Friday links! Sounds of sodomy edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 0 Comment
A tractor pulls a pickup truck out of the mud.

A tractor pulls a pickup truck out of the mud.

Should children be exposed to the sounds of sodomy? That’s the (presumably rhetorical) question that an Irish anti-gay group asks in this pamphlet urging voters to oppose adoption for homosexual couples. Won’t somebody please think of the children while he’s railing hot twinks? And sure, people have a right to do things that we find unpleasant, but we shouldn’t have to confront any evidence of it. Today is Friday, and one man’s hot action is another’s clarion call. Won’t you try something a little different with me?

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Montana Speaker bets on ignorance in Medicaid fight

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 0 Comment
Austin Knudsen, lawyer of the high plains

Austin Knudsen, lawyer of the high plains

When the Missoulian asked Montana State House Speaker Austin Knudsen (R–Culbertson) where Medicaid expansion would fit in the 2015 legislative agenda, he replied that “able-bodied people should be able to go out and get a job.” That remark suggested a striking ignorance of not only what health insurance is for, but also who would benefit from fulfilling the federal mandate to expand Medicaid in Montana. There are lots of ways to make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy private insurance, and most of them involve working full time. When Knudsen answers “get a job” to the Medicaid expansion question, he forces voters to decide whether he is ignorant or just believes they are. We consider that question in this week’s column in the Missoula Independent. Be sure to read the first comment, which notes that plenty of people without jobs make too much from disability to qualify for Medicaid, too. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links!

It’s been a tough week for free speech in Europe

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 0 Comment
A cover from the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo

A cover from the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo

This morning, masked gunmen attacked the Paris headquarters of French humor publication Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people, including the editor and four cartoonists who had depicted the prophet Muhammed. Although no one has yet claimed responsibility, the Times reports that “extremist groups applauded the violence, calling it revenge for the newspaper’s satirical treatment of Islam and its prophet.” At the risk of profiling, I’m going to say this was a radical Islam thing, because who else violently attacks funny newspapers? Western traditions have more respect for free speech. In unrelated news, the UK has arrested a series of people for praising jihad on Twitter and Facebook.

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Missoula police shoot two suspects in a 24-hour period

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 1 Comment
Missoula County Sheriff's Capt. Tony Rio

Missoula County Sheriff’s Capt. Tony Rio

Props to my girl Kathryn Haake for starting this report on the two police shootings that occurred in Missoula last week with “No new information has been released in the investigations of two officer-involved shootings that left a Missoula man dead and an Evaro man injured last week.” I can hear the editorial decision in that sentence. Although we may not have more information, we got a lot more conjecture yesterday, when attorney Terance Perry told the Missoulian that Kaileb Williams had been shot “execution style” by the MCPD. Perry also says that Williams’s mother was initially told that Williams committed suicide. His obituary, which ran in the same issue of the paper as the article announcing his shooting, says he “passed away suddenly.”

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Does nihilist Islam fill a vacuum of viable radicalisms?

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 35 Comments
Kenan Malik, who is too old and well-adjusted to by the child of me and Mose, but man

Kenan Malik, who is too old and well-adjusted to be the child of me and Mose, but man

I’m pretty sure I have search engine de-optimized my blog with that post title, which is probably just as well. There is little Combat! blog today, because I am sick. Given the 38 contact hours of air travel I logged in the last two weeks, I got off light. But my nasal passages are locked in a battle of propulsion against distant orifices working in the other direction, and I pity myself. If only I had some god to comfort me, but I am a modern American. I know that god, flag, tradition, all restrictions on sex and most identified forms of love are bullshit. What I need is a bigger phone. If that doesn’t make me happy, I guess I’ll turn to radical Islam, since Western modernism has essentially no other radical critiques.

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