If you woke up Sunday morning like, “What’s with all these two-headed calves and cats walking backwards?” you probably didn’t hear that Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Republican straw poll. Before you switch your breathing strategy from paper bag to plastic, we’d like to remind you that second place went to Ron Paul. Using the Iowa Republican straw poll to guess who’s going win the general election is like using a Star Wars convention to guess who’s going to win the Miss America pageant; it’s alarming that they picked Chewbacca, but it’s not necessarily predictive. The flat, conservative, pig-manure filled region of the country known as Michele Bachmann’s head is perfect for the Iowans who vote in the pre-caucus GOP event that happens 15 months before the general election, because those people are kind of crazy. Bachmann’s win is a testament less to her broad appeal—we still haven’t measured that, because the instruments always get scared and move to Canada—than to her ability to hew to party orthodoxy. As Thursday’s debate showed, that ability is phenomenal. Why she’s so good at it is difficult to say, but it appears to have something to do with her absolute, eerie certainty on virtually every issue. She’s like Sarah Palin only saying one sentence at a time, and frankly I find that frightening. If you don’t believe me, check out her Meet the Press appearance after the jump.
Author: Dan Brooks
Friday links! Transcendent joys edition
Uncle Walt
It has been a week of transcendent joys here at Combat! blog, and one of the things we transcended was collecting links for Friday. You know I’ve been having fun for the last several days because my Evernote has not steadily filled up with internet articles, which initially presented a problem. Fortunately, joy—by which term I mean weirdo shit—is all around us. Today’s links are short, poorly articulated and striking in ways that thwart comprehension. They’re what the European Romantics called sublime, and the arbitrary unification of the sublime is what the American Romantics called transcendence. Around here, we just call it Friday. Drop your socks and grab your unkempt beards, because the transcendent brilliance of the internet is about to blow your face off. Believe it or not, it starts with Rick Santorum after the jump.
The confidence game
I don’t know if you follow the markets, but it’s been one hell of a week. The Dow lost nearly five percent of its value yesterday, following another day of steep declines likely precipitated by S&P’s downgrading of the US federal credit rating last Friday. That move shook investor confidence—as did the decision of certain commentary blogs to cover mean campus organizations in Pakistan instead of the most significant financial event of the year—and confidence is what makes a modern market go. In an economy based on making things, growth is spurred by demand. In an investment economy, somewhat tautologically based on making money, growth is spurred by demand for investments. The more people think a stock market is going to do well, the better it does, and vice versa. Today—as of 12:38 Eastern, at least—a bunch of people decided that the Dow would probably go up, and it did. Which begs the question: why don’t we just have confidence in the market and watch it go up?
Combat! blog flies through beers, is abuseful
As you might guess by the lateness of the hour, Le Blog Combat! is in Montreal, where everyone is super friendly and seems as if they appreciate our attempts to speak French by speaking Spanish without pronouncing the last three letters of each word. Also, a pint is a completely different quantity of beer here, and a liter of wine is the same quantity as everywhere but still much greater than you think. I threw up an entire yogurt parfait this morning. While I continue my cultural ambassadorship, how about you read this column from Paul Krugman about S&P’s recent downgrade of the US government’s credit rating. I have to go explain to the entire nation of Canada what Alka-Seltzer is.
By the time you read this, I’ll be Canadian
Combat! blog hurtles down the iron rails of politeness today on its way to Montreal, there to see noted crazy person Jeff Mangum. There will be no post today so that I have time to argue with various Amtrak officials. While I frantically try to learn French, how about you read about Dock Ellis, the major-league pitcher who claims to have been on LSD when he threw his no-hitter? You will not be disappointed. Or you will, but I will have had time to flee the country while you were finding out.