Taking Bets

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

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

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

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

Megan Discovers Google, Not How to Use It

This is just amazing. She takes shallow-pretension to a whole new level. Is there a good word for when you try to be probing but fail to get out your front door, let alone under the surface? Educate me, minions!

Oh, right, the dumbass:

Here's one indicator that doesn't look so good: my Google News feed around 7 am this morning. (Followed by a screen shot of the top stories.)

Wow, did she call her mother, too, to make sure her poll had a representative sampling?

That's how a machine ranked the stories, based on reader response. The Gates story is sucking up the public's very limited attention span for health care.

Right, and the second article is about ObamaCare, central to the point of the universe, I s'pose. Even if it weren't, who the fuck thinks that this constitutes research? Does she have a weather blog somewhere which tells you what she saw out her window when she woke up?

I was already pretty skeptical that this was going to do much good. Outside of elections and wars, it's hard to get people to watch a presidential address at the best of times. Late July is not the best of times. You don't want to counterprogram a wonkathon when people can flip to "So You Think You Can Dance" or wander outside to drink in the summer evening. Maybe it will move the poll numbers, but frankly, I'd be surprised.

Um, right, it was short sighted of liberals and Obama to never ever ever mention health care until this summer. Everyone knows that if it don't got 'splosions no one will watch it in July. Why did Obama have to dick around messing with that whole "economic disaster" thing his first few months? Totally lost the momentum. Man, he sucks at making decisions crucial to people's lives playing the game.

So I think the left-wing pundits worrying about the performance are missing the point. The performance was, in fact, not all that good, especially by the high standards Obama set during the campaign. But I'll be shocked if the overnights beat Law and Order reruns. More than one journalist of my acquaintance skipped the thing. If a press conference falls in the summer doldrums, and nobody watches it, does it really matter?

Alas, do these things matter indeed? Obama should have just kept his mouth shut instead of trying to speak to hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people.

C'mon, Obama, your day is done. Give it up. No one wants health care. The country is conservative again. Just declare war on Iran and make things easier for all of us. THEN people will get behind you. We're always up for a good war.

brad adds:

In her screenshot, the number of stories about Gates is 2670. The number of stories about ObamaCare is 10,272. Ahem.

Free Association

I have been doing this for far too long. I've realized that McArdle's writing no longer represents poorly written and thought out articles, but actually has a voice in my head, associated with a personality. It always takes me a long time to develop a sense of someone's self when I only interact with them over the nets and when I do it's always as sort of a vague quasi-persona. I'm consciously aware of the fact that my impressions of my online companion's personality is just a caricature. Somehow, Megan has transcended that. Her voice has a full on presence in my head now. I realize this when I started reacting internally to her writings from the very first sentence, rather than having a chance to actually hear her arguments, much in the same way that someone who has come to take the slot of "annoying person" in your brain makes you antsy just by saying "Hey, how ya doing?"

Obviously, this makes me biased towards her musings. I don't really care. It's been clear for, what, a year and half (how long have I been doing this?) that nothing that comes out of her head and onto the screen is worth an old, dull green pixel of an Apple 2E. So, let's try some free association. That is, I haven't read the following piece, save the first sentence and headline, but I already KNOW it's going to be annoying. Let's see how right I am.

"I'm a big proponent of the transformative power of failure."

See, this is what I'm fucking talking about. This is the "hey, how are ya doing?" of Megan's idiotic voice. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to say, yet it I immediately wanted to smash my head into the wall when I read it. How the fuck can someone who does nothing but ignore her most persistent critics actually fucking claim to think of failure as "transformative." She thinks of failure as something completely beneath her. She ignores her current failures and blames her past failures on chance and circumstance. Her ideology has wreaked complete destruction on our economy and her brilliant leader has whistled away while the country burns, yet not a god damn thing in her god damn head has changed. The only transformation that failure hath wrought unto Megan is to make her look ridiculous. Seriously, wtf.

"Failure is nature's way of saying "Don't do that any more!", and is therefore a necessary part of achievement and innovation. And so I'm inclined to like this speech very much. "

And here comes the idiocy and mixed metaphors. How the fuck can failure be "nature's way" of doing anything? We're not talking about lightning, pain or gravity here you fucking twit! Failure isn't natural at all. It's a fucking social construct! That's like saying "theater is nature's way of putting on a show!"

Plus, who does she think actually needs to be told that there are valuable things to be learned from failure? Has she never heard the expression "if at first you don't succeed, try and try again?!?!?!" Or how about "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it?" Fuck, I'm free associating here and I can think of trite ass shit that everyone knows representing what Megan's trying to be all original and wise about. I bet there are better expressions that I'm not recalling, but the nature of this task would be made untrue by Googling, so we press onward.


"On the other hand, something niggles me about the end:"

"Niggles," Megs? I'm not even.. what the... holy fucking shit! What kind of writing is that? You sound like a fucking idiot. OMG, stop. In the words of Joe Mathletes: Everything you create is cancer and madness. JESUS FUCK STOP IT!

So here is the point: you are going to meet the dragon of failure in your life. You may not get into the school you want, or you may get kicked out of the school you are in. You may get rejected by the girl of your dreams, or, God forbid, get into an accident beyond your control. But the point is, everything happens for a reason. At the time, it may not be clear. And certainly the pain and the shame are going to be overwhelming and devastating. But as sure as the sun comes up, there will come a time on the next day or next week or next year when you will grab that sword and tell him "Be gone, dragon."

This is what "niggles" that wretched big woman? Standard crap about things happening for a reason and persevering through adversity? What, does she think she owns the fucking copyright to bullshit platitudes and overwrought no-fucking-shit-isms.

"This seems like a pretty safe bet when you're talking to Buckley students, who have an ample safety net underneath them to allow them to bounce back from nearly any failure. But would he really say this to, say, a 55 year old man who'd just been fired from his sales job? Bad things--persistent bad things--happen to good people, and while it's comforting to think of them as merely a waystation, for lots of people that isn't really true. It only seems true to people who have been spectacular successes, because for them every failure actually just one more step towards the happy place they enjoy today. Sure, you can always rise over adversity. But a significant number of people will never again rise to the level they previously enjoyed."

OMFG. No, wait, acronyms do not do it justice. OH MY FUCKING GOD! WHAT THE FUCK! WHO THE FUCK DOES SHE THINK THAT SHE IS?!?!??!!?!?!? Can you believe that a woman who calls herself a libertarian wrote this? The woman who wants social security destroyed, medicare chopped in half and to take the very safety nets she tragically laments the absence of in her thought experiment and burn them to the fucking ground so she can sell the ashes to some millionaire who likes an authentic looking fireplace but doesn't want to get the room all smokey with an actual fire?

Can you believe that she thinks people actually need to be told that some tragedies cannot be overcome through will power? How the fuck did she ever convince anyone she has anything interesting to say?!? She's like the fucking See Spot Run primer for fucking philosophy. Tell me Megs, is the world a concrete reality or merely how we choose to interpret our perceptions? Is it OK to steal bread if you're starving or is stealing a universal wrong? Does the fact that I think prove that I fucking exist? Oh, please enlighten me on these subjects which are beyond the grasp of my feeble mind!

She just completely tosses away the context of the fucking speech. I don't know why she even bothers to acknowledge it in the first place. It's like "well, it's fine to say the sky is blue, but what if we're on the moon and the sky is black, huh?" This man is talking to NINTH FUCKING GRADERS! What the fuck should he say? Don't fucking bother kids, cause you might get hit by a truck? Of course he's going to tell them to persevere! They're not 55! They haven't lived their whole life hand to mouth without any marketable skills and now find themselves destitute and old without a shot at a comfortable retirement. They are fif-fucking-teen year olds! If they lose their sales job, they can, in fact, find another fucking job and start saving for retirement! They have time to go to college or trade school! Fuck, they are IN FUCKING SCHOOL! You're arguing that failure is good because you learn from it, and then pointing out that a man who fails late in life without ever having planned for it can't learn from failure? NO FUCKING DUH YOU DIPSHIT! He has already failed to grasp this lesson. It's not that it's not a good lesson to learn. Your example is exactly why this is a good fucking lesson to learn early in life!

And thus ends that. I think if I ever met Megan in person and she spouted this kind of crap at me, it would be all I could do to prevent myself from pushing her down the fucking stairs. Every sentence she writes screeches across my brain like a fucking flat line alarm. I think I wouldn't have the energy to push her down the stairs, as I'd be too busy clutching my head in agony and screaming at her to please, leave me alone and go bother some fucking 6 year olds with her bullshit ass meditations on dumbass philosophy. She hurts too much to exist. She hurts more than is physically possible. Oh, I wish she had the empathy to feel the hurt she produces in me, so that she might be her own penance for her own, horrible, horrible words.

Silly Whitey

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

Where was I? Oh, yes, Meggles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's Not Get Crazy Here, People!

Yeah! She's talking up affirmative action!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liar.

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

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

On Outrage and Annoyance: Twisting a Thought Pretzel

There's been a number of them lately; the ones that just scream at you from their titles alone. Here we have "Fair Pay" which is, amazingly, properly capitalized. Way to go, hardworker! I know that shift key has been giving her trouble since she became dimly aware of the English language. It's good to see she's making progress.

Speaking of hard work:

One of the dividing lines between me and a lot of the commentators on the Wall Street crisis is that I am not outraged by their pay. If any of my classmates are left on the Street, I'm well aware that they mortgaged their last ten years in order to bet on a directorship that's now at best a badly tainted prize, and at worst just evaporated beneath their fingers. I work 60 to 80 hour weeks doing something I love. They've been working 30-50 hours a week more than that, doing work that no reasonable human being could claim to enjoy the mechanics of. I do not resent the difference between their well-located New York co-ops and my tiny row house in an "emerging" neighborhood in DC. I'm only thankful I'm the one in the row house.

The avalanche of stupidity comes quickly these days. Seems like every post I take a look at has an opening paragraph so choc full o' crap I can smell it through the screen. Rundown time:

1) She's not outraged that people are taking millions of tax payer money because they completely fucked up after having already collected millions while in the process of fucking up? Yet she complains about the horrors of welfare and food stamps as if we should allow people to starve to death so that they don't get soft. Huh, interesting point of view.

2)Hm, herself and her classmates mortgaged "ten years" (that's a long time to get a fucking MBA) to get to the point of wreaking havoc on our economy. Yeah, that's swell. I personally have lots of respect for those who think of education as "mortgaging" their time. I know that when I finish my PhD, if I'm not making 100k right off the block I'm going to rue all of that damn time I spent "educating" myself. Seriously, who the fuck demands sympathy for choosing a job they're essentially admitting is complete bullshit? These people "mortgaged" their time because they wanted to be, and felt entitled to be, masters of the fucking universe. I suppose we should laud Stalin the many hours he put in trying to kill all these people. I mean, c'mon guys, look how fucking hard he worked?

3) She works 60-80 hours a week? Put that one in the "claims unsubstantiated by evidence" file.

4) Again, not sure why we're supposed to feel so bad about people who work really hard doing something of use to no one just because they work hard.

So she quotes someone who makes a point that these people are pretty much brainwashed. It's a fair point. I'm not sure why Megan brings it up, though, because her next libergraph introduces itself with:

The difference between me and them is that I don't think they deserve their pay, either. Now it may be that I, in my position as taxpayer, have to continue to pay these guys their huge salaries, because the unintended consequences of trying to regulate their pay will make it harder to get the banking system back on its feet.

Oh, so people are getting undeservedly rich while billions starve, but that's not outrageous. Again, point taken, McArdle. Glad that she's willing to take one for the team by paying them with her taxes. We wouldn't want to destroy the fabulous banking system. I mean, it's been keeping us out of depressions for decades at a time at only the cost of a few S&L type scandals in between. That's only a major scandal/screw up every 10-20 years! It's a fucking peachy keen organization that one is, the banking system. Gotta pay to keep it healthy! Fuck getting people to the doctors. I want my tax money going to the banking system!

I don't know how much more of this I can actually address directly. She futilely tries to pump her argument but somehow manages to start talking about herself again. Guess who's not at all outraged by their inability to get a job in 2002 after getting their MBA. Not Megan, that's who. After picking out the narcissism, her argument is almost a thing of beauty. She's essentially saying that the rules are totally arbitrary and no one is entitled to anything. Yet, this is the system for which all attempts at correction are misguided government coercion. Unless of course it's the banking system which needs a bailout in which case open up Treasury's coffers, already! Can't you see the investment bankers are behind on their boat payments? I love libertarians. "Life sucks but I got mine. Whatcha gonna do? PS The other people who got theirs are gods!"

Towards the end, she clarifies a point on her outrage (Only 20 million paragraphs into another one of her "Me me me" screeds).

So for all the bankers annoy me, their pay--and its difference from mine--doesn't outrage me. The difference between their pay and that of a physical therapy assistant or an auto line worker doesn't outrage me.

Ohhhhh. It's just annoying. Yeah, I see. The exploitation of the productive members of society by the members who merely push paper around is a mere annoyance. Silly me. Once I realize that the people whose time was spent in the pursuit of money at the expense of life, relationships, and any sense of having made a meaningful contribution have made sacrifices for their money, suddenly I don't see them in such a low light. If they love money so much they're willing to sacrifice their fucking soul for it, well, hey, I guess they deserve it, right? Oh wait, then she says "No one deserves their pay so I can hardly be angry at blah blah taking what they can get." so they don't deserve it. And if we're angry it's not because there's a shitfest of a system that needs to be fixed. We're just jealous. Or something, I dunno. The mobious strip that is this woman's thoughts is far too twisted in on itself for me to follow.

She closes with some bullshit about how she's not angry at anyone, which is completely congruent with her constant backing of those with whom she identifies while she tears down those with whom she does not. The reason she didn't frame her whole spiel from the POV of the autoworkers? Coincidence, I'm sure.

The Easy Ones are Easy

Ho hum:

Question of the Day: Bank Robbers!:

Reader Ben writes:

How has it been lost on people that Citi's new CFO (Ned Kelly) has the same name as an infamous Australian bankrobber?


I don't know, but what once was lost, now is found.

Yeah! How has an obscure piece of trivia from a continent on the other side of the planet been lost on us? We are such fools.

Like fools gold...

...and all that glitters is not gold.

Woah, .... so deep.... mind blown... again....

Oh yeah, and Robbers!11!1!1twelve!!!!!

Attack of the Bearclaw

One of the more annoying things about going to McArde's site on a daily basis is the visual and intellectual assaults the marketing geniuses of The Atlantic have decided to bombard their visitors with. Apparently their "Obvious question written in randomly-located neon sign" promotion is something they plan to stick with. It's bad enough that they think such a garish attempt at edginess is something to run with, but they also insist on out stupiding their premise with the dumbest questions on earth. For example:


"Is the doughnut doomed?" er, sorry, I meant "IS THE DOUGHNUT DOOMED?" Yes, cause nothing says "Think. Again." like screaming, in bright white neon, about the fate of the fucking donut.

Also, "donut" is the correct Americans spelling. Fuck Webster. I bow to Dunkin' Donuts before I bow to stodgy old English dudes that wanna tell me how ta speak. If you're gonna be all post-modern at least get the fucking vernacular right.

Werd.

Sinking Further Away from Being Deep

The magazine that was founded on fostering probing analysis and new ways of thinking has the following ad blinking below Ms. McVapid's blog:



Oh, please, wise sages of The Atlantic, provide insight into the ever inscrutable problem of why people whose job it is to get you to like them would lie to you. This question has plagued man for ages and only you can provide the answer.

Because OT Posts are SO MUCH More Interesting than MM These Days

Two things:

First, I was thinking this morning in the shower about how Obama and Bush pare kind of similar in a way.

(ducks)

No no no, NOT LIKE THAT. What I mean is, in 2000 Bush played himself as a "compassionate conservative," essentially trying to say "yeah, I'm conservative but not too far out there" all the while sending signals to his base that he was, in fact, way way out there.

Obama has also presented himself as a left-leaning centrist, but, me, I'm pretty optimistic that he's a lot more liberal than he's been campaigning on and that upon entering the Oval Office Obama will rip the mask off and show the world just how liberal he really is, just like Bush did in 2001. I'm guessing a lot of other people further to the left feel somewhat similarly.

The fact that I hated Bush for pulling that shit but am almost banking on Obama to do the exact same thing is one of the biggest bits of hypocrisy I've ever noticed in myself, and I'm going to spend most of today thinking about it, I guess. (Update: I wrote the draft for this post this morning and then spent the rest of the day preparing my cryostat for a bake-out and pump down, completely forgetting to my early morning revelation. Damn you, grad school!)

Second, in a bid to become the next big "political analyst" I'm going to make this prediction about the election. I STAKE MY REPUTATION ON on the declaration that almost all of the polls will be wildly wrong. It's hard to say in which direction, but I'm guessing that Obama wins by an even larger margin than anticipated. Note my reputation is staked on the first claim. I'm not so sure about the latter claim.

If I'm right, I expect to be hired by the New York Times by the end of the week.

Obviously, She's Still Sick

She must be delusional from fever. There is no other plausible reason for her to actually title a post "2-4-6-8! Time to overregulate!" The second line of the poem, is of course, "and now I'll go regurgitate!"

This poetically titled word-turd is about government regulation, so you know that it will be fun. Let's see where she starts:

Freddie has a typically thoughtful post on financial regulation:

Freddie, as you may know, got his start as a commenter on MM's blog. Now, for the second time, she's all like "look at my baby!" Proud parents can relate.

While Freddie may or may not be "typically thoughtful" by pointing out that greedy people will do anything for money (no really, that's what was so thoughtful), Megan's thoughtfulness is, amazingly, even shallower. To wit:

As libertarians go, I'm relatively in favor of financial regulation. But I think there are two ways to think about financial regulation:

Right, that's because she's NOT, I repeat, NOT AT FUCKING ALL NOT EVEN A FUCKING TINY BIT a libertarian. She's a ridiculous conservative hack that is too chickenshit to admit that she's a conservative, and so instead calls herself a "libertarian" while backing all conservative positions and criticizing liberals no matter how right they turn out to be (see previous post). So, with that out of the way, let's take a look at the exactly TWO ways... two ways.... two fucking ways! She thinks there are only TWO FUCKING WAYS to regulate. How can she write that thought down and not fucking start bleeding from her ears as her brain wilts into a pool of soggy dog shit? This idiotic woman actually wants to boil down a concept as broad as "regulation" into TWO fucking things. I swear, this women has the most binary grasp on the world EVER. She fucking HEARS in black and white.

1) Wall Street people are tricky bastards who spend almost all of their time thinking of how they can best maximize their profits by screwing The Little People.

Yes, that's right, liberals dehumanize everyone. That is not at all, BTW, Megan dehumanizing liberals. It's just true true fact. I'm not even going to quote the fleshing out of this tremendously idiotic stance because the stupid is already raising my blood pressure, so let's get right to number 2:

2) There are multiple possible equilibria in financial markets, and one of the problems in those markets is that decisions which are individually highly rational can, in aggregate, move society to one of the bad equilibria. Worse, those decisions may be sticky--it may be much harder to get out of the bad equilibria than into them. The government should act to mitigate the systemic risks by doing the things that only it can do: enforce transparency, solve collective action problems, and analyze the system for systemic rather than local risk. This will necessarily involve sacrificing some potential upside in order to insure against catastrophic downsides. But the government must remain aware of its own tendency to be excessively risk averse, because regulators are punished for visible failures, but not invisible lost benefits. It must also worry about the way that the very regulations intended to ensure safety can create or enhance systemic risk, as has happened in this crisis with rules such as the mark-to-market rule, and various institutional requirements for high credit quality in investments.

Blah blah jargon blah bullshit blah, so basically the two avenues are either "You're a stupid, shallow, knee-jerk liberal that hates anyone who make money" or "You agree entirely with Megan and are therefor wise, and good looking, and totally modest." Gee, which would you choose?

Yup, I'd rather be a stupid knee jerk liberal than anything resembling Megan McArdle, too. PLAN A WINS AGAIN!

Needless to say, I think the second approach is better. Unfortunately, in crises like this, the general political attitude is closer to the first one.

OMG why, oh WHY won't she SHUT THE FUCK UP? I'm putting her back in her cage. "Needless to say, I prefer the one that I painted in bright, rosy, smarty pants colors to the one in which I dogmatically attack my opponents and accuse them of dogmatism!" WHO THE FUCK WOULD'VE THUNK?!!?!??! THANKS FOR THE POST, MEGADOODLE!

Moreover, it seems to me that at least some of the people who are tremendously excited about the prospect of regulation are not excited because they are worried about the health of the financial system so much as they are intoxicated by the power that greater regulatory authority might give a liberal government to advance other goals, such as redirecting capital flows to more "deserving" uses, or reducing income inequality.

Hmm, and it seems that at least some libertarians are pedophiles, rapists, and murders SO THEREFORE MEGAN MCARDLE IS TOO! OMG, HOW COULD SHE RAPE SMALL CHILDREN AND THEN MURDER THEM?!!?!?!?!?!!?!?! And note how she basically says it's terribly horrible for liberals to take this latest power grab to do things like give money to poor people, ignoring that the latest conservative power grab was used to bomb the brownies, keep the gays from marrying, increase income inequality, etc etc. It's almost as if she's a one sided shill for pack of soulless, greedy, assholes who are, don't forget, raping and killing children.

I think this is a very good time to strip down our regulatory system to its bare bones and rebuild it into something more effective: streamlining regulatory authority, refocusing it on systemic risk and giving it the power to pursue those issues more effectively, purging the overreliance on single models that make things more convenient for the regulators, and figuring out how the hell Basel II went so deadly wrong.

I think now would be a very good time for Megan to tell me WHAT THE FUCK BASEL II IS!

But I do not think that this is anything close to what we will actually get. We will get piecemeal patches designed to prevent the problems that just occurred without much attention to future issues (see, Enron and mark-to-market accounting). We will probably see restrictions on various types of activity, without regard to lost upside from that activity. There may well be some dramatic and pointless gesture, such as Glass-Steagall's drive to split off investment banking from commercial banking. I expect some populist measures like letting judges rewrite mortgages in bankruptcy, which look swell until the cost of a mortgage goes up.

Omg, preventing the same economic collapse from happening again!? Keeping your money safe and making investments transparent?!?!?!? Judges letting people keep their houes?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!! CATS AND DOGS LIVING IN HARMONY!!!!!!!! THE LIBERALS ARE ON THE LOOOOOOOOOSEEEEEE!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!!!!

This will make happy those who are definitionally in favor of more regulation.

What kind of person is definitionally [sic] in favor of more regulation? Are there people that just get a boner every time the government tells them what to do? Megan thinks that people are just like "Yeah! More laws! I'm so happy for economic catastrophe because now I get to follow more laws!" How can she not see that THESE ARE THE EXACT FUCKING CATASTROPHES THAT MAKE US WANT A PRO-FUCKING-ACTIVE GOVERNMENT TO BE-FUCKING-GIN WITH?!?!!?!

I think this metaphor perfectly describes McBinary's view of the world; People are cold, so they start a fire. Then it's nice and warm. Some people are like "Awesome, we're warm. Let's save some firewood and keep this fire going nice and toasty forever" and then others, let's call them, I dunno, flibberglarians, they go "No way! This fire is great so a bigger one is better! Let's throw everything on there! Our food! Our houses! Yeah! Fire is awesome!" Afterwards ,that flibberglarian looks around at all their possessions all burned up and blames the people who aren't retarded and accuses them of hating fire all along.

A lot of people writing today seem to think of regulatory agencies as quasi-prisons for Demon Finance, and think that the main problem with the current system is that it's mollycoddling the inmates. Bankers are not criminals.

I'm sorry, WHAT? Does that make sense to anyone? Is that even remotely true? Is she talking about the little gremlins that live under her bed or something? She really feels the need to tell us that "Bankers are not criminals?" wow, whodathunkit. Bankers aren't criminals guys. Man, my ideology is in fucking TATTERS because of this woman's intellect.

As a class, they are exactly as self-interested, self-destructive, and short-sighted as other classes of people that liberals want less highly regulated, such as unions and community organizers.

Right, as a class, those bankers, who act individually and do their best to increase their profits from 1 to 2 gagillion dollars a year no matter what the consequences, are EXACTLY the same as the community organizers who are people the go around, generating collective action so that people can NOT LIVE IN SQUALOR. I-fucking-dentical.

I love Megan.

There's the Insight for which I've Been Looking!

Oh, Ta-Nehisi, I'm so glad you came to The Atlantic so that you could provide the stunning challenges to my way of thinking that had been previously lacking:

I have this deep-seated suspicion that the things we think decide elections--ads, gaffes, rallies, counter-punches--aren't as important as we make them. I mean they are important, but often I suspect that they're just distracting us from much deeper, uncontrollable--and in some ways unknowable--questions. How's the war going? How will the economy be doing in November? What do the voter reg numbers look like? How many of those are likely to turn out?

MORE IMPORTANT THAN GAFFES??!@??!! WHY DO THEY ALWAYS HAVE TO BLOW MY MIND!

I ask them SOOOO nicely not to do it, and then just -boom!- they blow it to smithereens. Can we please get back to something more comfortable?

What's going on at the local level with this thing? What's happening--right now--in the voting precints of Ohio and North Carolina? Stop telling me how much money Obama is pouring into those states--I want to know what that money does, how is it being put to work. Less top-down coverage, more bottom up.

Phew, yes, let's get some stories about what we really KNOW is important, like whether the money is going to pay staffers to canvas or to fund the creation of more buttons and signs in the Cincinnati suburbs. THAT'S the kind of campaign coverage that would be TRULY useful for us to have so that we might properly decide our next president.

Is there a single IQ point in the entirety of the blogosphere? I guess with a name as stupid as "blogosphere" it just has to be dumb.