Combat! blog hacks in bed, is not useful

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 0 Comment
A derivatives analyst accidentally wastes cocaine.

A derivatives analyst accidentally wastes cocaine.

There is no Combat! blog to speak of today, because I am sick. Possible vectors include the toddler who stuck his finger in the spigot of the water cooler at brunch yesterday, or the lady buying cold medicine who sneezed on the PIN pad at the grocery store. Other people: they exist only to create lines and get you sick. While I imagine a hot X-Acto blade in the seam of my throat, how about you read this review of a usage dictionary by David Foster Wallace? It’s the first work of his I ever read, and it might still be the best. For a man whose prose muddles the line between mandarin and colloquial, it amounts to a statement of purpose. We’ll be back tomorrow with real opinions, or maybe a close reading of a car commercial.

 

Friday links! Expose yourself edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 2 Comments
Mitt Romney eats a pork chop on a stick, using a napkin to protect his soft hands.

Mitt Romney eats a pork chop on a stick, using a napkin to protect his soft hands.

Like many private, vaguely creepy people, I live in fear that someone else will find me out. That worry is natural, but it’s also misplaced: we’re far more likely to expose ourselves than to be exposed by others. It all checks out from a phenomenological standpoint. Who we are is defined by what we do. If the world is going to find out who you are, is it really likely to happen because of what someone else does? Today is Friday, and you are bound to expose yourself sooner or later. Won’t you open the trench coat with me?

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Canadians buy Missoula’s water supply, politely suggest that resistance is futile

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 1 Comment
Canada

Canada

Last week, the Carlyle Group agreed to sell Missoula’s water supply to Algonquin Power and Utilities of Canada. It was kind of a surprise, not least because Carlyle had recently argued in court that it did not actually own Mountain Water, as part of its all-stops resistance to the city’s condemnation effort. You might remember this issue from January, when I said the city should buy our water supply. I was wrong. Missoula should buy Mountain Water from the Carlyle Group the way I should rescue a toddler from a bear: yeah, in principle, but in practice inexperience demands a cost greater than I can pay. That’s the idea behind my column in this week’s Missoula Independent, in which I admit that I was wrong and urge Mayor Engen to do the same. We’ve got a tiger by the tail, and now is an opportune moment to let it go. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

Fleet of tweet, Gingrich tastes defeat

By Dan Brooks in Go berserk? 3 Comments
Former Speaker of the House Newton Gingrich

Former Speaker of the House Newton Gingrich

Watching nine TVs at once in search of a way to either reverse his aging or end his childhood, Newt Gingrich saw President Obama praise American pilots for flying missions against ISIS “with courtesy.” It was right there in the closed captioning on C-SPAN. Quickly, Gingrich turned to Twitter to express astonishment at the president’s strange diction:

Newt Fruitin'

That’s a screenshot from my phone, so remember that those two tweets appeared in reverse order. They also arrived one minute apart, q.v. The Washington Post. Gingrich could not believe that anyone, least of all the president, would apply “courtesy” to the act of bombing military targets. Seventeen minutes later, he figured out how to rewind his DVR:

Tweet Gingrich

Poor Newt—it turned out he could believe the president said “courteous” and was in fact the only person capable of doing so. And he came pretty close to admitting he was wrong.

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Climate change survey suggests axis of denial between GOP, old people

By Dan Brooks in Baby Boomers 3 Comments
Mitch McConnell (R–KY) briefly considers his role in climate change, reassuring himself that he will die soon.

Mitch McConnell (R–KY) reassures himself that nothing matters and he will die soon.

The good news is that 54% of Americans now believe global warming is caused by human behavior, the highest percentage yet reported in a New York Times/CBS News poll. Among survey respondents who identified as Republican, however, 18% said global warming didn’t exist, and another 42% insisted it was caused by “natural patterns in the Earth’s environment”—an impressive 60% who believe there’s nothing we can do. But maybe the most exciting statistic has to do with age:

More than seven in 10 of those 65 and older expected to see no impact from global warming in their lifetimes, but many younger people did, including 50 percent of those under 30.

That’s the beauty of believing that scientists are lying and we don’t have to do anything about the most serious environmental problem in human history: if you’re wrong but also old, you’ll never have to pay for it.

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