Yesterday, President Obama announced that he would address a joint session of Congress regarding jobs and the economy on September 7—the same night, it turns out, as a Republican presidential debate. Exactly how it turned out is a matter of conjecture. Press secretary Jay Carney insisted that the date was not chosen to conflict with the debate, noting that there were going to be 20 of those things and that “one debate of many was no reason not to have a speech when we wanted to have it.” Still, I bet they have a big calendar in the White House, and Obama’s move seemed like a deliberate provocation. Fortunately for everyone, he was provoking John Boehner, which is like trying to get a fish to gasp. “As the majority leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, Sept. 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening,” Boehner wrote, asking the President to move the speech to September 8. Guess which date they compromised on!
Author: Dan Brooks
Meanwhile, inside Michele Bachmann’s head
Take my wife—please, make her bring an unwanted pregnancy to term.
Borrowing a strategy that has never backfired on a political figure in recent memory, Michele Bachmann opined last weekend that Hurricane Irene and the earthquake that hit DC were messages from an angry god. “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians,” she told a campaign audience in Sarasota. “We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?'” According to Bachmann, the source of God’s anger was clear: out-of-control government spending. Also, a teenage girl in Dade County was wearing really short shorts, but mostly it was the budget deficit. God is a known fiscal conservative; still, certain people felt that it was inappropriate to connect fatal natural disasters to campaign issues. So on Monday, Bachmann explained that she was joking. Quote after the jump.
Regarding Magic: The Gathering and Being Cool
Cards from the game Magic: The Gathering. Cool, right?
Yesterday, a Gizmodo editor named Alyssa Bereznak posted this article about her Ok Cupid date with former Magic: The Gathering world champion Jon Finkel. I’m sure you have a lot of questions now, all of which it will embarrass me to answer:
- Ok Cupid is an online dating site. I am a member, but only because I work at home and I’m really lonely and people find me unsettling and gross in real life.
- Magic: The Gathering is a card-based strategy game set in a fantasy world with, like, wizards. I played and enjoyed it all through college.
- Jon Finkel is arguably the best-known professional Magic player of all time, and he seems like a nice guy.
I feel like I just took my pants off at the bus station.
How bad is it for atheists, really?
Famous evangelical tract artist Jack Chick imagines a society without religion.
Last week, we took brief pause at a report that the Tea Party was “even less popular than much-maligned groups like atheists and Muslims.” It’s nice to know that those of us who profess no religion are still beating those who profess religion loudly at school board meetings, but man—Muslims? They’re holding Congressional hearings about those guys. Then, on Sunday, as I was resting, Smick sent me this blog post about plans to compile a national registry of atheists. The unattributed “they”—”they are comparing atheists to child molesters” and “they want a list of all the atheists in their area”—is the kind of ace reporting that has made the reputation of the Daily Kos. “They” turn out to be various Christians on internet message boards, but the phenomenon is still troubling. They are the same people who published George Tiller’s home address, after all. Putting aside the betting line on a list-making and planning war between evangelical Christians and atheists in this country, I think it’s time to address a salient question: do we get minority status now?
Friday links! Other shoe edition
I don’t want to be a Negative Nancy, but the democratic experiment is pretty much over. It worked really good when we were yeoman farmers, but now that we’re VJs and customer service team leads, it sucks. Our politics is a shrill argument over whether the current crop of American rich people should be our last, and our electorate is voting values. It’s plutocracy time, now. Corporations can spend unlimited money on political ads; taxes are at an all-time low as deficits reach an all-time high; Congress is talking entitlement reform three years into a recession, and we’ve found a way to blame the President for hurricanes. America flew high once, but now the flyers must smash the nutsacks of those who facilitated their experiment. It’s called the other shoe, and the nation’s rich are dropping it with alacrity. Won’t you stare mutely eating a popsicle with me?