Enlightening ways to waste your time, vol. 3

One of the best things about work is often times, I end up reading the news. All day. And get paid for it. Here are some of the more interesting writings I've stumbled across.

I first discovered Christopher Buckley on accident when I found his book Wry Martinis in a used book store and bought it on a whim, mostly because it was cheap. I've fallen in love with his particular writing style ever since. In this article titled The Manchurian Conservative, basically telling everyone in the Grand Old Party that hey, that McCain guy really isn't that bad.

Doug Kendall writes an interesting ditty about how Obama's a Mac, Clinton's a PC. The comments are even funnier, as some people take the comparison even further:

Barack Obama is a solid free/open-source kernel built on the project of progressive hope 2.0, and is actively developed by a broad values-driven base. While designed with the philosophy of Ubuntu linux in (package available as of Gutsy Gibbon) he is platform independent and is thus compatible with MacOS X, and Windows.
Hillary Clinton on the other hand is proprietary code with many known unaddressed faults that lead to widespread incompatibilities with a number of different systems. She is owned and protected by several different corporations, all of conduct their business in secret. As a result, achieving a stable build of Hillary Clinton is a project that has been all but abandoned. Corruption is a known fact that users of Hillary have grown to accept.

Adam Shepard, a college graduate, heads out with only $25 in his pocket and the clothes on his back to South Carolina to see if he can, in a year, have a furnished apartment, a car and $2500 in the bank. He resolves to never use his educational background and credentials or the contacts he has - basically, to start over - to see if the American Dream is possible. 10 months later, he's achieved his goal and even surpassed it with $5000 in the bank. The resulting story is fascinating. Interestingly enough, his idea was inspired by the more pessimistic book Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Lastly, there will be a total lunar eclipse tomorrow starting at 7:01 PM PST.