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2006-09-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Spam Fix: An Occasional Review of Think Tank Email Lists

2006-09-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

Title: Washington Update

Organization: Family Research Council

Frequency: Every God damn day, usually around 5:30-6:30pm. Frequently received via BlackBerry and Treo during happy hour; occasionally recited sarcastically to co-workers and fellow travelers between long pulls off of $2.50 Coronas.

Tone: Pious, patriotic, apprehensive. This is for people who know they’re fighting God’s fight, but are aware of the perpetual plethora of perils they face. These emails teach us that while the forces of light may be making progress, trial lawyers, the liberal media and secular humanists are all waiting in the shadows to undue the work of the righteous.

Recurring themes: Attacks on virtue by atheist public school teachers, the need to support the President’s ban on federal stem cell research funding, and the never-ending battle against the radical homosexual agenda. Because, really, what is it with those gays? If they’re not trying to recruit our 7^th graders into a life of depravity or parading down the street in oversized leather codpieces, they’re trying to adopt children or gain legal recognition for their long-term relationships. FRC says enough already! There’s more than enough reparative therapy to go around.

Target demographic: Clearly the sweaty activist hordes. The name obviously pegs it as a faux-insider’s synopsis, filtered for family-friendliness and delivered to the true believers in flyover country. Every small town has some bored, church minded shut-in who gets these emails every day and therefore regards himself some kind of Clark Clifford-meets-Lee Atwater-meets-Karl Rove ultimate D.C. insider.

Red or blue?: Redder than a bloody rare filet at The Palm. This is territory where Jesus himself might be found suspect for preaching all of that commie-liberal-pinko “love your enemies” shit.

Instantly recognizable from: Again, the ability to take any given day’s headlines and create an item in which the homosexual army is on the march against everything we good people hold dear. Given the frequency with which the Rainbow Brotherhood has allegedly been on the verge of destroying traditional marriage, it’s a wonder any straight people are still wearing their rings.

Insider information: None, really, unless you count recent poll numbers from a university survey on spirituality.

The quote that says it all: “Religion is not becoming irrelevant, but many politically correct, spiritually void religious institutions are.” [9/12/06]

Unusual feature: Distributed under the name (and photo) of FRC’s president, former Marine and Louisiana state legislator Tony Perkins. No, not that Tony Perkins. This fearless leader is not a closeted bisexual screen star, nor did he have an unhealthy relationship with an imaginary mother character. The name resemblance, however, always evokes an amused roll of the eyes, as we scroll past the smiling jpeg portrait that welcomes us to each late afternoon email message.

Can I subscribe?: Oh, fuck yeah you can. And The Tanker highly advises it.

Libertarians Eat Fish

2006-09-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

We've heard that there's a bizarre annual ritual in which all the libertarians within 500 miles of DC converge at the home of Cato's Ed Crane to eat fish and listen to hillbilly music.

If this is true, and if you were there, and if you saw something hilarious, please: let the Tanker know. We already had one e-mail tip noting how "totally ripped" Brookings guest scholar in "gay issues" Jonathan Rauch looks in tight swimwear. We're sure there are more totally disconcerting observations out there to be shared...

On Age and Power

2006-09-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

The Tanker was as close to speechless as we've ever been when we stumbled across this: the Wattenblog, the "daily musings" (rantings? blatherings? broodings? delusions? grocery lists?) of AEI senior fellow--and host of The Tanker's favorite show "Think Tank," which we don't TiVo regularly only because we don't want TiVo to think we're a loser--Ben Wattenberg.

One of today's jaunty posts reads not unlike the MySpace blog of a 14 year old girl who thinks that being angst-filled must mean she's smart:

Words, Words, Words
Words can be swords.

I am reading Robert MacNiel's wonderful The Story of English (with co-authors.)

Katie Couric just began her much-noted run as Anchor Woman on CBS. (In the UK they routinely are called "news-readers.")

She is routinely called "perky," in Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language.

That is defined as "brisk, gay, saucy, jaunty, spirited, aggressive."

Pretty good.

But supposed she were called "hyper" --- no definition in Webster's.

That's another story, isn't it?

Words have shadings. Don't shade the truth.

Whatever. From your non-shady poster boy,

Ben

And from yesterday:

Slice and dice
As I think about it, people today --- I don't think it was ever thus --- will slice-and-dice and mix-and-match in every conceivable way.

You can have your coffee piping hot or iced.

Same with tea.

And salad. And soup.

I could slurp soup all day long.

Therefore what?

Dunno...

Ben

Now we don't mean to make light of the onset of--let's be frank--senility. Here at The Tanker we're well aware that getting old sucks. Even though we harbor secret resentment for our parents for being too modest about their own success to pull the requisite strings to get us jobs on the Hill (some bullshit about "making it on our own" that landed us here in the purgatory of the Tankerdom), it tugs at our taut little heartstrings when they have their "senior" moments and forget our name and birthday or to turn off the gas or open the garage door before pulling out.

So we aren't making light of that. We're making light of something that is totally fair game: the fact that Ben Wattenberg, an "avuncular Washington insider" with his "old-style Scoop Jackson Social Democratic-style warmongering and...genuine bafflement that anyone could dispute the neoconservative party line," is either so scary or so revered that no one who knows him, loves him, or works with him will tell him to stop blogging. And we think that's AWESOME.

We salute you, Ben Wattenberg. If we're stuck in a career in the Tankerdom, we aspire to be so wise and powerful that even if our fly is down, there's food in our crazy-old-man beard, and we write an op-ed that confuses Canada with Bolivia, everyone will be afraid to tell us because for all they know, fuckin'-a, man! The Tanker did that shit on purpose.

There Is Such A Thing As Free Lunch

2006-09-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but it’s not as if you should have expected otherwise. We’re think tankers, not blog-tankers, and our work ethic is calibrated rather precisely to our low-paying, non-profit “work” environment. Also, we didn’t realize that when they give you a three day weekend, you’re supposed to stop drinking on Sunday and use Monday as a recovery day. It was all we could do yesterday to slough through our inboxes (lots of press releases and list serve prattle) and skim a couple of issue paper executive summaries (we heart bullet points), much less spend time crafting blog content. Dear as you may be, readers, you just aren’t all that important to us when we have a hangover.

Today, however, we donned outlet-store business attire, schlepped into the office, and, after the requisite 4 cups of coffee, decided to blow off an afternoon we had planned to spend making up for lost time with Lexis-Nexis and Excel (we find pie charts simply delicious, pun fully intended) and head over to watch the ongoing libertarian freakshow at Cato. Well, and get free lunch. Because on our salary, we’ll do pretty much anything for free lunch.

The event today was some sort of nonsense about libertarians and evangelicals getting into a naked mud-wrestling cage match for control of the Republican party. Obviously, the corporate shills at Cato want the libertarians to win, but the way we see it, the party’s in pretty rough shape if its leadership options are either a bunch of Heinlein-loving sci-fi nerds or some dumbass Southern voodoo doers doing rain dances with Rick Santorum in hopes of warding off gay marriage.

The event was pretty packed, both with Buddy Christ fans and people that probably hate Kevin Smith because he is morally revolting (we hate him because he is fat), and we were getting really excited about the possibility of a libertarians vs. Christians type riot, but then the speaker, some dude named Ryan Sager (who we heard used to do Cato VP David Boaz’s laundry or something), started talking and we realized he was basically recommending reconciliation. The nerve of these people. We spent most of the time on our Blackberry forwarding inflammatory remarks about made-up news stories to journalists who fall into that just-famous-enough-to-be-worth-it-but-not-so-famous-as-to-ignore-us sweet spot hoping to book some interviews or at least get quoted, but no luck. Barone droned on for a while at the end, though Boaz did manage to introduce him by saying something like “He’s the best commentator in the world for this, that we could get to come anyway,” which reminded us a lot of one of our favorite Onion stories, “You Are The Most Beautiful Woman in the World Who Will Sleep With Me.”

Then came the good part (or so we hoped), lunch. It can be described in two parts: 1. flat ginger ale 2. soggy tuna.

We had two sandwiches and three cups of watered down ginger ale. Because it was free, and anyway, those filthy capitalists can afford to feed us. Think of it as the think tank version of freeganism. Someday we will post a fully footnoted, peer-reviewed paper filled with pie charts and bar graphs detailing the substantive merits of think tank seminar lunch food. It will influence think tank lunch policy for decades, we promise.

The Winners: And the Hook Brings You Back

2006-09-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

For the men, Brendan Steinhauser is the winner, in spite of his slow start and the fact that the picture he sent to replace his other bad picture looks much like the mugshot of drunk driver who thinks he's going to beat the rap. Brendan came in with 14.14% of the vote.

And of course, the one you've been waiting for, you sick perv: For the women, the winner is Frannie Wellings of Free Press. With 20.05% of the vote, it was close, and even The Tanker didn't predict which among the top three vote-winners for the ladies would come out ahead. So if you were a feverish last-minute Frannie voter, pat yourself on the back, because your vote actually meant something.

The Tanker needs a drink now. The anticipation and release have sapped us of our will to search the BEA statistics pages for numbers that our boss will invariably either fail to use or use incorrectly.

Taking Applications

2006-09-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you noticed a post today written not by The Tanker, but by our new minion, the Lil' Tankster. We're always taking applications for helper tankers, so if you think you can blend vague disdain for your profession with wit, grace, and occasional bursts of toilet humor into blog form, we'll give you a test run and see how it goes.

Send application submissions to tips4tanker@gmail.com. Your submissions become property of Get Tank'd, as does your soul. We'll post them (your submissions, not your souls) and let the people's reactions decide your fate. The Tanker is a meritocracy; like most meritocracies, the person deciding on the relative merits of the underlings need not demonstrate any particular merits of their own. (All of this is done anonymously of course--it's all fun and games until someone loses a job, although we hear you're guaranteed a book deal if that happens.)

Right-Wing Cannibalism Over Intelligent Design

2006-09-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

Technology Liberation Front (TLF) is not a think tank, but it plays one on the Internet; it's a group of think tank and other assorted policy types who "report on, and hopefully help...reverse, this dangerous trend of over-regulation of the Internet, communications, media and high-technology in general. We will not hide our love of liberty on this site and we will take every opportunity to castigate those who call for expanding the reach of government into these fields."

Recently, they brought a scholar from the Discovery Institute on board as a contributor, who will no doubt try to argue that the Internet is far too complicated to have been created by man alone and that Al Gore must have had some Divine inspiration from Him when he invented it. Al Gore is God's technology vessel. It makes perfect sense to The Tanker: if God hadn't wanted us to download porn at our desks, he wouldn't have sent us Al Gore. Tipper, on the other hand, was sent by Satan, to try to foil God's will as expressed through the downloading of porn and music with explicit lyrics. Ying and yang in their eternal struggle for our souls.

Anyway, if you want to see some free-market techies eating one of their own, check it out here, here, here, and here. (The last link, by former Cato staffer Greg Newburn, sharply calls into question Cato's relationship with the Discovery Institute. We don't know him, but he seems to be exactly the sort of disgruntled ex-think tanker The Tanker aspires to one day be.)

Welcome, Godless Malkinites

2006-09-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

We've had a Malkinlanche thanks to a link from progressive blogger Michelle Malkin. Thanks, Michelle! We really like your stuff, and the only reason you weren't on our list of beautiful policy people is because what you do isn't really related to policy in any sense of the word, even to an outside-the-box thinker like The Tanker. No hard feelings though.

We noticed that she identified this as a "free-marketeer," website, which isn't really the case--in addition to being amoral, The Tanker is also mostly apolitical. It's just a twist of fate that there are more conservative/libertarian readers and nominees by virtue, we suspect, of there being more of them. Also, the lefties are above plastering pictures of attractive people on their websites, although The Tanker does not interpret that as being proof positive that liberals are ugly.

Don’t Be a Tanker-Hater

2006-09-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

While you were drunkenly milling around Whitlow’s fiddling with your jacket collar and trying to figure out how to chat it up with that blonde chick from the press office (forget it, dude, you went to a state university), Lil'Tanker was at home with a bottle of, of… well, we don’t quite remember, but it seems to have worked, as it dulled the pain of footnoting our new policy paper and made us especially excited about heckling Fox News (which we swear we only watch for the smokin’ blonde anchor-bimbos—day-um).

Even in our usual inebriated, bullet-point-babbling, late-night state, it takes a lot to get us to watch The O’Reilly Factor (we are categorically not the Common Man) , but when we heard that one of Heritage’s resident ~~war-mongers~~ foreign policy experts, Nile Gardener (a Brit whose name sounds like a third-world job title) was going to be on, we couldn’t resist.

After a bunch of crap that we don't remember, Nile gets on and starts yammering about Iran this and Iran that and nuclear power requires blah blah blah and it becomes pretty obvious that dude’s got vast spreadsheets of data ready to flow forth from his overeducated noggin. But the fake-O’Reilly they had guest hosting (even Bill O’Reilly goes on vacation in August) didn’t seem to care about anything so useful as the data. He wouldn’t stop yelling at Nile. We don’t remember exactly what he said, but it pretty much boiled down to “Let’s go to war! Just say it, you pudgy-faced nerd. Let’s go to war!”

The fake-O’Reilly kept badgering poor Nile, who, in return, kept spitting out cold, hard, delicious statistics and dates and other assorted bits of wonkery, but it didn’t make any difference. Fake-O’Reilly kept yelling like a welfare mom just out of a state rehab program (which, for any columnists reading this, we're currently working on a paper about which we would totally give you an exclusive in exchange for a citation). The whole time during the interview, though, what we wanted to scream out—and in fact did, much to the chagrin out of neighbors—was, “He’s agreeing with you, fake-O’Reilly! He’s just speaking policy wonk while doing it! Don’t you understand? This is the only way wonks know how to communicate!” But journalists have no sympathy for the number-riddled souls of think tankers; we’re just highly-educated cows to be machine-milked for our precious factoids.

On a side note, Nile kind of blinks a lot when he’s on TV. We know how it gets pouring through spreadsheets and government studies all day (believe us—we know), but lay off the Starbucks if you’re going to be on O’Reilly.

First Runners Up: Not As Good Looking As They Think They Are

2006-09-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

For the men, the first runner-up is Chris Kinnan of FreedomWorks. His votes closesly mirrored those for Ms. Hallberg, with an aggravating 75% of Chris's voters voting for her. But because their fates were so closely tied, he too suffered from waning support in the final days, ending up with 13.6% of the vote.

For the women, there was a two vote difference between first and second, with CEI's Brooke Oberwetter coming up short for the second place finish. Still, surprising for someone who inspired two "anyone but Brooke" write-in votes. She finished with 19.79% of the vote.

And here, for your entertainment, are the write-ins for the women:

Amanda Carpenter.
Patrice Webb, Free Press
Amanda Carpenter
Courtney Knapp, Mercatus Center
Why all the conservatives? They have short dicks and the conservative women are boring and unimaginative in bed.
I've worked with Frannie b/f and not only is she pretty, she's one of the easiest people in DC to work with. This picture would make a great watch ad.
anyone but Brooke
Amanda Carpenter, Human Events
Tracie Sharp, SPN
Martha Coven
Those ugly skanks all probably have STDs.
I didn't pay any attention to the women!
Hands down, Martha Coven. Darcy Olsen a distant second.

Second Runners Up: Don't You Wish It Were You?

2006-09-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

On the men's side the distinctive honor of second runner-up goes to Gene Healy of the Cato Institute, who captured 12.6% of the vote.

For the women, second runner-up goes to Beverly Hallberg of the Leadership Institute, whose very smooth ballot stuffing campaign ran out of steam in the final days of voting. She came in with 17.52% of the vote.

(N = 375)

Other winners will be announced throughout the day.

Here are the write-ins for the men, included just because some of them are quite funny, and some of them indicate that the fact that this was the WRITE-IN section for MEN was evidently lost on some people:

Josh Silver, Free Press
Will Wilkinson, Cato Institute
Bev Hallberg
Max Pappas
I'm a guy . . . not gonna vote for a guy.
Frannie Wellings, Free Press
So hot only wished I knew him personally! Rarr.
andrew abraham
Dan Mitchell, Heritage
WOW!! That's the only thing that comes to mind!! Simply AMAZING!!
WOW!! Simply AMAZING!!
Ken Shepherd, Business Media Institute
Chaz Cirame, Students for Saving Social Security
Tim Lee
Al Gore
Steven Putansu, American University
Julian Sanchez
anyone but Brooke
Chaz Cirame, Students for Saving Social Security
John R. Graham, PRI
Tracie Sharp, SPN
John R. Graham
Brenden Steinhauser, FreedomWorks
Any dead libertarian. They look much better than any of the stinking live ones.
Peter Bergen
I wish I could skip this question because I am male and heterosexual. I picked Jerry Brito merely because he looks like someone from work.

Happy Friday

2006-08-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

We took a bit of a break this week because everyone in our office(s) is on vacation and there is therefore no one around to tell us not to take three-hour five-martini lunches. Granted, five martinis represents all of The Tanker's drinking money for the next three months, but we feel it was money well spent.

Voting continues humming along at a brisk clip--oh, and in case you can't be troubled to read the comments, we want to give a special shout out to Ronald, who writes:

Seriously, the whole reason I got into think tank work was to GET AWAY FROM ASSHOLES LIKE YOU. The high school popularity contest is over, motherfuckers. Nobody gives a fuck about your hair. We want ideas.

Thanks, Ronald, but unfortunately for you, the high school popularity contest never ends. We're sorry to break it to you, but no matter what your guidance counselor told you, you cannot reinvent yourself in the real world, you can't go to college and be a totally different person, and you can't be whatever you want to be when you grow up. Me and you and everyone else in think thank land--The Tankerdom, as we've taken to calling it--are losers, dorks, and dweebs struggling mightily to excel in intellectual pursuits to erase the years-old pain of being losers, dorks, and dweebs. Does it work? Can we all excel intellectually to make the hurt go away?

Maybe one in ten of the people who serve tours as footsoldiers in the army of the Tankerdom can catapult themselves to fame with their brains. Perhaps another two will become sound-bite regurgitating pundits. Please, Ronald, allow the rest of us our earthly delights.

P.S. Ronald loses the high school popularity test by being a big douchebag. May his dweebiness forever follow him.

Voting Update: Is Nothing Sacred to You People?

2006-08-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Tanker can't help but notice some highly improbable statistical correlations in the voting patterns, suggesting that voting is not really on the level. The Tanker is far too lazy to look up all the sites linking to the contest, but somewhere out there is an e-mail or obscure blog telling people to vote for certain combinations of people.

For example, without giving away current ranking info, The Tanker finds it fascinating that an astounding (and implausible) 81% of people who have voted for Ms. Hallberg also voted for either of the two fellows from FreedomWorks. Even more amazing--nay, mathematically impossible--correlation is that a full 100% of people who have voted for Ben Hubbard have also voted for Ms. Wellings.

The Tanker doesn't want to call anyone a cheater, and this anomaly hasn't affected the final outcome so far, but still: we have concerns. This isn't a popularity contest, assholes. We aren't in high school.

Do we, as a community of smart people really want our looks to be judged by the outside world on the basis of which nominees have the most smoothly orchestrated ballot stuffing operations? Do we really want to consider political philosophy (or worse, personality) in our Most Beautiful Person contest? No, we want hottness.

You people make me sick.

Happy Anniversary, Katrina

2006-08-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Brookings has released a report on the progress of New Orleans' reconstruction, suggesting that development has been "uneven." Almost as though it's mostly the rich who can afford to rebuild their homes from scratch.

The report also says the housing market is tightening relative to the slow-growing population, and that "housing is less affordable as rent prices in the region have increased by 39 percent over the year." Almost as though developers are building shiny new buildings rather than rebuilding in the style of run-down shacks that covered much of the areas hit hardest.

So a policy question: if New Orleans is going to rebuild, should federal income tax dollars pay for making it better than it was before Katrina? If someone who was unemployed in New Orleans, should we still be paying them emergency living money because now they're unemployed in DC? Urban/welfare policy folks are welcome to discuss.

21 Most Beautiful Policy People: Take Your Pick

2006-08-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

Update: Three things:
1. see our post on why voting in this thing is a serious matter and should be based on looks, not popularity and DEFINITELY not political affiliation.
2. in the interest of maintaining fariness through our good faith effort at finding decent pictures of these folks, we found a better picture of Sonia Arrison. Thanks to the Tipster. Sonia thanks you too, no doubt.)
3. We keep getting submissions. That window has closed. Save 'em for next year.

Check 'em out. Way better looking than Sam Arora. Ogle the eye-candy and vote for your favorite.

(disclaimer: The Tanker made a good faith effort to find the best possible pictures of these folks, scouring MySpace, think tank websites, various event archives, and flickr accounts. On some, we did better than others, for which we apologize greatly. We apologize particularly to Martha Coven, Frannie Wellings, ~~and Brendan Steinhauser~~(updated photo), who are no doubt hotties, though without particularly good pictures available online.)

Peter Bergen, New America Foundation

Jerry Brito, Mercatus Center

Timothy Carney, CEI Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow

Greg Conko, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Gene Healy, Cato Institute

Chris Horner, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Ben Hubbard, Center for American Progress

Chris Kinnan, FreedomWorks

Dan Lips, Heritage Foundation

Justin Logan, Cato Institute

Brenden Steinhauser, FreedomWorks

Marian Tupy, Cato Institute

Sonia Arrison, Pacific Research Institute

Martha Coven, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Beverly Hallberg, Leadership Institute

Kerry Howley, Reason Magazine

Sallie James, Cato Institute

Melissa Kearney, Brookings Institution

Brooke Oberwetter, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Darcy Olsen, Goldwater Institute

Veronique de Rugy, American Enterprise Institute

Frannie Wellings, Free Press

UPDATE: As of 12:00am September 1, no further votes will be counted. Let it go, people.

Market Saturation

2006-08-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Most-Beautiful Dork contests are apparently the new Reality-Based-Community posts in the sphere these days.

In Beautiful Policy People news, we're holding firm at 11 nominations. The Tanker is well aware that we're supposed to be all smart and above things like fleeting beauty, but we'd really like to make it to 20 objectively beautiful people. If you don't send submissions, we'll have to start trolling the think tank websites ourselves. And frankly, we don't want to do that because we have a lot of work to not be doing.

Item! Heritage ♥ Bush

2006-08-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

We were hipped this morning to this article in the New Republic that lays absolute waste to our long-held belief that the Heritage Foundation was a pleasant place to work, where ideas run freely and where independent, original thought is fostered by a caring and nurturing senior management team whose sole interest is the production of unbiased, scholarly work. We were way the fuck off in that assessment. (P.S., TNR people, requiring a magazine subscription for online access to your non-print content is bullshit.)

Note to the Heritage management: it is much easier to demand and receive ideological purity from your employees if your ideology is coherent, consistent, and based on reality. Liberals, that goes double for you.

Is there going to be more think tank purging as more Republicans decide to return from the independent-of-reality based community (where a shocking 50% of Americans now live)? TNR thinks so. But the Tanker doesn't know. The Tanker only knows that someone getting fired from a think tank is sort of funny. Because now that person has to go and get a real job, even though, like the Tanker and everyone the Tanker knows, they probably just aren't qualified for any kind of economically productive activity.

A big thanks for the tip to the apparently disgruntled think tank staffer at a place that may or may not be across the street from Lounge 201. We salute you. Now get the fuck out of that place.

Around the Think Tank 'Sphere

2006-08-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Heritage: Let Them Eat Horses

"While no one likes to think that Mr. Ed or Smarty Jones could end up on someone’s dinner plate, it shouldn’t be a congressional priority to criminalize horsemeat."

PFF: Keeping You Abreast of the Oxygen Network

"[A study commissioned by Oxygen found] 83% of women are excited about getting a new tech item, and only 7% are afraid they might break it."

(ed. That's why we shouldn't let women drive.) Yes, boss. You are correct.

CAP's Think Progress Blog admits: "We're the Moonbats"

CRC's Greenwatch Blog: Bank of America Charity Funds Eco-Terrorism

"The Bank of America Foundation funded an eco-terrorist group called the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which they note 'maintains a fleet of ships that sinks fishing vessels'
[...]
"Although the gift to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society went unnoticed, "there would be massive public outrage if a corporate matching grant went to the Ku Klux Klan or a neo-Nazi group."

Hot Porn

2006-08-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

While here in the states all we ever do is hem and haw about global warming, European think tanks are altogether sexier on the matter. Check it out: global warming porn.

A massive heat wave: we call it hotter than hell; they call it an excuse to get naked.

That is so hot. It makes The Tanker want to plan some naughty escapades involving a polar-bear skin rug and some chunks of ice from a melting glacier.

Paris Hilton and Policy

2006-08-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

We here at The Tanker take issue with the Center for American Progress's continued use of the term "Paris Hilton Tax Cut" as a synonym for the repeal of the estate tax. Political philosophies aside, policy people of all stripes should be able to come together to recognize that Paris Hilton is far too stupid to make a living on her own and is therefore probably a bad example.

How about the Brandon Davis Tax Cut? Everyone in the think tank world knows that kid's a genius.

Submissions Rolling In...

2006-08-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

We don't want to spoil the fun by giving away the names, but so far, we've received several submissions for our 50 most beautiful policy people, many of which seem to be coming from the Right--certainly there are some hot Lefties out there working hard on policy analyses of why welfare is good and basic economic principles are bad? Anyone?

We're also a little guy-heavy with the submissions--we haven't actually met any ourselves, but there must be some good looking ladies squirreled away in the dark recesses of the policy world. Just try to picture them with their hair down and without their glasses.

50 Most Beautiful Policy People

2006-07-31T12:21:00.000-07:00

The Tanker was more than a little disappointed last week when we saw this year's 50 Most Beautiful People on the Hill--we suppose it could be that this is just an off year, but more plausibly, we're guessing that perhaps the photographer was looking though his beer lens. The Tanker isn't sure if we want to live in a world where Sam Arora (scroll down) is among the 50 most beautiful anything, even if it's the 50 most beautiful people who bear an uncanny resemblance to actor Ben Stiller.

Either way, there's more hotness in the policy world than the politics world any day--after all, we have souls and our countenances reflect on glass surfaces. So The Tanker is pleased to announce the Most Beautiful Policy Person/Think Tanker Contest of 2006. Send pics, bio links, press clippings, whatever supporting documentation you have to nominate someone for this prestigous award to tips4tanker@gmail.com.

Deadline for submissions is August 15.

The Fine Line

2006-07-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

It's indeed a treacherously fine line, that one in the sand between scrupulous think tanker and paid policy whore. When someone fails to disclose that they've been padding their paychecks by dancing on the line, watching the fallout makes for a spectaular spectator sport.

And nothing makes The Tanker happier than when it happens to the pompus and arrogant, who try to emerge from the whole they've dug themselves unscathed. That's why we're tickled pink by Patrick Hynes, our new favorite policy whore.

People keep talking about his refreshing honesty, because he's acting contrite now that he's been found out. But Mr. Hynes is playing some would-be investigative bloggers like an oboe. Yes, an oboe. And it's the most brilliantly manipulative strategy we've ever seen: telling the truth. It's simply genius. Telling the truth gets people on your side, makes them think that since you're telling the truth now, any ethical breach was just a momentary lapse in judgment, not a revealing character flaw.

Only problem is, it's bullshit. We call bullshit on you, Patrick Hynes. Not conent to shill for McCain in a pay-for-play scheme on his own blog, it turns out that Hynes, once a consultant of some sort to the Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Choice and a strong defender of reform, has been hired on by the AARP to help them out with their web communications. So much for philosophical integrity. Which, don't get is wrong, is way overrated--we're totally calling Patrick Hynes for all of our PR related needs. He knows the blogosphere.

Man About Town

2006-07-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

Since yesterday, The Tanker has received quite a few reports of wonk sightings, more than one (ed: 2?) being about unexpected Grover Norquist sightings at various functions. Based on those reports alone, The Tanker is prepared to announce that Norquist, the most recognizable (ed: the only recognizable?) policy-type, has launched a charm offensive that we're calling Operation I'm Okay, You're Okay, in which he will attempt to shake the hand of everyone who doubts him.

While The Tanker doesn't much care for politics, The Tanker very much enjoys it when policy people are forced to act political. The spectacle of seeing folks accustomed to high-hatting being suddenly reduced to glad-handing simply thrills us. Big mental note: wash hands after the Wednesday meeting.

Back to School

2006-07-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

Speaking of fertile young women, if you haven't found a gentle way to break off your undercover relationship with your intern, you'd better think fast. August is right around the corner, and you sure don't want to leave things such that she may think there's a chance you'll come visit her at school in Iowa, or where-the-fuck-ever, perhaps slipping onto campus discreetly during parents weekend when there are enough other geezers around so as not to blow your cover.

When strategizing for the break up, The Tanker highly recommends that you work in the promise of either a thank you in the acknowledgements of your new book (which, in fairness, she deserves because she more than likely wrote most of it, didn't she?) or an offer of a stellar letter of recommendation; I mean, being a think tank groupie of sorts, that's probably all she was after in sleeping with you anyway.

A final note of caution based on past experience: don't under any circumstances have a fling with an intern who goes to one of the fine institutions of higher learning here in our fair city. (The Tanker is partial to chicks from Catholic University and chicks from Gallaudet, the university for the deaf. Don't judge us.) It always ends badly, usually with a scene in front of your colleagues.

Let the Gays Go Forth and Procreate

2006-07-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

From Cato analyst Andrew Coulson on the Washington State Supreme Court decision to allow a ban on gay marriage for the sake of furthering procreation:

“Well, Hank, we can’t get married, so lets go find some dames and make babies.”

I'd think the Cato Institute itself is pretty good evidence that the unavailability of gay marriage doesn't really turn fellas striaght and send them out clamoring for fertile young women.

Calendar of Geekery

2006-07-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 26: To the People blog is hosting its 1st anniversary happy hour at Madam's Organ, 7-10pm. Smell that smoke? It's the smell of freedom.

Attention interns: Wanna be a rank and file bureaucrat when you grow up? Too bad you missed the networking fair with federal agency recruiters today, hosted by the Partnership for Public Service.

Thursday, July 27: Reason Happy Hour, 18th Street Lounge at 6:30pm.
Come for the drinks, stay to see a bunch of sweaty libertarians hit on Kerry Howley.

UPDATE: Our very first tipster tells us that AFF's monthly happy hour will be occurring simultaneously at the 18th Street Lounge. Perhaps if you're lucky, there will be some sort of discussion on the nature of the relationship between libertarians and conservatives, a topic that receives altogether too little attention in The Tanker's opinion.

Monday, July 30-August 5: The National Conservative Student Conference, George Washington University. If conservative coeds are your thing (and if they're not, they should be), find your way to the bars in Foggy Bottom every day next week, where conference participants will be kicking back after jam-packed days of strategy sessions on keeping a brother down. Bonus points if you can snag a picture of Young America Foundation's Jason Mattera who seems to be vying for this year's Scott Robinson Award for Excellence in Being a Right Wing Dipshit.

Let's hope upon hope that on Wednesday, August 2 the kids from the NCSC bar-hop over to the same place the kids from the Roosevelt Institution Policy Expo are at--perhaps they could all converge at Mackey's and have a good old fashioned knife fight.

The Front Page: Diplomacy is for Pussies

2006-07-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

In the quest for newer fresher content, think tanks will often put any ole' thing on the front page.

AEI's Michael Rubin:

As the Middle East does battle, Iran pursues nuclear weapons, North Korea goes ballistic, and Arab liberalism collapses for lack of support, surely the Bush administration should come to grips with reality, rather than engage in a diplomatic fantasy in which all adversaries are flexible, and all dialogue partners sincere.

Open-ended war on a global scale = Good.

Let's Get Tank'd

2006-07-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

The Hill, agency, and White House staffs are well covered by Wonkette--nary an assfucking nor a Craigslist casual encounter in a Durbin building broom closet between an intern with daddy issues and a double-undersecretary of something or other who is twice her age slips by the dynamic duo of cracker-jack reporters at Wonkette.

But while the political people are perhaps far more open with their social exploits and it's tough to compete with a people who seem happy to be known for their propensity for falling off bar stools, everyone knows it's the policy people--the think tankers, writers, and movement types--who are the truly depraved denizens of Swamp City. Aside from the occasional observation at That Other Blog about how fun it is to drink with libertarians--(There is such a thing as a free lunch, and it's liquid!)--there's a big gaping whole that needs filling, and The Tanker is here to do just that.

Because of The Tanker's narrow-ish focus (and no, The Tanker has no problem referring to itself in the third person), the posting won't be as feverish as some blogs, but rest assured, if a prominent think tanker or struggling writer says or does something stupid, we'll be here to chronicle it. (For our purposes, we'll even include in our reports the exploits of the staffs of various astroturf organizations, which have all the brawn of a real think tank but none of the brains.) And we'll need your help, because we can only crash so many think tank events and happy hours before our frantic note-taking arouses suspicion and the jig is up, as they say.

So if you find yourself at a Reason happy hour and don't see a leather jacket or at a Center for American Progress luncheon where some poor kid who thinks the Left is relevant gets red in the face when confronted with reality or if you're out on the street and you see a real live policy person (perhaps someone from ATR at Staples buying a shredder or a policy blogger out on the street looking appropriately schlubby), send it along to tips4tanker@gmail.com.