A blog by Dan Brooks
Only partly because why you’re not writing is the easiest subject, there is no Combat! blog today. I have to overcome this hangover, fly back to Missoula and—I am not joking here—prep for my colonoscopy. I guess it’s an endoscopy, too, but either way I’m going to have doctors in both ends like a best-case JDate. While I give offense, how about you enjoy this installment of Combat! Blog Classic from three years ago, when we were all enjoying unboxing videos. Oh, how young we were.
Deceptaconned!
Remember yesterday, when I was like “we’ll see you tomorrow for Friday links?” I was just trying to end the conversation. There are no links today, because I am busier than a shithouse mouse in a model airplane-building contest—in that I’m definitely going to lose, but I’m taking it really seriously anyway. While I build a fool’s fortress, how about you read this essay I wrote for the Indy about how getting what we wanted from the music industry means we don’t have an identity anymore? I’m paraphrasing. You’ll just have to follow the link. But only a fool would trust me now.
Poor turnout
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.
Fred Van Valkenburg and a woman who loves her job, by Kelsey Wardwell of the Missoulian.
And like that, the Gordian Knot is untangled: Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg has announced a tripartite agreement with the Department of Justice and State Attorney General Tim Fox to improve the way his office prosecutes sexual assaults. Van Valkenburg will drop his lawsuit, and the DOJ will stop investigating him and releasing statements about it while he is on vacation. Now we just shake hands, smile for the cameras and put this unpleasantness behind us. Quote:
“(The USDOJ) never once reached out—never once in two years—reached out to work cooperatively with me in this matter,” Van Valkenburg said. “The letter that (Acting U.S. Attorney General Jocelyn Samuels) issued on Feb. 14 was the single most unprofessional thing I have seen in my practice of law in 41 years…Why did the United States Department of Justice do what they did here?…People working for the United States government think there is no price to things.”
L’chaim, everybody! Samuels succeeded Van Valkenburg at the podium and remarked, on behalf of said government, that “had we had to litigate this, I am confident that we would have prevailed.”
An orangutan uses the telephone, in one of many fun images you can purchase from Masterfile.
Why is this orangutan wearing a knit sweater when he is already covered in orange utan hair? His mom made it, you dick. You’re at the mercy of what your parents consider important, because there are twice as many of them as you. Case in point: Vodafone announced Friday that several governments have direct access to its customers’ data, including the ability to listen to phone calls in progress. Originally, that was supposed to be something they could do only with judicial oversight, but if one of those secret rulings doesn’t work out, the government of, say, Ireland can just use its technical backdoor. I’m sure none of those foreign governments—which may include our own—would abuse their direct lines, though. In unrelated news, the government of Britain made over 500,000 requests for communications data in 2013 alone.