Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

This fight is for everything.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Consistently wrong since 2002

You are here: Home / Open Threads / More On The Religious Headgear Beat (Moah Thread)

More On The Religious Headgear Beat (Moah Thread)

by | 38 Comments

This post is in: 

Update:  didn’t mean to bigfoot Anne Laurie.  Read below as well as here, y’all.

With a hat tip to my science writing friend, the inimitable Steve Silberman, here’s a story about a Czech citizen who has won the right to wear a colander on his head in the photo on his government ID.

The reason?  He’s a pastafarian, which makes the issue the Czech equivalent of a first amendment issue:*

Czech officials ruled that the nation’s religious liberty laws required this result. According to a government spokesperson, Novy’s request “complies with the laws of the Czech Republic where headgear for religious or medical reasons is permitted if it does not hide the face.”

In today’s image — a pasta/founding father lagniappe:

Pasta_machine_Thomas_Jefferson

 

Got some more substantive stuff going for this space, but couldn’t resist this little niblet.

What’s saucing your spaghetti today?

*Full disclosure:  the Think Progress piece at the link connects back to the Daily Mail, and I have presumption of distrust at anything from that particular source.  But there is a category of journalistic endeavor known as the “too good to check” story — and in my view, this is one of those.  You’ve been warned.

Image:  Thomas Jefferson, Design for a maccaroni (sic) making machine, c. 1787.

 

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  2. 2.

    Socoolsofresh

    So the NSA-DEA cover up story, a nothingburger or a major nothingburger? Or are you guys waiting for the correct messenger to demonize?

  3. 3.

    Tom Levenson

    @Socoolsofresh: Don’t look at me. As an admirer of Adam Smith, I bow to the division of labor, and I’m just not up on the NSA stuff enough to write anything about it that someone else won’t do better and with both more information and thought.

  7. 7.

    PsiFighter37

    Amazon’s CEO just bought WaPo. I don’t know Bezos’ political leanings, but I hope his first move is to fire Jennifer Rubin and/or Charles SauerKrauthammer.

  8. 8.

    Dexter

    Bloomberg app on my iPhone tells me that Washington Post’s newspaper assets will be bought by Jeff Bezos for $250 million. Don’t know if that is a good or bad thing.

  11. 11.

    jeffreyw

    Real Clear Politics says he gives to the Dems but shies away from political activism. He is a long term thinker and give MattY the heebie jeebies so that may bode well.

  16. 16.

    BGinCHI

    @PsiFighter37: Bezos bought it himself, outright.

    It won’t be called the WaPo anymore either. I expect the Washington Amazon Hard Copy or something.

    And yeah, I hope to sweet Jayzus he fires all of the idiots on the op-ed page, which should leave him with almost no one.

    I do hope Greg Sargent stays and gets promoted to El Jefe. He’s a great reporter and a very, very good dude.

  19. 19.

    PeakVT

    Reporting at the WaPo says that it was Bezos personally, not Amazon, that bought the company. Certainly an interesting development. The Globe was sold a few days ago, too, for a lot less.

    At least the Kochs didn’t buy them.

  21. 21.

    NickT

    @piratedan:

    Not much sign of that over the last 10 years. Anyway, Bezos apparently promised not to change the WaPo’s “values” so news reporting is right out.

  22. 22.

    EthylEster

    @Dexter: Hey, I just saw that in my Seattle paper and came here to find out what DougJ had to say. Evidently Bezos just bought the newspaper, not the Kaplan stuff.

  23. 23.

    fuckwit

    @jeffreyw: He’s a California Galtian Glibertarian, of the Peter Thiel variety, AFAICT. I’d expect him to be socially progressive (pro marriage-equality, pro-choice, pro-marijuana, etc.) and financially deeply embedded with the corporate 1% elite, of which his is a member in very good standing.

    Can’t say it’d be any worse than it is already for Pravda on the Potomac.

  26. 26.

    MazeDancer

    Thought maybe Bezos wanted a nice lobbying front. 250 million to control what all of Washington reads isn’t really that bad for a pretty useful opinion generating tool.

  27. 27.

    Violet

    Jeff Bezos buying the WaPo is just another sign of our return to the Robber Baron days. Rich people want or need news organizations to be the mouthpiece for their beliefs. They either buy them or create them. Bezos saw an opportunity.

  28. 28.

    beltane

    @Violet: The major news organizations have always been the mouthpiece of the upper class. At least now we can drop the pretense that they are anything other than the propaganda organ’s of the 1%.

  31. 31.

    Bill Arnold

    @Violet:
    Name a member of the “rich enough to buy the WP cash” class, who you’d prefer. I’m happy it didn’t go to Murdoch, or one of the Koch brothers.

  33. 33.

    Violet

    @Bill Arnold: I didn’t say Bezos wasn’t one of the better options in the 1%; just pointed out that it was a 1%-er purchase of a news organization, a la Robber Baron Days. I’d rather our news organizations not be mouthpieces of the 1%, but if that’s the only option, then I’d rather Bezos (I guess, based only on what people in this thread say he’s donated to), than Murdoch or the Kochs or their ilk.

    I think being forced to choose among the very rich as to which one would be the least odious owner for a news mouthpiece is very much the wrong way to frame the issue.

  36. 36.

    The Moar You Know

    I didn’t say Bezos wasn’t one of the better options in the 1%; just pointed out that it was a 1%-er purchase of a news organization, a la Robber Baron Days.

    @Violet: Our local San Diego billionaire, Doug Manchester, a real-life Montgomery Burns, bought every single newspaper within a fifty-mile radius of the city – with two exceptions, both too small to matter, he bought out every single paper in the county. All because the city council dared to vote down his waterfront “redevelopment” plan, and then as a final insult, the electorate refused to install his handpicked version of Smithers as mayor.

    All reporters were fired, the main U/T newsroom had all the desks and computers torn out and his vintage car collection was moved in. Orders went out that “business-friendly” news only will be reported.

    Robber baron days indeed.

  37. 37.

    Bill Arnold

    @The Moar You Know:

    he bought out every single paper in the county.

    That’s a scary story. Were the sales voluntary, i.e. did he apply an coercion other than a good price?

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