Combat! - Page 223 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Meanwhile, inside Michele Bachmann’s head

By Dan Brooks in inside Michele Bachmann's head April 10, 2013 3 Comments

Michele Bachmann watches her owner eat a hot dog.

Michele Bachmann watches her groomer eat a hot dog.

Picture space as a balloon with pennies stuck all over the surface. The balloon surface is the space-time manifold that we know; the pennies are points within that manifold. Now inflate the balloon a little more, so that all the pennies move apart. This is the expansion of the universe that has been occurring at nearly the speed of light for the last six billion years. Now inflate the balloon even more, until it pops and you accidentally inhale several pennies, plus balloon parts and glue. Wave your arms. Suck gallons of Coca-Cola into your lungs in an attempt to dissolve the pennies, until you pass out and hit your head on the toilet. Did you see the explosion of white stars? That is the best analogy we have for the extradimensional space known as the inside of Michele Bachmann’s head. It is a white-hot field that our instruments cannot penetrate, and it is in trouble.

Internet hoax has Joel Osteen renouncing Christianity

By Dan Brooks in Hoaxes April 9, 2013 0 Comment

“And give up all this? Come on.”

This morning, the daemon Facebook brought me the news that Texas megachurch pastor Joel Osteen had resigned his position and renounced Christianity. The article also warned that people would try to tell me it was all a hoax. My suspicions were piqued by an interview in which Osteen uses pretty much the same diction and syntax as the interviewer, and they were confirmed by this ABC News report. ABC News is fairly reliable, even if they did say the hoax had him “telling his many followers he was denouncing [sic] the Christian faith.” Also, the problem of an unknown source that offers fantastic information while warning that people will try to tell you it’s a hoax should be familiar to anyone who has read the Bible.

Roma provide clean test case for racism

By Dan Brooks in social problems April 8, 2013 2 Comments

Irish Roma, better known as Gypsies

On Friday we linked to a weird slideshow about wealthy Roma, pejoratively known as Gypsies—an Indo-European ethnic group that is the target of surprisingly open prejudice in Europe. America doesn’t really have a visible Roma population, so it’s hard to understand how hated they are overseas. How hated are they? When the European Union declared this the Decade of Roma Inclusion and gave Slovakia a billion Euros to fund Roma education and employment programs, popular opinion held that it was a ploy to get them out of western Europe by turning Slovakia into a Roma ghetto. See, by helping them you encourage them. That and other weirdly familiar tropes of racism applied to an instructively neutral ethnic group can be found in this long, uneven but ultimately rad Vice article by Aaron Lake Smith.

Friday links! Gloom, doom edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links April 5, 2013 3 Comments

Just in time for the weekend, the temperatures of both Missoula and Roger Ebert have dropped precipitously. Did you ever notice that catastrophes come in twos? I’m just exploiting your cognitive bias—really, did you ever notice that when something bad happens, you can always think of something else to complain about? Gloom and doom go together like tomorrow and your inevitable death. Today is Friday, and the week has been full of pointed injustices with which to prod our self-pity glands. The self-pity glad is located just behind the soft palate and in front of the uvulua. Keep poking with your toothbrush—you’ll find it. In the meantime, won’t you lament our collective lot with me?

North Carolina rep proposes state religion

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized April 4, 2013 0 Comment

North Carolina Rep. Harry Warren, who probably hates America

Combat! blog is busier than a one-armed man in a puppet show today, so we barely have time to focus our hate laser on North Carolina’s plan to A) declare itself exempt from the First Amendment and B) adopt an official state religion. Don’t worry—it won’t actually happen. The bill, which explains that the state’s General Assembly “does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion,” is a reaction to an ACLU lawsuit against Rowan County’s practice of opening commissioners’ meetings with a Christian prayer. That seems like as good a reason to nullify the First Amendment as any. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links and, you know, a bunch of billable hours.