Greatest Portrait Ever
Via Norbizness, who captioned it thus:
Glorious Leader Eats Johnny Cash’s Soul and Grows To 1500 Feet Tall and Then Kills a Yeti
Author Page for Robert Farley
Understatement
The Times retains its capacity for tasteful understatement:
On Friday, the Army is expected to announce that it met only 75 percent of its recruiting goal for May, the fourth consecutive monthly shortfall in the number of new recruits sent to basic training. Just over 5,000 new recruits entered boot camp in May.
But the news could have appeared worse. Early last month, the Army, with no public notice, lowered its long-stated May goal to 6,700 recruits from 8,050. Compared with the original target, the Army achieved only 62.6 percent of its goal for the month.
It’s good to know that the news could have appeared worse. . .
If Only. . .
God, I wish I had known Dave Noon while I was still in grad school. Here is an excerpt from his dissertation acknowledgements:
A few years back, the notion of starting (to say less of completing) this dissertation was less interesting than figuring out the most extraordinary ways to dodge it. Short of faking my own death (which I discovered after some research seems to present more inconveniences than it solves), the options were rather grim indeed. At various points, and with varying degrees of planning and commitment, I mulled the following alternatives:
(1) Opening a shelter for abused and malformed cats. While this detour would no doubt have cultivated an enduring sense of mission in my life, it might not have done much to blunt the monotonous, staggering despair that had sent me poking about for new activities in the first place.
(2) Joining a law program. Beyond replacing the apparently limitless vistas of dissertation-land with three years of predictable structure, law school offered few additional lures. (See also [1] above re: “monotonous, staggering despair.”)
(3) Accepting $10/hour (tax-free) from a friend to “keep tabs” on the drummer of a local rock band with whom she was mildly obsessed. Steady employment notwithstanding, working as a professional stalker would have required too much time sitting alone in my car, were I would likely have snacked compulsively and degraded the circulation in my legs beyond repair.
(4) Astonishing friends and family with a bizarre and unexpected religious conversion. If this plan offered nothing else (and it didn’t), it would nonetheless have transformed me in the eyes of former colleagues from “that guy who bailed out of graduate school for no discernible reason” into “that guy who freaked out and joined a cult.” Unable to complete the degree, I would at least have been able to modify the narratives that took my place.
Dino Rossi Beaten with Heavy Stick
Read it for yourself. More evidence that the activist secular liberal judiciary hates Dino Rossi and, by extension, America.
In a ruling that took nearly one hour to read, Bridges said he saw no evidence of fraud and rejected Republicans’ proposed method for apportioning illegal votes. And he went further, saying Gregoire would have won even if he had applied the Republican theory of subtracting illegal votes from each candidate.
He said the Republicans’ proposed method of proportional deduction was not based on sound science. The method would have subtracted illegal felon votes from both candidates’ vote totals, dividing them in any given precinct by the same percentage as the overall vote in that precinct.
Bad strategy on the part of the Republicans, I think. This legal victory goes a long way toward legitimating Gregoire’s electoral success. Had Rossi played the statesmen instead of the whiner he might have given himself a shot in 2006 or 2008, and might have fatally wounded Gregoire’s governorship in any case.
Stefan Sharansky has yet to post in reaction, but this suggests that his mood can’t be bright:
Today is the big day. Will Judge Bridges side with common sense and rule that election officials can’t just keep counting ballots again and again and get different numbers every time without also showing that every ballot has a voter and every voter a ballot? Or will he side with the Democrats and Josef Stalin and rule that he who counts the votes makes the rules and doesn’t have to obey any laws?
Read the comments from that post; there are several fine citizens of Washington State who seem to be contemplating armed rebellion.
We’re Back
We have successfully returned from Las Vegas. More details to come later, I’m sure.
Once again, let me thank our guest bloggers, Matt Duss of What is the War, Erik Loomis of Alterdestiny, and Iocaste of Fantasy Life. They have done an exceptional job with LGM over the past four days, and you should be reading their blogs regularly.
Guest Bloggers
All,
The regular LGM team will be in Las Vegas for the next several days attending to, er, professional responsibilities. We have asked Matt Duss of What is the War, Erik Loomis of Alterdestiny, and Iocaste of Fantasy Life to fill in for us. Thus, general blog quality should increase noticeably until Monday, when you will experience a return to normal levels of wankery.
The Most Dangerous Books. . .
Several dissertations could be written on this alone. Via Brad Delong.
HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing.
And the list:
1. The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx
2. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao, Mao Zedong
4. The Kinsey Report, Alfred Kinsey
5. Democracy and Education, John Dewey
6. Das Kapital, Kral Marx
7. The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan
8. The Course of Positive Philosophy, Auguste Comte
9. Beyond Good and Evil, Friederich Nietzsche
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, John Maynard Keynes
11. The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich
12. What is to be Done, V.I. Lenin
13. Authoritarian Personality, Theodor Adorno
14. On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
15. Beyond Freedom and Dignity, B.F. Skinner
16. Reflections on Violence, Georges Sorel
17. The Promise of American Life, Herbert Croly
18. Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
19. Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault
20. Soviet Communism: A New Civilization, Sidney and Beatrice Webb
21. Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead
22. Unsafe at Any Speed, Ralph Nader
23. Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
24. Prison Notebooks, Antonio Gramsci
25. Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
26. Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon
27. Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud
28. The Greening of America, Charles Reich
29. The Limits to Growth, Club of Rome
30. Descent of Man, Charles Darwin
Oh, where to start. . .
It’s interesting to see that John Dewey is more dangerous than V.I. Lenin. Also interesting is the critique of Dewey (he suggested that endowing children with hard knowledge was secondary to developing their democratic character) in light of the inclusion of Darwin. I guess hard facts are only important when used in the service of ideology, which makes the inclusion of several others quite odd. And why Ralph Nader; it’s not as if the conservative philosophical position is deeply tied to the safety features of the Chevrolet Corvair. Or maybe it is, if you’re a 21st century wingnut. I find the inclusion of Mill odd as well, in light of the conservative co-optation of so much liberal rhetoric and in consideration of Mill’s apology for the Western imperial project. I guess that espousing freedom of thought is anti-conservative. . .
Good commentary on the list from Michael at Here’s What’s Left.
Unintelligent Design
Matt has a damn fine post on the relationship between intelligent design and that other pseudo-scientific theory, supply side economics:
There’s a strong comparison to be made here between Intelligent Design and supply-side economics. Like ID, supply-side is a theory which is notable for the almost-complete lack of support which it has garnered in academia over the years (though, to be fair, supply-siders actually do offer an actual theory, albeit one for which the conditions can always be to declared to have been “imperfect,” or its application “flawed,” and thus avoid facing the reality that their theory is, as economists say, really fucking stupid). As with ID, however, this is entirely beside the point. Supply-side was always first and foremost a cover for a particular cultural and political ideology, one which favors the rich at the expense of the poor, which views business and the making of money as the highest possible human endeavor, and which is inherently suspicious of any attempt to regulate enterprise. In this respect, I’d say supply-side has unfortunately been quite successful. Similarly, ID is a way of using pseudo-science to elevate what is essentially a creationist view to coequal status with the theory of evolution, that is, with actual science, and to have it presented as such to high school students and in the media.
Read the whole thing.
Okrent Clubbed like a Baby Seal. . .
Okrent vs. Krugman turns out just as expected:
Believe me — I could go on, as could a number of readers more sophisticated about economic matters than I am. (Among these are several who, like me, generally align themselves politically with Prof. Krugman, but feel he does himself and his cause no good when he heeds the roaring approval of his acolytes and dismisses his critics as ideologically motivated.) But I don’t want to engage in an extended debate any more than Prof. Krugman says he does. If he replies to this statement, as I imagine he will, I’ll let him have what he always insists on keeping for himself: the last word.
I could go on, but I won’t. Trust me, though, there’s a lot of other stuff I know, I just won’t talk about it now. Also, there are a lot of people who agree with me, but I won’t mention them by name. Finally, I find responding to his question tiring, and refuse to continue. But I won. Now I quit.
One Year
On May 31, 2004, three University of Washington blowhards grew tired of spouting prepared rants at one another and decided to found a blog. For an address, they adopted the word “lefarkins,” a term commonly used in reference toward them by other members of the department. For a name, they chose “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” which was kind of cool sounding and vaguely reflected the group’s diverse academic interests.
Since that time, we’ve been more successful than we could have reasonably hoped. Some thanks are in order:
To other bloggers, especially those who helped us out during the early days. In particular, Josh Canel of Quicksauce, Matt Duss of What is the War, Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise, Paperwight, Seb of Sadly No!, Roger Ailes, Digby, Brad Delong, the crew at Crooked Timber, Joel Patterson of Vague Nihilism, Erik Loomis at Alterdestiny, Lance Mannion, Julie Saltman, the folks at Martini Republic, Tbogg, Bitch, Ph.D., Roxanne Cooper of Rox Populi, Matthew Yglesias, James Wolcott, and Russel Arben Fox have all been critical in spreading the word about LGM. I’m sure there others I have forgotten, and that Dave and Scott will rectify my omission in comments or updates.
To our commenters, who have made an invaluable contribution to this blog. Frankly, I can’t understand how some blogs survive without comments. We’ve had several generations of commenters here, but in particularly I would like to note the contributions of Abby, Dave Noon, Jon St, Praktike, Kat (who has been with us from the very beginning), Mojo, Jeremy Osner, Redbeard, Thad, Matt (who inspired me to blog), Lindsay Beyerstein, Terry, JadeGold, Minh (who makes such a wonderful contribution to Friday Cat Blogging), Erik Loomis, Aaron, Iocaste, Anderson, Wagster, Roxanne, Josh Canel, Ralph Hitchens, Irrational Robot, grishaxx, Ben Jones, Patrick, gmack, Alex, Russel Arben Fox, Leo, Barry Freed, MrM, Kirk, cathycab, Incertus, JRD, MJD, anon, Paperwight, Jackdaw, Fledermaus, Oh Snap!, C.J. Colucci, bitchphd, Stygius, battlepanda, Ted Barlow, Chuchundra, Mike, and dozens of others who I can’t remember now.
Thank you all very much for a wonderful year.
LGM Baseball Challenge Standings
Noon continues to lead. LGM contributors now occupy last three spots in the standings.
1 Axis of Evel Knievel, d. noon 2178
2 Swinging At Space, K. Jepsen 2074
3 New Mexico Alterdestiny, E. Loomis 1999
4 The Spot, D. Watkins 1869
5 Oregon Bearded Duck, R. Farley 1790
6 Discpline And Punish, S. Lemieux 1787
