Combat! - Page 263 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Montana Rep reads fake news story, demands EPA change policy

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media June 21, 2012 4 Comments

Montana Rep. Dennis Rehberg, photographed during the House’s popular Corny-Ass Parody of the State You Represent Day.

I don’t normally do this, but the opening paragraphs from this article in the Billings Gazette are too perfect not to quote in full:

Two weeks after telling the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to ground surveillance drones allegedly spying on American farmers and ranchers, Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., acknowledged the drones don’t exist. In a statement issued by his office Tuesday, Rehberg acknowledged there aren’t any drones spying on farms and ranches to enforce the Clean Water Act. Rehberg’s staff blamed President Barack Obama for the mix-up.

Sometime in early June, Rehberg read a report that the EPA was using unmanned drones to monitor farms for possible violations of the Clean Water Act. That story is not true. It initially appeared on Infowars.com, after which it spread to the newsletter of the John Birch Society, various conservative media outlets, and finally Fox News. Shortly thereafter, Rehberg demanded that the EPA stop the practice in a strongly-worded letter that he also included in this press release. Then the five-term lawmaker admitted that he did not know what he was talking about.

Regarding Ann Romney, Olympic horse owner

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas June 20, 2012 5 Comments

John Carlos and Tommie Smith give the black power salute at the 1968 Olympics, humiliating their owners.

Michelle Obama has those arms, but Ann Romney is kind of an Olympian. She owns a dressage horse, Rafalca, who will compete in the 2012 Summer Games in London alongside trainer Jan Ebeling. Over at the New Yorker, Amy Davidson asks whether that means we have to cheer for Ann Romney at the Olympics. We definitely have to cheer Rafalca, because what—am I to root for some Russian horse instead? But the question of whether that equals cheering for Ann Romney is less clear. Eberling is the one who actually rides Rafalca, putting Romney at another degree of remove from even being the person who sits on top of the actual competitor. It’s a tricky way to be an Olympian, as Mitt Romney has acknowledged. “She’s the athlete,” he told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation. “But in this case, it’s not her personally.” Oh.

The Rio+20 summit is depressing, you guys

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas June 19, 2012 2 Comments

The worst part is that he paid $300,000 for this place in 2006.

Here’s a fun thought experiment: say you had conclusive evidence that A) man-made climate change would render the planet unlivable in 50 years and B) this process could be reversed by an immediate reduction in carbon emissions. Everyone has access to this evidence, but let us say that a combination of factors—popular ignorance of science, resistance from industry, sheer denial—leads people to do nothing. Some people try to make laws about burning coal and oil and gasoline, but other people stop them. Everybody keeps driving and cooking plastic bags on the stove and whatever, even though this behavior will kill the human race in two generations. Now for the sixty-dollar question: in this situation, when the will of the people was sure to wreck everything, would you still support democracy? Before you answer, read this editorial about the Rio+20 summit in Brazil and how little has changed since the last one. Continue reading

Department of Irony?: “Kindness in America” hitchhiker shot himself

By Dan Brooks in Department of Irony? June 18, 2012 18 Comments

Ray Dolin

Lots of facts have changed since we last talked about hitchhiker/shooting victim Ray Dolin. Dolin’s memoir is called “Kindness In America,” not “The Kindness of America.” The man accused of shooting him is named Lloyd Christopher Danielson, not Charles Lloyd Danielson. And Danielson is not accused of that anymore, because Ray Dolin has admitted to shooting himself. That’s good news for Danielson, although Roosevelt County is still keeping him in jail on a separate charge of driving while intoxicated. Danielson was drunk when they arrested him for a murder he didn’t commit, so that charge stands under Montana’s strict Screw You, We’re Cops statute.

Friday links! Clash of civilization edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links June 15, 2012 1 Comment

Not the good kind of Clash.

We think of the clash of civilizations being waged in epic, epochal struggles among disparate cultures, but what if the clash is more like the rattling of the knife drawer? What if the primary clashing of a civilization—a modern, pluralistic civilization with really good phones, say—were with itself? Probably, the participants in that civilization would feel all kooked out, torn between their particular values and the universal desire to help one another. To resolve the dissonance, they’d likely have to declare parts of their own culture foreign, just to achieve the dissociation necessary to struggle against themselves. Such a civilization could only self-destruct—how else could it win the clash? Fortunately, we modern people don’t have that problem. We’re the foremost civilization in history, and we’ll be fine just as soon as we wreck China, European socialism, evangelical Christianity and the Dallas Cowboys. I’ll just grab one of the carving knives and we’ll—hang on. Sorry, this drawer sticks. Won’t you listen to the clanging with me?