I could either just rip off all of Instapundit's links, or simply link his post. It's easier to do the latter.

I'll quote this from one of his readers, though:

At first I was furious when I heard the news that the decision not to let the Marines have free reign in Fallujah was made by politicians in DC.

But now, after seeing what's happening there, it may have been brilliant to leave it for the Iraqis. Public opinion over there seems to be swinging our way big time, as they realize what's actually happening to their country.

I think I said some time ago that the quickest and easiest way to turn people against Islamists is to leave them to the the tender mercies of the Islamists.

Meanwhile, Iraqis seem to appreciate the anti-crime Dragnet in Baghdad.

Now, these are largely just common criminals, not actual terrorists. But certainly there's a broken-window effect of lawlessness that nutures and promotes terrorism, and surely terrorists rely on the criminal infrastructure for securing weapons and explosives and other necessary instruments of terror.

Allawi seems to be making a lot of necessary and politically-popular moves.

The Kurds are doing their part, too. (Scan to about the middle of the article).

In the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, Kurdish security forces captured 15 militants, including a man believed to be a senior leader in a local group linked to al-Qaida, an official in a pro-American Kurdish party said today.

Among those arrested late Monday was Hemen Banishiri, reportedly the second-in-command for the radical Kurdish group, Ansar al-Islam, said Saadi Ahmed, a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's political wing.

Iraqi officials have been talking increasingly tough about those who continue to carry out attacks across the country -- even though the 2-week-old Iraqi government has discussed offering a limited amnesty to militants to put down the insurgency.

"Terrorism isn't just killing and blowing up bombs, whoever threatens the ordinary life of the people is a terrorist," President Ghazi al-Yawer told a news conference. "We have a very sharp sword ready for anyone who threatens the security of this country."

Nice.

Not only is it great that terrorists have been captured, but it's better still that they were captured by Iraqi forces.

Posted by: Ace at 12:45 PM | Comments (4)
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Exports surge to "record levels."

Analysts said the smaller-than-expected trade gap will likely boost second-quarter U.S. economic growth. Meanwhile, a trio of other reports painted a mixed picture of consumer spending trends, a key driver of the U.S. economy.

The May deficit totaled $46.0 billion, well below a median estimate of $48.3 billion from Wall Street analysts surveyed before the report.

The gap narrowed for the first time in six months despite the highest prices for imported oil in nearly 22 years, which helped push overall imports to a record high as well.

That's pretty encouraging! Even with the surge in the cost of oil, even with record-high imports, we still managed to shrink the trade gap.

Jim Glassman, senior economist with J.P. Morgan Securities in New York, said the report should prompt forecasters to raise estimates of second-quarter growth by "a half a point or so," depending on the June trade numbers.

A half point or so? That's pretty damn big.

I hate to be a one-note johnny, but honestly, this is the latest in a long series of "record level" readings on the economy. You would think the media would have some interest in -- some curiousity about -- one or two of these record readings.

Good-sized cowbell for surging exports and increased 2Q growth.

Posted by: Ace at 12:29 PM | Comments (3)
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And he does so even without any analogies involving a horny, short-eyed duck.

Posted by: Ace at 12:19 PM | Comments (8)
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French officials now say she just made it all up.

Update: One of Spoons' readers reads this as yet another indictment of those cunning, lying J-E-W-S, apparently missing the fact that the woman wasn't Jewish at the time of the attack and, to my knowledge, remains goyishim as of this moment.

I'm reminded of Yossarian's advice to Havermeyer (?-- my memory may fail me) as that man is about to go up against a disciplinary committee.

"You can't win," Yossarian tells him. "You'll be convicted. They hate Jews."

"But I'm not Jewish."

"That won't make any difference to them."

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (12)
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Well, my second letter to Andrew Sullivan wasn't quite as restrained as my first:

How about stonewalling on the outing of gay politicians who aren't sufficiently pro-gay-marriage?

How , exactly, do you justify running piece after piece on sexual privacy -- Tony Hendra, Jack Ryan just two of your latest offerings -- and yet sit there silent while your gay allies violate the sexual privacy of gay politicians?

I don't get it. I don't understand you can be so brazen to think you can just sit refuse to comment at all -- in fact, you not only refuse to comment; you refuse to even state you're refusing comment.

Silence is an endorsement of these actions. Which at this point I have to take to be your intention.

If you support violating the sexual privacy of those you deem political opponents, then you have no right to whine about the violation of your own sexual privacy.

Well tonight Sullivan has a very begrudging condemnation of the practice. Oddly enough, he's not writing a big column about it; nor did he offer his opinion of his own volition. As he himself says -- "some of you asked." Well, why the hell did we have to ask in the first place?

Here's part of his statement. Notice how brief the condemnation part -- and we know he can write like a fiend about those who violate others' sexual privacy; tracts against this practice make up a quarter of his oevure -- before he launches into an attack on those being outed as "dishonorable":

Some of you have asked me what I think about the campaign to out closeted staffers for Republican senators who may vote for the FMA. In a word, I think it's wrong. The people perpetrating it are the usual suspects - people who are only truly happy when persecuting others. The viciousness of the campaign, the way it demonizes individuals whose own consciences are unknowable to any outsider, is a mark of authoritarianism and cruelty. You cannot force people to be honorable, let alone heroes. You cannot force people to have self-respect.

It's a campaign to force "honor," "heroism," and "self-respect" on closeted gays? That would seem to undercut the previous language about viciousness and cruelty. After all, the outers are just prodding them to have some "self-respect." How can that be a bad thing?

But, as Graham Chapman used to say, "Wait for it:"

I do believe, however, that those gay men and women who are supporting some Senators in this war against gay citizens are acting dishonorably. I can see compromises that are inevitable in politics - even on the issue of marriage. But the Constitutional Amendment seems to me to be in a class of its own.

We started this as a nice little post condemnig this practice. We seem to have morphed into a desperate times require desperate measures sort of vibe, haven't we?

Note the language, too:

war against gay citizens

Apparently we're in two wars: A war against terrorism and a war against gay citizens. Well! No wonder poor Sully feels so conflicted! He's signed up to fight one war and he finds his nation "warring" against him in another!

It's an unprecedented attack on the citizenship of an entire minority of Americans.

The anti-gay-marriage campaign, he means. Not the outing.

And then he prattles on about nothing, making no real point, seeming apparently quite baffled about his own opinion on the issue. Which isn't surprising, as he's clearly not really against outing these people, at least not strenuously. His unclear conclusion is a product of his mixed messages and mixed thinking.

So, there's your statement. It only took him one week and numerous (I'm imaging) readers' emails to provoke it.

And not precisely a clear-cut statement against the practice, as I read it. It reads like those horrid Howell Raines NYT editorials on Clinton's impeachment. He'd start of saying how "deplorable" and "indefensible" Clinton's conduct was, and then begin justifying Clinton's lying by comparing it to the greater outrages of his Republican pursuers.

I seem to remember Andrew Sullivan noting that those who say "I'm against terrorism, but..." don't really seem very anti-terrorist. They seem, rather, to be mouthing a condemnation that they do not much believe but which is required by politics, before more-ethusiastically ticking off the circumstances mitigating the blameworthiness of terrorist acts.

So, there you have it. Sullivan is against outing gays, but...

That damnable conjunction, eh?

Posted by: Ace at 11:02 PM | Comments (12)
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One of my biggest beefs with hyperpartisan hack Joshua Micah Chesterton Taggart Claude-Patrice Herkemer Marshall is the way he breathlessly promises he'll have some amazing scoop... later. Always later.

Never now.

When?

Maybe later.

Later today or later this week?

I don't know. Sometime later.

Soon later or later later?

Later. Be sure to check back regularly.

Zonitic has done a Man's Job and tracked down a whole series of Joshua Micah Etcetera Marshall's claims about the the next big story he's about to break wide open...

... and finds that he's either the world's biggest dupe or else simply a bit of a huckster. How can he keep promising that he "knows" this or that, and that it will be breaking soon/tomorrow/next Shivouis, and yet so infrequently actually deliver?

And furthermore-- how can he never apologize or retract his previous claims?

Let me say that during the height of impeachment fever, conservatives were always thinking that there was going to be this or that huge scandal about to break wide open. Quite frankly, Drudge did an awful lot of expectations-raising... but even Drudge never actually committed himself to the extent Marshall does several times per month, sometimes declaring that he actually "knows" something and predicting his secret knowledge would be revealed momentarily.

Unlike Drudge -- who famously ends every snippet with breathless, but very vague, sign-outs like a DEVELOPING or IMPACTING or DEVELOPING HARD WITH FURIOUS IMPACT -- Marshall has made representations about his own personal knowledge of important facts. See the latest on Plamegate.

Furthermore, Drudge is, self-admittedly, a bit of a PT Barnum-type character. But Marshall has pretenses of being part of the respectable media, and playing by their rules. He's better than us, see-- he's almost a real journalist.

Do real journalists hype these sorts of breathless cliffhangers on a regular basis, and then never correct their errors or at least explain why their latest Watergate never quite materialized?

How many times is Marshall allowed to do this before we can begin calling him an outright fabulist?

If not a fabulist, he's the blogosphere's pre-eminent source for vapornews. Vapornews is just like vaporware-- long anticipated, much hyped. And yet never quite reaching the marketplace.

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan, who I occasionally read so that you don't have to.

Never Waste a Good Premise Update! Check out Joshua Micah Etcetera Marshall's explanation as to why he can't tell you right now all this amazing information he has at his fingertips:
more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:41 PM | Comments (15)
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Gee, I wonder if Paul Krugman is going to hyperventilate over this tomorrow.

Nick Kronos discusses the issue, although I think he misses the point. He talks about people having had their "minds changed" by a terrorist attack, and how such votes are just as good as any other.

That's not the main danger of a terrorist attack. I don't think that people are talking about contingency plans for postponing voting simply because a terrorist attack occurs in October and someone thinks it would be a good idea to have a "cooling off" period before elections, to let passions subside. At least, I hope that's not the sort of thing they're thinking about.

I personally am thinking of Democratic Primary Day 2000, better known as 9-11, when voting was simply cancelled. And even had it not been cancelled, no one was voting past 10:30 anyway, as we all had much more important concerns, such as stocking up on water and food and making sure that loved ones had made it home alive.

And some people, of course, were dead or in the hospital, while others were digging through hot, smoking rubble.

The main danger is that, either the day of voting or a few days before, terrorists blow up a few polling places, and thus suppress voting throughout America. Or that a major attack makes voting simply impossible or inadvisable in a big city.

Americans barely vote as it is; imagine the turnout when going to the local fire station could potentially result in death or maiming.

This could have all sorts of dire effects; oddly enough, though, such attacks would probably help Bush, because Republicans generally fare better with reduced turnout, and especially because most of these attacks will take place in cities.

In many states, the vote is a contest between the Republican rural areas and the Democratic cities. If bombs go off in Detroit or Dearborn polling places, for example, one could easily imagine the urban vote being badly depressed while the rural and suburban vote is less suppressed. And then Michigan, which might have gone to Kerry, would go to Bush.

The Constitution specifies the day upon which elections will be held. But what happens if events make it impossible to have a national vote on that day (by "national vote," I mean "all jurisdictions are able to vote")? What wins out? The Constitution or reality?

I think, on balance, we probably should just live with the consequences of a terrorist attack on or shortly before voting day. The trouble is that any other regime would put the power to decide whether to delay a vote or have a re-vote into someone's partisan hands, and no one in this country trusts the partisans of the other side.

Joshy Marshall would have conniptions about letting the Bush Administration decide to postpone an election; I honestly don't blame him. I sure wouldn't trust John Kerry or Al Gore to make such a decision, either.

However, if we agree that we will vote on Election Day come hell or high water, I don't want to hear the liberals like Josh Marshall demanding that we have a new vote or extended-voting-period should bombings damage Kerry's electoral chances. Either we agree, in advance, under what circumstances we might alter the rules and timing of voting, or we agree, also in advance, that whatever happens on Election Day, happens.

I don't want to experience what I know damn well will happen-- i.e., the liberals take a "wait and see" attitude as to which candidate a terrorist attack hurts, and then, if the attacks hurts Kerry, they then start demanding special rules after-the-fact.

Posted by: Ace at 06:23 PM | Comments (12)
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FoxNews on the Iraqi amnesty plan, which is reported as an "amensty or else" kind of thing.

Much talk of those who commit violence facing "the sword." Good.

In another article I read, an Iraqi official characterized the plan as "first the amnesties, then the executions."

Other Iraq stuff:

Iraqis deny their countrymen could be responsible for the violence, blaming terrorists on foreigners, such as "Syrians or Jordanians."

I find this modestly hopeful. If Iraqis are denying that other Iraqis are doing this, then obviously they find it shameful, and that means it's not supported.

Slowly Baghdad life returning to normal. The article spends a lot of time describing the re-opening of a popular drag-racing club.

Good. Bush always does well with the NASCAR set.

Posted by: Ace at 06:07 PM | Comments (1)
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A couple of readers actually seemed to like Johnny Coldcuts.

I've been casting about for something for Johnny Coldcuts to do, and I've decided it's probably easier if I just let you do all the work.

So, I'm instituting an Ask Johnny Coldcuts column. Either email your queries to Johnny, care of me at aceofspadeshqNOSPAM@yahoo.com (take out the NOSPAM), or post them in the comments here.

You can ask Johnny anything-- he tells me he's an expert on careers, finance, automobiles, high-fidelity stereophonic equipment, and, of course dating/sex/affairs of the heart.

Johnny will get around to answering any questions posed to him (and, in case no one asks him questions, questions I make up) Friday or Saturday.

Ask me a question. Don't be such fucking gaywads all your miserable lives!

Photo Credit: Used with permission of Enjoy Every Sandwhich. "Sandwich for Skippy" pic created by Zombie and Rowan.

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (25)
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(First item Yeahp, John Kerry is now citing specific New York Times reporters as authoritative, objective and neutral arbiters on his bid to unseat George W. Bush.

This comes as about as much a surprise as his support from "foreign leaders" (i.e., Gerard Schroeder, Jacques Chirac, and Dominique "Welcome, Mr. Bond" Villepain).

Next thing you know and he'll be citing "wealthy Heinz heiresses" for the proposition that Bush "manipulated" intelligence.*

In his last item, he "proves," mathematically, that 2 = 1. See if you can spot the error. I found at least one error; maybe there are others.

* By the way, it strikes me that Manuipulated Intelligence could be a good name for a blog.

Posted by: Ace at 12:29 PM | Comments (7)
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