Hmmm... those Chinese women sure do seem to have more "confidence" now that they're sporting C- and D-cups, ay?

Posted by: Ace at 09:30 AM | Comments (28)
Post contains 45 words, total size 1 kb.

Note the big question mark. He probably hasn't been.

Nonetheless, we seem to have captured and killed some very high-profile Al Qaeda leaders.

And maybe Zarkky's replacement has himself been replaced by a gas-bloated corpse.

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (17)
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.

TruthOut's coked-up, ethicically-challenged pretend Internet reporter Leopold does not have what one might call the gold standard as far as integrity.

But he also appears pretty sloppy in his fabrications.

"Fabrications"? Okay, that's too strong. It's my hunch that he didn't really "fabricate" anything. I'm guessing he really did have "sources" -- unreliable, dumb sources -- who told him they'd seen Rove's indictment. But he didn't do any checking around to see if their story held water.

C.G. Heckler of Football Fans For Truth did. He demolishes key factual details offered up by Leopold and TruthOut as indicia of the story's fundamental realiability.

Having no on the record sources, and not claiming to have seen the indictment document with his own eyes, Leopold and TruthOut keep tossing out official-sounding courthouse filing details to convince you their sources saw an indictment.

Like, they claim that a filing with the caption "Sealed vs. Sealed" was seen. That, they imply, is a detail that lends credence to their tale, as Sealed vs. Sealed documents are "rare" and would likely indicate a high-profile case wherein not only is the accused name's to be kept secret, but also the name of the official bringing the charges.

Except, FFFT finds, "Sealed vs. Sealed" documents are not especially rare. That's a quite common party caption for the granting of warrants in mundane criminal matters, before charges against a party are brought.

Even worse for Leopold is this: His timeline is provably false. His sources claim to have seen the "indictment" on May 10th; Leopold "reported" on the indictment on May 13th. TruthOut and Leopold repeatedly reference the date-sensitive code given to this document as "06 cr 128."

There was a "Sealed vs. Sealed" document entered into the court and given the code "06 cr 128."

Trouble is, it was entered May 16th or 17th, three or four days after Leopold wrote about his sources having seen it, and at six or seven days after his sources said they saw the document.

Some may be troubled with this precognitive aspect of Leopold's reportage. I have to say I'm not terribly bothered by this.

Because I've suspected for some time: Johnny Coldcuts has flipped to the other side. I can't help but notice that the time-travelling baloney sandwich's predictions of the future -- remember, he predicted a Red Sox World Series sweep before the season even began -- have been spotty of late. I've been wondering if he's been feeding me disinformation.

Why? Why would Johnny Coldcuts do such a thing?

Why else? Let's just say Johnny Coldcuts himself doesn't eat pork.

Maybe we should start calling him "Johnny Coldstein."

Posted by: Ace at 09:12 AM | Comments (7)
Post contains 451 words, total size 3 kb.

A useful timeline of Kos' and Armstrong's dealings with each other and with politicians paying them.

Outside the Beltway on this profitable "rather symbiotic" relationship.

Posted by: Ace at 08:23 AM | Comments (3)
Post contains 29 words, total size 1 kb.

Any retractions, corrections, or apologies from the many who scoffed at Bush's plan to cut the deficit?

His "plan" was really just to grow the economy. I would have liked a lot of budget cutting to go with it. Still, it worked. Silence from the media and the Democrats on this, of course.

More than two years ago, when President Bush announced his aim to cut the federal budget deficit in half by 2009, many critics guffawed. They called the goal an impossibility, a naïve and futile effort that would be undermined by the fat-cat Republican tax cuts. A Boston Globe headline declared, “Bush’s plan to halve federal deficit seen as unlikely; Higher spending, lower taxes don’t mix, analysts say.” An Associated Press story went out on the wire with the headline, “Bush goal of halving federal deficits draws skepticism, derision.”

In that AP article, Sen. Kent Conrad, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, was quoted deriding Bush’s plan: “It’s like so much with this administration in respect to fiscal matters, it’s all spin, all the time.” Former Congressional Budget Office director Robert Reischauer called the proposal “fanciful.” To Democrats, the AP reported, Bush’s goal was simply “laughable.”

But the critics are no longer laughing. Driven by a surging national economy, tax revenues are increasing and the deficit is rapidly shrinking. The presidentÂ’s deficit-reduction plan looks like it will not only succeed, but will do so years ahead of schedule.

The country was facing the largest projected deficit in history when Bush promised to halve it as a percentage of GDP by 2009. Due to high wartime spending and the residual effects of the 2000–01 recession, the White House expected the 2004 deficit to reach $521 billion, or 4.5 percent of GDP. Bush’s goal was to reduce this to 2.25 percent by 2009.

After all the beans were finally counted, the 2004 deficit came in at $413 billion—roughly 3.5 percent of GDP. The economy had begun expanding, partly in response to Bush’s tax cuts, creating jobs and boosting revenue. This trend continued into the next year, pushing the deficit down to $319 billion in 2005.

This year, the projections look even better. Through the first eight months of this budget year, the deficit is $227 billion—16.7 percent lower than this time last year. That’s largely because government revenues in these eight months have reached $1.545 trillion, up 12.9 percent from last year.

...

Despite the strong updraft of federal spending, the deficit is on track in the next few years to continue falling until it approaches 2 percent of GDP. This is below the 2.5 percent that has been the national average since 1970, demonstrating that the presidentÂ’s critics were simply wrong when they claimed that the Bush tax cuts would lead the country into economic ruin.

Posted by: Ace at 08:16 AM | Comments (35)
Post contains 495 words, total size 3 kb.

In China.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Banner-wielding animal rights protesters swarmed into a restaurant serving cat meat in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and forced it to shut, Xinhua news agency said Sunday.

The 40 or so, mainly female demonstrators -- holding banners reading "cats and dogs are friends of human beings" -- entered the Fangji Cat Meatball restaurant and demanded the owner free any live cats on the premises, Xinhua said.

There were none in the building, as the owner had already moved them out, it said. But some burst into tears upon finding a skinned cat in a fridge.

...

A local beauty queen, Miss Shenzhen 2005, also took part, calling on people to "stop eating cats and dogs and become civilized," Xinhua said.

Many Chinese, particularly in the south, believe eating dogs and cats are good warming foods to eat during the winter.

But China is developing a nascent animal rights movement as more people raise pets, which during the country's Communist heyday was frowned upon as a bourgeois activity.

Thanks to Craig.

Posted by: Ace at 08:07 AM | Comments (20)
Post contains 196 words, total size 1 kb.

Yeah, those guys at Haditha had no reason to fear for their lives:

The bodies of two U.S. soldiers who were reported missing have been recovered, and an Iraqi official said Tuesday the men were "killed in a barbaric way."

At a press conference in Baghdad, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell confirmed that the remains, found late Monday by U.S. troops, were believed to be those of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.

...

An Iraqi insurgent group that earlier claimed responsibility for kidnapping the soldiers posted a Web statement Tuesday that said the soldiers had been killed by the new leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"With God Almighty's blessing, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer carried out the verdict of the Islamic court" for the soldier's slaying, said a statement in the name of the Mujahedeen Shura Council. Later the message used the word "slaughtered," which in previous cases has been used to describe beheadings.

The left had all sorts of "interesting theories" about Zarqawi being beaten to death on a stretcher. I think, for some reason, they'll have less to say about an admitted execution.

Fifteen Terrorists Killed NE of Baghdad: While looking for an unnamed Al Qaeda figure.

It's a start.

Posted by: Ace at 07:40 AM | Comments (75)
Post contains 233 words, total size 2 kb.

Like payola involved paying DJ's to play records, "blogola" would involve paying bloggers secretly to shill for politicians.

Or "Kosola," some are calling it, because it chiefly seems to involve Kos. And his sorta-partner, Jerome Armstrong of MyDD.com. (Which is reassuring, because no one's offered me dick.)

If you don't know, Kos and Armstrong are occasional partners and co-authors of a book about "people-powered politics." Kos does the Daily Kos; Armstrong does MyDD.com. Or used to do MyDD, until he admitted the conflict of interest and just became a full-time political consultant.

So he doesn't really have a blog presence anymore, though he understands the usefulness of such a presence. If only there were so way he could take money directly from politicians and yet provide them with a big blogosphere forum...

But such a thing surely isn't possible, given that he no longer has a blog, right?

Welllllll... who knows.

Kos is now very high on Mark Warner of Virginia, who just so happened to throw a lavish party at the YearlyKos, and just so happens to have Armstrong on his payroll.

Now, Kos is a very partisan lefty, so it's curious what he's doing cozying up to a pro-war centrist Democrat-in-name-only (as Kossites would have it) like Warner.

Could there be something shady going on here? Wouldn't be the first time for Armstrong. Armstrong took money from a basically worthless company to post "impartial" endorsements of its stock on a market message board.

Now Dan Riehl finds that now-governor Corzine of New Jersey opened a "diary" on Daily Kos as Corzine was simultaneously paying money to Armstrong's "political consulting" company.

Hmmmm...

Let's say, hypothetically, you wanted to work both inside and "outside" the political system. One person couldn't do both; working for someone, taking money from a politician, makes you obviously biased.

But I wonder... I wonder... would there be some way that, I don't know, two people, say, could both be paid by politicians and also get lots of advertising income for a supposedly independent media outlet?

I know, it's crazy. There's no possible way something like that could work.

Posted by: Ace at 07:11 PM | Comments (46)
Post contains 361 words, total size 3 kb.

Decision '08 has the relevant claims, so you don't have to give TruthOut any clicks.

John From Wuzzadem has the parody.

That said, who knows. This isn't exactly impossible.

Posted by: Ace at 06:51 PM | Comments (42)
Post contains 63 words, total size 1 kb.

...about "IsreYale's" decision not to hire Juan Cole.

Jews

They're gonna getcha.

UPDATE: Commenters unmask a myriad of Jewish conspiracies.

Posted by: Ace at 02:51 PM | Comments (180)
Post contains 32 words, total size 1 kb.