Combat! - Page 314 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Tom Owad’s map of subversive books

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media June 9, 2011 1 Comment

Not Tom Owad but an owl

Remember back when the United States was an ever-richening homeland departmentally securing itself against all threats, foreign and domestic, real and perceived? It was 2006. The Patriot Act had finally established as law the relation between patriotism and the executive branch, Crank had captured America’s hearts, and George W. Bush was calmly gathering library borrowing records. Had you forgotten that last part, as I sort of did? Yes, because the library is for bums and very old people—but theoretically I was against it, if only in preparation for being a very old bum. The US government should not subject its people to data-mining. That’s the term for describing patterns in very large amounts of data, a process presumably done by vast, semi-aware supercomputers in Virgina basements. Or, as Tom Owad demonstrated, by a dude with two Powerbooks and DSL.

Pawlenty infuses GOP field with bold new ideas

By Dan Brooks in Class Warfare June 8, 2011 3 Comments

Former Minnesota governor, Republican presidential candidate and benevolent eagle Tim Pawlenty delivered what his aides described as a “major economic policy address” yesterday, laying out his plan for the United States economy to achieve 5% annual growth. “Plan,” in this context, is more like “demand,” and “achieve” is “develop with no discernible causality.” The details of Tim Pawlenty’s economic plan may surprise you, particularly if you’ve never heard or read anything about a Republican politician since 1928. The rest of you can put on your disappointed-not-to-be-surprised faces in preparation for the jump.

God. Dammit.

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media June 7, 2011 12 Comments

Representative Anthony Weiner, in jacket, shirt, tie and socks, waits for Ronnie to set up the shot.

Hey—what do Brett Favre, Kanye West and Anthony Weiner have in common? They’ve all distracted us from critical problems in American politics and culture. Also, they’ve all conducted peer-reviewed experiments proving that becoming rich and/or famous does not make your penis larger. It also doesn’t make you smarter. Yesterday, Representative Anthony Weiner (D–NY) announced that yes, it was a picture of his boxer-briefed semi sent to that woman on Twitter, and yes, he sent it. That previous story about how a hacker got into his Twitter and sent a mysterious picture of someone’s dick to one pretty girl from his followers list? Yeah, saying that was a bad idea. Come to think of it, that was probably the second worst idea Anthony Weiner had all month.

Meanwhile, inside Michele Bachmann’s head

By Dan Brooks in inside Michele Bachmann's head June 6, 2011 5 Comments

"The pancake is neither a pan nor a cake. Ergo..."

Part of the problem inherent in measuring an extradimensional space from which neither light nor reason can escape is how to determine scale. Obviously, the inside of Michele Bachmann’s head is larger than some gravitational manifolds and smaller than others. Is it smaller than the Horsehead Nebula? Probably, because I can’t see it right now. Is it bigger than a singularity? Yes, because her eye makeup isn’t getting sucked in through her pupils. Between these poles, though, little was known until last week, when Michael Zimmerman PhD informed us via the Huffington Post that a high school student is successfully refuting one of Mmm-Bach’s most infuriating claims. From October, 2006:

There is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact … hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel prizes, believe in intelligent design.

Shocking, right? If hundreds of Nobel laureates believe in intelligent design, maybe it’s not the church-organized attack on the knowledge of schoolchildren I thought it was. Of course, Bachmann will just say shit. Whereas Zack Kopplin is a high school senior and therefore has to back his claims with evidence. In gathering support from scientists, he has provided science with some valuable information of its own. It turns out that the inside of Michele Bachmann’s head accommodates less information than that of a 17 year-old in Louisiana.

Friday links! National Donut Day edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links June 3, 2011 21 Comments

The picture above is of my friend Nick, captured in honor of today being National Donut Day. I love motherfucking donuts,* as anyone will tell you, but Donut Day is not what interests me about this photo. What interests me is Instagram, the website on which it was posted, and their ad copy: “Robert is using Instagram—a fun & quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo, then choose a filter to transform the look and feel of the shot into a memory to keep around forever.” Let us put aside “quirky,” in the same way that Caeser put aside Cicero, and consider how choosing a filter will “transform the look and the feel of the shot into a memory.” It’s true that memories are low-contrast and color saturated, just like Polaroids. Long after Nick and donuts are forgotten, this photograph of a man in military dress eating a croissant will implant a flickering, false memory in all who view it. You can see him taking the next step across the office—is it that much more difficult to see it happening from the same perspective in the room?