War Among The Passive-Aggressive

Young Conor Friedersdorf, Washington Media Village utility player, substitute typist & seasonal fill-in, analyzes Robot From The Future Glenn Reynolds, wherein we are expected to swallow this:

People like reading Instapundit! He brightens the days of so many office workers. I am not being flip. That is truly significant. So are the digital camera recommendations, the links to great Radley Balko and Megan McArdle stories ...

Well, one must stop there, mustn't one?

Especially when Friedersdorf's main complaint w/ Reynolds is summed up by this:

So many posts either pander to or coddle the movement conservative’s ideological preconceptions — so you have controversial plank X in the Tea Party platform, and Professor Reynolds signals his agreement with it, almost always without any argument about why it is correct. Other times he actually disagrees with plank X, something he’ll occasionally make known, but very seldom does he actually argue against plank X, or try to change anyone’s mind about it. Instead he’ll note that while he happens to be against plank X, other people who are against it are silly or annoying or hypocritical or ham-handed in their advocacy or approaching things in the wrong way or are the subject of a really funny Mark Steyn one-liner.

which could as easily be directed at Ms. McArdle as at Prof. Reynolds. (Except for the "funny Mark Steyn one-liner," because that's an oxymoron; & I don't remember McArdle ever linking to M.S.)

First spotted at Balloon Juice, as if that should make any fucking difference to anyone at all, ever.

"It Seems To Me"

Remember when Mlle. McArdle started every other item w/ that phrase? Now guest blogger Jon Henke is doing the same.

One might easily disagree w/ his division of the Republican party into three sub-sets. There are other tripartite approaches, which include the money-grubbing section of the party, for one difference w/ Henke's approach, but, really, who cares?

We might notice that Jon's classifications all use the names of individuals as descriptors; Teddy Roosevelt, Goldwater, & Bush, yet I get the idea he doesn't like individuals too much.

...seem to want a Great Leader who can do Big Things.

Further idiocy:

...a lack of publicly appealing, political viable ideas for limiting government has rendered them mostly impotent. The Goldwater Republicans have the greatest opportunity, however, because it is they who will have the most compelling arguments against Democratic and/or McCain poliices [sic], and it is they who will need to begin driving a narrative about the impact of Big Government poicy[sic].

Learn to spell "policy" before you start squawking about it, eh? And please note that the "lack of publicly appealing, political viable ideas for limiting government" is because there aren't any, & there aren't going to be any in the future. The frontier closed almost 120 yrs. ago, & all this blather about "individual freedom" just doesn't work when the chance to run off & homestead your own farm isn't there. Or does J. H. think that every person on the planet is a budding Edison, who will invent an equivalent of the electric light & make a fortune, as long as the gov't. doesn't interfere? He just might be that foolish.

The real fool today is (guess who?) Conor:

This post is sorta required reading if you're trying to stay engaged in the discussion about what exactly libertarianism is.

It's "sorta required." If these clowns can ever make up their minds "about what exactly libertarianism is" & manage to form a party that runs someone other than Bob Barr for president (or dog-catcher) maybe Mr. & Mrs. Average American will pay the slightest bit of attention to them. And if any of them believe that they're going to talk Middle-America out of their "entitlements" in exchange for "individual liberty" or whatever the fuck they want to call being alone & unprotected in a world of predatory capitalists, they really are as dense as they sound.

Who Says Bloggers Don't Do Research?

Look what I found!

h/t, Drew, from Roy's comment section.

Getting Personal

In the never-ending blather about which city is really, absolutely the very coolest city, we are treated to more from Conor F. (He must have more time & Internet access on his hands than I do, as he is outposting his fellow guest bloggers by about three to one. Get a life!)

But let's examine the inner Conor:

I don't care for graveyard rock shows, but I wish I lived in a city where enough stuff was going on that they were happening.

First question: Has he ever been to a "graveyard rock show?" If not, is his dislike one of those "I don't have to jump off a cliff to know it's bad for me" deals? This has also been expressed as: "I'd never go to any of this crap, but it's nice to know it's there, if I ever did want to go to any of it."

I am a man who likes warm climates, laid back people and Mexican food...

Conor, we didn't think you were a goat or a lug wrench, but if you must remind yourself of your manhood every so often, please do it only through typing, not via any less socially approved activities.

Fortunately, he does seem to get out of the house once in a while.

In fact, now that I'm living in Washington D.C., where the social scene more often involves hanging out at friends' houses and conversing over drinks, activities that I prefer to extravagant parties, I've got to say that I miss the New York scene, not for its pretensions, but for the sheer amount of stuff going on at any moment. I never imagined, coming from Los Angeles, that I'd be stunned by the offerings of any American city. I find it hard to communicate to anyone who has never lived there.

May we also point out that

My parent's neighborhood in Orange County, CA

&

Costa Mesa, where I grew up

are unequivocally not, in any way shape or form, Los Angeles.

(And I'll add that when I had an interest in socializing, even in fabulous Los Angeles, it was generally BYOB at someone's padcrib, just as in benighted Wash. Because that's what I wanted to do, as I knew enough interesting people that I didn't need to prowl bars to find kindred spirits. Tain't what's happening in the free weeklies – it's those you know that make the city.)

Young Friedersdorf (I love to be condescending) will start thinking that quantity is quality if we continue to pay attention. We'll leave you w/ this comment, which for all we know, was posted by one of our own snidesters ('cept for the Limey spelling):

No offence, but it'd nice to see some bloggers on the Atlantic who've been out of college for more than twenty minutes.

A "Just back from Park Slope and, geesh, New York is full of stuff!" post approaches parody.

And, yeah, it's more than the guy's age. It's a type.

Megan may be gullible and not that great a writer, but, man, that girl sure can network!

Well, welcome onboard, Conor. It's your world we're just living in it.

Posted by Everyday is Privileged Kids Day at the Atlantic.com!!!

Alright, I'll Bite

Few of us here want to touch ConanConor Friedersdorf's output, but I'm game after seeing this one, in which he

point[s] out that were every woman to vanish from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan tomorrow, the extremist Islamists in those countries would still want to kill infidels, stone gays, etc.

That doesn't mean that fundamentalism isn't, at its root, about the control of women & reproduction. (That's why they disapprove of gay people, because they aren't pulling their reproductive weight in the tribal, "must have more cannon fodder" environment in which they function.) And one must wonder what C. F.'s position on gay marriage is. Funny how the pants-wetting element likes to bring up the "Oh, they hang gay people in Iran," factoid, yet seldom favors gay people having the same rights as other citizens in the West. Even the pants-wetters of the closet case persuasion take this attitude.

And another classic paragraph:

If Senator Clinton's understanding of extremists and fundamentalists is really as simplistic as that she is unfit to head our foreign policy. Oddly a really compelling defense of the above statements is that Senator Clinton, when talking about sexism, can be assumed to be disingenuously spouting anything that might help her politically.

Do presidents actually "head" foreign policy? What's the deal w/ that last run-on sentence? Is Master Friedersdorf amazed that politicians will say anything, & that the unwashed masses want to be pandered to?

And a paucity of commas is no better than a lack thereof, Connie.

I think we need a contest

Tell me, dear readers, is the following sentence the worst sentence to ever appear on McMegan's blog?

The stuff I saw city officials do knowing that I was a particularly dedicated reporter watching them closely convinced me that during the many times when no one was watching -- for months before I got hired at that newspaper and months after I left, for example -- they were serving the public even less well.

I've encountered more interesting and readable passages in the reading comprehension section of the GRE's. Let me take your hand while I attempt to parse this insult to the English language.

1) Conor Oberst Friedersdorf saw city officials do "stuff."
2) These officials "knew" (obviously, these officials were gnostics) that Conor Bright Lies was a "particularly dedicated reporter" (why the eff is he "particularly dedicated?" Why did Conor feel that being just a "dedicated reporter" insufficiently expressed his point? In addition to being a "particularly dedicated reporter", Conor "watch[ed] them closely"--just in case you thought that having the properties of being a "particularly dedicated reporter" did not contain "watching" the subject of the reporting.)
3) Because Conor saw these officials do bad things, they must do worse things when he didn't see them.
4) The time that Conor "wasn't there" observing city officials includes the time before he was there and the time after he was there.
5) Please ignore the possibility that these officials didn't care about Conor, and didn't alter their behavior when a prepubescent reporter from the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin was in the room.

Can the Geneva Conventions be applied to syntax so that we can stop this torture?

I should add that I'm not looking for blogging in the style of Chuck Palahniuk, but I do think you could reduce Conor's sentence to this:

"The horrible things I saw city officials do when I was watching them suggests that they did even worse things when I wasn't there."

Sleepy Time Blogging

Sadly, Miss McArdle's off to the beach for a wk., & will not be steadily torturing us. (Maybe not so sadly.) Is this any way for a patriot to observe Memorial Day, fucking off to the beach? But nature, the blog-o-sphere & The Atlantic abhor a vacuum (insert your own ha-ha here) & the usual suspect guest bloggers are in. None of them have yet typed anything blood-boiling enough to provoke a reaction from this keyboard. Or any other reaction. [Lies down & naps...]

Megastats:
0, zip, nada, goose eggs, zilch

Fabulous, My Ass!

Ms. Megan says:

Art imitates life

The ever-fabulous Dr. Boli offers a fable about Myanmar.

So I finally gave in & clicked it. Trust me, it wasn't worth it. None of her commenters thought it was either. It's not art & it didn't imitate life. Is "Boli" the plural of bolus?

P. S.: Get it? It's not, like, ironic, it's a fable, so she called him "ever-fabulous."

P. P. S.: If one of you co-bastards had posted something today, I wouldn't have felt obligated to suffer like this.

I beg to differ

M. B. says below that there's nothing worthy of snark posted today. He clearly missed this little line:

Many thanks to Megan for allowing me to help blog-sit while she gets some much-needed rest.

Blog sit, shit on her blog - same difference! Then again, her blog is pretty much a toilet so I guess he did his job ably.

Still, one can't help but wonder why someone would think that Ms. McLazy would need a rest. She's written - what - like two articles and a steaming pile of craptastic blogposts in her tenure at the atlantic, which is speedily approaching a year in length.

Bitch needs a rest like I need to read her blog. for serious.

Just Because...

A quick scan of MM's guest web loggers reveals nothing worth the time of a snark (this item is just to insure that there is, as the Megatron suggests, a daily post) although I am terribly embarrassed that bozos from NRO like P. Suderman & J. Goldberg are self-confessed

dedicated, life-long science fiction geek[s.]

Of course, as a mature adult, I started my interest in the sci-fi by, ahem, reading the stuff, not watching Star Dreck & Star Whores. As one astute commenter said:

"science fiction" on television is an abomination, a denatured caricature.

Much like Suderman & Goldberg themselves. But we'll express our sincere wishes that none of these fools "choke on their pretzels" when the big show premieres tonight.

I need to stop looking in the mirror.

"I recall reading an interview with a film critic (which I’m unfortunately unable to find) who said that, for all practical purposes, he now considers himself a citizen of the web."

Says one of our guest bloggers.

People actually CHOOSE to live on the internet? My god, I rue every second I spend treating this place seriously. I really am starting to feel sorry for these shit-wads.

Definitely cut from the same cloth

Well, I'd add this as an update but apparently I'm not allowed so it gets its own post.

Suderman tells us a little about himself, but before that he gives us some trenchant social analysis:

Introductions are inherently awkward, even in the very best circumstances. How does one decide what to say about him or herself without sounding pretentious, obtuse, doltish, obsessive, or just dull? And how do you then say whatever you’ve just decided on in such a way that doesn’t give away the fact that you’ve given it a good bit of thought? It’s like that great Michael Cera line in Juno, “Actually, I try really hard.” Yes, but you’re never supposed to let on!

On the other hand, introductions are also an integral part of most important social activities — business, friendship, house parties. Barring any strong Unabomberesque proclivities, you’ll have a rough time in life without introductions. And since Megan has asked us to make them, I feel obliged. So here are a few informational tidbits. (Feel free to use them as talking points.)

Still there? Yeah, I fell asleep, too. While I slept, I had a nightmare that someone with a pretentious and boring writing style was lecturing me on some trite observation of face to face interaction that everyone has already come to on their own and trying to apply it to blogging.

I woke up screaming. I looked at my screen and started screaming some more. It was fucking horrifying.

In his next post, the douchebag shows us how brilliant he is by pointing out that the internet is new. He then speaks of how old media are like nobles and new media are like serfs. Self aggrandizing much? Of course, that doesn't make sense at all because serfs were taken out of bondage and given equal rights, whereas new media didn't exist, and now does. that's like drawing an analogy between discovering the new world and abolishing slavery, ie FUCKING RETARDED.

Oh lord, two posts in and I'm already cursing in all capital letters. This is going to be a strenuous 5 days.

I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Megan.

UPDATE:

Oh yeah, and I'd comment on this Drezner fellow, but I've used up all my "you're not funny jokes" on McDrole, so he gets a by.