Really? Seriously? No shittin'?

The economy just posted a red-hot growth rate of 5.3% and you're saying it may slow in the future?

Always the downside. As I've noted too many times to recount, the media is only willing to acknowlege the current strength of the economy in a cautionary tale about its future weakening. We will proceed from "the worst economy since Herbert Hoover" to a "severe recession caused by the unsustainable growth during the Bush Bubble" without ever having an acknowledgement of the strength of the economy in the present tense.

It's the only story the media knows how to write. Sort of like Dan Brown. And like Dan Brown, the luridness and absurdity of the tale is palpable.

The actual story isn't particularly objectionable. But the MSM knows headlines have impact. And they're damn-sure not going to let the public be tricked by a positive headline about the economy.

Stocks rose on signs the economy is expanding fast enough to boost company profits without igniting inflation. The rise in gross domestic product was the biggest since the third quarter of 2003 and compares with a 4.8 percent rate that was reported on April 28, the Commerce Department said. Sales of previously owned homes dropped to a three-month low, the National Association of Realtors also reported.

Last quarter's economic vigor may give way to a more moderate pace of growth for the remainder of 2006. Slower consumer spending and a weakening housing market will allow Federal Reserve policy makers to stop raising interest rates if additional data point to a smaller risk of accelerating inflation, economists said.

``Consumption and investment were a little softer than we were looking for,'' said John Shin, an economist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York. ``Reports since have certainly showed growth has decelerated, and that's consistent with the Fed's statement that growth will decline to a more sustainable rate.''

Holy Sacred Feminine, to call them scumbags would, as Dennis Miller said, be a disservice to bags filled with scum.

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (12)
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As Wardrobe Door notes, this should not be a difficult assignment. Pretty much he can simply re-use the DaVinci code script, chaning PARIS to VATICAN CITY as required.

Sacred Feminine All Mighty! I'm a believer in capitalism, but when a guy gets this rich off something so shoddy, I do begin to see the virtues of "Merit Committees" for artistic works.

Posted by: Ace at 10:23 AM | Comments (9)
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51-47. Those who are thinking about staying at home, or not donating to worthy candidates, should bear that narrow margin in mind.

Michelle, as usual, has a comprehensive backgrounder on this crucial vote. Although Bingaman's 650,000 cap represents a fourfold increase in current numbers, Kennedy and McCain are screaming murder about it.

Matter of fact, John McCain just brought up Jim Crow.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (40)
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It's been said on the blogosphere before, but this is a good print bit about it:

Osama bin Laden says he doesn't fear dying. He says he fears being humiliated. So let's give it to him.

...

What would happen if we ridiculed the terrorists instead? Would young people still flock to become "fighters" and suicide bombers? Would they still leave on their doomed missions with tearful support from their mothers, fathers, grandparents and the girls at home, blessed by a cleric who justifies murder as a noble sacrifice in Allah's name?

...

The U.S. military may be developing its war-fighting skills to do just that. Recently it shattered the seemingly invincible persona of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose beheadings and bombings have terrorized Iraq and the world, by pairing his latest video release with captured raw outtakes.

The outtakes showed al-Zarqawi not as a fearsome fighter but as a confused, bumbling fat boy in American sneakers and a black ninja costume who couldn't figure out how to operate a simple machine gun. (And even if it wasn't simple, there was no way to know that from the outtakes.) For the first time ever, the world saw al-Zarqawi's weak side: a pudgy, vulnerable, even contemptible creature who can't fight like a real warrior.

Of course, it doesn't help the cause when the New York Times and CNN immediately spring to this absurd fat-boy's defense, talking up the incredible complexity of the basic American squad automatic weapon.

To most Americans, ridiculing terrorists might seem trivial, even sophomoric, as a weapon of war. But dictators and terrorists, being unable to function in the free market of ideas, need propagandists to control (not merely spin) their public images. They require obedience or acquiescence - a fear factor that cannot long coexist with put-downs and snickering. (That's why, six months after taking power in 1959, Fidel Castro had signs placed in official buildings that read "Counterrevolutionary jokes forbidden here." One of the first publications he shutdown was Zig Zag, a humor magazine.)

Pride, honor and shame are profound in much of Arab Muslim culture. The al-Zarqawi video was devastating. That's why Iraqi television and other moderate Arab media gave it plenty of play.

...

In a January 2006 recorded message, bin Laden signed off by saying: "I swear not to die but a free man even if I taste the bitterness of death. I fear to be humiliated or betrayed."

If he's not afraid to die, let's pour on the humiliation.

As long as the terrorists can make themselves look like fearsome winners - and as long as we inadvertently help them - they will always recruit followers. But nobody likes to follow a loser.

Except CNN and the New York Times, of course.

It really is amazing. The writer notes that the media (including Hollywood) eagerly enlisted in mocking America's enemies during WWII.

Flash forward to today, when two of our most powerful news organizations play PR flack for a loathesome killer, and Hollywood churns out movie after movie "contextualizing" and apologizing mass-murder.

As the man says: They're not anti-war. They're just on the other side.

Speaking of being on the other side... Jack Murtha vows he will not sleep until the Jihadists get as much political benefit as possible from the alleged massacre of civilians by Marines in Iraq.

Then, having a senior moment, I guess, he notes we intentionally killed a lot of civilians in World War II, and says:

"In World War II we dropped bombs on all these different countries," he told Colmes. "We killed civilians. In wartime - this is wartime. You're not sitting in an office back here. This is wartime."

Compare his "This is wartime" statement about firebombing Dresden to his vow to not "let them cover... up" the alleged massacre in Iraq.

Seems that "This is wartime" doesn't apply when a Republican is President.

More of this c**k**ker's ruminations here. Including his parroting of the claim that Democrats won't seek to impeach Bush should they take Congress.

They have to impeach Bush if they take power. That's step one in their plan to capture Bin Ladin, defeat the terrorists, stop the Iran and NK nuke programs, and lower the price of gas to two bits per gallon.

(Then comes step two, and then comes step three: Profit.)

Posted by: Ace at 09:57 AM | Comments (20)
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Lay on all counts, Skilling on 19 of them.

And so far as I know neither has offered to turn on the actual masters of the conspiracy, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (23)
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He mentions a New York Times piece about the Clinton's marriage seems a bit incomplete.

It touched only lightly on the former president's friendship with Canadian politician Belinda Stronach.

"Friendship." Let's just say if Broder was a columnist at the New York Post he might say "galpal" or "canoodlemate."

The Observer's blogger thinks we're all just jealous:

But aren't we sick of the prurience? And isn't there a freedom in their choices of which others are envious? Maybe we can all learn from their experience.

Yeahhhhh, baby! Free love! Shagadelic!

I'm not sure the country is looking for Part II of the Austin Powers co-presidency.

The President has her finger on the nuclear button, and we don't need her with an itchy trigger-finger just because her husband never calls her pretty anymore.

Posted by: Ace at 09:35 AM | Comments (12)
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Right Wing News heds this as saying Gore says it's okay to lie to alarm people about global warming.

He didn't quite say that. But I'd like to know, precisely, what an "over-representation of the facts" consists of. It does sound like a euphemism for "absurd hyperbole."

Update: Questions for Al Gore from a climate scientist.

Why did you make it look like hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, droughts, and ice calving off of glaciers and falling into the ocean, are only recent phenomena associated with global warming? You surely know that hurricane experts have been warning congress for many years that the natural cycle in hurricanes would return some day, and that our built-up coastlines were ripe for a disaster (like Katrina, which you highlighted in the movie). And as long as snow continues to fall on glaciers, they will continue to flow downhill toward the sea. Yet you made it look like these things wouldn't happen if it weren't for global warming. Also, since there are virtually no measures of severe weather showing a recent increase, I assume those graphs you showed actually represented damage increases, which are well known to be simply due to greater population and wealth. Is that right?

Well, sometimes you need an "over-representation of the facts," you see.

Posted by: Ace at 09:16 AM | Comments (26)
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Another scoop for the Radio Equalizer. It's sad-- great blog, but he's killing his meal-ticket.

Although, it would be funny if Radio Equalizer just began following around a homeless Al Franken in the street, turning in reports every day about what tasty morsels Franken had "liberated" from a dumpster. I'd link that every Sacred-Feminine-Damn day.

Maloney notes that lefties just don't understand how to work in the private sector. They're so used to working in government or the academy or the entertainment biz where stuff like expenses and performance and profits don't matter, they're baffled to hear about some "voodoo capitalist balderdash" about inflow exceeding outflow.

Quoting a the great scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur Dr. Raymond Stantz:

Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*.

Posted by: Ace at 08:23 AM | Comments (10)
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I think I just had a psychogenic orgasm.

Allah's post ends with a curious link: Anderson Cooper bragging about all the hot tail he scored at Yale, and suggesting that many of the graduates there might be his illegitimate children.

Uh-huh.

One might say that he, like Jim McGreevey, became as "avid a womanizer" as anyone else.

Let me quote Kathy Griffin on Clay Aiken: "Clay Aiken-- he's all about the p*ssy."

Posted by: Ace at 08:08 AM | Comments (2)
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But you don't have to read it. Because next week someone else will write the exact same cant-rant. These things are tedious in their monotony and derivativeness.

I saw a cool word on Jeff Goldstein's site the other day. Had no idea what it meant, so I looked it up.

phatic

Main Entry: phat·ic
Pronunciation: 'fa-tik
Function: adjective
Etymology: Greek phatos, verbal of phanai to speak

: of, relating to, or being speech used for social or emotive purposes rather than for communicating information

Perfect. So much of what these people write is purely phatic. It is not novel in its analysis or perspective or presentation of facts; nor is it really intended to be. It communicates approximately the same amount of genuine information as a "Hey, how's it goin'? Lovely weather we've been having, eh?"

What if they gave a war...?

Sacred Feminine All Mighty, that is musty. The old "What if they gave a war and no one showed up?" nonsense.

That's as ancient as the mouldering pages of the Necronomicon. But, alas, it has none of the talismanic power of an eldritch incantation.

1968. It was the height of the Vietnam War, the year of My Lai and the Tet offensive. Student riots in Paris nearly brought down the French government. Soviet tanks put a premature end to Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring.

Does anyone really need an explanation of 1968 at this point? Of course not; it's purely phatic. He's not delivering information; he's merely demonstrating his membership in a certain political tribe by saying the proper pass-code.

In the United States, the streets were teeming with antiwar protesters and civil rights demonstrators. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other. The Democratic convention in Chicago dissolved into chaos. And by the summer, America's cities were in flames.

Really? I'd never heard.

The world was seething, and for good reason. There was a lot to be angry about. It was a lousy year, 1968.

I was in high school then. I quit the baseball team because, frankly, sports seemed frivolous. In 1968, there were more important things to worry about than perfecting a curveball. All very high-minded and, in retrospect, more than a little pompous.

Just a little, mind you. Thank the Sacred Feminine he's managed to contain that self-righteousness and pomposity at his late age.

But nearly 40 years down the road I don't regret having done it.

I'm sure Major League Baseball doesn't regret it, either.

My political consciousness was awakened and I was actively engaged in the world around me.

Has there been a single word yet which was not entirely predictable? The Sacred Feminine preserve us, there has not yet been a single word written that any of us couldn't have written as a parody, while on auto-pilot.

But as bad as things were then, they seem infinitely worse now.

But of course they are, darling. It's always worse. Nixon was the worst, ever. Then Reagan was the worst, ever. A couple of times when Clinton made half-hearted nods to social conservativism, preemptive military action, or fiscal sanity, he was the worst, ever.

And now, of course, George Bush is the super-duper-we-really-mean-it-this-time worst ever. Cubed.

So why aren't the streets clogged with angry Americans demanding to know why their president lied and deceived them so he could attack a country that had absolutely nothing to do with his so-called war on terror?

Take a guess. Seriously, guess the answer to his rhetorical question. See how close you come.

...

In short, where the hell is everybody?

I'll tell you where they are. They're at home, tuning in to root for the next "American idol." They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending 25 hours a week playing video games in virtual worlds instead of fighting to save the only world that really matters. They're surfing porn. They're text messaging and e-mailing and scheming to close that next big deal. They're flogging their useless crap on eBay.

All that technology at their fingertips, and they're completely blind. Two terms for George W. Bush? They're deaf and dumb, too.

Bread and circuses. The government and the corporations are giving us bread and circuses to keep us sufficiently distracted so the powers that be can pursue their agendas. Television (flat screens only, please) serves up Donald Trump and Paris Hilton as role models, and gives us the abomination of Fox News, which is more a wolf in sheep's clothing than any Vulpes vulpes you're likely to encounter.

Hollywood only cares about blockbusters, chick flicks and inane buddy movies. Tiresome reality doesn't make for good escapism and, more importantly, it doesn't fill coffers. And George Clooney can't be expected to produce every movie.

Whither the press? Forget it. Britney Spears gets more ink -- and better play -- than global warming does.

The real voices of dissent and engagement are found on the internet these days, but the internet is simply too diffuse to effectively galvanize a revolution.

And we desperately need a revolution.

Points:

Award yourself 1 point if you guessed the answer would involve the other opiate of the masses, television. Give yourself 3 points if you guessed he would specifically mention American Idol, and two more points if you said he'd say Fox News. (Only two points for Fox News -- it's a little too obvious, non?)

Give yourself 2 points for naming each of the following: iPods, the Internet, porn, emails, text message. Give yourself a big ten point bonus if you connected any of these to "scheming to close that big deal."

Three points for any guesses of the names Donald Trump or Paris Hilton or Britney spears; 10 points if you deduced Hollywood, except for George Clooney, was to blame.

Four big points for guessing "bread and circuses."

And finally, one additional point for guessing that he'd end by noting we need a revolution now (because, hey, the previous one in 1968 was so much fun). Only one point because, let's face it, we knew where that train was headed the moment it left the station.

Why would anyone feel compelled to write such obvious, tired musty cant?

Why would anyone -- even an on-line "magazine" -- feel there was any value in publishing it?

Posted by: Ace at 07:19 AM | Comments (59)
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