Sometimes

It's too nice outside to rag on Meggie.
Tomorrow looks like another such occasion.
Don't worry, tho, both you readers. I have far too much writing to do not to end up here procrastinating real, real soon.

A whole new flavor of teh stupid

A happy surge in Iraq:

This self-flagellating column* by Jonathan Rauch about what he got wrong on Iraq made me go looking at the Iraq Index* from Brookings to see just how guilty I should feel this month. (Who doesn't enjoy a spot of self-flagellation?) Instead, I got a happy surprise. The security statistics (other than coalition soldier deaths, which are sharply down), are spotty, and I wouldn't know enough to interpret them even if they weren't. But they do have two objective and easy to verify economic statistics that happen to be closely tied to the security situtation: electricity and barrels of oil pumped.

................

Barrels of oil pumped had been drifting steadily downwards thanks to insurgent attacks, but in September it popped back to where it was in September of last year. This is, mind you, still below its pre-war level, so this isn't exactly a rousing endorsement of the invasion. But electricity, which has been the metric that generally induces in me the greatest sense of despair, soared in September. The country is now producing more electricity than it ever has before--an average of almost 5,000 megawatts in September. That's 25% more than the prewar level, and also, 6% more than the previous peak in August of 2004. This is a very, very welcome sign . . . although also a very, very tenative [sic] one, as these numbers tend to fluctuate quite a lot.

You win, Megan. I'm speechless.

*- Links not reinserted because I am lazy.

I have to stop being shocked by her

Calling blacks lazy remains her nadir, but it honestly seems as if Megan's work is getting worse, difficult as that is to believe. This is about one step from David Horowitz.

Faced with overwhelming evidence that there is a massive, massive underrepresentation of conservatives at the elite level, almost none of them even considers, in passing, that there might be some sort of structural problem. No, clearly the reason that conservatives don't make it into the academy is that . . . they're inferior.

Business schools, law schools, economics departments, and many poli sci departments are not a part of academia, it would seem. Megan's trying to be funny. Unfortunately, her jest is about the sum of it. Of course, there actually are plenty of conservatives in academia. I'm in grad school for philosophy, and there's a wide range of ideological diversity in my program. Yeah, of course there's a tendency towards liberalism, but that comes with having a mindset oriented towards an informed, accurate, expansive world view. Movement conservatives today take ignorance and a closed mind as virtues. The respective natures of higher learning and movement conservatism are currently in opposition. But I'm just being tribal.

It's not as if we're talking about a severe shortage of fly-fishers either. One would think that a committment to diversity would start with a committment to diversity of thought. But then, having thoughts that disagree with the thoughts that academics have probably means there's something wrong with you, doesn't it?

Megan, people who provide demonstrably, empirically, incorrect arguments and demand equal voice in a school shouldn't get it. Besides, you cannot pretend Economics departments are full of hippies, or that Hobbes isn't taught in Philosophy departments anymore. What Horowitz and the like do is focus on, say, Women's Studies departments and whine about how there's no one trying to defend wife beaters. But the following shows that Megan fundamentally misunderstands the teacher's mindset.

Don't get me wrong: I don't think there's any sort of conspiracy against conservatives in the academy. I think, rather, that a combination of more subtle factors erects a wall that it's harder for conservatives to climb over. Unless they are really, really brilliant, academics, like everyone else, need personal connections to help them up the academic ladder, from recommendations to mentors to advisors. Those personal connections are always much easier to make with people you agree with. Nor would I discount the possibility that, just as women's work can be subtly dismissed because we know women aren't as bright as men, academics who think that conservatives are stupid would factor that into their assessment of someone's intelligence--and then factor that assessment into their assessment of someone's work. And of course, one's ideas are to some extent socially constructed; simply by virtue of the arguments and information we hear, even if there is no social pressure to conform, being surrounded by a political culture will tend to drag our ideas in their direction.

The truth is the exact opposite. A good teacher encourages the student who disagrees with them, provided that disagreement is couched in solid reasoning. Of course there are bad teachers in the world, but Megan is talking about the "elites", not part time adjuncts to the Dance dept of Midwest State Tech. But it's still all tribal.

And the idea that academia exerts no pressures to conform is spectacularly hilarious to anyone who's ever spent any time at all around academics. Perhaps the funniest sight I have ever witnessed is the spectacle of a sociologist cruising straight past the analyses of power relationships and group norms that they apply to every single other facet of human existence, and insisting that the underrepresentation of conservatives in academic [sic] could only be explained by the fact that conservatives are a bunch of money-grubbing intellectual lightweights who can't stand rigorous examinations of their ideas, and moreover are too intolerant to fit into the academic community.

A movement conservative would be spectacularly unqualified for the field of sociology. It'd be like asking George Bush to lead a seminar on self-reflection.

The sociologist, you see, is inside academia, and so able to analyze it better than outsiders. Also, the sociologist knows that neither they, nor any of their friends, is biased, so the answer must be that there's something wrong with conservatives.

It's odd, given this lack of bias, that one repeatedly hears from untenured academics who are in the closet. "Passing" is not usually a behavior one finds in a community where there is no prejudice.

Now, I think that affirmative action for conservatives would be an even worse idea than regular affirmative action; conservative intellectual life doesn't need to get any flabbier than it already is. But the Larry Summers speech should certainly give one pause. That it seems to have made so little impression on liberal academics should make the rest of us very worried indeed.

I honestly feel like I'm stealing this post from Sadly, No! The bullshit and strawmen are so thick this could be a Peggy Noonan column. What's odd to me, Megan, is that there's no tenured profs that "we", in the unsourced, unfounded, anecdotal sense, are "hearing from" on an anti-conservative bias. As you probably like to whine about tenure, Megan, being the closet conservative you more and more clearly are, and how hard it is to fire someone who's earned it, you'd expect some of those who "passed" to come out of the closet once they made it.
The ironic thing about this post of Megan's is it provides a wonderful example of why movement conservatives don't do well in academia. She whines about how unfair something is, but her entire argument rests on anecdote, which does not correspond to the reality experienced by trained professionals. Therefore, the entire field of trained professionals is wrong, and she is right. This, Megan, is very poor logic.
And, of course, Megan's next post is titled Blogging will be light

I'm on deadline, and also have to give a speech to some MBA students. Go interact with that "real" world I keep hearing so much about.

Good thing you're a glibertarian and not a conservative, Megan, else you'd just have anecdotally disproved your own thesis.

It's called the primary process, Megan

This reminds me so much of Jon Stewart putting Tucker Carlson temporarily out of work on Crossfire, only I'm no Jon Stewart, and I don't get to say this on national tv, and Megan won't be fired.

What's weird is, in their quest to nominate a candidate who can win, it seems like Democrats are going to pick the one with the greatest chance of losing. After the disaster of the Bush administration, it seems hard to imagine any Republican pulling a victory out of this next election. But Hillary seems like the Democratic candidate most likely to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Unlike the other Democrats, she has absolutely enormous negative baggage, and it's all going to come out during the general election. The only reason it hasn't already (or so I mote) is that the other Democratic candidates are trying to avoid doing anything to tarnish the nostalgic glow that currently surrounds the last Democratic presidency. The GOP candidate will have no such restraint. Moreover, I think Democrats are underestimating just how suspicious Americans will be of a presidential roster that goes Bush . . . Clinton . . . Bush . . . Clinton.

Megan, you think Hillary wants to steal your money. Stop pretending you have legitimate or intelligent issues with her candidacy. It's simple, and obvious.
But besides that, let's do a comparison of negatives between the two leading candidates. Hillary- hated by the 25-30% hardcore backwash Bush supporters (along with everyone else on the entire planet. Those folk do little else in life besides hate, and help Bush destroy the country), seen, inaccurately, as very liberal. That's about it. You may hate her for her failed health care efforts in the past, Megan, but in today's environment that's as much a positive as negative, I'd think. People who aren't selfish, racist, pieces of shit like you, Megan, should be gladdened by the prospect of a president who recognizes the gravity of the situation, and even has experience fighting against this particular machine. Basically, Hillary's massive negatives are that people who would never vote for a Democrat really loathe her.
Now, how about Rudy? As even Megan accepts, he's batshit insane, in a genuinely terrifying way. Plus, he's a pro-choice pro-gun control hardcore conservative, meaning a huge portion of his base is in opposition to him on what are, to them, two crucial issues. And then there are the serial philanderer, married his cousin, tried to move his lover into the Mayor's Gracie Mansion while still married debacles. A public adulterer versus the most famously cheated-on woman in modern history, if not ever. Oh, and her husband was a very popular and successful president who demonstrated an ability to beat the very Republicans our nation is coming to realize are effectively suicidal madmen who don't care who they take down with them.
You're officially a Beltway insider now, Megan, for spewing that crap.

U go girl

Megan takes a stand.

Alex Massie ponders the question. Myself, I don't care what they say or do--"they" are a bunch of troglodyte enemies of freedom whose outsized envy of a success motivates them, not to try to surpass our achievement, but only to tear down ours. I will never denounce, much less renounce, the proud franchise I was born to. Nor will I permit others to do so in my presence. And no matter what Alex may argue, I will never, ever bring myself to believe that a rank political opportunist like Hillary Clinton could possibly get us out of the mess we are in.

Hell yeah. USA USA USA!!!!! The only thing separating this from a Pam Atlas or Debbie Schlussel rant was a reminder than anyone who disagrees is anti-semitic.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "LALALALALALALALA" is neither patriotic not intelligent, Megan. Then again, this post makes me wonder if that's all you've been doing for the last 6 years.
It's not a monolithic "they", Megan. And I'm going to say no more, because the stream of expletives is proving hard to choke back. Ye gods you are an idiot, Megan.

Update:
Anon in comments warns me this was meant to be a joke about the "fall" of the Yankees. I feel a little foolish, but let's remember not to blame the audience when Megan's material falls flat. Also, there's that old 2x4 crack, which was very much in my mind while reading this.
Additionally, Yankee fans know why the rest of you hate us. It's called jealousy. Some of us have, by birthright, the chance to enjoy the efforts of the most successful sports franchise in history. Yeah, yeah, Steinbrenner is a dick, but unlike, say, Jeffery Loria, he cares about his team's success and takes a substantially smaller profit to try and contribute to it.
And just remember this, folks. If the Yanks didn't spend that money on payroll, it'd be going into Steinbrenner's pockets.

The differences between Megan and Jonah Goldberg are dwindling by the day

This post is sure to bring out the cranks in Megan's audience.

And yes, she is citing Wikipedia as the basis for her arguments on whether or not participation in Social Security is voluntary.

I know

This is just screaming for mockery. But Megan beat me to it by writing it in the first place.

Megan, just admit it

You read this blog.

However, I am also not prepared to get all huffy and indignant because conservatives dared to question whether Graeme Frost needed S-Chip. Obviously, nut jobs harassing the Frosts, or calling employers, or performing all of the other nutty invasions of privacy that I have read about, are vile creatures who have gone far, far beyond the bounds of human decency, with less reason than is generally offered by the perpatrator of the latest road rage indignity. But a number of people seem to believe that the very act of questioning whether Graeme Frost really needed the state to pay for his health care is somehow tantamount to accusing him of mopery while simultaneously suggesting that he be chopped up into small pieces and served flambeed to a party of laughing Republicans along with their Bébé Irakien en Croute.

Maybe, Megan, it's possible to make a case against S-CHIP without going after crippled kids? Oh, but the Dems are the truly bad ones, cause they started it by giving the kid a platform to speak out.

The reason that Democrats put him up on the radio in the first place is that they thought Graeme Frost's need was a better argument for S-Chip than any boring old policy discussion. Well, if you make Graeme Frost's needs the measure of the program's success, then you can expect the program's opponents to question Graeme Frost's needs.

Democrats put him on the radio, of course, precisely because they expected him to be some sort of trump card whose need could not successfully be challenged. And in fact, I think they succeeded. But children should not be played like trump cards.

Yeah, how dare the Dems put a human face on an issue affecting actual humans? This isn't Reagan's non-existent welfare queen or Bush's snowflake babies. Graeme Frost wasn't being manipulative, he was being honest. The Dems were minorly manipulative, but they were not dishonest. That's why the lies are now flying from the right, because his case is real, the facts are true, and there's no response available except attacking the messenger. That you don't find this tact distasteful to its core does not speak well of you, Megan.

Oh, and yeah, Radiohead are a great band. Amazing scoop, Mizz Woodward.

Update:

In response to Instaputz, Megan sez

It's a fair point; I suppose, in the end, it's a judgement call. I think that making this a loud debate frames Republicans as people who want to deny health care to children. On the other hand, I think that if Republicans had let S-Chip go through, that would rob the Democrats of many of their poster children for a broader national system next year. I'm sympathetic to the arguments about creeping socialism, etc; but ultimately I think that this political battle is lost, so it's best to cede quickly.

On the other hand, as I've stated, I'm broadly sympathetic to the goal of providing health care and other goods to children, so perhaps your mileage will vary.

Which seems to amount to "I'm in publicly in favor of helping kids, but providing health care to people is still 'creeping socialism'. If only the Dems hadn't been so smart as to put a human face on the issue... I mean, the Dems are dishonest and want to give my money to someone who is not me."

I may be a wage slave, but at least my liberty remains uncorroded

Continuing from brad's able dissection of Megan's latest buffoonery, I'm struck by what seems to be hiding underneath all those oh-so-rational objections to expanding SCHIP (and to a hypothetical universal health care system, for that matter). It is, if the commentariat at McArdle's place is at all representative, a desire to punish people for having the gall to be poor, or to eschew wage slavery and near-indentured servitude and actually pursue a career that makes them happy.

Many in McArdle's gallery of glibertarians (and elsewhere on the intertubes) are expressing envy that Graeme Frost's father gets to work with wood all day, instead of spending 40 hours a week in a soul-deadening routine of writing code or selling burial plots over the phone or writing the next great toothpaste ad (all jobs I've done myself, so I can sympathize with wanting more out of a career). I've seen several comments that follow the same basic template: they say "I'd love to be able to play with wood all day, but I chose to get a job that has health care benefits for my family," but they won't quite come out and say that the Frosts and people like them should suffer for that choice - even though it's clearly the point they want to make.

Here's a perfect example. Someone at Megan's place wrote this comment: "I don't get to work in the woodworking arena (something I'd dearly love to do). I'm a wage slave in large part because I've always felt it necessary to have a job that provided health insurance for my family." This guy made his choice - he sacrificed a career doing something he loves for the security of health insurance. And that's fine. I've made cautious decisions like that myself. But instead of looking at the Frosts and thinking, hey, if I could get me some of that insurance, it might mean I could quit this shitty job and go spend my limited time on Earth doing something I actually enjoy doing, he seems to be arguing that since he had to choose between a fulfilling career and getting health insurance, everyone else should also have to make that choice. I may not have a career I like, these people think, but at least I have health insurance - and out of sheer envy decide that because Mr. Frost does in fact have the former, he doesn't deserve the latter. If I can't have both, why should he?

This, of course, is idiotic. Something along the lines of a universal health care system would mean that people aren't tethered to dead-end or psychically numbing jobs simply because they know that a single health care emergency has the potential to bankrupt their families. So why wouldn't people like this guy from Megan's comment section want it? Universal health care would allow this guy to follow his dreams. But he'd rather remain a wage slave because under universal health care, he'd experience a Corrosion of Liberty or something?

Does that make any sense to you?

Update: Or, to put it in a way that the self-styled World's Tallest Female Econoblogger and her minions might understand . . . for this guy, the utility of him simultaneously having the career he wants and health insurance is actually lower than the utility of having to choose between one or the other. He would rather have less, which is hardly the behavior of the eminently rational Homo Economicus. Determining whether this is due to government involvement (and thus the pernicious Corrosion of Liberty threat that apparently goes along with that) or to his own bitterness about wasting his life working a job he hates is an exercise left to the reader.

In Rainbows is out

check yer emails, one or two other people who'll see this tonight.

And holy fucking jebus, is it good.
Best since Kid A.

But videotape was substantially better in the live, full band form it once had.