- In his State of the Union Wednesday, Obama will announce a spending freeze for many of America’s domestic programs. As these programs do not include Lost, no one will care. [New York Times]
- The US is holding a conference at the UN in March in which ten countries will try to figure out how to use money to fix Haiti’s crippling lack-of-money problem. [Wall Street Journal]
- Death: Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., a 60s-era three-term Senator from Maryland, has died from Parkinson’s disease. [Washington Post]
- More death: A suicide bomber killed 18 people at the Iraqi Interior Ministry yesterday. [Los Angeles Times]
- No more death after today: Drivers of commercial trucks and buses are no longer allowed to text behind the wheel, which means that drivers of commercial trucks and buses were, up until today, allowed to text while driving. [CNN]
- Lady Muslims will no longer be allowed to wear their veils in France on state-owned property. The idea is that Nicolas Sarkozy respects women so much that he will just decide what they will wear. [Times Online]
DAILY BRIEFING
January 26, 2010
Obama Makes Arrangements For Less Death, More Money
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{ 39 comments }
Oh, and Nate Silver says the GOP will probably take back the house in 2010. Fucking hell.
The “Gilmore Girls” program was frozen in 2007. I’ll never forgive George W. Bush for that.
Looks like truck drivers are going back to good old fashioned jerking off while driving.
His middle name was “McC”?
France already has a virtual ban on the wearing of bras on public beaches, so this is just more of the same birthrate increasing policy.
Mac Mathias, a long term Republican Senator from Maryland, was more liberal than a whole slew of current Democrats. Go figure. He stood up for a lot of moral issues, including civil rights. There’s a star in his crown in heaven for that, as my mother would say.
[re=500899]ForTheTurnstiles[/re]:
So US ‘merca’s ditching the wimps who made good ideas bad for the pigfuckers who made bad ideas worse.
Only in US ‘merca.
“Obama Makes Arrangements For Less Death, More Money”
So… no moar death panels?
Can somebody please update the feed on the headline thingy? Scott Brown’s crotch is stating to etch my retinas.
If Sarkozy decrees that his wife must wear only her underwear in public, all the time, then I’m in.
[re=500907]ManchuCandidate[/re]: Hey, we’re all getting tea-bagged now. By Jonah Goldberg. Open wide, there’s a fat sweaty ballsack coming your way!
Nate Silver is no longer my pretend boyfriend.
I’d love to hate the French for this one, but it’s the niqab that they are banning, and I fucking HATE the niqab. Muslim women in France can still cover their hair, but the French ARE GOING to ogle your schnoz, be you a Mohammedan, Joo, or Catholic.
Mind you, I should note that the niqab itself really isn’t threatening, and I don’t know if we’d make such a big deal out of it if, say, Buddhists actually wore it. Then again, Buddhists don’t have the same kind of violent, world-wid jihadist movement that radical Islamists do. Then again, isn’t this ban just painting all Muslims with the same brush? Well, no, just the ones wearing niqab, who tend to have stronger (more religious and irrational) beliefs… oh, look, there’s my whiskey bottle.
Where was I? Oh, right. Fuck everything.
A war escalation and a discretionary spending freeze equals “less death, more money” on what planet?
Nicolas Sarkozy respects the shit out of womens.
Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité!!! That’s the French national motto and it’s in the French Constitution.
I can’t wait until Their American Cousins, Our American Fuckheads, figure out how to change their CNN edition to international news, read about the ban, and make this merde a campaign issue here. Wherein the Dems, engorged, throbbing red ass prominently displayed, propose a compromise allowing Muslim women to wear whatever, but only if they perambulate as if they’re from the Ministry of Silly Walks while singing “God Bless America,” with a Boston accent. And then every single Republican will vote against the bill anyway.
Fuck, Be Fucked, Or Watch. That’s the American motto.
Be vewy, vewy, qwuiet, the assholes are at it again. That’s the Canadian motto.
[re=500921]Katydid[/re]: The Canadian motto should have read: “Be vewy, vewy qwuiet, maybe they won’t notice us. The assholes are at it again.”
It took me about three seconds to find the European Declaration of Human Rights, which contains the following:
How exactly is making people show their face necessary for the protection of public order, health, morals, or protection of the rights and freedom of others?
[re=500913]magic titty[/re]: What if Sarkozy decrees that his wife, Mrs. Sarkozy, has to wear underwear occasionally that somewhat covers her pubes? The French photogs would have to create a beaver pool for verification. I guess what I’m asking you is, how quickly can you learn French, and photography, and do you mind eating goat’s eye cheese?
[re=500919]bitchincamaro[/re]: Pandora?
Holy hell, Republican-itis has infected those fuckers too. It’s like The Black Death, only whiter.
Yay! A spending freeze! This will certainly end well.
[re=500918]AnnieGetYourFun[/re]: Isn’t it good to see, though, that the US and A is not the only nation in the world with racism?
Switzerland: death to minarets!
France: l’etat will make all fashion decisions pour le jeune filles.
Italy: whaddya mean, sweet-bleeding-Jeebus crucifixes in every classroom are offensive to muslins?
Another overlooked big story: Travolta’s loaded his personal 707 with Scientologist healers and flown them to Haiti. Crisis over!
[re=500899]ForTheTurnstiles[/re]: He actually said GOP is “as likely as not” to take back the House. A lot can happen between now and then. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Democrats actually do fairly well in the House, once people realize that the problem in Congress is the Senate.
Remember a few years ago when we hated the French so much we decided to remove their name from our FRIES!? Harsh… just harsh. What can we possibly do NOW to make them ashamed? I miss the old days.
Way to buy into the Republican talking point of “The most important thing to do is solve the deficit we pretty much created with the help of GW Bush.” As if proposing a freeze that’s about 1% the size of the annual deficit and about 0.1% the size of the accumulated debt makes a shits-worth of difference.
He’s really not going to have shit to run on in 2012, is he?
[re=500934]bhosp[/re]: Yes, point taken on the content of Mr Silver’s comment. I’m skeptical that anyone is going to realize anything in this environment of Total Bullshit Control. If the Teabagger set has indeed prematurely blown its collective wad and the media moves onto something else, that is if Obama can finally change the fucking subject from this perception of his total incompetence and downright evil, then maybe 2010 won’t be a full-on kick in the nuts.
I don’t know. How weird would it be to sit in a classroom for years with three or four black veiled lumps whose face you’ve never seen? They probably have to be silent and not participate in class discussion, as it’s considered immodest for a woman to express an opinion in mixed company.
I guess it’s France’s way of saying “If you want to participate in our society, you don’t get to reduce your women to silent, faceless, black lumps. Go do that in you own society, K? We think its just too creepy.”
I’m not that much of a feminist, but the systematic devaluing of women practiced by these fundamentalist creeps me out, too.
[re=500951]Lascauxcaveman[/re]: Maybe if they’re *really* ugly, they should be allowed to wear a veil. Both men *and* women, Muslim, Christian, Scientologist, whatever.
All this and nose rings are still OK? Ewwww.
Hey, what better way to discourage thoughts and practices you dislike than by banning their outward expression, making them hip and outré? I mean, the French could just insist on education and the same rights for everybody, but that would take time, and you don’t really see the mobs being whipped up for a rigorous course in critical thinking, do you?
Anyway, bonne chance avec le prohibition.
[re=500956]TGY[/re]: Yeah, here’s my religion: It’s immodest for a man to show his face in public, so all we men of faith wear ski masks to hide our seductive manly features. The devout among us also carry a shepherd’s staff of approx one meter in length, a sacred rod symbolizing how our holy shepherd guides us, every step of our lives.
Because it’s a special, sacred rod, it’s not for the desecrating gaze of the infidel, so I’ll just tuck it away in, hmmm? – in this rifle case here, that’ll work. Now I’m waking into this bank/federal building/public school … hey, why’s everybody looking at me funny?
Oh, my religious practices make you feel a little uncomfortable in in your so-called “open society”? Tough shit, I have my rights.
From what I’ve been told, veils, hijabs and burkhas aren’t even codified in the Quran. They’re originally a custom of certain Arabic societies, going way back before the Quran, as a way for men to protect their property.
Does this law apply on bad hair days. What about when have that monthly pimple?
[re=500951]Lascauxcaveman[/re]: I agree that the niqab is insanely creepy. There are a few women in the Puget Sound region who wear it, and they always show up at my favorite Indian restaurant for Sunday biryani, and ruin everything for me.
BECAUSE THEY CAN’T FUCKING EAT IN PUBLIC SO THEY HAVE TO SIT AND WATCH THEIR FAMILIES EAT.
I’m tempted to argue that no one in the Islamic world seems to pipe up in outrage when Western women who live in Saudi Arabia are forced to veil when they go outside, but then… who wants to sink to the Saudis’ level? The French, apparently.
And yeah, the Qur’an doesn’t mention veils, just boob coverage, but the hadith mention it, and there’s nothing Muslims love more than a bunch of contradictory hearsay about what the Prophet’s friends might have thought he liked once.
[re=501097]AnnieGetYourFun[/re]: My sympathy of the French viewpoint can be stated thus: you cannot ask to participate in French society and simultaneously reject its standards.
Its a little like wanting to be on the basketball team, but saying um, I don’t think I’m gonna do any wind sprints, or joining the cast of play and deciding going to rehearsals is not so much your thing.
[re=500915]hockeymom[/re]: “Nate Silver is no longer my pretend boyfriend.”
I’m with you. Now David Plouffe has my heart. Except Nate never asked me for money, so he was kind of better as a pretend boyfriend.
[re=501104]Autoo[/re]: Judging by the way Annie finished her comment, I’m not sure she’s able to sit upright at the computer, let alone read any thing.
On a serious note, I kind of agree with the French on this, but I think it’s especially true in the french culture and the idea of fraternité. I appreciate the fact that when Sarkozy said, “No head scarves in school” and there were complaints about crosses being exempted, he said, “no crosses, either.” A man after Thomas Jefferson’s heart.
Now, where was my whiskey bottle. Oh, right, I don’t drink but the painkillers are about to kick in. The above are apt to be my last cogent thoughts of the day.
[re=501126]DustBowlBlues[/re]: So… Ya wanna be a Plouffer? Don’t they have some rather unique job requirements?
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