So Megan is just another dishonest hack? Who would have guessed?

I read Chait’s article, and I think the point he’s making is very important. I’ve seen this scenario play out over the last 25 years, and he’s right. The Laffer curve has always been considered idiotic by anyone with even minimal economic learning.

I prefer my explanation because it doesn’t rely on believing that thirty years ago the Republicans, suddenly and for no apparent reason, become eviler, while simultaneously–luckily for them!–the American public, suddenly and for no apparent reason, became stupider.

What’s funny is she presents this as a silly and non-empirical question, when in fact, it’s fairly demonstrable that 30 years ago the Republicans became, er, “eviler” — though hardly for ‘no apparent reasons,’ unless she means reasons which were not apparent to her, which would possibly include all potential reasons or combinations of reasons — and that the American public became, er, ‘stupider’.

We are in fact finally laying to rest the ‘New Right’ / Reaganite maniacal commitment to evil and public stupidity.

(Or, more charitably, more willing to repeat, express support for, and express belief in, fundamentally stupid ideas. I challenge you to suggest that fearing a Nicaraguan attack on the U.S. via marching through Mexico into Texas is anything other than stupid. Which possibly is the same thing as being stupid, but since a “surge” of stupidity in the Bush Jr. elections, some evidence of thinkin’hood has returned.)

What do I care if nincompoops like cheap flack hired libertarian capitalists on a magazine blog can’t see that?

“I prefer my explanation because it doesn’t rely on believing that thirty years ago the Republicans, suddenly and for no apparent reason, become eviler, while simultaneously–luckily for them!–the American public, suddenly and for no apparent reason, became stupider. So stupid, in fact, that they couldn’t find the lever to vote for the people they actually agreed with.”

Isn’t this second part self-contradictory? Either the American people became stupider because they “suddenly” started falling for arguments that supported tax cuts to their own detriment, or they became stupider because they *didn’t* support those tax cuts but, rather, they couldn’t find the right lever with which to oppose them.

Either “I don’t have a copy of the book,” or “I’m reviewing the book, so I must have a copy.”

It is a mystery!

Happily, my explanation also does not require that I insult the intelligence of my opponents.

Christ almighty, woman, your very existence at the Atlantic insults the intelligence of, well, everyone who has any intelligence.

And what a dainty pirouette she performed, ending her inherently low-road and lazy bloviations will an attempt to claim the high ground with the oh-so-writerly deflected put-down. Her chutzpah never seems to lose its breathtaking qualities.

It is a mystery!

IT IS A DUMB ATTACK!!!

Shorter Megan: Got any gum?

In case anyone missed Paul Krugman’s contribution to TPM’s Chait confab, he worked in a reference to the right’s campaign of “asymmetrical intimidation.”

The resonance with the title of McArdle’s blog was, I am sure, entirely coincidental.

Eviler and stupider? Christ on a pony. She can’t bring herself to modify those adjectives with a tidy ‘more’? My intelligence is insulted. No, worse than that, my intelligence woke up to find itself in Glenn Murphy’s mouth.

IT IS A DUMB ATTACK!!!

It’s Super Effective!

Knights errant of the blogosphere, mount up! It is time once again to tilt the Sadly windmill!

Dear Megan,

It’s impossible to condescend up.

Love,

pch1013

Even Shorter: “Ok, geez, look, I bought a copy of the book!”

*holds up an upside down 6th grade math book with pages ripped out of it*

If Atlantic’s looking for book reviewers, Jon Swift is a major upgrade in from Ms. McArdle.

The glibertarian elf writes:

Happily, my explanation also does not require that I insult the intelligence of my opponents.

Don’t worry. That happens anytime anybody reads anything you’ve written.

I can see no reason for the Republicans to suddenly become more eviler 30 years ago. Sure, it’s gotten them and their sponsors vast wealth and power, but really, who’s interested in that sort of thing anymore?

The Laffer curve has always been considered idiotic by anyone with even minimal economic learning.

Which, of course, leaves Meggun out of the discussion.

Today, Megan explains why we haven’t heard about the deciders many many secret victories against the turrists:

“Isocrates, when I say who knows? I really mean it. If they’re foiling a lot of terrorist attacks, I presume they’re not telling us about it, that’s all, national security being what it is. Posted by Megan McArdle | September 13, 2007 9:20 AM”

And one of her fanboyz objects to my description of her:

“The Atlantic gives this raving, silver-spooned flibbertigibbet a megaphone to add to wingnut cacophoney”

Speak of casting one’s pearls before swine.
Posted by …Max… | September 13, 2007 9:33 AM

Pearls indeed. More like tiny droppings.

It’s impossible to condescend up.

Would that be “conascending”? Or, more contextually, self-up-climbing?

By the way. She wears heels. Someone at S.N. please email me addy to send C-SPAN screen grabs to.

Knights errant of the blogosphere, mount up! It is time once again to tilt the Sadly windmill!

J-,

The Lady’s knights are busy on the DC Metro.

But tall people don’t just have arms and legs, y’see. We also have waists. Those waists are not in the same place as the waists of . . . er . . . daintier women. The standard flare that flatteringly emphasizes their waists before draping gently over their hips, for us starts somewhere mid-rib. The unfortunate effect is to make us look pregnant. Not that I haven’t enjoyed the eager young men who leap out of their train seats to give me and my putative offspring a little rest. But I feel that it may be cramping my dating life somewhat.

Oy.

That review was quite a performance.

McArdle rambles on for a bit without referring to what Chait wrote, spends two or three paragraphs making vague comments about the ‘thrust’ of his book, and then rambles on some more, ignoring his book entirely. She wrote an entire book review without any specific information about the book being reviewed… really, without seriously pretending that she’s read the book or has much idea what it’s about.

She actually gets paid for this?

I think someone has a crush on Missy McCardle. There no Pator Swank, no Perfessor (lesser or greater), no Grampaw , no Prager. Its like a whole site devoted to Megan. The only explanation is a crush. ‘Cause taking her apart is going for the low hanging fruit.

But hey, she’s 6’2″, so those legs must go on for days…

being a 6’2 girl cant be 4 SD away from the mean in womans height. that would mean she is taller then 99.9999% of women out there. some how i dont think she is one of something like 20 girls in the US that are that tall.

The Ivy League welfare rolls are apparently even more generous than Wingnut Welfare (although arguably Ms. McArdle qualifies for both). God bless state universities . . .

I would truly love to see this woman in a public debate against a non-beltway progressive. Someone who goes for the kill. I bet you could make her cry–people of such narcissistic disposition have rarely ever been intellectually challenged. Unlikely, to be certain, but one can dream.

Is anyone else old enough to remember the old SNL skit “Airheads Revisited”, a parody of “Brideshead Revisited”? Basically, the butler would come in and ask the rich, lower-British-nobility family members tough questions like “Would you like sugar in your tea, sir?”.

All questions were responded to with a wide-eyed, slack-jawed look of panic (worthy of Peter Laurie in the BlackAdder series), a croaking gasp of surprise/fear, and the loud, sing-song statement, “I– I’m in a QUAN-dry!” And the rest of the family chimed in with variations like “QUITE the QUANdry, inDEED!” and “A QUANdry, I tell you!”

Meanwhile the butler rolls his eyes, mutters,”Very good, sir,” and wanders out.

I can’t imagine what made me think of that skit about rich, pretentious, priviliged people who are literally just too stupid to live. It just popped into my head…why, it’s not even remotely related to the post…how very strange.

Life (Gavin’s admittedly poor excuse for) imitates art (Seinfeld – The Boyfriend).

GEORGE: You know what I would like to do? I would really like to have sex with a tall
woman. I mean really tall. Like a like a giant Like six five.
JERRY: Really?
GEORGE: What was the tallest woman you ever slept with?
JERRY: I don’t know … six three.
GEORGE: Wow, … god! You see this is all I think about. Sleeping with a giant. It’s my life’s ambition.

Heh. Libertarian suddenly discovers the existence and moral outrage of market failures when one affects her personally. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

being a 6?2 girl cant be 4 SD away from the mean in womans height.

Well, I don’t know, but I know that 5’10” is enough to put you in the 99th percentile. That surprised me quite a bit.

My girlfriend is an even 6 feet tall. I go about 5’7″. She’s also a big fan of high heels, and when she wears those she’s definitely in the 6’2″ range. A friend of ours calls us “Boris and Natasha.”

Don’t turn around, uh oh! (zhe zhe)
Der Commissar’s in town, uh oh!

She wants to barter? What is this, an MMPORG?

Maybe she should take some, like, money and go to a seamstress and have some clothes sewn to fit her?

This is why I’ve always preferred the New Yorker. Yeah, Sasha Frere-Jones is a shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, (scuze me) shitty music critic, but overall their quality control is such McArdle would last about 3 hours in an intro fact checker gig, if she could even milk enough connections to get one.
(That fucking piece about Lou Dobbs excepted.)

I’m half tempted to start a “fire Megan McArdle” blog, in the vein of FJM, maybe free up Gavin to hit some other targets. Not that he can be blamed for coming back again and again. She has an extraordinary degree of dumb, combined with a sense of entitlement that makes you want to sell her to Bedouin nomads. A twitching corpse is hard to look away from.

Ok, FMM now exists at blogspot. If anyone wants to make real use, as opposed to half assed occasional posting like I’ll manage, lemme know.

A tip for Megan (and also a continuation of an earlier thread), “Tall Girl” at the Mall of America specializes in her “QUAN-dry”. And yeah, I think Gavin has a crush.. hey? What happened to preview?

She could trade her skills in speed reading for some great fall slacks.

Well she may be referring to the world population standard deviation, or for historic numbers that do not reflect current heights.

This could be an interesting econometric question, if you consider fashion as a lagging indicator of.blah blah blah…

She completely made up a statistic out of nowhere, so that she could make some stupid freakonomics , Tyler Cowenesque post.

Economics used to be about fitting theories to the observation measurements, now its fitting completely made up statistics to ideology based theories they derived from Ayn Rand books read in high school.

She would have to be a pretty lousy sempstress for this example to even be true.

now THAT was brilliant.

Poor Lady Goliath. She’s at least 12 hands at the withers, and no-one makes any cute capris in her size. Boo Hoo!

What’s her issue? In the long run, some smart businessperson will start a line of kicky fall clothing and market it to tall women. That’s how the market works. In the meantime, tall women may have to learn how to sew or wear ugly shit, but the important thing is that the market will take care of Miss McArdle’s couture needs eventually. She sounds like one of those nanny-state liberals who thinks that government ought to do her shopping.

Now this is funny:

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/thursday_polling_fun.php

Here is a round table news discussion about supply-side economics that should help as a primer for those just trying to catch up.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_are_americas_rich

Cur

Andrewsomething, thanks for that link to McArdle’s ultra-scientific poll. I commented. Cthulhu help me.

“Cthulhu help me.”

Your efforts have been noted.

Finally, a woman I can look in the eye.

I’m still going to tell her that she’s a loon, but I won’t have to look down at her to do so.

There has been tremendous pressure to regulate this plasmid business. There have been side effects: blindness, insanity, death. But what use is our ideology if it is not tested? The market does not respond like an infant, shrieking at the first sign of displeasure. The market is patient, and we must be too.

I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for ant government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck.

Heh.

Is libertarian woman not entitled to clothes that fit? The man in Washington says NO! Only Congressmen deserve them. The pope in the Vatican says NO! Only priests deserve them. The party in Soviet Russia says NO! Only the proletariat deserve them..

The market is patient, and we must be too.

Patient. Dead. What’s the difference?

I wonder if she fell in love with Objectivism before or after she sprouted to full height? It might explain her delusions of superiority if she was reading Ayn Rand’s thrilling page-turners about super-competent men and women who owned the world as she struggled with her new ungainly dimensions.

Anyone else have any lingering feelings about being the last one picked for kickball? Any luck making a career out of it?

paul, who knows. But nearly all the Randroids I’ve had the pleasure to have been in contact with have had enormous superiority complexes. They also typically marketed themselves as if they were a box of Amway laundry soap. In any case, all were mediocrities who would generally be considered “losers” had they not the benefit of a trust fund and a college education.

The sad and tragic thing is, to the extent she is a Randroid, and I think her moniker “Jane Galt” is a relatively good indication as to the answer, MM is the most successful Randroid I’ve been in contact with. Ivy League Welfare: You Gotta Love It. Ditto the Wingnut Welfare.

Your efforts have been noted.

Thanks, Nyarlathotep. Good to know that I’m still on the Big Guy’s menu.

Attention Customer Service: Here’s another picture of MMcA to use.

Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck.

Are the participants in your scenario required to wear gimp suits?

There are tall women’s clothes out there. http://www.luxuriouslytall.com has low rise jeans, great suits from Ingenuity and fun tops, and they are all long.

Sandra Howard said,
There are tall women’s clothes out there. http://www.luxuriouslytall.com has low rise jeans, great suits from Ingenuity and fun tops, and they are all long.

Wow, you must have spent two, maybe three minutes on Google to find that out! Megan would be so in awe of your crazy research skilz.

(Seriously, Has Megan written a single posts that couldn’t be rendered completely moot by a half-way decent search engine, half an hour, and half a brain.)

I read Chait’s article, and I think the point he’s making is very important. I’ve seen this scenario play out over the last 25 years, and he’s right. The Laffer curve has always been considered idiotic by anyone with even minimal economic learning.

Back when I was pursuing my MA in Econ (three or four years ago), most of my professors did not agree with this assesment of the Laffer Curve. True, they’re teaching in a third-rate department at a second-rate school, but the fact is that they do have at least minimal economic training, as evidenced by their PhDs (some of them even graduated from reasonably prestigious departments).

Personally, I think the Laffer Curve is basically useless.

Clem said,

Your efforts have been noted.

Thanks, Nyarlathotep. Good to know that I’m still on the Big Guy’s menu.

um… that’s gently tossed with a light vinaigrette, just in case you were wondering.

Back when I was pursuing my MA in Econ (three or four years ago), most of my professors did not agree with this assesment of the Laffer Curve.

There’s a difference between the “Oh, what an interesting idea! Wouldn’t that be cool!” sort of thing that econ professors can talk about, and the “Well, of course it’d never work” sort of thing that econ professors would actually apply.

The problem with the Laffer curve is that theoretically it works just fine. It’s possible that we’re at some level of tax rates where lowering tax rates would lead to some massive outpowering of effort and actually increase tax revenues.

Sadly, as a practical matter than level of taxation has never been shown to exist in reality. Entire societies (like, say, North Korea) and subsets of society (like, say, the enslaved part of the United States) have something close to 100% tax rates, and seem to work quite, um, hard. We can quibble over whether it’s truly a “100%” tax rate, and doubtless they could work harder and all that, but the point is that no one has ever found a correlation, let alone a causal relation, between tax rates and economic activity.

But then, it’s hard to explain to a libertarian, generally (but not exclusively) defined as somebody who never really had to worry about feeding rugrats and paying off a mortgage, that slacking off b/c tax rates are so dang high isn’t really an option.

Anyone else have any lingering feelings about being the last one picked for kickball? Any luck making a career out of it?

Yes. And no, sadly.

Ah, the world’s tallest elf remains the gift that keeps on giving.

And where are the knights errant indeed? Sixty or so coments and no sign of our boys.

Noen,

A lot of us here from Megan’s Cthulhu’s old site are small “C” cthulhutarians, not members of the Cthulhutarian Party, and thus vote for whomever we think will promote freedom, access to (relatively) free markets of human flesh, not rely overmuch on government to provide the human flesh we should be providing for ourselves, etc. etc. So I don’t think you will see the landslide of votes for Ron Paul Elder Gods that you expect. Vinaigrette is good, though.

Rex Clem

Text lifted nearly verbatim from the comments section of Cthulhu’s Megan’s blog, with no apologies to Rex, Cthulhu’s Megan’s in-house knight errant.

Eh, lousy strikethrough failure, stupid misleading preview…

Clem: Write out the word strike and the code will work.

Thanks, J-.

Somehow this statement says it all:

I have a strong comparitive advantage in journalism, and no advantage at all in sempstressing…

Obviously spelling is not a journalism skill at the Atlantic. And her “advantage in journalism”…compared to what? A box of ferrets at the mall? I’m truly glad that she’s been given a home to demonstrate her meager abilities.

I’m surprised she can find her way to the office every morning.

You know, just because she’s logically inconsistent doesn’t mean that it’s not tough to find clothes as a woman who’s taller than 5’5″.

But hey! We wouldn’t want to educate her on the failing premise of ‘highest profit’ rather than just making profit which drives the current markets to not have broader selection.

Personally, I think the Laffer Curve is basically useless.

Apart from helping the Repugs, starting under Saint Ronnie, loot the Treasury, of course. As a shiny object to distract the rubes whose pockets were being picked, it wurkid guuuud!

Now that Rove is out of the White House, I think all the Cthulhu references are unnecessary … he’s back in Antarctica, spending more time with the Little Abominations, idly paging through “To Serve Man.”

Personally, if I gotta get et, I’d prefer Mignola’s Ogdru Jahad to do the munching. No vinaigrette for that world-ender, just a quick grab with the tentacle and zoop! No more having to listen to Tony Snow blubbering how he loves the guys in the press room.

‘Course if Angelina Jolie wanted to take a few exploratory nibbles, well, I could make an exception.

amazing, its like the woman has absolutely no short-term memory.

how in the world can the editors in charge of her writing be so incompetent?

Is Ms Mcardle actually Jonah Goldberg in drag? Have they ever been seen separately at the same time?

It past time to do a “Flowers for Megan” send-up a la tboggs did for Jonah.

psssst – Megan. You might try offering money for clothing. It works for me.

Just for the record, Ald. Pat Dowell of the 3rd Ward in Chicago is 6 foot 3.

At 6?3?’ feet tall, Dowell was an enthusiastic college basketball athlete at the University of Rochester