IT LIST

+ The Wall Street Journal for publishing a pretty solid piece saying that the US has lost the war on drugs.  It’s the exact same we’ve lost the war on drugs piece that I’ve read in newspapers far too many times.  It’s interesting in that it points out that high school dropout rates are at least partially buttressed by the desire to drop out of school and deal drugs.  >>>>

+ Technology for making 2012 super fucking awesome and mindblowing.  Check out the 27 science fictions that became science facts on buzzfeed. >>>>

+ Opalized Dinosaur Teeth for being super awesome.

SHIT LIST

- Warner Brothers and Sweden for the miscarriage of justice around the Pirate Bay trial.  This article is truly horrifying image of corruption.  >>>>>

- Conferences for always having super wack all male panels. The answer to this problem is for men to refuse to be on panels that don’t have at least one woman.  >>>>

It List

+ The Federal Trade Commission, for fining google 22.5 million dollars for violating users privacy via the cookies on the mobile safari app. Although google probably makes that much money in about a half hour.

+ The Best Kept Secrets of San Francisco Question on Quora, for having some pretty decent things to do but that you probably already know about if you live here.

+ Wikileaks, for revealing the existence of TrapWire, one of many global spy systems meant to colate public videocamera data. True, it turns out trapwire doesn’t work that well but that’s not really the point.

+ Ecuador, for offering Wikileaks founder Julian Assange political asylum which essentially means he won’t be extradited to the United States and tried for terrorism.

+ The Snuggery, for offering by the hour, nonsexual snuggling.

+ These panties, for being awesome and clearly the wave of the future

Shit List

- The Justice Department, for appealing a ruling by a federal judge that bars a provision of the NDAA that allows indefinite detention of americans.

- Indefinite detention, for being totally pointless if you have evidence that someone is a threat.

- Paul Ryan, for hating on the stimulus plan but also requesting stimulus funds for Wisconsin.

- Getting Mauled By Bears, nobody wants that.

It List

+ The Olympics, for having women competing from every country for the first time in history.
+ The Skillful Pro, who made an exceptional forgery of a NYTimes oped in the voice of one of the former editors.  I’m seriously impressed.
+ Jon Stewart, for destroying the You Didn’t Build That meme.

+ Hot tubs and fireplaces, for being a great way to unwind.
+ Sensory Friendly Movie Screenings, for probably being really fun.
+ The Ermahgerd Translator, for being amazing.
+ Catholics, for having the raw audacity to be butt hurt about this Oatmeal comic.
+ This wine table, for being kitschy and not really all that practical but still awesome

Shit List

- Suckers, for painting their grass green during one of the worst droughts in US history instead of cultivating actual interests.
- The Media, for wasting my time with A. any reporting whatsoever on any of Michelle Bachmann’s opinions and B. with reporting about who won the gold medal in skeet shooting.
- SOFEX, forrealls fuck those guys.
- The Authorities, for making it so that 90% of suspected terrorists deemed too dangerous to get on airplanes are legally allowed to buy guns.  I mean those no-fly lists are serious bs but like come on, can’t we just agree that terrorists shouldn’t be allowed to buy guns and explosives?

It List

- Kliener Perkins lost it’s battle to drag a sexual harassment lawsuit out of the public eye and into private binding arbitration.
- Pandas, fuck yeah!
- Obama is one of the most fiscally conservative presidents since Eisenhower.   This is disputed by one dude but also repudiated by other reputable sources.
- Turning old shipping containers into houses.
- Termites that explode with toxic poisons when they get old.

When confronted by a competing species of termites, the animals tend to burst, releasing a sticky substance from their backs. However, the authors noticed that a subset of animals had blue stripes across their backs, and were far more prone to bursting with just a bit of minor prodding from an enemy termite.

:: exploding termites ::

Shit List

- People who talk about politicising tragedies

And, of course, the angry accusations that one person or another is “politicizing tragedy,” unquestionably the worst sin in post-tragedy rhetoric.

This is stupid. There is no such thing as “politicizing” tragedy. James Holmes did not materialize in a movie theater in Aurora this morning, free of any relationship to law and authority and the structures of power in this country; nor did he exit those relationships and structures by murdering 12 people and injuring several dozen more. Before he entered the theater, he purchased guns, whether legally or illegally, under a framework of laws and regulations governed and negotiated by politics; in the parking lot outside, he was arrested by a police force whose salaries, equipment, tactics and rights were shaped and determined by politics. Holmes’ ability to seek, or to not seek, mental health care; the government’s ability, or inability, to lock up persons deemed unstable — these are things decided and directed by politics. You cannot “politicize” a tragedy because the tragedy is already political. When you talk about the tragedy you’re already talking about politics.

It’s easy to understand the impulse to decry “politicization”: politics is necessarily antagonistic, and in the aftermath of a violent tragedy confrontation seems distasteful and disrespectful. No one wants to be accused of using a tragedy for “political ends.” But you don’t really get to escape. The insistence that no one talk about politics is itself a political act. Politics is how we effect change in the systems and structures that govern our lives. To take the stance that tragedies are or should remain “apolitical” or “depoliticized” is to say, essentially, that everything is fine and nothing needs to be fixed; that such an act was random and unpreventable. (In a country with rates of violent crime that far exceed our economic and cultural peers, such a sentiment seems misguided at best.) To demand politics be left out of the conversation is only to hide them.

:: Gawker ::

- This dude I met at a party, for seriously trying to tell me that the heads of the UN were practicing black magic.
- The dude who fucked up the bbq, for injuring a bunch of people at an Anthony Robbins fire walk.

Shit List

- UC Berkeley for beating students who were protesting peacefully. This video is graphic and disturbing.
.

- Google for hiring a bunch of idiot middle managers from microsoft who thought it would be a great idea to kill google reader. WTF

- Campaign donors who doubled Herman Cain’s campaign contributions after it was announced that he had been sexually harassing women. ugh. I’m actually at a loss to understand that one. >>>>>>

It List

- 5 Senators are trying to overturn Citizens United, worth signing the petition here

- The What is your most awkward sex story? that is killing it on reddit right now.

- Speaking of which, 5 Insane Ways Fear of Masturbation Shaped the Modern World.

- Watching Rick Perrys Campaign Die Right Before Your Eyes in this youtube video from the debate earlier this week.

- This Atlantic Monthly photo essay series on recycling. EPIC

- Stephen Colbert’s take on the UC Berkeley Beatings

The It List

+ Garnishing your morning orange juice with thinly sliced strawberries {it’s the color}

The Shit List

- Futons without handles {it sucks to move them}

The It List

+ My Immune System (right up top, last sunday I contracted some serious tropical disease bullshit. And I mean serious like a heart attack, I haven’t been this sick since Tsar Nich made me taste that sketchy ass macaroni salad in tanzania. My immune system was a total champ about it though. Monday it was all toothaches, headaches, earaches, shaking and sweats. Tuesday was all about shooting greenies and going about my business as normal)

+ Jon Stewart, who is implicitly on every single it list even if I don’t explicitly mention his name. Check this baracknophia clip

+ Yahoo decided to open up the Del.icio.us database to dev teams. HUGE nerd news if you care about the intartubes.

+ Fresh from the photographic barbarism dept, Japanese Neon Lamp Fights

+ This world builder youtube

+ Flossing

The Shit List

- falling out of your chair when making it list/shit lists

- People who seriously think that Obama is responsible for the economic crisis. Initially I thought these people were just being smartasses (like whenever anyone talks about the president I’m all “That’s exactly what a muslim would say.”) but these people are serious. Whoa, and I don’t even know what to say to them.

- Obama like whaaat? we don’t need to curb illegal spying.

- Everything that happened to me between waking up and about 9pm today.

- I’m sure there’s some other stuff but I feel rosy right now (because of kristins playlists and the beer I traded for chocolate at the new belgium brewery).

The It List

- Ruth’s Hemp/Sprouted Flax/Maca Mix

- Barack Obama for restoring funding to contraception programs in Africa.

- Google Reader

- Architecture Blogs

- Barack Obama for dismantling the global terror network of torture centers. (but not gitmo yet)

- The Metric System

The Shit List

- Bread with high fructose corn syrup in it.

- Abridged audiobooks

- Israel committing a totally uncool war crime and “maybe” using white phosphorus.

- People who watch sports in lieu of developing a personality.

- Me, for not getting back to emails in a prudent and timely fashion.

- The United States, for not using the Metric System.