Good Reads

Shameless plug for another site, but it has to be done (so join!!):

Checkout my reading list on Goodreads – where you can see what your friends are reading.

http://www.goodreads.com/

They did it again

The 2005 version (and check out the 2006 one if you haven’t yet):

4. You

Charges: Silently enabling and contributing to the irreversible destruction of your planet. Absolving yourself of your responsibility to do anything about it that your immediate neighbors don’t. Assuming that it’s normal behavior to spend several hours each day totally inert and staring into a cathode ray tube. Substituting antidepressants for physical motion. Caring more about the personal relationships of people you will never meet than your own. Shrugging your shoulders at the knowledge that your government is populated by criminal liars intent on fooling you into impoverished, helpless submission. Cheering this process on.

Exhibit A: You don’t even know who your congressman is.

Sentence: Deathbed realization that your entire life was an unending series of stupid mistakes and wasted opportunities, a priceless gift of potential extravagantly squandered, for which you deserve nothing but scorn or, at best, indifference, and a cold, meaningless demise.

Get ‘Er Done America!

The Kingdom Poster, put up by I Watch Stuff, helps succinctly expose why America is beloved in the Middle East, has a well-informed constituency, and is still being greeted by the Iraqi public as liberators:

I like my heroes to be overtly heroic and my enemies to be faceless villains from a foreign culture. That’s why I like this poster and American politics.

Check out the trailer, it looks like 90 minutes of feeling good about GI Joe! Get er done! Iraq didn’t happen! The government isn’t full of lackadaisical sycophants who only care about their own interests! Team USA!

This Is Still The Fucking Link Of The Day

Because I can’t get enough of it

1. John McCain

Charges: The most consistently mischaracterized politician in the country, even McCain’s most nakedly self-serving machinations are universally hailed as the bold moves of an independent maverick who really, really, like, cares, man. By virtue of his five-year stay at the Hanoi Hilton and a completely ineffectual campaign finance reform bill (which was itself only PR damage control for his long-forgotten role in the Keating Five), McCain has so successfully snowed America the he could go around kicking puppies all day and he’d be applauded for his authenticity. In reality, McCain is as phony as slimeballs come, having reversed his positions on Roe v. Wade, Bush’s tax cuts, the gay marriage amendment and Jerry Falwell in the last year alone, while the mainstream press looked away and whistled nonchalantly. Keeps changing the number of additional troops he thinks should be sent to Iraq, in hopes of extending the disaster beyond the next presidential election, so his decorated veteran status will still be relevant.

Exhibit A: “I hated the gooks, and I will hate them for as long as I live.”

Sentence: Back to the bamboo cage.

50 Most Loathsome People in America

I think I have a new boyfriend, and he’s the guy who compiled this list:

16. You

Charges: Your whole life has been a pitiful exercise in rote mimicry, a meek subjugation of individuality in exchange for herd approval. Your delusions of “common sense” wisdom stem from an unwillingness to seek information and an inability to critically analyze it. You never hesitate to offer strong opinions on subjects you don’t know a damn thing about. You’re willing to believe anything a guy in a suit says on TV, as long as it doesn’t hint at your culpability in the negligent homicide of your country and planet or otherwise cloud your streak-free conscience. You’re more worried about friction on the “Desperate Housewives” set than the lack of health coverage at your tedious, soul-destroying job. You have no idea what is going on in the world, and you’re fine with that. You are why democracy doesn’t work.

Exhibit A: You’re Time magazine’s person of the year. So was Hitler.

Sentence: More of the same.