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?

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.

No Rest For The Weary

Great, I finally have the time & energy to abuse the Muse, & she decides she needs a few days off, depriving me of grist for the mill.

Still, this is worth mention.

Boom, baby, boom

Apparently births in 2007 exceeded the Baby Boom record.  This probably won't last--births tend to go down in economic hard times.

Interesting, but really, just a factoid.

Megastats: 

Weasel word/phrase count: 3

1. "Apparently," the NYT story on data reported by the National Center for Health Statistics is not to be trusted. (I grant the NYT said it was "preliminary data.")

2 & 3. "Probably" & "tend to." C'mon. 

Megastats

Noted while skimming the scum from the pond that is Asymmetrical Information: Ms. McArgle-Bargle's book review of something or other by that woman (referenced immediately below by brad) has drawn 212 comments. That has to be at least double the average. (Heh indeed, it is, using the items visible on the first page as the statistical base. None of which broke 100, except the "I'm just wild about Peter" episode.)

Now we know what truly concerns the Meganites. If only Ayn Rand had been seven feet tall! Things would be different now!

Humor 101

Megan just doesn't get it, or, I must assume, anything else either.

Every time I see one of these things, I wonder.  Who the hell makes them up?  And why?  What do you get from passing your mediocre musings off as the work of a long-dead revolutionary?

So, Mlle. McArdle, you get no satisfaction from passing off your musings for money?

To what "mediocre musings" is she referring? None, really. Not "musings" at all, but an amusingly clever prank that may have put the fear of social justice in a few "traders." 

Laura of 11D says this quote is making the rounds of Wall Street.

Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism.

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

Megan wasn't quite sure what to make of this ("technology" was a good give-away for me) but after what appeared to be (Gasp!) research on her part & a memory-probe 15 yrs. into her mind, plus blather,* her only conclusion was "What's anybody get out of this?"

A. Good. Laugh, you poor humorless wretch. 

*Megastats: 22 lines by Megan, eight lines quoted. 

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. 

A Sleeping Giant Awakens, Rolls Over, & Returns to Sleep

Sez La Megan:

I think we may be sure that Microsoft was less concerned with the tender feelings of porn consumers (and/or their spouses) and more concerned with striking a blow at Google.

But this has broader applications than Google. Media companies are still trying to figure out how to make web advertising lucrative enough to support a full, print-style application--Politico is a rousing success, and yet makes 60% of its revenue from a cheat sheet it prints for a paltry few tens of thousands of readers. We don't need a new web browser making things even harder than they already are.

Ms. McArdle, have you noticed that Microsoft itself is a media company, & would love to make more (Or some, what the hell do I know?) money from, among other places, MSN.com?Remember a few months or so ago when there was big blather about Microsoft purchasing Yahoo!? So they could get a bigger on-line presence? So I'm not sure why Bill G. & the gang would be trying to cut off their noses to spite their faces, unless this is some sort of "Look, competition is, is...um, like, really good" item. (It's just so hard to understand anything she types.)

And is Ms. McA. opposed to a company providing something that people want to use, for whatever reason, if it might cut into her paycheck? What kind of competition & free market stuff is that? Aren't we all supposed to take risk, & suffer the consequences?

P. S.: Does anyone give a shit about Idiot Exploder 8 anyway? Aren't we all using Firefox 3?

Megastats: 19 lines quoted, 8 lines typed. Add another line for the title if you feel generous.

Cheesy Is Right

The entire blog-o-sphere has, of course, been waiting w/ bated breath, & at last it's here!! Approx. 39 lines (not counting ingredients) of Mlle. McArdle's New Improved Mac & Cheese recipe. (May I point out that we're discussing macaroni & cheese here, in case any one's lost sight of that fact?)

Also, it will give you an opportunity to use your scale [sic]

If you don't have a food processor with a grater attachment, grate the gruyere and chedder, [sic] and chop the other cheeses fine. [sic]

Seriously, if you don't have a food processor, you lousy rotten poor person, it's no wonder you're as fat as a fucking pig!!

There's higher-dollar Mac & Cheese w/ white cheddar or something that the good folks (as they used say in the advertising business) at Kraft distribute, if one insists on gourmet fucking everything; I've even seen packages of non-Kraft M&C at places like Trader Joe's that probably are a big improvement on the Kraft crap. Therefore, why the hell anyone would waste an extra 30 seconds of his/her time on making a child's dish from scratch is a total mystery. I thought we weren't supposed to be childish any more.


Elements of Style©:

Velveeta™ is a trademark, & should be capitalized. Please show some respect for the property rights of others, Ms. McArdle. You don't want to have a letter from the house counsel @ Kraft on your permanent record.

And you might want to learn how to spell "cheddar," if you wish to be taken seriously as the world's tallest female food blogger (your future career) or at least click spell check w/ a bit more abandon. (BTW, Blogger's™ spell-check suggests Gruyere should be capitalized as well. One would expect a big ol' free-marketer to be big on capitalization, but such are life's little ironies.)

P. S.: Could anything be more pretentious than crust on M&C?

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

NEWS FLASH!!!

There's a new Gadget/Object of the Week!!

Megan likes TiVo!

I looked because after she pimped something called a "Kindle," I wondered if I could tell her to make it the Object/Gadget of the Week. But she (after, may I note, some seven mos., & never correcting the misspelling of Dalmatian) had finally found another Amazon product. What is the deal w/ the Amazon pimping & linking? Is this totally ethical? Does The Atlantic know?

Does a "book-reader" named "Kindle" mean we're going to be seeing book burnings again?

Soul Sister McArdle Testifies

It's short, so I'll save you the indignity of giving her a click:

Random musing

I defy Jeremiah Wright: I have always clapped syncopated [sic]. And there is no chance that I have any cultural or genetic African heritage--indeed, if I were any whiter, you could use my albedo to end global warming.

Luckily, I'm not running for president, so no one will bring it up. I mean, except me.

Excuse us, Sister McA., but as one's albedo is a sort of reflectivity index, would yours not make things even warmer? Unless you're planning on focusing reflections from your pasty whiteness (bet I'm almost as pasty, or was before being forced to the streets) to burn up greenhouse gases. Otherwise, if you start reflecting at us, it's just going to get hotter.

One might want to look at the comments, a particular commenter by the pseudonym of "Occam's Razor" makes an especial asshole of himself, as in Megan's earlier linking to a NSFW site (The Onion) about an asshole.

Weird science
This explains a lot. (Not workplace safe: sorry to any who clicked before the note.)

brad is right, there's no game here today, but I've still wasted precious time. Now if only we could teach her to clap syncopatedly. And teach the Rev. Wright & every white racist the differences between culture & genetics.

Fire The Atlantic or, Follow The Money

Before recent (& radical) changes in my "life-style" (hate that term, being sarcastic here) the chances of my coming across a copy of The Atlantic, let alone opening it & thumbing through it, were slim to totally non-existent. However, I find myself in public libraries more often of late, & while I find it very easy to ignore on-line advertising (other than those epileptic fit inducing strobing ads that were running w/ Asymmetrical Information for a while -- I 've no recollection of what they advertised, by the way) my medieval obsession w/ print makes me pay attention to the adverts in the dead tree Atlantic.

And we all know that no matter what the editorial side may claim, the sales dep't. & the ads tell the story of who is being reached & why. W/ that in mind (& a tip of the Bouffant chapeau to fellow contributing editor NutellaonToast, who invented the "Fire The Atlantic" label) let's look through the April 2008 issue. That's the one w/ Brittany Beavers, the international pop star, on the cover.

And the advertisers are (in order):

ABB (International construction corporation, may be Swiss-based, may also manufacture munitions. Do your own research, things may have changed since I first heard of them. The ad itself is a two-page spread of a gargantuan fully-illuminated refinery at sunset or dawn.)

Altria Group, Inc. (Phillip Morris, the people who bring you tobacco.)

Credit Suisse

ConocoPhillips

Wiley (Publisher, advertising a book by Fred Kaplan, Daydream Believers, subtitled "How a few grand ideas wrecked American power.")

Honda (Not advertising a specific car, but touting their CAFE #s.)

BASF

University of Florida

Calvert Group, Ltd. (Mutual Fund.)

Mercedes-Benz (C-Class. Not a specific car, but not just a corporate image move.)

The Vanguard Group, Inc. (Rollover your retirement funds.)

Siemens

Subaru Forester

Pfizer

UBS (IBM when I CBS.)

GM Corp./Chevrolet (Touting environmental joys of a Chevy, no specific model.)

Aspen Ideas Festival (Produced by The Atlantic & The Aspen Institute. 30 June - 6 July. Are you all ready for Megatron's posts from there?)

Nissan Murano ("The All-New 2009 Nissan Murano" It's bloody April 2008!! Where do they get 2009? Something to do w/ the International Year Line? No wonder they lost WWII, they didn't know what yr. it was.)

Goldman Sachs Funds

General Motors ("It's just one part of GM's commitment to energy diversity...")

Suddenly (a few pp. before the staples) there is a distinct drop in advertiser quality. Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Mail order shirts ("Free Monogramming! An $8.50 value"). Fisher Investments (The 15-minute Retirement Plan. Features picture of Ken Fisher, "Chairman & CEO." Vanity advertising.) Three book ads. Rosetta Stone.

Here the full page ads stop & we are suddenly in radio country. The Bose cans & RosettaStone were just the start, we are confronted w/ shortwave radios & hand-cranked radios, exercise machines (this one costs $14,615, I kid you not). Coffee. Imported tea. Teach yourself calculus; open a new world for yourself(?). Books. Cunard. South American Emeralds. And a bunch of column by 3/4 inch ads for various crap. I'm a bit surprised there aren't any pitches for GotoMeeting.com or for gold & precious metals w/ pictures of Megan, Sully or Yglesias telling us to "buy now before it goes up," (Those of you who, like me, are forced to listen to the radio all day so we can ignore our thoughts will understand.)

So The Atlantic is essentially intended for investors. It's the same crap you'll see on the Sabbath gasbag shows, if you're that much of a masochist. Most of the one page ads in the front of the mag, as we saw above, were corporate image pimpers, or from investment services/mutual funds. So there's the target audience, or the audience they're getting. Bad enough, & a good indication of why they'll never fire Free Market Megan. Even more insidious is that magazines, pundit-filled talk shows & the like are dependent on these large corporate entities, & if anything that truly goes against the corporate/capitalist/globalist/you-name-something-else-bad grain appears in The Atlantic these cos. can pull their ads & put any non-conventional wisdom enterprise out of business. It's not merely the corporations that advertise that must be appeased (because advertising in these magazines & on those programs makes no difference to GM's bottom line) but the very concepts behind big business that must be honored, in order for any advertising to keep the publisher's bottom line going. However, don't think you'll ever hear anything but "Oh, we're all journalists here, the advertisers have no influence on us," from any of these toadies.

Giving Up for Lent

Happy New Year! Or is it Lent?

It's just that every year, I try to give up some major dietary group for lent. I used to give up sugar, but in recent years I've sort of lost my sweet tooth, so this doesn't mean too much. Then I switched to meat, but since I switched to humanely raised meat, I don't eat enough of it for the dietary loss to register.

Again the rational human mind is boggled. All that "Lent" crap is to show the non-existent Elf From Outer Space how willing you are to preserve your spot in the line for Cosmic Post-Death Disneyland, isn't it? One of the few things tolerable about MM is the lack of religiosity that her keyboard vents. And I don't believe she's even of Catholic ancestry, it's some sort of Baptist offshoot, isn't it? (Links to every bit of miscellaneous Megan info I had are in the comatose devil-box.) But she still clings to vestiges of this superstition. What would the Supreme Objectivist say, other than remind Megan that she may be confusing New Year's Resolutions & Lent?

As far as an actual sacrifice, we turn to an earlier McItem, which seems to be saying we should all be buying more useless crap we don't need for some unfathomable reason. Consumption & growth, that's all we need, & the more the merrier. Will Megatron's self-described "crunchiness" (Really, is that a euphemism for selfish, well-off people who can afford high-dollar foodstuffs but are afraid that sustainability & renewability will cut into conspicuous consumption & leave them w/o a status leg on which to stand?) ever become anything more than an excuse to cook a lot of flavorless pap in the spare time she has 'cause she can't find a man who wants to be tied up to her, & give her giant elf children?

Elements of Style©:
This one is even worse than an English major using "ain't" as an emphasizer:

I love me some cheese.

Also, the correct form is "I loves me some..." Let's just not use this at all, unless we're making fun of rednecks & the whole thing is in dialect. Thank you.

Megastats for the New year:
So far, five items, three about econ, two about food, two w/o titles (still not recovered from the N. Y. Eve binge?) one in which pleas for a link to the blockquoted item had to be answered by a commenter. (It's all one big "bleg" w/ our gal, isn't it?)

Just Plain Stupid:

Oil has hit the long-awaited $100 a barrel. This excites television commentators. I don't find it particularly interesting; we would have reached this point years ago, if we had eight fingers.

An attempt at "humour," I suppose. The rest of the item is mercifully short, & the commentariat deals w/ her pretty well.

Speaking of the Megatariat, is it merely because the typical glibertarian is, at this time of year, on a vacation to the third world, "morally" exchanging goods for the sexual favors of young entrepreneurs in a non-coercive, unregulated environment, or have the Asymmetrical Information commenters turned a bit more in the direction of common sense & away from McSense? Perhaps we'll have to wait until next wk., when the pervs will be back in their cubicles, cheating their employers, to make a final, non-scientific determination.

What's Megan Saying Now?

Megan links to a big mistake spotted at the WaPo, which is about one more made up story or story built around bogus rumors from reduction to a total laughing-stock.

I'd also argue that to eliminate this sort of exchange rate confusion, Baker should have used PPP in constant dollars. That figure yields a much more favorable assessment of NAFTA--although still one that makes the Washington Post look wildly off.

My question (Other than, "What's PPP?" And no, don't bother answering; even if you know, I just don't care.): Is Ms. McArdle suggesting that Baker should lie, cheat & steal in order to get his desired (pro-NAFTA?) message across? Will that make people trust Megan even less? She must be in favor of it, it's good for corporations & bad for workers, right?

Megastats: But one lonely post today. Must've been quite a wknd.

Lightness & Emptiness

Apparently "blogging will be light." Same here then.

Megastats:

1 item in the last 48+ hrs., just as silly as ever (maybe one's Tivo can read one's mind, realize for what one is best suited, & record accordingly) w/ a link to a "classic" article. (Five yrs. old.) The definition of classicism is not what it used to be. And Ms. McA. gets the title wrong.

Compare this to the staff that calls itself "Andrew Sullivan," 20 items today alone. (And plenty of images to break up the textual monotony!) Even MY, probably a better comparison (as he may not have a "staff" of any kind — see, we hate men too) has five items for today (a Saturday).

Point where I start to worry that I may really be "obsessional": Last two A. I. posts occurred @ 4:42 pm. Is this a signal to glibertarian terrorists? Or should it be a signal to my mental health self-awareness?

Dep't. of "WTF, Really?"

Second most recent item from Asymmetrical Information:

From Scott Adams:

I know I’ve been typecast because a hundred people sent me a story about a man in India who married a dog to atone for his past mistakes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071113/ap_on_fe_st/india_man_weds_dog

A number of things struck me about this wedding. I shall start with the most obvious jokes first.

The report was quick to mention that the dog is female. That was a relief because allowing a man to marry a gay dog would be a slippery slope.

Ms. McA. titled it "No comment." In the 34 hours it's been there no one has commented. I really have no comment either, other than the usual "¿Que?"
And perhaps: "Can't Mr. Adams make a fucking link?" And: "Maybe Mr. Adams should stick to dialogue balloons."

Maybe Scott Adams is an acquaintance (a friend, of course, would get the "Ezra/Matt/etc. links to/posts" treatment) The Dilbert Blog is in the A. I. blogroll, although Dilbert hardly seems an advertisement for the invisible hand of the free market. Maybe Megan doesn't get it, & thinks it's a good for people to be treated like crap by the corporate entities that own employ them.

Or maybe I'm rambling. Felt obligated to post something.

Fits

Megastats: Epilepsy inducing adverts still up, no new posts from the muse.
When's she leaving for 'Nam? Any Vietnamese readers out there who might greet Ms McA. at the airport w/ a "Yankee Go Home" sign/protest?

Getaway Day

An uneventful Friday @ The Atlantic's "Voices" section. Megan McArdle regales us w/ a drug scoring story: "...on the way to meet a friend in order to pick up a little cold medicine" (never heard it called that before) that ends w/ her in a bit of a tizzy: "I stomped out in a huff, proclaiming that 'this is not how people in a free society should live.'" See Clem's fine take on this, if you haven't already.

Then it's on to the world of some sort of sexism, involving Elizabeth Edwards talking about Sen. Clinton. McMegan's reaction?

"There's a weird, protective, send-a-woman-to-attack-a-woman vibe about this. What's next? Des [sic] she sue Ms [sic] Clinton for alienation of affections [sic] ?"

It's not as if John Edwards has ever said anything about Senator C., I guess. Except when he's accused the Senator of being in the pockets of industry & lobbyists & all that. But it's, like, weird vibes, man. Speaking of sexism, a suggestion to Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper & all others typing or speaking: Could we put a moratorium on the use of "shrill?" I doubt if Ms. Edwards was actually strident or intemperate, & the next time the word is applied to a man, candidate or otherwise, will be the first.

But then all hell broke loose, @ 1248 EDT. See Clem just below, or look for yourself if you dare. I'm just going to note that Ms. McA. went off half-cocked, perhaps thinking that her iconoclastic, shocking title, "Jail the Jena 6" was the only work she had to do, besides linking to Instapundit. Heh. Indeed.

(Why do people think they're being so wild & shocking & radical & non-PC when they are merely mouthing the power structure line? Are they really laboring under the impression that we're living in a socialist paradise, where no hard-working honkie w/ an Ivy League degree can get ahead because of "diversity," "multiculturalism," & affirmative action hires, while the Property Police are working their way down the list of assets to be seized & handed over to welfare mothers?)

Whatever her Friday afternoon desires, she was back @ 1436 EDT, after doing some research:

As everyone notes, it's hard to get information on the case, which is trickling out and heavily influenced by where you got your facts. My understanding so far is that the Wikipedia entry is pretty authoritative, and the basic facts are as follows:

I'll accept Wikipedia for birthdates (if not years) & general non-controversial information, but if it says at the top of the page (& it does): "Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism," I'd question any one's understanding ("So far?" What the hell does that mean? That someone told her it was "pretty authoritative," & until someone else tells her differently she's going w/ that? Trust me, there's a better way to express that. I suppose it's really just another pre-emptive weasel.) of any authority it may have. Google™ News, by the way, has "about 8,514" results for the word "Jena." There may not have as many when Megan was buckling down for her research. And the story's been national for at least a week, all over the tube & the tubes. Wait, no, it's been trickling out, & information (or the case itself, bad syntax there) is heavily influenced by where you got your facts. Or, they might not be "facts" at all if they're heavily influenced by where you got them. (Can you imagine the laughs at the literary agency if she'd actually written some fiction & sought an agent?)

We then get 43 lines of re-phrased Wikipedia entry. How do we know it's re-phrased? Wikipedia uses the word "principal." Megan?

A black kid, who may or may not have been new to town, asked permission to sit under the tree. The principle said "of course you can sit anywhere you want.

The way to tell which one to use, if you're not sure, is that the "principal" is your "pal." My sixth grade English teacher thought that was pretty funny, if not ironic. Maybe Ms. McA's confused by principal (which you don't touch, while living on the interest from your trust fund) & the "first principles" so popular w/ people who think they're principled. Andrew Sullivan likes the phrase a lot.
And close those quotes, it's getting cold in here.

One other difference, & we're out of here. Wikipedia says the now cut down tree in question was referred to as the "white tree." According to Megan:

Jena is a town with racial issues. There was a special tree at the high school that white students sat under to read.

I checked three sources from the Wikipedia entry & found absolutely nothing about the white students sitting under it to read. Are we just winging it here, M?

Wikipedia:

At Jena High School, students of different races seldom sat together. Black students traditionally sat on bleachers near the auditorium, while white students sat under a large shade tree, referred to as the "white tree", in the center of the school courtyard.[3]

It's not explicit anywhere, but I'd suspect a lot of this has to do w/ lunchtime seating. We see who gets the shade tree & who gets the bleachers. Separate but equal, right? That is, if the bleachers are shaded, & not farther away from the main building than the "white tree" in the courtyard.

OK, final note:

The Wikipedia entry consistently refers to those involved in the various incidents as students, black students, or white students. In the Fair Barn party incident, the participants are identified as black youths & white males or white men.

In Ms. McA.'s recap & final paragraph there are two mentions of "white student(s)," two of "white kid(s)," three of "kid" (whom we know to be white) & seven of "black kid(s)." Not once does Megan use the phrase "black students." I doubt that this is deliberate (Hell, I might not even have noticed, but I've a pet peeve about the use of the word "kid" to refer to anything other than young goats, and there are a lot of "kids" scattered about.) but it could raise some questions, couldn't it?

Megastats:
# of items: 4
Posted between: 1154 EDT & 1536 EDT, w/ comments @ 1428 & 1512 EDT.
Nice work if you can get it. Another late night @ the Wonderland bar trivia w/ Ezra Klein?
Line Count:
McArdle: 113, including comments & 43 lines of re-worked Wikipedia entry
Copied & Pasted: 33
Ratio: Better than 3:1 in favor of Ms. McA.

Foreign Policy, The McArdle Way

For all I can determine, "Jane Galt" may be be the greatest "econoblogger" of all time, although the term "econoblogger" makes me think cut-rate, shoddy, or, "You get what you pay for." So let's examine her foray into foreign policy, or world events, or whatever "Osama Bin Laden declares war on Pakistan" is. First, proving once again that the political is personal, she brings her college paramour, Scott, into it. (See brad's item right underneath this'n.) Or was it John, the college boyfriend referred to in "Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse?"

Since I just know we would have hit the big time had we not been torn apart by the fickle hand of fate, I suppose I have to thank said boyfriend for saving us both from a life of glamour, hard living, and premature death.

Thank you, John, wherever you are. I think.

Perhaps she had more than one collegiate affair, & just didn't want to use an awkward phrase like "one of my college boyfriends." But w/ us stalking your every word, Megatron, you'd better start watching every one of them. Including "fickle hand of fate." It's "fickle finger of fate," or something else entirely. The concept is alliteration. Maybe one of Megan's readers can look it up for her.

...Oh, yes...makes the political personal...So either this Scott, w/ his brooding anger, was a Bin Laden in the making, or Bin Laden is just some angry college boy who's filled w/ non-specific rage & shooting his mouth off. (By the way, we have a good idea where Ms. McA. stands vis-à-vis the "white male bourgeois power structure," don't we? Or, indeed, any power structure.)

Now Osama has declared war on the government of Pervez Musharraf in the run up to the elections. This would make sense if Pakistan had any sort of reputation for being the sort of stable and open representative democracy whose government could be ousted by grand emotional proclamations. But it seems rather mad in the current circumstances.

If Megan has typing problems, it may be the result of reading problems. From the item she linked to:

Bin Laden declares 'war' on Pakistan in new tape

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called on Muslims in Pakistan to wage holy war against the government of President Pervez Musharraf in a new audio message issued on Thursday.

See those little squiggly things on either side of the word "war" in the title? They mean something, Megan. We'll let you look it up yourself, you may remember the meaning rather than just resent our telling you.

Ahem. So OBL didn't exactly "declare war," he called on Muslims to wage holy war. And while Pakistan may not be the most stable, etc., gov't., there are open elections, it's just that the military reserves to itself the right of final decision. It Seems To Me™ that the less stable & whatnot the gov't. is, the more likely an OBL fatwa would have some serious effect. A bit more from The Link She Didn't Read™:

In another video released by al-Qaeda's media arm, Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri also warned that Musharraf would be "punished" over the killing of leading rebel cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi in the storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July.
Pakistan, which became a US ally after the September 11 2001 attacks, has suffered a dramatic upsurge in Islamist violence since the siege and storming of the al-Qaeda-linked mosque, which left more than 100 people dead.

Oh look. There's already a freakin' "holy war" going on. You don't think OBL is just trying to get ahead of the trend here, do you?

But why would Osama do this? Previously, he had a fairly stable arrangement; Musharraf couldn't root him out of the tribal areas for various military and political reasons, and Osama couldn't bring on the Caliphate just yet. [...] Meanwhile, he has just given Pervez Musharraf and any waverers in his government a much stronger incentive to find Osama and his merry band of cave-dwelling madmen.

Musharraf has virtually no control over the tribal areas. If he were able to do anything against Bin Laden, he probably would have, as his "alliance" w/ the U. S. is based on financial incentives & threats made to him post-9/11 by the U. S. gov't.
And here's where Megan makes her biggest mistake. She's willing to dismiss OBL as a "cave-dwelling madman."

This is the kind of overreach that has caused every government that has ever offered him shelter to ultimately kick him out, except for Afghanistan, which didn't have much of a government. Even so, he went and found another government
to kick him out. And where will he go this time? He's running out of lawless quasi-states to hide in.

I don't know the story behind Bin Laden leaving Sudan for Afghanistan (Can Any of My Readers Help Me Out W/ This?™) but the Taliban, however much of a gov't. it may have been, was completely on his side, & lawless quasi-states are the best spot for him. But to equate Bin Laden w/ a crazy frat-boy ("I didn't need behavioral economics to tell me that people don't always act in their rational self-interest.") is foolish. Unfortunately, he is an intelligent, wealthy, person, the head of an organization skilled in propaganda & using the strengths of an opponent against that opponent (let alone the weaknesses of the opponent; note Bin Laden's recent goading of the U. S. into staying in Iraq as long as Bush can get away w/ it) who may be religiously, rather than economically or politically, motivated, but cannot be dismissed as a "cave-dwelling madman."

Gaarrrgh!! Hair hurting again.

Megastats for 20 September 2007:
#of items: A mere six.
First item: 1206 EDT
Last item: 1732 EDT
Late night?

Line Count:
McA: 153
Copy & Paste: 53
Ratio: 3:1

Silliest item:

What a snore
Oh, this takes me back, it does. To the earth shattering booms and irritating whistles, the sleep-deprived nights, the frantic rib-poking, the ever-so-temporary relief. Why is it that snorers can always fall asleep faster than you can?

Well, who was it? Scott or John? Inquiring minds want to know.

Hey, can I turn this into complaints about the poor women who've been merciful enough to put up w/ me over the years?

Yesterday's Silly Questions & Megastats

Megastats for 18 September 2007:
# of posts: 9
First post: 0906 EDT
Eighth post: 1206 EDT
Ninth Post: 1946 EDT
Long lunch? Nyquil™?

Line Count:
Megan McA.: 86
Copied & Pasted: 155
Ratio: Approx. 2:1 Copying & Pasting

Videos Embedded: 1

Silly Questions: 2

Does anyone know why I can't reach Crooked Timber, Mark Kleiman, or my old site?

Can someone explain why eMusic doesn't seem to know that Tegan and Sara exist?

Mostly off topic ego-massage & blog-pimping, w/ a slight connection to all this:
Today is the birthday of Tegan & Sara. To see what other births, deaths & events occurred today (including G. Washington's Farewell Address, which appeared in the quiz mentioned in Fishbone's item immediately below) visit this pointless excuse for a "web log."

Miscellania: The "Comment of the Week" & "Gadget/Object of the week" remain unchanged. Get off the Nyquil™, girl!!