Captain Ed parodies Jonathan Swift in his header:
"So each blogger in his kind is bit by him who comes behind."
Wrote Swift:
"So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite ’em;
And so proceed ad infinitum." (link)
Swift's little gem describes a fractal - progressively smaller and smaller chomping insects.
I suggest that Captain Ed's blog manifests fractal structure, as well, particularly when contrasted with a recent Jonathan Chait column he critiqued (link).
The Cap'n quotes Chait: "What's uncanny about the Bush administration is that its dissidents invariably recant, usually in zombie-like fashion." He then notes, "Wead has never been a 'dissident' in the Bush administration -- he's never even held a job with Bush, either in a campaign or in the administration."
So what does this have to do with fractals? Chait tried to interpret the Wead imbroglio as the remarkable ability of Bush & Co. to deal with its problem people. Chait created a template based on one supposed example and then applied it to a second. He thought he saw the simplest of fractals, but, the Cap'n called him on it. The structures in either case Chait cited didn't fit the defined template, but Chait applied it anyway.
Consider the recent Eason Jordan saga in which Captain Ed (with a number of other bloggers) played a prominent role (link). At first, bloggers were intrigued by the intitial account of the Davos meeting and began chasing confirmations from others present (and got them). Of particular importance were confirmations from "non-conservatives", even given that the post that started the swarm was by an essentially apolitical person. But, more importantly, was recognition of the importance of previous comments by Mr. Eason, especially in Lisbon. So self-similarity was found in multiple attestations of the Davos comments and in previous comments in foreign venues. The bloggers developed a fractal that ensnared a prominent newsman.
