Paul Ryan: Rage Against the Machine was never my favorite band

By Dan Brooks in lying 3 Comments
A possibly Photoshopped image of Rep. Paul Ryan

A possibly Photoshopped image of Rep. Paul Ryan

We all remember the highlight of the 2012 presidential election, when then-Republican nominee for vice president Paul Ryan told the New York Times that Rage Against the Machine was one of his favorite bands. It wasn’t quite irony, exactly. It was more like the twist in Terminator Salvation: with a rush of existential horror, we realized this guy thought he was a real person. But don’t you worry—he’s corrected that misapprehension in a new interview with the Times. Quote:

They were never my favorite band. I hate the lyrics, but I like the sound. Led Zeppelin has always been my favorite band. Again, these urban legends get going.

By “urban legends,” Ryan means things he told the most respected and carefully fact-checked newspaper in America. But he was never directly quoted, so he has some wiggle room. Uncomfortable writhing after the jump.

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Friday links! Owen who? edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 1 Comment

Owen Who

Tomorrow, my beloved Iowa Hawkeyes will play their annual rivalry game against unaccredited Iowa State University, whose record currently stands at 0-2. The Hawks did not look great in their first two outings, but they are 2-0 nonetheless. That discrepancy prompted the University of Iowa Campus Police Department to tweet a funny knock-knock joke at the ISU police, the punchline of which plays out in the image above.Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 9.21.39 AM I don’t think anyone will disagree that the police of Iowa City are total dicks, but I’m with them on this one.* Today is Friday, and winners are winners regardless of how they got there. Won’t you elide the details with me?

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Daines demands debate before nation’s smallest TV audience

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics 0 Comment
Convicted goblin Steve Daines hears the end of Hansel and Gretel.

Senate candidate and convicted goblin Steve Daines hears the end of Hansel and Gretel.

Last week, game replacement Amanda Curtis challenged Republican Steve Daines—who presently leads their US Senate race by 19 points—to more than a dozen debates before Election Day. The Daines campaign did not reply—or rather they did reply, but only to say that they could not possibly answer her challenge until Curtis responds to Daines’s invitation to debate in either Sidney or Glendive. Both of those towns have populations around 5,000. The good people at Nielson declared Glendive the smallest local television market in America back in 2010. During these last two months of the race for Senate, it kind of looks like Daines is trying to involve as few Montanans as possible. That’s the subject of my column in this week’s Missoula Independent, which is what you get today instead of a blog. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

 

Why shouldn’t there be a Denny’s in Manhattan?

By Dan Brooks in New York 1 Comment
The interior of Manhattan Denny's at 150 Nassau Street

The interior of Manhattan Denny’s at 150 Nassau Street

This interior shot of Denny’s new Manhattan location captures what it is about New York City: that special feeling of standing where something awesome used to be. Probably, it doesn’t mean anything that the national diner chain/punchline has opened its first Manhattan location. Likely there is no particular significance to the news that, to preserve its tradition of low prices, Manhattan Denny’s charges no more than $11 for a specialty cocktail. And certainly there is no reason that Manhattan shouldn’t have a Denny’s. So why did this news make me sad?

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Ravalli charges pregnant woman with endangerment after drug test

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 0 Comment
Ultrasound image of a fetus during the 12th week of pregnancy

Ultrasound image of a fetus during the 12th week of pregnancy

Ravalli County has charged a pregnant woman with criminal endangerment of her unborn child after she failed a drug test. Casey Gloria Allen, 21, tested positive for THC, opiates and benzodiazapines—an active ingredient in prescription anti-anxiety medications—in a urine test administered August 26, when she was 12 weeks pregnant. Allen has been charged with a felony “for criminal endangerment over concerns about her unborn child.” Props to the Missoulian’s Perry Backus for that phrase, which A) refers to a fetus as a child a full 10 weeks before it can be legally aborted in the state of Montana, and B) disembodies the word “concern.” Who is concerned about Allen’s child, exactly? Whoever it is, they care so much about a person who hasn’t been born yet that they want to put his mother in jail.

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