Comes the sound of a thousand jaws clunking on a thousand floors.

Thanks to Nick S.

Posted by: Ace at 11:17 AM | Comments (6)
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Josh Marshall's widdle head just exploded:

As Pakistan continues its relentless campaign against al-Qaeda, diplomatic circles in Islamabad and Washington believe that some "high-value" targets might already have been arrested to be produced at a later date.

At the same time, the strongest-ever operation in the country against jihadi forces is seen as a preemptive strike against a backlash in the event of a high-value target being caught.

On Monday, the Pakistani army said security forces had killed four suspected al-Qaeda members and captured two others in a raid in the tribal regions of Northern Waziristan. Hundreds of security forces backed by helicopter gunships took part in the raid, according to official reports.

This follows news on Sunday of the arrest of more than 10 suspects believed to be involved in a plot to bomb high-profile targets in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, including the US Embassy and the official residences of Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf. (Such plans were revealed by Asia Times Online, Fear stalks Pakistan's anniversary, August 14.)

I question the "timing" of these arrests and the not-immediate-announcement of same. Hell, you'd think the Pakistanis were secretly interrogating the captured Qaedas so that they could make more arrests before letting out the knowledge that cells had been compromised.

That, or the ISI is working for Karl Rove.

You make the call.

Credibility Watch: Allah, Who Is Wise About the Relative Credibility of Media Sources, tells me Asia Times (where this story is from) is notoriously given to running thinly-sourced sensationalistic stories, like AQ's frequent claims of already having one or several working atomic bombs.

Even so, Josh Marshall's head just exploded.

Posted by: Ace at 11:13 AM | Comments (11)
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Click below to read on. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:04 PM | Comments (13)
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10. "I don't care what the so-called (finger quotes) "First Amendment" says. Find me a loophole."

9. "Those goddamn SwiftVets are savaging us like 'Jenjis Khan.'"

8. "Look, I hate to bring this up, but I have to ask: Do we have actual proof that John Kerry was even in Vietnam at all? I just want to know the potential downside on all this."

7. "We'll just spin this into a positive. We'll say John Kerry was smart enough to keep out of Cambodia, and he'll be smart enough to stay out of Iran, too."

6. "I had a very nice creamy steak suisse last night. It's seared --seared-- seared into my memory. Come on, it's funny. Stop being such a Serious Susan all the time."

5. "I say we just continue to run on our strengths, the strengths that nobody can deny. I propose a new advertising campaign-- John Kerry: He's really, really tall."

4. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but Bob Dole is on fucking fire."

3. "We may be losing the veterans, we may be losing the independents, we may even be losing some of our usual Democratic base, but whatever happens, we've still got Chris Matthews solidly on board."

2. "Well, maybe Kerry did dishonestly oversell his 'heroism' in the Vietnam; maybe a more accurate account would be that he didn't want to serve, failed in his attempt to secure secure another grad-school deferment, enlisted in a unit seeing little action at the time in order to avoid combat, and then performed routinely but not remarkably for four months before doctoring up a dubious troika of Purple Hearts and finagling himself an early ticket home. That said, Kerry still has an awful lot to run on: his strong national security credentials, his clear plan for winning the war on terror, his meticulously-detailed plan for improving the economy.... SNORT!!! giggle! ... What, we're not allowed to be funny during a presidential campaign?"

...and the Number One Thing Overheard in Liberal Circles...

1. "Is it too late to run Frank Lautenberg? Someone get me that alte kacher on the horn."

Apologies: Some lists are funny. Some lists are funny and true. This one is merely true.

This list is nothing but "clappers," which I hate, but I'm in the mood for gloating.

Posted by: Ace at 12:03 PM | Comments (10)
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For two years John Forbes Kerry has been telling us that he could convince hostile nations to do our bidding just through force of personality and sweet reason.

Well, here's a smaller test, Johnny. Here are 240 or so Vets that you actually already sort of know.

Use these vaunted diplomatic skills we've heard so much about to achieve the sort of outcome you want.

We'll be watching-- and judging. If you can't convince these 240 guys to do something they're fundamentally opposed to (like shutting up, God bless 'em), I don't see how on earth you can expect us to believe you can convince Iran, North Korea, and (worst of them all) France to do America's bidding.

Update: Smack adds:

Test: Diplomacy
Status: FAILED
Explanation: "When we dedicated swift boat one in '92, I said to all the swift guys that I wasn't talking about the swifties, I was talking about all the rest of the veterans."

I can see it now:

John Forbes Kerry speaking with diplomats from Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Italy, Australia, and Britain: "When I called you all a 'phoney coalition' of the 'bribed, bought, and coerced,' I was talking about different countries. You know, countries that don't matter. How shall I put this? Non-white-majority countries.

"Basically, I was talking about Trinidad and Tobego, and only Trinidad and Tobego. Why you all think I was talking about you I really have no idea."

Update: Publius notes:

Wait a minute, I thought Kerry's first Diplomatic Test were his talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris while the U.S. was still at war.

Let me clarify: His first diplomatic test since becoming an announced presidential candidate.

Of course he was a presidential candidate when he was eating cucumber finger-sandwiches with the Cong, too. But that was in the mid-phases of his lifelong presidential campaign. And he had not yet announced his intentions, although, to be sure, pretty much everyone already knew.

Posted by: Ace at 10:22 AM | Comments (28)
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I noted the importance of John Forbes Kerry's "we still have not been shot at" diary earlier this week.

The Kerry campaign's admission is on Drudge so you've probably seen it, of course. Still, I have to dignify the news by elevating it to a full Ace of Spades HQ mention:

Kerry's campaign now says is possible first Purple Heart was awarded for unintentional self-inflicted wound...

In Kerry's own journal written 9 days later, he writes he and his crew, quote, 'hadn't been shot at yet'... Developing...

This is huge. This will be the second confirmation of a SwiftVets charge in as many weeks.

There must be smoking gun evidence that Kerry's wound was self-inflicted, or else the campaign would never have admitted this possibility. And I don't just mean because he's an incorrigible liar; I just mean it's far too damaging to give the SwiftVets this sort of ammunition. This second admission will pretty much demand media scrutiny. And of course it adds to the SwiftVets credibility-- as far as charges so far proven one way or the other, the SwiftVets are 2 for 2.

This is huge. Oliver Willis Huge.

Correction: I originally wrote that Kerry himself had admitted this possibility; that of course was wrong. His campaign admitted it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:06 AM | Comments (24)
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I don't want to oversell this the way someone oversold Reanimator to me. ("And then, and then, and then he's like totally decapitated, and he's like holding his own head, and then he holds his head by the hair up to the girl and... YOU GOTTA SEE REANIMATOR, DUDE!!! IT'S THE FUCKIN' SACK, BABY!!!)

But really-- this is good stuff. Almost From Beyond good.

So, some time ago, I posted the economic models created by a Yale economist named Ray C. Fair predicting a Bush victory.

Well, a reporterette at the New York Times decided to interview Professor Fair. You might think that she'd ask a lot of technical but interesting questions about the model's assumptions. You'd be wrong.

She decided to just argue about the models for an hour or so. Not in a technical fashion, mind you, but in a simply emotional one: She wants Kerry to win, and she's very angry that Professor Fair's models show him losing. She's further angry that his models show Kerry losing and yet the professor shared them with the public-- she fears that the models could hurt Kerry, and thus probably ought to have been suppressed.

Don't believe me? Well, here's a taste:

SOLOMON: In your book “Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things,” you claim that economic growth and inflation are the only variables that matter in a presidential race. Are you saying that the war in Iraq will have no influence on the election?

FAIR: Historically, issues like war havenÂ’t swamped the economics. If the equation is correctly specified, then the chances that Bush loses are very small.

SOLOMON: But the country hasnÂ’t been this polarized since the 60Â’s, and voters seem genuinely engaged by social issues like gay marriage and the overall question of a more just society.

Ummm, they do? Such questions weigh into every election, of course, but I can't think of an election in which such questions have been less relevant. Even during the height of the Vietnam War, the social questions -- race, abortion, etc. -- were raging to be nearly the equal of the war issue.

That's not the case now. This election is all about, in order 1) the War on Terrorism, 2) the economy, and 3) the War on Terrorism.

I think this reporterette would do herself some good to try reporting on the world as it actually is rather than how she wishes it to be.

But anyway, Prof. Fair answers:

FAIR: We throw all those into what we call the error term. In the past, all that stuff that you think should count averages about 2.5 percent, and that is pretty small.

SOLOMON: It saddens me that you teach this to students at Yale, who could be thinking about society in complex and meaningful ways.

FAIR: I will be teaching econometrics next year to undergraduates. Econometrics is a huge deal, because it is applied to all kinds of things.

SOLOMON: Yes, I know one of your studies used the econometric method to predict who is most likely to have an extramarital affair.

Yes, it is indeed sad that a professor of econometrics should lower himself to teach his students econometrics, rather than something really valuable, like Our Bodies, Our Elves: Marxist Feminist Allegory in The Elfstones of Shannara.

But our intrepid reporterette gets right to the heart of the matter:

SOLOMON: Are you a Republican?

FAIR: I canÂ’t credibly answer that question. Using game theory in economics, you are not going to believe me when I tell you my political affiliation because I know that you know that I could be behaving strategically. If I tell you I am a Kerry supporter, how do you know that I am not lying or behaving strategically to try to put more weight on the predictions and help the Republicans?

SOLOMON: I donÂ’t want to do game theory. I just want to know if you are a Kerry supporter.

FAIR: Backing away from game theory, which is kind of cute, I am a Kerry supporter.

SOLOMON: I believe you entirely, although IÂ’m a little surprised, because your predictions implicitly lend support to Bush.

FAIR: I am not attempting to be an advocate for one party or another. I am attempting to be a social scientist trying to explain voting behavior.

SOLOMON: But in the process you are shaping opinion. Predictions can be self-confirming, because wishy-washy voters might go with the candidate who is perceived to be more successful.

Notice Solomon's agenda. She's not here to hash out if this model has been a good predictor in the past or anything like that. She's just pissed because she knows about The Bandwagon Effect, how undecideds can be swayed to vote by whoever they perceive to be the ultimate winner.

If she's really upset by that, she should have a word with the editors of the New York Times, who have featured, at last count, thirty-seven bazillion front-page big-font headlines proclaiming that Bush is losing support in the country. They never report the polls prominently in which he regains support. To look just at the New York Times' front page (not a good idea for anyone interested in keeping appraised of what's happening in the world), you'd get the idea that Bush must be at negative 456% support, since the Times polls only show him dropping three or five points every month.

But then, that's good shaping of public opinion, innit it?

Thanks to Little Green Footballs (who has more, including the link) by way of Milty and CalGal at The Perfect World.

Posted by: Ace at 09:36 PM | Comments (8)
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Some sort of shadowy organization rumored to be largely funded by/made up of Republicans -- calling itself the "Grand Old Party" or "the National Republican Party" -- is now attacking poor John Forbes Kerry's Senate record as well.

Rumor has it that those who "served with" John Forbes Kerry in the Senate are peddling all sorts of filthy lies about his proposals to slash military and intelligence spending. Some even allege that he voted against the first Gulf War (before he voted for it), but such allegations are "unsubstantiated," as they have nothing to back them up except the Congressional Record.

Yes, friends, Scrappleface (linked by MarcLand) is informing us this will be a very dirty race indeed.

And by "dirty," we mean that Republicans will attempt to beat a liberal in an election.

Is this what democracy has come to? Republicans thinking they can just run ads and donate to causes and express their opinions and even vote?

Posted by: Ace at 07:38 PM | Comments (11)
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NRO notes that the mainstream media take on Avoirdupois 451 was that it might contain some small amount of error or misrepresentation, but that it was nevertheless an important and largely-accurate film.

The SwiftVets, of course, are just liars with nothing of any interest to say.

I don't see how the media can tout Avoirdupois 451 and then cry foul when the SwiftVets -- who are all eyewitnesses to the events they describe -- present their meticulously-footnoted documentary effort.

When Michael Moore suggests that Bush ordered the FBI to let the bin Ladin exit the country when no one else was flying -- despite the fact that planes were already flying, and Bush-critic/media-darling (redudancy alert) Dick Clarke actually ordered the plane to fly -- the media says that's a bit of "hyperbole" or maybe "loose language."

When the SwiftVets tell the stories of their time in the mud and blood, that's just an outright fabrication, and we know it's a fabrication, because hey, John Forbes Kerry says so.

Posted by: Ace at 04:23 PM | Comments (6)
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Kausfiles catches a Kerry-supporting vet "backing up" his claim of hostile fire only by resorting to the passive voice:

Shooting broke out.

Well, no one disputes that "shooting broke out;" the debate is whether there were any enemies in the area doing any shooting. We all know that Kerry & Co poured fire into the jungle.

Kausfiles goes on to find this same witness being a little more clear in the Boston Globe's book on Kerry:

I can't say for sure that we got return fire or how [Kerry] got nicked.

Un. Frickin'. Believable.

But the media, of course, trumpets this man's account as settling the issue and unambiguously supporting Kerry.

Posted by: Ace at 03:57 PM | Comments (10)
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