Other pre-commitment devices that didn’t work on Congress

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments
Should not have eaten all that turtle food.

Should not have eaten all those minnows

It’s semi-official: sequestration has failed. The actual mechanism is going to function just fine; come tomorrow, $85 billion in domestic and military spending cuts that nobody likes will automatically go into place, because Congress could not obey their own pre-commitment device. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Sequestration was supposed to be so awful that it would force Democrats and Republicans to agree on alternative deficit reduction strategies. Instead, after months of arguing and temporizing, our legislators have set themselves to the hard work of accepting that sequestration isn’t so bad after all. Congress is like a man who ties a string around his finger to remember to buy insulin and, after several months, loses circulation and has his finger amputated. Here are some other pre-commitment devices that didn’t work on Congress.

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Seth MacFarlane is sexist because he sucks, not the other way around

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 8 Comments
"I'm great."

“Poop.”

I don’t know if you heard about this, but Seth MacFarlane upset some people at the Oscars. From the opening musical number—titled “We Saw Your Boobs,” in which he pointed out actresses in the audience who had appeared topless in films—to a gag about a nine year-old someday being too old to date George Clooney, to a series of gay panic jokes, an inordinate percentage of his comedy seemed to be about women or men who do not want to have sex with them. He also incisively observed that Jews run Hollywood. [Caution: link comes with irritating sound.] That last quote-unquote joke encapsulates why I dislike MacFarlane’s work, and also why calling him offensive misses what’s wrong with him.

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Republicans offer to let Obama perform sequestration cuts

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments
I'm just going to lie here, and you do whatever you want.

I’m just going to lie here, and you do whatever you want.

With sequestration just a few days away, congressional Republicans have drafted a plan to let the President apply $85 billion in cuts to defense and social spending. You might remember sequestration as the “I’ll clean the garage tomorrow” note of the legislative branch, now stuck to the refrigerator as a concrete reminder that Congress cannot achieve its own goals, meet its own deadlines or successfully negotiate with itself. Hence this offer to cede its authority. After twice failing and, now, staring down another collapse of will, our elected representatives admit they have a problem and appeal to a higher power.

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My neighbor, [redacted], is inconsiderate

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 6 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Y39QnwRvY

There is no Combat! blog today, because I have several deadlines and slept about an hour last night. I went to bed around 10:30, which is the same time my downstairs neighbor, [redacted], turned on his stereo. He left it on until dawn, presumably to create a baseline of noise so that his punctuated shouting would not startle his friends. [Redacted] wakes me up a lot. I had the best studio apartment in Missoula until he moved in; now I have a dorm room with good light. Anyway, I will be working at the coffee shop while he sleeps listens to the above song on repeat via my own fairly powerful stereo. If you are reading this because you Googled “[redacted]”—or if you are, yourself, [redacted]—know that he is inconsiderate. I’ll be back tomorrow with less focused indignation.

 

Friday links! And so it begins edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 4 Comments

And so it begins

Perhaps ironically, the beginning of something only exists in retrospect. We remember some series of events as a thing that happened and identify their leading edge, but that edge is by definition nothing when we first experience it. You can only see the beginning when you know the rest, and you don’t know the rest at the beginning. The exception to this rule is events we were expecting. We knew those would happen all along, and their beginnings are eerily recognizable, as if we were reading the third act of a novel instead of the first draft of history. Today is Friday. We all knew it was coming. The week is over, but one thing is paradoxically certain: it begins. Won’t you say you knew it all along with me?

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