“There is so much bullshit that one hardly knows where to begin...”

Taking no prisoners, author Laura Penny dissects—no, disembowels—the culture of globalized, supersized, consumerized bullshit, from Bush’s White House, with its “wallpaper of phony populist sloganeering,” to Big Pharma, with its “gateway prescription drugs.” With vinegar and wit, she shows us how this smorgasbord of phoniness alienates us from one another, breeds apathy, and makes us just plain stupid.

Decoding the Bullshit: A Few Choice Phrases

•astroturfing: the fabrication of phony grassroots concern by PR firms

•Capra-corny: see Tom DeLay’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington spin on his conversion to politics from his previous calling (bug murderer)

•increased productivity: business-speak for getting rid of the people who produce things

•kakistocracy: government by the worst citizens; see also plutocracy, Republican Revolution

•the Lady Hal: the recorded female voice that says things like “Your call is important to us”

•think-of-the-childrenism: the ultimate equal-opportunity piety; see No Child Left Behind Act

•The War on Some Drugs: the prohibition of venerable old substances for the benefit of the manufacturers of newfangled patented ones