If you feel like it, you’re welcome to complain in the comments about the transformation of the COMMENTARY blog Contentions to the COMMENTNARY blog (h/t progressoverpeace@HotAir) – or to submit suggestions for a follow-on effort.
Patience, please, as this was an emergency 5-minute install. We’re in default-land here, for the moment.
Comments 64
Lead on,Macleod
July 10th, 2009 at 12:42 am
That was fast, fuster!
July 10th, 2009 at 12:53 am
It’s hard to find a faster fuster.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:55 am
Where am I? I stepped through a shimmering door with “Twilight Zone” music playing and…and….CK, is that you?
Steven from Indiana
July 10th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Great job, MacLeod-ie! (That does have a rather Scottish sound, doesn’t it?)
Still getting myself sorted out this morning. Routine all out of whack.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:06 am
I’m trying to figure out if Rally Point has identified me as a bat. The little icon seems to have both ears and wings. So I don’t THINK it’s a cockroach.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Thanks for setting this up CK.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Wanna switch, Bat?
Why do I have to be Mr. Stink?
July 10th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
You are Mr Stink, and you will like it, fuster.
Actually, you can sign up for a free Gravatar account – google Gravatar – and personalize your avatar at will.
Anyway, am running late, must walk dogs, etc., but will be group-e-mailing y’all and others shortly. Thinking to advertise at the Last Thread another time – as there are a handful of Contentions regulars who have yet to straggle in…
July 10th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Reporting for duty –although that sounds vaguely familiar — I think some clown may have said that before.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
If anyone is interested in re-securitization,(This is not to be believed),check this out. You can’t make this stuff up.
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1190-Well-Scam-You-Until-Forced-To-Stop.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aeTzfvEedKpQ
And for the epicure of Depression:
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-2009-7
July 10th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Hey,my comment is awaiting moderation,I never send moderate comments.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
If I can’t argue about the gold standard with RCAR my life will not be complete!
July 10th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
JEM,to be politically correct,I don’t want to discriminate against Silver or Platinum,or Vodka for that matter.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
There’s a big difference between Neo-Cons as individuals and the “Larger” movement. I’ve read a lot of NPOD’s stuff,and he always needed to be a part of some special group(His 1950s elite Literary group was called The Family and it included the Trillings and lots of literary Celebs,and NPOD was kind of an enforcer of whatever the Au Courrant and “accepted” opinions du jour were. Commentary had a similiar mindset discipline that reminded me of the Counter Culture and even back to American Communism,not in Content,but in Style. Obviously,someone there didn’t like rough and tumble debate and questioning.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
JEM,Chew on this:
“A fourth lesson is that gold is shifting back from a sovereign reserve asset central banks were inclined to underplay to one of growing, strategic interest. This shift is logical; gold remains the world’s primary financial asset that is no one’s liability. In the past few months, China has reported a rise in its official gold holdings of 15m troy ounces (about 450 tonnes), more than the amount sold by the UK, Spain and the European Central Bank combined in the previous six years. Despite this massive addition, China’s gold allocation has risen from less than 1 per cent to only 1.6 per cent, a fraction of the amount commonly found in Europe and the US. With China holding 20 per cent of total international currency reserves, where it goes, others take heed.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5315bab8-6caa-11de-a6e6-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
July 10th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Wow – this must be the right place – 5 of the last 6 comments are from RCAR. Nothing has changed from CONTENTIONS.
July 10th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Anyone know what was the straw that broke the camel’s back over there?
July 10th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
In situations like these, one tends to assume that, if it was something to be proud of, or that was at least easily defensible, the mysterious “editors” would have offered an explanation. Maybe even one or another editor would have stepped forward and taken personal responsibility.
It’s not as though the Commentarians are typically at a loss for words.
Some combination of poverty and someone important not liking the comment threads would be my guess. Maybe word will filter out one day.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
I see JPod’s old babysitter has now shown up at The Last Thread (what a name for a rock band) to implore him to reopen contentions for reader comments.
Interestingly, there were a sizable number of endorsements in that whole pile, for the No Comments policy.
Maybe they’ll give consideration down the road to a policy of screening comments. The last few months, there has definitely been screening to be done. A registration policy, creating a limited access environment, could have taken care of much of the problem, with software doing 99% of the work.
Part of this whole thing is probably that “new media” are not Commentary’s focus, and the website is a sideline for them. That’s OK. It’s their magazine, and it stays good enough for me to keep renewing my subscription. But the institutional expertise you develop by jumping into online offerings with all your feet — like Pajamas, Hot Air, etc — seems slower to develop at Commentary.
That isn’t a subject for passionate criticism in my worldview, although I know it will be for others. Ah, well. It’s Friday evening, and happily, none of it requires command decisions by yrs truly.
July 10th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
While waiting in vain for Commentary to come back I found this today and thought it interesting:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/134579.html
July 10th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Jed, your loyalty is beyond question, but the next time your reading Flotsam and Jetsam remember…
We have met the Jetsams, and they are us.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
JED:
I also noted the significant number of endorsements for the “no comments” policy. It struck me as bizarre since even reading the comments requires a positive action; you have to turn them on. Since it is implausible that any normal person would object to the posting of comments he has never read, we must assume that these are people who read the comments and were so offended by them they wished to obliterate the possibility that they would be read by anyone else, while finding the other comments on the various threads just not worth enough to outweigh the bad ones.
I hope those people don’t call themselves conservatives, or, if they do, have the courtesy not to invoke the names of Bill Buckley or Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan or Sarah Palin. Real conservatives love a fight, and are always prepared to treat Fuster and Lester and Biblio and Liar as welcome (or at least well tolerated) commenters who kept everyone on their toes. I can’t imagine a real conservative wanting to suppress their views, particularly at the cost of silencing ours.
No, these are a combination of Obama plants and Noonan/Parker/Brooks pseudo-conservatives who are terrified by this kind of discussion. I am surprised and saddened that Commentary appears to have bought the chocolate-covered fecal matter of this particular bull.
July 10th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
It didn’t seem to me that there were that many commenting against commenting, though I acknowledge that even a handful probably stood out.
I could imagine that someone who mattered was really rubbed the wrong way by even just a few anti-semitic or otherwise offensive comments finding their way into the light, whether or not they were eventually deleted. The example of NRO and TWS blogging without comments may have helped the argument that “respectable” conservative publications don’t invite the riff-raff in.
It’s the lack of warning or explanation – alongside the original intention to terminate comments without even giving us the Last Thread – that puts the whole thing in a bad light.
July 11th, 2009 at 12:39 am
I don’t think they weren’t going to give us the last thread – -I think they really were having server issues. The “Day the Comments Died” the normal blog posts kept appearing and disappearing from the site at very odd intervals. It sounds to me like the server troubles – especially if they were the result of some sort of issue with the comments – -could have been the straw that broke the camels back.
It is also possible that some well heeled — but not internet savvy –contributor decided to go exploring the site and clicked on a comment link and found a bunch of anti-semitic or just plain uncivil discussion going on – -which seems to have been happening more lately — a sign of desperation? — and pressured them to pull the plug.
I agree that all the first time posters that showed up on the last thread talking about good riddance for the comments were probably Obama plants who smelled blood in the water and were shrieking with glee.
July 11th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Hi folks. I still think JPod made essentially a $$ decision, albeit arguably a short-sighted one. Otherwise why go to the trouble of handing out Poddies?
Good luck with this stuff, CK, & thanks for the effort.
July 11th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Reuters, Paris. President Obama was caught by photographers checking out a 16 year old’s a**, much to the delight of the also panting French President Sarkozy. When answering questions about this perceived indiscretion, Mr. Obama replied, “C’mon guys. I am God. I made that a**. It’s what I do. I won and I am entitled to admire My handiwork. Sure, I make mistakes. Look at the a** on Hillary, for God’s er for My sake.”
The nearly 6,000 year old Entity then asked everyone to rise and excused himself, noting to Evan Thomas that he was on his way to meet the Pope. “I hope he arrives on time, Me dammit! I’ve got to set that man straight about a few things.”
Steven from Indiana
July 11th, 2009 at 9:37 am
P.S. Poddy and Wehner from their perches engaged in what some might deem gratuitous running feuds with the likes of Sullivan and Klein so presumably august elevated content, unperturbed dignity and splendid isolation were not exclusive priorities at HMS Contentions.
July 11th, 2009 at 10:18 am
I am aware of at least a dozen economic analysts who 10-15 years ago predicted the economic collapse with surgical precision. And they all read the same,they all picked up on the same identical metrics. Anyway,it looks like we’re going to be forced into a situation where our choices are very limited,external war to beef up our national assets,or internal “Temporary” losses of various freedoms until the Economic dictators are able to start the job engine. My confidence that our democratic system can restart the engine is growing quite dim.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,druck-635051,00.html
July 11th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Thank you CK.
I do not want to sound like a broken record but we need a site like salon.com to become a rally point for humanitarian conservatives, just like stalin.com and the hufflepuff are rally points for klueless smug pwogwessives. I don’t know about you, but I am a little down about the prospect of +7 more years of President Flapdoodle. What would be left of our wealth, of our freedom, and of our sanity?
Are stalin.com and hufflebubblehead successful models for us? Do they cover their costs? Are they maybe even profitable?
Could we steal some of their best elements such as good writing on the arts, on contemporary fashion, on child rearing and the challenges of romance, friendship AND politics, and come up with something special which could rally America back to her better angels, back to her greatest strengths?
July 11th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Relating to the Decline and Fall of Comments at Contentions,The Economic situation certainly put a lot of pressure on the the political,and Foreign Affairs specialists,because how is a bankrupt America expected to remain in the Exceptionalist conceptual schema? The Blogmeisters wanted to use the crisis to whipsaw Obama into giving up his agenda,and yet,they ignored how the Economics affected their aqgenda. A very uncomfortable balancing act,wouldn’t you say?
July 11th, 2009 at 11:29 am
materialist at 10:32 — I had the same LOL moment, reading the objections to the very idea of comments. Um, there was nothing forcing anyone to read them.
In fact, I gave up reading comments at the Townhall website almost 2 years ago, because 98% of them are just so bleeping stupid. I found a few commenters whose TH blogs I liked, and just keep up with them and forget the worthless comments sections, at the author columns.
But contentions had the smartest reader commenters going. IMO, even better than a pretty good collection over at Pajamas. Hot Air has some good folks too (the better ones are in the Green Room), but I thought we were definitely getting the “class” reader commentary over at… Commentary.
Well. Probably time to move on.
July 11th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Zoltan Newberry — Have you thought of a name for the anti-klueless smug pwogwessive rally point blog for humanitarian conservatives?
July 11th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
City On The Hill
Convent Gardens
Founders Park
Freedom Ring
Road To Serfdom, Not
govnottheanswer.com
itstheJewsagain.com
Contentions
What would you call yours, J.E.? snidegrump.com?
July 11th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Smallberry’s Point of Departure
July 11th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Thanks for doing this, CK. I agree, there needs to be a bit of a grassroots site for serious discussion of Conservative issues. Now, the Standard, Commentary and NRO sites are all good, but they have more of a top-down, “we are the pundits” feel to them. Stacy McCain, Jammie Wearing Fool, etc, while they have some very good points, aren’t going to get taken seriously in the wider political discussion.
I like the idea of a blog where normal folks like us can actually put forward our views and open them up to commentary (heh) from others so that we defend them successfully, or find out that we were wrong.
I’m happy to help in anyway possible, as I’ve been thinking all along about starting such a blog.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I like Zombie. Now, all we need is something to fight about.
Steven from Indiana
July 12th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
My reading of what happened at Contentions is that Kejda Gjermani had been running the comments section, had been in charge of banning abusive commentators, and after not being very successful and finding the work frustrating, had quit. After that, according to my theory, the editors spent a week or two thinking over what to do about a rapidly deteriorating comments section, in which it was almost impossible to post anything without being drowned out by the trolls, and decided to give it up. That’s all just speculation, of course,
July 12th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
That’s pure guesswork, isn’t it Peter?
Greenwald handled some of the banning duties, didn’t lack for enthusiasm, and remains on staff.
July 12th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Peter, “. . . and after not being very successful.” Is this utter supposition? What would failure mean practically in banning abusive commentators.
Finally, CK, what is the connection, if any, between this blog and the “Google groups” site? I mean, why are both necessary as you saw it?
July 12th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
“That’s all just speculation, of course”
Peter, the Trolls ware never more than 10% of the response overall. I would speculate that NPOD is still the power behind Commentary, unless he’s dead or disabled,and NPOD is not one to enjoy differences of opinion very much. Read his book Ex-Friends for a taste of NPOD’s MO in dealing with those that differ with him,
July 12th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
The hateful abuse of the internet was nothing at JPod’s compared to the hate spewed at stalin.com from the top (Joan Walsh & Glenn Greenwald) down to their dutiful echo chamber of nasty leftoids.
It reaches a crescendo each week in response to Camille Paglia who has the nerve to sometimes praise Palin and criticize 0′bie, whom she voted for.
This kind of depravity (that’s what James Madison called it) makes it clear that big government amplifies and feeds off the worst qualities of human nature. These people are so enraptured with big government, they will resort to any means (like stuffing the ballot box and registering the dead) to gain and keep power.
July 12th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Joe NS – the connection to the g-group, other than the fact that some people seem more attracted to the one format, others to the other format, is whatever we choose to make of it. I also had in mind a relationship that partly worked for the HotAir Green Room when they first established it: The Green Room was the whole point of the operation, but a “back-channel” for communication between administrators and authors, and for communication among authors, was set up via e-mail list.
I personally see unique benefits to each venue. The list has the potential to allow for immediate, free form exchanges among members of a defined group. The blog can also feature such exchanges – perhaps to some redundant effect, I grant you – but implicitly presents a face to the outside world, potentially allowing us to induct new conspirators in our fiendish plot etc. etc., also to address other denizens or observers in the blogosphere.
As I stated in the Ukase post, if one format ends up dominating, that doesn’t mean that the other has to be abandoned.
July 12th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
What Really Happened at Commentary. (A very short play)
Act I
JPOD: Kejda has tendered her resignation. Who will seperate the good from the bad? The anti-Semites from the anti-Zionists? The light from the dark? The roosters from the hens? What next? Ooooh!
Rubin: Not to worry, Big. We hire an intern. There’s one in the outer office, now. Shall I bring him in?
JPOD: Sure. Hello, young man. I’m John. What’s your name?
Young man: they call me lester.
Steven from Indiana
July 12th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Steven, John must have burked him.
There has been a most extraordinary lack of lester.
July 12th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
LOL majorly, SfI.
Poor lester. I kind of miss him. Almost. Sort of. Absence and all…
July 12th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
All right, fuster, I guess I’m supposed to ask how you know that Greenwald handled some of the banning duties.
July 13th, 2009 at 1:22 am
Peter, you weren’t. I respect your intelligence and expected you wouldn’t require explication.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:22 am
fuster, I guess that answers my question. Thanks.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:40 am
hey, ck macleod, what made you think i wasn’t here? how could i stay away? i mean, neocons SUCK!
July 13th, 2009 at 10:49 am
I love Lester
July 13th, 2009 at 11:23 am
horses everywhere are very frightened
July 13th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Welome lester. I knew you’ld find us.
Steven from Indiana
July 13th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
of course i found you. and you still SUCK whether you call yourselves neocons or whigs or libertarians or whatever. ha! q.e.d.
any other questions?
July 13th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
yes, lester,my question is did you miss all your pals here?
July 14th, 2009 at 12:03 am
of course i missed you. what would i do without you? you SUCK! hello?
July 14th, 2009 at 8:39 am
yes, les, it’s a twisted and salty relationship.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
p retsel, i’ve been going to night school, so i enjoyed all the nuances in your comment and got a good chuckle out of the word play, beginning with the transformation of my name. of course you still SUCK! (so does everyone else here. it’s nothing personal.)
July 14th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
This site is garbage! Nothing but bats, and cockroaches, mushroom clouds and other nasties!
July 14th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Harumph. Mr. Newberry, if you’d like to prettify the site, setting an example for everyone else, why don’t you go to Gravatar, and upload something positive and nice and good and happy and attractive. BTW – when you critique my mushroom cloud, you leave out the smiley face!
Anyway, if we’re tired of monsters, I’ve invoked an alternative, though now we’re probably going to have to cope with people who had come to love their monsters, and will suffer from listlessness and moodiness.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Hmmm… the substitute “generated” avatar thingies were too goofy even for me. Well, you’re just going to have to deal with being blank for a while until I figure something out, y’all get your own gravatars – here’s the link again – or a Bring Back the Monsters movement gains steam.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Get over it, Z. The Mushroom MacLeod is great.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Private Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.
Pogue Colonel: The what?
Private Joker: The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir.
Though actually the image is from/for a different movie.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
If I have only one undead life to live, and I can’t be Mr. Blonde, I may as well be Mr. Stink.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
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