If your name is Don Imus, then hi Dad! Sorry about the stuff I wrote about you. I know you asked me not to write about you but to instead write about me. I’d like to point out that this book is about me, you just happen to be my father and since you stuck around...some of MY stories include you. Shitty luck, right? Anyway, get over it and toughen up. That’s what you always tell me to do. Besides, most of this book is about idiots and morons and how I think they should behave. So don’t worry, it’s not like I accused you of having sex with the dog or beating the cat with a wire hanger...but if I’m left out of your will, I may write a second book. xo love, your wonderful daughter, Elizabeth If you’re anyone else and you picked up this book because of its catchy title, then it’s because you have terrible manners and you are acting like an idiot, or you know someone who is and you need to buy this book for them. Whatever the deal is, enjoy. xo ez

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The three Great Premises of Idiot America: · Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units · Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough · Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it With his trademark wit and insight, veteran journalist Charles Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States. Pierce asks how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate. But his thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Erudite and razor-sharp, Idiot America is at once an invigorating history lesson, a cutting cultural critique, and a bullish appeal to our smarter selves.

When a rumor starts circulating that Tara's boyfriend Brent has been sleeping with one of the guy cheerleaders, the innuendo doesn't just hurt Tara. It marks the beginning of the end for an inseparable trio of friends. Tara's training for a marathon, but also running from her fear of abandonment after being deserted by her father. Whitney Blaire seems to have everything, but an empty mansion and absentee parents leave this beauty to look for meaning in all the wrong places. And Pinkie has a compulsive need to mother everyone to make up for the mom she's never stopped missing. This friendship that promised to last forever is starting to break under the pressure of the girls' differences. And then new-girl Riley arrives in school with her long black hair, athletic body, and her blasé attitude, and suddenly Tara starts to feel things she's never felt before for a girl--and to reassess her feelings about Brent and what he may/may not have done. Is Tara gay--or does she just love Riley? And can her deepest friendships survive when all of the rules have changed?

There is a fundamental disconnection between the way business people speak and real people communicate. From advertisers, big business and CEOs - the blather is coming at us in waves. The International Language of Business is no longer English - it's gobbledygook. The authors blindly discovered the enormity of the problem in June 2003 with the launch of Bullfighter, an anti-jargon software tool. But jargon is just one symptom in a larger problem afflicting corporate communications today: the wholesale inability to connect with an audience. In the form of admirably straight-talk, we discover how to avoid the 'obscurity trap', 'the anonymity trap', the 'hard-sell trap' and most importantly, 'the tedium trap'. In this witty and practical new book readers are given all the tools they need to fight the 'spin' and learn to speak like the rest of us.

A guide to manners for the new millennium uses epigraphs from Homer, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Chief Flying Hawk, among others, to introduce a new perspective on modern manners.

"A masterly book" —Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan "A classic" —Simon Kuper, Financial Times An economist explains five laws that confirm our worst fears: stupid people can and do rule the world Throughout history, a powerful force has hindered the growth of human welfare and happiness. It is more powerful than the Mafia or the military. It has global catastrophic effects and can be found anywhere from the world's most powerful boardrooms to your local bar. It is human stupidity. Carlo M. Cipolla, noted professor of economic history at the UC Berkeley, created this vitally important book in order to detect and neutralize its threat. Both hilarious and dead serious, it will leave you better equipped to confront political realities, unreasonable colleagues, or your next dinner with your in-laws. The Laws: 1. Everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals among us. 2. The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses themselves. 4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. 5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.