I'm glad that that Atlantic is doing its part to remind me why I no longer subscribe to it. I suppose Sullivan has fallen down on the job of blithely repackaging disingenuous right-wing talking points.
Yeah, it takes several wingers to balance out Yglesias's flaming liberalism. Douthat isn't up to the job do to a smartness deficit. It's hard to write effectively while carrying the double burdens of winger ideology and mediocrity.
Douthat isn't up to the job
I've always wondered if his real life nickname is "Don't".
According to D^D and I it's "Anything for Love".
McArdle can go to hell, along with whoever it was at the Atlantic that decided they really needed not one, not two, but three right-wingers to balance out their token liberal, and that the third one had to be an utterly disingenuous hack.
I don't know who Brian Beutler is; I see him linked from Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias all the time, and gathered he was a friend of theirs, proving once again that the surest path to success in the blogosphere is personally knowing someone who has already succeeded in the blogosphere.
"Anything For Love But I Won't"/i>
That can't be right. Then saying "I would do 'Anything For Love But I Won't' Douthat" would be equivalent to saying "I would do Ross Douthat".
Sullivan may be a right-winger, but at least he isn't a Republican hack.
at least he isn't a Republican hack.
That's something of a recent development, though.
7: Although someone who thought that about Becks would be getting the causation entirely backwards.
the surest path to success in the blogosphere is personally knowing someone who has already succeeded in the blogosphere.
If only. I hear blowjobs are required. And they had better be good.
11: Yeah, but that was a special case. Special... and creepy. Moving in with your internet friends? Bleeeeeeeyyyyyyeeehhehhhhhh!
You all are haters. Yes, I'm RL friends with both Beutler and McArdle but they're worth reading despite that.
Sorry, I'm sure McArdle makes a mean mac and cheese and everything, but she's still deranged.
(Politically / journalistically speaking.)
Beyond her actual beliefs, Megan has a tendency to bait liberals, and she shouldn't be upset if we aggressively fail to love her. Probably she thinks it was all good fun, but three or four years ago when Bush was riding high things were pretty nasty for us.
The "ou" in Ross's name is pronounced like "thou".
How's the "th" pronounced -- like "that" or "thistle"?
Yeah, how the hell do you pronounce the whole thing?
McArdle seemed nice enough in person, but as far as I can tell, but she isn't worth reading, unless you really enjoy the "she can't possibly believe the ridiculous shit she just wrote" genre.
Armsmasher, this is like the Mexican polkas all over again. Unfogged is not interested in nit-picky detail.
And anyway, back in Latvia or Bilbao or Moldava or wherever it was "Doo-that". The family only changed the pronunciation when they learned English and found out about the Meat Loaf song.
Her response to Quiggin is absolute winger crap.
One too many buts in that comment there.
18: Things "were" pretty nasty for us? Are things suddenly awesome now? Because last I heard we're still bogged down in a couple endless and unwinnable foreign wars which have given the executive branch and the security state unprecedented power over both the rest of the government and the ordinary citizenry, multiple signs point to another war on the horizon, the government has the more or less unchecked right to torture anyone it wants until they go insane, and our elected Democratic representatives were still rolling over on this on a regular basis.
McArdle has also been pretty warm to torture in the past, so again I have to say, she can go to hell.
Yes, Stras, but we're popular again.
When a name has five or ten equally plausible pronunciations in English and there is no possible way to know which one is right, I usually just draw on some language with actual rules for pronunciation to decide how to say it in my head. "Douthat" becomes "Doo-tah".
McArdle seemed nice enough in person
There are lots of people who are probably really nice in person who nonetheless shouldn't be promoted as pundits because they regularly profess loathsome views. Glenn Reynolds, for all I know, is an incredibly nice guy in person. But why should I care? It's not a reason to read his blog, much less respect his views.
Oh man, you just convinced me to add Galt to my Bloglines? Oy. Like far too many (read: nearly all) Libertarians she's either an oblivious idiot or disengenuous and morally bankrupt (very personable in person, though).
This little exchange (in which McArdle dismisses anti-Iraq War arguments in January 2007 as an example of a stopped clock being right twice a day) reminds me why I think that Julian Sanchez is worth reading and McArdle very much isn't. I'm sure she's a fun person, but she's a better writer than thinker and a better thinker than moral entity.
Megan's coment section is a creep echo chamber, almost all agreeing with her.
http://www.janegalt.net/archives/009964.php
Megan McArdle consistently writes some of the dumbest stuff I've ever read. I'm not going to read Brian Beutler so as to do my part from preventing comment 7 from being true.
Megan has a tendency to bait liberals,
Sadly, I don't think that's true. I think she genuinely believes it's possible to be a police state libertarian (lovely phrase from Atrios). It's a little gross, but whatever. My sense is she means to be a decent person, and that she's nice in the quotidian sense that usually matters.
Whatever else, Beautler seems pretty smart, and when I've clicked through before, he's been generally interesting to read.
32: And God forgive me, she's cuter than she's a good writer.
But of course her appearance should be neither here nor there. I have a nasty habit of getting into testy little arguments in her comments, which I don't particularly enjoy after I've finished.
I only know her from her writing. She could be May Poppins in the body of Scarlett Johannson working in Mother Theresa's mission, and it wouldn't make me like her.
We are so not getting into a discussion on what female bloggers are hot or not.
I was reaching for something good to say about her. Pleasant manners, cute, not a practicing sociopath....
McArdle:Becks::Instapundit:Ogged
Ogged is banned!
Megan has a tendency to bait liberals,
Sadly, I don't think that's true
You know, there's a limit to how much one should psychoanalyze people you disagree with, but watch me do it anyway. The 'Jane Galt' pseud was always weird, particularly from someone who's denied being any kind of Objectivist. Naming yourself after a character from a book that's Generally Recognized as Stupid, when you're not even one of the people who actually thinks it's clever, suggests an overattachment to tweaking the noses of people you disagree with.
Someone calling themselves 'Jane Galt' because they thought Ayn Rand was the wisest of all philosophers would be insane. But someone calling themselves 'Jane Galt' because it really annoys liberals, sounds like someone who gets more of her identity than is really a good idea out of annoying liberals.
Pleasant manners
And she is interpersonally very decent. I don't know her personally at all -- my only contact with her is arguing with her in her comments. Still, she's consistently civil and reasonable (or, at least as civil as I am, which is the only standard I'm going to hold anyone else to.)
Wait, so she's not actually an Objectivist? Bizarre.
"Tee hee" counts as baiting to me. Her snarkiness would be excusable (I'm not someone who could object, obviously) if her torture libertarianism weren't loathsome.
As long as we're on the subject, I'll link this golden oldie from the Jane Galt archives, where McArdle brings herself to "counterintuitively" endorse torture by means of - gasp! - a hypothetical in which you have to choose between torturing a terrorist or letting Osama kill your child. The amazing thing isn't just the head-shaking more-in-sorrow condescension of the post, it's the fact that she honestly seems to think she's making an original argument.
We are so not getting into a discussion on what female bloggers are hot or not.
Indeed, such questions are beyond mere mortals to comprehend and should be left to the wisdom of the bots.
"Tee hee" counts as baiting to me.
I think you're misreading that. I think...and I admit I'm guessing wildly...that's meant to be womanly, for some Red value of "womanly." They're not quite as androgynous as we are, "old" man.
The 'Jane Galt' pseud was always weird, particularly from someone who's denied being any kind of Objectivist.
IIRC, it was a pseudonym she picked as a joke to needle another poster on some message board back in the 90's. She then used it as her email address, since her real name was already taken by someone else on hotmail or whatever, and it has stuck around ever since then.
What the hell is it with these torture libertarians anyway? It's one thing to be a crypto-fascist, but if you've been calling yourself a libertarian for a number of years, how can you turn on a dime and toss out most of your political beliefs? If tried something like that, smoke would come out of my ears. If there were only one or two TLs out there, it might be easier to explain, but guys like Jim Henley and Julian Sanchez seem to be in the minority. I do not understand American politics.
not a practicing sociopath....
Objection; assumes facts not in evidence.
Better that one or two people get electrodes hooked to their genitals than America cave to tax-hiking, trans-fat-banning liberalism, fm.
43: I think that you're missing the large middle ground that probably most libertarians place Rand into: an author who saw some problems and highlighted those problems in compelling ways, and whose proposed solutions to those problems, while simplistic and extreme, had a certain resonance. So, not an Objectivist, but not holding Rand in the distaste that y'all liberals do, either.
That said, I think that McArdle probably does bait liberals. Speaking as someone who used to identify considerably more with the Republicans than the Democrats, it's hard to get over some of the knee-jerk reactions to liberals, even after a lot of my substantive views shifted left, and I started to regard it as essential for the Democrats to gain power in the country. I think that I probably bait liberals from time to time. And I'm way more left-libertarian than McArdle is.
44: Still, she's consistently civil and reasonable
...and living proof that civility is an overrated virtue.
51: if you've been calling yourself a libertarian for a number of years, how can you turn on a dime and toss out most of your political beliefs
This is assumes one has coherent beliefs in the first place, which ain't necessarily so. For some people being "libertarian" was just a hipper way to resent leftists.
Glad you said that, Epoch. What's the source of your reactions, that are so hard to get over?
And she is interpersonally very decent.
Why should this be remarkable? It's the rare person who's as aggressive in person as they are online.
I thought the name Jane Galt was slightly clever. My impression, unlike Epoch's, is that a significant fraction of libertarians regard Ayn Rand's books as stupid, but don't make a big deal of it out of politeness. It would like if 50 percent of liberals were liberals because of Catcher in the Rye.
If there were only one or two TLs out there, it might be easier to explain, but guys like Jim Henley and Julian Sanchez seem to be in the minority.
Yeah, Mona at Henley's site was bitching about liberal/Dem/Blue misperceptions about libertarians, and the commenters were explaining that the fault lay not in the liberals, but in the vast number of schmibs flying under a false flag. Most doing so seemingly without realizing it, which makes me think a little of the fault lies with actual libertarians.
I meant 'interpersonally very decent' online. While Becks knows her offline, I don't.
Someday someone will explain why liberals, despite being basically right about government policy, are roughly ten times more personally annoying than conservatives. Is it because people who want to make things better are basically complainy, unhappy people? I don't know, but I'd rather hang out with the purity ball dads than the folks from the vegan co-op.
I'd rather hang out with the purity ball dads
I get the feeling you haven't actually done this, Ogged.
Someday someone will explain why liberals, despite being basically right about government policy, are roughly ten times more personally annoying than conservatives.
Oh, I don't know, perhaps some kind of sampling bias?
Dunno, Ogged. What do you think is wrong with you that you're annoyed by people who are right about stuff?
And I'm way more left-libertarian than McArdle is.
She's not a libertarian. Left and right have nothing to do with it. She just doesn't like taxes or restrictions on corporations or capital.
roughly ten times more personally annoying than conservatives
And I think you're suffering from confirmation bias, Mr. Living in the Most Liberal Area in the United States. Come spend a little time down in Dixie (and not the blue enclave I live in) and see whether you still believe that.
56: I think it's just pure us-vs-them-ism. Which is funny, 'cause even back in the 90's, when I was at my most conservative, I consciously tried not to have a side, but to just pick my stance on the issues that mattered to me independently of where the battle-lines were drawn.
But, of course, you do have a side, even if you try to hold them at a bit of remove -- there are going to be people who you more agree with than disagree, and those you more disagree with than agree. And after a few years of that, you pick up an emotional distaste for "them," and cast stereotypes on "them" even as you know it's silly.
if you've been calling yourself a libertarian for a number of years, how can you turn on a dime and toss out most of your political beliefs?
Show me a Libertarian and I'll show you a conservative who likes to smoke pot.
Yeah, I'd call her something more like a Rockefeller Republican.
Certainly the annoying behavior of vegans fully justifies the Iraq War. If Bush had only thought of that, instead of chattering about WMD and al Qaeda, the war would be much less controversial.
54: I have friends like that. One guy in particular describes current torture policy as "inefficient", but has no problem describing "political correctness" and the EPA as "evil."
55:Few enough people have coherent political beliefs, I suppose. I just assumed that the substance of the politics one uses to window-dress one's prejudices would at some point cause cognitive dissonance.
I think you're suffering from confirmation bias, Mr. Living in the Most Liberal Area in the United States
This is probably true.
Damn.
Something I've wondered for a couple of years now is if liberals are particularly annoying in some way. People who are anti-liberal just to stick it to liberals are not that rare.
Now that I live in a Red state, I was surprised to discover that vegan coop people are less annoying than purity ball dads. Back when I lived in Bluesville, the vegan co-op type were the most annoying people I ever interacted with, but now they're practically my people.
I'd rather hang out with the purity ball dads than the folks from the vegan co-op.
Sure, but that's just because you're not as creeped out by incest as the rest of us are. Boy out of Iran, etc.
68: The pot-smoking libertarians are okay. It's the ones who get all exercised equating Social Security taxes with Khmer Rouge re-education camps that you want to keep an eye on.
Sadly, 71 is pretty close to the thought processes of some people, though not quite that conscious.
65: Eh, whatever, I hate definition wars. The brand of political thought that McArdle exemplifies is held by a fairly large number of people who self-identify as libertarians. I'm willing to call them "right-libertarians" and my brand "left-libertarians," or whatever. Just so long as it's moderately clear what we're all talking about.
Still, she's consistently civil and reasonable (or, at least as civil as I am, which is the only standard I'm going to hold anyone else to.)
Fuck you, how dare you suggest this comment isn't civil. No offense intended.
There we have it. Like all liberals, I love definition wars. Epoch is the enemy!
Now that I live in a Red state, I was surprised to discover that vegan coop people are less annoying than purity ball dads. Back when I lived in Bluesville, the vegan co-op type were the most annoying people I ever interacted with, but now they're practically my people.
Interesting. Thanks for the report from the front, Walt.
I think the libertarian/propertarian division is a pretty good one.
I have always been at war with Walt Someguy.
Now I'm going to go cry about the fact that somewhere there are people more annoying than the vegan co-op people.
I've said this before, but in Chicago last year there was a right-wing radio talk station whose simple slogan, delivered on billboards in text, without any other positioning, was "Liberals hate it." 'nuf said, apparently.
Men who organize lynch mobs can actually be cordial and charming. A friend of mine met one when his family moved to N. Fla. around 1960.
Show me a Libertarian and I'll show you a conservative who likes to smoke pot.
Being stoned makes it easier to tolerate the ravages of laissez-faire capitalism.
There is something deeply annoying about the BA vegan types' propensity to conduct civil society via bumper stickers.
There is something deeply annoying about
...white guys with dreadlocks.
There is something deeply annoying about the BA vegan types' propensity to conduct civil society via bumper stickers.
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention, man.
Someday someone will explain why liberals, despite being basically right about government policy, are roughly ten times more personally annoying than conservatives.
I'm not sure this is true. Irrespective of left-right orientation, those predicting apocalypse and decline are almost always more irritating than non-apocalyptic people. And I suspect the arrow of causation goes both way on this one (miserable people are more likely to hold apocalyptic beliefs, and apocalyptic beliefs incline you to misery).
It is perhaps possible that the behavior of the apocalyptic right is improved by independent reasons to behave decently. Namely, given that they are usually professing Christians, they are officially committed to a) a non-instrumental view of other people and b) a love the sinner hate the sin doctrine. Whether this official commitment plays out in practice, I can't speak to, but I do think that *non*-religious apocalyptic right wingers tend to be super-irritating.
89: Like the 'Cooked Food is Poison' sticker I saw on a pickup, right over the tailpipe.
There is something deeply annoying about the BA vegan types' propensity to conduct civil society via bumper stickers.
The vegans' bumper stickers are not the worst. Not by a long shot.
Irrespective of left-right orientation, those predicting apocalypse and decline are almost always more irritating than non-apocalyptic people. And I suspect the arrow of causation goes both way on this one (miserable people are more likely to hold apocalyptic beliefs, and apocalyptic beliefs incline you to misery).
Yes, you're right.
The rightwingers who forecast a postapocalyptic war zone of dhimmitude in our future are definitely more irritating than the rightwingers who forecast a new dawn of economic prosperity for all when the government stops messing with the workings of the monopolistic free market.
Aren't all shivs incisive? But a very decent thing to say, anyway.
Seriously to Ogged, where you live, someone who stands out enough that you think of them as a liberal, rather than just melting into the woodwork, is going to be McManus-class out there; someone who stands out as a conservative is probably someone who votes Republican occasionally, but not always.
I'm impressed that the responses to 61 were sufficiently reasonable and convincing to defuse an attempt by ogged to troll his own blog.
How about the left-wingers who forecast a police state?
100: People have to have a sense of humor about habeus corpus, the unitary President, and stuff like that.
Now that I live in a Red state, I was surprised to discover that vegan coop people are less annoying than purity ball dads. Back when I lived in Bluesville, the vegan co-op type were the most annoying people I ever interacted with, but now they're practically my people.
I think there is a phenomenon at work here whereby living amongst a preponderance of one's own kind (1) brings out the worst in individuals; (2) creates mutually reinforcing group dynamics; and (3) imparts a self-confidence to people with annoying views that they otherwise would not possess.
Number three above seems especially underappreciated to me. When you find yourself a fish out of water (liberal in corporate management, liberal in the officer corps, conservative in the women's studies department), you are likely to feel some reticence about expressing your views. And in the event that you do speak up, critical reaction will serve, at the margin, to correct the worst errors of fact and logic.
A vegan coop guy in the Bay Area or a right-wing nut in Red America experiences no such countervailing pressure, so the nutty and annoying aspects of their personalities can flourish like flowers in a hothouse.
On balance, I find the vegan coop guys more personally annoying, because they detract from the places I like to live. But I don't kid myself about which bunch is a bigger danger to the Republic.
61: like other people said: because you live in greater San Francisco, and other places where liberals are more numerous, louder & prouder than the conservatives?
It's still not actually true, though. Try going to law school with even a few members of the Federalists Society's youth auxiliary. The self-described libertarian who went on a hunger strike to protest the state's "execution" of Terri Schiavo actually did mean well, but....
Ah destroyer, why when I was your age it was Republicans who forecast the police state.
Seriously, it's actually hard to imagine what that was like back then. They hated Clinton so much that they wanted to take power AWAY from the police and give the average person MORE privacy?
Someday someone will explain why liberals, despite being basically right about government policy, are roughly ten times more personally annoying than conservatives.
Perhaps it's because some liberals have a tendency to fling out trollish, poorly considered contrarian views with an eye toward seeming open-minded and provocative.
Or it could be something else. I dunno.
Also, ogged? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but I do believe that you are, in fact, a liberal.
How many people here ever have ever heard a neo-Confederate, an Armageddon Christian, or an exterminationist bigot talking politics? They're 10-20% of the electorate, but they've learned to keep their mouths shut in public, and "annoying" is far too weak a word for them.
Guys, I think that everyone firmly agrees now: liberals have no monopoly on annoyingosity.
Ogged's probably still sticking to his selfhating guns about it. But everyone else firmly agrees.
Well, this guy was pretty funny, John.
they've learned to keep their mouths shut in public
Maybe in Minnesota.
No no, I gave in way upthread. I put it trollishly, but I really did think it might be true--but sampling bias is clearly the explanation.
Who was the old man? Your location is no longer classified, after all.
111: I guess we can now reveal that it was Richard Rorty, PBUHis Jingoist Soul.
Clif who?
Is this a knock-knock joke?
When you hear "Clif," what do you think of (after you think of Cliff Clavin)?
When you hear "Clif," what do you think of
This guy my dad used to know, whose license plate read "PRCPC".
I think of a certain LBJ Secretary of Defense.
Nobody, but Google brings up Clif Flynt and Clif Bar.
Really? That guy? I thought he was supposed to be all mellow and everything.
Clif Bar is, like, a health and energy bar for sports morons?
At my local natural food market, there was a rather rumpled older lady bitching to herself about how yuppie the place has gotten. Apparently, the price of tofu had gone up due to the asshole yuppies.
Most people named Cliff are not old enough.
Cliff Floyd? Cliff Robinson? Calista Flockhart?
Clifton Webb and Clifford Odets probably died before Ogged could befriend them.
Really? That guy? I thought he was supposed to be all mellow and everything.
That's why it was particularly hilarious.
I never thought those things were named after a person. I thought it was an abbrevation or something, like Necco wafers.
When you hear "Clif," what do you think of (after you think of Cliff Clavin)?
Cliff's Notes.
I don't get it -- G/ary E/rick/son isn't old enough to remember WWII, is he?
Perhaps it was his father, Cl/iff.
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention
I probably shouldn't admit this here, but when I was a young Alex Keaton type in HS (except that my parents weren't ex-hippies) and my sister came home from college with that sticker on her jacket, it had an effect on me. Because I wasn't, in fact, outraged, and wasn't sure what I should be paying attention to. It made a little chink in the Reagan Youth mental armor I wore at the time.
My sister had a sticker "If you're not outraged, you are not trying to recast your identity as a high priest in the new clerisy of political righteousness." Very small type.
You folks are so mean. We anarcho-syndicalist left- communist Leninist violent revolutionaries view our political opponents with magnanimity and equanimity, for from the correct non-false-consciousness perspective, there is little significant ideological difference between McArdle & Yglesias, or Ezra Klein and Grover Norquist, way way way over there on our right.
Thus we can love our enemies. Only when everyone is your enemy can you grok caritas.
Anyway quit picking on Megan and attack each other as usual.
"If you're not outraged, you are not trying to recast your identity as a high priest in the new clerisy of political righteousness."
So awesome. Someone needs to print this up.
there is little significant ideological difference between McArdle & Yglesias, or Ezra Klein and Grover Norquist,
May be why y'all don't seem to have much traction in American politics.
Bob is objectively pro-Megan. It hurts me to have to say this.
Only when everyone is your enemy can you grok carnitas.
You're all subhuman scum, and I'm going to the taqueria around the corner.
It is perhaps possible that the behavior of the apocalyptic right is improved by independent reasons to behave decently.
I think there's something to that, though I don't think it need be religion. It just needs to be an independent, somewhat fixed sense of the Good, married to an attempt to come to terms with today's world while respecting that sense. I find Douthat much less irritating than McArdle, Derb much less irritating than Goldberg, and Kristol much less irritating than Brooks. In each pair, I'm likely to find the latter's views on any specific issue much more amicable to my own. But the views of the former are anchored by something that is, if only dimly, cognizable to me. Douthat's a serious Catholic, apparently, Derb's basically a Rule Britannia! Brit, and I can see Kristol's Good Society even if I can't name it. Where I find commonalities with those people, I feel I can trust them. With the former, it seems as if their views at any given moment are set at the midpoint between the farthest right Republican ideological positions and what the people they actually want to live around will bear. That lack of fixedness makes alliance or even discussion seem sort of pointless. That these people are pushed forward, so that discussion happens anyway makes me--in some sort of process-respecting sense--a little queasy.
(Reading that over, I think I might have spent a lot of energy just rewording some definition of "hack." Oh well.)
103: That guy was a particularly odd individual, and his stunt was even more useless than the candlelight vigils for Darfur, but there were so many other annoying people you could have chosen to highlight . . . .
I just want to say that it's really unfair that Ross Douchehat gets paid to blog and I don't.
I should be supported by the state!
143:So should we all, young Ben, so should we all.
I just get really fucking bored with the piling-ons, however well-argued and justified. Tim above gave us thumbs up on 3 pundits, thumbs down on 3, with reasons! O'Pollahan sniffs disdainfully, as well he should, for the difference between the power elite and the blogocrats was shown in this thread, and the Atrios/Greenwald/MY/et al ankle-biting.
The blogosphere has the truth, integrity, arguments, and enthusiasms.
O'Hanlon & Pollard helped get Halliburton millions, and get on primetime. They have power. That is all.
143: shoulda gone to state school, Mr. Smarty Pants.
: the 'Cooked Food is Poison' sticker I saw on a pickup, right over the tailpipe.
Awesome. I once met a grass-etarian, but she turned out (as I suppose one might expect) to be completely bonkers.
143: I have a feeling the state will end up footing the bill for your food and lodging eventually.
I saw a bumper sticker recently that said, Keep Reagan dead, 2008. That made me laugh.
The blogosphere has the truth, integrity, arguments, and enthusiasms.
Just an anecdote concerning the power of sampling bias:
I lived in Boston until I was 25, and considered myself a Libertarian of sorts, with no ill feelings towards Republicans really. Repubs in Boston were typically secular and quite sane (e.g. Bill Weld) and Democrats had a tendency toward being corrupt townies (e.g. Billy Bulger).
Then Bill Weld got Borked in his attempt to be ambassador to Mexico for being insufficiently willing to execute pot smokers. And I started to say "huh"?
Then, in a relatively short period of time, I moved to Arizona, the Republican Party went overtly cookoo, "Libertarians" weren't reflexively horrified by Bush, and I started to think old Billy Bulger was actually relatively benign in the larger scheme of things.
McArdle isn't the most worthless hack in the blogsphere, but she's the most worthless hack who is still taken seriously by at least some worthwhile people.
Seriously. On her top page she comes this close to advocating soylent green.
A digression.
One of the companies deconstructing the building at 130 Liberty Street (NYC) is The John Galt Corporation. Standpipe failure, Deutsche Bank, and a Randian company. Sounds like a conspiracy to me.
Further reading of McArdle reveals that the woman is pathologically glib rather than straight-up insane. Given that earlier this week you people had me reading Twisty, this represents Progress.