perfidy

Once again I feel called upon to explain my extended absence from this forum, a condition which I am sure has been met with wails of grief, peals of anguish, and a sharp rise in sackcloth 'n' ashes futures (Invest now! Limited time!). Well.

A sharp uptick in labor-related time committments coupled with a double-secret Ministry mission to the great state of Ohio to visit the Briarhopper Central Depository for Perfidy (Kent State Branch) has pulled me out of the great electronic whirlpool with butt-massaging jets of the internet for the short future, so sorry Charlie.

Also, I'm sick of yammering about politics and only want to write about music, history, and giant fighting space robots. Unfortunately most of that work is classified, so, once again, an apology to the entirely theoreticial and iconic Charlie.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming. Tune in later this week when, in a fit of perversity, I will be blogging the Democratic National Convention from my home twenty miles outside Boston. Why make yourself a target when all the facts and opinions I want can be made up out of my own head, I always say.

Date: 10JUL2004
Place: Johno Del Mar
Event: Perfidy by the Sea

In attendance of this semi-annual, perfidious semi-caucus were Buckethead, Misses Buckethead, mini-Buckethead (codenamed JC), Johno, Goodwyfe TwoCents, and myself. Ross was on very extra-special assignment.

Traffic was heavy near Castle Evil...erm, I mean Johno Del Mar... due largely to malefactors seeking to disrupt the meeting. Protestors were washed away, however, by faithful minions manning water cannons on the battlements...uh, balconies. A clean smell prevailed afterwards, and the compund's atmosphere remained springtime fresh (or as close as July allows) throughout the proceedings.

Early in the day, Johno and I reviewed a short video of Army Special Forces MOUT training. We agreed the men depicted were highly professional and disciplined, and that any one of them could easily kick both our asses and not spill his beer. We decided not to hold a formal vote on the issue.

Next, Goodwyfe TwoCents fed us, which was rather a great thing. Following our repast, we attended a reenactment of a lackluster, rather lazy-yet nonetheless sweaty- invasion from the sea, pitting the red-coated forces of the crowne against local rebellious rabble. I didn't remember reading about either side fielding so many kayaks, and made a note to follow up.

At long last clan Buckethead arrived from Perfidy South. After introductions and catching-of-up, we retired to Johno's lair...uh, living room... to discuss the pressing issues concerning the spread of our Word. Summary follows:

On hobbies:
Buckethead: "Games are cool.  Ghost Recon.  Xbox."
Johno: "CDs, tapes, tinnitus. CDs! Flaming Lips, no guns in the house."
Geeklethal: "PS2. I like guns, here's a S&W catalog."

On cars:
Buckethead: "All my old cars broke down."
Johno: "All my old cars broke down."
GL: "All my old cars broke down."

On literature:
Buckethead: "Heinlein"
Johno: "Walter Miller"
Buckethead: "Hienlein and Miller"
GL: "Haldeman?"
Buckethead: "Heinlein, Miller, and Haldeman"
Johno: "Miller and Heinlein"
JC: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

On ice cream:
Buckethead: "Vanilla"
Johno: "If I could marry groovy grape ice cream I would."
GL: "Vanilla"
Johno: "Vanilla, conditionally.  Groovy grape unconditionally"
GL: "Vanilla"
JC:"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Much ground was covered, as you can see for yourself. There will be future meetings, perhaps at my frontier compound. Select individuals other than the Ministers may be invited, following a rigorous security screening, physical, and interrogation... I mean, chat.

End Transmission

My already light posting habits will be further reduced, as the Buckethead clan heads north to the birhplace of liberty, Massachusetts. Or was that the birthplace of witchburning? I can never get that straight. There, we will join with Johno, and hopefully Geeklethal for a convivial evening of drunken excess, world takeover planning, and maybe some vegetarian food. Johno and his lovely wife will no doubt have a full itinerary of educational, instructional and enlightening activities laid on board as well.

In other news, I may soon rejoin the working week. More on this potentially kickass job later, but my return to the world of regular schedules should also herald the return of regular posting habits. Be warned!

A brief political note: my favorite aunt says that John Edwards is cute, and this will be the controlling factor in the election. I hereby renounce all connection to conservatism, and the GOP; and will henceforth only vote for those candidates approved by Aunt Susie. (But Susie, what if they're both ugly?)

Thanks to circumstances tragically within my control, posting will be light from me for the next few little whiles, unless that is you welcome hearing from someone in a fit of misanthropy so profound that HL Mencken himself would ask me to lighten the hell up already.

Over to GeekLethal, Ross, and the prodigal and hopefully regainfullyemployed Buckethead.

[wik] As a sop to all the millions heartbroken by the tailing off of my prolific and nonpareil output, well... I've added Fafblog to the blogroll. Go read fafblog!

This week's winner of the infrequently awarded Perfidious Prize For Inadvertant or Vertant Asshattery goes to...

Mr. Tauhidul Chaudhury of Bangladesh, who ran up a $129,696 bill at New York strip club Scores last October. (The Smoking Gun, of course, has the story.)

That's not the asshattery, though anyone who runs up a $130K bar bill in one night has it in him to achieve such. The asshattery is this: he's suing Scores, claiming that he never authorized those charges on his credit cards. Too bad his signature is on them, or he'd almost have a case! Who wants to bet that he's got a wife at home in Dhaka, and that she's a bit peeved? Moreover, everyone knows that New York City strip bars are a total scam. Rudy's blue laws mandate pasties on all the dancers (tho' who knows what goes on in the private rooms), and most of the dirrty is mitigated by Scores' popularity, size, and adjacence to the newly enDisneyed and Viacommed Times Square. Mr. Chaudhury and his $130K would have had a much sleazier time at some no-name place in Yonkers, or so I hear.

So, Mr. Tauhidul Chaudhury of Bangladesh, you are our winner! Wear it with pride, asshat!

PS. Dude, you probably should have figured this out before dropping $130,000 learning it the hard way: There is absolutely, positively, NO SEX IN THE CHAMPAGNE ROOM.

NDR, the polymathic mind behind the blog "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" has made a change of venue. His new home is The Rhine River, wherein he will be focusing on some different material than previously, especially his ongoing doctoral research into the Rhine region as well as questions of national and regional identity in Europe. Check out the posts"Amnesia Union" and "The Shame of Being German" for a sample of his now less-bad thoughts.

Additionally, he's blogging Colonial House here and here, and also on the ongoing shameful genocide in the Sudan.

The perfidious Technorati Profile suggests that this site has not been updated since before the invention of webpages, nay, even the invention of the internet.

Source last updated 12551 days 17 hours 44 minutes ago. Query took 1.63 seconds

That's almost 34 and a half years, kids - or looked at another way, slightly longer than I've been alive. Next to that screw up, I suppose it's not really material that they don't have most of our links, either.

[wik] 2:00pm: I hit refresh, and now it's ten links and fifty five days. Wait! Now it's back to 34 years!

[alsø wik] 4:15pm: looks like all the links are back, but still fifty five days since last update.

The main Ministry computer is off taking care of its own private matters today (note to self: buy helmet and JDAM), so I have been deputized to take care of some Ministry business in its stead.

So... ladies and gentlemen, if you will direct your attention to the left-hand side of your screen, you will see that the Ministry welcomes two new weblogs to the blogroll, Patton's Opinion8, and Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution. The latter, being an econoblog, is a sop to Minister Ross' penchant for numbers and the games they play.

One further note.... "Calpundit" is now "Political Animal." Same Kevin Drum, slick new high-end digs.

You may notice that, on the whole, the blogroll skews decidedly rightward. Part of that stems from Founding Minister Buckethead's conservative predelictions, and my own less fervently held centrism (which Buckethead describes as 'drifting in the great Brownian sea of the American center'), but the rest of the story is that many lefty bloggers just ain't that great, and if they're sometimes great, they ain't funny (notable exceptions include Norbizness and certain members of Crooked Timber and Begging to Differ). Can anybody recommend some great and funny leftward bloggers?

This concludes Ministry business for today. Your compliance is appreciated. Indeed, it is expected.

As a supplement to Buckethead's droolbucket musings below (hey! Droolbucket musings would be a great name for a blog!), I submit via "fafblog" the "The Fafblog Terrorist Voting Guide." See what issues today's leading terrorists are concerned with, from women's rights to tort reform!

[wik] In truth, Buckethead's writing is, as always, as clear and pithy as it gets. If by "it" you mean the English-language instructions that come with off-brand Korean toner cartridges.

I thought it might be time for a new Perfidious Challenge.

In keeping with today's theme of Crusades and terrorism, and the interpretation of those histories by East and West, it seems the perfect moment to explore, refine, understand, and perpetuate conspiracy theories.

The assignment: Explain in general terms how 33d degreee Masons and Jewish Elders, working hand-in-hand with the Knights Templar and their puppets in Washington, are plotting to eradicate Islam. Specific evidence of plots is welcome but not required. Don't be afraid to riff on related concepts and plots- they're all related after all, aren't they?

Bonus points for including EITHER Waco, Ruby Ridge, or OKC bombing; double bonus for inclusion of the United Nations or black helicopters; double-plus bonus for including other quasi-mystical martial orders, such as the Teutonic Knights. If you can also work in both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, you're the fucking master. Or mistress, as the case may be.

Please use discretion if mentioning EITHER Antarctic bases or hollow Earth civilization(s), to avoid irritating our soon-to-be masters. Reference to Atlantis or crystals in any context is discouraged, because that's just nuts. Reference to Nostradamus is discouraged, as he was French.

Let's make cultural miscommunication, ethnic streotypes, and paranoia fun again.

Addendum: Substitution of "$" for "s" is grounds for instant disqualification, as is inserting "KKK" in the middle of the word "America". As previously discussed, such usage is the giant puppet head of written work and will be treated accordingly.

Minister Ross sends word from the dreary depths of the code mines, informing me that work is sucking the life out of him. He has no time for blogging, he doesn't even sleep! He begs anyone who sees him toiling away in a noisome cubicle to simply put him out of his misery.

He also sends this cryptic diagram, saying that it explains what his satanic masters have forced him to do:

Ross says that this is a diagram of an optimized query graph for service performance computation. To me, it looks like a high tech pentagram, suited only for summmoning denizens of the deepest pits of hell. Either that, or my company's org chart.
 

The works of man may come and go, but Perfidy is eternal.

The sun has made three hundred sixty-five diurnal transits of the sky since the idea for the Ministry of Minor Perfidy first burst upon the world. One year of ever embiggening reach and power, one year of cresting wisdom, sarcasm, and scantily-researched attacks on transient issues of the day, plus some really kickass writing.

From its humble beginnings at johnnytwocents.blogspot.com to a temporary home at the ignominity of the .biz domain, the Ministry of Minor Perfidy is far greater than one simple interweb address that resolves to http://old.perfidy.org . Such towering achievement is beyond the capability of simple language, simple digits, to describe, much less encompass. Lo, history will record the truth! The Ministry now stands as the single greatest achievement with which publicly-funded grade-schooling, a combined two decades of college and trade-schooling, and oodles of cheap liquor have yet graced the world. My it ever be this way, and may its heroic exploits long be recounted by wonks, geeks, and basement-dwellers for generations to come.

Let us now have a moment of silence for the uncounted legions of pixies, homunculi, gnomes, sprites, weirds, gremlins, and assorted faeries who sacrificed their lives for the greatness of Perfidy*.

The Ministry applauds its Ministers, readers, commenters, and sundry onlurkers. We are watching you, and we like what we see. Each and every one of you must remember one thing: nobody said anything about giant fighting space robots, and it is crucial that you remember that fact in the weeks and months to come. Soon enough, my children, soon enough you will look on in awe and wonder. Until that day. . . Excelsior!

[wik] No leprechauns were harmed in any way during any Perfidious endeavor.

[alsø wik] In response to the cowardly anonymous commenter who clearly fears the retribution of the Ministry's minions, and rightly so... this being a so-called "leap year," the Ministry's lifespan would equal three hundred sixty-six diurnal transits, if the so-called "leap year" were not an utter fiction concocted by shadowy forces working on behalf of the erstwhile British Royal Society.

You see, the 1582 transition from Julian to Gregorian Calendar-time was not without its temporal casualites. As the great sage Pynchon observes in his magesterial "Mason and Dixon," the world lost eleven days in 1582 that, it was thought, can never be got back. Little do you know of the subtle plans of great men and women. Do you really think that you actually lived "February 29" this year? Ha!

Remember harder, o benighted one, and tremble at the power shadowy forces can wield!

I have taken the liberty of adding John and Belle have a blog to the blogroll at right.

As an introduction, here is an excellent post on This whole conservatives in academia thing.

[wik] Speaking of conservatives: Via Volokh, I see that Kieran of Crooked Timber has discovered that David Horowitz has drifted deep, deep into moonbat territory never to return. Jeez. Back away slowly.

I'm adding three new blogs to the blogroll. Every single one of these people is depressingly well-informed, ego-crushingly intelligent, and have mad writing skillz. The links below each lead to a particularly fine, recent vintage post.

• Porphyrogenitus, on liberals,
• Wretchard of the Belmont Club on proliferation, and
• Dan Darling's Regnum Crucis on immigration.

Also, I've added another category, for useful resources. The first two entries are StrategyPage and GlobalSecurity.org, both invaluable sources for information on war, weapons, intelligence and strategy. Lots of good reading to keep you busy.

I just noticed that comments have, for the first time, exceeded the number of posts. This is an important milestone, significant because it indicates that people really, really like us. Only about half of the comments are from Johno or I; and in the early days, we didn't have the technology for comments at all. We have had some very productive and interesting conversations so far, especially considering that we are still only slithering reptiles in the TTLB's great blog food chain. I'd like to thank everyone who has commented, your thoughts were life changing and profound for us. And for all you lazy, shiftless lurkers, start commenting, or the dog gets it in the head: 

The more astute and alert amongst our legions of loyal readers will have noticed that the link to Phil Dennison's blog Catch Me If You Can has moved to the "cronies" category of our blogroll. If you didn't notice, shame on you. Phil and his wife came to the Superbowl Chili Party we threw last weekend, and as soon as we met, became eligible for the "cronies" appellation. Phil's a cool guy, even if he is a vegetarian, and you should go read his blog.

The Ministry is experiencing some technical difficulties at the moment. I seem to be the only person who can use the site at the moment. There is no chance that I will abuse this power. None, I tell myself. None.

In case anyone was wondering, the trackback function for Perfidy posts is now working. A small matter of configuration, and no HTML Gnomes were killed or injured in the effort to provide you with the highest quality perfidious service. (Several were subjected to vicious haranguing, and as a result had their feelings hurt.) Link on!

Minister GeekLethal handcrafts some authentic evil with the assistance of his faithful minion, the demon whose name is Baphmotep Lingurian but on our plane of existence is known as Miss Cutiepie Fuzzle Kitty: 

Over the last couple weeks, I've found that I've been hitting a few blogs almost everyday. The three blogs below stand out for their ability to write incisive commentary and to consistently find cool things to link to. Links to their blogs now have a permanent home over to my right, and below you'll find an example of the fine work of each:

• James of Outside the Beltway talks about Democrats returning to their roots. (I linked this earlier, as well.)
• John Hudock of Commonsense and Wonder talks about Euthanasia, and I don't think Godwin's law applies here.
• Michael Totten gives us some liberal perspective on why we went to war on Iraq