ATTENTION BRAINIACS

TIRED of having that GIGANTIC BRAIN but getting NO RESPECT?

SICK TO DEATH of enduring the SNICKERS of the people in POWER?

THOROUGHLY INTERNALIZED the HATRED of intelligence and curiosity that invariably marks AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT?

DISPIRITED over the LOUSY SALES of your 1,000 page tome of historical analysis?

AROUSED by the words THINK TANK?

Then how'd you like to:

HOWL like a BARBARIAN on NATIONAL TELEVISION?

PEN a SYNDICATED COLUMN in a RESPECTED PUBLICATION?

RANT about the ENEMIES OF CIVILIZATION and call for the return of IMPERIAL RULE?

EAT salmon STEAK?

With Paul WOLFOWITZ? (Mmmmm!)

LAUGH at Bush's OFF-COLOUR JOKES as you SHOVEL that SALMON STEAK into your greedy FISH-LIKE MOUTH?

FANTASIZE about BENDING CONDI RICE over her DESK? Or VICE VERSA?

ENTERTAIN the notion that, even though you may have the face of DAVID FRUM or the posture of CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, you may be able to GET SOME?

TRADE your integrity in for FLATTERY, PRIVILEGE and ACCESS?

CLIMB to the PEAK of your CAREER atop a pile of DEAD BODIES and the TWISTED REMAINS of DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY?

Vilely and repeatedly LIE to serve POWER?

Okay, then.

SNIPPETS I LIKE

Thomas Frank, from his book One Market Under God, discusses the works of neoliberal Thomas Friedman in the heady days of the bull market of the '90s:

"[Thomas Friedman's] collected works constitute a veritable dictionary of the market-populist myths of the age, awesome in its inclusiveness: Enthusiasm for the 'rebranding' of Britain, pointless ponderings about teh physical weight of each country's GNP, facile equating of Great Society America with the Soviet Union. Each of them is presposterous in its own way, but thrown together they make a truly dispiriting impression, a feeling akin to the first time I head Newt Gingrich speak publicly and it began to dawn on me that this is what the ruling class calls thinking, that this handful of pathetic, palpably untrue prejudices are all they have to guide them as they shuttle back and forth between the State Department and the big think tanks, discussing what they mean to do with us and how they plan to dispose of our country".

Ah yeah. That does the heart some good. For more Frank, visit The Baffler.

SNIPPETS I DON'T LIKE

For those of you with a taste for intellectual punishment and mealy-mouthed apologetics for empire, you can see Niall Ferguson's interview in MacLeans Magazine. It's a fancy piece of fantasy based on a comic-book "what if" scenario in which America is helmed by superheroes who wield imperial power to solve the world's problems. At least, I hope that's what it is, because if he's serious, then Niall Ferguson is a neo-imperialist mealy-mouthed slug who longs for a day when America and Britain can kick foreign ass and grab resources with impunity.

LINK OF EARL

Dishwasher interface design!

parode - exode