appear to be overstated.

At least if one can give any credence to Zogby polls. Which I usually don't when taken alone. But since this one appears to mirror findings in serveral other polls (at least according to the Washington Times story I'm about to link) I suppose that lends some validity to Mr. Zogby's findings.

Plus, it just feels right. In my gut, I sense a tightening in these races. Or maybe that's just nausea at the thought of Pelosi, Conyers, Kennedy and Reid running the show.

In any event, here is the Wash. Times story that Drudge is hyping right now.

The key points? Glad you asked. They are:

Republicans appear to be gaining on the Democrats in the 2006 midterm campaign because of growing confidence in the economy, falling gas prices and President Bush's sustained political offensive on the terrorist threat, according to pollsters and campaign strategists.
The most significant political movement in the past week or two has been in the battle for control of Congress. National preference polls on the so-called "generic ballot" question -- which party's candidate voters say they would choose -- show Republicans have narrowed the once-substantial lead Democrats held and are now trailing them by three percentage points, independent pollster John Zogby said Friday.

Emphasis added. Only a three point deficit? If that is in fact truly reflective of the Generic ballot, than, for all intents and purposes these races are tied as the Generic ballot question usually favors the Democrats.

Why is the GOP gaining steam?

The Republican Party's improving polls coincide with a number of positive developments on the economic front that Republicans hope will further lift their political prospects in November. The price of oil dropped to nearly $62 a barrel Friday from a high of $77 last month, as gasoline prices continued their descent to a national average of $2.62 per gallon, though many battleground states were reporting lower prices for regular.
Some of the lowest averages included Iowa, $2.32; Indiana, $2.36; Missouri and Ohio, $2.25; Minnesota, $2.35; Michigan $2.37; and Kentucky, $2.34.
As gas prices fell, the stock market was rising, with the Dow Jones industrial average soaring to 11,560 Friday, 162 points from its all-time high, that boosted worker pensions -- and a consumer confidence survey showed Americans were "in a decidedly more optimistic mood," the Ipsos poll reported Friday.

And price hasn't even hit $1.15 a gallon yet. Hell, if that happens, I predict that the GOP will pick up Stabenow's seat in Michigan.

Cowbell anyone?

Want to know what the market's think? Check out Tradesports' graphs. They both show that the smart money has moved to the GOP in recent days, with the GOP favored to retain both the House and the Senate.

The House:

The Senate:

And this doesn't even begin to factor in the Sith powers of Karl Rove, the misunderestimated Evil-Idiot-Genius-Savant powers of George W. Bush, or the well known "lefty fact" that Diebold is on our side.

I can't wait for November.

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (47)
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Kaus has links to Ramesh Ponuru's uncharacteristically daft call for Republicans to lose the November elections. I'll chalk this up to Ponuru just wanting some New York Times money, and knowing that only a Republican who says things like this can get published there. (I keed.)

Jonah Goldberg has also chimed in about how not-terribly-awful losing the election would be.

Is NRO on crack?

The time for this kind of talk is after we lose the election, if we do, and we're all trying to console ourselves. We shouldn't be making noises like this now. As Kaus points out, many conservatives are angry about Bush's soft-on-illegal-immigration stance. But the only thing keeping that from passage is Republican control of the House. If we lose the House, the "reform" that has conservatives ready to sit out the election passes easily from the House to the Senate to the President's desk.

There are some big problems with Republican governance. But has no one noticed that a popular revolt by conservatives against Republican missteps has actually had sanguinary effects? Republicans were whipsawed into opposing Bush's amnesty by popular action. Republican overspending was partly redressed by the Obama-Coburn bill and daylight reforms to the Appropriation Committees rules.

Yes, Republican politicians are, as a group, stupid and corrupt and lacking in principle or conviction. Because they're politicians. But, to their credit, they're also cowards, and afraid of us conservative voters.

Is it easier for conservative voters to cow Republican politicians into doing they promised to do, or to cow Democratic polticians into doing what they promised to not do? How much of an effect is a conservative popular revolt going to have on Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and John Conyers, I wonder?

It is common wisdom that Republican Congressmen deserve to lose this November. Fine, okay-- they deserve to lose. But do we conservatives deserve at least two years of Congressional Democratic rule? Does America deserve that?

Our Congressmen may deserve to lose, but we don't. And, given the stakes in the War on Terror, I don't know if we can afford to lose.

Let's Emulate Sweden: And elect a cener-right legislature, why don't we?

Posted by: Ace at 10:09 AM | Comments (146)
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Interesting article by Deborah Liss who contends that Oliver Stone, for once, went subtle and made the rescue- less dramatic and courageous than it actually was.

This is a case where Hollywood can't be accused of hyping reality—the real rescue was much more amazing and harrowing, especially when you hear the men tell it themselves. In the movie, Jimeno and McLaughlin, who was trapped deeper in the hole, are pulled out so quickly that we do not get a sense of the painstaking struggle involved in saving them or the fear the rescuers felt at the time. It took three hours to extricate Jimeno and another eight to 10 to get to McLaughlin. The space was so confined that the rescuers had to begin digging with their hands, breathing in smoke and dust, as their air packs wouldn't fit.

Watching the re-creation, I noticed how Strauss places the Jaws of Life into the space to remove a cement slab off Jimeno without any apparent hesitation. When Strauss recounts the story, this is the most dramatic point of the rescue and comes only after hours of work. He said he feared the building would collapse further when he operated the tool. "I told Willie that (one of) two things are gonna happen. One is we get out and it works. The other is that it doesn't work and we both get buried. Â… It started to creak, it started to groan. The mortar started to split on the cinder block walls. And it wasn't enough. The tool reached its limit," Strauss said in a 2001 interview. To make the tool extend farther, it was Sereika, according to Strauss' recollection at the time, who suggested they place rocks underneath for more leverage. Strauss said he couldn't get down there, so Sereika crawled in and positioned the rocks. It was this maneuver that finally freed Jimeno. In the movie, I missed any sense of the tension between the rescuers as one effort fails and they try another, all while dreading death.

Oddly for Hollywood, one of the resucers, a man named Thomas, is played by a white actor. In reality, he was black. What kind of goofball thinking went into avoiding one of Hollywood's favorite feel-good tropes -- the races putting aside their differences to cooperate in a grand undertaking, etc.?

Worse yet, according to Mickey Kaus, the film offers up a silly racial-bonding montage at the end, necessitated, I guess, because so many of the major players in the film were white: "the filmmakers could have eliminated an entire crudely implanted final-reel scene of interracial bonding if they'd gotten [Thomas' race] straight."

Kaus says the film isn't as bad as he thought-- it's worse. I know a lot of people liked it, including a lot of people on the right not inclined to like Oliver Stone movies. I don't know who's right, but maybe right-leaning moviegoers were grading Stone on a steep curve.

And to be fair: Deborah Liss knows too much about this to enjoy the movie. She knows of far too many people who performed bravely that day to enjoy any movie about them, because a two hour movie only has room for so many heroes.

While You're Down There Update: Kaus attacks Andrew Sullivan again.

Is there anyone at all, right, left, or middle, who actually likes Sullivan? Yes yes: he has tens of thousands of readers. But isn't that a severe underperformance for someone with his name recognition?

And let's face it-- half of Sullivan's readers have names like Thomas Ellers, Ellison, Rick Ellensberg, etc.

Posted by: Ace at 09:48 AM | Comments (10)
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Sweet:

MEN are more intelligent than women, new research claims.

Two leading scientists - both men - say male IQs are 3.63 points higher than females.

Psychologist John Philippe Rushton said this explains the "glass ceiling" phenomenon why men get promoted over women.

He said the study proves more men reach the top of their careers because they are smarter - and not because of sex discrimination.

Prof Rushton's team analysed 100,000 aptitude tests taken by 17 and 18-year-olds of both sexes.

And he said men were more intelligent "throughout the entire distribution of scores, in every level of family income, for every level of fathers and mothers' education, and for each and every one of seven ethnic groups".

It's not confirmation that women's brains are one-third the size of ours, as Ron Burgundy holds, but it's a start.

Thanks to HotAir.

Related: Man Rejects Penis Transplant. Or, apparently, Man's Wife Rejects Penis Transplant.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:06 AM | Comments (53)
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Ignoring my advice, on Sunday Pope Benedict issued an apology for his remarks in Germany last week, hoping thereby to calm Muslim outrage.

I don't think it worked as well as he hoped it would.

By ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

5 minutes ago

CAIRO, Egypt - An al-Qaida-linked extremist group warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that he and the West were "doomed," as protesters returned to the streets across the Muslim world to demand more of an apology from the pontiff for his remarks about Islam and violence.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, issued a statement on a Web forum vowing to continue its holy war against the West. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified.

The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross" saying "you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. ... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword."

. . .

In Indian-controlled Kashmir, meanwhile, shops, businesses and schools shut down in response to a strike call by the head of a hard-line Muslim separatist leader to denounce Benedict. For the third day running, people burned tires and shouted "Down with the pope."

Protests also raged in Iraq, where angry demonstrators burned an effigy of the pope in Basra, and in Indonesia, where more than 100 people rallied in front of the heavily guarded Vatican Embassy in Jakarta, waving banners that said the "Pope is building religion on hatred."

Iraq al-Qaida says pope, West are doomed

Posted by: Ace at 06:10 AM | Comments (83)
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Modules? Miniatures? Hah. This is the ultimate D&D game accessory: a full-sized Hobbit House you can live in.

The actual thing is pretty cheesy. The landscaping is cramped and cheap-looking; how are you "living with nature" if there's no actual nature around apart from a small artificial pond?

And the buildings' stylings aren't subtle enough.

Still, as artificial and ersatz and fakey as is it all is, I wonder if a less in-your-face, more restrained version of the idea wouldn't be pleasant.

Yes, it's a retreat into make-believe. But then, the idea of driving home from work every day to live in an eighteenth century English Hamlet isn't a terrible one.

Now if they do one of these for Victorian London, I'm all over it.

Thanks to JohnS.

(PS, the guy whose "dreamed" and designed this Hobbit Condo complex also did the terrible music for the video sales brochure.)

c

A hobbit hole. You don't live in these. They're there to make you think you live among hobbits or something. In reality, this is where the Shire's several serial killers will store their bodies.

They don't seem to have any pictures of actual finished buildings, though I think one looked semi-finished in the video. At least it had windows.

The video says the fake "thatch" of the roofs is made of a "new age material." Plastic, I guessed. I was right. It's a "new age" method of using recycled pvc.

That kind of takes a bit of the Old World charm out of it.

I Tried To Avoid Being Knee-Jerk... but the more I think about it the knee-jerk first-blush gut-take opinion was right: this is the worst idea, ever.

If you could do something like this halfway right, it might be okay. But you can't do it halfway right, because anyone with enough money to spend on a nicely made "English cottage" isn't going to buy one in Hobbitville, Oregon.

It reminds me of Kaus' description of the PT Cruiser and other stylistically silly cars as "cartoon cars." This is a whole cartoon housing subdivision. It's one thing for someone to drop $25,000 on a PT Cruiser, but it's another thing to spend $250,000 on a cartoon condo.

Posted by: Ace at 09:09 PM | Comments (51)
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I was cruising some back roads this afternoon with a buddy of mine. Riding my bike always reminds me of the song that is still the preeminent biker anthem some 30 years after it came out.

I still remember the first time I saw The Ballad of Easy Rider. I was an exchange student in Hamburg and the movie was dubbed in German. Kinda freaked me out to think that the German audience probably thought they were seeing what America was really like.

This song, by the way, is how the phrase “heavy metal” became a standard term for rock fans around the world.

Any other riders out there?

Get Yer Motor Runnin'!!!

Posted by: Ace at 04:35 PM | Comments (50)
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Steve Irwin's tribute is on Animal Planet right now, at least on the West Coast.

I miss the guy even more watching him. My tribute to Irwin is here. Jack M's moving tribute is here.

The only thing that is annoying is Animal Planet's bumps, which express their sense of loss and end by saying, "We'll take it from here." Just a guess, but Irwin is as irreplaceable as he was irrepressable. Tributes should be about the person, Animal Planet, not your future broadcasting success. If I was on my blog, they would get the JackAss award for bad form.

Posted by: Ace at 03:54 PM | Comments (7)
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Joel Shoner is a man. Make no mistake about it.

He has a beard. He is bald. He keeps pens, and a pair of eyeglasses, tucked in his left front shirt pocket. And he knows how to give a good stern look when the subject turns to his new seemingly oxymoronic title.

Shoner, 61, is the new president of the Brookline League of Women Voters.

``It shouldn't be the focus," he says, ``just because I'm a male and I'm president of the league."

Having lived just over the town line from Brookline for a year or so back in college, I can't say this surprises me too much.

``I think it shows openness for change, and a willingness to join forces with those who have similar goals," says Blom. ``And I think Joel understands the mission of the league and the direction we should be going. He shouldn't be excluded just because he doesn't happen to be a woman."

She went on to add that, while Shoner may technically be a man, he certainly doesn't have any balls.

Posted by: AndrewR at 03:37 PM | Comments (10)
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What a game.

Anybody watching the Giants-Eagles?

Wow.

Posted by: Ace at 01:02 PM | Comments (60)
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