perfidy

A statement from Minister Pythagosaurus:

As a veteran of a hundred failed marketing campaigns, I know that it's important to establish a brand and stick with it if you want to have a prayer of succeeding. People need to recognize your name and learn to trust it.

Firmly casting aside those hard-earned lessons, I am discarding the no-longer-helpful "Pythagosaurus" moniker as I discarded the "Johnny Two-Cents" moniker some months ago. Though both have served a purpose, neither is mellifluous enough, or short enough, to suit my needs.

Therefore, from here forward, I shall be simply known as "Johno" or, if you wish, "Minister Johno the Aggravatingly Indecisive." Whichever you prefer. End transmission.

The Ministry supports Minister Johno in his decision, and is pleased. We extend our best wishes to him and his family, whom the Ministry shall be releasing to his custody forthwith. All hail Minister Johno, master of the pithy metaphor! 

In our continued efforts to expand our readership, we have done things of questionable morality. And certainly of questionable taste. Given that we at the Ministry believe that the ends not only justify, but in fact require the means, we have registered for N. Z. Bear's Blog Beauty Contest.

One of the rules of the Beauty contest requires that we link to three of the other contestants. Therefore, following is our links, and the reasons we admit to linking them:

• Stylishcarp is from Jefferson Parish, LA. His blog includes this, which we found memorable:

  SHERIFF
  HARRY
  LEE'S

  16th Annual
  Chinese, Cajun,
  Cowboy
  Fais-Do-Do

• Don't be a hero talks about Chinese astronauts and doesn't call them Chinkonauts, for which we admire her.
• My Completely Random Life talks about the culture wars, and asks this important question: Which band has had more cultural impact: Nirvana or New Kids on the Block? In context, it's more interesting than it sounds.

So there you have it. Now vote for us by giving us links!

[Update] Just to be clear, this blog has been in existence since July tenth. Archives prior to that date are from Johnny Two-Cents, which is now defunct.

We at the Ministry celebrate a milestone. Today The Ministry of Minor Perfidy came as close as it ever has to the bright burning sun at the core of the blogosphere. Well, the bright burning sun on the right, anyway. And a highly contentious sun at that.

But nevertheless!

This Instapundit post references this Begging to Differ post as well as Doktor Frank, both of whom refer to this nugget of wisdom from Minister Pythagosaurus. The Ministry recognizes the fame, importance and temporary usefulness of the one known as "Glenn Reynolds" and is pleased that we shall taste a small measure of the renown which he so fleetingly enjoys.

We would be remiss in not mentioning our first Icarus-like encounter with blogging greatness. Last week, the estimable USS Clueless linked Minister Buckethead's insight into the Fascist future of Europe; and increased our traffic by nearly three orders of magnitude.

The Ministry is pleased that these individuals have had the perspicacity and good character to recognize our inherent greatness.

The blood, sweat, toil and tears of millions of pixies, sprites, gnomes and off shore contract workers has not gone unrewarded! The Ministry shall not be deterred from its glorious future!! Someday the awe and wonder of the teeming millions shall be the coin of tribute by which the Ministry fills its coffers.

Onward!

In a high powered strategy session, negotiators from the Ministry and Spiral Dive reached broad agreement on the shape of the new Perfidious Analysis Market. Spiral Dive will provide the heavy programming muscle, while the Ministry will provide the in depth geopolitical/historical/cultural knowledge needed to bring this concept to reality.

The new PAM will be similar in broad outline to the Policy Analysis Market proposed by DARPA not too long ago. Like the original PAM, traders will be able to trade in futures contracts based on real world events. Unlike the DARPA PAM, we will (sadly) not be using real money due to the interference of other ministries. However, we will offer a significantly larger array of issues for trading - issues will not be limited to the Middle East, but instead will encompass most regions of the globe.

The Ministry will make periodic announcements as work on this important project progresses. This message from the Minister of Minor Perfidy: Thank you for your cooperation!

We at the ministry wipe our blood stained hands in satisfaction, for the last of the archives are now up. You, the dedicated reader, can now enjoy the fruits of the sufferings of others and read this blog from its earliest primitive beginnings to its most modern and up to date, highly polished present.

This message from the Minister of Minor Perfidy: Thank you for your cooperation!

Please note that this is the fifth month anniversary of this blog. Gifts are welcome, in fact required. Please email for instructions on where to send tribute.

This message from the Minister of Minor Perfidy: Thank you for your cooperation!

Careful readers will have noted that we have been moving the precious archives of the now-defunct Johnny-Twocents blog to their new home at the Ministry. Now that that the April archives are here, that effort is nearly complete. Though the human cost has been high, as hand cutting and pasting html fragments is dangerous and painful work (and the bitdust causes long term pulmonary damage), we at the Ministry have not balked at sacrificing others to achieve our goals.

The Ministry will soon have the March archives operational, and then you too can bask in the reflected glory as you watch the awkward and painful birth-pangs of a new multimedia empire.

This message from the Minister of Minor Perfidy: Thank you for your cooperation!

Go look. People died so that you could read this. Well, only in a very indirect sense. But it's good stuff.

This message from the Minister of Minor Perfidy: Thank you for your cooperation

Seeing as how gnomes proved to be completely unmotivated workers, the Ministry was forced to rely on pixies. While pixies do indeed work harder than the gnomes, they are less reliable. Some of the posts may be out of order. Rest assured that while we will make no effort to go back and correct the mistakes, the pixies were dealt with most severely.

You will notice that there are even some comments transferred over. Given the number of pixies that were sacrificed to transfer even one week of comments, even the Ministry blanches at doing it again.

The benighted gnomes in the archive department have died of exhaustion after only finishing the transfer of archives for the second half of June. Needless to say the Ministry is displeased with their total lack of dedication.

When we find more lackies, more archives will be posted.

The Ministry of Minor Perfidy is moving to a better place. (And no, we're not dead.) Our crack team of commando net researchers determined that the perfidy.org domain had left the bizarre purgatory of the .org registrar's "pending delete hold" status and become available; and our lawyer minions were dispatched forthwith to secure the rights to the Ministry's proper home on the interweb.

That they were succesful certainly increased their life expectancy, but also freed the Ministry from durance vile in the decidedly low rent .biz realm. Over the next several days we will make the switch, generously providing a redirect from perfidy.org to the new digs so as to avoid confusion among the unwary. But note! You must learn to stand on your own two feet, because the redirect will not be there forever.

Following up an earlier post, the Defense Department has cancelled plans to set up the Policy Analysis Market. In a SkyNews article, US defence chiefs said they had hoped the market would have been a valuable tool in second guessing when terror strikes would occur.

But critics dismissed the move as "unbelievably stupid", "ridiculous" and "grotesque".

The good news is that things that are unbelievably stupid, ridiculous and grotesque are our stock in trade. Stay tuned as the Ministry will attempt to create its very own Terror Stock Market. Hopefully, we will have a broader coverage than the aborted PAM. Stay tuned for further updates.

If you have ideas for items that might be possible futures contracts (ie, with clearly defined, yes/no outcomes) send email to perfidy at perfidy dot biz. Likewise with suggestions on how this might be accomplished, and links to relevant articles, material and so on.

Several Haitian refugee children are now fingerless after a marathon session of hand carving new html as they moved the July archives from our old website to here, letter by letter. While the former website did not have the advanced capabilities as our enslickened perfidy webpage (for which several Uzbeki emigre webmasters were summarily executed), we have done our very best to integrate the old with the new. Old posts have been randomly assigned categories, so that your searches will be overwhelmed with meaningless and irrelevant commentary.

Since the Haitian "employees" have proved (tragically! sob...) so unsatisfactory, they will be liquidated and replaced as we prepare to move the June archives.

This message from the Minister of Minor Perfidy
Thank you for your cooperation

In a hours long graphic nightmare, the powers that be were whipping the third world children that toil in the perfidious dungeons for a dollar a month in wages, encouraging them to provide new category images for the glory of the ministry.

The previous images for Entertainment and Perfidy were replaced with newer, stronger, better images in a brutal Darwinian contest. Fighting their way to the top of the pile of nascent categories are: Perfidy Attacks, Perfidy Responds, Filthy Lucre and Holy Shit!

Some old posts may be recategorized, so pay attention.

This message from the Minister of Minor Perfidy
Thank you for your cooperation

When, at the end of the week, the perfidy.org domain name comes out of the .org registry's bizarre purgatory - none of you better take it. We lost perfidy.com to a wacko in Md who is now using it for "monetization". If you steal what is rightfully ours, we will hunt you down and glare at you. Then, we will accept our loss like the powerless, whiny bitches we are.

In his most recent bleat, Lileks tosses this out:

When I hear a speech like Blair's, I have to check the calendar. And the calendar is usually wrong. It may say 2/23, or 7/16, or 4/30. But I know what the date is, and the date is 9/12. It's going to be 9/12 for a long time to come.

While I'm on the subject of Lileks, I should mention that we shamelessly stole the name of our blog from one of his bleats. In a bleat shortly after the beginning of the war, but before American troops reached Baghdad, Lileks had this to say:

These pictures are fascinating - it's a capital in wartime, and it looks like it's had a few bad gas main leaks, nothing more. The giant black plumes of fire come from oil trenches set alight by the Iraqis, and looking at them from above you realize they make excellent visual markers for incoming bombers. (If they needed such a thing, which they don't.) The first picture shows a Presidential Palace - two words that ought not cohabitate, really - and it's had the crap blown out of it. Across the street is a gigantic assembly building of some kind, perhaps the National House of Enthusiastic Rubber Stamping. It's untouched. I'd wager a five-spot that they left it for whatever legislative body comes next. There's no sign of bombing anywhere else, except for a small building down at the bottom of the picture; perhaps that was the Ministry of Minor Perfidy, or the State Bureau for Interrogative Dentistry. Something naughty happened there, in any case. I'd thought that the first phase of the air war would see the atomization of all the palaces, but perhaps that's not so; good. Turn them into bed & breakfasts. Give every Iraqi citizen a coupon good for one free night in a room in the palace. Thin Mints on the pillow, courtesy the US Military.

The phrase just caught us, and we ran with it. If you're going to steal, steal from the best.

I see that Johno has gotten off to a quick start. Meanwhile, I have been laboring laboriously behind the scenes, whipping the hamsters that power this site, and replacing fuses in the server so that you may behold its glory. 

Well, most of that is done now - the only thing we need now is a photoshopped version of a government seal or logo - something like the obverse of the great seal (the pyramid thingie) or from Adm. Buster Poindexter's naughty, naughty (and defunded, yes!) Total Information Awareness Initiative. It needs to have our name, and some sort of latinish slogan. <beg> So if anyone wants to save Johno and I a lot of work, because we can't really use photoshop, feel free to jump in.</beg> (that is so 2002. -ed) 

Now, I can rip off this mask, and become... 

Oh well, it's still me. 
 

Johnny Two-Cents is now experiencing what marketroids call rebranding.

From this point on, you can read the same penetrating analysis, effervescent wit, and banal restating of the obvious at a new home, The Ministry of Minor Perfidy. We thank blogger for providing a (free) home for our observations and bloviating, with (free) customer service and excellent (free) archiving.

Come see our new digs, graciously hosted by Bloghouse.

The Ministry of Minor Perfidy welcomes you to, well, the Ministry of Minor Perfidy.

Some of you will know us from our former blog, Johnny Two-Cents, now defunct. The manifold faults of blogger impelled us to move to the more salubrious climes of Bloghouse, whose proprietor Kathy is extraordinarily helpful, kind and wise. (Kind word for blogger: It's Free!)

Others of you will be seeing us for the first time, and again we welcome you. Our unique style of fast paced witty commentary, laced with rare and precious insights, uncommon wisdom, total idiocy and wrongheadedness will no doubt keep you coming back for more. For more information about your hosts, kindly click on the member profile links in the menu bar to your left.

This message from the Minister of Minor Perfidy: Thank you for your cooperation!

Errata:

We will be slowly moving our blog archives from Johnny Two-Cents over to this site. That way, we can self reference with much greater ease and reliability.

We will be slowly making improvements to the look and feel (tm) of the site, and periodic announcements will be under the "Ministry" byline.

Feel free to comment, but the usual common sense rules apply - don't be foul, abusive or exceedingly rude; lest ye be banned and your comments condemned to the outer darkness.

You can email general comments to the Ministry general account, perfidy@perfidy.org. For more intimate communication, send mail to either john@perfidy.org or steve@perfidy.org. 

Enjoy your visit!

From Buckethead and Johnny Two-Cents:

Farewell, Mike.

Johnny Two-Cents started as a fun project, three friends arguing about the world, as we had often done together over beers back in college. Johnny and I have enjoyed discussing with Mike the state of the world, things important and trivial, things comic and tragic. That this blog has become an engine for the clarification of beliefs and goals is an remarkable thing, and as we pause in our amazement, we are both happy that it has helped to give Mike new focus and a stronger belief in his capacity to do good in the world.

Since we have known him, Mike has ever been strong in his arguments, honest and honorable in his actions, and has always looked for the truth. His desire to act rather than speak demonstrates the depth of his commitment and the strength of his beliefs. He has challenged us in our beliefs and thoughts, for which we will always be grateful. As Johnny once said, having Mike on the blog means always having to bring your "A" game. We will dearly miss him.

We wish Mike the best in all things.

And Mike, if ever you are in the eastern reaches; be sure to seek us out so we can stand you to a beer or twenty, and hear you fiddle.