perfidy

The Ministry has passed a sort of milestone - the Top Ten Suggestive Lines in Return of the Jedi post was our 3000th. It somehow seems appropriate.

[wik] Sometime ago, we also passed the 10,000 comment line. Of course, most of those comments are Johno and Buckethead saying, "hey, you're right!" to each other.

The Ministry cordially extends its congratulations to Perfidious crony "NDR" of Rhine River, who has won an actual award for his weblog! In meatspace! From real people he met!

At the AHA meetings this year, a special panel on history-blogging named his series, "The Geographical Turn" the Best Series of Posts of 2005.

"The judges thought that, of the nominations, this was the best example of historical scholarship. It was a well-written, thoughtful and accessible essay about an important historiographical movement that may be unfamiliar to many non-specialist readers, while for academic historians it discussed a less familiar aspect of a well-known subject. As such, it represented an excellent example of the uses historians can make of blogs both to explore their ideas and to increase understanding of the past and of the discipline of history."

Damn straight. It's true that NDR is a stone badass (a self-deprecating, disarmingly modest and amicable stone-cold badass), and it is good to see him get a modicum of recognition for this.

Moreover, NDR and his lovely wife are expecting their first child. 2006 is looking like one fantastic year. Mazel tov and best wishes!

You don't have to buy anything, donate any money, or even think happy thoughts. Just send us links for the upcoming Carnival of Tomorrow. Futuristic, scientific, or even just weird. Seriously. Just send 'em in, and we'll call off the hit teams headed to your house at this very moment.

The Ministry of Minor Perfidy wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving. Unless you're some sort of commie who thinks Thanksgiving symbolizes oppression and racism. If that is the case, The Ministry hopes that you get a life, punk. But for everyone else, if you are traveling, travel safely; give thanks and enjoy the turkey and most of all good company with those you love.

Over at Murdoc, I see that the nominations for the 2005 Weblog Awards are open, and will be accepting them until November 26th.

The Ministry, thanks to its unique amalgam of political, military, cultural, and giant space robot coverage is far too broad-based in its topic matter to qualify for any of the stupid category awards. Why do they hate our Freedom?

However, we are qualified for three categories:

• Best Blog
• Best Group Blog
• Best of the Top 3501 - 5000 Blogs

So, get out there and nominate us. Since I failed my save v. delusion this morning, I am convinced that we have a shot at Best Blog. Nominate often. Vote often.

[wik] Also, nominate Murdoc for best Military Blog. And nominate Rocket Jones for Best LGBT Blog.

Inspired by a recent poll, the Ministry's interest is piqued. We now wish to take the pulse of our readership and members, to get a demographic sense of the tastes and predelictions of the group. Please, take a few minutes to answer the following questions so that we may more accurately tailor our content to your (our readership's) wants and needs and separate the wheat from the chaff, the literati from the glitterati, and the 1947 Château Cheval-Blanc St.-Emilion from the 2004 Yellowtail.

The questions follow after the break. Thank you for your co-operation; your timely compliance is expected.

• Philip Glass or Terry Riley?
• Milton or Dante?
• Mission of Burma or Gang of Four?
• Buzzcocks or Wire?
• Webern or Berg?
• Vico or Spengler?
• Addison or Steele?
• What's your favorite Goethe poem?
• What's your favorite Keats poem?
• What's your favorite de Kooning work?
• Art Moderne or Bauhaus?
• Clarke or Asimov?
• Joyce or Pynchon?
• Dreiser or Dos Passos?
• Lucchese or Gravano?
• O'Connor or Welty?
• The New Criterion or The New Yorker?
• Granta or The Paris Review?
• Ghengis Khan or Alexander The Great?
• Jean-Luc Godard or Krzysztof Kieslowski?
• Nino Rota or Ennio Morricone?
• The Romance of Three Kingdoms or Journey To The West?
• Bolshoi or Mariinsky?
• Alvin Ailey or Jerome Robbins?
• Laphroaig or Lagavulin?
• Golden Cavendish or cube-cut Virginia?
• Beluga or Savruga?
• My Favorite Things or A Love Supreme?
• Beethoven: better at Cleveland under von Dohnanyi or New York under Bernstein?
• Chanson de Roland or Orlando Furioso?
• Esalen or Chautauqua?
• Grand Crus: Montrachet or Chambertin?
• Explain the faults in reasoning in act ii, scene three of King Lear.
• Guryevich or Tolstoy?
• Kepler or Brahe?
• Louenhoek or Galileo?
• Ruprecht or Heeringen?
• Castelnau or Bulow?
• Best military memoir - Gallic Wars or the Anabasis?
• Most literate general - Wellington or Caesar?
• What, in your opinion, is the single greatest flaw with the new Michelin Guide: New York, and what differentiates it from Zagat?
• Which is the correct condiment for a roast beef on sourdough: aioli or brown horseradish mustard? And what cheese would be most appropriate for that sandwich: farmhouse cheddar or washed-rind tomme?
• For a five course formal dinner, how many spoons would you find to the left of the dinner plate?
• Who's your favorite Muslim naturalist?
• Who was more important in the decline of Christianity in the west, Descartes or Newton?
• Whose Protestantism (Puritanism) do you feel had more of an effect on the shaping of the American politicial and social landscape: John Calvin or John Owen?
• Favorite sophist?
• Who do you feel was more responsible for the development of the Calculus, Newton or Leibniz?
• Euclidian or Reimann topology?
• Which Superstring theory is most likely to survive intact if M-theory proves valid?
• Favorite pre-Revolution Russian mathematician and why?
• DiBergi or Smithee?
• Sidd Finch or War Of The Worlds?

The Ministry is loath to admit that updates to the blogroll have been too long overlooked. Nevertheless, the Ministry is making a clean slate by severely chastising those at the lower levels of Ministry Information Management services who have been deemed responsible for gross negligence and dereliction of duty. Entirely new lackeys and yesmen have been acquired and are even now cleaning up the sticky reddish-gray gore that is the sole earthly remains of their predecessors.

Meanwhile, the troglodytes and gnomes chained to the rock face of the Ministry's proprietary HTML mines have been working even harder than their usual twenty hour days to bring you a slew of hand crafted links worthy of your perusal.

To wit, a summary of the changes that have been made:

• EDog, long an aspirant to Ministry Crony status, has been granted his fondest wish and added to that august body. Ministry combat auditors deemed that his constant emailing of links was a major factor in his elevation, but his crowning achievement was suckering Minister Buckethead into joining the National Novel Writing Month. Anyone capable of this sort of trickery deserves a seat by the fire at the Ministry bunker and catastratorium come the end of days.
• The Ministry's crack legion of combat auditors noticed, whilst approving EDog's supplication, that there was in fact a great deal of dead weight on the cronies list. Two blogs, whose authors have been assimilated into the Ministry, were still occupying valuable real estate. Henceforth, Spiral Dive and Opinion8 are stricken from the list.
• Seeing that so much had been left undone on the Cronies list, a high level review was instigated at the highest levels of the Ministry. It was quickly determined that three members of the Top Five list were no longer actively blogging. Intolerable! A Small Victory, Porphyrogenitus, and The Spoons Experience were immediately placed on injured reserve status.
• Of course, this swift action left three open slots on the Top Five list. Such messiness being intolerable to the clean and orderly minds of the Ministry, three candidates were propelled into the most selective blogroll in the sphere: Gary Farber, Ezra Klein, and Naked Villainy. The Maximum Leader probably owes Buckethead a beer, now.
• Swiftly, like fire or unrest in third world capitals like Paris, the random purges and unfair promotions unfolded. Next to be hit was the Ministry Legion of Merit. Determined MIA or on Hiatus were the Airborne Combat Engineer, The Allah Pundit and Rachel Lucas. Receiving the seven-orbed, five spiky-thinged copper-plated medallion of the legion are: Hubs and Spokes, Austin Bay Blog, Scrappleface, The Unpopulist, Hell in a Handbasket, The Fourth Rail, and Froggy Ruminations. James of Hell in a Handbasket received special consideration because he lives in Columbus, Ohio. Froggy gets on because he could likely kill us all. Marc gets the nod despite living in Michigan.
• Lastly, the links to Protein Wisdom and the Belmont Club are finally the correct ones. And though the link to Allah Pundit's old site now goes instead to a pathetic pr0n site, the Ministry includes it for mawkish and sentimental reasons.

This Message from the Ministry of Minor Perfidy
Thank You for Your Co-operation

The Ministry is pleased to announce that by the application of violence, cunning, trickery, fakery and acting crazy, and then through the exceedingly tricky ploy of just asking, the Ministry has secured the right to host the Halloween edition of the Carnival of Music. Ministry operatives are even now scouring the interweb for fascinating nuggets of webby goodness to offer up for your perusal. However, this is not enough to satisfy the Ministry's insatiable lust for links. Therefore, you, you and, you - the unshaven one in the back there with the goofy look on your face, yes, you! - all need align your interests with the Ministry's interests. The Ministry wants a nonpareil Carnival experience. You want a nonpareil Carnival experience. Therefore, send music links to {encode="music@perfidy.org" title="the Ministry"}, so that we may include them.

The consequences of not complying with our simple and oh, so reasonable request are unpleasant, and do not bear contemplation.

This Message from the Ministry of Minor Perfidy
Thank you for your cooperation

Perfidy will be broadcast into deepest, darkest space.

Thanks to Andrew for the cool link.

The Ministry is pleased to note the attention brought to NaDruWriNi. All minions, readers, and hangers-on associated with the Ministry are herewith encouraged to make every effort to participate in this endeavor; only through concerted action will our enemies be driven in terror before us.

When the robots come your cooperation will not be forgotten; remember this act of kindness.

That is all.

Last Saturday in fashionable Old Town Alexandria we had ourselves a blogmeet. I've gotten together with bloggers previously – notably the Cannons games with Rocket Jones but this was the first I guess you could say, official, blogmeet for yours truly. I have noticed – and the participants Saturday amply confirmed this – that bloggers as a whole seem to be awfully nice people. This is a happy conclusion to come to, because if I had discovered that bloggers were rotten, foul and murderous people that would reflect rather poorly on me.

Conversation was scintillating, humorous and chock full of interesting little tidbits of information. Four Widmer Hefeweisens may have colored my perceptions, but it looked like everyone was having a damn good time. In honor of their willingness to be seen in public with someone who goes by the nom de net of "Buckethead," I will now link each and every one of them:

• John of Texas Best Grok, who writes posts about obscure Cold War Era strategic bombers.
• Rob the Llama Butcher makes up amusing conversations between other bloggers
• Mike the Maximum Leader drove hundreds of hours through snow, sleet and Virginia drivers to make the meet. He tells an interesting story of the death of the world's greatest political theorist
• I'd be glad to have a beer with Princess Cat anytime; but I'd have more difficulty explaining to Mrs. Buckethead why I was spending time with a, you know, woman than why I was drinking beers with a graduate student. I mean, that's what graduate students do.
• Matt the blogless wonder doesn't get a bloglink because he's blogless. He fit in remarkably well for someone who doesn't share our particular social problem.
• Dawn isn't anyone to mess with. She's got an appointment. [oh no she di’in’t -ed.]
• I wonder whether this Lysander is modeling himself after this Lysander, or this Lysander.
• Rocket Jones, who knows there's two sides to everything, and especially Pringles.

Thanks to Rocket Jones, for inviting me, and to John for being so important that people are compelled to gather around him, and to all the others for showing up despite knowing that I was going to be there.

And, for those who expressed interest, here is a brand new t-shirt.

Ted of Rocket Jones has invited yours truly to a little blog fest in lovely downtown Alexandria. It seems that John of Texas Best Grok is in town for some seedy lawyerly interactions, and suggested getting together for some bloggy goodness. Attendees will include half of the Llama Butchers, Princess Cat of Swift Kick and a Bandaid, The Maximum Leader of Naked Villainy, Ted's spawn Mookie, Dawn of Caterwauling and my own bad self. As Ted said, it sounds like the lineup at a Battle of the Bands at the Council Bluffs, Iowa County Fair. I passed on the word to our resident Canadian Ross, who lives not very far from the bar we'll be infesting - the Union Street Public House, and perhaps he will grace us with his goofy welfare state socialist self. Perhaps others will be there. Perhaps we will acquire groupies. Anything could happen.

Anything.

[wik] If you look at the DC Metro Blog Map, there's another score or more bloggers who probably live within a few miles of the bar, and that's just the ones that bothered to (or knew about) the blog map. How about that.

Attend! The Ministry has made crucial and important changes to the blogroll! After a long and painful probationary period involving extensive background checks, lifestyle polygraphs and a couple anal probes, Ted of Rocket Jones has been summarily promoted to the exalted status of "Crony." This act of generosity and selflessness on the part of the Ministry unfortunately has led to other, unintended acts of generosity and selflessness.

The #12 slot of the Ministry's top five list was now open. After extensive deliberations, the Ministry select committee for blog roll changes (promotions and executions sub-committee) determined that Rand Sindberg's Transterrestrial Musings should be elevated to that honorable position despite having a name reminiscent of a Futurama character. His meaty space technology goodness (and offers of sexual favors to committee members) proved to be decisive in the committee's choice.

This however, left yet another open slot, this time in the Ministry Legion of Merit. Rather than reward the obsequious pleadings of the millions of blogs who have petitioned us for recognition, the Committee has deigned to recognize a very new blog. Albion's Seedling is a group blog founded in the last month by Jim Bennett, author of the notorious geo-political tome The Anglosphere Challenge.

Thank you for your Cooperation
This Message from the Ministry of Minor Perfidy

Even though we Ministers might seem infinite founts of supreme wit, our creative process is not as effortless as mortals might be tempted to believe.

The Ministry of Minor Perfidy maintains a Conception Center, a clearinghouse for ideas, punchlines, titles, drafts, and other content thoroughly wrung from our stable of Muses. And I mean thoroughly- we enslave only the most determined imps to wrestle the Muses into The Idea Crank, and only the most robust to turn it.

My personal Muse left me awhile ago. She was fed-up with my deserted imagination, and fled for more…fertile surroundings. She’s making Muse-porn now, but sometimes she crashes on my couch, after I don’t see her for a few weeks and she’s had an especially hard night in the city. She tells me it’s purely for utility, what with my proximity to the sets she works. On those nights I like to pretend we still live together. I make pancakes in the morning, but she’s either already gone or still too hungover to eat. But
it's fun to pretend, and almost fulfilling...

I’ve probably said too much. Moving on.

Before we even get to throw the Muses through the wringer, we oftentimes communicate with each other for direction, opinions on whether something’s viable, funny, stupid, or disgusting enough to post.

I went through some old diplomatic pouches that I found when I moved- they were all under the couch-where I found snippets of forgotten correspondence, and pieced together enough to share. That is, the ones that were legible through the stains of blood and taco sauce, or in code for which I still remembered the key. None of this was ever posted.

Herewith, then, a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes world of inter-Minister dialog:

“Not that you necessarily should have been doing anything you wanted to even when you could. But the option is closed off. Unless you're willing to be a complete prick. Which I'm not.”

“Your line about a ‘cereal’ killer is the punchline to a joke about a dead whore found with a banana in her ass.”

“I would never hope for happiness- I think that's setting the bar a tad high, given past experience and current conditions. But contentment- THAT might be reachable.”

“It is a nice feeling when I pick up something heavy, I feel muscle and not just pain in my arm fat.”

“But I'll need some help because as far as I'm concerned a shrew, a mouse and a hamster are essentially the same creature.”

“I saw a radiation trefoil/bomb shelter sign on the corner of the building, so I assume that there is something in the basement. Whether it is an active zombie shelter or not, I don't know.”

“I almost got the cadaver collector job.”

“…except that nobody seems to like Massachusetts for some reason. Maybe because we're all assholes.”

“Oh, and the billboard on 95 that screamingly advertised a tacky trifecta: “FIREWORKS! CIGARETTES! HAM!’ "

“How does it feel to have looked Death in the eye, and having Him blink? Ummm... knowing that he might be waiting for you at the next crosswalk, of course, and needn't have bothered with inflicting a palsy on you.”

“You may not be Iron man, but you are at least ravioli man. Not so low as noodle man.”

"Get... The Fake Menstruum!"

“But albino crabs sound like alfredo crabs, which sound my-t-tasty, and not half as threatening once boiled.”

“I feel like maybe we're a band...like a band that has alot of talent and energy but no one to help us make the big album and go on the big tour. Except we're not about $$ and chicks and sweaty Jack Daniels t-shirts. Um, right...?”

“Anything interesting, creative, or amazing I do in the entire year will happen between September and March.”

“Music, tapes, and apocalypse. And shit, Isaac Hayes ruled the city- not only musical, but funky too. A-Number-1.”

“Yeeeeahhhh....I grant you that the head/lap interface is historically a superior method of getting what you want. I thought there might be a better way than me having to do it though. You know, like a raffle or bingo or something.”

For the first time ever, the Ministry has broken into the ranks of mammals on TTLB's blog ecosystem. We are now adorable little rodents. Thirty or so more links, and we'll be marauding marsupials. So link us.

MommaBear, of On The Third Hand, is mourning the loss of her beloved PoppaBear. My condolences for your loss, and you will be in my thoughts and prayers. On behalf of the Ministry, we wish you strength and hope in your time of need.

No, that's not the second in command of the Decepticons. It's the little icon that appears in the top left corner of the browser, and in the address bar, and on bookmark links. Loyal reader #0018, Paul from the Empire State displayed admirable gumption, initiative and pluck yesterday when he determined that there was something lacking in the Ministry's website and didn't, like thousands of others, merely bitch and moan about it.

Rather then subject the Ministry's html code-chiseling Kobolds to further abuse he took it upon himself to create a perfidious favicon all by himself and email said icon to the Ministry's Bureau for Unsolicited Technical Thingys. After the web server gnomes scratched their heads, looked up to the sky in plaintive confusion, wrung their beards and tapped the sides of their computer monitors in a vaguely fetishistic manner, they went about installing the favicon in accordance with industry-standard best practices, as determined by a two minute google search.

They reported success, but initial reports from Ministry field officers are showing only mixed results. If you see a little perfidy icon, please inform the Ministry and let us know the make, model, color and trim package of your browser. Likewise if you do not see the delightful flames of perfidy, email and let us know what sort of pathetic browser you are using in a lame attempt to surf the interweb. All hail loyal reader Paul from the Empire State, who has earned the Ministry commendation of and for extraordinary usefullness.

[wik] Can anyone see the favicon in IE of any flavor?

As we go about our daily lives, we are often overwhelmed by the myriad choices he have to make in a day, from the mundane ("Can I make the light...?"), to the major ("What bill can I ignore this month so I can afford bourbon?"). As we make those choices, hundreds in a day, we draw upon our own experiences, our educations, the advice of friends and strangers, or our collective gut.

But one question that we Ministers are often faced with we have no help in answering. Whether it comes up over dinner at our Aspen retreat or privately, as we pass in normal society quietly awaiting the Ende Tyme, the question is always the same:

When the zombies come, how best to kill them?

After some thought (not much, some), we have decided to make an effort to answer our own question. We therefore declare a new feature, the Ministry Caliber Corner, where weaponry large and small will be fired, evaluated, and rated according to its projected capacity to kill the undead. Or re-kill. Whichever.

Your enthusiasm for this feature is, as always, expected.

The Ministry's beloved Bloghostess, Kathy Kinsley of On The Third Hand celebrated her Birthday yesterday. Since we discovered this fact earlier today, we have been slamming our collective heads into any and all available solid objects, trying to banish the shame and horror we feel for not noticing this in time to wish her happy birthday on her birthday. Once we recover from our self-mortification, we will no doubt be able to send happy birthday thoughts in her direction.

Kathy, being the generous type person that she is, also noted that she shared her birthday with Pejman and Suman Palit. Happy belated birthday greetings to them, as well.

Also celebrating a birthday on June 2: the Beav, Dana Carvey, Kyle Petty, and these guys:

1491 Henry VIII King of England (1509-47)
1535 Leo XI, (Alessandro O de' Medici), Italy, Pope, 1605
1624 Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland (1674-96)
1740 Marquis de Sade 1st known sadist, writer (Justine)
1835 St Pius X 257th Roman Catholic pope (1903-14)
1840 Thomas Hardy England, poet/novelist (Mayor of Casterbridge)
1857 Edward Elgar Broadheath, England, composer (Pomp & Circumstance)
1904 John Weissmuller actor (Tarzan)/100m swimmer (Olympic-gold-1924, 28)
1930 Charles Pete Conrad Jr Phila, USN/astro (Gem 5 11, Ap 12, Skylab 2)
1936 Sally Kellerman Long Beach Cal, actress (M*A*S*H, Back to School)
1940 Constantine II deposed king of Greece (-1967)
1941 Charlie Watts drummer (Rolling Stones-Brown Sugar)
1941 Stacy Keach Savannah Ga, actor (Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer)
1944 Garo Yepremian NFL place kicker (Miami Dolphins)
1944 Marvin Hamlisch US, composer/pianist (The Sting, Chorus Line)
1948 Jerry Mathers Sioux City Iowa, actor (Beaver-Leave It To Beaver)
1955 Dana Carvey comedian (Sat Night Live-Church Lady/George Bush)
1970 B-Real (Rapper- Cypress Hill)

The Ministry is happy to announce the promotion of Pittsburgh Steeler fan (nobody's perfect) and irascible conservative John Cole of Balloon Juice to the Ministry Legion of Merit. His trenchant commentaries and clear-eyed indictments of buffoonery from all quarters will make him a useful adjunct to our political wing. This move is also long overdue and by way of recompense the Ministry is pleased to offer to Mr. Cole the head of any enemy of his choosing, on a stick, for his enjoyment.

That is all. Thank you for your cooperation.