She's Back!

And true to form.

Lebanon, Libya, Liberia, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg. Embassy, consulate. What. Ever.

Perhaps her atlas (or Google Maps) has gastritis.

A Telling Paragraph

Stupid body. In China, I snapped awake at 4 am every morning, and nodded off during dinner--the first night I apparently gave a rather impassioned defense of American exceptionalism that I (blissfully) can't quite remember. Now I'm back in the states, I can't get to sleep before about 3:30 even with the help of Ambien. This was tolerable over the weekend, when I didn't have to get up for work. But you can imagine how chipper I was this morning.

Can we now assume that many of Megan's posts (like her "rather impassioned defense of American exceptionalism") are written under the influence of Ambien, & she has no more memory/knowledge of them than if she were to snack/drive/whatever while unconscious & even less reasoning than usual?

Maybe she should leave the car at her sister's until she gets off the stuff.

This morning I spent twenty minutes looking for my car keys, before remembering that I'd parked the car up at my sister's house while I was away.

Elements of Style:©:

4 am every morning

Not to be confused w/ four a.m. every evening, or four p.m. every morning.

Let's Have A War! And Maybe Another One, Too!

We're sure McArdle fans have seen the ginandtacos item wherein Mlle. McA.'s firm beliefs vis-a-vis the invasion & continuing occupation of Iraq are deservedly mocked.

Settling for scraps, I went to the source, & noted this bit that no one else I've read has yet mentioned.

Thus, Eric Alterman is enabled to claim that the cost to the US taxpayer will be over $2t, even though most of the larger costs cited by Galbraith aren't going to be borne by Americans either directly or indirectly, but by Iraqi oil.⁶ That's the oil that will be able to flow freely for the first time in ten years because of this war -- and the revenue from which will flow to the Iraqi people for the first time in a decade.

The footnote:

⁶ Am I suggesting that the Iraqis should pay for occupation expenses? Nope. We can afford it, and there's something repellent about making impoverished Iraqis pay for a war foisted on them by an evil dictator. But most of that $2t, if it is any sort of a real number, will be stuff for Iraqis: roads, schools, hospitals, government buildings, power plants and sewers and all the good stuff that lets us live like citizens of the 21st century. That stuff should come out of Iraqi oil revenues.

Our emphases. She knows from "real" numbers, doesn't she? And how's all that "get the oil money to the Iraqi people" worked out, seven yrs. into the occupation? More electricity, to run all the "good stuff?" Well, no.

What a horrid, awful, fucking bitch. From what dark, disturbed part of her ugly mind did something like: "there's something repellent about making impoverished Iraqis pay for a war foisted on them by an evil dictator" come? Foisted on them? Or is she referring to Bush when she types "evil dictator?" The "foisting" was done by people like her, stenographers for the unelected gov't. of the usurper Bush.

Elements of Style©: How could a graduate of Podunk State Normal School, let alone an English major from Penn, type "stuff" twice, & "good stuff" once, in any context, let alone in two sentences?

And an outro from DougJ at Balloon Juice:

Doubt this will make it into Conor Friedersdorf’s li'l round-up of mistaken Iraq War predictions.

Probably not. Fuck Friedersdorf, & the horse he rode in on. Remember this?

Tell us, Friedersdork (He really shouldn't type under his own name.) how's that True/Slant site where you used to type working out for ya? We still exist. You got fucked by a corporation. Learned anything yet?

If he's still on the "under your own name" thing (What possible difference does it make? Malignant Bouffant isn't anyone else's name, & it bloody well is my own name.) he can shoot me a fucking email, we'll meet somewhere, & just before I cram his teeth down his throat, I'll let him know what my legal name is, & who's a "coward."

(Really, what is he talking about? Should I reveal my legal name, address, 'phone # & other contact info to prove something? Something along the lines of how many hateful lunatics read McArdle & would try something physical if they knew where to find me? What's your address, Conor, if that's your own name? It isn't, of course, it's his parents name for him, & like the pathetic sheep he is, he accepts it, along w/ the conventional wisdom he swallows whole. Asswipe.)

Guilt By Association

Via LG&M, I peeked at something called Pileus. Granted, blog-pimper Robert Farley advised that he didn't agree w/ them much, but one doesn't expect to see Megan McCardle [sic] considered a "high quality blog"

by anyone who takes himself seriously.

We here don't even take ourselves seriously, but even we know enough not to take Ms. McArdle seriously at all.

Elements Of Style©: Just from a technical standpoint, Megan types neither well nor clearly, seldom bothers to correct typos, & so on, as often documented here & elsewhere in cyberspace. That alone makes her space less than high quality, w/o getting into, you know ...

Those We Dislike

We've been waiting for it:

Clinton's remarks clearly have an alternative, non-racial interpretation, and while Harry Reid may have been flashing back to his political salad days when Democrats regularly congratulated themselves on their openness to Negros[sic], it's more unfortunate than problematic. I only wish that all the liberals rushing to defend them would apply the same good faith presumption when Republicans are involved.  Even if the president is black, there will be many people who disagree with him vigorously and angrily; this is not, per se, evidence of racism.  Nor is it possible to police every offhand remark which could have racist connotations. If there is any good thing about the Reid kerfuffle, it's that with the charge of hypocrisy waiting in the wings, we can perhaps now spend a little less energy scrutinizing those we dislike for signs of racial bias.

Nope, Megan can't let anyone off the hook w/o digging the hook in a bit on the way out. And not a word on any of the scrutinizers trying to make Sen. Reid's awkward wording the equivalent of Sen. Lott's "We'd all be better off if Jim Crow were still around" masterpiece.

Elements of Style©: Not to scrutinize anyone we dislike for anything, but "Negros?" Check w/ Dan Quayle on this one.

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."

Not So Surprising: Why She'd Note This

Surprising Findings

According to a new survey from Indiana University and the University of Utah finds that [sic] a huge majority of Americans think that women should change their last names when they marry.

I almost stopped to ask the usual "Why this?" until reminded. Something very special that's never happened before is about to. Are we all excited?

So I'm awfully glad that the government doesn't mandate such a ridiculous thing, because if they did, I'd have to refuse to change my name in outraged protest.

Foot-stamping as well, you contrarian, you?

Elements of Style®/Megastats:
Ten lines of Megan's, 17 lines copy-pasted; no one could be bothered to take out the redundancy/first draft remnant in the opening sentence?

But... But... What About PROCEDURE?!?!?

Did you know that Megan blogs on senate procedural matters? Neither did I!

Jonathan Zasloff's defense of using budget reconciliation for health care?

First, Ezra's assertion that the reconciliation rules ban health care reform is at best unproven and contrary to the plain language of the law. Those rules bar putting things in a reconciliation bill that have only an "incidental" effect on the budget. But, say, prohibiting discrimination against pre-existing conditions would have more than an incidental effect. Such a move, for example, could save billions from Medicaid, because it would allow people to get insurance in the private market who might otherwise have to go to Medicaid.

Hey, Megan, what's reconciliation? 'Cause you might wanna provide a little bit of background on topics you've NEVER FUCKING MENTIONED BEFORE. Oh, wait, but I wrote that with the false premise that Megan wants anyone to understand her rather than hear just herself talk. My bad.

As far as I know, Medicaid eligibility is generally restricted to those who are pretty low income[sic]. And[sic] the waiver-program[sic] premia[sic] (Intellectual fail.) are usually lower than any private entity would charge, even in Europe (Which is not a country.). With community rating (WTF is community rating? Oh, there I go again!), the prices of private insurance[sic] will go up even further. What the heck is Zasloff talking about (NOT the price of private insurance)? How many people does he really think are quiting[sic] their jobs and deliberately impoverishing themselves in order to qualify for Medicaid, rather than earning an income which can support the $350 or so per person that gets charged for an HMO in a community-rated[sic] state like New York (Which is also not a country.) with generous mandatory benefits (Not sure if this deserves a sic, but fuck, I thought I wrote sentences that had too many long clauses)? I'm sure that there are enough for an enterprising New York Times reporter to write a trend piece, but enough to make a noticeable dent in the budget? The best ways to get Medicaid are to go on welfare, or disability. Both of which imply insufficient income to buy insurance. Or substantial fraud. (Welfare and disability imply substantial fraud?)

Italics mine, of course.

Megan doesn't seem to realize that there are, in fact, disabled people with money who simply cannot get insured because of their preexisting disability. What a shock, her failing to realize that some people's problems aren't their own fault. She also mocks the idea of impoverishing oneself to get into Medicaid, which is something many people do when they learn they are terminally ill.

My favorite bit of cognitive dissonance, though, is buried in the middle. Notice how she says that community rating raises prices and then subsequently says that its existence in NY is what allows people to get insurance when they might not be otherwise able. Implicit in how SHE chooses to frame the problem is the worry of what the cost is to the comfortable and NOT what the worry of the cost to the struggling person with the preexisting condition.

Oh, and did I miss any "sic"'s?

Be Vewy Vewy Upset, I'm Hunting Unions

Yes, Megan likes vouchers, & is "very, very upset." Tell us how you really feel, Megatron. Because "very, very upset" sounds like a mother who wants to murder her offspring, but is barely holding her rage in. Seriously,  for once she commits to something here. Increasing right-wing looniness, yeah, but it's not like wading in the usual mushy opinions. W/ this exception: 

I think the most hard-core voucher advocate would have to admit that its modest gains are not what we had hoped.

where she forfeits the game before it even gets underway. And she's kind enough to give President O. the benefit of the doubt, in the first clause of the very same sentence:

the possibility that Barack Obama genuinely believes that the DC voucher program is not helping the students.

The good vibes don't last forever, though. 

Education gets Mlle. riled up. She's so ideological on this that I can engage w/o knowing squat about what's really wrong w/ education. (Like economics, a nebulous field, in which many differences seem based on ideology rather than the real problems.) I need only look for the dog-whistles.

I think that there is probably a special place in hell reserved for politicians who betray our nation's most helpless children for the benefit of a sullen and recalcitrant teacher's union.

See? Those teachers & their unions are just stubborn children, all sullen &c.

Of course, if glibertarians are mostly interested in union busting (just on an ideological basis, of course) so potential voucher school operators will have a larger pool of incompetents to under-pay, there's little to engage.

And if things haven't turned out as even the hard-care voucherites (Voucherians?) had hoped, well, climb on the class/culture war wagon & see if resentment can be stirred up against those snooty spicy mustard eaters from "good" schools.

Bingo! The political is rendered personal, & the "Obama Girls" attending a private school is, while not accompanied by shouts of "Hypocrites!!" a good excuse to bring up some of those words:

[T]he Obama girls would do just as well in ordinary, democratic, thoroughly American public schools as in an elitist Quaker institution.

The best of the words is "elitist." (Where & why would Our Muse have ended up w/o her parents sending her to private, "elitist" schools? Should she have been deprived of that?) 

Though the phrase "thoroughly American" just leaped out at me. I have to give Ms. McArdle credit here. She's coined an elegant, sophisticated way to express the ever-popular Sarah Michele Palin-Bachmann "Real America" concept. Quite the dog-whistle. We didn't just hear some, we found a brand-new one. Congrats, Megan McArdle!! 

What is it about the Obama girls that enables them, nearly uniquely, to benefit from school choice?

Well, I think it might be that their parents have a pretty good pile of money. Is McA. now suggesting that the Prez be punished for being successful? (Is there anyone in the United Snakes who earned several million last yr. who isn't sending their spawn to private schools?) 

We might say something about security considerations (If I were president I probably wouldn't let my children out of the White House.) but who knows w/o actual research? Just sayin', if you know what I'm sayin'.

And it's worth noting that no Republican Prexy since Teddy Roosevelt (no research, just our looooong but fading memory) has had high school-age or younger children while in the office. Maybe no prez at all between Teddy R. & Kennedy had young sprats. How many R-Anywhere offspring in Wash. go to public school? Blah blah.

P. S.: What the hell, & for what it's worth, the solution to the schools/education problem is more involved parents & less ideologues involved. Blah blah blah.

Elements of Style©:

how come the Obama girls benefit from leaving the DC public school system?

"How come," in speech, makes you sound like a mouth-breather who's sucked in too many fumes pumping gas. In typing, it reads the same, & "why" is three keystrokes as opposed to eight.

More Elements: As typed, that sentence asks why leaving the D. C. schools is benefits the girls. (The schools stink because Congress doesn't want to spend money on educating D. C. residents is my answer.) I think she really means "Why do they get to leave (& thereby benefit, allegedly)?" Whatever. Some people just won't learn. Or can't learn, & should go to a vocational school.

Which Side Is She On? The Fence, Of Course. If We Understand Her Correctly.

At last, something not drowned in high-finance house-of-cards bullshit. This reporter does understand class struggle. An excerpt from a Foreign Policy article about middle-class Thais rioting against the rural poor, & she's off to the races.

But before we follow her out of the gate, let's examine part of the excerpt provided by Ms. McArdle about what's claimed to be up in Thailand.

One former U.S. ambassador to Thailand puts it bluntly: The middle class "disdain[s] the rural masses and see[s] them as willing pawns to the corrupt vote buyers." Instead of fighting for democratic rights, in other words, the People's Alliance is protesting against them.

Megan's reaction to this is a vaguely historical  recap of the "progressive era" which stops somewhat less than a hundred yrs. ago, though not by much.  No mention of more recent anti-democratic attitudes & initiatives, from her side of the aisle. Or that Sammy-Joe the Ex-Plumber is espousing this very line:

But, you also have to take into consideration that the Democrats say they are for people in poverty.

[...]

People in poverty keep them in power—that's what people have to understand.

The same sentiment, better-expressed than Sammy-Joe, from the comments, as well:

After reading the whole article, it seems like the middle class is weary/leery of a democracy with voters that don't respect property rights.

You know you're in for it when "property rights" are invoked. Watch:

Now that the population seems to be less committed to the idea that anybody has a right to keep what they own, and that everybody has some sort of implied right to the property of anybody that is well off, I'm not sure you won't see more of a backlash against democracy here.

All of the above, of course, a direct result of the election of Barack Obama. What else has happened to bring about this sudden sea-change in public opinion? Maybe the discovery that we're not anywhere near Egypt, 2000 BCE. But that's far enough in the past for historian McArdle to start (Hell, we're surprised she she got as far as the early 20th century, except to explain how FDR made it all worse.) reminding us how capitalism has made the world a better place in the last 4009 yrs.

The poor benefit from the capitalist system, probably more than the rich--compare Pharoah [sic] to Bill Gates, then compare a standard Egyptian peasant around 2000 BC to, say, a minimum wage worker in America.  But if you don't have the social capital to make it to the top, at any given time, it may look like it pays off to undermine or overthrow the system.  Naturally, the middle class, which preserves the system, will be averse to any system that gives them the power to do so.

Ai yi yi, Ms. McArdle, it wouldn't be quite as bad if you could write clearly. Then we could deal w/ your silly ideas straight on. Please explain the last sentence. Diagram it, even. Who is "them" in that sentence? The middle-class? In which case the sentence makes little sense. Or (I'm really trying to help you be comprehensible here, Megan, stop fidgeting) to make sense, "them" would have to be the poor people you mentioned. At the beginning of the paragraph, two sentences ago. Now do you see the problem, dear?

As to the ideas, isn't it the principle of the thing? Whether the peasant of Egypt had to support his betters & earn his grain carrying Pharaoh around in a sedan chair, or has to slave on her feet eight hrs. a day behind a cash register while repeating "Have a nice day" to assholes to keep her betters from the necessity of work, what fucking difference does it really make?

And this "social" capital you speak of? Being white & well-off? Really, it's just capital that gets you to the top. Why not say it out right?

And if you're sitting there, feeling all superior to those benighted bourgeois, consider all the things you want to take out of the hands of ordinary Americans because otherwise those amoral toads will do the wrong thing.  Gay marriage. Or prayer in school. Immigration. Trade. I've no doubt that you have some very compelling reason that these things are entirely different from support for the rule of law or a standard liberal economic order. The point is, no one's really comfortable with letting the majority set all the standards.

There is a point. I recognized it because Megan pointed me to it. And now that I get it, I could send her an e-mail explaining the Constitution, civil rights, tyranny of the majority, that sort of thing, but as her actual point seems to be anti-democratic (&, we could say, anti-free market) why bother? Ms. McArdle either can't type clearly enough to get her point across, doesn't want to reveal her thoughts on democracy, or is just floundering, nothing at all occurring between her elf-like ears.

And we enjoyed her defamation of "progressives" (granted, a collection of Mid-Western Protestant dickwads)

Think of some of the signal accomplishments of the Progressives:  Planned Parenthood.  Immigration restrictions.  Civil service reform.  Massive campaigns against the corruption of the urban machines.  "Mental hygeine[sic]".  Spot a trend?

and the insertion of the phrases "classical liberal" & "standard liberal economic order" in opposition to Progressives & their shameful ideas. My gawd, Planned Parenthood & Civil Service reform. What's she mean there, huh? Who determines that this is the "standard" (or "liberal") economic order? Of course, we know what these people mean when they say "classical" liberalism, & that the capital "P" Progressives are not today's America-hating so-called progressives. But clam up w/ the "classical liberal" crap. Try to get your philosophy from at least the twentieth century, not a collection of weasels in powdered wigs & breeches.

Megastats:
Blockquote: 16 lines
McArdle: 26 lines

Almost a two to one ratio. Much better, but we're still not there yet.

Elements of Style©:
Ever read anything by even a semi-pro that was any sludgier, clunkier, or incomprehensible than this?

This is pretty much exactly the story of the Progressive movement in the United States, which was a backlash against the corrupt hoi polloi. Rent-seeking populists, backroom-dealing political machines--these were both inimical to classical liberalism, and also the voice of minority-majorities, who used favorable local demographics against members of the national elite.

They Are Easy, Aren't They?

Blogging For Big Bucks

Paragraph One:

Like basically every other blogger whose [sic] seen it, I think this article from the Wall Street Journal on how hundreds of thousands of bloggers are making solid incomes is addled.

Paragraph Six:

Believe me, I'd love to think that blogging is a surefire path to riches and job security--but I'm afraid all most people get out of their blogs is the satisfaction of a job well done.

Good that she's paid for her blog, then. (Although under the "free market," shouldn't she not be rewarded for a job not well done?)

Added blather:  What the hell does this say about the WSJ? This is not standard WSJ op-ed page idiocy, this is from the (once somewhat respected) news part of the operation. Is this how they cover the world of business & the economy, w/ ass-stats? 

The Internet: Bringing you Horrible Shit Tailored to your Specific Taste in Horrible Shit

The Atlantic has realized that, though their wisdom is infinite, it is not applied in an exact enough manner. Lo! That shall change, for now we've got "Ask the Editors!"

That's right kids! Now, instead of having random issues addressed in a poorly researched, shallowly reasoned, and ideological bent, you can have specific issues addressed in a poorly researched, shallowly reasoned, and ideological bent!

Ah, the march of progress! Soon we'll have McArdle beamed right into our brains! Oh, the fun we'll have!

On a side note, I know "beamed" is the proper spelling, but doesn't "beemed" look a lot better? I mean, it looks like it's being beamed! How awesome is that?!?! I know, pretty fucking awesome, right? Write to Webster's! We'll make it happen.

I Like Pancakes Too!

Perhaps not as much as Megan does, but I don't "nest like the wind" either.

And look, Megan has a touching, if unoriginal sort of moment where something she's read before strikes her as usable & applicable, & then she blows it, either by a typo or by being an Internet smart-ass. That's the trouble w/ the web, you type "teh" when you honestly meant "the," & no one can tell the difference. That's why it is vital to spell check & proof-read one's work, young lady.

And speaking of "work:"

The ability to quickly lay hands on OMB information is a skill that has taken me years to hone, and provides substantial professional advantage.

[Cough, cough] "Professional?" Tall econo-blogging is a "profession?" ["Coughing" turns to fits of laughter] More work:

I'm working from home today, which is a holiday at the Atlantic, and MLK and civil rights are pretty much on nonstop loop on CNN. This morning I was thinking about the white man who tried to take Rosa Parks' seat.

Can you imagine? I'm confused. Did The Atlantic tell all employees to stay home, but work from their laptops? Is this Megan demonstrating her contempt for Martin Luther King, Jr., by working on the day dedicated to his memory? The less cynical among us (besides being suckers) will say: "Oh, no, she posted MLK's 'I have a dream speech.'" And she did. And the reaction that engendered? (Two of five, below:)

I'm going to pee in the punch here. To say that MLK was an advocate of civil rights is not really true. He supported civil rights for black people in the United States. He also actively and tirelessly campaigned for the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship in Vietnam, with all the death, suffering and oppression that entails.
Posted by Jim | January 19, 2009 10:44 AM

Yep, the cong had us up against the wall for sure, whoopin' on us six ways to Sunday, you bet.

Just like the way Hamas practically obliterated the IDF. When we [sic] we learn that we can never, ever win?
Posted by Obama's Seat | January 19, 2009 1:39 PM

And, doubtlessly unintentionally, Megan reveals that the the greedy, rapacious nature of our sordid species (& especially the current AmeriKKKan sub-species) makes libertarianism & other forms of oppressive selfishness completely un-workable.

The libertarians will hate it, I predict. But voluntary embrace of duty is the health of a small state--it's when people won't care for the collective that the government starts making them do it.

Of course, her very embrace of the concept of "duty" reveals how libertarian she is. K-Mart psychologizing tells me that if she gives up on the glibertarian stuff she might be able to cut down on the comfort food & syrup.

Where's My Nesting Egg?

Time to drag out the perfect pancake recipe and the electric griddle, and nest like the wind.

You know it. Both the first commenter & I wondered about "nesting like the wind." Unless Megan's incubating more eggs for the flapjack recipe, nesting makes no sense. She's cocooning (Doubtless in her slankie or what ever the eff. Was it a sleeket?) not nesting. Like a big praying mantis-y insectoid queen. (Oooh, snap! And totally uncalled for. Praise Jah Rastafari for the anonymity of the Internet.)

"Like the wind " is ... is ... what can you say? Maybe McArdle's in her Mini motoring about, eating pancakes.


Note to self (& other hate-bloggers): Stop it w/ the guilt. Everything you're responding to has been placed before the public eye by your "victim." It's not as if you're prying into their private lives/trash-cans, pricing their counter-tops through the kitchen window or the like. (W/ those one or two stalking exceptions)

Moments later: Clicked to the Betty Crocker recipe. It's a fetishistic deal where the sacrifice must be prepared the evening before:

Several hours/night before: Soften 3 tablespoons (a little less than half a stick) of unsalted butter

Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't

There has been an historic event over at The Atlantic. Our "Eloise at The Atlantic" (as Roy Edroso puts it. I've never read Eloise but apparently it's very clever.)- well, it's truly astonishing - I... I... I'm getting choked up here.... she... she... she properly capitalized a title.. There's even grammar and shit in that thing. "Preach it, Brother Sanchez"... the phrase has just become the prettiest on record. Why, our muse,after years of badgering, may have finally listened to a critic. Could such a thing have happened? If so, I think we can likely head over to, uh..., somewhere in Europe and tell them not to bother powering the LHC back up. The Standard Model has been proved. The world is in harmony. We an all sleep at night, safe and sound, comfortable in the knowledge that terrorism has been defeated and that the economy is back on the up and up. Hold your breath, people. It might just be the greatest time to be alive.

While we can rest comfortably in the knowledge that the writers of the day are taking the 5 seconds necessary to make sure their articles are properly introduced, there's still work to be done. Though our pupil's post may have finally been begun in a competent manner, that which follows still reeks of hackdom, shallowness, and bias. I give you the "I know you are but what am I argument":

Julian points out that authoritarianism isn't some exclusively Republican vice:

Failing to funnel billions to a failing business is a form of authoritarian punishment. As an alternative, we're offered the proposition that we "want affordable, safe, fuel-efficient, environmentally sound cars built by committed workers who are rewarded for undertaking this task on our behalf." I think it's a lot more revealing to contemplate the sort of mindset that insists on seeing every economic outcome as a political "reward" or "punishment."

This whole familial frame seems to amount to an inverted Gospel of Wealth: Where the 19th century claimed that financial success was a reflection of moral worth, the function of public policy in the 21st century will be to create that symmetry. The only question is whether workers in a particular industry are naughty children who need to be sent to the corner for a time-out, or well-behaved children who should get a gold sticker for effort. This is, as I hope goes without saying, a pretty authoritarian frame on either side. It also seems like a manifestly awful way to make economic policy choices. Barring some marvelous Lebnizian coincidence, the answers to questions about the moral desert of workers in particular sectors are unlikely to consistently match the answers to quesitons about what's in the long-term interest of the economy as a whole.

Julian incredulously asks how failing to give away billions is a sign of ideology. That's a fair point, if not for the fact that Republican's were busy gleefully rejoicing that the auto-bailout gave them a chance to "take their first shot against organized labor." If there's anything that screams well reasoned consideration, it's failing to back a bill intended to aid the economy during the worst blah since blah because you have a chance to stick it to those pesky blue collar workers and their whole "treat us fairly" bullshit. But, I digress.

Apparently, the fact that Congress is making sure the money is being spent on something reasonable rather than keeping a failing business alive to continue to fail is a evidence of "mindset that insists on seeing every economic outcome as a political 'reward' or 'punishment.'" (YEAH SCARE-QUOTES!) It's not like when we wrote a blank check for the financial industry they didn't just blow it on expensive spas in California or use it to buy up other companies rather than lend it to people like we wanted.

Yes sir, either you agree with ole' Jules about how, as usual, the government should stay away or you're an authoritarian. Also, if you tell Jules that blindly following the same rules in all situations is, at least, dogmatism and almost certainly authoritarianism, then he's rubber and you're glue.

Details, Details

Glad that brad did the heavy lifting on Megatron vs. Sears Holdings Corp. (And glad I checked before writing anything.) But I can't let thirty-plus secs. of research go to waste.

Megastats:

Lines of type: 176 by Ms. McA., & 10 she quoted. (At 15 wds./line, a conservative estimate, that's 3,640 wds.)

Days of work "lost:" Eight. One quibble: Did she actually lose eight days of pay? (Highly doubtful. Have there been any eight weekdays w/o posting recently?) Because that's what it means when real, hard-working Americans say they've "lost" a day of work. When work consists of writing interminably about your non-adventures w/ the dishwasher repair weasel, & posting from your laptop anywhere in even the semi-civilized world, it's difficult to miss much work.

Added expense: 

nearly $200 in laundry charges 

$3.50/load at the laundromat? Probably not, if "charges" is any indication. Imagine having so many freaking clothes that you don't have to do laundry for 45 days. 

(and to spend about $100 on laundry that had not been done in the past month and a half)

And imagine that you can send your laundry out. (I'm sure we would've heard about trips to the laundromat, had there been any.)

Footnote lost: One. 

 I'm talking about TSA-levels of sophistication*.

Not another asterisk to be seen in the item. Talk about losing one's train of thought. Or driving the train over the washed-out bridge.

Elements of Style©:

A B. A. in English? From Penn? Really.

I actually cannot remember how many times I have pined out the window for the heroic, nay, mythic figure, who never materialized.

I can see her now, extending her branches out the window & letting her cones drop. Most of us "pine" by the window, but Megan may have different ways. Maybe she was projecting her pining throughout the neighborhood.

The amazing thing was that Sears has set up its service program so that, first, you have to wait at home on a work day

Amazing, alright. Working on a work day. What a stupid idea. They should go back to working on Saturdays & Sundays like they used to, when you'd be home all day. What the hell was she trying to get at here? The absurdity of that didn't leap out at her immediately? Well, it's not as if she majored in logic. Or horse sense. BTW, if any outfit could solve that problem of "working on a work day," that ol' market sure would reward them, wouldn't it? Shoot.

Not sure what this category is, but I'm sure it's something:

The nice woman in what sounded like Guatamala [sic] promised to message him right away and have him call me.

At 5:05 a horrified call center operator in what sounded like India informed me that the technician had cancelled my appointment much earlier in the day, on the grounds that it was a "duplicate".

Does mlle. mean that these disembodied voices had accents from the countries they "sounded like" they were in? Or did she have them hold the 'phone out the window so she could hear what country it sounded like? (And how she'd know a Guatemalan accent when she can't spell Guatemala is a good question too.) We're not sure if this an attempt to decry outsourcing, get in an ethnic dig, or what. You'll notice that she doesn't mention what country it sounded like 

"Larry" was in when she got his voicemail:

This put me through instantly to . . . the voicemail of Larry.  The message informed me that Larry is out in the field on Friday, and cannot be reached at this number.  I am pleased, of course, to know that Larry has the opportunity to get out from behind the desk every once in a while and see Sears operations firsthand.  But I am slightly concerned that it is Tuesday and he is still not back.  I am afraid he may not be coming back.  I am afraid that while he was in the field, some errant Sears employee mistook him for a customer.

(I print the entire paragraph because I found it intentionally funny. I actually laughed out loud, though w/o opening my mouth, even the second time I read it. See? There is hope.)

This may also fit into the phenomenon of older whiteys who always find it necessary to note the ethnicity of whomever they've spoken to or transacted business w/, as in "I talked to the nicest colored girl on the 'phone today." Or the "nice woman" in what sounded like...

Enough is enough, but the first line of the first comment is worth noting, for sycophancy if nothing else.

Classic post, and I sympathize.

Toady!

Updated, minutes later:

Having thoroughly read brad's dissection, I see he questioned the "lost" days of work as well, & whether or not our Muse had moved (doubtless to keep one step ahead of us). She typed something about not having any furniture, making it harder to laze around idly typing while pining out the window for the Sears tech. So maybe she broke the washer in her new pad the moment she moved in. 

Please, enough with the Megan McArdle

Megan has another plea for the internet, as shown in her the title of her article ... uh... titled "Please, enough with the metaphors." Quoth the Megan:

If you cannot explain in clear English exactly what all the salient questions and facts are about the bailout, then please do not attempt to convince others that it is best understood in terms of Dirty Harry movies or the time your Aunt Mavis lost her car keys in the garbage disposal.

Which is funny enough in and off itself, Megan lecturing others on using plain English. Even funnier, though, is to take a look at a previous post of her in which she claims that "Aesop described the problem rather well." How did he describe the problem, you ask? Why, by using plain English of course! Here, let me show you:

Once upon a time all the Mice met together in Council, and discussed the best means of securing themselves against the attacks of the cat. After several suggestions had been debated, a Mouse of some standing and experience got up and said, "I think I have hit upon a plan which will ensure our safety in the future, provided you approve and carry it out. It is that we should fasten a bell round the neck of our enemy the cat, which will by its tinkling warn us of her approach." This proposal was warmly applauded, and it had been already decided to adopt it, when an old Mouse got upon his feet and said, "I agree with you all that the plan before us is an admirable one: but may I ask who is going to bell the cat?"

See, he used plain English to write an analogy! That's what more writers should be doing! None of this metaphors and analogy crap. Let's stick to the metaphors and analogies only, please.

Of course, I may be being hard on Megan. After all, she's written lots of blog posts. Perhaps when she penned the most recent one, she'd forgotten about the earlier one in which she lauded a metaphor. That's understandable, as the posts were separated by one entire other blog post and were written a ridiculously long 19 hours apart from each other. Who can think back all the way to last evening? Totally understandable, her mistake was.

There She Goes Again

Oh, Megan, I love when you break out the classics.

As traders like to say, "the markets can stay foolish longer than you can stay solvent".

Here's a screen shot of the search results for "you can stay solvent" in MM's posts. Given her propensity for making typos, this may not be an authoritative list.

Palate Cleansing

McM blathers on the military & the DMV: They're awful, but the military not as much, or something.

Let me first note that in my most recent encounter w/ the State of California's DMV (a bit before Gov. Schwarzenegger's decision to make state employees suffer because the legislature can't pass a budget, & his decision to suspend Sat. hours @ the DMV). I made an online appointment to renew my ID card, arrived about three mins. late, filled out a form, waited for five or so mins., had a nice chat w/ the guy I paid & the customer at the next window about show bidness, had my picture & thumbprint taken, signed on the digital pad, & was out w/in about 30 mins. of entry, all employees were kind & pleasant, my new card showed up w/in a wk. No problem, no how. So the continuing whining about "The DMV" being the root of all gov't. evil is just a bit misplaced in my not at all humble opinion.

(Secret suspicion: White fools who have suckered themselves into being consumers, driving cars, working for a living & the like resent non-white people having what the sheep consider cushy gov't. jobs, & exercising any power whatsoever over their lives of white privilege. Were it a white person being "rude" to them [probably in reaction to original rudeness on the part of the sheep] they probably wouldn't whine nearly as much.)

But enough about me, let's talk about how I feel about Ms. McArdle.

One thing I feel is that she should identify her "former colleague." No name, & the only link provided is to one of her (Imagine that!) previous items. Granted, whoever the f. c. is, he, she or it was referring to said item, but...

At any of the tasks the military does which are comparable to a private organization, it performs worse than top-notch private organizations; it is not as good at logistics as Wal-Mart, as good at food service as McDonalds, etc. Military procurement is expensive and insanely inefficient. This is the nature of the beast; governments have all sorts of rules that are designed to achieve goals other than effectiveness.

Let's not confuse the "government" w/ the military. Most of the gov't. rules that impede "efficiency" are there to prevent "welfare queens" w/ the Cadillacs & multi-million dollar mansions that they get from defrauding the gov't. of that $50,000.00/mo. AFDC check. Rules w/o which the rat bastard Republicans wouldn't let one bill helping anyone who needs it pass, if they had to shoot themselves in the halls of Congrefs to keep humanitarians from getting in to pass the bills.

I'd love to see how efficient Wal*Mart logistics would be if they were delivering under fire, or threat of roadside IEDs. How, by the way, has that privatization of logistics worked out for KBR & Halliburton? Pretty well, huh? Their employees (Contractors, really, & how convenient is that for KBR?) may not think it's so swell. I am glad to see a vegan Megan sticking up for McDonalds & their "food service." Is that like feeding the troops? You want the soldiers & Marines to be all logy w/ a few double cheese-burgers & a petroleum-distillate shake when Jihad Jerry comes a knockin'.

Yes, military procurement is expensive/inefficient. Has something to do w/ not there not being a mass market for fighter aircraft, RPGs, or body armor, among many other things; therefore it's not quite like ordering paper clips or desktop computers. Nor does it help when people in military procurement ("Thanks for your service.") steer deals to certain corporate entities in exchange for a high-paying corporate job after they've jockeyed a desk in the Pentagon for 20 yrs. & retired at full pay. Usually a job offering post-military employment to their pals still serving (themselves) in the Pentagon. A few more prosecutions &/or (Dare we say it? ) stricter regulations & oversight might fix some of the procurement problems.

As far as gov't. health care, if Medicare were extended to everyone, putting the healthcare insurance conspiracies out of business, we would have complete & absolute free choice in drs., hospitals, you name it. As opposed to the current deal wherein the insurance cos. decide who they'll insure, for how much, which drs., etc. they'll let you see or use, & so on. Funny how the glibs forget how their choices are limited by insurance organizations, not increased.

Almost missed this piece of work (Very subtle Megan, but some of us can read.):

Healthcare spending, outside of a few categories such as vaccination, does not provide such a benefit; almost all of the benefit of modern healthcare spending is captured by the person to whom it is provided.

Why sure enough, w/ the possible exception of the zillionaire executives who've never applied a bandage or handed out an aspirin in their lives, & the parasite stockholders whose financial interests come before the well-being of the allegedly insured. And there's no benefit whatsoever to a healthy, productive, efficient (to use the cliches of make-the-trains-run-on-time-style fascism) workforce is there, little Miss I-have-a-horrible-cold-&-I'm going-to-the-doctor-so-I-can-bitch-about-how-sick-people-got-in-before-me?

When it comes to "innovation," let's just look at the example of Bill Gates & Paul Allen. They innovated this whole hideous mess of personal computing, blah, blah, blah (alright, not completely by themselves) not because they sat down one day to try to figure out what they could do to become the richest fucks in the world (That's never worked, & never will.) but because they enjoyed dicking around w/ computers, & were pretty good at it. (Maybe that's why they enjoyed it.) Eventually (after they stole MS-DOS from some guy whose name I forget) their interests, not their greed, led to me typing like a ninny here. Likewise, in a zillion other fields of endeavor, it's not greed that motivates people, it's simply the desire to work in a field that they enjoy. And if they're really good at, & really enjoy it, innovation occurs. Perhaps in healthcare people are motivated to find a cure for whatever killed Granny or Uncle Joe, or a treatment for what made Cousin Sid miserable for fifty yrs. w/o killing him. Few people decide to go into medical research to make a killing. How gov't. paid healthcare influences any innovation in medical research is beyond me.

But how about this:

On matters such as management of the nuclear arsenal, I'm not really lying awake at nights [sic]wondering whether we're spending too much or using too many personnel, or whether our warheads are really the very best they can be. But when something consumes 16% of our GDP and every innovation saves lives, you kind of have to start thinking about those things.

Uh, has Miss McA. heard the sad tale of the Secretary & Chief of Staff of the Air Force who were just fired by the Secretary of Defense BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T HANDLING THE NUCLEAR ARSENAL VERY WELL BUT WERE FLYING WARHEADS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY?! Dying in an atomic accident, not to worry, but 16% of the GDP? That's important!!! Stupid, shallow, ignorant. Big question to her: Are our warheads really the very best they can be? Try worrying about those warheads landing on your head, Megatron.

Elements of Style©: It's "soundbite," not "soundbyte." It is a bite of sound, & has nothing to do w/ Zeros & Ones, even if the sound has been digitally recorded. Even Blogger™ spell checking is aware of this.


M. B. Updates (15 August 2008 @ 1611): Uh, how did I miss the post below? And the comments? Some of which it seems I stole. Though I didn't, really...

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?"