“I For One Welcome Our New Overlords”

Posted by Scott McLemee

Doing the usual stroll through Bloglines a little while ago (168 feeds and counting), I read:

The Weblog’s military aggression this week against The Valve and Long Sunday has been a radically unqualified success. Further action against Crooked Timber will be unnecessary at this time because The Valve and Long Sunday have been transformed into beacons of democracy and hope for the entire academic blogosphere.

That sounds less like serious de-escalation than momentary retrenchment before an eventual attempted conquest. If you want to watch one of the more self-aware blogspats in recent memory, check out the comments section for this entry at The Weblog, the field headquarters for this bloodstained militarist operation.

It’s now up to more than 400 comments. One of them indicates that the invasion of CT was originally scheduled for this weekend. The above-quoted statement indicates otherwise, but that may be an effort to throw everyone off guard.

posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 2:19 pm
comments
  1. We plan to seek peace through diplomatic means as long as possible—but Crooked Timber was where we were first infected by the Troll of Sorrow (then calling himself “troll du jour”), and the proud people of The Weblog have a long memory.

  2. Whose side are you on anyway, Scott?

  3. Once there 911 comments (or is that 911 feeds), well then, that will change everything!

    Posted by marcel · February 2nd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
  4. I’m too confused by the nature of this war to do anything more than seek refugee status.

  5. In this kind of conflict, confusion is our greatest ally.

  6. Confusion, surprise, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.

  7. Like the Poles in 1939, the Crooked Timber folk are behaving very aggressively.

  8. I took at look at the Weblog thread. A fascinating bit of inside baseball, I admit. But, depsite the 400+ comments, still not quite the greatest thread ever.

  9. I am giving the order to nuke Kotsko now.

    Posted by Kieran Healy · February 2nd, 2007 at 4:34 pm
  10. wow, was my brain not ready for following those links.

  11. Can’t you guys just agree to disagree?

    Posted by engels · February 2nd, 2007 at 4:54 pm
  12. Which links were those, Jacob? (And incidentally, did the Volokh Conspiracy ever get this way? Maybe behind the scenes? Or are libertarians just a little less…what’s the word I want here? Contentious? Angst-filled? Anyway, you know what I mean.)

  13. But disagree to part/After all it’s just a compromise/Of (all together now)…

  14. Oh, drats, RAF intervened, making my post above even less lucid..

  15. When Kotsko talks about “blood running in the gutters”, he’s speaking metaphorically, I think.

  16. You mean people still bother with blog wars?

  17. This was to be the blogwar to end all blogwars.

  18. [Insert joke about blogwars at Volokh Conspiracy in light of Volokh’s advocacy of torture.]

  19. Serious people do not read The Weblog. It’s a reading experience equivalent to watching the guy next to you on the subway pick his nose, first the left nostril, then the right, then back to the left, and so on.

  20. When Kotsko talks about “blood running in the gutters”, he’s speaking metaphorically, I think.

    Not anymore. The ICBMs have launched. ETA 30 minutes. (Make up your own appropriate expansion of ‘ICBMs.’ Also ‘ETA.’

    Posted by Kieran Healy · February 2nd, 2007 at 6:51 pm
  21. I am obviously completely naff. I feel like I’m playing some bizarre game of Mornington Crescent here.

  22. God, I must have fallen through the looking glass down the rabbit hole into some sort of indecipherable (mock) machismo contest…

    Posted by Laleh · February 2nd, 2007 at 7:22 pm
  23. Laleh is next. He or she will rue the day.

  24. Actually I have no idea what any of this is about.

    Posted by Kieran Healy · February 2nd, 2007 at 7:56 pm
  25. Serious people sometimes do read The Weblog, but only for a short time.

  26. One thing is certain. We need them big tidy WMDs.(*)

    Bellum incipit. Sit vis nobiscum.

    = = =

    (*) Words of Mass Devastation

  27. I assumed that RAF’s link went to Apostropher’s thread on how Barack Obama was the antichrist. The fact that it doesn’t proves I have much to learn about the perfidy of my fellow man.

  28. Serious people sometimes do read The Weblog, but only for a short time.

    That’s so cute. No, Adam, the hits that last only, like, 0.1 second are just google indexing your page. No human could actually become disgusted that quickly.

  29. John Edwards may be the new Antichrist.

  30. @26: We’re more likely talking about Words of Mass Distraction here.

    What have you guys been eating? And: Can I have some of that too?

  31. Serious people, maybe not. Though often enough interesting people do.

  32. Fundamental seriousness is what cause Hitler, you know. Two words: Carl Schmitt.

  33. Hi,

    “It’s now up to more than 400 comments.”

    See, this is why I don’t hang around colleges.

    Have a nice day,
    Antti

    Posted by Antti Nannimus · February 3rd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
  34. How can we have a nice day with the shells flying overhead? Damn you, the Weblog!

  35. We at Neo-TeX hereby issue a public statement of our stance on The Blogwar.

  36. I would just like to note that a search on “blogwar” on Wikipedia yielded results like Blogware and – more intriguingly – Autoerotic fatality (huh…?)

    The Germans never had a chance. I hope you’ve enjoyed the rugby.

  37. I can discern the inner necessity of the “autoerotic fatality” result.