Can @lesley_warner continue her Cinderella story to make the Elite Eight as a 15 seed? Can our remaining three 1 seeds stay in the competition? Let’s see how the Sweet 16 shook out!

West

NW1) @texasinafrica: 58%, four of five judges
NW5) @hayesbrown: 42%, one of five judges

Both competitors gave it their all, but @hayesbrown could not overcome the TFC juggernaut that is @texasinafrica, who took four of five judges and the popular vote.

NW11) @InkSptsGulliver: 58%, zero of five judges
NW15) @lesley_warner: 42%, five of five judges

The judges all go for @lesley_warner, giving her yet another upset, keeping the Cinderella story alive, and setting up the all-woman, all-Africa Northwest region final for which so many have been clamoring.

SW1) @blakehounshell: 72%, four of five judges
SW5) @speechboy71: 28%, one of five judges

The other western 1 seed gets an easy victory in this quiet match with wins in both the popular and the judges’ vote.

SW11) @JasonFritz1: 53%, five of five judges
SW10) @lrozen: 47%, zero of five judges

The second judges’ sweep in the west favors @JasonFritz1 over @lrozen, who has stayed uninvolved in the competition.

East

NE1) @intelwire: 46%, two of five judges
NE4) @SlaughterAM: 54%, three of five judges

In one of the day’s closer matches, @SlaughterAM’s slight edge in both voting categories puts her in the Elite Eight

NE11) @JimmySky: 38%, five of five judges
NE2) @attackerman: 62%, zero of five judges

@attackerman’s larger following gives him the popular vote, but @JimmySky’s more active participation in the competition impresses the judges.

SE9) @drjjoyner: 40%, 1.5 of five judges
SE5) @smsaideman: 60%, 3.5 of five judges

In one of two eastern contests so tough to call that a judge had to split his vote, @smsaideman edges out @drjjoyner to return to the Elite Eight for the second year in a row.

SE3) @azelin: 48%, 3.5 of five judges
SE2) @joshuafoust: 52%, 1.5 of five judges

@joshuafoust’s travel schedule ended up hurting him with the judges, and it’s their vote that puts @azelin through to the next round.

The Elite Eight

In the Elite Eight, there is one panel of five judges looking at all four contests. The panel’s judgment will count for 50% of the vote, with each judge representing 10% of the overall total. The other 50% is based on the popular vote via the public polls below, so make sure to cast your votes! Judges and voters alike are encouraged to look at metrics such as: knowledge base; quality of argumentation; innovative thinking; humor, snark, facility with quips, and charisma; and responsiveness to followers. The judging panel for today is as follows:

@bmaz
@elsnarkistani
@khanserai
@richganske
@stephaniecarvin

Your vote can be the difference in a race, so make sure to vote for your favorites!

And now to the Sweet 16 judges’ ballots!

West

@AllThingsHLS

First, a big thanks to @caidid for inviting me to judge this round despite being totally dissed as a possible contestant. You gave my @starbucks Internet hobo-ness meaning today. Not that I would want to join a fight club that would have me as a contestant. But when you have no other life except job hunting…

But I digress. On to the judging:

(1) @texasinafrica vs (5) @hayesbrown

Both @texasinafrica and @hayesbrown came out swinging early this morning with @texasinafrica landing the most punishing blows despite her blatant attempt at coffee bribery of the judge. She had my vote early on with the “@hayesbrown stands with dictators” tweet:

but then she almost lost me with this tweet:

(imaging trying to impugn your opponent by linking him to the two greatest presidents of the last century!) Later, @hayesbrown staged a comeback with this tweet:

(Ya gotta love babies in bow ties). Both showed a masterful command of the subject matter (twitterfighting). What swayed my vote, however, was a desire to see @texasinafrica challenge @lesley_warner in an all Africa shootout.

Winner: @texasinafrica

(11) @inkspotsgulliver vs (15) @lesley_warner

Every year during March Madness an underdog emerges from the pack to take down a favorite and make it to the final four. TwitterFightClub is no different. This year’s underdog, so far seems to be @lesley_warner. While not a follower until this competition, I have been very impressed with the content of her tweets and her expert knowledge of her African subject matter. She uses big academic words like “methodology” and “crazypants.” Plus the sheer volume of her tweets was impressive.

@inkspotsgulliver seemed to already be looking forward to his next match. He seemed to avoid directly challenging @lesley_warner and there was a noticeable absence of trash talking. But with 3,271 followers to @lesley_warner’s 1,086, he will be hard to beat in the popular vote. But I really want to see an estrogen-stoked African academic matchup in the next round so the winner is:

Winner: @lesley_warner

(1) @blakehounshell vs (5) @speechboy71

Another potentially outstanding, twitter trash-talking match-up between these two TwitterFightClub veterans failed to materialize. What happened guys? Did I miss all the good tweets while out doing my “Honey-do’s?” But then upon review of the timeline I saw that @speechboy71 didn’t even show up. No tweets for 8 hours, other than a few “vote for me” tweets. C’mon, you didn’t take a lunch break? You don’t own an i-Phone?

@blakehoushell wasn’t much better. He tweeted at about the rate of one tweet per hour. I guess he was too busy today rejecting all of my Foreign Policy submissions because I ask for money, but with 56, 000 followers, how can @speechboy71 win?

I’ll TELL you how. By sweeping the judges votes, that’s how. Even though @speechboy71’s lib-tard political tweets are mostly diametrically opposed to my own conservative views, his National Security tweets are pretty much right on. I really enjoy his feed (he keeps me honest to my core principles.) His body of work is informative and entertaining, even if you don’t agree with him. And, as he says in this tweet:

voting for him is a “no-brainer”

Winner: @speechboy71

(11) @jasonfritz1 vs (10) @lrozen

What is it about these contestants with 21,000 + followers who don’t feel the need to do at least one shout-out tweet to TwitterFightClub? I’ve been a long-time follower of @lrozen, but unlike @amslaughter, she hasn’t even acknowledged today’s fight.

@jaosnfritz1, on the other hand, has at least made the effort by engaging some of the other contestants. So with nothing more to really go on, other than this tweet

from @jasonfritz1, my vote goes to:

Winner: @jasonfritz1

@ArminRosen

@lrozen vs. @JasonFritz1

Pesach—festival of freedom. Freedom from slavery and fear—freedom from bread, noodles, beer, and, depending on your minchag, a variety of assorted grains and starches as well. For me, Pesach yuntuf also meant a self-imposed freedom from having to tweet anything, and sweet Moses was it ever awesome. Gonna get a little confessional here, but the pressure to tweet something interesting or insightful is just so enormous and such an omnipresent and deeply ingrained aspect of my life and self-image at this point, that it’s hard to conceive of even the existence of a frame of mind in which said pressure just up and ceases to exist. What a joy to discover how artificial and disposable this mentality actually is. “’Good night!’ says guy on Segway to homeless man on I St.,” I wanted to tweet while witnessing this exact scene after work today — but I didn’t, and it was liberating. “Hang onto your ego,” the Beach Boys may have cautioned. Sometimes, it’s better just to let that sucker go.

This was the philosophy that @lrozen apparently brought to Twitter Fight Club today. Yeah I get it—you’re covering the P5+1 negotiations with Iran. Bully for you. I’m under strict orders not to consider non-Twitter-related factors in my decision-making process, and the Iran nuclear crisis and any professional obligations thereunto are certainly not Twitter-related. She chose Almaty over TFC. Only defensible if you don’t care whether you make it to the Elite 8 or not.

But even if she had cared, @JasonFritz1 put in a very strong day. I direct you to this masterpiece, but it’s this one that really won it for me:

This guy spends work hours watching high-level chess matches unfold over the internet. Not even TFC can contain his appetite for the balletic treacheries of simulated war. Rock and fuckin’ roll.

WINNER: @JASONFRITZ1

@TexasInAfrica vs. @HayesBrown

For me, this matchup calls to mind a classic exchange from the end of a classic “Simpsons” episode, reproduced here thanks to the tzadikim over at The Simpsons Archive:

Ron [Ed. Note: Howard]: [emotionally] And it grows, to a powerful, emotional climax when the father has to choose which one of his children will live … and which one … will die.

Executive: Pass. [Ron lets out a sigh] What else you got?

Ron: Well, well, there is this one thing. It’s about a killer robot driving instructor that travels back in time for some reason.

Executive: I’m listening.

Ron: Okay, okay, well, you see … this robot [Ed. Note: driving instructor?], he’s got a heartbreaking decision to make about whether his best friend lives … or dies.

Executive: Eh.

Ron: His best friend’s a talking pie!

Executive: Sold! Howard, you’ve done it again! [he hands Ron two large bags of money; Ron holds them up and smiles, as the closing line from the "Happy Days" theme plays]

I have met both @TexasinAfrica and @HayesBrown. Neither of them is a talking pie—let’s put that ugly rumor to rest. But they are two of my favorite tweeters—not quite up to like, Jose Canseco of Joyce Carol Oates-level God status, but close. Consider this paragraph my “there’s really no way to choose between them without badly fucking up”-type caveat.

So here goes. Prof. InAfrica’s strategy was mostly built around exploiting a gobstopping own-goal from earlier in the day: namely, Hayes’s boasting of his once having stood behind some sort of marble or possibly fake-marble dais adorned with the U.N. logo. Many a tyrant has struck an identical pose, albeit with a slightly different color wall as a backdrop (is that the ECOSOC chamber, Hayes?). No matter. Hayes has a wide smile in the photo, as he huffs in deep breaths of pure UN Hell sulfur. Little did he realize he was walking into a series of TFC burns that could be felt even within the thick, vaguely crenellated walls of the Watergate.

Hayes’ retort was a daring gambit: one of those awesomely bad Photoshop jobs so brazen and self-conscious in its awfulness that you just have to respect it. I certainly did. In the end, Hayes only gave ever so slightly less than he got. A valiant effort, but I’m handing my vote to @tTxasinAfrica, who capped the day with a persuasive and full-borne defense of the UN’s new intervention force in the DRC—a rather controversial view, in some circles.

WINNER: @TexasInAfrica

@InkSptsGulliver vs. @Lesley_Warner

@InkSptsGulliver had the tweet of the day.

Too bad this isn’t Write One Great Tweet and then Slag the Great City of Cincinnati Club, or Gulliver would have won this running away. Instead, InkSpts has revealed himself to be someone who’s never destroyed multiple Skyline cheese coneys, capped with diabetic quantities of black cherry chocolate chip ice cream from Greaters—or worse, he’s done this without savoring or even appreciating the experience. For shame.

@Lesley_Warner just tweeted up a storm today. She is an exhausting follow, and I say that as someone who prides himself in his ability to exhaust his followers. Look at that feed—there’s stuff about CAR and South Sudan and DRC, snippets of analysis, stuff that’s like, useful. And though snark is pretty rare—some would say admirably rare—on her feed, she proved more than capable of going into full metal TFC mode the other day against Stephanie Carvin. Far as I’m concerned, she is the Dunk City of this contest.

WINNER: @Lesley_Warner

@blakehounshell vs. @speechboy1

Wait, what? These guys are in TFC? If you say so. Didn’t really see much from either of these folks today. But at least Hounshell didn’t tweet at his kid, as if his weeks-old infant is even capable of operating a computer, opening a Twitter account, knowing what Twitter is, writing in English or for that matter any other language, eating solid food etc. Babies can’t do any of those things. You’re fooling no one.

Also, congratulations! He is adorable.

Winner: @BlakeHounshell

@CaldwellGR

First, I want to thank @caidid for so much work into running TFC. It’s a fun time, and we wouldn’t be able to do it without someone working herself to the point where appointing me as judge for a second time seemed like a good idea.

@texasinafrica v. @hayesbrown

Tough decision. One focuses on Africa, which I have been reliably informed by AFRICOM is a poor and violent place. The other focuses on the UN, which appears a poor and, much to @texasinafrica’s apparent chagrin, nonviolent place. Despite this nonthreatening background, @hayesbrown put up a valiant fight against the twitterfighting juggernaut that is @texasinafrica (and, like most people, came away the better for it). This match was tight until @HayesBrown to make common cause with his foe. Sorry, Hayes, the LOTFC (Laws of Twitter Fight Club, as helpfully abbreviated by @JimmySky*), clearly indicate that when your opponent stakes out a position on an issue, you must take the other side or outinform them.** I’m afraid in this case, seeing as how the issue was deep in the heart of Africa, your only option would have been to side with M23. Opportunity missed, match awarded to @texasinafrica.

Oh, and also because Texas.

* the pedant in me feels compelled to point out that, though LOTFC is correct DoD usage, Europeans and NGOs refer to it as ITFCL

@InkSptsGulliver v. @lesley_warner

These are both great feeds and you should follow them both. @InkSptsGulliver, the savvy veteran of many a twitterfight, came out with his usual bag of tricks, but the newcomer parried them well. She then went on a tear, talking up CAR, South Sudan, and other African topics with aplomb. @InkSptsGulliver, meanwhile, contented himself with gnawing on an article declaring the era of landpower over. Now, in general, I find chewing over poorly-written or poorly-considered articles to be uninformative, if sometimes entertaining. @InkSptsGulliver’s “genius,” however, is an ability to take terrible articles and actually produce new information and something worth consideration while savaging them (and due respect today to his counterparties @wjrue, @forbesmm, and @JasonFritz1).

Still, by volume of tweets and variety of topics, I have to give this round to ongoing twinsurgent @lesley_warner. I will doubtless come to regret this next week when @InkSptsGulliver gets another chance to wreak physical violence upon me.

@blakehounshell v. @speechboy71

And now we reach the “new father” portion of the bracket (ably supplemented, of course, by @JasonFritz1). As much as it hurts to vote against either of the cute babies, I have to go by a simple rule: if you’re looking forward to twitterfighting, you actually have to twitterfight. One retweet after 10 AM doesn’t get the job done. Round to @blakehounshell.

@JasonFritz1 v. @lrozen

Like a good wine, @lrozen’s feed has a strong informative substance, with just enough opinion to give it a crisp bite (yes, I like informative wines, deal with it). @JasonFritz1, on the other hand, ranges over many topics with many different people, taking sometimes surprising, but always thoughtful, positions. To give you an idea, let’s look at this morning where, in the course of half an hour, he went from tweeting about Peeps to writing On Twitter War. @lrozen had nothing on that today, so match to @JasonFritz1.

@jeffemanuel

NW1) @texasinafrica
NW5) @hayesbrown

This first matchup was the toughest one for me. @texasinafrica covers a country - Africa - that is both relevant and underserved these days, while @hayesbrown’s feed is always entertaining (he’s very deserving of this year’s 5 seed, after almost knocking off #tfc12 runner-up @dandrezner in a 16 vs 1 first round matchup last year). These two were also the only participants to acknowledge the competition in tweets directed at me, an all-powerful Judge In This Round Of The Competition! Unfortunately, as they’re pitted against each other (rather than any of the six ingrates below), that’s kind of a wash here. So, it comes down to choosing between the young, idealistic professional, or the Morehouse professor who has an informative twitter feed, but who voted to send me packing in the Final Four of last years’s Twitter Fight Club, after I beat her (with a little help from the man they call Jayne) in the Elite Eight. Hmmmmmmmm. That’s a tough one, but frankly, while @hayesbrown made a serious improvement from a 16 seed and a (close) first-round exit in 2012, and while I’m expecting even better things from him next year, @texasinafrica deserves to advance here. Also frankly, if I still lived in Atlanta, I’d cash in her promised bribe of babysitting in return for this vote (sadly, as it stands I have to cast it with no promise of reward). All the same, @texasinafrica is my winner.

NW11) @InkSptsGulliver
NW15) @lesley_warner

One quarter of this quadrant is made up of Ink Spotters. I don’t know what they did to deserve this, but that just happened. This is also one of two remarkable match-ups between competitors who were seeded 10th or lower, which is part of why Twitter Fight Club is so great - newcomers and variable-volume tweeters alike can knock off their better-known, more prolific opponents simply by putting out quality content (and offering quality bribes) on the day of the competition. That having been said, let’s get back to it! Let me see…doctrine and nomenclature, or Africa news and analysis? Though I wasn’t familiar with @lesley_warner prior to this competition, she impressed me right off the bat with her Swift display of knowledge and unwillingness to back down in the face of promised (though ambiguous) “slaughter.” She also focuses on an area that, as I said in Round 1, is sadly underserved and in desperate need of smart attention, while Gulliver pontificates on a subject I can already learn about from a cartoon — a clear point in Lesley’s favor. Gulliver brought a pretty good game to the Twitterwebs today overall, but shot himself in the foot (from this humble judge’s perspective) when he loudly announced his ignorance of Air Force Special Operations Weathermen’s long existence. The Air Force SOF world already gets too little love, so this was too much to take (even if @warfarecenter’s reply that a Suunto watch could do about the same thing as a SOWT was, sadly, pretty spot on). Thus, the vote (and a follow!) goes to @lesley_warner.

SW11) @JasonFritz1
SW10) @lrozen

This matchup featured the second of the two Ink Spotters in this quadrant of the Sweet 16, again in a competition between two low seeds who underdogged their way (I think I might use that new term regularly) into the third round of this battle royale of tweepers. Everybody knows that Ink Spots posts can get a little long-winded (to say the least), so Twitter can be a great place to hear from folks like @JasonFritz1 in more manageable doses. After all, Twitter is nothing if not a medium that requires brevity-oh. I actually didn’t know stringing together that many 140-character posts into what is basically a single (really, really long) thought was possible. @lrozen, on the other hand, took the opposite tack: she tweeted almost none today, and mentioned #tfc13 precisely zero times. Bad Laura! @JasonFritz1 gets the win here.

@petulantskeptic

I guess some of the competitors in my bracket didn’t understand my directive for them to submit their own ballots—thus saving me the work of writing out my judgements and allowing me to proceed with an additional, objective, metric. Approximately half of them did send in their own ballots for their TFC matchup, but I will not reveal which ones since the competitors graciously submitted them as though they were written by me. I’ve also edited the submitted ballots as is my prerogative as judge. Deal with it. Please consider any fawning that is present in any ballot to be the work of the competitor and not the judge.

NW1 @texasinafrica vs. NW5 @hayesbrown

My metrics for this matchup were simple: level of snark, devastation of blows, and information provided. In the first category, @HayesBrown managed to edge past @texasinafrica’s well-honed Southern reserve, taking on items outside of his wheelhouse, showing a much more eclectic national security feed. That wheelhouse, though, got him in trouble with the second category.

It’s hard to contest that @texasinafrica’s hitting @HayesBrown on his ties to dictators at the UN was both crushing and hilarious. The poorly done Photoshopping of @texasinafrica as a Congolese warlord just couldn’t compare.

In the end, though, what won it out for me was the level of informative tweets he put out. By acting as more of a one-stop-shop that @texasinafrica’s still impressive Africa-based feed, @HayesBrown won out in the end, advancing to the next round

P.S. It’s a damn good thing @HayesBrown changed his mind about the safety of eating mosquito-laden ice cream since last year. That would’ve sunk him.

NW11 @inksptsgulliver vs. NW15 @lesley_warner

It took awhile for @lesley_warner to realize that the judge’s call for competitor submitted ballots was a real thing, but given her opponent’s outright rejection of penning his own ballot she was not disadvantaged by this. Moreover her anodyne tweets, which did not impugn the intelligence of every red blooded American who loves the NCAA basketball tournament; as well as the lack of tweets perseverating over minor points of semantic hair splitting buried deep within unreadable tomes of doctrine allow the judge to look upon her areas of expertise even more positively.

SW1 @blakehounshell vs. SW5 @speechboy71

Both of these competitors began planning for my judgeship well in advance, producing a steady stream of adorable child photos for the past few months in order to inculcate good will should one of their future TFC judges end up being a pediatrician. How were they to know that this foresight, which would have seen them to an easy triumph over any other competitor be stymied by the fact that they were matched with an opponent who had adopted the exact same strategy? However only one of these two competitors has created an (adorable) twitter feed for, and ostensibly by, his offspring; this advantage was augmented by the recent flurry of first birthday tweets from said child. Subcontracting is an honored part of TFC and thus @blakehounshell must be deemed the winner.

SW11 @jasonfritz1 vs. SW10 @lrozen

@lrozen is one of DC’s best foreign policy journalists with an informative twitter feed. But she has completely ignored Twitter Fight Club, causing us to wonder how she made it this far into the tournament in the first place. Twitter Fight Club is a thing and she has other things to do. As opponent @JasonFritz1 said on twitter, @lrozen’s means and objects may be twitter, but they are not an extension of twitter by other means. They are not Twitter Fight Club. @JasonFritz1 wins due to his awesome, if incomprehensible, translations of CvC. Were his CvC comments to make sense it would ruin his twitter feed’s atmosphere of clever confusion, something he has carefully cultivated over the past few years with an unceasing stream of cricket commentary and classical music commentary as though penned by James Joyce on mushrooms.

East

@drfarls

NE1) @intelwire
NE4) @SlaughterAM

Everybody loves a winner, and Intelwire had a great day. He got a job, had an outstanding performance in both the interactive and solo twitter categories, and perhaps most importantly reminded me of his longstanding grudge against Glenn Greenwald. To her credit, SlaughterAM poured it on towards the end, but the margin was insurmountable.

NE11) @JimmySky
NE2) @attackerman

Jimmy sky just wanted it more, in the sense that he made some effort to win. Affecting disinterest is awesome and all, but at some point subjecting one’s self to the grim, savage requirement of noting the existence of a competition should count.

SE9) @drjjoyner
SE5) @smsaideman

A hard fought, brutally difficult match to decide. Both competitors pandered effectively, retweeting my hopelessly unfunny quips about the upcoming Independence Day sequels. In the end, however, smsaideman kept a tighter focus on the need to shamelessly flatter the pretensions of the judges.

SE3) @azelin
SE2) @joshuafoust

Foust picked the wrong week to quit twitter. You wanna go to Russia (or wherever, it was hard to tell) go; just don’t expect to win #tfc13 while you’re gone.

@parafille

Shout-out to @Caidid for #TFC13, how’d she know I excel at judging people? My approach is essentially skilled-based — what can these people do for me? I don’t know how else one would evaluate - valor in tweeting?

And the match-ups -

Always a fan of @Intelwire for his sheer volume of (mostly interesting) material and wide-ranging topics. But @SlaughterAM brings impact. I mean, what chick doesn’t want to have it all (even if it’s not all at the same time)?

WINNER: @SlaughterAM

A gourmet cook talking Asia policy? At the same time? @joshuafoust might just be the perfect man. But props to @azelin for his recent work on online radicalization, really some good stuff. And he’s a Chi-town boy, we obviously share a love of Cubs & hot dogs. Secretly hoping this lands me an outing to Windy City Red Hots.

WINNER: @Azelin

@JimmySky feels like the underdog and (despite being AF) seems like a nice person. Despite my deep admiration of geekdom, @Attackerman hasn’t yet invited me to sample pastries on the set of Up (and ogle #NerdCrush @chrislhayes). So underdog @JimmySky it is. Plus, I might need some data visualized someday.

WINNER @JimmySky

Sorry @drjjoyner, as a rule, I subtract points for including an advanced degree in an e-mail address, twitter handle, really anywhere but a business card. Plus, I think a vote for @smsaideman gives me a certain international flair (well, Canadian flair, does that count?)

WINNER @smsaideman

@RBStalin

Hello I am a judge. I have spent the last few days relaxing in San Francisco, away from my unreasonably-large computer named after the anti-hero from Berserk, so as was the case last year the pyrotechnics will be light.

Before I don the robe, I must fully disclose.

I have followed each of the contestants in this bracket for at least a year. Five have followed me before today.

Two I have met personally. One has written a book about domestic terrorism I purchased and recommended to lots of people. One shares a good personal friend with me. At least two have quoted me in their blogs. One I’ve discussed at length following her explosive discussion of the state of modern feminism in the workplace. One sent my girlfriend an autographed copy of On War and another refuses to bribe me with food, which is bullshit.

I’m not telling you who any of those people are. Fuck disclosure.

Spencer Ackerman vs. James Gerrond

As a fiscally liberal, socially conservative individual, my valuation of Jimmy Sky is quite simple. He is employed by the government but neither as a soldier nor a sexy firefighter, which classifies him as a bureaucrat. I therefore approve of his contribution to society, and whatever he tweets is completely irrelevant as long as it is on government time.

I had the pleasure of either voting for or against Spencer last year. I don’t remember which. It’s irrelevant today, as my investigative journalism has led me to some explosive reporting I feel compelled to put forth with my judgment:

ACKERMAN SUBTWEETS SEX-WORKERS
Spencer Ackerman, or John Spencer the actor from West Wing and also a prostitution reference? We’re just asking questions.

All of the following individuals are current and/or former sex-workers - a shameful profession of which I am loudly in favor of continued prohibition - and writers of various frequencies. A potent combination our Ackerman apparently cannot resist.

Bubbles, the stripper:

The sex and rock I knew, but drugs now too? Moral decline.

Next, Mistress Matisse, “professional dominatrix and writer”:

No, Spencer, it means Miss Matisse is.

Charlotte, self-described “Known Prostitute, Lesser-Known Writer” loves Ackerman’s employers:

The subtweeting goes both ways. Meet Lori, pro-switch:

Rude.

In light of Gerrond’s excellent waste of taxpayer dollars and Ackerman’s reprehensible moral inconsistency, this ruling goes to Jimmy.

Berger vs. Slaughter:

Let me first say that the Twitter-fighting between these two got into some kind of weird Rocky Road mix of shockingly dirty and alarmingly polite. Each is a quality tweeter with a consistently active and interactive presence. I find it hard to even pretend to dislike either of them, which I find sufficiently obnoxious to wish I could vote against both of them. In the end, this twisting vortex of qualitative polarity yields a vote, and Ms. Slaughter can have all of it.

…RIGHT?! High-five o/\o

Dr. Joyner vs. (Dr.?) Stephen Saideman

Both Joyner and Saideman are constant presences in my Twitter, and I am irritated to admit that as with everyone else in this bracket are regularly discussing things that interest me. If I wanted to model my content on some sort of diverse-but-definable vertical in order to shape my personal brand and gain lots of followers through one weird trick, I would start with them. This was a difficult decision for me, but based on quality of snark I come down on the side of the Aussie-Canadian or whatever the hell he is. Doctor? Still has a beard, as far as I know. Saideman.

Aaron Zelin vs. Joshua Foust

It is not my policy to comment on whether or not an individual has or has not refused to bribe me with food, but one of these individuals either has or has not, and the other just has not. I’m not saying which has not, and which has or has not, and one should not infer from the constant references to and/or pictures of exquisite food in one of these individual’s Twitter streams that they are the ones who did or did not refuse to bribe me, which may or may not have happened at a past, present, or future date, heretofore, and forthwith.

I am not saying that the one who specifically did not refuse to bribe me with food is Aaron Zelin, but I am going to move on to discussing him now. Aaron Zelin is best known for the blog Jihad Watch, which he writes under the pseudonym Robert Spencer, a Ziggy Stardust like alternate identity, except where Ziggy was a space rocker from the future, Spencer is a crazy asshole Islamophobe. However, I’m not going to hold this against Mr. Zelin as it is his Twitter presence which is on trial here, not his weird little paranoid blog. From his Twitter feed he is constantly linking to posts on something called Jihadology, which I may or may not have beaten a superior over the head with at one time, allegedly literally, by printing out the entire thing and rolling it up and actually smacking him on his dumb face.

This is the sort of robust fantasy life which keeps people like me off the front page of the New York Times, though The Duffel Blog may have already run with it.

Jihadology is a good site. Whoever runs it deserves kudos. On Twitter, however, Foust fights with literally everyone and I feel compelled to once again vote in his favor. If he wins, literal or figurative blood may or may not be expected quid pro quo.

@wjrue

I was excited about the prospect of judging today’s matches when Caitlin sent me an email last night, but compared to Tuesday’s matches, today’s were lackluster. Pandering was far too scarce.

NE1) @intelwire
NE4) @SlaughterAM

I really like @SlaughterAM, but this one isn’t close. @intelwire’s feed is a one stop shop for all sorts of news on terrorism and he is willing to engage with anyone. His acceptance of an associate fellowship at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation is a touchdown celebration. Congrats, J.M.!!

NE11) @JimmySky
NE2) @attackerman

I know we aren’t supposed to incorporate things outside of twitter, but I’m afraid of what Creep will do to me if he finds out I didn’t vote for his dad. He breaks piñatas with his fists and carries nunchuks to the White House Easter Egg Roll.

SE9) @drjjoyner
SE5) @smsaideman

@smsaideman is a worthy opponent, but this one goes to @drjjoyner because he reminded me about this.

SE3) @azelin
SE2) @joshuafoust

This matchup had the potential to be really, really good. But @joshuafoust was stuck on a plane home from Moscow all day, probably in economy where the drinks aren’t free. So @azelin was left to toil alone. He sent the lone #FF today, which automatically earns him a .5 point. But @joshuafoust has such a tremendous body of work that makes up for today’s absence earning him a .5 point too.

@zackbeauchamp

I’ll keep this simple. As I indicated during my own round, I judge TwitterFightClub on a metric that may sound quaint: actual fighting. I judged each round on the basis of how well the fighters competed in their direct skirmishes with each other and, if relevant, proxies, nothing more.

But I quickly realized that, given how disparate the fighting styles and incentives were, I couldn’t judge the fights quite like I used to judge policy debate rounds. So instead, I developed a context-sensitive means of evaluating each fight: historical analogs. Seeing as this a competition for foreign policy folk, I tried to figure out what historical conflict best described the specific contours of each fight (admittedly, this was impressionistic), and then judged each one accordingly. Here’s what came out:

Northeast 1) @intelwire v. 4) @slaughteram; The Iraq road not taken.

Don’t let the seeding fool you: this was an asymmetric fight, but @slaughterAM was the great power. As @intelwire pointed out, @slaughterAM has roughly 58,000 more followers than he does, an overwhelming advantage in the popular vote not dissimilar to the one possessed by a state with far greater military capabilities in a war. To win, she needs to leverage her superior conventional assets (full disclosure: I can’t know the voting numbers, so it’s impossible to tell if she did that) while at the same time refusing to be drawn into a quagmire on terrain more favorable to the insurgent (direct, judgeable exchanges) wherein she could be ground down by attrition.

Any number of historical asymmetric conflicts could be used here, but since @intelwire brought up @slaughterAM’s support for the Iraq War, let’s roll with that. @Intelwire, like Saddam, expertly baited his stronger opponent but, unlike her real-life counterpart, @slaughterAM refused to take the bait, resisting conventional offensives (except for the occasional sortie) in favor of a containment regime of positivity and compliments. This even resulted in @intelwire, also like Saddam, pushing it too far and alienating the world (this judge) through overly-aggressive and misplaced offensives.

So @slaughterAM practiced what she preached about “humility and learning” with respect to Iraq. The win goes to @slaughterAM.

Northeast 2) @attackerman v. 11) @jimmysky; The Russia-Estonia conflict.

This was another asymmetric conflict, but one with virtually no direct engagement, so it’s hard to make it into a conventional conflict. The best analog I could think of would be a case where there was a significantly stronger and weaker side where tensions still existed, but weren’t even remotely likely to escalate into outright war. Contemporary Russian-Estonian relations fit the bill (if you don’t believe me about the history of conflict, read up.)

So how to judge victory? Well, Like Estonia, @jimmysky embedded himself in a broader international arrangement, though instead of NATO, it was the LOFTFC (Laws of Twitter Fight Club). Also like Estonia, @jimmysky wasn’t above the employment of private military corporations. @attackerman, much like Russia, simply declared his intent to compete and then did nothing much to help him gain strategic advantage over his opponent. The smaller state finds a way, against the odds, to gain a measure of security. @jimmysky wins.

Southeast 2) @joshuafoust v. 3) @azelin; The fall of the Roman Empire.

This one’s pretty simple. Like the tribes that would eventually unite under the Visigoth banner, @azelin periodically built up a base of support over the course of the competition with a declaration of intent to win and several entreaties to third parties, while @joshuafoust, like Rome, was distracted and overstretched (something called “real life” taking up the bulk of his attention). @joshuafoust, much like Rome, alienated potential bases of support by refusing to provide them with desired goods. @azelin wins.

5) @smsaideman v 9) @drjoyner; Internecine warfare between nobles in Medieval Europe.

Our final battle was an odd affair. Though there was an unending, nearly impossible to sort out stream of offensives and counteroffensives, and real blood was occasionally drawn, the entire endeavor was suffused with a sense of honor and mutual respect that reminded me nothing more of conflict between rival nobles in Medieval Europe. The conflict between nobles (NOT civilians or non-noble combatants, though) was regulated by a set of shifting, amorphous chivalric values that required fair treatment in the same way that the sparring between @smsaideman and @drjoyner was, while combative, oftentimes quite good natured.

Much as noble medieval warfare generally didn’t much affect the basic structure of the European international system, this conflict did not have a clear, decisive winner. This is a tie.