Last week, the voters of Missoula booted an incumbent commissioner in her primary and elected as county attorney a woman who left the CA’s office to defend a high-profile rape case. By “the voters of Missoula” I mean “one in four registered voters.” Turnout for last week’s primaries was dismally low, but they decided the offices of county attorney and sheriff nonetheless. Maybe those positions are too important to leave to the twisted reasoning of hardcore voters, and more of us should vote. That’s the bold position I take in my most recent column in the Missoula Independent, which also contains Valerie Stamey jokes. You should read it instead of a real blog today, and I should take a nap. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

 

Last week, Montana joined the 29 other states whose laws prohibiting same-sex marriage have been challenged in court. I accidentally typed “same-ex marriage,” which I adamantly oppose for reasons related to reception seating. But gay marriage is fine, and it’s going to happen sooner or later. Even Orrin Hatch admits that, and he’s a stegosaur. But Tim Fox, Republican attorney general for the great state of Montana, wants to defend our constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in court. It’s a losing proposition, and a bunch of people who love each other are going to have to sit on their midcentury modern sofas and wait while we sort it out. Or—and this is crazy, now—Fox could save us all some time and become a hero to boot by declining to defend the ban. That’s what I suggest in my most recent column for the Missoula Independent, although I also make the crucial error of forgetting to specify that I am not gay. Have at it, internet commenters. I should have used the genius hashtag Aaron and I invented last weekend, #YesHomo(NoHomo). Feel free to append that to whatever tweets you twerk on this issue. I’ll search that hashtag at the end of the week and send you all a bill.

The quiet car on Amtrak may be mankind’s greatest achievement. From where I sit, silently emitting waves of discouragement toward anyone who might want the adjacent seat, the train feels an order of magnitude better than a plane. Fact: it does not lurch up and down in a sickening fashion. Nor does it give people in fake-looking badges license to search my bags. Best of all, everyone rides in placid silence. It’s exactly like being dead, and not just because I’m on my way to someplace hot and crowded. I’ll be in New York this weekend, which will be delightful. I’m interpreting this trip as an excuse not to blog today, so I can look out the window and reflect on a strip of trees, marshes and peeling houses that were once familiar. Everything old is new again—even me. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

 

Remember yesterday when I was like, “come back tomorrow for Friday links?” I was just messing with you, bro. By the time you read this, I will be at my brother’s commencement, supporting my family and only coincidentally shirking my duties. There are no Friday links today. It may not even be Friday, for all I know. You can probably console yourself, however, by watching these assholes overthrow the US government. Unless these assholes are right, and the original assholes are running a false flag operation to ensnare other assholes who trust them. I seriously lost several hours this week untangling the web of imagined conspiracies and counter-conspiracies that is the collision of the Truther movement and Operation American Spring. But man, I can’t wait for the economic boom after all federal taxes are abolished. I’m going to go ahead and post this Thursday night and assume it will all happen according to plan.

Greetings from Missoula International Airport, where air travel remains the vexing ordeal that God decreed. While I watch the person in front of me stare blankly at the self check-in screen, how about you read my latest column in the Missoula Independent. It’s about how Montana’s Castle Doctrine law selects for the people most likely to abuse it, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise. The surprise is that I shot you because you walked into my garage. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.