Remember 2012, when Republican-leaning journalists sought to “unskew” polls that showed Barack Obama with a lead over Mitt Romney by correcting for supposed oversampling of Democrats in the results? Of course you don’t. I had forgotten about it too, but Harry Enten didn’t. The FiveThirtyEight writer is pretty frustrated to find the number cruncher/deniers back at it this year, arguing that polls finding Donald Trump losing badly are inaccurate because too many respondents prefer Hillary Clinton. Is there any better metaphor for the present state of the Republican Party than correcting public opinion for showing too much support for Democrats? Yes, but he’s orange and gross. We’ll be back tomorrow.

 

There is no Combat! blog today, because my girlfriend and I are driving to Seattle for her coworker’s wedding. While I become hypnotized by those endless white lines, how about you enjoy this video of cats vomiting to electronic dance music? This blog would get more clicks if it weren’t so damn highbrow.

Last year, when links such as “suck video” and “gay on gay brother porn” started to appear on Combat! blog without directing users to my Hire Me page, I suspected we had been hacked. I was right. After fixing the problem, GoDaddy convinced me to sign up for their partner service SiteLock, to prevent malicious injections into my homespace and whatnot. This afternoon, I learned my level of SiteLock protection provides the service of informing me when my site has been infected by malware, but the service of removing that malware or even preventing further attacks costs $129 a month.

Combat! blog has been hacked, again. Although the SiteLock lady was very nice, her offer sounded bogus to me, and I opted to address the problem myself. There are a half dozen WordPress plugins that implement basic firewall protection, and I installed one of them. I deleted all the user accounts but this one, logged off all terminals but mine, and changed my password to the name of some cosmic horror yet undiscovered. I set up lockouts to resist brute force attacks. I enumerated all these measures in a post, which is probably an infosec no-no, but you know the Russian dude who hacked Combat! blog to add links for children’s melatonin isn’t reading this. I hope he is. Children’s melatonin isn’t a thing, you bearfucking gas magnate. But I digress.

My point is that the Russians will do anything to divide us. First they hacked the Democratic National Committee, and now this. There is no post today, really, because I fixed Combat! blog instead of writing it. O cruel irony! Must you always be Russian? While I change my ftp password, how about you check out this fun Times visualization of the fact that only about 9% of Americans voted for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. We’re all going to vote on what to have for dinner as a family. But first, your mother and I have narrowed the field to brussels sprouts or tofu rat feces.

Some unfortunate homeowner’s Nest security camera caught this footage of the Roaring Lion wildfire, which burned about 1500 acres south of Hamilton yesterday before firefighters contained it overnight. For those of you living on the outskirts of civilization, Hamilton is about 40 miles south of Missoula, in beautiful Ravalli County. No word as to whether this fire had anything to do with fugitive treasurer Valerie Stamey, but probably it didn’t.

Astute readers may have noticed there was no Combat! blog yesterday. I was all set to write a short post linking to my column in the Independent, having just returned from an unusually hot yoga. I took a shower. I sent some emails. I realized I had eaten naught but a donut all day so, nutritionist that I am, I made an extra-large smoothie based on 16 ounces of orange juice, plus a bunch of wheatgrass and spinach. Thank goodness for the bananas, or vomit would have propelled me around the apartment like a deflating balloon. As it was, I just felt kind of nauseous, and I lay down for a second to collect myself. Two hours later, I woke up just in time to go to dinner with my girlfriend.

So I missed Combat! blog, and for that I am sorry. I’m also sorry I went calorie-negative during a five-workout week, because I still feel kind of washed out and bleary. There will be no Friday links, because I am taking a mental/physical health day. Here’s this week’s Indy column to amuse you while I consume coconut water, avocados, and wild rice. Inspired by Attempt’s comment yesterday, I’ve also added a random post widget to the sidebar on the left. It should be different every time you load the page, so just keeping hanging out on Combat! blog, hitting refresh, until you see a headline that piques your interest. Then go to that page and hit refresh a few thousand times, too. We’ll all be rich before we know it.