Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Department of Excuses

Megan McArdle actually wrote a post about other journalists' math errors. They say misery loves company; I guess innumeracy does as well.

Ooops, it seems that McArdle doesn't care for reminders of past errors.

zosima
It good to know that at least some journalists post corrections. It's got to be embarrassing when the WaPo company starts putting you to shame.

McMegan
Last warning, Zosima. Next time I ban you.


We all make mistakes, say things we regret, make wrong choices. We apologize and try not to do it again. McArdle can't do that because she's paid to lie, so she tries to control what is said to squash dissent. She's caught in a horrible trap of her own making, a vicious circle of lying, exposure, ridicule, and humiliation.

I hope the money's worth it.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

going to hit zosima upside the head with a ban x 4, I bet.

self-awareness, how does it work?

- AWS

Anonymous said...

That's pretty barefaced. She'll ban zosima in a heartbeat. But I assume the money is worth it. Because she doesn't value her honor very high and seems willing to exchange it for any amount of lucre.

aimai

Mr. Wonderful said...

aimai, do you really think she secretly believes she is without honor? I think she's perfectly content with herself. I think she feels she's got it all: the money, the job, AND her honor.

The fact that she's a propagandist doesn't necessarily mean that she isn't sincere.

Downpuppy said...

That thread has gone to a place so weird I don't have a name for it.

Anonymous said...

wow. you're right her instincts are always authoritarian.

Reminds me of Liz Cheney's comments on North Korea. "I think that we've seen time and time again North Korea -- they test a nuclear weapon, there are no consequences, they build a reactor for the Syrians, there are no consequences. You broke the vase; to bed without dinner. Your father will be up in a minute."

brad said...

I'm way too lazy to search it out in the FMM archives, but she's pulled shit like this before. I remember her pouncing on a comparatively trivial mistake made by a female blogger/reporter and getting upset about it hurting her efforts to show girls aren't inherently bad at math.
As with all of us, the things she hates most in herself bother her the most when evidenced in others, but unlike some she refuses to recognize that.

Susan of Texas said...

Brad, that's very true. We say to ourselves, whether it's true or not, "I work so hard to overcome that problem, why don't they?"

Clever pseudonym said...

It's adorable that Megan's excuse for constantly making errors is that she writes thousands of words a day. That's precisely why she should take care in them. That still doesn't account for why she's constantly compelled to spew ignorant gibberish when she hasn't got a clue what she's talking about.

Spy Hill said...

In the comments thread over there, someone accused McArdle of bragging about her MBA, and she demanded proof.

The commenter responded by providing a link to The Hunting of the Snark.

Be careful what you ask for...

Susan of Texas said...

This Wikileaks situation is very bad for her; people are discussing secrecy and lies and the media has reached the point of openly siding with secrecy over their supposed job of informing the public.

All McArdle has to do is sit tight, wait for it all to blow over, and keep on banning people. I'll go away eventually and she'll just become more famous and wealthy. And who needs honor and respect when you can have lots of money instead?

Susan of Texas said...

I haave to add how much I dislike all of this. Fighting may be necessary but it's so unpleasant. You don't give up just because it gets messy but how I wish we didn't have so fight so much to get people to tell the truth to us.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

In Megan's defense, the Wash Post error is HUGE. I mean 2/3 of a million is CLEARLY a liitle more than half of 1.3 million and not a little less than half. Unless it was closer to 1.34 million and rounded down in the report in which case it is a little less than half.

Anyways, the difference is MASSIVE. It TOTALLY changes the context of the article!!!

Downpuppy said...

Todays post - in which various European countries containment of health care costs is utterly ignored in favor of a ridiculous story on US tax policy - pretty much defines Meganism.