Friday links! Striking contrasts edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 3 Comments
Wednesday's weather map for Iowa

Wednesday’s weather map for Iowa

In conclusion, China is a land of contrasts. It’s been a long week here at the Combat! blog offices, and today will be the longest week of all. Strangely, though, I’m not scared. It’s probable that my brain is shutting down in response to cat video deprivation, but whatever—today is Friday, and even the worst Friday offers that glimmer of hope which so contrasts with the earlier days of the week. Probably I’ll be dead by Monday, so today could be my last day of work ever. It’s basically the weekend now, except for the crushing tedium that lies ahead. But that’s life: you have to take the good with the bad, the hot with the cold, the glimpse of sunlight with the inevitable hail. Won’t you enjoy/despise what you read/watch with me/yourself?

Continue reading

Santorum possibly working in satire now

By Dan Brooks in Reactionary Populism 1 Comment

I have laughed at this picture so many times that I don’t even need Photoshop to put a dick in it.

Speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington yesterday, Rick Santorum said that conservatives “will never have the elite, smart people on our side.” Don’t worry; he made a face when he said “smart people,” so everyone would understand. Santorum knows that smart people are dumb, and people who oppose his plan to make a series of laws against abortion and gay sex and selling liquor on Sundays “want to tell you what to do.” Quote:

We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do.

On first blush, it’s an airtight logical argument. It’s possible there are a couple of holes, though, and they go beyond whether Santorum was being sarcastic, as David Weigel oddly argues. You get that straw man, David Weigel—shake him! Video after the jump.

Continue reading

Is this the handsomest GOP ticket ever?

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 3 Comments

Paul Ryan addresses a journalist who was mean to Mitt Romney last week.

Paul Ryan was a high school prom king. Also his dad died when he was young, which is sad and uncool, and now he wants your dad to die too. Mitt Romney picked this guy to be his running mate Saturday morning, in a clever bid to capture a bloc of voters who might otherwise have gone to Obama: Tea Party members. Actually Ryan is a respected representative whose traction among the conservative wing of his party would help President Romney corral a potentially rebellious Congress. Or Candidate Romney decided he was going to lose in November unless he did something crazy. It depends whom you ask.

Continue reading

A strange writ from the Daily Caller

By Dan Brooks in Being Cool 1 Comment

You don’t need to point at it, sir.

I put little stock in the interpretation of dreams. I also reject the notion that people say what they really think when they’re drunk, that Freudian slips are bursts of honesty, and that the true mind of the Republican Party is expressed at its fringes. The Tea Party and Infowars.com do not tell us what conservatism has been thinking all along. They tell us what we have been thinking of conservatism all along. Like dreams, the communications of America’s resurgent right are notable for their disconnection from reality, not their insight into it. If you would like to glimpse a veritable Neverland, check out Mark Judge’s call for conservatives to embrace rock and roll. It is two years old and utterly irrelevant, like your recurring nightmare about getting an erection during swim lessons, but it is affecting nonetheless, like same. Insane quote after the jump.

Continue reading

Study links conservative politics to “low-effort thinking”

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 5 Comments

Scientists in a lab inspect a readout from the Conservatometer

As a modern, intellectually engaged American, there’s nothing I like better than a study that shows something. Granted, some studies show better stuff than others. When studies show that certain organic compounds affect the reaction rate of ATP synthase, for example, I get extremely bored. But when studies show stuff that I kind of knew anyway—like people in sweatpants are less likely to know where their kids are, or coffee is good for you—I perk right up. Luckily for me, the Huffington Post exists. Yesterday they observed their bimonthly tradition of linking to a scientific study that suggests conservatives are dumber than progressives. The study in question is right here, and it’s worth reading to understand the methodology researchers used to correlate increasingly conservative views with “low-effort thinking.”

Continue reading