Friday links! Slow train to Washington edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
Old smokey

Get along, old smokey.

Combat! blog continues its mad peregrinations today with a quick trip to Washington DC, where I will visit my brother and see my friend Curt in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. I assume he plays the beautiful Carole King, and if I see anyone else in that role, I intend to boo loudly. For now, though, I ride the train. I’m like a hobo of old, eating canned beans (kale chips) and sleeping under the stars (roof of train.) Today is Friday, and the modern world is safer and more comfortable than the old one. Won’t you learn to play the harmonica (iPod) with me?

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Friday links! I did it for the money edition

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 1 Comment
Benicio del Toro enjoys some on-the-nose dialogue with James Caan's bagman in The Way of the Gun

Benicio del Toro enjoys some on-the-nose dialogue with James Caan’s bagman in The Way of the Gun.

“Fifteen million dollars is not money,” some hard case says in Christopher McQuarrie’s The Way of the Gun. “It’s a motive with a universal adaptor on it.” That criticism of contemporary screenwriting applies even better to contemporary society. We all agree you shouldn’t do things just for the money, but an awful lot of what we do now compensates us little else. From financial services to country music, society encourages growing numbers of people to perform empty tasks joylessly for money. What used to be a sad admission around bar close has become an operating principle. Today is Friday, and if you don’t take whatever money they offer you to do anything, you’ll starve. Won’t you buy in with me?

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Combat! blog endorses Ted Cruz for president, because why not?

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 1 Comment
Cruisin'

Cruisin’

As we enter the final 18 months before the 2016 election, it’s high time Combat! blog endorsed a candidate for president. That candidate is Ted Cruz. Sure, we disagree with most of his political positions and all of his musical ones. But he has the three qualities this blog looks for in a candidate: 1) He is 15% worse at lying than he thinks he is. 2) He is neither a Bush nor a Clinton. 3) He has almost no chance of becoming president. That last element is crucial to our endorsement. We are proud to endorse Candidate Cruz, because we are confident that we will never have to answer for anything President Cruz might do. He clinched the Combat! blog endorsement with this poll.

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Knowing what we know now, I should have smoke-bombed Megyn Kelly and disappeared

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 0 Comment
Jeb Bush

Today’s Combat! blog is written by guest contributor Jeb Bush.

As a person who might consider someday becoming a candidate for president, I knew the media would try to trip me up with “gotcha” questions. But I also knew that the American people—and, to a lesser extent, immigrants—deserve to learn about their potential candidates’ views. And we all know they can’t get enough Bush. My dad was president, and my brother was president twice. Who knows but I might be elected president three or four times? I mean if I decide to run. Anywho, the other thing my dad and brother both did was start wars with Iraq, which was great. Still, knowing what we know now, when Megyn Kelly asked me if I would have invaded Iraq, I should have dropped a smoke bomb, ninja-twisted her neck and disappeared.

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Friday links! Cultural decadence edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
Motley Crue in the Decade of Decadence era

Motley Crue in the Decade of Decadence era

Thanks to history (753 BC—1992 AD), we know that cultures rise and fall. Ancient Rome, for example, lasted about 1100 years, and some of those years were better than others. In his classic treatise on the decline of the Roman empire, Gibbon observes that foreign wars made the army more powerful than the rest of the state, whose administrators became corrupt as, among the ordinary people, “bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.” Fortunately for us, that’s not happening to America. Foreign wars have made heroes of everyone connected to our military, and our public servants would never put money ahead of the duties of their offices. As long as we can stamp out Tim & Eric Awesome Show: Great Job!, we should be fine. Today is Friday, and America has achieved in a mere 250 years what took Rome a millennium. Won’t you bask in the twilight of empire with me?

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