So the President was getting a fencing demonstration outside the White House the other day with Tim Morehouse (silver medal, Beijing) and well … he decided to use a decidedly non-regulation saber to practice with:

(via Time)

I love a good t-shirt. No, strike that. I adore a good t-shirt. Recently a friend of mine opened up an online t-shirt store. I kinda groaned. I mean I love my friends and I wanna promote them but what if the shirts sucked? I mean that would be horrible, because I’d wanna say something but I couldn’t and then I wouldn’t wanna promote the store but I would wanna help and…

Luckily these shirts are so grand I want to buy each one and probably will over a period of time. History is Funny is the name of the store. To give you an idea of the shirts:

Dear lord I love these shirts.

Not mine, but hysterical:

(via The Daily Express. UK) Thousands of the worst families in England are to be put in “sin bins” in a bid to change their bad behaviour, Ed Balls announced yesterday.

The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.

They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.

Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.

Around 2,000 families have gone through these Family Intervention Projects so far.
But ministers want to target 20,000 more in the next two years, with each costing between £5,000 and £20,000 – a potential total bill of £400million.

Ministers hope the move will reduce the number of youngsters who get drawn into crime because of their chaotic family lives, as portrayed in Channel 4 comedy drama Shameless.

Sin bin projects operate in half of council areas already but Mr Balls wants every local authority to fund them.

He said: “This is pretty tough and non-negotiable support for families to get to the root of the problem. There should be Family Intervention Projects in every local authority area because every area has families that need support.”

But Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: “This is all much too little, much too late.

“This Government has been in power for more than a decade during which time anti-social behaviour, family breakdown and problems like alcohol abuse and truancy have just got worse and worse.”

Mr Balls also said responsible parents who make sure their children behave in school will get new rights to complain about those who allow their children to disrupt lessons.

Pupils and their families will have to sign behaviour contracts known as Home School Agreements before the start of every year, which will set out parents’ duties to ensure children behave and do their homework.

——————————

What the holy fuck, Brits? What the, oh my lord! Putting cameras in private homes to make sure the kids are behaving correctly and going to bed on time? To make sure they’re at war with Eurasia? Or is that Oceania? I can never remmeber what country it is on any given day.

Good lord!

Also “Shadow Home Security” not only sound like a group of bad guys but really, you want to call them “Thought Police” but are afraid to still, aren’t you?

Also “sin bins”? SIN BINS?

What the hell is wrong with you, Crazy Brits? What the fuuuuuuuck?!

EDITED TO ADD: Thanks to some folks for pointing out some crazy in the above article. Here is more real information: If you want it. Though it still makes me go “what the fuuuuuuuuck”, to be honest.

So while I am all for supporting and celebrating our new President I feel it is our responsibility to not let that grow into a blindness. We need to see the good and the bad. And while I have pointed out the good things Obama has done for our freedom so far I have to question this one:

(via Wired) The incoming Obama administration will vigorously defend congressional legislation immunizing U.S. telecommunication companies from lawsuits about their participation in the Bush administration’s domestic spy program.

“The duty of the Justice Department is to defend statutes that have been passed by Congress,” Holder told Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah), who asked whether the Obama administration would continue the legal fight to uphold the legislation that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to overturn.

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And then we have this one: The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.

In a filing in San Francisco federal court, President Barack Obama adopted the same position as his predecessor. With just hours left in office, President George W. Bush late Monday asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to stay enforcement of an important Jan. 5 ruling admitting key evidence into the case.

Thursday’s filing by the Obama administration marked the first time it officially lodged a court document in the lawsuit asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration’s warrantless-eavesdropping program. The former president approved the wiretaps in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“The Government’s position remains that this case should be stayed,” the Obama administration wrote in a filing that for the first time made clear the new president was on board with the Bush administration’s reasoning in this case.

The government wants to appeal Walker’s decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, a legal maneuver requiring Judge Walker’s approval. A hearing in Walker’s courtroom is set for Friday.

The legal brouhaha concerns Walker’s decision to admit as evidence a classified document allegedly showing that two American lawyers for a now-defunct Saudi charity were electronically eavesdropped on without warrants by the Bush administration in 2004.

The lawyers — Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoo — sued the Bush administration after the U.S. Treasury Department accidentally released the Top Secret memo to them. At one point, the courts had ordered the document, which has never been made public, returned and removed from the case.

——————

So what the fuck, guys? He made the right moves with Gitmo, wanted transparent Government and made steps toward it but then falls down on this? It makes me wonder, it makes me want to look closer and it makes me, frankly, think that while some things have gotten better we are going to have to look closer than ever to keep an eye on the ones that have not.

(via the LA Times) School can expel lesbian students, court rules.

An appeals panel finds California Lutheran High School in Riverside County is not a business and therefore doesn’t have to comply with a state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Reporting from San Francisco — After a Lutheran school expelled two 16-year-old girls for having “a bond of intimacy” that was “characteristic of a lesbian relationship,” the girls sued, contending the school had violated a state anti-discrimination law.

In response to that suit, an appeals court decided this week that the private religious school was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating. A lawyer for the girls said Tuesday that he would ask the California Supreme Court to overturn the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal.
The appeals court called its decision “narrow,” but lawyers on both sides of the case said it would protect private religious schools across California from such discrimination suits.

Kirk D. Hanson, who represented the girls, said the “very troubling” ruling would permit private schools to discriminate against anyone, as long as the schools used their religious beliefs as justification.

“It is almost like it could roll back 20 to 30 years of progress we have made in this area,” said the San Diego attorney. “Basically, this decision gives private schools the license to discriminate.”
John McKay, who represented the Riverside County-based California Lutheran High School, said the ruling correctly acknowledged that the school’s purpose was to “teach Christian values in a Christian setting pursuant to a Christian code of conduct.”

The girls were expelled in their junior year for “conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians,” said McKay, who added that the girls never disclosed their sexual orientation during the litigation. Hanson said the girls had been “best friends” and, citing their privacy, declined to discuss their sexual orientation. They are now in college, he said.

The dispute started when a student at the school told a teacher in 2005 that one of the girls had said she loved the other. The student advised the teacher to look at the girls’ MySpace pages. One of the girls was identified as bisexual on her MySpace page, the other’s page said she was “not sure” of her sexual orientation.

McKay said the website also contained a photograph of the girls hugging.

According to the principal, who called each girl out of class separately, both admitted they had hugged and kissed each other and told other students they were lesbians. The girls said they admitted only that they loved each other as friends.

The principal “just looked at me like I was a disease and I was so wrong,” one of the girls later said. They were identified in the legal proceedings only as Jane Doe and Mary Roe.

——————-

The school also did not break the law when it disclosed the girls’ “suspected sexual orientation” to their parents, the court said. The parents, “in light of their right to control their children’s upbringing and education, had a right to know why” they were being expelled, the court said.

Hanson said the entire episode was “very traumatic” and “humiliating” for the girls.

Shannon Price Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the ruling was based on “the particular circumstances of this school.”

“Labeling a young person or telling her she is ’sinful’ can be psychologically devastating,” Minter said. “Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, all adults have a responsibility to treat young people with compassion and respect.”

School officials could not be reached for comment.

Timothy J. Tracey, litigation counsel for the Center for Law & Religious Freedom, said the ruling “preserves the right of Christian schools in California to make admission and discipline decisions consistent with their religious beliefs.”

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All right! Are you sick to your stomach yet? Because I sure am. I am not saying they are not within their legal rights here, I mean I guess I can kinda see it, but this is why I fear and despise government funding of religious schools and institutions.

Because the fact is if this school gets a single cent of Government money than we are helping to fund this sort of hate. We are. You and me. No getting around that. These poor girls were grilled, outed and humiliated. I’m sure that won’t leave any mental scars. Nope, none at all!

McKay said the website also contained a photograph of the girls hugging.

NOT HUGGING! Dear lord, no! I mean this whole thing is a case of fear and narrow-mindedness managing to win the day. The case is old, yeah, but the appeal failed. That’s just it. Yes, these girls are in college now and this case is over – but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, or hasn’t.

What. The. Fuck.

Don’t let this sick, twisted thing go quietly back into the night.

Please.

(Cuts from a Washington Post article, without comment) ‘War’ On Terror Comes to a Sudden End

President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the “war on terror,” as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless.

————-

Key components of the secret structure developed under Bush are being swept away: The military’s Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, where the rights of habeas corpus and due process had been denied detainees, will close, and the CIA is now prohibited from maintaining its own overseas prisons. And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration’s lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.

(via TPM) Remarks By The President Welcoming Senior Staff And Cabinet Secretaries – 1/21/09

I will comment in italics. Just putting out bits of this but it is worth going to read all of it.

During this period of economic emergency, families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington. And that’s why I’m instituting a pay freeze on the salaries of my senior White House staff. Some of the people in this room will be affected by the pay freeze, and I want you to know that I appreciate your willingness to agree to it, recognizing that it’s what’s required of you at this moment.

No it isn’t perfect, but it is nice ot see him taking a step. If more companies took steps like that with CEOs they could afford to save more jobs overall.

As I often said during the campaign, we need to make the White House the people’s house. And we need to close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely, and lets them use their time in public service as a way to promote their own interests over the interests of the American people when they leave.
So today we are taking a major step towards fulfilling this campaign promise. The executive order on ethics I will sign shortly represents a clean break from business as usual. As of today, lobbyists will be subject to stricter limits than under any other administration in history. If you are a lobbyist entering my administration, you will not be able to work on matters you lobbied on, or in the agencies you lobbied during the previous two years. When you leave government, you will not be able to lobby my administration for as long as I am President. And there will be a ban on gifts by lobbyists to anyone serving in the administration, as well.

Some serious, hard written, lobbyist rules. They’re interesting as hell and the sort of thing that make you wonder why this is the first time anyone has put them into effect.

The directives I am giving my administration today on how to interpret the Freedom of Information Act will do just that. For a long time now, there’s been too much secrecy in this city. The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known.

To be sure, issues like personal privacy and national security must be treated with the care they demand. But
the mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean you should always use it. The Freedom of Information Act is perhaps the most powerful instrument we have for making our government honest and transparent, and of holding it accountable. And I expect members of my administration not simply to live up to the letter but also the spirit of this law.

I will also hold myself as President to a new standard of openness. Going forward, anytime the American people want to know something that I or a former President wants to withhold, we will have to consult with the Attorney General and the White House Counsel, whose business it is to ensure compliance with the rule of law. Information will not be withheld just because I say so. It will be withheld because a separate authority believes my request is well grounded in the Constitution.

Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.

Well it’s about fucking time, isn’t it? Now sure, you can be all paranoid and say he is saying this stuff because it makes it eaiser to hide the real crap if he seems to be all transparent but … well after a while you start to stretch. Ya know?

And then at the end they swear in the Senior Staff. I include it for the laugh:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Am I doing this again?
THE PRESIDENT: For the senior staff.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: For the senior staff, all right.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. A number of Cabinet members have already –
THE VICE PRESIDENT: My memory is not as good as Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts. (Laughter.) Okay, no, I — this is the list. Do you have a copy of the oath? Which senior staff are we doing?
THE PRESIDENT: A whole bunch of senior staff.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Okay. All of the senior staff –
THE PRESIDENT: Rise.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: — please rise. I will say “aye,” and then you repeat your name.
THE PRESIDENT: Marvin, button up your coat. (Laughter.)

————–

Add that to his moves toward Gitmo today and I’d say he’s had one fuck of a Day One, wouldn’t you?

So our President managed to pose for the photo of his career. Taken from Whitehouse.gov itself this is a pic of Bush with members of the Arizona State University Men’s and Women’s Track Team Wednesday, on Nov. 12, 2008.

Wait, is that Bush throwing the shocker? No way! It can’t be?! Let’s blow it up and find out!

Well. There’s the shock and here is my awe. Yeah, Az State uses that hand sign from re-shocker days and they don’t seem to care. But come on! COME ON!

Two in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, yo. Represent.