Times, Well, Spent

McSleuth has found a minor instance of plagiarism. Apparently a single paragraph in a Times London article was lifted from a Fortune article that had been printed about 6 months prior. The paragraph contains some details about a surgery Steve Jobs underwent.

OK guys, calm down! I know, it's a crisis, but we need to stay focused. I, too, was terribly hurt to see that a writer pilfered a negligible amount of uninspired prose that contain readily available factual information. Fret not! Megan knows how to treat the broken heart; with humor:

It's possible that this is not plagiarism--that David Rose is actually Philip Elmer-DeWitt's alter ego and thus owns the copyright to that passage,

Oh man, that cracks me up! Where does she come up with those knee-slappers? Ahhh, I feel a bit better already. Still, though my wounds have been salved, I need to know that someone will seek justice in this horrible imbroglio!

I've emailed the Times for comment, and will report as I get any information.

PHEW! Megan's on the case. I can rest easy now. I'm sure, what with her tenacity and dedication, McGruff will ensure that justice prevails.

I just hope she doesn't get too distracted from her vital work of telling us useless crap and make "gee-whiz" comments about the economy. Oh good, looks like we're safe there, too.

PS Don't visit her main site. The idiot has a really annoying video for a Foreman Grill rip-off up that plays automatically when you go to her blog. I think, since she's realized that abject incompetence won't do it alone, she is now intentionally trying to annoy her readers away. After all, the fewer people that visit her blog, the fewer the emails she gets informing her of her failures and thus the less work she has to do. Everyone wins!

UPDATE:Case closed! No one escapes McArdle's crack detective work.

While the "Comment of the Week" Remains From the First Wk. of July, La Megan Has Updated the "Gadget of the Week."

Holiday Gift Guides

That's right, it's the time of year when I tell you what to buy for your loved ones. Start with the long-awaited Kitchen Guide, and stay tuned for Books, Cookbooks, Electronics, Home, and Recipes over the next few days. Plus, for the first time this year, I think I'm doing girly stuff.

Be still, my beating heart.

Humorless Section

Alright, Megan McA. has just about completely lost it.

Your afternoon smile 28 Jul 2008 03:57 pm
Here. No, I can't explain. Just click.

Your click will lead you to this:Enough commenters didn't get it that she felt obliged to do an update.

Update Okay, for those who totally didn't get the joke, perhaps this will explain:

"This" is an imbed of the Baha Men's snappy & popular "Who Let The Dogs Out?" video. I'm either too smart, too stupid, or have no grasp of the obvious, because I "like totally" don't get it. It's a map of the United Snakes, w/ each state given a color on the spectrum between common sense, decency & humanity (New York, Vermont & Jersey) to the aggressively retarded guns & gawd group (Idaho & Utah). And?

Defending America's Image

So I was up at Yosemite this weekend with my father.

After he'd gone to bed I went out and made friends with a couple of Germans I found at a bar.

We talked a bit about politics and I found myself embarrassingly telling tem about how one of our presidential candidates had been made fun of for daring to suggest that Americans might be better off if they bothered to learn a foreign language.

They were shocked.

Fortunately, I did learn that Americans are still considered the epitome of cool in Germany, despite how much Bush is hated over there. Which I guess makes sense. The cool kids always pick on the nerds.

Shallow and Racist, a McArdle Double Play

WEEEEEE!

So speaking of guilty pleasures,

Oh, Megan, I love your conversational tone. You make me feel like we actually were just speaking of guilty pleasures. Such a joy.

one of mine is "So You Think You Can Dance", the dance version of American Idol. I don't watch any of the other reality shows, the ones that bloggers proudly lay claim to, like Project Runway or Top Chef. No, I just like watching people dance, mostly because I don't Think I Can.

"Guilty pleasures" is such a god awful ridiculous phrase. She was just recently mocking the pretension of those who don't own a TV. Why in the fuck would she feel bad about liking something simply because it's not high brow enough? I guess you're only allowed to be condescending about your entertainment in certain ways around Megan. It's okie, honey, you're allowed to like stupid things. We won't judge for that. Well, we will, but not the dancing.

What's struck me about this season is that with eight contestants left, three out of the four men were black.

1) I love how often Megan gets struck. If only she'd get struck by something larger occasionally.

2) I also love the giddy sense of foreboding I feel every time she starts to talk about race. What amusing bits of clueless derision will our heroine put forth next?

For the last three seasons, the show has tended to be very, very white by the time it gets down to brass tacks. This may be because the black dancers are very disproportionately hip-hop dancers, and don't have the technical skills of other contestants. Or it may be racism.

How magnanimous of her to allow for both the possibilities that black people may be inferior, or people may just think that black people are inferior. Her worldview is all encompassing!

Or it may just have been a fluke. But it's interesting to see this turn around, at least temporarily.

Yes, I always think to myself "Wow, here's an example of cultural if not overt racism playing out. How INTERESTING!"

Stupid word of the day

"diavlog"

Who knew that the internet would make the English language so much stupider and uglier? I bet Mrs. Eloquence says "BRB" in real life, too.

Sinking One's Teeth In, All The Way

At last, not a pile of indecipherable economic mish-mosh but something vaguely connected to the real world that I can work on!

No, really, leave it aside, because the moral question is irrelevant to the practical one. What will be the effect of this? Will it build the credibility of international justice institutions by proving that even the powerful US can be brought to heel?

No, don't leave it aside, because the practical question that must first be asked is, "Does torture work?" (Meaning, does it provide useful information to save the lives of thousands of people? Not meaning, "Does it entertain sadistic civilian prison guards double-dipping in the Army Reserve or National Guard?") How could it not build credibility to deal w/ Bully Number One?

We are still the country of Monroe and Roosevelt.

And all along I, for one, have been laboring under the illusion that this is now the country of hedge fund managers & corporate entities that move to overseas P. O. boxes to avoid paying taxes. Oh, &, uh, we'll assume Our Muse was referring to presidents, rather than shock absorbers, so, which Roosevelt, exactly? And if she does mean Monroe (of the doctrine) isn't a corollary of said doctrine that This Great Nation of Ours™ maybe shouldn't be occupying sovereign nations & stealing their resources for the profit of corporate entities through dubious legalisms?

It will only be after the damage is done that Americans will realize it is sometimes convenient to have allies, while Europeans belatedly discover that internationalism doesn't just run on solemn conferences and soft power. Not to mention how cute they'll all look trying to hem in Russian expansionism without the implicit threat of the American troops now stationed in their countries.

Ms. McArdle, if you're so damn smart as to realize all these things, why aren't you interested in somehow informing or advising Americans, especially, of these facts? "It won't work because: A) Americans don't realize allies are (sometimes) convenient, B) Most of the public will view this as an act of war," isn't much of an attitude to have. It is the duty of the privileged to educate &...oh, sorry, different group of privileged. Forget it.

(In passing, let's note that "Bobo" Brooks is also nervous about the Rooskies.

If we’re going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside.

What up? I thought the Chinese were our next "real" enemy? Can't they let go of the USSR/Russia? Not unlike a dog who gets close to rabid when you try to replace its old chew-toy w/ a newer, chewier one.)

It might be nice if international justice were like a real national legal system, where everyone, rich and poor, submits themselves to the impartial will of the courts. But it is not.

Oh, so much crap. "Might" be "nice?" Real national legal system?" "Everyone submits," yes, though some have greater & some lesser chances not to submit, & the quality of attys. & amount of money available to the defendant can, believe it or not, affect the outcome of a trial. "Far too much time in the Bat Cave," indeed, mlle.

This is not fair--life isn't, you may have noticed.

This particular piece of common, popular crap makes my blood boil. I'll make it perfectly clear: Life is arbitrary, people are unfair. Therefore, the unfairness of people can, it is to be hoped, change or be changed. Please understand that, & never, ever, use that bromide again.

I know that I have a lot of seething war opponents reading this, their souls screaming that the practical considerations are secondary to the moral ones. But the US flatly cannot be brought to heel in this manner, while other nations can. Shall we enjoy the righteous satisfaction of expressing our moral outrage, at the cost of severely eroding the international community's ability to encourage peace in the rest of the world? Only if you think that American politics is so overwhelmingly important that it overrides trivial considerations like dead Bosnians.

Uh? I understand a bit o' sarcasm is being used in the last sentence, but the entire piece prior argues that American politics will not allow ("is so overwhelmingly important") justice to be done, & does trump dead Iraqis, not to mention the several thousand Americans dead & many thousands more permanently damaged, in so many different ways. Why is bringing war criminals to justice reduced to "American politics" in the first place? And let's also face it, if one side says justice isn't important, we're too powerful to stand for accountability & punishment for bad decisions (not poor people though, they make a bad decision they have to pay for it!!) & yet our power is what makes all these international institutions able to save Bosnians, while the other side disagrees & calls for justice, punishment for criminals, accountability, responsibility & all the other glibertarian buzzwords, the whole thing transcends politics, because my side (DFHs) is obviously just & correct. Does she really think this is mere politics, that because G. W. Bush, war criminal or not, sets most peoples' teeth on edge, that this is all about "Bush Derangement Syndrome?"

Ms. McA. also, unconsciously, brings up another point. It is often said that the U. S. spends more on its military than every other nation on the planet combined. Not sure if this is absolutely true, but we certainly do outspend all the other large nations that might even remotely pose a threat to our sovereignty. And there's little question that much of these expenditures are wasted, poorly spent, lost to fraud, & so on. (Just like those welfare entitlements, right?) I now anxiously await a call from the Megatron to seriously cut military spending, so that our nation is no longer hostage to corporate cheaters, & so that we'll no longer be able to bully our way to immunity on the world stage. After all, if the only legitimate federal expense is defense, our defense dollars are being squandered, & we don't seem able to defend ourselves against a few religious wackos w/ box-cutters, shouldn't a severe pruning of wasteful spending be our number one priority?

Dep't. of Cheap Shots

Megan says:

I've been tempted to order those ridiculous detoxifying foot pads, just to see if they really do pull anything black and scary looking out of my skin the way they do on the commercials.

(Boldface mine. No further comment.)

So now we await Ms. McArdle going the full right-wing drooler route. She'll perhaps move beyond veganism or whatever into all the peculiar food fetishism, colon-cleansing, memory-improving mixtures, homeopathy, etc., for which we see advertisements on many of the more obscure right wing websites. (Those people are just plain nertz!)

P. S.: My bet? The pads will definitely show some of that scary looking black stuff, but it's a chemical reaction caused by something on the pad, activated by contact w/ human skin or perspiration or foot powder. The chances that something that shouldn't be in your corpus has been pulled out are slim & none.

P. P.S.: A scan of the comments reveals that I'm more or less correct, as usual.

Megan Talks about Orientalism

Considering I just defended my thesis on the subject two days ago, I'm delighted that Megan chose to excrete her thoughts all over Edward Said's landmark tract, Orientalism.

First of all, Megan callers Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind "somewhat kooky." No Megan, its a complete racist piece of shit.

This is basically a fruitless debate, because as in the Israel/Palestine debate--for which this is basically a proxy--there is precious little middle ground. Middle Eastern Studies professors are, as far as I can tell, overwhelmingly in the Edward Said camp; they regard Bernard Lewis the same way those in the Lewis/Pipes camp regard Said.

Um, so the debate over whether intellectuals in France, Britain, and the US possess demeaning and reductionist views of Arabs is a proxy for whether Palestinians should have a state? If I were a reader of Commentary, I would howl, fit, and poop that Megan would denigrate and delegitimized the interests of Israel by comparing them to Renan's 200 year old baseless observations.


Saying that there is 'precious little middle ground' between these two paradigms is complete ignorance. There are numerous works that don't use Said's or Lewis' paradigm, e.g., Gran, Yaqub, every realist writer on US foreign relations, and my own work.

You don't have to be a disciple of Said to know that Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes are complete hacks.

BTW, if anyone can parse this sentence I'll reward you:

"And I'd say that Edward Said's main error was in thinking that because the west is the hegemonic culture, he was immune from this problem."

UPDATE:

I wanted to add a couple of observations regarding the commentors in Megan's post.

Edward Said, in addition to being a first-rate intellectual, was morally brave, and his reputation deserves not to be sullied. Anyway, Megan's commentors spout the usual anti-intellectual tripe.

JoshK writes:

Said was an English professor, not a real deep middle eastern expert. IMHO, his work caught on with the general anti-everything-western movement in academia that was taking place in the 70's.

I must have missed that movement. Citing Said's formal appointment as some sort of slander against the man reminds me of that line from Kinsey when Kinsey says "How long do I have to study humans to not be considered just an etymologist?"

Another commentor: "Actually Edward Said was pretty standard academic Western babyboomer leftist in approach."

got that? A Christian Palestinian refugee born under the mandate is a babyboomer.

Then Sigivald says to me that its "Interesting that you don't include Said in the "has-been hacks" category, despite it fitting him, on the scholarly evidence, better than Lewis."

BTW, Said was a has-been, despite being a prolific writer and lecturer until the day he died.

Things that will make me commit suicide

If this actually takes and people start using it:

I hereby dub the practice of sharing a single MacBook power cord between two or more users the "Scuba"

Apparently in reference to scuba divers sharing a mouthpiece...?!?!??oneone?!?!onrhundredeleven!!!!?!?!??!?dashdash?!??!?!?!?@!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!?
Well, at least she's learning something. She referenced the flickr album she stoll a shot of mouthpiece sharing from.

Guess what's in my leek soup!

Leeks!

Guys, I'm gonna share with you my macaroni and cheese recipe now. Here goes

Ingredients
Macaroni
Cheese

Directions
Cook the macaroni
Add the cheese

Serve hot

UPDATE:

A couple people like the comment that I posted for the recipe, so I'll reprint here:

Wow, that looks really good. I kept putting boots in my potato leek soup and, while it was good, it tastes nothing like potato and leek soup. I now see where I went wrong.

I've also been having trouble with my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Do you have a recipe for that you might share? I like to use mayonnaise and ham on mine and again, it's good, but it tastes nothing like peanut butter and jelly! In fact, it ends up tasting just like a ham sandwich!!! What am I doing wrong?!?!

mAcademia Nut

So Megan decides to pontificate about grumpy academics. Oh Joy, this is going to be fun.

Megan starts off by taking her discrete experiences as representative of all reality. Even though she acknowledges the bias of her own views, she decides to "assume that I'm on to something." Assume away.

Why does Megan think academics are more bitter, despite the very real possibility that they aren't bitter than other professions?

1) The money is so low relative to the professions they might have gone into. Journalists also suffer from this bitterness. Interestingly, the more lucrative their current options are, the less bitter the professors seem to be--economists and engineers seem relatively cheerful compared to English and History professors.

Got that? Professors are bitter because they could have made more money doing something else, except for Professors of engineering and economics. They aren't bitter, despite the fact that they could have made MUCH more money doing the same thing somewhere else.

2) It's so easy to tell exactly where you rank in the academic hierarchy. Well, I don't find it easy, but they all seem to. Unless you're very near the top, your ranking is reinforced every time you attend any sort of professional event. If you are near the top, you promptly switch to wondering why you're paid less than an entry level investment banking analyst.

Um, how is it 'so easy to tell exactly where you rank in the academic hierarchy?' How is it 'reinforce[d] every time you attend any sort of professional event?' Do conferences now list your name, school, and US News ranking on the name tag? Hello My Name is Third Tier?

3) It's so hard to switch jobs. Job mobility is so low that you can't salve your ego by telling yourself that your current job is merely a waystop en route to something better.

But academics get to travel...for work...nevermind

4) Academics have few alternative status hierarchies Getting tenure is an all consuming process that leaves very little time for developing other hobbies. And the job virtually definitionally does not attract the kind of people who will be happy putting their career on a back burner to family or lifestyle.

What she forgets to mention is that many academics view their research as a hobby. Getting paid for doing your hobby tends to not embitter people.

5) Academics have virtually no control over where they live They usually seem to go where the best job is, regardless of whether or not the local area suits them. In many cases, this further focuses them inward on academia, because there aren't all that many other people around who share their interests.

This, actually, is a valid point.

Now to the commenters:

Lou farts this out:

But let's say you are an English professor and not passionate about your teaching. What else do you accomplish? In many fields the articles and books are only read by others in your field, and their only value is to convince others that you are smart. I.e. status. Literally, there is nothing else that they produce except for status. So of course you are all-consumed by relative status, there is nothing else in your life.

Seriously, Lou, if you think writing books is just an attempt at making other people look smart, you're a moron. And this is great: "Literally, there is nothing else that they produce except for status." Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, How was the play?

I just Boscov'd

Its impressive how many things Megan' gets wrong in this post.

Megan claims that Obama's masculinity will be questioned because the role of "building understanding and reconciliation between hostile voter grops [sic]" is generally seen as a woman's role. Further compounding Obama's trouble is that he's running against a "much-decorated fighter pilot."

So now I see why Obama's masculinity will be questioned: he's a 'Uniter' running against a combat-worn Vietnam vet! I remember in 2004 when the press lampooned Bush for being totally metro and touted Kerry's tough guy war experience. Bee tee dub, Megan, McCain isn't really "much-decorated."

As usual, the stupidity drips into the comments section, where DaveM claims that "Barack also has a problem in that he's a lawyer" and thus "he will come across to men as either weak or devious (a new Laval or Petain) or both." Got it? Obama=Petain. The similarities are striking! Long Live Liberal Fascism!

Megan Advises Her Readers...

to "clean your hands very well."

No, not after reading anything she's written, but when using the Megan method for doing something w/ egg somethings. (Don't ask me, I neither know nor care.)

Do you think she has a "Wash Hands Before Returning to Kitchen" sign in her toilet, or is it just her readers who would need to be reminded?


UPDATE (later that same day): Regular commenter Clever Pseudonym (& it's our regulars who make it worth torturing ourselves w/ Meganities) doesn't believe it, so here's the link.

We are also advised how to butter a pan. I can only think Last Tango in Paris, but that's just me.

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.

Evil Empire Notes From All Over

From the AP:

The Yankees announced that right-hander Chien-Ming Wang would be their opening-day starter at Yankee Stadium against the Toronto Blue Jays on March 31.

Huh? What? Who?

Things I learned in Community College: How to be Megan McArdle

Our oh so balanced econo-Englishcist decides it's been too long since she wrote a book report and, after the usual long winded and pointless anecdotal preamble, decides to go ahead and give us her thoughts on her current read. (Question about those preambles; why do you have to tell people WHY you're making a post? If it's not apparent from the content of the post, the post prolly wasn't worth writing. Then again, none of your posts are worth writing so... nevermind. Carry on.)

So how does she start this return to her undergrad days? Why, with shit ass freshmen level writing that looks like a perfunctory attempt at summarizing a book that was merely skimmed so that adequate time for preening and getting drunk was still had, of course. Megan strive for authenticity, if nothing else. I must say, this is the one area in which she succeeds. Everything she produces is authentically and unabashedly, Megan McArdle.

The first thing that strikes you is her hero-worship of her father. Modern people don't write like this; we want to see parents as people. In Addams' portrayal, her father comes across as a sort of Christ-like figure--endlessly patient, kind, generous, modest, and so forth. The childhood she describes in a small Illinois town is so perfectly idyllic that you can't help but wonder what dark secret she was hiding

Now, let's play "you're a TA teaching freshmen comp"

The first thing that strikes you (uneccessary) is her hero-worship of her father. Modern people (who?!) don't write like this; w. We want to see parents as people (we do? citation! provide examples!). In Addams' portrayal, her father comes across as a sort of(if he's sort of christ-like, why not skip that and tell us what he actually is?) Christ-like figure --(. He is)endlessly patient, kind, generous, modest, and so forth. The childhood she describes in a small Illinois town is so perfectly idyllic (idllyic means perfect! don't use words you don't know!) that you can't help but wonder what dark secret she was hiding( awkward. also provide examples from the text!).

Megan,

Please see me after class.

Sincerely,
your professor, who writes crap like this for his second semester community college English class, but knows better than to be proud of it (or even think that anywhere else it'd get anything other than a gigantic freaking F and the continuous scorn of anyone who ever gazed upon it)

Rapid Fire Retard

Megan just unleashed a triplet of banal observations on the topics of soy milk, Cambodian techno, and acupuncture.

When did the Atlantic start hosting livejournals?

Current mood: 82% aloof

Whew, That Was Close...

Did not spot (nor was I spotted by) Mlle. McA. in Santa Monica this Sunday. I was neither searching for her nor avoiding her, but wasting time in the library on my solitary web log. (Shameless plug! Whooo!!)

From today's items, references to Elliot Spitzer:

His use of the state police to prosecute petty political battles [.]

To call him a hypocrite is too kind--he isn't even paying tribute to virtue. If he had an ounce of shame, he would resign.

One can only wonder if she's ever called for the resignation of, say, George W(orst) Bush for using the Justice Dep't. not merely for "petty political battles," but to mess w/ elections & so on, as well as his unspeakable hypocrisy & absolute lack of shame. Really. Speaking of hypocrites.

I love when she writes about things of which I'm familiar

Megan decides to actually attack some conservative BS in order to show that she really is an independent cause, you know, four articles about liberals that love Cuba = one article about a ridiculous right wing ad being run on a major network. But of course she can't help resist throwing some left bashing in too and while doing so, she manages to get a number of facts wrong in just a few short sentences

Berkeley Bashers:

I am second to none in my admiration for our troops. But this ad is one of the weirdest ads I've ever seen. It's running on Fox News in Washington DC:

I feel that my fellow Washingtonians are probably going to have little effect on the Berkeley city council, which has so far proven fairly well immune from stronger influences, such as reason. I also find it hard to believe that the marines lost a great opportunity when they were told not to recruit in Berkely. Nor that there is much danger that cities around America will follow Berkely's lead and suddenly start wantonly disrespecting America's armed forces. It's pretty amazing that real people spent their hard-earned money on this.

It's good to know that Megan is second to none in her admiration for our troops. I know I, being a card carrying member of the left, feel a constant need to remind people that I'm second to none in my unadulterated hatred of anything and everything the troops do. I don't want anyone getting confused on that point when I say something that might seem like a tacit admission of their humanity.

As for the city council being immune to reason, I'll vouch for that. I live not two blocks from Berkeley City Hall and let me tell you, this town has more than its fair share of totally batshit insane.

Of course, when you're Megan, you can make yourself look stupid arguing that the sky is blue.

The marines didn't actually lose ANYTHING by the actions of the city council. For those that wish to be actually informed rather than just pulling shit out of their ass and trusting fox news, this is what happened:

1) The marines have had a recruiting station on Shattuck Ave (downtown Berkeley) for sometime.

2) Berkeley City Council (BCC), knowing that their constituents would not like this but realizing they can't exactly kick them out, grant a permanent parking space across the street for the group Code Pink so that a permanent protest may be held

3) Sometime later, BCC passed the resolution condemning the marines with no real ramifications or regulations.

4) A bunch of people got upset because of the extreme hyperbole of the resolution. BCC decided to reconsider the resolution.

5) On the day of BCC meeting for the reconsideration, there was a large protest containing both pro and anti war groups. My guess is that, at it's peak, at least 1000 people were there.

6) During the meeting, BCC decided to retract the resolution because of its harsh wording. They claim not to have read it carefully enough when they ratified it. They voted against giving the marines an apology because they felt that, though the wording was harsh, they were behindthe sentiment of the resolution and so had not done anything wrong.

So Megan's statement "I also find it hard to believe that the marines lost a great opportunity when they were told not to recruit in Berkely." has no grounding in reality for two reasons. the most obvious is that marines have and will continue to have a recruiting station in downtown Berkeley. The second is that I'd be willing to guess that it's actually a pretty successful recruiting station. Not only because it continues to exist despite widespread animosity in the town in which it's situated, but also because of demographics. Berkeley is not only home to many radical liberals but also lots and lots of poor people. It has a notoriously crappy school system. It is also right next to Oakland, another town with a large poor population. Finally, the recruiting station is very close to a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station which is the system the ferries everyone around San Francisco and the entire East Bay. So in reality, if the marines would most likely not like to lose this recruiting station.

So, yeah, she's dumb.