Combat! - Page 180 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Friday links! It blows, it sucks, it doesn’t exist edition

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized February 28, 2014 0 Comment

Montana

There is no Combat! blog today, because I have been covered in a metaphorical avalanche of deadlines and a more literal avalanche of snow. For the second time since Tuesday, Missoula has been struck with a blizzard. Also for the second time since Tuesday, Charter Communications has effed up their DNS servers, so only a third of the internet works at my house. That third does not include Gmail or Weather.com, so I am cut off from the outside world in all ways that could mean anything to me. To sum up: winter is stupid, Charter is very stupid, and everything sucks. I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox, and they were okay, I guess.

The Daily Currant strikes again

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media February 27, 2014 6 Comments

A screen cap from The Daily Currant

The screenshot above is from an article in The Daily Currant, a satirical newspaper that has once again had one of its stories mistaken for fact, this time by a Maryland police chief who cited it in a presentation on the dangers of legalizing marijuana. Props to Jacek for the link. Annapolis police chief Michael Pristoop subsequently apologized for citing the story, adding, “This does not take away from the other facts presented in opposition to legalization or the good work of the Maryland Chiefs and Maryland Sheriffs Associations.” Actually, chief, it does. Your “good work” mistook a made-up thing for fact, and the other people in the room were, unlike you, immediately able to identify the thing as made-up. You should stop telling the people in that room what’s what. Pristoop can be forgiven for his mistake, however, as The Daily Currant continues to close the gap between “satire” and “false.”

Missoula County Attorney enters endgame

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics February 26, 2014 1 Comment

Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg

Fred Van Valkenburg is back from vacation today, and I do not envy him his voice mailbox. Probably he checked it while he was away. We know he read the paper, because he sent attorney Jim Ghidella an angry email after Ghidella wrote a letter to the editor critical of Van Valkenburg’s fight against the US Department of Justice. For those of you who have not followed this story: in 2012, the DOJ announced that it was investigating the University of Montana, Missoula police, and the county attorney’s office for improper handling of sexual assault cases. The police and UM cooperated, and their investigations are now over. Van Valkenburg, on the other hand, has insisted all along that Justice has no jurisdiction over his office, and recently got $50,000 from the county commission to pursue a declaratory judgment against them. That lawsuit was filed earlier this week—just in time for us to learn about the agreement that Montana’s state attorney general made with the DOJ in 2012 to cooperate with investigators.

Fudge! Fudge me in the apples

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized February 25, 2014 0 Comment

My internet stopped working sometime during the night, presumably because Charter spent too much on mailing me digital phone offers every three days and ran out of money for electricity. Also during the night, Missoula got about six inches of snow on top of the eight we already had, so I am snowed in. Lacking both home Internet and the means to escape said home, I live as a nineteenth-century flaneur, painstakingly tapping out this record of my consciousness on my cell phone. Do you hear me, Charter? I already have a phone, and also your service guy is late. Maybe we’ll be back tomorrow with actual blog, or maybe we’ll die for lack of cat videos. We will certainly miss a valuable work day, to say nothing of our workout regimen. Pity me for the shut-in I am.

Netflix pays Comcast millions to restore streaming speed

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media February 24, 2014 1 Comment

A promotional poster for "Scream, Blacula, Scream," one of the many quality films you can stream on Netflix

The promotional poster for “Scream, Blacula, Scream,” a quality film you can stream on Netflix

A mere 10 days after Comcast agreed to buy Time-Warner Cable, the cable/internet giant has announced a multimillion-dollar deal with Netflix. Here’s how it works: Netflix pays Comcast several million dollars each year, and the 25% drop in streaming speed that has plagued Netflix subscribers who get their internet from Comcast will go away. It’s probably a coincidence that this unprecedented deal comes three months after a circuit court judge struck down the FCC’s authority to enforce net neutrality. Welcome to the new internet. Netflix, which accounts for as much of 30% of total internet traffic during peak hours, now has to pay to play.