Get Me Everybody

A blog from the city of my alma batter has the best take on the Arizona crap-a-doodle I've seen:

I propose relocating the entire population of Puerto Rico to Arizona. Remember, Puerto Ricans, as citizens of a U.S. Territory, are citizens of the United States... even though they're brownish and speak some crazy fast moon people language. That's almost 4,000,000 (well, not "immigrants" and certainly not "illegal"... so "migrants" or "commuters", I suppose) to perplex and confound state police.

And go ahead and read the whole thing, ydoncha.

Veering Dangerously Close to Back on Track

Oh my, I perhaps should have started reading Crooked Timber long ago.

Highlights (Re: Megan's comparing conservatives not entering academy to blacks not becoming bankers in 1950):

Ah, I know what’s missing! The entire legal apparatus of segregation and Jim Crow! If McArdle knew her pre-Civil Rights Era history better, perhaps, she would remember that conservatives in the armed forces were not allowed to fight alongside their moderate and liberal fellows until 1948, when President Truman issued his famous antidiscrimination order and provoked the “Dixiecrat” backlash dedicated to preserving the second-class status of conservative-Americans. Even as late as 1964, in Holly Bluff, Mississippi, school officials spent $190 for every liberal or moderate student and $1.26 for every conservative.

We're Almost Back to 3/5ths!

Huge progress today:

The bill had strong support from both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. While the current law punishes crack users 100 times more heavily than powder cocaine users, the new Senate bill brings the 100-to-1 ratio down to 18-to-1.

Soon it will be cut down to 5-to-3 just like the founding fathers would've wanted.

Ten bucks says that the rightwingtopia starts calling the dems soft on crime for this. Ten bucks times a fucking million.

UPDATE:
Oh, and I'd like to take a moment to remind all of the haters out there; you go to war with the brown people that you have a flimsy excuse to blow up, not the brown people you'd really like to blow up.

Megan is From NYC.

So apparently a Brooklyn accent drops "r"s. Next story, people from Boston say "soder" instead of "soda."

Fucking morong.

Love that she's on top of this. It reminds me of those times when she called out the conservatives for calling Obama/Sotomayor/every-liberal-ever a racist based on absolutely nothing.

brad adds:

Look, Megan became an expert on Brooklyn by dint of having ridden through it on the way to Coney Island once. In no way should someone assume that an 80s era overprivileged daughter of Manhattanites grew up terrified of Brooklyn and only going there on mandatory school safaris to dark lands trips. Oh, and that one time she went to Williamsburg in 2006 to visit a friend who was being all bohemian for a year, that totally counts, being surrounded by hipsters from Kansas and Nebraska teaches you lots about Brooklyn.

Something I've NEVER Said Before

FUCK YOU IN THE ASS NJ.

so. fucking. gay.

Just When I Thought I Was Out...

We've been getting complaints about our lack of postings directed along the prevailing winds of this blog's stated purpose. It's true. We've been lazy. Frankly, can you blame us? I mean, Megan's random careening of a blog career is hardly affected by our ineffectual plinking, and how much fun is it to hear us exhaust our supply of "yer dum" jokes on the same person over and over?

Oh, really? You like that sort of thing? Well, alright then. Here, I'll do a nice short easy one then just to make you happy.

Random Thought:

I would find Malcolm Gladwell's responses to Steve Pinker so much more compelling if they didn't rely so heavily on sly, and irrelevant, accusations of racism.

Huh. That's pretty funny. She's ad homineming someone for ad homineming. Good joke there. I'll have to make sure to note the potential humor opportunity. But, first, better do my due diligence and read the link.

Oh, turns out it's a blog post following up on something else. I guess I'd better read that. Wouldn't wanna start in the middle, ya know?

Hey, wait, this is a letter to the editor in response to a New York Times book review. Fuck, well, I guess I'll start at the book review, then. Man, this short post is getting tedious.

OK, read 'em all. What have we got? Well, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book. Steve Pinker said the book had some good parts and some bad parts and mentioned that Gladwell's claim that IQ is irrelevant doesn't seem to be supported. Gladwell writes to the NYT stating this view is an "ice-flow." Pinker replies with various studies and letters from scientists that say this is a mainstream view. Gladwell then points out that some of these studies aren't so cut and dry and, in fact, present a nuanced view of IQ. He also points out that other sources are openly racist and push IQ inheritablility/racial inferiority agendas. Megan cries "fowl!"

Fuck, that took a while. And this post is getting long. Better go trim it down. That's gonna take a while, too. OK, so what's the pith, here? Well, Megan did a few stupid things. Lemme find my notes. I know I already wrote one of those down... AH YES! Here it is! She used an ad hominem attack to refute an argument for being ad hominem. Oh, man, irony IS a classic.

What else? Oh, yeah, she wrote a single sentence about multiple articles and responses which haven't really been widely discussed. That's pretty funny. I mean, it's quite narcissistic to think everyone would just know what you're talking about in that situation. Yeah, narcissism jokes go over well. I'll stick one of those in.

Am I missing anything? Oh, RIGHT! I forgot that Gladwell didn't really make any "sly accusations of racism" so much as pointed out that one of Pinker's sources was OPENLY RACIST and therefor might be tainted by an agenda. That's pretty important. Rather glaring error on her part. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of her post, really. Oh, we can make a self-defeating joke. Another classic.

Hey, wait, she used the word "irrelevant," too, which is also wrong because, hey, those "sly accusations" only kind of undermine entirely the credibility of one of Pinker's sources. That's fairly relevant. That's definitely gotta go in.

OK, so, she contradicts herself, acts narcissistic, and fails to understand the arguments of the people she's "criticizing" (TWICE in the span of TWO WORDS). Shit, I forgot, I have to explain this whole fucking mess because most likely no one has read the book review, or the response to the book review, or the response to the response to the book review. Yeah, so, I gotta do all that. In a short post.

Oh, hey, look at that. 5pm already. Fuck it. Good enough. I'll just punch out. Wife's gonna kill me if I log in any more overtime.

Update: Heh. I tried to be as thorough as possible here in order to illustrate my point and I STILL forgot to mention explicitly in my round up at the end that she fails to link to two of the three things she is discussing. Indeed.

Her stupidity; It takes a genius to keep track of it all.

How Nobel of Her

Mark Kleiman is half right;

So when the usually intelligent Megan McArdle announces loftily that

it’s kind of ludicrous that anyone is even trying to argue that Barack Obama truly deserves this Nobel Peace Prize

she is, to put it bluntly, talking through her hat.

Megan, sensing the respect of someone slipping, goes classy:

Hmm. Well. Call me crazy, but I think that maybe to earn the Nobel prize, a million dollars, and all the associated prestige, you ought to have made efforts somewhat more heroic than chairing a meeting in which you said that you thought we ought to have fewer nuclear arms--even one in which you said that the US also thought we ought to have fewer nuclear arms.

Yeah! Snarking at someone who calls you usually intelligent! That's great!

But the real question; How disingenuous is McArdle being? The answer: She's being about her usual amount of disingenuous. Ignoring that one could argue "committing" is not "chairing a meeting", we have only to look to Kleinman's next paragraph for something "more than heroic than chairing a meeting."

That’s not to mention the importance of killing the “missile shield” that threatened a new arms race with Russia, or the work for “fraternity between nations” done by making it clear that the United States of America was no longer fighting a “crusade” against al-Islam, or putting an end to the torture regime.

Woah, call me crazy, but I think the president has to do more than end torture, reach out to enemies we've been at war with for eight years and end plans that antagonize Russia in order to be called "peaceful."

You should, I don't know, deliver a deal or something.

Yeah, like why not do something substantial such as getting the Iranians to agree to greater oversight of their nuclear program AND to deliver their enriched uranium to Russia. Do something like that, Obama, and THEN WE CAN TALK!

Not content to have wholly inadequately addressed her opponents claims, she moves on to her magical phantom claims:

As for the notion that this strengthens our hand when dealing with Iran and North Korea, I'm really skeptical that this does anything at all.

You all will be shocked to learn that not only do people hold these views, they are also expressed so frequently and fervently that McArdle doesn't even need to link to a single person who's said anything like that at all.

The leaders of Iran and North Korea do not, to put it mildly, look up to us. They don't want us to think that they're nice, moral people. They want us to think that they are terrifying military forces whose desires must be assuaged.

Wow, that doesn't sound racist at all. It's also completely 100% true because McArdle is a fucking expert in psychology of people she's never met from cultures of which she's only dimly aware and about whom is she extremely biased. Just take it from the person who was right about Saddam's love of WMD's and Putin's love of invading Georgia.

The people of North Korea and Iran don't like us either, but even if you thought that this was likely to have a big impact on their opinion, this would be purely hypothetical, because both countries have very tightly controlled media which will report whatever the leaders want them to think.

Yeah, those hating backward ignorant foreigners. How dare they both HATE US IRRATIONALLY and NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT US! Who do they think they are, Megan McArdle?

If the best you can come up with is that he made some impressive-sounding statements at the UN--well, I think a majority of the world's leaders are equally deserving. I don't see any actual foreign policy scholars advancing the theory that this was a landmark achievement on par with say, SALT or the Camp David accords.

If the best you can do is read only the first sentence or two of someone who calls you an idiot, well, maybe you've proven their point. I mean, that's not on par with throwing salt in your own eye, or trying to book a site at Camp David, but it's pretty fucking dumb.

The Forenscics Are Back

Hey, remember when Megan was all skeptical that conservatives are racist assholes. Well, obviously she wasn't privy to all the new shit, man:

Yeah for shouting down minorities!

Now, in fairness, it might've been the liberals in attendance who were shouting the poor Mexican (or whatever) down, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was the tea baggers.

Biting the Hand that Pats You

Short Megan McArdle:

Holy shit, my commentors are such knee jerk conservative sycophants that even I can't take it anymore. Fucking morons with the temerity to disagree with me.

I'm not sure which is more hilarious; that Megan took this long to realize that The Big Fat Idiot is openly racist, or that her following thinks that Limbaugh would actually go after a conservative trope, let alone be sophisticated enough to do so with satire.

Update: New words, all hers:

And yes, I think that the people who are claiming that Rush is inciting a race war or a revolution are also humorless twits.

Huh-Ha! The imaginary liberal response is just as bad as the actual Limbaugh thing that happened! It's a tie!

Update II: I don't know how I missed the genius that is Megan saying "I could not possibly like Rush Limbaugh less" one second and then claiming that accusing him of "inciting a race war" is beyond the pale the next, but there you have it. Once again she is stupid on so many levels that no mere mortal can keep track of them all.

Dear Megan

Dear Megan,

Please say something stupid about Henry Louis Gates Jr. It's been a while since you pretended not to be a racist.

Love
Nuts

You Can Find Them in the K-Mart Parking Lot

I just thought of a great solution to the illegal immigration problem. First, you round up a shit load of illegals looking for work. Then, you take them back to the border and pay them $2.50/hour to keep more Mexicans from coming across.

Win-win. You could give them sombreros, six-shooters, ammo belts and those poncho thingies for added effect. It'd be awesome.

brad adds:

You haven't noticed who's been building the border wall, I guess.

NutellaonToast retorts:
You can climb a wall, but you can't climb a Mexican making a sub-living wage betraying his people! Mwa-ha!

Nobody's Wrong. Everybody's Wrong. The Liberals Are Wrong.

Ohhhhhhh, goody goody. Poor black people aren't getting off scot-free today! No sir, we've got some Community Reinvestment Act attacking going on today. Now to be sure, our muse realizes that much of the criticism of the CRA has come from over zealous market humpers and backhanded racists, but you just cause they're paranoid doesn't mean that their isn't a Zionist conspiracy to take over the world banking industry.

John Carney has been doing a lot of blogging about the role of the CRA in the financial meltdown. That role is overstated by conservatives who are unwilling to admit that markets can have bad outcomes, but it is understated by liberals who are unwilling to admit that regulation, too, can produce hideous unintended consequences.

Thanks for pointing this out. See, as a liberal, I thought that every idea that I've ever supported was infinitely good. I had no idea what neither the word "unintended" nor the word "consequences" meant! I hope she'll elaborate on this lesson for me. BTW, she does not ever actually say what CRA stands for. I remember when I still struggled to find new jokes to make about that kind of think.

The CRA did not singlehandedly cause the meltdown. But the relaxation of credit standards that allowed the meltdown did start, as far as I can tell, with the CRA.

Well, hold on a sec, are we sure about that? I think we can go back further. See, the CRA was passed in 1977ish. Now it might seem reasonable to say that lax lending practices happened then and somehow culminated 27 years later. Seems reasonable to expect that when a bill was passed to prevent banks from giving blanket mortgage denials to entire neighborhoods full of swarthy financially unviable people. However, I think the lax lending standards actually started with the advent of banking thousands of years ago. I mean, obviously, before there was banking, there were never any bad loans written. God damn you Ugulatata, for pointing man down this path! We should've just stopped with fire.

And perhaps more importantly, the CRA, and the mentality behind the CRA, made regulators extremely unwilling to intervene. Everyone wanted to make credit more widely available to the poor. Well, the poor aren't good lending risks. So if you want to give them access to credit, you need to relax your lending standards. Any attempt to tighten lending standards on the part of the government would have resulted in a massive contraction in the credit available to core Democratic constituencies. Meanwhile, the Republicans were hoping that turning poor people into homeowners would make them more Republican.

Hmmm, I didn't realize how pernicious those poor people were. See, if only we hadn't given them half a million dollars to buy houses during an asset bubble that we knew they couldn't afford but sold them anyway under the false certainty that we'd all be saved by ever increasing housing prices. Why the fuck did someone write that we should do exactly that in the CRA text? That was a definitely lack of foresight there. We should have known all those sprawling exurbs of urban blacks and migrant Latin workers were a bad idea.

Regardless of how much causal blame you assign it, the financial crisis has certainly proven that the CRA seems to have been a very, very bad idea. Yet Barney Frank is still trying to keep risky loans flowing in the hope that things will all somehow come right in the end if we just pretend, as hard as hard can be, that there isn't substantial risk attached to doing things like buying a condo in a building that is less than 50% occupied.

I totally agree. A whopping 20% of subprime loans were administered by banks under heavy CRA authority. Another 30% had loose ties to the CRA. God damn that "help the darky act." Hasn't Barney Frank learned that we just have to accept that indolence and violence are just part of the nature of Homo Africanus and we'll just have to leave them to their ghettos and rap music. Sometimes, you just have to keep walking.

Silly Whitey

Megan has unkind words for W.A.R. which, as she doesn't bother to tell you, is the "White Aryan Resistance." Frankly, I'm all for resisting white Aryans even though I'm half of one myself, so I don't know what the problem is. Apparently one W.A.R. members got confused and shot some Jews at the holocaust museum. He must have thought it was a museum for the NAZIs in the holocaust and not the Jews. Innocent mistake, in my eyes, but whatevs. Anyway, in case you're wondering, my other half is Jewish which leads to a lot of gun fights between my right and left hands, but the white Aryan hand is Quaker and a pacifist so never remembers the bullets, but the Jewish side is my left hand so has really bad aim cause I'm right handed. A lot of innocent bystanders go down in that centuries old conflict, let me tell you.

Where was I? Oh, yes, Meggles.

A lot of people have picked up on the fact that white separatists are apparently worried that the shooting makes them look bad. This is hilarious in a laugh-until-you-cry sort of way, as is their strenuous efforts to ensure that we all realize he's nuts. Trust me, folks--we think you're all nuts.

But like Yglesias, what really struck me is that John de Nugent telling the Washington Post that "the responsible white separatist community condemns this."

Well, at least she gave an example for the white separatist thingy. I guess her and Fatty-Y had a falling out cause she's not link-lovin' him today. It's a shame, really, as noting the folly of violent racists is really funny and original and I wish people did it more often! See, like this:

What, one wonders, characterizes the responsible white separatists? Are their swastika armbands all made from 100% biodegradeable materials? Do they take care that the leather in their jackboots comes from humanely raised cows? Do they carefully follow the Forest Service's wildfire prevention guidelines when burning crosses? Are their white separatist brownie points for attending school board meetings or chairing the Community Chest drive?

Oh man, I'm laughing till I cry all right, only I'm skipping the laughing part. Oh, and, Meggles? Comedy comes in twos. Four examples? Man, she must REALLY think those crazy racists are crazy. I'll never question her racial sensitivity again.

But their concern does raise one interesting point: it's not actually possible for the white separatist movement to look any worse than it does. George Tiller's killing cast some genuine shame over the pro-life movement that nurtured his killer. But did yesterday's horror make you think any less of W.A.R.? You couldn't actually think any less of them, could you?

Ah, the world of Megan. An interesting point is to note that people don't just loathe white supremacists, they really loathe white supremacists.

Seriously, did you ever stop to think that if surgery accelerated global warming you likely wouldn't think less going through it? I mean, you can't hate getting surgery any more than you already do! That is so fucking interesting! Same goes for getting cow shit shoved in your face! Fuckin' a, man, so true. Lemme look at the back of a dollar bill, now.

Oh, and her other post today is entirely someone else's work. It's about how silly racists are. Phew, I'm glad Megan's run through her latest 8-ball finally. All those long posts in her own words were getting painful. Hahah, man, though, those white supremacists sure are silly. Hoo-boy, silly, silly, silly.

Let's Not Get Crazy Here, People!

Yeah! She's talking up affirmative action!

But hey, we all get things we don't deserve. I'll go further: almost all of us get something we don't deserve as a result of our race, including white people. Perhaps even especially white people.

Yes, perhaps. It might be that white people are overwhelmingly represented disproportionately in the ranks of the privileged. Or, maybe black people are just stoopid, too. I dunno. Too hard to tell, really.

If you don't believe it, ask yourself why repeated studies show that resumes with identifiably black names get fewer interview offers than identical white resumes.

Which is why she modifies her statements about racism? Wait, when she says "if you don't believe it" is she implying that she's trying to convince someone that racism exists? Perhaps not.

Sonia Sotomayor is not manifestly unqualified to be a Supreme Court justice, so focusing on affirmative action is completely irrelevant.

But the fact that your cohorts are doing it is only maybe, kind of, and indication that they're racist, short-sighted dicks. Perhaps.

You can argue with her politics or her legal judgement, and hey, I'm all ears.

Liar.

But the affirmative action complaints aren't advancing our quest to find out whether or not she'd be a good justice. They're just alienating the people you want to convince.

Megan, consistent with her uncanny ability to be about one or two years behind the conventional wisdom of even the most stubborn moron, is just now realizing that Republicans have gone insane. Perhaps.

Fried Chicken and Watermelon in the Oval Office?

Wow, The Atlantic really is fucking retarded from head to fucking toe. I don't know what the article actually says, but how the fuck could they not see how horribly this magazine cover could be interpreted?:

Seriously, why not just Photoshop [When verbing a proper noun, do you still capitalize?-ed.] an AK-47 in one hand with the other giving the black power salute? I wonder if there will be a media circus.

UPDATE: HOLY SHIT! Reading this article.... I... uh.. DEAR GOD it scream for a take down. I'm working on it. Check back later.

OT, Powell Reaches a Startling Conclusion

The NYT has an article about Powell's recent endorsement of Obama. That's pretty neat, but the interesting thing is in the video they embed from "Meet the Press" in which Powell makes his announcement. Check out what he starts to say at the 4:28 mark:

It's just amazing. The dude is talking about how it disturbs him that his party members are ok with saying things like "he's a Muslim" as if this is NEWS to him? How the fuck do you get to be one of the most prominent figures of the Republican party and NOT notice that there's a SHIT FUCKING LOAD of racism in it? What, did you think they just all happen to think affirmative action was bad because they really, truly, believed that equality was letting the down trodden fight for themselves? Did you really think that the war on drugs was about keeping us safe and not locking up darkie? Did you honestly believe that we'd be bombing the fuck out of France right now if 9/11 had been committed by the Quebecquois? How far up your ass can your head fucking be?

Seriously, it takes you until now to make a statement about racists undercurrents in the GOP? Now, after MONTHS of emails, robocalls, and fucking POLITICAL SPEECHES BY THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE THAT CALL THE NATIONS FIRST BLACK PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ALL BUT A TERRORIST??!?!?!?!? What else were you waiting for, a fucking signed declaration of racism by the top officials of the party? Had you NOT FUCKING HEARD OF JESSE HELMS?!?!?!

Seriously, right wingers are the most deluded people on the planet.

Another County Heard From

Dear Nutty:

Just some observations & points of fact.

The immediate point: There is a difference between your Quaker ancestors & (perhaps) unthinking acceptance of their creed & dogma, & the actual ancestry of Mr. Yglesias. You can always give up on Quakery, but Matt is cursed/stuck w/ his ancestors, & whether or not they "haven't managed to grow out of nap time yet" (And if they're his "ancestors" they probably won't have many more chances to grow out of anything, most of them being dead, & the rise of air conditioning probably making the siesta less common – or is it their fault they weren't the first nation to be able to afford AC?) doesn't really have much to do w/, well, anything, let alone Yglesias's stupid positions.

And while this reporter doesn't keep up w/ the exact ethnic extraction of the entire blog-o-sphere, he's not sure that nachos are from anywhere but Mexico (or Tejas-Mexico) & he doesn't think Matt Y. is of Mexican extraction.

Nutella, you sound awfully angry for a pacifist.

I wish that I weren't a fucking pacifist so I could go knock on your door and do some preemptive warring on the intellectual void that is your little section of the blogosphere.

Isn't the idea not to have thoughts like that in the first case, as opposed to this "Why I oughta – oh wait, I'm a pacifist" approach. Is it cool w/ the Quakers to scream & shout vitriol about people's actual genetic background, as opposed to their stupid beliefs?

Or, give our founder a break & start your own web log where you can let the real (?) NoT out. I was doing that before signing on here, & calling for various rabid weasel's widowed mothers to be assaulted (euphemism) w/ a splintery broomstick, as well as the usual calls for the violent, un-Constitutional overthrow of everything & daring Russia & China to come at me w/ a cyberattack are merely where I get started. It's great therapy, & I must head there now, & not devote further time & effort to this unholy mess.

Yours in the spirit of progressive self-criticism,
I remain, as B/4,

M. "Chas." Bouffant

Elements of Style©: Spell check is your friend. As a person of (only partial, I'm glad to say – self-deprecating humor there, no one else need take umbrage) Italian descent, I am offended to see "wops" all in upper case. And "kikes" w/ a "y?"

Fighting Stupid with Stupid

Another quote of a quote of a quote in a string of stupid not seen since the last tug of war in special ed class. Let's break it down!

First, David Brooks writes an op-ed about education which isn't as stupid as he usually is, but still makes the ridiculous claim that America's rise to super power status was due to an "unparalleled commitment to education, hard work and economic freedom", ignoring the fact that the rest of the world was mostly worried about killing their neighbors from 1910 to 1945 while the US sat comfortably isolated atop a vast array of natural resources. Ya think we might've improved our educational infrastructure faster than Europe because we weren't constantly having the rest of our infrastructure bombed to cinders, Davie? Nawwwwwww, couldn't be.

Laura at 11-D responds with another smart but stupid post in which she rightly suggests that there are large improvements to be made by fostering expansion of early age eduction. Seems like a good idea, but Laura's post is full of a a bunch of know-it-all bullshit and stereotype. She apparently knows the goings on of all of her neighbors, describing with authority the daily routine of the families living nearby:

In some homes, the kids are sent to summer camps or swim lessons early in the morning. The parents establish routines, keep bedtime hours, supervise outside play, and take the kids on trips to mall or the beach or the swim club. In other families, the academically struggling kids are allowed to skip summer school classes, are in no activities, sleep until noon, and never leave their homes. There are no books in the house. They curse up a storm. They have hours and hours of free time where they absentmindedly throw rocks at a fence. Broken toys litter the backyard and new ones are provided freely. The kids power up on sugar cereal all day. The parents are overwhelmed and stressed. In one case, a parent was told by the school that her nine year old will never go to college, so she's entirely given up.

Jesus fucking Christ women! You're either the world's largest busy-body or are one of those people that feels that can extrapolate everyone's entire life from the way they say "hello!" Then she follows up with:

And, yes, it is very clear who's going to college and who's going to end up as a pole dancer.

Just to show that she's not just a nosy know it all, she's judgmental, too!

But, of course, Megan gets the last stupid in the argument. See, while Laura's heart is in the right place when she suggests:

This is where the schools have to step in. They have to level out these differences. All day nursery schools. Free books for toddlers.Towns need to offer parenting classes and organize babysitting cooperatives. Churches have to organize parent groups.

Megan can see through it all. After all isn't it obvious that, as Megan says:

The problem is, parents who let their kids cut summer school probably aren't going to force them to go to all day school programs. Or read to them. Or show up for parenting classes. The parents are choosing to let the kids do what they want either because they don't value school, or because they are too stressed or exhausted or possibly too lazy to engage in the confrontation and micromanagement required to force their children onto a different path.

That's right, Megan. The reason they have a problem now is because they suck! It has nothing to do with a lack of resources available! They're just stressed, exhausted, or LAZY!!!!!!!!

But don't worry. It's okie that these people's children aren't getting the help that they need, after all:

High income parents do these things because a) they view them as their own path to success b) their social circle values these activities, and punishes parents who do not do them and c) people with more satisfying jobs have more emotional energy for the unpleasant work of parenting--they have room left in the mental "chore" basket. I don't know what sort of social program can change any of these factors.

Everything's fine! It's only the black poor families that are like this! The rich are doing swell so all is good. Just stop worrying your pretty little heads, David and Laura. Megan McArdle's on the case and, as she proves time and time again, the status quo is just fine thankyouverymuch now take your liberal socialism parenting advice and run along now.

Shallow and Racist, a McArdle Double Play

WEEEEEE!

So speaking of guilty pleasures,

Oh, Megan, I love your conversational tone. You make me feel like we actually were just speaking of guilty pleasures. Such a joy.

one of mine is "So You Think You Can Dance", the dance version of American Idol. I don't watch any of the other reality shows, the ones that bloggers proudly lay claim to, like Project Runway or Top Chef. No, I just like watching people dance, mostly because I don't Think I Can.

"Guilty pleasures" is such a god awful ridiculous phrase. She was just recently mocking the pretension of those who don't own a TV. Why in the fuck would she feel bad about liking something simply because it's not high brow enough? I guess you're only allowed to be condescending about your entertainment in certain ways around Megan. It's okie, honey, you're allowed to like stupid things. We won't judge for that. Well, we will, but not the dancing.

What's struck me about this season is that with eight contestants left, three out of the four men were black.

1) I love how often Megan gets struck. If only she'd get struck by something larger occasionally.

2) I also love the giddy sense of foreboding I feel every time she starts to talk about race. What amusing bits of clueless derision will our heroine put forth next?

For the last three seasons, the show has tended to be very, very white by the time it gets down to brass tacks. This may be because the black dancers are very disproportionately hip-hop dancers, and don't have the technical skills of other contestants. Or it may be racism.

How magnanimous of her to allow for both the possibilities that black people may be inferior, or people may just think that black people are inferior. Her worldview is all encompassing!

Or it may just have been a fluke. But it's interesting to see this turn around, at least temporarily.

Yes, I always think to myself "Wow, here's an example of cultural if not overt racism playing out. How INTERESTING!"

Oh those whacky black people

Note, there are a lot of run-ons and typos below but this brought me to such a rage there's no way I can revisit it in order to neaten it up. Other contributors are welcome to it.
(brad adds: Done and done. You might want to make clear to Megan you weren't threatening her, even implicitly, lest she seek you out and shoot you in preemptive self-defense.)

Oh no, here we go again. Hasn't Megan learned not to talk about black people yet?

Is there reverse privilege?

I think it's safe to assume that minorities and women know more about life in the dominant group than the reverse--if for no other reason than the ways that media centers around their experience.

Yeah, you totally know what it's like to be a man, Megan. Afterall, you've seen a football game or two. Similar, I'm keenly aware of gay culture from having watched a handful of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy episodes. More on this later and by later I mean her next sentence:

But that can be tricky. Have you ever noticed how Europeans think they know way more about life in America than they actually do, because they watch our television and movies? I'm pretty sure that I know more about men's world than they know about mine--but I'm also confident that I don't actually know what it's like to be a man.

Gotta love Megan. Make a point as your topic sentence, then use your supporting sentences to refute that point.

While we were at Aspen, Ta-Nehisi and Kenyatta and I talked about the fact that most white people have some older person--a relative or a family friend--who is an extremely good person, and also says racist things. Most of us don't confront those people, except perhaps in a "Now, grandma, you know you shouldn't say those things*" kind of way.

Actually, I usually loudly sigh and facepalm AT THE LEAST whenever my ultra-rightwing older brother talks about the "sandniggers", but then again, I have a conscience.

That most of us have concluded that we can't raise an 85-year-old might be cowardice, but to me it feels like choosing my battles

And why battle racism when there's so much more pressing issues, like the lack of soy milk at Megan's local grocer.

Rather, I'm continuing what I tried to say in this post: that both communities, because they have a less than perfect understanding of the others' [sic] experience, are more suspicious of each other than they need to be.

No Megan, white people crossing the street when they see a black person coming is oversuspicious. Black people getting denied an interview because their name is Aiesha is fucking racism and is something to get VERY FUCKING LEGITIMATELY pissed off about.

Ending racism: are we there yet? Huh? Huh?
Dear lord she is such a bitch. Nothing like making your title a comparison of complaints of continuing racial tension to bratty five year olds in the back seat of your minivan. Sigh. Why wasn't she the one that got shot?

Meanwhile, Julian Sanchez had a very good post in response to Ta-Nehisi. You should read the whole thing, but I've been thinking hard about this piece:

She says. You know that this means the quoted post is in fact the biggest piece of shit ever.
Julian says:

There are still, of course, sectors of American society where the crude racism of the epithet and the noose is casually accepted. But, happily, this sort of thing largely is beyond the pale in polite company

Well Julian and Megan are some sheltered motherfuckers. I lived in Pittsburgh a mere three years and spend most of that time in the admittedly sheltered world of the undergraduate. Still, I heard more than once public declarations about how horrible gays were and how you couldn't trust black people. I even had my liberal and "enlightened" friend tell me once that she does, in fact, cross the street when she sees a black man coming. This wasn't some subtle, subconscious thing either. She actually argued that it was a reasonable step to take in order to avoid getting raped.

But no, racism is totally on the back burner these days. Just ask Jesse Helms. His career went to total shit because of his stroke overt racism.

Julian goes on to argue that racism is subtle these days. I'll skip it for now and get back to our muse, who loudly applauds her compatriot in not really caring about black people. (It's okie though, because neither of them has ever called anyone a nigger.)

While I think Julian's onto something important here, I wonder if this is even relevant for most of the white community. Most people just don't seem very interested in battling subtle bias.

Really? I'd love to battle that. I think most progressives (of which there are an ever increasing number) would love to battle it, too. Moreover, I'd love to battle the still largely present beat you over the head racism. I think it'd be awesome if penalties for crack and cocaine were similar. It'd be great if there were genuine public outcry for the labeling of black New Orleans residents scavenging for food as "looters." I think it'd be fucking terrific if Kanye West's speech would've been treated as the ballsy, needed to be fucking said, slap in the face of continuing, unabashed white racism that it was rather than the "OMGZOR HE DIDN'T READ THE TELEPROMPTER" travesty it was treated as.

The earlier anti-racism movements had clear goals. Free the slaves, change the Jim Crow laws, tell people they ought to treat black candidates the same as all the others. The new battle is against an endless battle against one's own thoughts. This sounds fine for people who are professional intellectuals, especially if they are focused on race or gender issues. I think that when feminist blogs say, "Everyone is sexist--we are not blaming you, but we need your help to stamp it out" they think they're extending an olive branch. But to most people, I suspect it just sounds exhausting.

Seriously, we gave the darky the vote! Does he really expect us to do the horribly tiring self reflection it would take to genuinely eradicate discrimination in all its forms? I mean, c'mon people, Survivor! is on!

And, to tell it true, the newer forms of sexism and racism aren't as bad as what proceeded them. With civil rights, we were asking people to slay dragons. Now we're asking them to spend the rest of their lives exterminating mosquitos. It may be true that a swarm of mosquitos is almost as bad, in toto, as a single dragon. But they don't summon the same sort of emotional energy.

First off, mosquitos are a horrible fucking analogy as malaria kills shitloads of people every year, but of course, they're not white people so of course Megan wouldn't think of that. Second off, FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID RACIST CUNT. You honestly think that racism today is some trifling thing? Yeah, it's just those damn niggers being uppity. So what if they can't get a cab in New York? Let em fucking walk! And hey, when the store clerks follow them around that's just an opportunity to have a knowledgeable employee around to ask questions about the merchandise!

She continually outdoes herself. This is why I hate libertarians. They can write entire tomes about how terrible it is that young people have to pay for the health care of old people, but dismiss racism as so 1968. Fuck you, Megan. I hope you die and join Jesse Helms in the gang rape circle, you self-entitled, racist piece of shit.