Combat! - Page 151 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Friday links! Expose yourself edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links September 26, 2014 2 Comments

Mitt Romney eats a pork chop on a stick, using a napkin to protect his soft hands.

Like many private, vaguely creepy people, I live in fear that someone else will find me out. That worry is natural, but it’s also misplaced: we’re far more likely to expose ourselves than to be exposed by others. It all checks out from a phenomenological standpoint. Who we are is defined by what we do. If the world is going to find out who you are, is it really likely to happen because of what someone else does? Today is Friday, and you are bound to expose yourself sooner or later. Won’t you open the trench coat with me?

Canadians buy Missoula’s water supply, politely suggest that resistance is futile

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized September 25, 2014 1 Comment

Canada

Last week, the Carlyle Group agreed to sell Missoula’s water supply to Algonquin Power and Utilities of Canada. It was kind of a surprise, not least because Carlyle had recently argued in court that it did not actually own Mountain Water, as part of its all-stops resistance to the city’s condemnation effort. You might remember this issue from January, when I said the city should buy our water supply. I was wrong. Missoula should buy Mountain Water from the Carlyle Group the way I should rescue a toddler from a bear: yeah, in principle, but in practice inexperience demands a cost greater than I can pay. That’s the idea behind my column in this week’s Missoula Independent, in which I admit that I was wrong and urge Mayor Engen to do the same. We’ve got a tiger by the tail, and now is an opportune moment to let it go. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

Fleet of tweet, Gingrich tastes defeat

By Dan Brooks in Go berserk? September 24, 2014 3 Comments

Former Speaker of the House Newton Gingrich

Watching nine TVs at once in search of a way to either reverse his aging or end his childhood, Newt Gingrich saw President Obama praise American pilots for flying missions against ISIS “with courtesy.” It was right there in the closed captioning on C-SPAN. Quickly, Gingrich turned to Twitter to express astonishment at the president’s strange diction:

That’s a screenshot from my phone, so remember that those two tweets appeared in reverse order. They also arrived one minute apart, q.v. The Washington Post. Gingrich could not believe that anyone, least of all the president, would apply “courtesy” to the act of bombing military targets. Seventeen minutes later, he figured out how to rewind his DVR:

Poor Newt—it turned out he could believe the president said “courteous” and was in fact the only person capable of doing so. And he came pretty close to admitting he was wrong.

Climate change survey suggests axis of denial between GOP, old people

By Dan Brooks in Baby Boomers September 23, 2014 3 Comments

Mitch McConnell (R–KY) briefly considers his role in climate change, reassuring himself that he will die soon.

Mitch McConnell (R–KY) reassures himself that nothing matters and he will die soon.

The good news is that 54% of Americans now believe global warming is caused by human behavior, the highest percentage yet reported in a New York Times/CBS News poll. Among survey respondents who identified as Republican, however, 18% said global warming didn’t exist, and another 42% insisted it was caused by “natural patterns in the Earth’s environment”—an impressive 60% who believe there’s nothing we can do. But maybe the most exciting statistic has to do with age:

More than seven in 10 of those 65 and older expected to see no impact from global warming in their lifetimes, but many younger people did, including 50 percent of those under 30.

That’s the beauty of believing that scientists are lying and we don’t have to do anything about the most serious environmental problem in human history: if you’re wrong but also old, you’ll never have to pay for it.

Urban Outfitters CEO puts “facts” in quotes, enters realm of phantasm where nothing is real

By Dan Brooks in Close Reading September 22, 2014 0 Comment

An apparently bloody Kent State sweatshirt Urban Outfitters promoted in an email blast.

An apparently bloody Kent State sweatshirt Urban Outfitters sold on its website

Last week, Urban Outfitters became the object of public outcry when it offered for sale on its website a Kent State University sweatshirt that appeared to be stained with blood. For those of you who shop at Urban Outfitters, Kent State was the site of a Vietnam-war protest that become a massacre when the National Guard opened fire on unarmed college students. So the sweatshirt is funny and timely. Nevertheless, CEO Dick Hayne felt compelled to defend Urban Outfitters in an email to employees:

In the last 24 hours we have received a lot of negative publicity and many of you have received communication from friends, family members or those outside the URBN community regarding a Kent State sweatshirt for sale on urbanoutfitters.com that was mistakenly identified as “bloody.” We wanted to address this with our community and provide some “facts.”

Discussion of what it might mean to put “facts” in scare quotes after the jump.