perfidy

It came to my attention that the original explanation of why this blog is named the Ministry of Minor Perfidy, or 'perfidy' for short, is not easily available. While the most dedicated and assiduous readers could likely track it down, it is our goal here at perfidy to make things easy.

Back in July of aught 3, we had this to say:

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.