Joyless schoolmarm Barack Obama unceremoniouslydecided to axe murder history's last remaining awesome thing, the "ha ha, look at all the heads of state dressed up as goofy commoners" party time photo-op traditionally held each year for leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. But this year's meeting is in luscious Hawaii, which makes aloha shirts and coconut bras officially too much sexy fun to appear to be having while Earth's various economies burn. Of course the President of Serious couldn't just say this, so he announced instead that he is Too Cool for silly shirts.

From the LA Times:

"I got rid of the Hawaiian shirts because I had looked at pictures of some of the previous APEC meetings and some of the garb that had appeared previously, and I thought this may be a tradition that we might want to break," Obama said. "I suggested to the leaders -- we gave them a shirt, and if they wanted to wear the shirt, I promise you it would have been fine.  But I didn't hear a lot of complaints about us breaking precedent on that one."

GAH, evil peer pressure! Poor Hu Jintao, he packed his grass skirt for nothing. [LA Times]