Good Grief: Bush 274, Kerry 264.

It was sorta interesting the first time 'round, but we're really not looking for that kind of excitement this November.

On the other hand... This guy, a liberal writing for the liberal Washington Monthly, smells a Kerry electoral landslide.

He doesn't have much evidence for this, other than the rather obvious observation that most elections are not in fact close, especially not electorally.

Dare to dream, Chuck. Dare to dream.

Posted by: Ace at 07:23 PM | Comments (13)
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The Eighties Movie Alphabet Game

Like the old Movie Alphabet Game, except this time exclusively with 80's movies. The alphabet is made up of the distinctive typefaces used in movie promotions (posters, etc.) for specific movies; you have to figure out what movie each letter comes from.

Fun, but frustrating. Some are easy, some are ridiculously hard.

Do Not Be Too Pleased With This Technological Terror You've Constructed

When you were a kid, did you yearn for a properly-scaled Imperial Star Destroyer which would dwarf your TIE Fighters and X-Wings?

Well, this still seems a bit small in relation to the TIE, but hey, it's four feet long and hand-made.

Khaaaaan!

If you've got a hanking for a .gif (with sound) of Kirk yelling "Khaahhhhhn!", you're in luck, my friend.

Calculating the Speed of Light With Marshmallow and Microwave Oven

We figured this must be a joke, but it turns out it's actually not. A sixteen-year-old kid figured out how to calculate the speed of light using marshmallows, a microwave oven, and the old speed = wavelength x frequency formula.

They say this gives you the speed of light within 5% of the accepted value.

Thanks to the shiftless layabouts at the Perfect World for those.

Scare the Living Hell Out of Your Children

For some reason, giant colorful humanoid birds really freak us out. We look at this thing at get the same feeling of cold, clammy terror as a McRib sandwich seeing Oliver Willis' outstretched meatpaw.

Thanks to The American Digest.

The Thirty-Second The Shining, Performed by Adorable Bunnies

The title says it all.

Ninjas Are Totally, Totally Sweet

You've probably seen this before, but it's still funny. This guy is named Robert and he really likes Ninjas. We mean, like, you probably like Ninjas too (who wouldn't?), but this guy really likes them.

He explains:

Hi, this site is all about ninjas, REAL NINJAS. This site is awesome. My name is Robert and I can't stop thinking about ninjas. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

Facts:

1. Ninjas are mammals.

2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.

3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

He proves pretty conclusively that Ninjas possess what he believes consitutes "REAL Ultimate Power." But if you're unpersuaded:

If you don't believe that ninjas have REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or they will chop your head off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.

Indeed.

Answers to Movie Trivia Game: The answers are in white font. Highlight them by running your mouse over them while holding the left-button down to see them:

A - Starman; B - batteries not included; C - The Dark Crystal; D - Revenge of the Nerds; E - Escape from New York; F - Back to the Future; G - Goonies; H - Howard the Duck; I - Time Bandits; J - Beetlejuice; K - The Karate Kid; L - Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure; M - Mask; N - Annie; O - Platoon; P - Beverly Hills Cop; Q - Mannequin; R - Who Framed Roger Rabbit?; S - Splash; T - Dead Poets Society; U - Short Circuit; V - Adventures in Babysittying; W - Willow; X - Explorers; Y - Child's Play; Z - Return to Oz.

Thanks to poster Marq for hipping us to the last remaining answers.

Posted by: Ace at 06:42 PM | Comments (40)
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Instapundit has a good round-up suggesting that maybe it is.

Interestingly enough, Instapundit quotes Tom McGuire approvingly, when he says:

All we were saying was, give peace a chance. And it looks like giving one of Saddam's henchmen a chance to deliver the peace was enough to bring these folks back to the table.

In other words, selling the Shi'ites out to terrorists was enough to focus their minds on the idea that maybe they ought to support us a little more before we made further concessions to B'aathists.

It's a neat thought. We thought it was such a neat thought we blogged it this past Saturday.

Ace of Spades HQ-- three days ahead of Instapundit, because he just won't link us!

Posted by: Ace at 03:56 PM | Comments (8)
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John Kerry Calls for a "Fundamental Reevaluation" of Bush's Strategy

A news helicopter was downed, supposedly due to mechanical failure, en route to a "wild" running gun battle between local police forces and "insurgents."

The pilot and two passengers of the Eurocopter Spatiale AS 350B supposedly survived without injuries requiring medical-helicopter evacuation.

"Bush proclaimed 'bring it on' last fall," Senator John Kerry intoned. "I wonder how the families of those who survived the crash feel about that juvenile boast."

"It's is time to call in the United Nations," Senator Kerry demanded.

Three local insurgents were wounded by indiginous police forces.

"It's time for President Bush to apologize to the nation for his lack of planning," Senator Hillary Clinton stated in a "major foreign policy address" delivered at the PS 103 grade school reading room.

A local man said he heard a "big whining noise" as the chopper went down. Earlier reports stated that this referred to the helicopter's rotors as they lost power. More recent information attributes the "big whining noise" to all-around partisan hump Rep. Anthony Wiener, D-NY.

The chopper in question was owned by WNBC-TV news, operating out of New York City. The "wild" gun battle, breaking out among "malcontents" and "bitter-enders" in Flatbush, Brooklyn, was quelled within an hour by NYC police.

Some reporting by Eric Wolff of the New York Sun.

Posted by: Ace at 03:31 PM | Comments (3)
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The index is at the its highest level since its inception in 1997:

The US service sector is expanding at its fastest pace in seven years according to a survey published on Wednesday by the Institute for Supply Managment.

The ISM index climbed 2.6 points to 68.4 - a much steeper rise than forecast by economists and well above the 50 level separating expansion from contraction. The reading was the highest since the index was started in 1997.

...

The strength shown by the survey was broad-based with 16 out of the 17 sectors questioned reporting growing activity. Comments from the report included "very strong", "exceeding budget" and "hiring freeze lifted."

The strength of the employment component of the report - which hit a fresh high for the cycle of 54.5 - was particularly encouraging....

So, let's just get this straight:

Manufacturing is at a record level.

The service sector is at a record level.

Construction has been at or near record levels for two years running.

Government planners expected a drop in tax revenue, due to Bush's tax cuts, but got more revenue than last year, due apparently to more people working for more money. This will shave this year's deficit by over $100 billion.

"The worst economy since Hoover."

Okay.

Update: Our highly-placed, ultrasecret government source "Deep Stoat" leaks this double-secret chart to us:

Posted by: Ace at 02:33 PM | Comments (15)
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Not all of them, yet. But now thirty-two states expect a budget surplus this year.

From Florida to Oklahoma to Oregon, tax revenues are up in recent months from the same period last year, the first consistent increases many states have experienced since Wall Street's bubble burst in 2001.

If you believe that higher taxes & spending retard economic activity, you might be happy to learn...

Governors expect expenditures for their 2005 fiscal years to rise 2.8 percent from 2004, well below the 26-year average of 6.2 percent, the National Governors Association, which released its own survey of budgets on Monday, said. The growth in spending is up from the 0.6 percent increase in the last fiscal year, which was the smallest increase in 20 years, the association said.

"During the previous downturn in 1991, two-thirds of states filled their shortfalls by increasing taxes," said Raymond C. Scheppach, executive director of the governors' association. "This time, you've got the flip of that. Most states filled shortfalls by cutting budgets."

Which should mean that the boom might be even more prosperous than it otherwise would have been, had politicians simply jacked up tax rates during the downturn.

"We're going to need two to three years of fairly robust revenue growth to get it all comfortable," Mr. Scheppach added.

Why these guys, who, after all, are spending our hard-earned money, would think we'd want them to be "comfortable" is quite beyond us.

Is there any service for which you pay whose managers and employees you want to be "comfortable" with the money you're paying them? Wouldn't you rather have them a bit strapped, always looking for ways to economize, always checking the couch for coins?

If they're comfortable, you're probably being taken to the cleaners.

There would seem to be a fundamental divergence of interests between the government and the governed, here.

Posted by: Ace at 03:32 AM | Comments (15)
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Earlier came the good news that surging revenues would lower the deficit by perhaps $100 billion or more.

But now comes even more good news. It seems you can't have that kind of blockbuster growth in receipts unless, get this, a lot more people are working for more money than they used to.

This great article puts the surge in tax-revenues into perspective:

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- Budget analysts were expecting a windfall of tax refunds this year as cuts in marginal tax rates, retroactive to January 2003, caused an over-withholding of income.

In other words, the government was expecting to pay out a lot of money in refunds. She's not terribly clear, there. Or maybe we're just morons.

At any rate....

They were disappointed. What they got instead was a surge in withheld personal income tax payments in recent months, a sign that something is brewing in the labor market.

Individual withheld employment taxes account for about 40 percent of the federal government's total receipts. Because taxes are actual cash payments to the Treasury -- no surveys, no model- based forecasts, no statistical extrapolations -- they provide a kind of check and balance on what's going on in the labor market, which for most of us is the primary source of income.

The current perception that the labor market is weak and income growth lousy is being challenged by recent tax data, according to Chris Wiegand, an economist at Citigroup Global Markets.

"Given the tax cuts, the tax liability should have been down a lot,'' a result of bigger refunds and smaller final payments, Wiegand said.

...

"Were it not for the tax cut, April final payments would have been up about 15 to 20 percent from last year,'' said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey.

In other words, people are making 15 to 20 percent more than they did last year-- huge.

That suggests "we're at the point where (budget) surprises start to run in the other direction. Deficit revisions tend to be massively directional.''

We likes the sound of that.

Regarding the announcement as to how much the Treasury would be borrowing this quarter:

The Treasury confirmed its improving fiscal position yesterday when it announced plans to borrow a net $38 billion in the April-to-June quarter, half the amount estimated three months ago.

Half? Again, sounds pretty damn good to us.

But back to the implications for the labor market. In the last two months, "withheld receipts jumped 12.5 percent annualized,'' Wiegand said. "The message is, there is no way that you can see withheld income taxes rising unless there's a decisive turn in labor market conditions, including payrolls, hours and compensation.''

Hmmmm... It seems we have two problematic birds, unemployment and the deficit.

And yet we've only got this one stone: Explosive economic growth.

What to do, what to do...?

Wait-- we think we've got an idea! Stand back...! We don't quite know if this is gonna work...!

Posted by: Ace at 03:21 AM | Comments (3)
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Hat tip to Donald Luskin, who still bothers to read this buffoon on a regular basis.

As we predicted some time ago, American economist Paul Krugman is increasingly frantic to find topics to write about other than the American economy.

Check out Luskin's piece. Not only does Krugman blame the current violence on (what else?) tax cuts -- we must assume for the "Iraqi wealthiest one-percent" -- he apparently bases his entire premise on (what else?) a lie.

A bit down the page on his site you'll find a bit of discussion about Paul Krugman's favorite paranoid delusion, that America is about to become a dictatorship under the BushHitler.

All we can say is -- cool. We've always wanted to cruise around the capital in busted-up jeeps with machine-guns mounted in the back, wearin' cool black bandanas, carryin' placards that read Viva El Jefe Maximo. That always struck us sorta fun.

Posted by: Ace at 03:19 AM | Comments (6)
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At least that's what the doctor treating him remembers:

I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay...

The story [Kerry] told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated....

It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.

I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a bandaid.

....

Posted by: Ace at 03:18 AM | Comments (8)
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Factory orders up, up, up. Big time, as the man says:

The Commerce Department said factory orders advanced 4.3 percent in March, the strongest rise in nearly two years, after gaining a revised 1.1 percent in February.

Wall Street had forecast orders to gain a more modest 2.3 percent in March and the surge, which came as the Fed signaled it was preparing to raise interest rates, points to an upward revision in first quarter gross domestic product.

Whoops. The media spun the 4.2% as "disappointing," and we cautioned that 1) it was vigorous growth by any standard, even the high bar for success set by the media in order to justify painting Bush's economic policies as a failure and 2) the number would likely be revised upwards, anyway.

The Fed, meantime, left interest rates at historic lows and stated that the inevitable rate hikes would be "measured." That's not really within Bush's control, of course, but it does seem that his policies make Greenspan comfortable with holding rates low.

We apologize if this constant barrage of economic news gets boring. Yeah, you can get all this yourself on yahoo, of course. But there are three issues in this race -- terrorism/Iraq, the economy, and "everything else," and Bush wins on terrorism, is currently losing on the economy, and pushes on "everything else," which doesn't matter anyway, because we lied: There are only two issues in this race, and "everything else" ain't one of them.

John Kerry can't win when he's trailing on both of the only two issues in the race.

Posted by: Ace at 03:18 AM | Comments (6)
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