Adjusted by a big half-point upwards, from 2.8% to 3.3%

My source Deep Stoat tips me before it's up on Yahoo Finance. (I think.)

A chart here; full report here.

Some highlights:

* During the 2nd quarter of 2004, GDP grew at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 3.3 percent. Over the past year, GDP has increased by 4.8 percent.

* Business investment was stronger than expected, growing at a robust 12.5 percent annualized pace in the 2nd quarter.

* Export growth was strong and the revised 2nd quarter trade deficit was slightly smaller than previously estimated.

* Residential investment, primarily home building, was also revised up and is now estimated to have grown at a very strong 16.5 percent annualized rate. This is the second strongest quarterly growth in home building in eight years.

CNN previously said that the initial reading of 3.0% growth was "much lower" than analysts' expectations of 3.7% growth.

Now, see if you can follow this crazy math:

If a .7% gap between expectations and early readings constitutes a "much lower" rate of growth, will CNN also report that an upward revision of .5% constitutes a "much higher" rate of growth than earlier reported?

I wouldn't bet the farm on that proposition.

On the other hand, I'm quite ready to provide the cowbell that's so obviously required by this turn of events:

Update: The insurgent militant reporters at Reuters have a glowing sub-hed for the faster growth:

NOT SO BAD, REALLY

Not so bad, really. When it fails to match analysts' predictions by .7%, it's much slower growth. When it's adjusted back up by .5%, it's "not so bad, really."

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (2)
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It wasn't just the emails that were phony; it was the main subject of the piece as well.

Although CBS News presented its subject as a "Republican" who didn't seem to care much for politics, it turns out that, of course, she's a rabid political activist:

The person at the center of Schlesinger's piece is a woman named Beverly Cocco, a Philadelphia crossing guard who is "sick to my stomach" that her two sons might be drafted. In his report, Schlesinger portrayed her as an apolitical (and even Republican) mom worried about the safety of her children.

"Beverly Cocco has spent most of her life protecting children in Philadelphia," Schlesinger cooed as he introduced his subject. "But as Election Day approaches, it's her own two grown sons who Beverly is most worried about."

Next the viewer hears an almost perfect soundbite from the "average" mother, carefully selected by Karas.

"I go to bed every night and I pray, and I actually get sick to my stomach. I'm very worried. I'm scared. I'm absolutely scared. I'm petrified."

At this point, an honest reporter would have seen fit to disclose Cocco's political connections. But Schlesinger refuses, leaving his profilee for the moment to cite an anonymous chain letter (more on that later) and then talk about what both President Bush and John Kerry think about the draft.

...

Beverly Cocco seems nice enough on camera, but she is hardly the "Pennsylvania voter" that CBS News wants you to believe she is. In fact, the apolitical mother of two is a chapter president of an advocacy group called People Against the Draft (PAD) which, in addition to opposing any federal conscription, seeks to establish a "peaceful, rational foreign policy" by bringing all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Like Schlesinger's Cocco, the group portrays itself as "nonpartisan"although its leadership seems to be entirely bereft of any epublicans.

The group's domain is registered to a man named Jacob Levich, a left-wing activist who in a 2001 essay compared the Bush Administration to the totalitarian government portrayed in George Orwell's 1984.

PAD also lists Anita Dutt, a Green Party activist who is also a member of an anti-war group called Bronx Action for Justice and Peace. In a March 3, 2003 New York Times profile of the group reprinted on the organization's web site, Heidi Hynes, one of its leaders, said of her fellow members that "none of us are Republicans."

And of course that's not the first time CBS News has used stealth liberal activists posing as "just normal nonpartisan concerned mommies," as RatherBiased.com reports.

Posted by: Ace at 08:24 AM | Comments (7)
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Boy, it sure is fun painting this white picket fence. I can't believe how lucky a boy I am to be painting on such nice day.

You want to try paintin' the fence? I don't know. It's really a lot of fun. What do you have in trade?

AnnieL wants to know what sort of a drinking game can be played during the debate. I'm stumped, myself-- I've never played drinking games, unless you count "drowning your feelings of inadequacy and residual childhood rage with Nyquil and prescription back-pills" as a "game."

So, if anyone has any good ideas, post them here, and I'll use the best ones for a Debate Drinking Game.

Ace of Spades HQ: Interactive Entertainment. And by "interactive," I mean I just sit here and drink Nyquil-and-prescription-back-pills highballs.

Posted by: Ace at 08:08 AM | Comments (14)
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An Islamic Algerian man attempted to force a Norwegian airliner to crash using an axe he apparently smuggled aboard.

How are we sure he was attempting to crash the plane? Well, we don't have much evidence of that, except what he screamed out in lunatic rage:

"IÂ’m going to crash this plane," screamed the asylum applicant[.]

Travelling Shoes notes that Reuters, ever alert for actions of a "militant" sort (like crashing passenger jets), offers the following paliative at the story's close:

Random violent crime is rare in the Nordic nation...

As it is in most nations, actually.

You know what's not quite so rare?

"Militant attacks." And/or "insurgency actions." Those aren't so rare as "random violent crime."

Posted by: Ace at 08:01 AM | Comments (3)
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Great point by an NRO reader.

Related: Howie Kurtz jumps on the New Liberal Conventional Wisdom, dubbing the polls not "fluid" but "volatile":

So Kerry not only has to catch up (to the degree these volatile polls show him behind)

"Volatile"? The big polls have consistently shown Bush ahead by 6-13 points. Even tossing out the 13, 12, and 11 point post-convention leads, there doesn't seem a lot of "volatility" in that persistent 6-8 point advantage.

The polls aren't just consistent with themselves; they're cross-consistent with each other.

But it's very "volatile." Gee, one day Bush is up by 13, the next day he has a paltry 8-point lead.

Posted by: Ace at 07:21 AM | Comments (1)
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It's unbelievable, but it's true. Even as Dan Rather is being investigated for peddling transparently-sham forged documents, CBS News airs a story using already-debunked emails as the peg upon which to hang its draft-scare story.

RatherBiased has the full story. I'll just tease it.

Rather introduces a story "reported" by Richard Schlesinger. The "report" features video footage of these emails:

which can be read in their entirety here, and which have been thoroughly debunked as the typical dishonest wives'-tale chain letter at FactCheck.org.

Contrary to the claims in the email -- promoted by CBS News -- that the Selective Service is upping its budget in anticipation for a draft, the budget is actually flat:

The Selective Service Budget has not been increased. The scare story also gets it wrong when it claims the budget for the Selective Service is being increased by $28 million in 2004. In fact, the Selective Service System's budget is flat. Its total operating budget was $26 million in fiscal year 2003 (which ended last Sept. 30), and is $26 million for fiscal 2004 as well. Furthermore, the President is asking for $26 million again for fiscal year 2005, and the Office of Management and Budget actually projects that the agency will shrink in size from 161 employees to 156 next year. That's hardly gearing up for a draft.

Furthermore, it is not the Bush Administration, nor anyone actually interested in restoring a draft who has introduced the two "draft bills" in Congress. Democrats "pushing" bills to reinstate a draft, chiefly as a political stunt. Even the Democrats -- or especially the Democrats -- don't want a draft; they are "introducing" bills to reinstate the draft to call attention to whatever the hell it is that animates them these days.

The report publishes images of these emails as if they are genuine and their contents can be relied upon. Nowhere in the report does it state that the basic facts "reported" by the emails is in fact completely wrong. It features Bush and Kerry denying any interest in the draft, but then returns to a supposedly "Republican woman" -- aren't they all? -- being unconvinced.

After all-- she's got her emails. Emails that CBS News just publically endorsed.

Is this just another case of "aggressive journalism," or "journalism happening," as liberal media apologist Richard Cohen claims?

Posted by: Ace at 12:39 AM | Comments (21)
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It's ironic, and in a strict manner too, not in that fakey Alannis Morissette fashion.

When someone outside of CBS News was caught sending fake faxes to back up wholly-invented lies, Steve Kroft was a lot tougher than he seems to be on colleagues Rather, Howard, and Mapes.

(CBS) Every profession has its share of scandals, hoaxes and con men. And journalism is no exception.

Ahem.

Even the New York Times was victimized a few months ago when it was discovered that one of its reporters, Jayson Blair, had plagiarized quotes and fabricated material in more than 35 of his articles.

But before Jayson Blair, there was Stephen Glass.

And after Stephen Glass, there was 60 Minutes.

Glass, a 25-year-old rising star at The New Republic, wrote dozens of high-profile articles for a number of national publications in which he made things up.

The shock of it all.

As 60 Minutes first reported in May, he made up people, places and events. He made up organizations and quotations. Sometimes, he made up entire articles.

And to back it all up, he created fake notes, fake voicemails, fake faxes, even a fake Web site - whatever it took to deceive his editors, not to mention hundreds of thousands of readers.

Sounds like "fake documents" to me. And it sounds like he deceived far fewer people than Dan Rather did. Or at least fewer people than Dan Rather intended to deceive.

Glass talks to Correspondent Steve Kroft in his first interview since his journalism career ended in disgrace.

No comment.

...

“Like a stock graph, there's going to be exceptions in this. But the general trend of the stories is that they started out with a few made up details and quotes. And granted a few too many, of course. But a few. And then they progressed into stories that were completely fabricated. Just completely made up out of whole cloth.”

...

“I loved the electricity of people liking my stories. I loved going to story conference meetings and telling people what my story was going to be, and seeing the room excited. I wanted every story to be a home run.”

I think Mary Mapes knows well that feeling.

How did this all work? How did Glass draw readers into these lies?

“I would tell a story, and there would be fact A, which maybe was true. And then there would be fact B, which was sort of partially true and partially fabricated. And there would be fact C which was more fabricated and almost not true,” says Glass.

“And there would be fact D, which was a complete whopper. And totally not true. And so people would be with me on these stories through fact A and through fact B. And so they would believe me to C. And then at D they were still believing me through the story.”

Sort of "accurate but not authentic."

By 1998, he was earning more than $100,000 and selling fabricated stories to Rolling Stone, George, and Harper's Magazine. He was also getting his face on television. His articles always generated lots of interest and very few angry letters to the editor.

“And that's because much of the time I wrote fictional stories about fictional people at fictional times doing fictional things. And those people don't write letters,” he says.

And neither do dead men. As I've mentioned before, this story was shoddy in terms of sourcing and fact-checking, nevermind the ludicrously-bad forgeries.

But if those forgeries had looked a little better -- Dan Rather would have his "scoop," and anyone challenging the story would be termed a crank. And yet the forgeries would still be as shoddily-sourced and fake as the actual ones.

The only reason this media hoax was exposed was because those forgeries were so transparently sham that it was obvious to most experts, and many non-experts, upon first glance.

Fictitious people don't deny stories. Neither do dead men. Maybe the liberal legacy media ought to remember that the next time words or documents are said by a political partisan to come from a dead man.

...

Lane, who is now a reporter for the Washington Post, says that Glass might still be duping editors, if it weren't for an online version of Forbes magazine, which was trying to do a follow-up on an article glass had written about a convention of computer hackers in Bethesda, Md. - specifically, a 15-year-old who had hacked into a company called Jukt Micronics and then extorted tens of thousands of dollars not to do it again. The Forbes editors told Lane they were having trouble confirming a single fact.

Oddly enough-- an on-line reporter uncovered Glass' fraud, too. It was considered a triumph for on-line journalism, which had gotten little respect previously.

Now, this is seriously ironic:

... He even went to the trouble to create a Web site for Jukt Micronics.

“It was ostensibly a web page from Jukt Micronics, which contained this letter claiming that The New Republic had portrayed them inaccurately in their story,” says Lane.

Was the Web site convincing?

No, says Lane. “The second I looked at it, I thought, ‘This isn't a real corporate Web site.’ I mean, first of all, it was on AOL members. You know. I mean corporations that make high-tech products in Silicon Valley don't go on AOL members.”

He created a "fake web site" which was a laughably crude and primative little page, with no graphics and childishly inept layout, which basically just said "Jukt Micronics" and listed a phone number or two-- not what you'd expect a professional software company to have for a web-page.

And, uhhh, you wouldn't expect them to have a freaking web-page on the AOL members domain-- the same domain where people post pictures of their cats and troll for those who are "Married but not Dead."

Not the sort of, ahem, forgery that would fool anyone.

And, give credit to Lane-- it didn't fool him for very long at all.

Now compare Lane's skepticism at seeing this obvious hoax with Rather's, Mape's, and Howard's determination to believe at any cost.

And how did all of this end for Glass? Rather badly, of course. But then, he wasn't a big anchorman, now was he?

And with that, the journalistic career of Stephen Glass ended. He dropped out of sight and spent much of the past five years in therapy, trying to start over.

...

But then he admits that he continued to lie to them. Did he ever apologize to any of them? “This is the very beginning of a very, very long process of apologies. I didn't apologize to people. Because I was so ashamed.”

Certainly Glass could forgive them for perhaps being a little bit cynical about this apology, since heÂ’s doing it on national television and not in person.

“I don't think that's right though, saying because I'm doing it on national television,” says Glass, even though he has a book out now about his life and hasn’t been in touch with these people for five years.

I wonder if Steve Kroft would forgive me for being cynical about Dan Rather's "apology," in which he apologized for very little of all. He apologized, basically, for Burkett's "lie" to him -- and I put that "lie" in quotes, because I'm not sure that Burkett lied to Rather and Mapes so much as he told them what they indicated they needed to hear.

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 PM | Comments (3)
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Yeahp. John "If I Was Invisible" Edwards was in Newark, NJ tonight.

NEWARK, N.J. - Before the 2001 terrorist attacks took the lives of her husband and more than 2,700 other victims, Kristen Breitweiser voted Republican.

Just askin'-- do we have any evidence besides the very-liberal-partisan Ms. Breitweiser's say-so for the oft-asserted claim that she used to vote Republican?

Richard Clarke also claimed to have "voted Republican" before deciding Bush was evil. That turned out to not be true at all, except in a very Clintonian sense.

Breitweiser, the media says, was a "registered Republican." But then, I'm a registered Independent, and I'm obviously not terribly Independent at all.

But the Middletown resident who helped elect President George W. Bush now believes wrong choices are being made, especially waging war with Iraq.

...

In the first visit to New Jersey by a candidate in the 2004 presidential campaign, Edwards criticized Bush's handling of the war on terror and national security issues.

...

While New Jersey was once considered a lock for the Democrats, recent polls indicate that Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry are in a virtual dead heat in the Garden State.

"It must mean that they are at least a little nervous," David Rohde, a political scientist from Michigan State, said referring to the Edwards visit.

...

Campaign officials would not say how much money they hoped to raise from Tuesday night's scheduled fund-raiser at the Hilton Hotel in East Brunswick.

So far, the Kerry-Edwards campaign in New Jersey has raised nearly $10 million, said Luis Vivciano, a spokesman for the campaign.

Republicans said the Edwards visit is a sign that Democrats are worried about winning New Jersey.

"I think it says a lot that Kerry has to go in and defend territory," said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign.

The fund-raiser was "scheduled," although the reporter doesn't bother telling us when it was scheduled; and the reporter never says that the Newark rally was "scheduled" before recently, either.

Posted by: Ace at 09:32 PM | Comments (5)
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A joke, you ask?

Not a joke.

All too real.

I guess Oliver Willis just wasn't delivering the knockout punch for him that he'd anticipated.

Karol says blogging just jumped the shark. I don't know if that's true, but all of a sudden this does seem sorta lame. It's like having your crazy pony-tailed hippie uncle force his way into the basement when you're hanging out with your friends and then keep dropping hints that he'd be game for "tokin' some kind" and suggesting to your girlfriend that she can take off her blouse if she likes, as he's "perfectly comfortable with the nude human form."

And you're like, "Get the fuck away from me or I'm telling mom, and then I'm calling your goddamned parole officer."

Posted by: Ace at 07:00 PM | Comments (13)
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I just called the Secret Service to get additional information about Lawrence Ward:

U.S. law enforcement officials have been unable to locate an upstate New York man wanted for questioning regarding threats to President Bush.

Lawrence Ward, 49, left his Bainbridge home in central New York on Sept. 9. A photo of Mr. Bush along with the written words "Dead Man" were found in his house.

Mr. Ward has emptied his bank accounts and canceled his credit cards, said national security officials close to the case. Those actions were seen as measures to prevent authorities from tracking or finding Mr. Ward, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Secret Service has issued a nationwide alert for information on Mr. Ward, who left his house with a hunting rifle and told a neighbor he was leaving and would not return, officials said.

It turns out he's now been "located," in the Agent's words. He wouldn't say where or when. Or by who, but I didn't think to ask him that.

You know, these guys are really suspicious. I could feel everyone I talked to sizing me up as some sort of would-be accomplice trying to find out what the Secret Service knows.

And I have to say, when you're on the phone with the Secret Service, you get kinda nervous. This guy asked me "And you want to know about this for what purpose exactly?" in that cop-like manner and I swear I almost yelled "Five-oh, five-oh!" and ducked out the fire escape.

At any rate, it looks like the Be On the Look Out can be safely cancelled.

Update: It looks like the Washinton Times, and I, were both behind this story. Ward has already been interviewed by the Secret Service-- as of last week.

I found this article in a forum linking to this site. I don't know its original provenance, as no link was provided.

Bainbridge Man Denies Threatening Bush

Kyle Clark

Sep 26, 2004, 22:29

Larry Ward, the Bainbridge man who was the subject of a nationwide manhunt by the Secret Service says he never threatened President Bush's life. Ward came under suspicion after police found threats inside his North Main Street home. They consisted of a picture of President Bush with the words "Dead Man" spraypainted over the top.

Neighbors say Ward left town 2 weeks ago, stashing a rifle in his Toyota and driving out of Bainbridge. We pick up the Larry Ward story close to three thousand miles away. Action News spoke with Ward by phone, from the home of a friend near Olympia, Washington. Larry Ward says he wasn't running, "I have a lot of adverse circumstances i New York and I just had to walk away from them for a little bit."

Following Ward cross country were Secret Service agents worried that he might be a threat to President Bush and Senator John Kerry. Ward says he never targeted the candidates, "Absolutely false. I'd like to give them a good kick in the rear but I have no intention of murdering anyone, never have. I wouldn't know how."

The Secret Service thought otherwise. An agent caught up with Ward last Thursday in Washington State.

"He said 'Can I look at your car, can I look at your gun. Why are you reading those books?'" said Ward.

Books like American Terrorist, about Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. A book that is far less sympathetic to McVeigh than Ward is, "I would, on a jury, probably find him guilty, but I think his motives and his thought process was honorable."

Ward went so far as to call McVeigh an American hero on this CD Ward made in his Bainbridge home. But what about the threat inside the home?

Ward told Action News, "On one of my walls, I have this political statement about Bush and a few months ago I was a victim of arson at my residence and vandalism. Someone spraypainted "Dead Man" over that."

Ward says he told his story to the Secret Service and has been cleared, "They said that they have no cause to be involved upon inquiry to me but they haven't said it publically, so I still have this lynch mob saying that I'm a wife beater and a president-murderer and god knows what."

Ward says he plans to stay on the West Coast for now, and he's not sure if he'll ever return to his home in Bainbridge. Action News asked the Secret Service to confirm that they interviewed Ward. A spokesman says they can't comment on an ongoing investigation. On Wednesday of last week, a New York City TV station reported the warrant for Ward's arrest has been dropped, and the Secret Service believes vandals may be behind the writing on the wall.

Sorry for the "Exclusive" stuff. I don't know what the story is now. The Washington Times just reported he's "disappeared" but this article from a day earlier seems to indicate everyone knows where he is.

Posted by: Ace at 12:47 PM | Comments (8)
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