Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Friday, January 20, 2012

Moral Hazard

Commentary By Ron Beasley


One of my great blogging joys used to be mocking David Brooks.  Now Sir David would have been at home in England a few decades ago.  A rather worthless fellow who was lucky enough to have a title and a stage to to spew nonsense.  An easy target for a desperate blogger.  But all good things must end and David Brooks mocking ended with Charles Pierce.


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The applause came from deep in the plush leather armchairs gathered by the fireplace in the clubroom of the Premature Fogies Club. It was warm and sustaining, as was the morning brandy. People touched the patches on his master's blazer as he walked by. "Good show, old top," they told him. Moral Hazard, the Irish setter belonging to David Brooks, yawned and stretched his legs all the way down to the tips of his paws. He knew what was going on. His master had brought joy to all the calcined specimens in all the armchairs by telling them the up-from-poverty saga of Willard Romney and his family, the relentless immigrant-ish striving that still drives Willard no matter which of his several luxury homes in which he happened to be doing his striving at the moment. This Friday's column had made them all feel like pioneers squinting across the Great Plains into the setting western sun. His master, thought Moral Hazard, will never lack for dinner-party invitations after this:


Mitt Romney is a rich man, but is Mitt Romney's character formed by his wealth? Is Romney a spoiled, cosseted character?



Go to the link to find the answer to these questiions.  I can't compete with Mr Pierce.



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2 comments:

  1. John BallardJanuary 20, 2012 at 8:22 PM

    ...the up-from-poverty saga of Willard Romney and his family, the relentless immigrant-ish striving that still drives Willard no matter which of his several luxury homes in which he happened to be doing his striving at the moment.
    Great find, Ron. Better than discovering a four-leaf clover. I don't post much at Facebook but this one had to get a link.

    ReplyDelete
  2. RedhandJanuary 22, 2012 at 1:06 AM

    Driftglass does a pretty good job too.

    ReplyDelete

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