• Is military integrity a contradiction in terms? (John T. Reed) A veteran of the military on the hypocrisy of the “Go along to get along” ethos of the military.
• Obama the pretender (The Week)  A review of Obama’s book, and the money quote is at the end, “Obama had a golden opportunity to knit the country back together after a disastrous Republican presidency and a brief moment of Wall Street helplessness. He didn’t do so because he couldn’t stomach the radical action necessary to heal the nation’s wounds and repair the social contract, and instead invented a lot of excuses why he had to sit on his hands and do nothing. The name for such a person is a coward.”
• Devil horns meet sutras in Taiwan’s Buddhist death metal band (Barrons) They set Buddhist chants and prayers to death metal, and Buddhists are chill as f%$# about it.
• John Carpenter, Apocalyptic Filmmaker (Jacobin) A paean to director John Carpenter.  Much or his oeuvre has become more respected over time, in part because his dystopian vision (They Live) has becoming increasingly relevant.  (He has also directed two of my top 10 movies)
• How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism (New Yorker) A chronicling of how VC money resembles nothing so much as a Ponzi scheme.  The money quote, “And, eventually, you start to realize: no matter what happens, the V.C.s still end up rich.”
• Fugging hell: tired of mockery, Austrian village changes name (The Guardian) After years of mocking by tourists, and stolen signs, the Austrian village has changed its name to “Fugging”. Also, “Just across the border in Bavaria in Germany there is a village called Petting.” 

The Buddhist Death Metal is below: