Turnabout is fair play

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out strongly against the wearing of high-heeled shoes by fashionable women in France.

In a major policy speech, he said stiletto heels objectified them and undermined their dignity.

Mr Sarkozy also gave his backing to the establishment of a parliamentary commission to look at whether to ban the wearing of high-heeled shoes in public.

"That is not the idea that the French republic has of women's dignity.

"We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners teetering precariously on pencil-thin points, fetishised for the male gaze, deprived of identity," Mr Sarkozy told a special session of parliament in Versailles.

"The stiletto heel is not a sign of style, it is a sign of subservience. It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic," the French president said.

But he stressed that France "must not fight the wrong battle", saying that "these fashion choices must be respected as much as any other" in the country.

A group of a cross-party lawmakers is already calling for a special inquiry into whether women who wear high-heeled shoes is undermining French gender equality, the BBC's Emma Jane Kirby in Paris says.

The lawmakers also want to examine whether women who wear these shoes are doing so voluntarily or are being forced to sexualise themselves, our correspondent says.

Members of the French government have been divided over the issue.

The immigration minister, Eric Besson, has said a full ban will only "create tensions" while the junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, said she would accept a ban if it was aimed at protecting women forced to wear high heels.

France's fashion designers have criticised the debate.

To raise the subject like this, via a parliamentary committee, is a way of stigmatising fashion and the fashionistas of France said Pierre Cardin, French Council of Haute Coutoure.

France is home to about fifty million fashion victims.

Original Article

CRIKIT!

Headline that actually has nothing to do with Superman

Clark call-up forces Kent rethink.

Are you a colossal dick?

Ask yourself the following question.

You come across a man sitting on the street. His head is shaven, his face is adorned with an expression of detached serenity. His robes suggest austerity and righteousness. His body is in a posture of equilibrium, suggesting balance. The flames surrounding him suggest he is on fire. The stench suggests he probably doused himself in petrol before setting himself alight.

What do you do?

A) Keeping your wits about you, do a quick visual scan for a container of non-adulterated liquid, and splash him with it until the flames are doused. Then attempt to get him to a hospital as quickly as possible.
B) Scream "OHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT HE'S ON FIIIIIIIIIIIIRE! HALP!", and run around flapping your arms like a chicken about to be culled for carrying bird flu.
C) Stand still with your mouth agape. Keep stopping people to ask them "What's with THAT guy?"
D) Pull out a camera and click away.
E) Shoot him.

If you answered A), then you, sir, are definitely not a dick. Please report to the nearest recruiting office for the Salvation Army. We have much need of you.

If you answered B), then you're not so much a dick as an annoying twerp. Please stay indoors as much as possible.

If you answered C), then you are a dick. This is tempered by the fact that you're clearly an idiot, so its not so bad.

If you answered D), then you're a malicious dick. Please report to the nearest Indian news media office. There are some girls being molested we need you to film.

If you answered E), then you probably work for the Chinese government. You, sir, are a COLOSSAL DICK.

Thank you for taking this quiz. Please feel free to post this on Facebook, Twitter, Booger, or whatever you use to substitute for a real life.

Marijauana needs to be legalised

Without it, there is no way in hell to understand this.

This told the story of how an evil god escaped death by falling backwards in time, while a mad monitor of a parallel world used this to pull the wool over his fifty-two colleagues' eyes in league with a vampiric protege, as heroes fought to save the world while time collapsed on itself, and was finally saved by heroic sacrifices, subatomic trans-reality bridges, subethereal mind machines, and consultation with alternate futuristic geniuses.

Yes.

To even grasp at the faint edges of this epic, this might help.

A sample:

There was once a being, I do not know if he even has a name, but above I call him the “Over-Monitor,” so let’s go with that. This being discovers the multiverse and sends a probe to explore the multiverse (the Monitor). However, the multiverse is a lot more complex (and quite a bit seductive) than he expected, and the probe was split into two equal and opposite probes, one good one evil, the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor.

After the death of the first Monitor and the defeat of the Anti-Monitor in Crisis, the Over-Monitor created a society of Monitors who lived in basically the ether of the multiverse. Their existence was discovered post Infinite Crisis.

The very first one sent by the Over-Monitor was called Dax Novu. There is some debate whether Dax is intended to be the Monitor of Crisis on Infinite Earths. I’m going with no, but it’s possible. Okay, so as this society of Monitors begins to grow, it slowly becomes apparent to Dax that the Monitors have an almost parasitic (one could call it vampiric) relationship with their respective worlds of the Multiverse. They sort of feed off of the stories of the worlds they monitor. They do not wish to believe him, so they shun him and imprison him “forever.” Before they do so, he leaves behind a thought-robot designed to defeat himself if he is ever freed, because he knows that cut off from society that he is going to go mad. Dax slowly descends into madness and becomes Mandrakk, a flat out evil jerk who wants to consume the universe.

Secretly, he gains a disciple named Ogama who bans Nix Uotan to Earth to clear the way for Mandrakk to escape.

The big reveal is that Nix is the son of Dax.

As for the first Monitor - he could be Dax, he could be just one half of the probe and long dead. I think Morrison leaves it intentionally vague.

On second thoughts, just pass me the bong, Mike.

Congratulations on your purchase of the Howrah Bridge

Now that Slumdog Millionaire seems all set to replace Titanic as the least deserving winner of the Best Picture Oscar, America has lived up to its nickname of "Jesusland", by displaying an ability to forgive transgressions that the messiah himself would be proud of^[1].

Having lavished praise, awards, and money on a movie with atrocious acting, cringe-worthy dialogues, a plot that bends disbelief beyond its event horizon, characters with the depth of a chullu and a script more packed with cliches than the Virar fast during rush hour; white people have proved that colonial guilt makes better goggles than beer^[2].

Shortly after that, the first Bollywood movie to be released in the US by an American studio - Chandni Chowk To China - took Hollywood by storm. With borderline racist characters, brainless action, separated-Kumbh-mela twins and potatoes, it seems to be just the throwback to a more shameful time that Americans were craving. The movie is currently at number 13 on Rotten Tomatoes list of movies released in 2009, based on critical reception, with a healthy 46% positive rating.

Never one to let a trend pass by, Bollywood producers are lining up movies targeted at the most uncritical audience they have ever had^[3]. The first title to begin production is Yash Raj films' Akbari Lota^[4]. The plot details are hazy, but the title suggests that the movie will make references to India's medieval history (with the possibility of garish "period" costumes designed by Neeta Lulla), and will involve a macguffin that is commonplace in India, and is closely linked to human defecation; but completely unfamiliar to the paper-wiping world. The movie will star Amitabh Bacchan as an over-the-top Akbar, and Aamir Khan in a studiously underplayed role as a call-center worker with a hidden talent for riding elephants, and gentle bowel movements.

A sequel is already in the works, even before this surefire hit is completely. It is tentatively titled Jehangiri Anda: Son of Akbari Lota.


[1] - While it is certain that the great man would have forgiven the makers of the movie, his smile would have flickered a tad.

[2] - Its relative impact on unplanned pregnancies is yet to be measured, however.

[3] - Since India's literacy rate crossed 25%, that is.

[4] - With apologies to Annapurnanand Verma

Unforgivable curses

I watched the delightful little The President is coming yesterday. I would strongly recommend it, unless you're the kind of person who doesn't laugh at politically incorrect jokes, in which case stop reading my blog.

But what I did notice, much to my surprise, was the frequency with which the word "fuck" was uttered. Also, "bitch", "bastard", "asshole", and the relatively mild "shit". Given that this was an Indian movie, I would have expected the censors to have a collective haemmorhage over the assault on fragile Indian sensibilities and the besmirching of culture. Instead the curses continued in a steady flow, and the total number of utterances would have put an R-rated Hollywood production in the shade. I offer my congratulations to the censor board from proving me wrong.

Interestingly, only one word was bleeped out in the entire movie. That word was... "Brahmin".

There's a piece in there somewhere, I just don't know what it is.