Our Dumb Planet: Summary of the Israel-Arab Conflict

From the Onion's atlas:

The area that makes up Israel was promised to the Jews by both the UN and God, but because the legitimacy and power of both entities is only recognized by a handful of people, the land remains contested.

Trying to get Dugg

I've recently been experimenting with commenting on Digg postings.

For the uninitiated, Digg is a system where you vote (or digg) Internet pages that you like. For example, if the author if this blog was so-inclined, you might see a "Digg This" button for this post juxtaposed with the number of diggs this post has already received. Each time you Digg a page, the number increases. Having many diggs means your site gets listed on Digg, which generates more traffic for your site and indicates a high level of positive interest.

Digg has a commenting system along the sames lines. You create comments for each Internet page's Digg count. Users then digg comments up or down. A positive rating on a comment means you have more digg-ups than digg-downs. The higher your score, the more people that "digg" your comment.

Digg seems to attract the Internet savvy, and many highly dugg stories relate to

• movies, especially those that might appeal the comic book loving type or have a cult following
• politics, with a strong pro-Obama, anti-Bush agenda
• technology, with constant strife between Apple fanboys, generic Microsoft bashers, and Linux geeks

My experience commenting hasn't been positive. My first comment was dugg down, and the response to comments range from vial to just plain offensive. Subsequent ones followed similar patterns of engendering loathing by Digg readers; it was not uncommon to the word "fuck" in those comments, directed squarely at me. Often, some kind-hearted soles would stick up for me, only to be subjected to further attacks. The Internet is a mean place.

Today, I'm happy to report that Bush (and Cheney) bashing seems to be a sure-fire way to get your comments dugg up. Finally, I have received a positive score on a comment, and even a tongue-in-cheek reply.

I'm really moving up in the world.

How to Charge Your Chevy Volt

Run the electric car by charging it in the lighter of your Hummer

Alumni Donations

I am trying so hard to find the text of a column I read in Time magazine about 5 years ago. It really stuck with me. I'm pretty sure it's written by Joel Stein. Joel is talking about the ridiculous amount of money he paid for a Stanford education and the subsequent requests for alumni donations. 

I'll paraphrase about the fictional letter he received from Gillette, the fine makers of the Mach 3 razor: "Mr Stein, I understand you enjoyed our Mach 3, which offers you a very close and comfortable shave. Would you consider giving a small donation to Gillette?"  He then goes on to lament the expensive "art" around the $30,000-a-year tuition Stanford campus which he notes is a private institution.

If anyone knows where I can find the original text of this column, could you let me know in the comments?

Update: I found it.