sing for the same reason Harry Connick Junior does: to get a little somethin'-somethin'.

Fellow Munuvian Rocket Jones has the scoop.

He's also got some Handy Tips for Men when dealing with the fairer sex. Seems like pretty reasonable advice to us.

Posted by: Ace at 07:04 PM | Comments (19)
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No joking around on this one: this is really what some of these good folks believe.

Or at least they say they believe it. It gets kinda hard to figure out what's going on in their minds.

Updated... in the jump.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:24 PM | Comments (23)
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Tina Brown, hailed as latter-day Henry Luce for reviving Vanity Fair and The New Yorker with her daring insight that people like glossy pictures and kissy-ass interviews with celebrities, once again demonstrates her bona-fides as indispensible commentator by writing about the Friends finale.

"Here's a reason to miss Friends," she bubbles on the pages of The Washington Post. "Nostalgie de la boom. Through Friends we could keep on living the good life of careless Clinton-era prosperity."

Who knew?

"Friends reflects the boom years, too, with its characters' total lack of interest in what's going on in the world."

Hmmm... terrorism, Abu Ghraib, bodycounts, quagmire, the most important election in 20 or 30 years... and Tina Brown is writing about Friends. As, no doubt, is her sister-in-silliness Maureen Dowd.

One begins to understand why Ms. Brown will miss the show.

"They're focused purely on themselves and each other."

Again, the irony. The ineffable irony of a media queen praising a group for being "focused purely on themselves and each other." Has anyone ever met a reporter or media-type who wasn't interested primarily in other reporters or media-types?

"Even after 9/11 Friends managed to keep coasting along mainly by ignoring the event altogether, pretty much as Sex & the City did."

Not so much irony as clueless self-revelation. We think Tina's pretty much nailed the reason why she and Vapid Vamp Maureend Dowd spent thousands of column-inches endlessly twittering about Sex & the City while remaining defiantly clueless about the real world.

There's a bubble-mentality out there: We can change the world by imagining it differently than it is.

Posted by: Ace at 04:59 PM | Comments (18)
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If there's one annoying thing about Andy -- and, you know, there are really like six or seven annoying things about him -- it's not only his personal obsession with his putative right to get hitched to a man, it's his shrill stridency that you ought to share in that obsession:

If one half of a gay couple cannot visit her spouse in hospital minutes away from where Jonah lives, he's not interested enough to worry about it. And I repeat: Jonah is the best of them. Conservative opinion on gays ranges from boredom to outright hostility and animus. There are times when I prefer the animus. Hating someone at least takes that person seriously. Not being able to be bothered while a minority is persecuted (and that's the only interpretation of the Virginia law) is the moment when inactivism becomes indistinguishable from moral abdication.

So much of the agitation on the gay-"liberation" side of things isn't about politics or public policy so much as it is a somewhat poignant insistence on private, personal affirmation.

Obviously, the gay agenda ought to be at the top of everyone's "thinky" list; gay marriage is certainly more important than the economy, Iraq, terrorism, racial quoats, and the broader culture war agenda. Since we don't wish to be tagged as "homophobic" or whatnot, we are asking Mr. Sullivan to please provide us a list of subjects we must care as passionately about as he, ranked in order of priority.

Once we know exactly what it is we're supposed to be so concerned about, we will immediately abandon our own political priorities in favor of his.

We imagine that clocking in at number 7 will be Mr. Sullivan's beloved beagle, which is just jake with us, because we like beagles as a general matter, and we're sure the particular specimen owned by Mr. Sullivan is an oustanding exemplar of his breed.

Posted by: Ace at 04:10 PM | Comments (22)
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Al Gore to Launch "Youth Network"

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore plans to build a youth-oriented cable television network that he hopes will become an independent voice in a media industry dominated by large conglomerates, he said on Tuesday.

Gore led an investor group that bought Newsworld International from Vivendi Universal (V.N: Quote, Profile, Research) (EAUG.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) for an undisclosed sum. He plans to relaunch the channel, which has not yet been renamed, to focus on public affairs and entertainment for 18 to 34 year olds, Gore said, and will not have a political affiliation.

Another report said the network would be "a combination of CNN and MTV."

...from the Home Office in the former television capital of the world, New York City...

Top Ten New Shows on Al Gore's "Youth News Network"

10. Yo! Robert Reich Raps

9. The Lizzie MacGuire Economic Week in Review

8. The New 21 Jump Street, in which Peter DeLuise reprises his role as an undercover cop, now captain of his unit; the young-looking cops will no longer be narcs, but will instead be charged with infiltrating and bringing to justice rightwing extremists who "question the patriotism" of young liberals and "chill their right to dissent"

7. On the Prowl, a late-night show hosted by Bill Clinton, combining political chat with dating-tips

6. Win a Dream Date With Paul Begala!

5. Beavis & Bob Shrum

4. The Wonkette Show, hosted by Ana Marie Cox, a fast-moving self-described "squawk show" featuring political gossip and sensual anal erotica

3. The Nightly News with "Downtown" Julie Brown, featuring trademark sign-off, "Wubba wubba wubba-- courage"

2. The Prizzip, an urban high-school drama featuring Al Gore as a wise, sensitive principal who advises his inner-city students on the topics that matter most to them, such as drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and the CAFE fuel-standard "loophole" for light-trucks and SUV's

...and the Number One New Show on Al Gore's "Youth News Network"...

1. An untitled "politicom" to star Paulie Shore; in a move hailed by industry insiders as "groundbreaking," the date upon which the show will be cancelled for low ratings has already been scheduled

Posted by: Ace at 03:55 PM | Comments (61)
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400,000 per week is considered the break-point between a deteriorating and improving economy:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - America's employment outlook brightened on Thursday after the government said jobless claims dropped last week to their lowest since 2000, bolstering expectations for strong numbers in the April jobs report.

U.S. Treasury bond yields hit a two-year high on the unexpectedly rosy number and the dollar climbed 1 percent against the yen as markets bet heavily the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates this summer as the economy warms.

The picture of a better jobs climate was also backed by an unexpected increase in unit labor costs in the first quarter, alongside respectable productivity growth of 3.5 percent.

First-time claims for state unemployment benefits shrank 25,000 to 315,000 in the week ended May 1, the Labor Department said. It was the third straight week of declines.

Wall Street analysts had forecast a slight fall in claims to 335,000 from a revised 340,000 the previous week.

Grant Wilson, vice president of foreign exchange at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, said the jobless numbers were a good omen on the eve of the April employment report.

"We weren't expecting anything as (good) as this. It bodes well for the unemployment number tomorrow," Wilson said.

April non-farm payrolls are set for release at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) on Friday and are forecast to show creation of 173,000 new jobs. That would be a marked moderation from March, when 308,000 were added, but still evidence that labor conditions are tightening.

So there's the estimate.

Posted by: Ace at 02:39 PM | Comments (7)
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A little bit ago, a commenter asked where the jobs are. Every other indicator is blinking like a Christmas tree on crack, but where are the jobs?

Well, in March, we had a big, big pickup of 308,000 net new jobs. But even before that, jobs were being created, albeit at a lackluster pace.

759,000 jobs in seven months is not an especially robust gain, but it is a gain nevertheless. And that 308,000 in March would seem to indicate a trend of quicker job-creation.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:07 AM | Comments (9)
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Well, it's too early to judge, but this accusation would seem to indicate this more likely due to one weird guy with a camera than to purposeful tactics by interrogators.

Doesn't excuse the behavior, or excuse the higher-ups not uncovering this sooner.

We gotta tell you: Whether it's one weird guy or the CIA, we still don't really give a shit.

Don't get us wrong; we're as outraged about this as the next guy, so long as the next guy is Keyser Sosa from The Usual Suspects.

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 PM | Comments (19)
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It seems to me that some kind of reckoning has to be made by the president himself. No one below him can have the impact of a presidential statement of apology to the Iraqi and American people. Bush should give one. He should show true responsibility and remorse, which I have no doubt he feels. I can think of no better way than to go to Abu Ghraib itself, to witness the place where these abuses occurred and swear that the culprits will be punished and that it will not happen again. It would be a huge gesture. But frankly there is something tawdry about a president at a time like this campaigning in the Midwest in a bus. His entire war's rationale has been called into question. The integrity of the United States has been indelibly harmed on his watch. He must account for it. Soon. And why not in Iraq?

Hmmmm... why not? Maybe because terrorists shelled Abu Ghraib two weeks ago.

Hey, pal, maybe you should go to Abu Gharaib and apologize on all our behalfs. Haven't noticed that Andrew Sulivan has made any trips there.

And why should the President make such a dramatic, and dangerous, gesture?

Oh yes: Because the Muslim world is "angry" at us.

Gee, first fuckin' time on that, huh? We guess we must have really blown it to set the even-tempered, level-headed Muslim street into such a tizzy.

You know, it's really about time that we in the West stopped feeding into the Muslim extremists' belief that their unending, ritualistic "rages" have any effect on us. We're tired of being expected to walk on eggshells around a quarter of the world's population.

We can either accept dhimmitude or we can require the Muslim and Arab world to just fucking get over it, and get over themselves. They scream "Humiliation!" like Jesse Jackson screams "Selma all over again!"

And for us, at least, it now has the precise same impact. Which is to say, a rueful chuckle and/or a bemused smirk.

Andrew Sullivan Hissy-Fit Watch-- Current Status: Shrieking upon a table; believes he spied a mouse.

We grow weary of Andy's hormonal imbalances and constant cases of the vapors. Grow a pal, chum. This isn't seventh grade, and you're not a pretty little girl. You don't demonstrate your profound moral objections to events by simply engaging in ever-and-more hysterical and insulting language.

Andy has always been much, much too quick to hit that "Righteous Outrage" button. Remember Trent Lott?

Posted by: Ace at 08:26 PM | Comments (38)
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