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Combat! blog flies through air, isn’t useful

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized July 5, 2010 0 Comment

Combat! blog woke up in its brand-new apartment at 5:30 this morning and dove immediately to the airport, where it was beset by all the sights, sounds and smells of the modern age. In addition to getting an extremely detailed explanation of how drip coffee is made from the man in line next to me at the airport coffee place, I also witnessed a woman who had purchased two seats from Denver to Des Moines and found herself unable to fit into them unsuccessfully argue for a free third seat, at that time occupied by a man trying valiantly to read his book. Half an hour later, she was upgraded to two business-class seats. Anyway, that’s A) why my flight was delayed and B) why Combat! blog does not really exist today, since I am sweating sack in Des Moines and still under two deadlines. We’ll be back tomorrow, bright-eyed and American obesity epidemic-oriented. In the meantime, have you been keeping up with Tea Party Jesus?

Friday links! Are you a metaphor? edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links July 2, 2010 3 Comments

Chinese giant panda Link Link. They can't all be gems, folks.

I assume that you have already seen this wonderful video, in which Chris Matthews interviews Rick “Gather Your Armies” Barber on Hardball. Not surprisingly, Matthews was concerned with some of the content in Barber’s recent campaign advertisements, particularly his claim that the IRS can raise taxes “without representation” and the exhortation, delivered by an actor playing George Washington, to “gather your armies.” To deflect this line of questioning, Barber deployed the classic defense of the person caught saying absurd things for attention: I was speaking metaphorically. To which Matthews replies, “Are you a metaphor? Are you a metaphor [for] a guy running for office, or are you a real candidate?” It’s not called Funball, pussies. Matthews makes a point as salient as it is rare: words mean something, and while their figurative meaning is important, their literal meaning counts, too. This Friday’s link roundup features a lot of people saying a lot of absurd and/or false things in the name of some larger, vaguer meaning. It’s the shield of metaphor, less politely known as lying, and it’s as beaten and bright-shining as ever.

Combat! blog move! Combat! blog smash!

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized July 1, 2010 0 Comment

Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice. This picture has nothing to do with today's post, but it is just so clearly Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice

The Combat! blog offices continue our move from our crappy old mountain lair to our beautiful new creekside lair today, and we have no time for, say, 900 word screeds about Keynesian economics. Lucky you. Lucky all of us, in fact, because it so happens that Ben al-Fowlkes has sent us a link to this wonderful website. There is probably a better use for the internet, but I don’t think I’ve seen it. Viral image-makers, take note.

Will fiscal responsibilimania cause another Roosevelt Recession?

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse June 30, 2010 1 Comment

It’s moving day here at the Combat! blog offices, where certain dismayingly materialistic acquisitions (real mattress) have led us to A) complain that this was much easier last time, when literally everything we owned fit into the bed of a Ford Ranger and B) assume that the economy has recovered. Things must be going well when even people who don’t want stuff have stuff, right? Of course it turns out that things are not so sunny. The US economic metaphor has been upgraded from crash to lingering illness, and while total work hours, productivity and corporate profits are all up, unemployment and the housing market—the two segments of the economy that most pertain to actual people and not Excel files—continue to suck it for coke money. And yet, the hot issue in politics is deficit spending. As the New York Times points out, the international mania for curbing government spending and balancing budgets—which has thus far dominated the G-20 summit, to say nothing of discourse at home—has the potential to trigger another Roosevelt Recession. What the fudge is that, you ask? Looks like someone’s going to have to click on the jump.

Rick Barber’s new campaign commercial a sprawling masterwork

By Dan Brooks in Tea Party June 29, 2010 3 Comments

Patriotic hyperbolist Rick Barber has released a new campaign commercial, and it is to his last commercial what 2001: A Space Odyssey is to Lolita. Props to The Cure for the link. In preparation for his run-off against Martha Roby for the Republican nomination to represent Alabama’s 2nd District in Congress, Barber has once again enlisted the help of some dead Presidents, but not in the cool way like Nas. In a video called, wisely, “Slavery,” Barber takes his case against the “tyrannical health care bill” to the ghost of George Washington and, at the climax of the narrative, the reanimated corpse Abe Lincoln, who is tastefully shot from the front.* Then comes bonus material. A crowd of people sing the fourth verse of the Star-Spangled Banner amid footage of wars, wars, wars, followed by a shot of Barber and Dale Peterson watching Glenn Beck in a bar. Since he’s going out, Peterson has brought his gun. Video after the jump.