Just detailed enough that you can bluff your way through cocktail conversation. On the other hand, why waste time talking about the Supreme Court when you're having appletinis?

I like this one especially:

Alberto Gonzales

Age: Souter.
Experience: Souter.
Philosophy: Souter.
Misc.: Souter.
Overall JJ rating: D- (but only because heÂ’d be replacing the precursor to Souter, as opposed to a solid conservative vote).

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (2)
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51%. Not great, but better than the recent low-forties numbers he's had.

That sounds about right to me. I just think this question is largely a proxy for "How do you think things are going right now?," and the fact is things are going at about a 48-52% okay sort of clip. The economy continues to strengthen, though not dramatically, and we are, despite the media's best efforts to claim otherwise, slowly winning the war in Iraq.

But there are just too many bad things going on right now -- the record (real dollar) cost of oil and gas, the upsurge in terrorist violence in Iraq that still hasn't really petered out, and general anxiety about the country's future.

Bush is not a caretaker president, as Clinton largely was. He's determined to accomplish some great things, and lately he seems to be failing on most of them. Change makes people anxious, and in both domestic and foreign policy Bush is pushing for pretty dramatic changes. Mostly for the better, I think -- but many people just don't like to think about big changes.

Thanks to Polipundit. And thanks to Lorie Byrd for giving this site the goose in traffic that's keeping today from being yet another low-traffic day.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (3)
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Navel-gazing and self-indulgent, I guess. But I thought I'd mention why my blogging has been, what's the word?, so sucky lately.

1. General Burn-Out. There just comes a point when the go-to references don't even amuse me anymore. Yeah, Whitesnake, Billy Squire, the late, great Frank "The Riddler" Gorshin. How many times can you go to these wells? Well, I'm not sure, but I've gone there too often.

2. A Feeling of Hopelessness for the Site. One also begins to realize that there will be no crazy blog-money, ever, and that sort of diminishes enthusiasm for the project. Yeah, supposedly Pajamas Media will launch soon and we'll get higher ad revenues from a larger pool of advertisers, but I've begun to view that as a pipe dream. Don't get me wrong, I love all my t-shirt advertisers -- or at least the ones that used to advertise here -- but no one's going to even make a decent supplemental income advertising t-shirts.

Even Dusty has now forsaken me.

3. No Forward Momentum. I've used this analogy before (at this point, I've used every analogy before), but an uptick in traffic is like leveling up in a role-playing game (pencil and paper or computer, whatever you fancy). It's fun to increase your stats and buy that +3 Flaming Sword, +5 Double-Damage Vs. Andrew Sullivan you've had your eyes on for oh so long.

But when you're stuck in the 5-7,000 range for months and months and months, and in fact traffic is (deservedly) falling off, slowly but surely, you begin to realize you're going to be a 6th level Rogue forever. Again, it just diminishes one's interest in the deal.

4. What More Is There To Say? There are subjects that animate me and subjects, like the Kelo decision, that frankly don't. I don't feel like talking about the subjects that don't animate me. And I've already said just about everything that's in my little moronbrain about the subjects that do interest me. Even when I write a more substantive piece about some issue or event, I know I'm cribbing a bit from past posts. I'm not quoting, I'm not swiping, it's all new language and all, but it's basically the same general thrust. If it bores me, I have to imagine it bores the hell out of readers, because any writer (even an amateur free-internet-press wannnabe) likes his own stuff better than his audience. If that's not the case, you're too self-critical to churn out copy.

5. Where Did Teh Funnay Go? Not sure. It just went. Humor can come from exuberance and cockiness or anger, and I guess I'm just too blase and bored right now to feel either. Even when I have a half-promising premise for a comedy bit -- I thought it would be cute, pace Brian Williams, to rewrite the Declaration of Independence as if Osama Bin Ladin had wrote it, with lots of references to the Betrayal of Andalusia or whatever the fuck that jerkoff's always on about it, I just say: Nah. Not good enough. It doesn't flow. It would just be hackwork, sweatwork, and readers can see the sweat that goes into a piece.

The funny pieces are the ones that take almost no effort at all. They just come. They almost, as they say, write themselves. The pieces one actually does a lot of work on, really puts effort into, always seem to be sub-par at best.

6. And The Slow News Cycle Ain't Helping Either. Occasionally there's an interesting story, but let's face it, the unending Bolton confirmation process doesn't really make for stellar analytical pieces or humor pieces either.

7. The Internet cough"Radio"cough Show. Lately we've been scrambling for guests Sunday, Monday, and even Tuesday morning. Big-name guests will express some interest and name a date but then never actually confirm. So there's an awful lot of stress leading up to the show, with prep coming in a burst at the last minute, when we finally confirm a guest and know what to ask him.

But this means that about half the week ends up being bad for blogging, as free time is directed elsewhere. And then even Wednesday turns into a half-holiday.

This might change a bit, as we've gotten semi-confirmations from some big name guys -- Hugh Hewitt, Jonah Goldberg, Kenneth Timmerman -- for this month; we may finally have guests in advance enough to not scramble and to actually, get this, have the time to read their books. Getting this guys to confirm in advance would really free up time in the ensuing weeks for just plain blogging, without making a bazillion phone calls to PR people.

Someone, I think Bbeck, suggested guest bloggers on Monday and Tuesday so as not to reduce the number of postings on those days. I sort of resisted the idea -- not because I didn't trust other people; just because I don't think I can just ask someone to guest blog for two days week after week after week -- but I'm starting to think maybe I do need a little help those days.

Anyway, just acknowledging what is probably obvious to most of you guys. I do apologize for the lack of quality on this site of late. I've been through this before; I've had ups and downs, I've had times when blogging was really fun and I felt confident and entertaining in my writing, and times when it was just a grind and I looked at everything I wrote and thought "useless hackery."

Not to tell tales out of school, but I was just talking, briefly, with Allah about this, and similar feelings seem to have caused him to more or less give up blogging. At some point the time and effort needed to do even a half-assed job at this begins to look well out of proportion to any tangible benefits to be gained.

The only thing sustaining me write now is that readers keep coming back, probably out of a sense of either loyalty or force of habit, and I don't want to disappoint them more than necessary. That's the one great thing-- it really is still very flattering that so many people come here to read my stupid moronthoughts. But that good feeling is diminshed by the knowledge that I'm disappointing the readers, and that while they're coming back for now, they won't keep coming back forever if this continues much longer.

So, there it is. Yeahp, I know I've got nothin' at the moment. I do apologize. It's not as if I've consciously decided to begin keeping a crap blog. It just sort of happens from time to time, although this latest blog-funk is lasting longer than previous ones.

Usually I could count on something interesting or fun to break me out of it. Some stupid remark by Sullivan; or a nice juicy Pat O'Brien sex-tape to be leaked just when I needed it most.

I do hope something like that comes along, and fast.

Posted by: Ace at 09:55 AM | Comments (72)
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A few weeks ago the idiots at the NYT published an op-ed from a Muslim woman living in Cambridge about the heroism of Al Gore. What heroism? Well, he'd handed to her the keys she'd left behind after walking away from a swanky Harvard-heavy gym. His brave gesture affirmed that she was "accepted" and "affirmed" by American society.

It was ripe for parody. But, being in the blog-funk I am, I couldn't find an angle. It should have been easy. But nothing's been easy lately.

Jonah Goldberg did, ripping this idiotic woman and the NYT editorial board a new one.

Thanks again to co-host Karol.

Posted by: Ace at 09:26 AM | Comments (1)
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The subtlety makes it sexier.

Thanks to Karol at Alarming News.

Posted by: Ace at 09:05 AM | Comments (10)
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As My Pet Jawa suggests: time to start knitting the nooses.

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (10)
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Pet Jawa decides that two can play the game of juvenile equivalencies.

Yeah, it's dumb. But Kos started it.

H/t to Howard Devore.

Posted by: Ace at 08:50 AM | Comments (6)
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It's about time.

Posted by: Ace at 08:48 AM | Comments (1)
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If the foreign terrorists fought the Ba'athist holdouts, who would win?

Why, our boys, of course:

American troops on the Syrian border are enjoying a battle they have long waited to see - a clash between foreign al-Qa'eda fighters and Iraqi insurgents.

Tribal leaders in Husaybah are attacking followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist who established the town as an entry point for al-Qa'eda jihadists being smuggled into the country.

The reason, the US military believes, is frustration at the heavy-handed approach of the foreigners, who have kidnapped and assassinated local leaders and imposed a strict Islamic code.

Fighting, which could be clearly heard at night over the weekend, first broke out in May when as many as 50 mortar rounds were fired across the city. But, to the surprise of the American garrison, this time it was not the target.

If a shell landed near the US base, "they'd adjust their fire and not shoot at us", Lt Col Tim Mundy said. "They shot at each other."

Not quite "sweets and flowers," but it's a start.

The foreign Al Qaeda lunatics seem to have jumped the shark:

The police fled in November. In mid-June, al-Qa'eda units took over key buildings, including mosques and government offices. "Al-Qa'eda in Iraq" flags were raised.

The city, 240 miles north-west of Baghdad and adjacent to the insurgent centre of Qaim, is so dangerous that soldiers in the US base sleep in bunkers because of mortar and rocket attacks.

Following al-Qa'eda's seizure of the main buildings a number of residents fled. Arkan Salim, 56, who left with his wife and four children, said: "We thought they were patriotic. Now we discovered that they are sick and crazy.

"They interfered in everything, even how we raise our children. They turned the city into hell, and we cannot live in it anymore."

Thanks to OgreGunner.

Posted by: Ace at 03:02 PM | Comments (10)
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Yeahp.

A little self-interested point: why is it that huge -- and Kos is, of course, HUGE -- liberal bloggers get to indulge in this sort of over-the-top invective with no consequences to their credibility (such as it is) but big conservative bloggers (Insty, Volokh, Powerline) must be fairly reasonable and restrained?

I bash liberals a lot. (But with the love-- always with the love.) But I don't think I've ever engaged in this level of black hatred.

To the extent I do indulge in nastiness, it does, I think, put an upper limit on my acceptability and potential audience.

And yet Kos and his nasty fellow-travellers can say just about anything they goddamned well like without being taken to task by any more authoritative source, i.e., the mainstream media and doyennes of journalism.

Not your problem. My problem. But it annoys me to no end that conservative pundits are routinely savaged for nastiness and hackery while the Daily Kos and Atrios and the rest continue getting a free pass.

And more than a free pass, actually. Prominent mentions in the New York Times with little by way of chiding for their vitriolic rhetoric.

Thanks to NickS.

And... Of course Karl Rove is worse than bin Ladin, according to Ted Rall.

Remember: Ann Coulter is a divisive and vitriolic polemnicist who must be sharply rebuked by our Media Masters every time she's mentioned.

Ted Rall is just a brave guy who tells the truth.

That is certainly overstating the situation a bit -- "reasonable" media liberals will say they find Ted Rall over-the-top when they're forced to -- but only when they're forced to. Only when they're directly asked.

But, of their own volition, they spend a lot of time talking about Ann Coulter and FoxNews.

Perhaps they should reign in their own if they want to have any credibility when critiquing Ann Coulter's style of invective.

Posted by: Ace at 02:46 PM | Comments (54)
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