TresSugar

Dubai: Pumping Sewage, Jailing Lovebirds, and Growing

CitizenSugar — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:00:00 -0700

Dubai is everywhere. Well, not everywhere, it's specifically on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf and one of the seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates and the most populous city of the UAE. On the plane to the RNC I read Ben Mezrich's new book, Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil From Wall Street to Dubai. It's excellent and piqued my interest for this rapidly expanding city blending western ideas deep in the heart of the Middle East. Then my dad forwarded a photo taken from the top of the construction of the world's tallest skyscraper being built there. Seems like Dubai is a glittering paradise?

Sort of. To see what I mean, read more.

The mix of a Vegas-y feel of Western excess within a Middle Eastern climate of expectation has led one British couple to be imprisoned for three months for allegedly having sex on the beach. Literally. They're appealing their sentence. In the meantime, discussion has been sparked as to what is, or is not, acceptable behavior in the Muslim state of Dubai. Oh, and that huge skyscraper? It turns out giant buildings like that require giant infrastructure. That hasn't quite kept pace with Dubai's growth - they're having a little bit of a raw sewage problem on the beaches. As soon as they get that straightened out, I could be down for a visit.

Source

Voting by the Book: Amazon Maps US's Political Reading List

CitizenSugar — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:00:13 -0700

If our electoral map were as red as Amazon's map of our political book-buying habits, things would be looking up for John McCain. Yet while Americans are buying up conservative books, our electoral map is getting bluer and bluer each day.

I initially chalked up this discrepancy to how unscientific Amazon's map is. After all, so many variables could affect this. Like how book publishers began feverishly launching conservative imprints five years ago to keep up with an increasing public demand. Could there just be a lot of conservative books to buy right now? Maybe they are better? Republicans tend to be older and older people read print over websites. Or maybe Democrats are at the library, or just buying all their books at indie stores. Who knows?

However, I became more convinced of a real connection when I compared the 2008 map to the 2004. I couldn't help but concoct a few theories about what we're ~~reading~~ buying. To see what I found, read more.

The map this year is much redder than it was four years ago; however, we elected a Republican president then and, if polls can be believed, we're about to elect a Democratic president. It could be possible that people read more when they're looking for answers, or an alternative to a reality they don't like. Did Democrats fear Republican control in 2004? Are Republicans worried about a Democratic president, Senate, and Congress today? Or is this just a meaningless map to help Amazon sell books?

Source

Jerome Corsi, Author of Obama Nation Is Being Held in Kenya

CitizenSugar — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:45:02 -0700

The author of the controversial book Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality has been detained by Kenyan authorities. Jerome Corsi is being held under the claim that there's a problem with his work permit papers - he had been in the country to unveil his best-selling book to a Kenyan audience. Obama Nation has been accused of being a smear against the candidate, whose father was from Kenya.

According to the press release issued before Jerome Corsi's trip to Kenya, the author intended to, "expose deep secret ties between between US Democratic presidential candidate Sen Barack Obama and a section of the Kenyan government leaders." A police official contradicts the notion the arrest is political saying, "We have nothing to do with the book or whoever it's about. It's about the law of Kenya."

What's the tie to Kenya? To find out, and the Obama campaign's response, read more.

In the book (here's the first chapter) Corsi lists a claim that Obama contributed $1 million to Kenyan Prime Minister Rail Odinga, a claim the Obama campaign refutes in a 40-page PDF entitled "Unfit for Publication."

The campaign pulls a quote from the Chicago Tribune earlier this year (pg. 12 of the PDF) saying, "Obama said President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga should sit down and talk 'unconditionally,' and he urged them to welcome the assistance of your concerned friends." The disputed Kenyan elections in December of 2007 led to deadly violence and over 300,000 people displaced.

Is Corsi being held for political reasons? Have you read Obama Nation?

The Long and Short of the Guinness Book of World Records

LibertySugar — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:00:24 -0700

The 2009 Guinness World Records went on sale today. To mark the release, the world's shortest man, 2 foot 5 inch Pingping from China, posed with the world's longest legs, which stretch 4 feet 3 inches and belong to Russian Svetlana Pankratova.

Her are some other fresh records:

Most searched person on the Internet: Britney Spears, displacing Pairs Hilton
Most powerful actor: Brad Pitt, ending Tom Cruise's four-year domination
Most powerful actress: Angelina Jolie, knocking off Jennifer Aniston
Most lucrative movie partnership in history: Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, thanks to five films netting $570.6 million

Are you picking up the 54th edition of Guinness Book of World Records?

Film Magic

Summer Reading: Last Call For Beach-Worthy Reads

CitizenSugar — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:03:46 -0700

August. Any way you slice it, it's hot and hotter - even the name sounds oppressive. This month, beat the heat with true tales of corruption, hypocrisy, scandal, and white-on-white racism. A couple of these books and your reading will be as hot as sand on the barefoot walk back to the car. Check out the latest books on my radar:

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals
The New York Times featured The Dark Side on the cover of the Sunday Book Review this week, calling it "brilliantly researched and deeply unsettling." Author Jane Mayer, New Yorker staff writer, examines how a cabal - lead by Cheney, not Bush - within the administration set out to restore the unprecedented power of the presidential office. Power which they believed had been unjustly eroded since Nixon left office.

The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality
Is anti-Obama rhetoric more your thing? Obama Nation is a heavily footnoted, detailed argument against the senator's bid for presidency. Before you cozy up, let's meet the source. Media Matters notes its author, Jerome Corsi, is the coauthor of Unfit for Command - a scurrilous book that falsely attacked John Kerry's military service in 2004. What an odd genre to specialize in?

Wait there's more! I promised white-on-white racism and true-life sexy times! To see them, read more.

Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions
More than 50 percent of you told Buzz you wouldn't read a blog-based book, but I'm just here to tell you that you can. The blog that spurred anger and spawned copykatz but mostly made us laugh is now bound and glued. Buy it because if there's one thing white people don't like, it's the unread.

You Don't Know Me: A Citizen's Guide to Republican Family Values
It may be bathroom reading, but it exposes the hypocrisy of more than 100 Republican officials, officeholders, and lovers of bible quotes. You Don't Know Me not only dishes out more dirty facts about well-known sex scandals, but it also uncovers a myriad of conservative wantonness that, until now, has gone unchecked. Check out an excerpt on Radar.

Bookmobile: Lewd American Wife Based on Laura Bush?

LibertySugar — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:00:48 -0700

Best-selling author Curtis Sittenfeld has written American Wife - a novel about a quiet librarian, and wife of a bumbling American president. The main character "Alice" might as well be called "Laura," as the story meshes snippets from Mrs. Bush's life with the stories of Sittenfeld's imagination.

Radar has provided some arousing excerpts from the book. Details of the presidential sex life are chronicled, as well as the realization that "Alice" had an abortion, and that her grandmother is a lesbian. The book graphs details from Laura Bush's pre-White House days, including a fatal car accident she was a part of when she was 16. But, Sittenfeld amplifies the drama by writing that "Alice" proceeded to have sex with the brother of the boyfriend she killed with her car.

Do fascinating public figures make for good literary muses? Would you indulge in a good read even if it bothered you that the author treated the First Lady disrespectfully to sell books?

Source

Here Comes the Bookmobile With Hot, New Summer Pages!

CitizenSugar — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:45:18 -0700

What to read, what to read? With serious beach towel time or an empty nightstand, you might just be looking for a new book. Here are some brand spanking new releases that I'm checking out right now.

Goodnight Bush
With lyrical rhymes and Where's Waldo? detail, this parody of the childhood bedtime favorite Goodnight Moon bids farewell to the Bush administration. Here's a little sample:

Goodnight Constitution and goodnight evolution. Goodnight
democracy and goodnight privacy. Goodnight old growth trees, goodnight detainees. Goodnight allies, goodnight Abu Ghraib 'Cheese!'

OK, I might not be ordering that one, but there's more - polygamy! Fascism! Oh, my! For more Citizen-approved books, piquing my interest read more.

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

A memoir by the 21-year-old star witness in polygamist Warren Jeffs' 2007 trial. Elissa Wall tells all about her forced marriage, the impenetrable mindset of the FLDS, and her long-awaited escape.

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

Today "fascist" is usually an insult slung at conservatives. National
Review editor Jonah Goldberg reminds us that history's great fascists were first socialists (liberal is pushing it). Look for controversial connections between fascist themes and American pop culture.

Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives

Imagine having the job of knocking on doors to tell mothers and fathers their child was dead. Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Jim Sheeler did. He spent two years shadowing the marine in charge of casualty notification to give us vignettes of insight.

What's on your reading list this summer?

From Spokesman to Critic - McClellan's Book Bashes Bush

CitizenSugar — Wed, 28 May 2008 08:00:25 -0700

Before there was Dana Perino, before Tony Snow, was the sublime Ari Fleischer's replacement, Scott McClellan. As a sort of press secretary groupie, I have to say he never really did it for me. He was the young-looking, usually grumpy, never quite comfortable press secretary for George W. Bush from July 2003 to April 2006. But he's got a new book out, detailing perhaps what exactly was making him so crabby and shifty - and it might not be such a good news cycle for Bush.

It's called, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception and it's the first critical account from a member of the tight circle of Texans that have surround Bush from the beginning. As the voice for the administration during the turn of public perception on the Iraq war, as well as Hurricane Katrina, McClellan's criticism is pegged pointedly to the truth and honesty factor. To see what he has to say, read more.

McClellan calls the decision to invade Iraq a “serious strategic blunder,” but not the biggest mistake the Bush White House made. He awards that to “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.” He says Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and has engaged in “self-deception.”

As for the time surrounding the Valerie Plame leak, McClellan says of Bush:

He too had been deceived, and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth - including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney - allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.

For his role, McClellan criticizes himself too saying, "I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be." The book is out next Tuesday. As McClellan's departure from the White House seemed not wholly his idea, could the book be revenge - or just the dose of reality we need? Do you want to read the book?

Source

Does the Conservative Movement Need Fixing?

CitizenSugar — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:00:33 -0700

In mid-November, two weeks after the next president is declared the winner, Mike Huckabee's new book hits shelves. In it, he'll tell the tale of his failed bid for the White House and offer his vision for remodeling the conservative movement.

According to the publisher, "There's going to be a lot of untold stories and untold anecdotes. But the other part is the governor's vision for the future of American politics and society and what should we be working towards? How does the (Republican) party become more unified?"

Given the fact that some high-profile Republicans were anti-Huck, and conservatives like Ann Coulter have said they'd rather vote for Hillary than McCain, do you think there's a schism in the Republican party? Do conservatives need to become more unified?
Source

Ron Paul's New Book Hits #1 on Amazon

CitizenSugar — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:45:25 -0700

Rep. Ron Paul, former (?) outside-the-box, passion-inspiring presidential candidate has a new book - and it's become the #1 bestselling political book on Amazon.com even though it's not even being released until April 30.

The master of inspiring the grassroots revolution, Paul's book has a website where you can pledge to buy the book, making sure it will debut at the top of the New York Times best-seller list. He's either an incredible marketer or the only one with the right idea - you decide.

The book is called, The Revolution: A Manifesto. Are you buying it? Checking it out of the library?