Combat! - Page 112 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Friday links! I did it for the money edition

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized July 10, 2015 1 Comment

Benicio del Toro enjoys some on-the-nose dialogue with James Caan’s bagman in The Way of the Gun.

“Fifteen million dollars is not money,” some hard case says in Christopher McQuarrie’s The Way of the Gun. “It’s a motive with a universal adaptor on it.” That criticism of contemporary screenwriting applies even better to contemporary society. We all agree you shouldn’t do things just for the money, but an awful lot of what we do now compensates us little else. From financial services to country music, society encourages growing numbers of people to perform empty tasks joylessly for money. What used to be a sad admission around bar close has become an operating principle. Today is Friday, and if you don’t take whatever money they offer you to do anything, you’ll starve. Won’t you buy in with me?

Uber to bankrupt Missoula taxi companies, finally doing justice

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized July 9, 2015 5 Comments

One-star Yelp reviews of Yellow Taxi

There are two taxi companies in Missoula: Yellow Taxi, which currently enjoys a one-star rating on Yelp, and Green Taxi, which may or may not have purchased a second car. If you call a cab in this town, the wait is usually between one and two hours. I’ve been utterly stiffed at 6am by Green Taxi and missed a flight as a result. Also on my way to the airport, I’ve been picked up an hour late by Yellow Taxi and then told we were going to stop for a second fare. The dispatcher of the same company once told me to fuck myself when I called to ask where my cab was.

These two enterprises have been protected from the invisible hand of a free market by the Public Services Commission, which has used its regulatory authority to quash any competing cab companies in Missoula for the last several years. But this cabal of incompetents can suck it from now on, because Uber is coming to Missoula. The Montana legislature approved the transportation network carrier’s operation in the state, and because Uber is technically not a cab company, the PSC cannot regulate it out of business. Soon, the owners of Yellow and Green Taxi will be starving in the streets, their children reduced to performing janitorial work at the customer-service call centers of Chinese pornography companies. Or they’ll offer better, more reliable service. Either would be okay with me, as I explain in this week’s column for the Missoula Independent. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

Republican strategists prepare for alternate-future 1992

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates July 8, 2015 1 Comment

Donald Trump sees a squirrel.

Midway through this strange Hill story, in which Senate Republicans inexplicably describe Donald Trump as a “smart guy” instead of a “shit-eating wildman,” GOP strategist John Ullyat articulates a frightening vision of the future:

The Republican candidates who decide to take him on and attack him do so at their peril and the party’s peril, because the worst thing for Republicans is for Trump to go through the primaries and make a third-party run.

But that would never happen, right? It seems pretty implausible that this country could see a three-way election among a Bush, a Clinton, and an outspoken billionaire—god dammit.

South Carolina senate votes to take down Confederate flag, 30 or 40 cold beers

By Dan Brooks in American History July 7, 2015 0 Comment

The South Carolina Statehouse

In the third of three required votes, the state senate of South Carolina has decided 36-3 to take down the Confederate battle flag and one or two cases of cold beer. The three votes against came from Senate Majority Leader Harvey S. Peeler, Jr., Lee Bright, and Daniel B. Verdin III, with Deke the smell-hound abstaining. Senator Verdin called for a Confederate memorial holiday on which the flag could be flown, and Senator Peeler complained that “we won’t change history by removing the flag.” Senator Bright, on the other hand, felt that the problem with taking down the Confederate flag was that it would not stop gay marriage:

“This nation was founded on Judeo-Christain principles and they are under assault by men in black robes who are not elected by you…What I would like to see is these folks that are working in the positions that are doing …marriage certificates do not have to betray their faith or compromise their faith and in order to subject [themselves] to the tyranny of five… Our governor called us in to deal with the flag that sits out front. Let’s deal with the national sin that we face today. We talk about abortion, but this gay marriage thing I believe we will be one nation gone under, like President Reagan said.”

The senator’s speech concluded when the firecracker he was holding went off.

“Oh my god, we’re going to be soft on sex offenders”

By Dan Brooks in Ethical Dilemmas July 6, 2015 2 Comments

Zachery Anderson, registered sex offender

Last December, when he was 19 years old, Zachery Anderson met a girl on Hot or Not who told him she was 17. After the two had sex, Anderson learned from her mother that the girl was actually 14. He subsequently turned himself in to police, pled guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual misconduct, and spent 90 days in jail. But under Indiana law, he will remain a registered sex offender for the rest of his life. Anderson was studying computer science, but now he is forbidden from having an email address or accessing the internet. He cannot live near a school or park, including the boat launch 1000 feet from his parents’ house. And as he looks for a home and a job, he will have to tell prospective employers and landlords that he is a sex offender.