Combat! - Page 252 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Mitt Romney submits maybe impossible tax plan

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates September 10, 2012 0 Comment

Every night at 10:30, “Everybody Loves Raymond.” I tell him it’s stupid, but no, we have to connect with ordinary—he’s behind me, isn’t he?

Can you really say that you’re better off than you were four years ago? Don’t think about exactly four years ago, when the economy collapsed and we were still deciding whether Barack Obama or John McCain would be our next president. Obviously you’re better off than you were right then. But think about five years ago, before the crash and subsequent gradual improvement, and ask again: are you better off than you were four years ago? Because if you aren’t, Mitt Romney would like to point out that he has not been president during that time at all.

Friday links! Bracing discoveries edition

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized September 7, 2012 1 Comment

You will understand soon enough.

Depending on your attitude toward philosophical idealism, pretty much everything that can be known is out there, waiting to be discovered. Like the word “discovery,” knowledge has little meaning apart from a human subjet to know it, but knowledge as object—the location of your old apartment keys, what went wrong with Amelia Earhart’s plane, the mass of an undiscovered planet—is out there, waiting to be figured. Today is Friday, and the weekend, defined by possibility and inactivity, is upon us. Who knows what the future will reveal? I’m still trying to catch up with the past. Won’t you look back forward with me?

Amazon product reviews: skeleton stands

By Dan Brooks in consumerism September 6, 2012 4 Comments

Poor Mr. Thrifty

I write this while standing up, because I am a weirdo. In my ongoing, possibly insane quest to fix my rickety body before I get too old, I have constructed a standing desk. It is not a work of great craftsmanship, but it delights me. I have come to suspect that human hamstrings were not designed for eight hours of boneward pressure each day. Standing work makes me very happy, although my standing desk does not, and so I set out to find some new means of raising my laptop to eye level. What holds things at eye level? I asked myself. That is how I lost several hours reading Amazon reviews of stands for model skeletons.

Killin’ it!

By Dan Brooks in representative democracy September 5, 2012 2 Comments

Michelle Obama’s speech was almost exactly twice as good as Mitt Romney’s, at least according to Twitter. It’s possible that points to a difference in the media habits of people who watch the DNC and the RNC, respectively, but I’m going to say it’s because she was twice as good. Lots of people agree with me, even if Charles Krauthammer issued a formal bah, humbug. “And the brilliance of it is this,” he said: “It drained Obama of any, either, ideological motivation, or any having to do with self-interest or ambition, which I think is sort of a more plausible explanation.” You saw through it, Krauthammer: the president is ambitious.

This fucking guy

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates September 4, 2012 4 Comments

Paul Ryan says whatever to some votes at the Iowa State Fair.

Paul Ryan has been directly involved in the 2012 general election only a short time, but he seems bent on racking up as many fact-check stories as he can by November. Speaking to an audience at East Carolina University, Ryan claimed that 1.4 million businesses filed for bankruptcy in 2011, and that the economy under Obama has been worse than under Carter. Quote:

The president can say a lot of things and he will. But he can’t tell you that you’re better off. Simply put, the Jimmy Carter years look like the good old days compared to where we are right now.

“Simply put” is a verbal signal Ryan uses to warn his family to stop listening when he is about to lie, like when Sarah Palin says “gee” or “the.” It turns out that around 48,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy last year, not 1.4 million. It also turns out that fact checkers will jump all over a claim re: quantitative data that can be found on the internet within 30 seconds, and they did.