America's Least Useful Blogger on America's Least Useful Appliances

I guess it's like the goths picking on the nerds: You've always gotta find someone/thing a rung down, eh?

There are a lot of useless kitchen products out there. I find it hard, for example, to imagine anyone making quesadillas often enough to justify a quesadilla maker. The electric egg poacher also seems like it demands an improbably high, and frequent, desire for poached eggs, as well as a worrying inability to heat water in a saucepan.

Megan doesn't like quesadillas or poached eggs that much, so neither do you.

But this is absolutely the least useful appliance I have ever seen: the electric martini maker, which can provide them shaken, as well as stirred. If you are not strong enough to either shake, or stir, your martinis, you probably already require a home health aide who should do it for you. If you can lift the bottle to the rim of the cocktail shaker to pour in the gin, you can stir it around a little before you guzzle it.

Megan is an expert on martinis.

Dear Megan,

For future reference, when sharing something funny on the internet, less is more. I have provided this handy template to assist.

-----

Hey, check this out! Wild huh?

<optional short description of link>

-----

'Cause the internet is into the whole brevity thing. Also, you're not that funny.

Love
Toast

PS I'm aware of the ridiculousness of my requesting pithiness, so fuck you you stupid asshole for pointing out my fucking flaws. This is a blog about how much Megan sucks ass not about how much I'm not really any better and should just STFU, stop trying and go kill myself. That is another blog entirely.

"How Long Before I Actually Have To Turn Something In?"

A tip of the Bouffant chapeau to enabler (Or should that be co-dependent?) Susan of Texas, who is teasing us w/ a hint she's onto something concerning Megan's welfare payments.

This is the specific tip earner, though, referring to McArdle's leeching from the private sector:

Outlining a better policy model for thinking about failures at the individual and institutional level will be the focus of her fellowship.

We can hear it now: "Poor people should start saving their money, preferably at an unregulated & uninsured bank."

A Thousand Wordsworth

Blame Susan, in the comments to "A Kitten Quandry." If she hadn't mentioned it, you can bet the next bubble that I wouldn't have heard of it, looked for it, or made it available here.

Also bet that I haven't looked at it yet, & may never. I can tell you that cokehead Kudlow goes to Ms. McArdle for the opening; if you want to see & hear, you can get a glimpse & bail before the other wankers (from the American Enterprise Institute & the usual suspects) start, & before the application of knitting needles to eye-balls & ear-drums seems a viable alternative to continued viewing & listening.

Commenters please note: This site does not discriminate on the basis of physical appearance. Please avoid any comments about how odd/butchy anyone looks (Has she given up already now that she's latched onto a husband? Or did the make-up person tell her she'd look good that way? Dirty filthy creative types: They're all unionized socialists!) the color of anyone's lipstick, & Kudlow's elitist white collar & cuffs & flag lapel pin (Is he so fucking stupid/brain-damaged by the blow he no longer even knows which fucking country he's in, for tax evasion purposes?). Thank you.

Trivial

It's almost Spook Night, & what better time to re-enter the overgrown elfin horror of Megan McArdle's mind? The woman who can't spell her favorite word, even when spotted the "e," would like us to pay some attention to some stuff she's typed about something else.

When we were considering the stimulus, I got asked frequently whether it would work.  That very much depends on what you mean by "work".  If the question is:  "can I increase the size of a measured variable by boosting one of the components of that variable," then the answer is undoubtedly "yes"--but this is trivial.

Well, that depends on what the definition of "works" is, doesn't it? And maybe we aren't ready to deal w/ this. A clue for Mlle.: The question (she asked it herself) was "Will the stimulus work?" Not, "Ha ha, would you type something obvious & not funny even as sarcasm while avoiding the truth about the stimulus?"

We borrowed a bunch of money from abroad, and that was going to show up as an increase in GDP.  But as I wrote in our November issue, GDP is at best a proxy for our well-being, not a direct measure of it.  It's often a good proxy.  But it's never perfect, and it's very easy to manipulate with certain sorts of government actions, most notably borrowing a ton of money from the global capital markets.

I am on the edge of my seat awaiting the McArdle Index, so we can begin measuring our well-being w/o the irksome proxy of the GDP.*

Megan asks four questions, one of which is

2)  Are employment and compensation growing?

Funny, considering wages have been essentially stagnant since the Reagan era, & that, after all is good for Megan's America. Unless "compensation" is code for more bonuses for Wall St.

Elements of Style©:
How to type as if you graduated from a not really bad junior high school:

We borrowed a bunch of money from abroad
borrowing a ton of money from the global capital markets

Next wk., we'll find out that we've borrowed a bunch of tons of money.

Also fascinated by this sentence:

The things I think we really want to know about the economy are

The horror of the overgrown yet still elfin mind. Boo!

* One of the axes of the "McArdle Index."

A Kitten Quandry

I know, I've been slacking still. Busy week, now with a new twist. There's a kitten in my basement. A small, I'd guess about 12 weeks old, (oops, more like 5 months) all black very friendly and loving little male kitten. He's hard to photograph, being all black and an always moving kitten, but here's some shots to get the idea.




I just discovered him a couple hours ago tonight, so I'm not sure what to do with him. For the moment he has to stay in the basement in case of sickness he might give Binkley, but he now has a large amount of food and water, a litter, and a warm bed so he should be ok until the morning (plus I put his bed in the boiler room where it's warm). I'm tempted to keep him, but I think Binkley prefers being an only child. In any case I have to get him checked out tomorrow, and if anyone in the NYC area reaaaaaaaally wants a cat, he's an incredibly friendly little guy. And if anyone knows a good animal rescue/shelter/vet in Brooklyn do plz share.
The disturbing part of the story is the super was in the basement yesterday, apparently mentioned the kitten to the building owner, but left it down there locked in, with no food and only dirty rain runoff for water. In other words, my super is a huge asshole. I'm glad I heard the little guy crying.
*end random digression*

Mocking Me

That fucking ...... GARRRRRRRR!!!!!!

Creepiest Words Ever Written

The father of Sarah Palin's grandson will go ahead with his much-hyped Playgirl shoot in mid-November "in order to get the pictures out for the holidays"

In the immortal words of Bauhaus, wipe away my eyes, for I have seen too much . . .

It's a synergistic orgy of insipid shit. I am going to fucking kill someone. She did it on fucking purpose. I know it. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. You WILL read about murders in Berkeley today.

Trying to Be Charitable

So, I really don't want to read it this way. Admittedly I skimmed large portions of it. I'm pretty sure that Ross Douthat is actually saying that Anglicans and Catholics need to team up and take on Islam.

This could be the real significance of last week’s invitation. What’s being interpreted, for now, as an intra-Christian skirmish may eventually be remembered as the first step toward a united Anglican-Catholic front — not against liberalism or atheism, but against Christianity’s most enduring and impressive foe.

It's not entirely clear, but he really seems to be saying that the "foe" is Islam in Europe (for the Catholics) and Africa (for the Anglicans).

The man is calling for another fucking crusade.

In the pages of the New York Fucking Times.

Fuck it.

Just..... Fuck it.

I am going bowling.

Oh, Yeah, Weren't We Getting Someone Fired?

No, we really weren't. But let us dream. My thoughts on the week:

1) Megan doesn't know what a link farm is. It continually amazes me that someone whose ostensible job is to write doesn't even bother to get the basic things right. Link farm is a common phrase, yet she can't be bothered to throw it into google before she starts using it thrice weekly to show us stupid articles.

2) Somehow this hasn't gotten mentioned: Megan is reposting Glenn Beck clips again: Only this time, approvingly! Yes! Of course! When a women says something about Mao and Mother Teresea being her favorite philosophers any reasonable person who knew that Mao hated religious people and Teresea was possibly catholic would think she was being literal. Here's Megan in the comments:

Guys, it was a moronic thing to say. That's all. This does not mean Obama is a communist, etc. It just means that his communications director said something moronic. And it was moronic. Beyond calling Chairman Mao one of her favorite political philosophers, her speech is borderline incoherent.

Guys, just cause we say Megan McArdle should be fucking fired doesn't mean she's incompetent, lazy and stupid. It just means we think she should be fired. I don't know how you could possibly think we're saying there's anything wrong with her just by constantly linking to her disapprovingly.

Later she says:

Matt, the problem with this quote is that it is precisely the attribute she is praising--Mao's indifference to the opinions of others, as well as a pig-headed unwillingness to acknowledge the potential downsides of his actions--that caused the millions of deaths. It's one thing to approvingly quote Roman Polanski on film. It's another thing to approvingly quote him on sexual morality.

Which is a major speaking comprehension fail as the speaker was quite obviously talking about perseverance. Which is cool. I mean, I can't understand Hugh Jackman so I guess Mille is allowed to not understand whatever this woman's name was.

3) And finally for my little morning "Oh, yeah, I should do my job sometime this month" we've got another example of Megan just setting 'em up in her own mind so she can knock 'em down on her blog.

I have to admit, I'm kind of shocked by the number of people willing to advance the theory that political speech done by trade associations is not real political speech, or that it's okay to use the threat of regulatory punishment to shut down political speech just as long as you don't actually seize the printing presses.

How many kinds of fail can we count in here? Well, first I'm kind of shocked that she doesn't link to a single person saying that. Maybe there are some people out there. Next to some unicorns and a pot of gold. Second, we've got the absurd proclamation that Obama is threatening to muzzle the insurance companies, which makes sense if time goes backwards and the study to which she is vaguely alluding happened before Obama decided to take on health care. Third, we have this crazy bum-fuck confusion about what freedom of the presses means, or, rather, what it's paired with ie freedom of fucking speech in general. Guess what doesn't matter? WHO THE FUCK SAYS WHAT! The whole "printing press" bullshit or whatever she's talking about just doesn't make any fucking sense. I believe now we're two out of ten for misinterpreting the bill of rights.

The real hilarity comes with her hypocrisy, though. What is Obama doing other than painting his opponents with the evil obstructionist brush? To be sure, that's a legit crit if you happen to be able to find it, but it's not exactly a new thing for McArdle. You don't have to scroll down very far to find notations of her pointing out how bad brown people are. It's not like she wasn't making up violent anti-war protesters in her brain and threatening to bash their heads in.

And we're done.

Cat Porn Interlude

Binkley would like some attention, plz.



And so he shall receive it.



That is all.

We All Can Be Idiots Sometimes

even Matt Taibbi. (Yes, more off topic baseball stuff.)
Taibbi suffers from rabid anti-Yankeedom, a tragic condition which impairs one's capacity for logic and leads to otherwise intelligent people making absurd claims like the Yankees would suck this year or that Brian Cashman is somehow a worse GM than someone like Dayton Moore. It also leads to a position of cognitive dissonance where instead of the franchise spending revenues on payroll anti-Yankee fans argue the Steinbrenner family should be further enriched, and further idiocy where this fact is repeatedly denied without any reasonable cause. The Yankees have, by a substantial margin, the highest revenues in the game, so by all rights they should have the highest payroll. Yes, there is an inherent imbalance between the ability of the Yankees and, say, the Royals to compete, but that doesn't make it the Yankees' fault the Royals have sucked for almost two decades, that's due to simple bad management.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bothered by most anti-Yankee crap, though it does irk me a bit when otherwise intelligent liberals vent their inner jock bigot and call me sometimes quite horrible things for daring to root for a team they don't like. I was picked on a lot as a kid for being smart, but I was always big enough to fight back so I still have an urge to do so. But Taibbi's style of idiocy just makes me laugh. As Reverend Said said in Oz, "God does not need you to protect him from morons".
I don't understand the Taibbi fandom, tbh, even separate from one bad piece from 6 months ago. He picks targets we on the left don't like, sure, but he himself isn't that impressive, especially when he decides to pretend he's the heir of HST. I see Taibbi as just as much of a careerist as Ezra Klein, just on a slightly different path.

(Just for the record, and as an olive branch to those who, not being fans of the team, focus more on the legitimate problems in the structure of MLB, I will say the team should not have received public subsidies for their new stadium, if they even truly needed a new stadium. And neither should any other team. I might also be the only Yankee fan who's both in favor of the luxury tax and the Yankees perpetually paying it.)

Shorters

because I'm lazy and they're easy to pound out while watching Sabathia and the Yanks make this a good fall.

Scoring the Baucus Bill: Tax Dynamics:

Concern troll wants you to remember stuff costs money, which means we shouldn't do stuff, unless it involves blowing up brown people and their stuff.

Three Books to Change Your Mind:

Instead of laughing at, not with, PJ O'Rourke I'd like to highlight this line from Amazon's description of The Elusive Quest for Growth;

The problem is not the failure of economics, William Easterly argues, but the failure to apply economic principles to practical policy work.

And remember, conservative ideology didn't fail, Bush failed conservative ideology.

The UAW's New Conflict of Interest:

To review, executive level compensation being driven into the stratosphere by conflicts of interest isn't a biggie, especially if we're talking about bankers getting rich off bad mortgages their bank never planned on owning long term, but union workers demanding slightly less when they're working for themselves is deeply troubling insofar as a group Megan dislikes is continuing to exist.

Do Private Insurers Subsidize Public Programs?:

Does cost shifting exist? Do hospitals actually use private insurance to subsidize inadequate reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid? Insurers claim it does, but they would, wouldn't they?

No comment from me needed.

"We Will Control Healthcare Costs, Because We Have To":

Once again, concern troll would like to remind you that doing stuff costs money, and ask that you not remember the tax cuts and war she supported which have no relation to any debt incurred providing basic medical care for the American people, nor any relation to our national debt at all.

That's enough for now. The Yanks just won, I think it's time to smoke some pot.

Belated Recognition

seems Tom L. over at Inverse Square went on an extended Whack-A-Megan mission while I was on vacation. That link is just the first of four long, good, posts he produced detailing the level of dishonesty involved in just one of Megan's lies in a single post. On one hand I greatly appreciate it when people better qualified for it than I take Megan's work apart on the specifics, it's not really my thing and it reminds folk there's a reason to place zero confidence in any assertion she makes, but on the other hand a smart and decent guy had to stare long and hard into Megan's dense core of stupid, which is never pleasant.
The topic in this case is Megan's old reliance on a Rand study commissioned by Pfizer to argue that the reduced innovation pharma execs would apparently cause via temper tantrum if their profit margins were reduced by health care reforms would cost us all many years of life expectancy, which is to say it would cost lives. I think Susan and I poked at the issue at the time (I'd provide links but the archive search function from Blogger seems to have become completely useless), but Tom goes into a much greater level of detail on this attempted case of emotional blackmail in place of argument.

Don't Make Me Get the Belt

Alright, TBogg, I'm calling you the fuck out!

That thing I said about Sarah Palin goes fucking double triple quadruple infinitle for fucking Carrie Prejean.

You are contributing to the steady decay of America's soul and I am not going to fucking take it anymore. You keep this shit up and she's gonna be on reality TV and I'm going to have to hear about her all the fucking time and, OMG,fuck you TBogg. Why do you hate me?

Gotta admit, though, the title's pretty hilarity!!!!!

Because (One of) You Demanded It

The Atlantic's James Bennet Is Ad Age's Magazine A-List Editor of the Year, apparently.

Don't feel bad, even Ad Age doesn't know who he is, they just know how well he places products and sells that placement in the off the record paid salons which produce a large portion of the revenues he's being credited with. So yes, technically The Atlantic is still edited, and some tool named James Bennet is in charge of the pretense, though he doesn't put much effort into it.

"I really do believe that we rise or fall on the strength of our writers and bloggers," he says. "They're the stars."

which is why he doesn't require them to perform fact or grammar checks of their work before clicking "submit post".
Such is blogging.

We'll Be Right Back After This Message From Our Sponsors

Kindle Goes on a World Tour:

Amazon just dropped the price of its Kindle from $299 to $259, and is apparently adding an international version for $279 that will work on GSM networks abroad. The company plans to sell the new Kindle in 100 countries.

I'm being unfair, tho, this isn't about product placement, it's about Megan.

It will never be as common as the iPod or cell phone, but the time is pretty quickly coming when it won't attract questions from strangers when I pull it out.

She also thinks that dropping the price to $200 would make lots of people want to pay $200 to be able to buy books that can run out of battery power. Who wouldn't pay $200 for entry to a bookstore where the lights go off if you stay too long and which will soon be made obsolete by a slightly shinier bookstore with slightly longer lasting lights across the street which you'll have to pay another $200 to get into? Oh, and you can't take the books you buy out of the store. You're paying for a license to look at them, not to own the books themselves.

Good Lord

way off topic, but for those of you who read Fire Joe Morgan, I present the horror that is Buzz Bissinger writing for eventheliberal New Republic "against Moneyball".
Yes, that Buzz Bissinger.

To put it in shorter form; hah, the A's can't find market inefficiencies to take advantage of right now, which justifies my childish hatred of Billy Beane for being a better athlete, better looking, smarter, and more popular. In fact, if Billy Beane was soooooo smart, how come teams are now paying large amounts of money for the skills he had identified as being undervalued? Dumb loser can't even make the market stay inefficient.

The New Republic, dedicated to finding new ways to be reactionary, retrograde, and just plain wrong about more than just wars.

Enjoyables

This is pretty much a religious experience for me:

WON'T SOMEONE PLEAES THINK OF THE CORPORATIONS!?!?!?!

So apparently there's some kerfuffle going on somewhere on the internets. Some gold mining company or whatever basically took all their gold from Fort Knox and sold it a huge a profit and now they're paying their employees ridiculous amounts of money for being key advisers to the president's accountant or some shit. I dunno. It's all a bit technical and I can't keep this crap straight in my head. Inconsequential, really. What I want to know is, how does the gold mining company feel about it?

I defended the banks paying bonuses that had already been agreed before the crisis. But this really is ridiculous, and the banks should have known better, if only for PR reasons.

Oh nooooo! It's the return of bad PR! Those poor miners! What will this mean to them?

If they get an ugly new regulation regime, they'll have only themselves to blame. Whatever they really think, deep in their hearts, they're certainly doing their best to give the impression that they believe they are entitled to collect huge paychecks no matter what happens, and have the taxpayer pick up the tab for their mistakes.

Yes! Whatever they believe deep in their hearts! Who knows! I mean, sure, it looks like they're paying themselves hand over foot while seizing control of regulatory agencies through lobbying efforts, but appearances can be so deceiving. Unless you're brown, in which case appearances are everything.

If those silly saxophone players had just APPEARED to give a fuck, we never would've regulated 'em. Americans don't care about their loss of wealth and jobs, growing income inequality and what amounts to outright bribery of the American government! Nope, they just wanna believe that their corporations love them. Maybe someone could make some snazzy commercial for these bankers, like the ones for GE and shit where they make you feel all warm and fuzzy without even bothering to sell you a product. Then everything should be fine.

And Bachmann Liked It, Too

Lil Petey got a Senatorial shout out:

Not to brag on my fiance or anything, but I'm currently watching the Senate Finance Committee's testimony, and Senator John Cornyn just mentioned Peter's excellent article on the experience of the states with various health care reforms. He not only entered it in the congressional record, but also asked Elmendorf whether he had considered the Massachusetts health experience--the very question I asked this morning. Go Team McSuderman!

Megan?



All compliments are not created equal.

Depressing Shit I Hadn't Noticed

David Lynch signed the "free Polanski" big name Hollywood French artist organization's petition. Woody Allen, sure, he's a statutory incestuous rapist himself, so it'd be hypocritical for him not to support Polanski, but Lynch disappoints me. I realize Polanski's kind of behavior is fodder for Lynch's imagination, but that doesn't make it something we as a society should tolerate. Rape is quite horrible enough in and of itself, but to call a life of luxury and privilege everywhere but in the US a punishment is fucking stupid. No talent is great enough to excuse crimes like rape or murder, and using status and/or wealth to escape justice is just as wrong. I can't help but think if this were the case of a redneck who raped his stepdaughter in Georgia then lived under a false name in Arizona for 20 years many of the same people would sign a petition arguing against clemency.
I don't mean to sound wingnutty, I'm just sad David Lynch would allow personal familiarity and the artist's privilege to excuse this bullshit.

*sigh* Buck Henry signed it. And Terry Gilliam, though after Tideland I suppose I'm not shocked, and Scorsese, and many more disappointing names. I realize the petition is supposed to be about a defense of the festival, but that, also, is bullshit. Film festivals do not have the ability to extend diplomatic immunity, and there's a clear difference between Polanski and a criminalized political dissident.

So yes, I'm back, tho I'll probably need a couple days to stretch my legs and get back into form. Any lowlights that Nutella didn't get to? I haven't looked at Megan's output in at least 10 days.

Keep Going to the Well

hahahahahahahahaahhaahah:

Dow 10,000!!!

We hit it! Amidst all the excitement, it's worth remembering that if we had just two more fingers, we'd still be waiting for it to hit 20,736.

hahahahahahahahahaha

That one never gets old!

The Dow finally surpassed 36,000 today, restoring faith not only in our economy, but in James Glassman and Kevin Hackett, whose Dow 36,000 became an icon of the tech bubble gone wrong. To be sure, they were 12 years early. But what's 12 years between friends?

Can't you just imagine her typing this with a stupid smirk on her face thinking "Damn, I'm so clever. These guys are lucky to have me around."

A Different Kind of Dog-Whistle

We begin, as we so often do, with a non-nonsensical title: "Saving the Stimulus From its Critics?"

I'm a bit flummoxed seeing columnists arguing that critics had better just shut up about the stimulus, because most of it hasn't even been spent yet. For many of us critics, that's precisely the point. A stimulus is supposed to counteract a sharp contraction in aggregate demand when that demand is contracting, not wait until the economy is recovering, at which point its effect is much more likely to be distortionary and inflationary.

Heh, awesome guys, we're in a recovery. Unemployment continues to increase and I haven't heard about any GDP growth, but, hey the market is up and that's NEVER wrong.

The porkulus sacrificed stimulative power in order to slide Democratic legislators' pet projects past without ordinary scrutiny. Now the economy seems to be turning around without it, and we're stuck with the pork.[my bold]

Bullshit Bonus!(x2) +100000 pts!

Annnnnnnnd now she's gunning for a job at Red State. Hoo-rah.

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.

Taking Bets

Update: Yosemite was fun, but I regret to find that no one has won our really smart bear. This sucks because now I don't know what to do with him. Uh, anyone want a free bear?

As of 10am Western time, Megan McArdle has not opined on Obama's Nobel Prize. We can be assured that, maybe in three or four days, she'll get around to coughing up some dense, wet, and hairy matter she will call a "thought" and any common house-cat will call a "hairball."

I have to get ready for a trip to Yosemite, but I'd like to leave it to you folks to guess how she will respond. My guess is that she'll be moderate (of course) and say that it's a good thing with the caveat that this reinforces the idea that Obama is a lisping light-footed fairy and hurt his defense (she'll say defence) credentials.

The winner will be judged when I get back and whoever is closest wins a bear of above average intelligence.

I'll Be Back

sorry for the downtime, my internet connection has been doing annoying things and I've needed my brain for stuff that isn't Megan-poop. Plus I need a vacation, when the joy is gone from mocking her and I'm barely avoiding just posting streams of foul words it's time to take a break. I'll get back on the horse in a few days, probably over the weekend.

Law Abiding Citizens

The ever valuable John Cole points us to an article about a mom who used to carry her gun to soccer practice. Apparently that ended with her and her husband dead in a murder suicide. It's unclear who did which part of that little pact; though there is reason to believe that the husband shot her and then himself.

Which brings us to the Megan and her predictions. Back when people were carrying AK-47s around at political rallies, Megan was unperturbed. After all;

the rate of crime associated with legal gun possession or carrying seems to be very low.[three links not included.]

Apparently statistics for the subset of legal gun owners that carry their guns around in wildly inappropriate places are different than those for the entire set of legal gun owners. It's almost as if there's a distinction between gun owners and crazy fucking gun owners.

To be fair, the legal gun carrier in this case may not be the perpetrator. However, crazy people tend to flock together. Her husband prolly wasn't crazy enough to go a killin' without presenting other craziness first. I doubt that anyone who wasn't a bit batty themselves would get involved with that. (To be clear, that is not to blame the victim. Crazy men also attract crazy women and -- I'm guessing -- men and men as well as women and women in non-heteronormative land.)

Shorter Partisan Detective

Shorter "ACORN Story Gets Curiouser and Curiouser:"

If I'm deliberately obtuse, I can make it look like all of ACORN is a killing puppies for profit and using the money to abort Republican babies. Also, my titles are absolute fucking nonsense.

Never Is a Promise

I saw on facebook that Levi Johnson is making his first TV appearance. I promised myself that I would not:

1) Verify this

2) Even double check that that's the proper spelling of his name

3) Search on youtube or anywhere else later for a clip of what he says

4) Click any embedded videos that have even a remote chance of having anything to do with Sarah Palin.

I don't get why Republicans chased from offices with pitchforks *cough*newtgingrich*cough* get to stick around and annoy us so much. I guess Levi's not really part of that, per se, but I've had enough of all kinds of Palin.... stupid AND annoying.

Will you make the pledge with me? If we get people started weening now, perhaps we can make 2010 a Palin free year!

Shorters

many of em. There's lots of Meganpoop to wade through, alas.

Will Abortions Be Crowded Out?:

Megan? I'm getting tired of calling you a concern troll. Plz stop acting like one.

Income Inequality Still Rising?:

Instead of addressing the problem, let's just extend unemployment an extra few months. Who can argue with that, even if it has nothing really to do with the ever growing wealth gap.

Public Option, We Hardly Knew Ye:

Apparently the failure to put the public option in one of the five versions of the reform bill coming out of committees means IT'S DEAD AAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA DEAD KAPUT FINISHED FINITO STOPPED WE WOOOOOOOON.
Now two powerful forces are colliding; Megan's ability to be wrong about every possible imaginable thing and the congressional Dems' ability to fuck things up. I was going to call this confrontation a suck-off, but that phrase could be taken the wrong way, so I'm not.

Bear Raiders:

Matt Taibbi's head is made of poop and blahblahblah sure, bad things could happen, but I'm not at all confused about what I'm opining on, so there!

What's the Function of a Mandate?:

Megan is in favor of more money for insurance companies in the abstract, but in reality she recognizes that if the health industry wants to continue its con/extortion it has to maintain some veneer of restraint, and a mandate is just so much chum in the water.

Is the Second Amendment a Real Amendment?:

Megan will only rest when firearms have the same legal rights as corporations. Then shooting at Presidents will be protected speech and gun nuts will be heroes for helping those guns express their views.

Car Talk:

Megan's awesomeness gives her +5 resistance to car crashes.

The Magic of Multipliers:

A couple guys writing for the WSJ Op/ed page about a study they did for a wingnut funded organization are unimpeachable sources and Obama is total fail I win haha no takebacks.
And this might be the finest example of passive aggression I've ever seen;

I've discussed the underlying paper with Barro, and it seems pretty compelling; they've got a hell of a time series. On the other hand, I know that this work fits both his and my political convictions, so there's a good chance we're both missing something. No doubt liberals will jump on the paper with both feet, and we'll get to here [sic] about what that missing something might be.

Just awesome. *applauds*

How's That Cash-for-Clunkers Deal Working?:

Just because it worked doesn't mean we should have extended it further, as demonstrated by the fact that many companies are now suffering again without it.
Unions must die, Erick Erickson is not just a blogger Megan reads, he's a hero.

Done. I'm free I'm free!

Looking Back Is So Yesterday

Hey guys, remember when Megan got outraged? Well, she did:

Well, I'm outraged. Also, not a fan of a resurgent Russian empire. I think we should do something about it, not that I think we will. But we could certainly do more than we are, which is nothing.

Oh, yeah, about that imperialist push by the Ruskies...

Tbilisi Started '08 War, but Moscow Also at Fault, EU Finds

Those Russians are so good at empire, they make their future subjugants declare war on them!

Oh, Also, Too

Speaking of Inconsiderate

Now that everyone's set me straight on Wolverine, let's turn our eyes forward to some "Car Talk:."

Patrick Swayze dies; tragedy for Megan 'cause she loved him when he was 16 (and he never did anything after that).

Heath Ledger dies; tragedy for modern day 16 year olds, because that's the demographic for Brokeback Mountain

But what about those salt of the earth 'Mericans? How does Megan feel about them?

What a PR disaster for Toyota: the company is having to recall millions of cars because four people were killed in a crash that apparently involved improperly installed floor mats.

Ahh, look how she mourns the loss of Toyota's positive PR. And we accuse her of not relating well enough to the faceless common man in the crowd. How wrong we were. Look how quickly she empathizes with the faceless Toyota.

What I sort of don't get is, why didn't they just shift into neutral, slam on the emergency lights, pull the parking brake, and coast to a stop?

What I don't get is; Someone who gets flustered when their wing mirror breaks chiding someone else for losing their wits when faced with death! Also, too, who "slams on" lights?