Armed Madhouse

Greg Palast is a political writer. Other than that, he's a pure writer -- a real one. I'm in awe of this guy's style.

Working For Change (dot com) is serializing his new book, "Armed Madhouse." Part one is here. It's hilarious, and very much worth the few minutes it'll take you to read it.

Palast seems to be able to write about several topics at once without confusing the reader, or maybe it's just his extremely fast pace that makes it seem that way. He documents every assertion, links seemingly unconnected malfeasances together in greasy chains, and is very funny on top of it all.

Though he's British, Palast specializes in analyzing the sewage of the American political system. It was he, you might remember, who wrote the book on the stolen election of Y2K, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."

My friend and bandmate, Steve (lead vocalist for ShangPupShoo), who's also a journalist, interviewed Palast once. He told me that if it hadn't been for his pocket digital recorder the interview would have been a bust; there's no way anyone taking notes could keep up with Palast.

"You just turn him on and he goes nonstop," Steve said. "He's a mile a minute, and everything is connected to everything else. It's an endless stream, and really funny at the same time."