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To: “Blah Blah” <blah.blah.blahr@blah.blah.com> Subject: Tim Geithner, George Soros, Sheila Bair, & Larry Summers – Oct 15/16th Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:23:34 -0400 From: “Argyle Executive Forum” <mergenyc@argyleconferences.com>

Argyle Executive Forum is pleased to partner with The Economist on The Economist’s Buttonwood Gathering occurring in Manhattan on October 15th and October 16th.

Speakers for the event [...]]]> I got this in my email:

To: “Blah Blah” <blah.blah.blahr@blah.blah.com>
Subject: Tim Geithner, George Soros, Sheila Bair, & Larry Summers – Oct 15/16th
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:23:34 -0400
From: “Argyle Executive Forum” <mergenyc@argyleconferences.com>

Argyle Executive Forum is pleased to partner with The Economist on The
Economist’s Buttonwood Gathering occurring in Manhattan on October 15th
and October 16th.

Speakers for the event include but are not limited to:

• Tim Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, United States Department of the
Treasury

• Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of
Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management,
Columbia University

• Roger Altman, Chairman and CEO, Evercore Partners

• Sheila C. Bair, Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

• Myron S. Scholes, Chairman, Platinum Grove Asset Management

• George Soros, Chairman, Soros Fund Management

• Lawrence H. Summers, Director of the National Economic Council, The
White House

• Wilbur L. Ross Jr., Chairman and CEO, WL Ross & Co.

• Robert J. Shiller, Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics, Yale
University

Members of the Argyle Executive Forum are eligible for a generous discount
should they wish to attend the event. Regular price for the conference is
$3,495. Pricing for members of the Argyle Executive Forum community is
$2,495.

Argyle Executive Forum only has a limited number of these discounted
tickets available. To obtain the Argyle code and register for the event
please contact Mina Chan at mchan@argyleconferences.com or (646)
839-0111.

To read more about The Economist’s Buttonwood Gathering, please visit the
event website:

http://buttonwood.economist.com/

Sincerely yours,

Argyle Executive Forum
215 West 40th Street
NY, NY 10018
(646)839-0111
www.argyleconferences.com

*Argyle Executive Forum’s events are by invitation only and seating is
limited. Advance registration is required as onsite registration is not
permitted. Argyle Executive Forum reserves the right to review and
approve all attendees.

Probably a pretty sad statement on the world of economics if they invited me I tell you!

Actually I have fond memories of visiting this with my “big sister” (14 years my senior) when I was a little tike. We didn’t eat there, but somehow I understood I was privileged enough to be walking on the holy ground of the great [...]]]> Is nothing sacred anymore?:

NYC’s Tavern on the Green files for Chapter 11

Actually I have fond memories of visiting this with my “big sister” (14 years my senior) when I was a little tike. We didn’t eat there, but somehow I understood I was privileged enough to be walking on the holy ground of the great “oligarchs”.

I actually don’t wish anyone hard times, though I will note that corporate bankruptcy tends to be a lot easier on incorporations than the rest of us unwashed masses.

So, was it my idea? I should be so lucky – probably [...]]]> Hmmm… I’m wondering. I thought Brad Delong always called it  just “ShrillBlog” and then sometime after I posted a comment here about how Greenwald should be inducted in the “Order of The Shrill”, this and this appeared with “Order of The Shrill” in them.

So, was it my idea? I should be so lucky – probably either “groupthink” or I read the title (a good one if I do say so myself) and didn’t realize. That and I probably have the timeline wrong.

Ah, one could only wish their comment actually reached the eyes of the Great “Brad Delong” and made an impression on him!

UPDATE:

Ah, at best it’s parallel thinking and at worst, unintentional plagiarism on my part. This post from Delong from October 2008 references “Order of The Shrill”. Alas, I am not the creator but only a lowly copy cat of old (but excellent) ideas.

UPDATE 2:

In many way this highlights the narcissism of blogging (whether directly or in comments) – it really is an attention getting exercise. Clearly I suffer from the same narcisto-blog-ic tendencies (ie: Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!).

A driver is stuck in a traffic [...]]]> Hey, I’m all for a, “What do you call 1,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start!” kind of joke, but have you ever noticed that conservative jokes always have a tendency to be a little, well, violent? I received this recent jem from a friend:

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam going into downtown Chicago .
Nothing Is Moving north or south. Suddenly a man knocks on
his window.

The driver rolls down his window and asks, ‘What
happened, what’s the hold Up?’

‘Terrorists have kidnapped Barack Obama, Hillary
Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid,
Rosie O’Donnell, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. They
are asking for a $10 Million ransom. Otherwise, they are
going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We
are going from car to car, taking up a collection.’

The driver asks, ‘On average, how much is everyone giving?’

‘About a gallon’

Ok, first I have to admit that, yes, at some level I find it kind of funny. But at another level I kind of find it disturbing, after all we’re talking about burning human beings here. That’s a little grotesque.

In fact it’s grotesque enough that I suspect if you substituted George Bush, Dick Chenney, Tom Delay, etc. in there, particularly during the near post-9/11 period, a lot of people would have gotten awful upset and decried it as near treason.

Yet, there above is the implication we should fricassee our President.

This is hardly the first violently oriented conservative joke I’ve received and in all honesty I can’t remember a liberal joke of a similar vein. Unfortunately to me it fits well with an undercurrent that seems to pervade conservative thought.

As as an example, all you have to do is post on a conservative blog any sort of liberal exchange and you’ll end up eventually with a response something like this (I am making this up, but I think it’s pretty true to form):

COME DOWN HEER U LIBERAL FUCK AND I’LL KICK YOR SADAM LOVING TERORIST FAGOT ASS!

or thereabouts. Note that the use of “fagot” is practically a legal requirement for these posts. Even if not directed at you, many a conservative blog thread will end up espousing the need for people getting “A GOOD KILLIN!”

Anyway, the point is there is a violent undercurrent that seems to pervade conservative thought and certainly many of the most vocal conservatives tend to be big bruisers in my experience. That is, people used to getting their way through force and intimidation. Most cops also seem to be conservative, which given my points above, I don’t think is a coincidence (authoritarianism also seems to be a conservative bent).

That said I know many a conservative that doesn’t fit the “bruiser” stereotype (as well as I’m sure there are plenty of good police officers who are neither authoritarian, nor conservative). Most of my conservative friends, including the one who sent me this “joke”, are quite gentle beings who are in my opinion good at heart and hardly in any sense violent.

On the other hand (sort of the “other hand” of the “other hand”), once way back when I was posting to blogs my brother, who is a died and hard conservative warned me (not sure of the exact quote but, something like):

Yeah, I would be careful about how you attack religion in blogs because, much as I hate to admit it, there are a lot of conservative “wack jobs” out there.

And unfortunately I think he’s right (and I’m sure after reading this some may want to, “KICK MY SADAM LOVING TERORIST FAGOT ASS!”, which being a wimpy liberal, I suspect sure enough they could)(um, please don’t).

As a final note, while the 70’s certainly were filled with what might be termed “liberal” violence, particularly by those of Marxist bent, since the 70’s it’s been pretty clear the real politically violent types have been conservatives, as illuminated in the Oklahoma City Bombing and numerous murders of doctors providing abortions. Even before the 70’s, the murders of Martin Luther King, the Kennedy brothers, not to mention many rural lynchings, provide truth to the contention that conservatives are probably the ones to really watch here (as opposed to Eco-Terrorists, thank you).

UPDATE:

I should also note that the vast majority of NRA members and the majority of those in the Armed Services are conservative, which also might give a clue here. The fact that the majority in the military consider themselves “morally superior”, quoting the same Military Times poll linked above:

Two-thirds said they think military members have higher moral standards than the nation they serve. More than 60 percent called the country’s moral standards only fair or poor.

is also kind of self-delusionally concerning. That is, military members are by nature certainly no more or less “moral”, but it’s concerning that a group of people holding a vast array of armaments might consider themselves superior to the people they serve. At some point the word “insurrection” comes to mind (or fear thereof).

Then again, I suspect 2/3rds of any “named group” probably considers themselves morally superior, which is the unfortunate nature of “tribal politics”.

UPDATE #2:

In the interest of full disclosure, I also must admit that at one point or another I have thought certain people could use a “good killin’”. That I think is human nature, and something I’m not entirely proud of. However I do understand the advantages of “saying it like how you feel it”, particularly in the confidence of friends and family. I just tend to think conservatives seem to say it more often, more publicly, and actually act on it more often.

That said, the funny thing is my suspicion is you’re probably more likely to end up on the TSA “no fly” list from going to a Noam Chomsky speech, than an NRA rally.

Robert Waldmann goes quadruple meta on the triple meta Matthew Yglesias:

Robert’s Stochastic thoughts: Quadruple meta: Matt Yglesias goes triple meta in his blog post “Stay First-Order on Health Care.” writing

It’s difficult, of course, to critique the impulse to “go [...]]]> Brad DeLong goes Quintuple meta on Robert Waldmann’s quadrupal meta on the triple meta of Matthew Yglesias:

Robert Waldmann goes quadruple meta on the triple meta Matthew Yglesias:

Robert’s Stochastic thoughts: Quadruple meta: Matt Yglesias goes triple meta in his blog post “Stay First-Order on Health Care.” writing

It’s difficult, of course, to critique the impulse to “go meta” without falling prey to accusations of going double meta…

You can be the first (OK in the first million) to go quintuple meta on the blogosphere by linking to this post…

Don’t break the chain!

The chain remains unbroken…

PS: I honestly don’t know the exact definition of “meta”, but I have a guess…