On the Montana senate’s weirdest day

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 1 Comment
Democrats try in vain to be recognized by the President of the Senate Friday.

Democrats try in vain to be recognized by the President of the Senate Friday.

Last Friday, Democrats in the Montana Senate attempted an obscure parliamentary maneuver to block passage of two voter-referendum bills, SB 405 and SB 408, that would end same-day voter registration and institute a top-two primary system. Instead of just doing it, though, they first held a party caucus to explain what was happening. Republicans caught wind, and the ensuing refusal of Senate President Jeff Essman (R–Billings) to recognize any Democrats on the Senate floor ended in a small, polite riot. You can read about it in my latest column for the Missoula Independent, which has received this glowing review from commenter Scott Wilson:

Typical one-sided Leftist rant. You Democrat-socialist-communist types want same-day registration to get more ineligible people voting and their votes counted. Absent voter fraud, the unaccountable, lawless, oath-breaking Kenyan would not be president vying for position as King and High Ruler. Enough. Sounds like the Republicans should be commended. Sore losers are still losers.

We’ll be back tomorrow with another one-sided rant.

 

Meanwhile, inside Michele Bachmann’s head

By Dan Brooks in inside Michele Bachmann's head 3 Comments
Michele Bachmann watches her owner eat a hot dog.

Michele Bachmann watches her groomer eat a hot dog.

Picture space as a balloon with pennies stuck all over the surface. The balloon surface is the space-time manifold that we know; the pennies are points within that manifold. Now inflate the balloon a little more, so that all the pennies move apart. This is the expansion of the universe that has been occurring at nearly the speed of light for the last six billion years. Now inflate the balloon even more, until it pops and you accidentally inhale several pennies, plus balloon parts and glue. Wave your arms. Suck gallons of Coca-Cola into your lungs in an attempt to dissolve the pennies, until you pass out and hit your head on the toilet. Did you see the explosion of white stars? That is the best analogy we have for the extradimensional space known as the inside of Michele Bachmann’s head. It is a white-hot field that our instruments cannot penetrate, and it is in trouble.

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Internet hoax has Joel Osteen renouncing Christianity

By Dan Brooks in Hoaxes 0 Comment
"And give up all this? Come on."

“And give up all this? Come on.”

This morning, the daemon Facebook brought me the news that Texas megachurch pastor Joel Osteen had resigned his position and renounced Christianity. The article also warned that people would try to tell me it was all a hoax. My suspicions were piqued by an interview in which Osteen uses pretty much the same diction and syntax as the interviewer, and they were confirmed by this ABC News report. ABC News is fairly reliable, even if they did say the hoax had him “telling his many followers he was denouncing [sic] the Christian faith.” Also, the problem of an unknown source that offers fantastic information while warning that people will try to tell you it’s a hoax should be familiar to anyone who has read the Bible.

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Roma provide clean test case for racism

By Dan Brooks in social problems 2 Comments
Irish Roma, better known as Gypsies

Irish Roma, better known as Gypsies

On Friday we linked to a weird slideshow about wealthy Roma, pejoratively known as Gypsies—an Indo-European ethnic group that is the target of surprisingly open prejudice in Europe. America doesn’t really have a visible Roma population, so it’s hard to understand how hated they are overseas. How hated are they? When the European Union declared this the Decade of Roma Inclusion and gave Slovakia a billion Euros to fund Roma education and employment programs, popular opinion held that it was a ploy to get them out of western Europe by turning Slovakia into a Roma ghetto. See, by helping them you encourage them. That and other weirdly familiar tropes of racism applied to an instructively neutral ethnic group can be found in this long, uneven but ultimately rad Vice article by Aaron Lake Smith.

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Friday links! Gloom, doom edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 3 Comments

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Just in time for the weekend, the temperatures of both Missoula and Roger Ebert have dropped precipitously. Did you ever notice that catastrophes come in twos? I’m just exploiting your cognitive bias—really, did you ever notice that when something bad happens, you can always think of something else to complain about? Gloom and doom go together like tomorrow and your inevitable death. Today is Friday, and the week has been full of pointed injustices with which to prod our self-pity glands. The self-pity glad is located just behind the soft palate and in front of the uvulua. Keep poking with your toothbrush—you’ll find it. In the meantime, won’t you lament our collective lot with me?

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