When I wake up in the mornings, I check my expertly-curated Twitter list of thought influencers and buzz-masters, I get ideas for how to change the world with social media, and I sell those ideas to companies and brands for thousands and thousands of dollars. Then I use that money to buy super cool-looking glasses, designer blazers, and shirts with lots of extra straps on them, all of which I wear to the coolest media events and tech launches, where I get laid by ‘hot nerd’ college chicks looking for internships. You know, just stuff a “Tech Media Douche” does.

—Alex Blagg’s Bajillion Hits might just be the best new-media satire going.

Elections are won on slogans — or as Bob Woodward says, the symbols. Governing is very different. And governing goes forward on ideas. The Republican Party is short on ideas. They’re very long on slogans right now, but they’re short on ideas.

—Retiring Republican senator Bob Bennett in a rather frank exit interview on the challenges facing the Republican party. Bennett, from Utah, was defeated in the Republican primary, due at least in part to strong opposition from the Tea Party.

The truth is, I care deeply about the culture of the web, and am concerned that many of the decisions Facebook makes are detrimental to its culture, particularly when Facebook inadvertently imposes an extreme set of values on its users without adequately communicating the consequences of those choices.

—Anil Dash has some excellent thoughts on the Facebook reckoning. I (perhaps unfairly) cherry picked that quote because my feelings about Facebook and Zuckerberg aren’t nearly as charitable as Anil’s but I do think it gets to the nut of what he’s talking about and the core of the problem with Facebook. Anil’s entire post is well worth a read.

Figs are not actually fruits but a mass of inverted flowers and seeds that are pollinated by a species of tiny symbiotic wasps.

—Holy crap, figs are amazing! [originally seen on Andrew Sullivan’s blog]

This measure would require the Washington State Seal to depict a tapeworm attached to a taxpayer’s intestine, encircled by the words: Committed to sucking the life blood out of each and every taxpayer.

—

The short description of proposed Washington State initiative 1069 (full text PDF).

While I love much of living in Washington state, I detest the initiative process here. It makes for illogical legislation that ends up wasting vast sums of money, subverts representative democracy and is completely abused by wingnuts like Tim Eyman.

That said, I’m going to be voting yes on 1098 (full text PDF) to establish a state income tax while reducing our stupidly high property taxes to give billions to education and healthcare.

And you know what, it’s a great date for me, for America, for Alaska

—

Christopher Cox, who’s organizing an event headlined by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck on September 11. The date, much like Beck’s million moron march, is “coincidental” and was chosen so as not to get in the way of the Alaska state fair.

The real kicker, though, is the entry fee – 4,500 people are paying between $75 and $225 to attend.

We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps.

—From Apple’s new app store review guidelines. I love the direct, decisive, unsucked language. Try to imagine such straightforward talk from any other company, let alone a company of Apple’s size and influence.

youmightfindyourself:

Confessions of a Hipster

colin:

deleteyourself. - AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor… It’s providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.

—

Taliban operative Zabihullah, on how the mosque controversy is benefiting the Taliban.  (via officialssay)

Add that to the already substantial list of ways in which Palin, Beck, Boehner and company are more like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda than they are different.