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Friday links! Going out of business edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links July 29, 2011 2 Comments

An American patriot finally has the common sense to demand no more taxes and no more debt.

I don’t want to alarm you, but this is probably going to be the last weekend in America. Congress has until Tuesday to raise the debt ceiling, and to paraphrase the Magic 8-Ball, outlook not good. It is possible that ours will become the first generation in history to cause a US federal default, not by calamity or foreign depredation but by our respective insistences that we are right about everything. The Republican Party, having thus far produced a proposal guaranteed not to win any Democratic votes, has doubled down on partisanship by adding a balanced budget amendment. Harry Reid has announced that such a bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, even as he reminds us how important it is to pass something. With default 96 hours away, each party is working tirelessly to assure the American people that disaster is the other party’s fault. Being an American citizen on July 29, 2011 is like riding in the back seat of a car driven by a bickering couple, one of whom refuses to open his eyes and the other of whom won’t give directions.

Geoff Dyer puts Michael Fried, academic writing on blast

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric July 28, 2011 4 Comments

British author Geoff Dyer in a boat somewhere nice

Holy crap, you guys: Geoff Dyer, author of the masterful Out of Sheer Rage and a bunch of other rad books, now has a regular column in the New York Times Book Review. His inaugural piece is a brutal assessment of academic writing as perfected by Michael Fried, whose Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before tells you what you need to know about the author’s prose pretty much from the title. If you take out the adverbial clauses, you’re left with “Photography Matters.” Also, when we’re talking about photography mattering as never before, we’re looking at a window of about 170 years, since it definitely did not matter before the invention of the daguerrotype camera. These flaws distract from the big fissure, though: Fried’s borderline compulsive tendency to say what he will set out to accomplish, recap what he has argued, explain what he is not saying, et cetera. Dyer does a fine job of eviscerating this convention of academic and critical writing, and in doing so indirectly indicts the cornerstone of writing instruction: the thesis statement.

Terrify yourself with graphs and arguments that cannot be evaluated

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government July 27, 2011 1 Comment

The Gang of Six, a coalition of Democratic and Republican legislators who might do something and the economy will collapse or not

Remember when we gave the government a monopoly on force and authorized various representatives to collect and disburse resources on our behalf? It’s possible that was a mistake. Either that or it’s business as usual on the reeking shores of the Potomac, and the leaders of both parties are holding our national anxiety level hostage for whatever advantage they can derive without pushing us to real crisis. It’s difficult for the layperson to decide just how seriously to take our present negotiations over the debt ceiling. Economists agree that a default would wreak awful damage on the economy, except the markets haven’t really responded. Congress raises the limit pretty much every year, except for the last two weeks the President has been walking out of meetings and Eric Cantor has whined like a young lady who needs a nap. The GOP refuses to consider any revenue increases even as they accuse the President of intransigence, and Harry Reid is a wiener. So whom, to paraphrase the Joker, do you trust?

The last we will say about Glenn Beck

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media July 26, 2011 2 Comments

The One Thing, indeed

We’ve had a good time with Glenn Beck the last couple of years, if by “good” you are willing to mean “sardonic.” In 2009, he appeared to be a person of baffling importance, and not just to us. He assembled a religious revival on the National Mall. He organized character assassinations of federal officials. And he convinced many old people to buy gold. Since he lost his Fox News show, however, Beck’s plummet from the national stage has been startling. He managed to step off the front rather than into the wings, but his whimpering from the orchestra pit is just as pitiful. So Combat! blog is going to leave Glenn Beck alone forever, just as soon as we address the incredibly stupid shit he said this morning.

Norway shooter praises Geller in manifesto

By Dan Brooks in lying July 25, 2011 1 Comment

Anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller, who requires only a few drops of precious blood.

When a federal building exploded in Oslo on Friday, anti-Islam blogger and 2010 Combat! Worst Person In the World (Cheap Hustler Division) Pamela Geller quickly proclaimed “Jihad in Norway?” She followed it up with a stern lecture on the consequences of ignoring jihad—which she loosely defines as the continued existence of Islam—and a link to this fun item, titled “Norway: ALL rapes in last 5 years committed by Muslims.” Geller is a professional bigot, so it’s important for her to jump on such news items as they emerge. Possibly because all available Muslims were scrambling to cover Norway’s rape quota, however, Friday’s attacks were not carried out by Islamic terrorists. They were carried out by Christian terrorist Anders Breivik, whose 1,500-page manifesto cites Geller by name.