The New England Journal of Forensic Blogginess

To M. Bouffant's string of classic McArdlisms - "I'm generally kind of...," "My general feeling...," "It seems to me..." - we can now add this stunner:

It strikes to me that this vice is on the rise right now for several reasons:

Forensic writing analysis suggests that McArdle thought "It strikes me," began writing and then experienced a minor brain event two words in. Perhaps the word "strikes" disturbed her, what with its connotation of organized labor unions (eek) mobilizing to conduct work stoppages (gah), and in that moment of visceral horror McArdle lost the plot. So urgent was her repressive response that she believed that she had, in fact, written "occurs" instead of "strikes," and soldiered on appropriately.

Perhaps the distraction was more earthy. From her subsequent post, on the occasion of the New York Times' dismantling of its failed TimesSelect model:

I expect that the pay barriers at the Wall Street Journal will therefore remain erect for quite some time.

If your barriers remain erect for more than four hours, call a doctor.

Sidebar Trivialities

The Comment of the Week @ Asymmetrical Information has been there for over a week, hasn't it? The comment itself is dated 9 September 2007.

And the GADGET OF THE WEEK, also known as the Object of the week, has been the same since I left a comment pointing out that "Dalmatian" is misspelled as "Dalmation." (And it remains so.) That was some time ago, Ms. McArdle, can't you summon the energy to pimp properly? Don't you get a free whatever it is you share w/ your loyal readership? Or at least cheap books (there's a link to Amazon.com right there in the pimpin' section)? Heckfire, let's just copy & paste the whole damn thing, saving you, the reader, trouble, & saving a click that might increase her count.

Object of the week
I'm generally kind of skeptical of those all-in-one "It's a Dalmation, and it's also a delicious breakfast drink!" kind of gadgets. My general feeling is that I'd rather have a good phone than a mediocre camera. But I am completely in love with my new multi-function printer, which has already saved me several dollars in faxing and copy fees. It's a laser, not an inkjet, so it's decently fast and sharp, and best of all, it hooks straight into my wireless network. I chuckle with glee every time I use it.

"I'm generally kind of...," "My general feeling...," & the other phrase that will go down in early 21st century history: "It seems to me..." Please, don't be afraid to believe something, or to state it firmly. There's no free lunch! You have to work for everything, before the mean old gov't. snatches it from your very hand & uses it to murder the widows & orphans of those it's previously murdered.

None of the Atlantic's other "Voices" have such pimpery. Sully & Fallows do pimp their books, but that's it, & fair enough. Does she have a side deal going w/ Amazon? Maybe she has to get a certain amount of clicks/sales before the possible book discount kicks in, & she's just going to leave the multi-function printer there until she gets them. That's the free market for you.

A Little Direction & More Megastats

When doing an accent, whether on stage, in film/television, on the radio, or typing a "web log" (blogging's semi-conversational, y'know) it is vital to maintain the accent. Therefore, "Ve haff vays of making you vork," would be better rendered thusly: "Ve haff vays uff making you verk." Or even: "uhff." Take it from Hollywood.

Megastats:

For 16 September 2007: Goose Eggs. Reason(s) given: Attending conference, "traipsing around open houses w/ sister." (Another "overgrown elf?")

For 17 September 2007:
# of Items: 8
First Post: 0946 EDT
Last Post: 1813 EDT
Line Count: A lot. Can any of our readers help us out? (Just kidding. Maybe she does that to suck her readers into her "vortex," Althouse-style.)

Ratio: Pretty good, actually. Significantly more McA. than Copied & Pasted.
And she did it all w/ a "nasty cold."

Cheap Shot Dep't.: Pardon my gibe about rooming w/ animals: "Helpful hints for life: We can only hope neither parenthood nor rooming w/ an animal are in Megatron's future." Internet investigation has revealed that Ms. McA's dog died:

What has been your worst blogging experience? > Having commenters tell me to get over it when my dog died.

& she was sad about it. (Although her commenters telling her to "get over it" may be an indication of the heartlessness of the libertarian commenting classes.) As long as the death wasn't the result of her dog being swung by its tail, it may be OK for Megan to have pets. I'll have to stick w/ the no parenthood advice for the moment.

It lives!

*joygasm*
Advice on home-buying, germans, and inflation. Ohhhhh, my.
I actually have to head out, meaning no Camille tonight from me unless latenight, but Fishbone looks to have some nice juicy material to work with. I started a response to the German piece, but I'm not an economist or statistician, so I kept bumping into questions I had no idea how to answer. I know, I'm just like Megan, only I'm not paid by a noted national magazine to blog, making it a bit more acceptable for me to not spend half an hour googling as a really basic form of research. That said, the economic impact of absorbing a Soviet satellite state would seem, to me, who's been to what was East Germany and seen how badly harmed even the landscape itself was, to be something that might just take more than 17 years to fully overcome.
I mean, how long do you think it will take us to undo the damage Cheney/Bush has done? A little malicious governance goes a long way.

Megastats

General State of Health: ...[N]asty cold, which has been retreating and resurging for the better part of three weeks.

Personal Responsibility Index: Has been illin' for approx. three weeks. Has not yet seen a doctor, or hasn't shared w/ us if she has. Possible that her Atlantic health coverage hasn't yet kicked in. If it is something infectious, she's been sharing it w/ her colleagues. If she's sick, why was she out carrying on just last Thursday? From Wonkette, as previously noted:

I saw Ezra Klein and Megan McArdle at the Wonderland bar trivia last night. They were pretty quiet...

From herself:

I'd be surprised to find that I'm running as much as two degrees of fever [...] Can readers comment?

Here's a comment: There are three ways to determine your temperature.
1. Oral thermometer.
2. One of those baby thermometers you stick in baby's ear so baby doesn't bite the end off an oral thermometer. (May not be accurate for determining adult temps.)
3. Thermometer that goes in at the other end of the gastro-intestinal tract.
(I thought these libertarians were all go-getters, taking responsibility, doing it for themselves, etc.?)

Stupidest Comment from a Commenter Today (So Far):

The first question that must be answered logically, and not just flippantly, is "Does everyone need to have health coverage?"

The next problem that comes up, is that with the government regulating everything of any consequence and power, such as health coverage, your individual freedoms are cheapened and provide less liberty to the individual.

Can a Liberal-Progressive tell me why they would want to give up their personal Liberties, or any vestige of them?
Posted by Acculturist September 17, 2007 11:32 AM

No further comment required. (How could one answer that without flippancy?) You may, however, need to bang your head on something a few times, to loosen any idiocy that may have gotten stuck inside, and allow you to shake it out.

Looks like our muse took a loooong lunch. We'll be back later w/ the final stats of the day.

And see what the America's Future Foundation says about Ms. McA., since, as brad mentions below, she's judging their college blogging contest.

Our muse returns

Apparently it was windy in Northern Virginia over the weekend, and (as Clem documents below) our heroine is a little ill, leading to another light day of work. Isn't it great how Americans have wonderful jobs where if they feel a tiny bit feverish they can go home after an hour? Socialized health care would just put red tape in the way of people being good to each other. And it would mean they'd break into my house and steal my belongings to raise money to give to poor people in case they ever got sick. Hell no!
However, the big news is that, thanks to us totally knowing Meg and like, sitting with her at lunch, she's gonna slip us ten million dollars! $10,000.
I genuinely am in grad school right now, and who couldn't use 10 large? Thanks, Meg.
It pays to have connections, eh? The free market of ideas is soooooooooooooo about who you know, like, srsly.

I'd do Meg's stats, but that's M. Bouffant's thing.

Atlas Coughs, Fails To Cover Mouth

Megan McArdle has a cold.

I've got a nasty cold, which has been retreating and resurging for the better part of three weeks.

As a fellow human being, I sympathize. Announcing a wee cold on an Atlantic blog could be cited as evidence of the further diminution of a once-prestigious venue, but I'm trying to keep an open mind. Last week, journalism blogger Jay Rosen posted a revealing exchange with an anonymous White House reporter. The upshot was that the press corps slavishly attends to the President's activities to maintain the Body Watch: if the President takes ill, draws a bullet or detonates a fuel-cell powered car by sticking the cord in the wrong receptacle, journalists need to be there to file timely reports. So, while I don't find the story of Megan's cold particularly interesting, we'd be remiss not to follow the story, especially if the simple cold turned out to be the early stages of MEBS (McGilicuddy's Exploding Bone Syndrome).

"How are you feeling today, Ms. McArdle?"

Today is a resurgent day, prompting me to wonder: why do you feel cold when you're running a slight fever?

"Oh, ---- this." (Throws chair, rips off press ID, stalks outside.)

I realize there's a stronger contrast between your internal temperature and the outside, but I'd be surprised to find that I'm running as much as two degrees of fever, so the contrast can't have increased that much. Can readers comment?

Oh, she's fine. Same old McArdle. She could learn about the correlation between fever and chills with a few keystrokes, but why do that when others will do the work pro bono? The free marketplace triumphs again!

Coming soon: "A beautiful, cloudless sky today, prompting me to wonder: why aren't contrails called jetstreams?"

Thanks to Brad for inviting me to post here.

Do you want steak fries with that?

Or would it be "steak frys"?

If BigMediaMatt (unfortunately, not a blogonym of my own making) is going to read the Des Moines Register so that we don't have to, then posts such as this one aren't going to cut it:

Barack Obama shifts toward the Edwards/Dodd position on Iraq funding.

The one thing his post has going for it is as an example to Teh Megan in how not to appear to be getting paid by the word.

Yglesias also fails to address the most important item in the article's lede...what's a steak fry, anyway? Whatever it is, we know that

More than two tons of steak sizzled from massive grills, which kicked out enough food to feed more than 12,000 people, according to organizers’ estimates.

Climbing on the Bandwagon

Not the Yankee bandwagon, but the Meganmobile. Trex @ firedoglake (Alright, he was on board a couple of days before we were.):

Once when we were in our twenties I asked my twin brother what exactly a Libertarian was. “A Republican who owns a bong,” was his highly informative response.

As always w/ FDL, read the comments @ your own risk.

Megastats

For Saturday 15 September 2007:

Goose Eggs. So far.

However (From Wonkette. Looks like they have to go in the bookmarks too.):

I saw Ezra Klein and Megan McArdle at the
Wonderland bar trivia last night. They were pretty quiet, although they did argue one question about where Chernobyl happened (I thought they had a point).

That was Thursday night. Possibly explaining Friday's low post count. Oh, to be younger & boozin' again.