Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1112

The Conspiracy Theories Surrounding Boris Berezovsky's Death

Boris Berezovsky, a 67-year-old former Russian oligarch, was found dead in his home in Berkshire, England on Saturday. No one knows how or why he died and Berezovsky had a lot of powerful enemies, so the conspiracy theories are already flying. 

Police have launched an investigation into Berezovsky's death, but they aren't saying much right now. They've cordoned off the area around the property where his body was found. For now, though, his death is being labeled unexplained. Berezovsky made his fortune primarily from selling Mercedes Benz cars during the 1990s, and then through owning oil and cable companies. He was instrumental in orchestrating the political rise of former President Boris Yeltsin and was a part of Yeltsin's inner circle while in power. He also supported Vladimir Putin's rise to power, but Putin turned on the oligarchs and tried to eliminate their political power. Berezovsky then exiled himself to England, where he's lived since the year 2000. He became a vocal critic of Putin during his time on British soil. 

Since his relocation, he hasn't lived the happiest life. His fortunes have dwindled and he's struggled to pay off his debt. "Berezovsky has been in a terrible state as of late," his lawyer Alexander Dobrovinsky told Russian state television after news of his death broke. "He was in debt. He felt destroyed," the lawyer said.

Most notably, he was forced to pay over $100 million in legal fees after a judge threw out a lawsuit he filed accusing Russian business tycoon Roman Abramovich of blackmailing him into selling him shares in an oil company under market value. Abramovich is perhaps best known as the owner of the Chelsea football club in the English Premier League. The judge said Berezovsky was an "inherently unreliable witness," and it left his reputation -- whatever was left of it -- in pieces. 

So, he had a lot of powerful enemies and he was mostly broke. It's not surprising, then, that these factors are leading some to suspect there were darker forces at work surrounding Berezovsky's death. The Guardian reports some posts on Russian social media are saying Berezovsky killed himself on Saturday. Additionally, Berezovsky allegedly said in 2007 he was told to leave England because authorities had discovered an assassination plot against him. Any assassination theories aren't as crazy as they may seem either. When Berezovsky lived in Russia, he "survived numerous assassination attempts, including a bomb that decapitated his chauffeur," BBC News reports. But business associates have told some Russian news outlets that his death wasn't as unseemly as any suicide or assassination theories would have you believe. According to them, it was a heart attack that killed Berezovsky. 

The Plot Thickens in the Investigation of Colorado's Murdered Prison Boss

Detectives admitted for the first time Saturday that they're pretty sure Evan Spencer Ebel, a Colorado parolee who was shot and killed in a shootout with Texas police on Thursday, is connected to the murder investigation of Colorado Department of Corrections chief Tom Clements.

Ebel was killed during a shootout with authorities in Texas on Thursday. Clements was killed at his home Tuesday evening. El Paso County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer acknowledged for the first time Saturday that Ebel was a "strong, strong lead" in the investigation into Clement's murder. Among the mounting pile of evidence pointing to Ebel's involvement in the murder: the Denver Post reports authorities discovered the same brand and caliber gun in the car he used to exchange fire with Texas authorities as the one allegedly used to kill Clements. Detectives said they have not confirmed a link between Ebel and Clements just yet. But, well, the argument sort of makes itself. 

Reports that Ebel was a probable suspect leaded out Friday, but the El Paso County sheriff's department wouldn't confirm or deny whether they were looking at Ebel. The evidence seemed to stack up against him. Ebel was a recent parolee from the Colorado prison system, a member of the white supremacist prison gang, the 211s, and was driving a similar car to the one spotted near Clements home on the night of his murder when he was discovered. The theory was that the 28-year-old Ebel might have got word from a gang leader still serving time ordering him to murder Clements. On Thursday, Ebel exchanged fire with Texas authorities and led them on a 100 mph chase. Ultimately, he came up on the losing end of the stand off. 

People Seem Really Excited About Tilda Swinton Sleeping in a Box at MoMA

That Tilda Swinton is a little strange should not come as a surprise. But we bet you didn't know she occasionally does a performance art piece where she occasionally sleeps in a glass box at a museum over the course of a month. 

Gothamist's Ben Yakas reports Swinton will be sleeping in a glass box at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City over the course of the next month. "Museum staff doesn't know she's coming until the day of, but she's here today. She'll be there the whole day. All that's in the box is cushions and a water jug," a museum source told Yakas. She's not there every day; it's up to her when she comes. The source added that the box will likely move to different areas in the museum over the course of the month. Today it's near where they take tickets, but tomorrow it could be on the second of third floor. Who knows where it'll be next?! Tilda travels. 

It's all part of a performance art piece called "The Maybe" that she's performed twice before. This is the first time Swinton has performed "The Maybe" in the U.S. She did it for the first time at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1995, and again later at the Museo Barracco in Rome. 

Swinton was first spotted lurking the MoMA halls late yesterday, but the keen-eyed observers had no idea why: 

So...@andreistrizek and I just rode the escalator at MoMA behind Tilda Swinton.

— Steven Cuevas (@StevenMCuevas) March 22, 2013

And then, as the museum opened today, some reports started coming in over Twitter what was going on: 

#TildaSwinton is sleeping in a glass box all day today @moma. twitter.com/DavidHallberg/…

— David Hallberg (@DavidHallberg) March 23, 2013

People seems excited: 

Oh my god I'm gonna get a bagel and then I'm gonna go see Tilda Swinton sleeping in a box.

— bobby finger (@bobbyfinger) March 23, 2013

best news alert from my cousin: "Tilda Swinton is sleeping in a box at MOMA!"

— Missinfo (@Missinfo) March 23, 2013

So…I guess Tilda Swinton doesn't have a bracket? gothamist.com/2013/03/23/pho…

— Caitlin Kelly (@atotalmonet) March 23, 2013

If you happen to live in New York and don't have plans for the afternoon, you might want to head down to the MoMA and check this out. If you happen to live in New York and have plans for the afternoon, you might want to cancel those plans and go to the MoMA. Come on.

Reuters' Anthony De Rosa said it best: art is weird. Tilda Swinton is the greatest, though.

[Inset via Gizmodo's Sam Biddle]

The Senate's Doomed Budget Would Raise About $1 Trillion in Tax Revenue

During the long and arduous financial fights on Capitol Hill, one of the Republicans favorite attacks was how the Democratic Senate had not passed a budget in four years. Well, that changed last night. The Senate finally got around to approving a budget that will die on arrival in the House. 

Maybe they didn't pass a budget because they were sure it would immediately fail once it hits the house? There's little point in going through the marathon voting session required to pass a budget if it won't mean anything once the Republican controlled house gets ahold of it. But they did just that yesterday, starting at 4 p.m. ET and finishing just before 5 a.m. Saturday morning. Yeah, that seems like a great way to spend a Friday night. 

Or maybe they didn't pass a budget for four years because they didn't have enough votes. Last night's budget only passed by 50-49 margin in the Democratically controlled Senate. Four Democrats voted against the budget, presumably because they're from traditionally red states and are all facing reelection: Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Begich of Alaska and Max Baucus of Montana.

The Senate's first budget in four years includes $100 billion in infrastructure spending and special rules designed to speed up the tax reform process. The plan would raise $975 billion over ten years in tax revenue from the wealthy and repeals the sequestration spending cuts. But it would still leave the federal government with billions an annual deficit greater than $500 billion and $5.2 trillion in additional debt. So, basically, it's the exact opposite of Paul Ryan's budget that balances the budget and slashes government spending over a ten year period. 

And Ryan's budget is the one favored by the Republican controlled House. The two are expected to kill their respective budgets once the documents are put up to a vote after the two week Easter recess. The failing of the two budgets will set up another fiscal fight this summer when the White House will require the House to raise the debt ceiling again. 

The White House was proud of the Senate for finally graduating passing a budget while attacking the Republican-backed Ryan plan. "The President and Democrats in Congress are willing to make difficult choices so we can cut the deficit while laying the foundation for long term middle class job growth. And it is encouraging that both the Senate and House have made progress by passing budgets through regular order," Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. "The House Republican budget refuses to ask for a single dime of deficit reduction from closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and the well-connected but instead makes deep cuts to education and manufacturing while asking seniors and the middle class to pay more."

So the thirteen hours of debate were all for naught. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell applauded everyone after the budget passed but before they could split for the exits. "I commend everyone who has participated in this extraordinary debate," McConnell said.

You're Probably Not Invited to Mitt Romney's Summer Mixer

Mitt Romney is hosting a mixer in Park City, Utah this summer to unite "political, business and other thought leaders," according to the Chicago Tribune, but you probably aren't invited unless you're a future Republican contender for President or a deep-pocketed donor. 

The Tribune got their hands on an invitation for Romney's big summer party, though they aren't necessarily on the guest list. It's being hosted by Solamere Capital, the private equity firm founded and run by Mitt's son Tagg Romney, where elder Romney now works and eats cupcakes.

To get on the guest list, you have to be someone important with a bright political future like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, or Romney's former running mate Paul Ryan. As the Tribune explains, the party is an excuse for Christie and Ryan to shake hands with the kind of zillionaires that write checks for political campaigns: 

An advantage for any potential 2016 candidates will be the other guests at the event. If, as expected, the upcoming event draws former Romney donors, it would offer the future contenders a chance to forge relationships with some of those who contributed to Romney’s powerful fundraising operation.

So, Romney's new role in the Republican party is being a money man, or at least the guy who knows the money men and women. He's a financier. Which makes enough sense considering he usually gets around with some of the most ridiculously, out of touch rich people in the world.

This summer retreat is drawing comparisons to a weekend getaway Romney organized for his campaign supporters last summer. That party earned rave reviews from attendees, and featured a very serious foreign policy speech from Condoleezza Rice and a comedy set from Karl Rove. Among the guests: Arizona Sen. John McCain, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and Jeb Bush. 

It was hosted in hotel along the Utah mountains, just like this year's party, a reference to the time he spent organizing the Winter olympics there. Romney's showmanship was the real takeaway of that weekend. At the end of one of Romney's speeches, he had Olympic skiers do backflips off ski jumps into the hotel pools to entertain his guests. 

So that's what he has to top this year. Could we suggest Olympic skiers doing back flips off ski jumps through flaming hoops into hotel pools while carrying a pair of puppies each?

Obama's Bracket Predictions Fail to Survive 1st Round of Predictions Bracket

The drama. The tension. The spreadsheets. Our Bracket of Celebrity/Pundit Bracket Predictions has only gotten better as Round 2 begins. Did your favorite TV personality and/or politician win the battle of the picks? Come see!

At the half-way point of Round One, we had a few upsets in the making. But in true March Madness style, even predictions made at halftime were likely to end up wrong. (If you're new to all of this, start here.)

Results

Celeb/Web region
1/8 matchup: We saw this one coming, but that doesn't make it any less shocking: The president of the United States was beaten handily by his diminutive YouTube impersonator. Yes, Kid President, an eight-seed (our lowest), beat top-ranked Obama, getting 23 of the 32 predictions right. He took the lead early in the first half and never relinquished it, no doubt souring the end of the president's trip to the Middle East. (Seeds were based on Nate Silver's picks, but more on that below.)

4/5 matchup: SBNation's Chris Dobbertean advanced in unspectacular fashion, but no doubt relieving all of you Chris Dobbertean fans.

3/6 matchup: To the list of things that you are worse than Joe Mantegna at (which should already include "acting" and "being intimidating"), please add "winning things." Mantegna's six-point victory over blogger Matt Norlander was the most lopsided win in Round One.

2/7 matchup: The first of our three ties happened in this game as musician Wale surged in the second half to catch up to College Basketball Insider's Garry Parrish. So how did we calculate the winner? We figured out who got more correct predictions in closer-seeded games. Wale called two of the four 8/9 matchups in the tournament to Parrish's one. So he advances in overtime.

Reporters region
We can't pretend that this is the most popular bracket. We can't. Unless you pay close attention to college basketball, it's possible you're not familiar with some of the names herein. But these are the real pundits. These are the experts. So they deserve respect. (Please note: The average correct predictions in the Celebrity bracket was higher than in this one.)

1/8 matchup: USA Today's Mike Lopresti advances in double overtime over SI's Stewart Mandel.

4/5 matchup: ...but Kelli Anderson gets revenge for her magazine, toppling Eddie Timanus of the colorful hotel-sponsored daily.

3/6 matchup: Meanwhile, in the battle of top SI experts Luke Winn beat Seth Davis, proving who really deserves to be on CBS all month.

2/7 matchup: But USA Today reigns supreme in one aspect: Nicole Auerbach called 25 of the 32 games correctly — the highest figure of any of our competitors. Her opponent, Pete Thamel of The New York Times, got 24 right, enough to win all but one other contests. These are the games the Fates play with our lives.

Athletes/ESPN region
1/8 matchup: Real Househusband and Atlanta Falcon Kroy Biermann lost to ESPN's Jay Bilas, which shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with any of those institutions.

4/5 matchup: Rajon Rondo's NBA savvy was no match for college basketball pro Jeff Goodman. May Rondo's failure infect the rest of his teammates, particularly if they face the Knicks in the playoffs.

3/6 matchup: In another overtime match, ESPN's Joe Lunardi squeaked by pundit Bill Cowher. Pittsburgh mourns.

2/7 matchup: Like tearing off a Band-Aid, let's just say this fast. Dick Vitale won. We're no happier than you are, especially since he was down at the half. But his opponent, Jack Jones, stumbled badly during last night's games, and Vitale took and held the lead. Poor, humble Jack Jones, a simple betting firm analyst, the latest victim of Vitale's ceaseless, glassy-eyed steamrolling.

Team CBS region
This is our favorite region. It is amusing to think of people like Sharon Osbourne sitting down and considering the relative athletic merits of Cincinnati and Creighton. (As you'll see, she wasn't good at it.)

1/8 matchup: Mateen Cleaves, as expected, rolled to victory. USA Today loses again.

4/5 matchup: Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports managed to handle Sharon Osbourne quite easily. Sigh. A less scrupulous media outlet would have pretended Osbourne won, just for kicks. But we are journalists, here to accurately report on which mid-level celebrities and unheard-of print reporters were best at predicting the winners of college basketball games.

3/6 matchup: This was the best game in the first round. Aisha Tyler and Charlie Rose came out strong and then both stumbled — enough so that Rose actually took the lead briefly. But Tyler regained and held it, and advances.

2/7 matchup: CBS This Morning's Norah O'Donnell is better at sports predictions than Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports. But he is better at welcoming you into the day with light patter and funny videos of soft animals.

Another important note: Our seeding, accomplished by matching player predictions against Silver's, turned out to be a pretty good predictor of success. There were only two upsets, one of which was a tie. In other words, Nate Silver's predictions only turned out not to work for one person: Barack Obama. Read into that what you will.

Now onto Round Two. Here's how the bracket stands; beneath, a live scoreboard that you will want to check eagerly after every game. Remember: In our round two, each correct prediction by our celebrities and pundits is worth two points, added onto the round one score. Will that make things more exciting? Well, it couldn't make them less. We've particularly got our eye on Lunardi, the ESPN "Bracketologist," going up against Vitale. And Aisha Tyler vs. Nora O'Donnell.

Jay Leno Thinks He's Getting Stabbed in the Back

Jay Leno capped off his week of wah wah, pity me tour of jokes over reports he's getting pushed out as host of the The Tonight Show by comparing himself to someone who has been stabbed in the back. Jay Leno seriously thinks we pity him. 

Leno has been on a tear criticizing NBC executives over reports he's getting the hook early, at some point over the next 18 months, for the younger, hipper stylings of former Saturday Night Live-r and current Late Night host Jimmy Fallon. He started the week calling NBC executives snakes on Monday, saying a woman who sees everything upside down thinks NBC is on top in the ratings on Tuesday, saying NBC is going extinct on Wednesday and then making a bad March Madness joke on Thursday. He's really handling this transition with grace and aplomb, don't you think? So, on Friday, he made the classic knife-in-the-back analogy: 

Leno told the story of a Canadian man who recently had doctors remove a knife from his back after it had been there for three years. "Imagine that. The guy had a knife in his back for three years. He must have worked at NBC too," Leno zinged. Amid reports he sat down for dinner with NBC executive Robert Greenblatt -- the guy he reportedly exchanged emails with -- on Thursday, Leno continued talking about the "feud" and what NBC is doing to make it up to him. "Have you heard about this alleged feud that I’m having with NBC? I think it’s going to be OK," Leno said. "This is real. I had dinner last night with a bunch of executives. To make it up me, what they did, they are sending my wife and I on an all-expenses-paid Carnival cruise." Yes, Leno made a poop cruise joke. 

We're not really sure what Leno hopes to accomplish with all this. No one is ever going to take a sympathetic view of him after he betrayed his friend David Letterman to get the job in the first place, and what he put Conan through three years ago. But he's more than welcome to keep up this behavior so we can watch him flame out and further taint his already-tarnished reputation in a spectacularly embarrassing fashion. 

Swamps, Beaches, and Baby Alligators: What It's Like to Go to Florida Gulf Coast University

Last night, No. 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast University shocked the world by upsetting No. 2 seed Georgetown, a monumental moment for a small school no one had really heard of before last night. The question on everyone's mind after the game was, "Wait, who?!"

Last year was the first time FGCU were even eligible for the NCAA tournament, and this year they completely shredded pretty much everyone's bracket. It was the seventh time an upset of that magnitude has ever happened in the NCAA tournament. The wild game saw FGCU take over and hold their lead thanks to some monster dunks and the complete fearlessness of their leader, the fantastically named Sherwood Brown. They ruined Georgetown's day; it was supposed to be their year. The Georgetown basketball program is over 100 years old, and won its first national title in 1984. FGCU was founded in 1991. This wasn't supposed to happen. 

That's why it's so awesome, though: FGCU is officially the this year's Cinderella tournament team, and it's impossible to root against them. But the victory led to some pretty terrible jokes on Twitter, because FGCU was such an unknown school. (Was is the most important word in that sentence, by the way.) FGCU sounds more like an airport than a top NCAA basketball school, some said. The campus is actually in a strip mall on the outskirts of Fort Myers, the Florida city where the real campus is located, others joked. Those couldn't be further from the truth, it turns out. Yes, one of the school's alumni is an ex-beauty queen turned truck driver, but we spoke to a normal FGCU alumni to find out what it's like to go to the hottest school in the country right now. It's even better than you would expect: the school was built on a swamp; baby alligators can be seen along the school's long network of boardwalks; and one of the dorms is a stone's throw away from the beach. 

Caitey Kauffman graduated from FGCU in 2011; she was part of the school's first graduating class of journalism students. "There were only two of us," she told The Atlantic Wire in an email. Today, she works for a PR firm during the week and produces an NHL radio show on Sirius/XM radio on weekends. The win last night is pretty special for her. "I helped kick off The FGCU Sports Report - the first-ever TV show dedicated to highlighting FGCU athletics," Kauffman told the Wire.

"I'm far more thrilled than I expected to be," she said. I've seen FGCU teams win some great games — but this one was way more emotional. Seeing blue and green all over the major news homepages has been surreal and incredible. I can't wait for the next game."

But wait, wait, wait, one second. What did you say about baby alligators? you're asking. That was one of the first fun facts Kauffman told National Post columnist Bruce Arthur on Twitter last night that caught our attention, too.

"FGCU was built on wetlands," she said. "The campus itself is full of wildlife and the school makes effort to preserve it. They built these long, wooden boardwalks that connect the main campus to parking, so you walk through trees, grasses and a marshy land on your way to class."

If that sounds like a campus that would be kind-of amazing to attend every day — like a school built in the middle of a nature reserve — that's because it is. One of the school's dormitories is quite literally sitting on a Florida beach, as you can see in the picture on the right. "It can make for a hike, but it really is very peaceful... Unless you're carrying 20 lbs of books, that is!"

"It's brand new, modern and on those perfect, sunny and 75-degree Florida days, you almost want to kiss the ground when you walk between buildings."

Unfortunately, the baby alligators aren't as common an occurrence as she made them out to be on Twitter, but we'll forgive her and chalk it up to post-"holy schnikes, we just beat Georgetown in the NCAA tournament" excitement. 

"Seeing baby alligators on campus isn't uncommon," Kauffman said. "Not something you see every day, but in my four years at FGCU I saw, either on Facebook or with my own eyes, 5-6 incidents of tiny alligators crawling across the sidewalk." Thankfully they're not a danger to the students or anything, she says. No one's lost a leg or an arm to a wild alligator on the way to sociology 101.  "Nothing to worry about of course, but another instance of FGCU embracing the land."

One of the biggest questions on our minds, and probably just about everyone else's, too, was what made Kauffman choose to go to FGCU, especially in the packed post-secondary athletic landscape in the Sunshine State. "I'm originally from the area," Kauffman said, "and it was a great way to get the college experience without going too far from home. Plus, class size was important to me, I didn't want to get lost in a sea of massive lecture classes. I wanted to form great relationships with professors - and I still talk to so many of them even long after I graduated."

While jokes about the late nice skinny dipping parties in the school's pools will continue even after the tournament is over — and yes, despite being right on the beach, Kauffman said there are pools distributed through the school dorms — FGCU does sound like a legitimately great place to study. 

"I didn't really realize how one-of-a-kind the campus is — with a beach and alligators — until all of America started pointing it out," Kauffman said. "Can I go back now?"

[Images via AP; Caity; FGCU's website; flickr @steph|nester]

Men's and Women's Bodies Heal Differently

Discovered: Men and women heal differently; doubling up on algebra improves learning; ears are flawed; revising financial statements indicates poor governance.

Men and women heal differently. For decades, the field of medicine has operated under the assumption that research based on male subjects can be applied to females as well. But as group of German researchers have compiled evidence that symptoms of illness can dramatically differ between men and women. Take heart disease: "Typically perceived as a male illness, cardiovascular disease often displays markedly different symptoms among women. While a constricted chest and pain that radiates through the left arm are standard signs of heart attack in men, in women the usual symptoms are nausea and lower abdominal pain." The evidence could influence the way studies are carried out, since "medical researchers still know very little about gender-specific differences in illness." [Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine]

Doubling up on algebra improves learning. Ten years ago, the head of Chicago Public Schools instituted an extended period for instruction among 9th graders studying algebra, in hopes that doubling the length of a class would lead to better test scores. It seems to have worked, according to a study that tracked the success of the students who took the doubly long classes: "Double-dosing had an immediate impact on student performance in algebra, increasing the proportion of students earning at least a B by 9.4 percentage points, or more than 65 percent." The impact extended even further, increasing the rates of high school graduation and college enrollment among students who doubled up. [Education Next]

Ears are flawed. The portion of our ear called the middle ear, made up of three bones which transfer waves of sound striking the ear drum to the fluid of the cochlea, is rather flawed, a London-based developmental biologist says. Due to the way ears are formed in the early stages of life, they're especially prone to infection — to say nothing of their sensitivity to even slight differences in barometric pressure. (Our ears continue to pop on the L train as it passes beneath the East River.) Ear tissue "isn’t great at forming barrier linings. Its patch in the middle ear tends to flake off when infected. And it doesn’t form the forest of protective hairlike cilia that sweeps away debris in the rest of the middle ear." [Science News]

Revised financial statements indicates poor governance. We're looking at you, Groupon. After tracking the performance of companies that had to revise past financial statements, researchers at Concordia University in Canada discovered that such revisions tend to indicate that the company is managed poorly. "Restated companies were more likely to replace their presidents, CEOs, CFOs and/or external auditors, and to increase the number and proportion of unrelated directors and audit committee members," the researchers found. This, of course, bears out in American companies, too. Andrew Mason, the eccentric CEO of Groupon, resigned at the beginning of this month, a year after the company had to revise its fourth quarter results. [Journal of Corporate Finance]

Matt Yglesias' $1.2 Million House Stokes Class Envy in Conservatives

Slate's liberal economics blogger Matt Yglesias bought a $1.2 million three-bedroom condo in Washington, D.C., and a bunch of conservatives are pretty appalled that a liberal would have the gall to be rich. Rich people shouldn't be liberal because liberals hate rich people. Or maybe it's that liberals shouldn't be rich. It's kind of hard to tell with all this class envy swirling around.

Is Yglesias a hypocrite? His critics seem to feel like he is. "Nothing says wealth redistribution like purchasing a $1.2 million condo in the heart of Washington D.C.," Breitbart News' Ben Shapiro writes. We don't have all the details yet, but thus far, there's no record that the moment Yglesias signed his mortgage, he also signed a pledge advocating a new position on taxes -- that he should not pay very much taxes at all.

Although in polite political discourse these days it is common to think liberals are socialists, and socialists are communists, and communists are murderous Bolsheviks, it's important to note those words don't actually all mean the same thing. When liberals advocate higher marginal tax rates, they are not also advocating kicking rich people out of their homes and eating their babies. So when Yglesias buys a house, he's not a hypocrite. He'd be a hypocrite if he opened a P.O. box in Florida to avoid paying some income taxes.

In fact, some of our favorite conservative bloggers seem to be playing the baby-eating game themselves. Yglesias's real estate sale is rank hypocrisy, Shapiro writes, because "Yglesias is the same fellow who wrote back in 2012 that high-cost government entitlements were necessary in order to rectify income inequality." Shapiro pulls up this damning Yglesias quote from 2011: 

"We have a lot of things that we could do that would be very conducive to growth. You know, for the poorest, I think the example historically shows that you sometimes just need to tax people more and give them more money, and give them more social services."

Again, we have no evidence that Yglesias's new home has changed his position on social services and taxes. On Friday, Yglesias wrote about how few high-achieving-but-low-income students apply to elite schools. Word-of-mouth can help once a few kids are admitted to top colleges. But, "A more centralized system in which everyone takes the Official College Entrance Test and then receives a letter from the government informing them of their score-based options and income-based financial aid would have some problems, but could be a boon to working class kids," Yglesias writes. He doesn't sound like a libertarian yet.

No, it seems less a policy critique than a chance to scoff at a blogger with money. "So, party at Matty's this weekend? I mean, I'm sure he won't mind if we crash the joint, what with that myth of owning private property and all," Andy writes at the conservative blog Ace of Spades. "Sounds like just the place to relax and unwind after a busy day of dismantling capitalism... Remember: Money is bad unless it’s in the hands of leftists," The Daily Caller's Jim Treacher writes. Noting that Yglesias has said that doctors and executives are overpaid, Shapiro writes:

How much is Yglesias being paid to write for Slate? If this report from the Washingtonian is correct (and it appears to be right), an awful lot. That's the beauty of capitalism. But is it really fair that he be paid more than doctors, or high level executives? Where’s the justice in that? 

I can usually trust my favorite conservative blogs to be steadfast in their opposition to cheap class envy. Why, here's Ace of Spades praising Adam Carolla a year ago for condemning it. "[I]t's envy that has turned into resentment that has turned into anger and essentially shame. It's pretty simple psycho dynamic which is, 'I wish I had that guy's expensive car, good looking wife, big house, whatever it is,'" Carolla said, "Obvious but worth saying," Ace wrote.

And here's Shapiro, writing of Obama's 2013 State of the Union, "Obama’s answer is not to help those who hire and create. It’s to confiscate their wealth in the name of fairness..." Here's Breitbart News' Larry Kudlow, writing in January 2012, said he was very disappointed with "some Republicans on the campaign trail" who were "Keeping class envy alive." Here's Ron Futrell saying the story of Mitt Romney's tax returns "fits right in [the media's] wheelhouse of deception and class envy." But Futrell wasn't happy either when Jon Stewart made fun of Romney's money, and then someone on Yahoo News said that was hypocritical, because the comedian is rich. Futrell scoffed, "The hypocritical media is always the first and the loudest at pointing out supposed hypocrisy."