Bow-gate

Somewhere on the web, idiots are complaining about Obama bowing to the miniature Japanese emperor,


but my Yahoo search for “Obama bows” (Yahoo helpfully suggested “Obama bows to Saudi king,” and “Obama bows to no one”) showed that it was even worse than we thought. He also bowed to a Tokyo audience when he finished giving them a speech,


and at Arlington on Veterans’ Day.


Really, when will this obsequious bowing end?

(Update: I titled this post “Bow-Gate” as a stupid joke, a joke! But on Fox, Chris Wallace... oh for fuck’s sake.)

I was going to put up a video of the Gilbert & Sullivan song “Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes” from Iolanthe, but couldn’t find one. Boo, internet. But that search did lead me to this sketch, probably from the Frost Report, with a pre-Python John Cleese and the Two Ronnies.



And a 1999 historical variant.

William Howard Taft on a mule. Or not.

100 Years Ago Today. Looking back on Taft’s recent long tour of the country, the NYT praises his physical courage: he wanted to tour the Grand Canyon’s trails on a mule, but was over-ridden on safety grounds (his and the mule’s). He crossed a rickety bridge his staff were afraid could not hold him. The Secret Service tried to cancel two visits to college football games, fearing Anarchist attacks, but he insisted on going because tickets had been sold on the strength of his announced appearance.

Taft does, however, seem to have forgotten to issue a proclamation for Thanksgiving. “It was emphatically denied that the President’s gastronomic powers had been so tested on the long trip over the country that he had decided against a feast day so soon after his returning.”

Jewish groups were planning a protest against a seemingly new practice at Ellis Island of physical examinations being applied more rigorously to Jewish immigrants than to others, resulting in many deportations.

Gordon Brown asserts himself. Sorry if you missed it; you must have blinked.

A few days ago Gordon Brown laid down the law to Karzai and demonstrated to the British people that he would not just blindly follow American policy in Afghanistan. “I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’s way for a Government that does not stand up against corruption,” he harrumphed. Well, today Brown announced that he is perfectly satisfied, the last eight years of evidence to the contrary, that Karzai will in fact stand up against corruption. He told Radio 4, “The question in my view is not his willingness to do it. He is willing to do this. The question is making sure that delivery of it is satisfactory.” Brown’s proof: Karzai told him he would.

I’m sure they won’t even notice

Obama is in Japan. At a press conference with the Japanese prime minister, he said that it would be “meaningful for me” to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sadly, though, there just wasn’t time for it this trip. Funny, that.

A Japanese reporter asked a multi-part question, several unrelated questions really. Obama responded to part of it, then:

OBAMA: You had one more question, and I’m not sure I remember it. Was it North Korea?

Q: Whether or not you believe that the U.S. dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- it was right?

OBAMA: No, there were three sets of questions, right? You asked about North Korea?

Q: I have North Korea as well, yes.

Somehow Obama never did get around to answering that Hiroshima/Nagasaki question the reporter asked, twice.

Salutary

Yet another CONTEST: Bush Admin intellectual giants Condi Rice and Stephen “Boo” Hadley are forming a “strategic advisory firm,” which they are calling the RiceHadley Group. Surely you, gentle readers, can come up with a better name (and/or motto) than that.

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Today Minus 100 Years, the good (but extremely bloodthirsty) people of Cairo, Ill. were still on a lynching spree, hunting for the alleged partner of Will “Froggy” James (the NYT called him The Frog yesterday -100, but at least they attempted to get his name, unlike the black men almost lynched in West Virginia a week and 100 years ago). However the mob was thwarted by a mixture of subterfuge and a show of force by hundreds of militiamen.

A few more details of the treatment of The Frogmeister (marvel at the attention to repulsive detail in the reporting) (that’s a warning to the squeamish to skip the rest of this paragraph): “Of James’s body nothing remained except the head and charred bones after it had been dragged to the alley. It was decapitated and the head was placed on a pole. The torso was cut open and the heart taken out and divided into small bits and passed among the crowd for souvenirs. The rope was soaked in the blood and was also divided among the lynchers. Then the body was burned.” The next day, with the head still on the pole, thousands “swarmed” the streets. “Youngsters too small to see easily were raised above the head of the crowd by their parents.” “It was supposed that the head was buried in the city dump heap.”

The mayor, who claimed to have personally slept through the entire thing, defended the lynchings, saying that “the majority of the citizens are pleased at the turn of affairs, and... they believe that the result will be salutary.” Just the word I was looking for. He blamed the lack of executions in recent year and the failure of juries in several homicides to convict.

Another public option

The feds are attempting to seize the assets of the Alavi Foundation, which they accuse of being secretly run by the Iranian government and sending money to Iran in violation of sanctions laws. Among those assets are four mosques, located in New York City, Maryland, California and Texas. The feds intend to keep the mosques open. (Not to make a comparison, but remember all those late-night jokes when the IRS seized a Nevada brothel for back taxes and kept it open?)

CONTEST (Yes, it’s the second contest today, but if I don’t give you contests more often than I have been lately, you just turn a throwaway post about the phrase “masturbating furiously” into one): What differences would there be in a mosque run by the federal government?

Headline-From-Which-a-Lifetime-Movie-is-Sure-To-Be-Ripped of the Day

London Times: “Wife Posed as Schoolgirl to Trap Paedophile Husband.” In an internat chat room, that is. Then she called the cops.

Important decisions

George Bush, we are told, is writing a book about “some of the most important decisions in his life.” Good lord, they let him make important decisions? Things were more dire than I realized.

CONTEST: what were some of those important decisions? Paper or plastic? Chips or pretzels? Run for president or be an astronaut? Sit out the Vietnam War in a bar in Texas or a bar in Alabama?

Frog lynching

The Catholic Church is trying to blackmail the District of Columbia into dropping plans to legalize gay marriage, threatening to withdraw from all provision of social services in the city if it can’t discriminate against gay couples seeking to adopt or has to provide benefits to the partners of its gay employees.

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Today Minus 100 Years, we have two lynchings in Cairo, Ill. Unusually, one of them was white. Here’s the first sentence, and see if you can spot the subtle difference in the way the two men, neither of them convicted in any court of law, are treated: “A negro who had murdered a white girl, and a white man accused of wife murder, were lynched here to-night.” The former, Will “The Frog” James, was “taken to the most prominent square in the city and strung up. The rope broke and the man was riddled with [nearly 500] bullets. The body was then dragged by the rope for a mile to the scene of the crime and burned in the presence of at least 10,000 rejoicing persons. Many women were in the crowd, and some helped to hang the negro and to drag the body.” There was a long chase through the woods before the mob, which at one point commandeered a train, caught up to the sheriff and the prisoner.

Not sated, some of the mob lynched the white guy, smashing through the bars of his cell with some effort.

Literary Thought of the Day

Who do you suppose was the first person to write the phrase “furiously masturbating”?

A law-abiding citizen

A follow-up to the death-during-hypnotism story from 100 years ago reported here yesterday. The November 11, 1909 NYT reports that “Professor” Arthur Everton, in his cell awaiting a bail hearing, “fears that the catastrophe will ruin his reputation, and that he will have to support his family in some other way.” Presumably he was never tried, but he next came to the attention of the paper in July of 1920, evidently trying to support his family in some other way, when Prohibition agents found $6,000 worth of liquor in his apartment, located over a saloon. Everton said that he could have stopped the agents with hypnotism but “I wouldn’t do that. I am a law-abiding citizen.”

Presidential inspections

Today -100 years, Taft is back at the White House for the first time in more than three months. “Apparently he was no stouter than when he left in the summer, although it was whispered among his intimates that he had picked up several pounds as a result of his lengthy course of banquets. When asked about it he laughingly spread out his arms and invited inspection.”

Bill Clinton used to laughingly spread out his arms and invite inspection as well, but he usually wasn’t wearing pants when he did it.

The worst thing to do

Today, Bill Clinton told Democratic senators that on health insurance reform, “The worst thing to do is nothing.” Watch them prove him wrong.

A gift from a wicked man is a trap

At his war crimes trial, Charles Taylor says that the only reason he was captured in 2006 was that the Nigerian president duped him, telling him he was free to leave the country and then arresting him at the border. “We have an old saying: A gift from a wicked man is a trap.” The most deserving victim of a Nigerian scam ever.

Suggest heart action to subject

Today the Supreme Court discussed whether sentences of life without parole are unconstitutional when applied to juveniles. Alito said some of the little shits just deserve it, describing several cases “so horrible that I couldn’t have imagined them if I hadn’t actually seen them,” such as “raping an 8-year-old girl and burying her alive.” I presume he didn’t “actually see” that. Scalia said, “One of the purposes is retribution... And I don’t know why the value of retribution diminishes to the point of zero when it’s a person who’s, you know, 17 years, 9 months old.” The reports do not say if he drooled a little as he uttered the phrase “the value of retribution” but I think we all know he did.

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The rest of this post is 100-years-ago-today news (despite my use of the present tense).

Pres. Taft has completed a 56-day, 13,000-mile road trip that covered 33 states and territories. Today -100, the mayor of Wilmington, NC named Taft an “honorary Tar Heel” for life, which sounds painful. 1,500 Wilmington school children formed the shape of a flag. He also “proceeded to another section of the city, where he reviewed the negro children,” who seem not to have collectively formed any particular shape.

Taft congratulates North Carolina on having the second-highest percentage of farmers. “You do not have large cities, and I do not think that a defect at all in your civilization. The fact is, that the tendency toward concentration of population in the cities is a tendency that ought to be restrained.”

Following the divorce of the Astors, some are condemning the secrecy of certain divorce proceedings in NY (proceedings affordable by the rich but not the poor), but NY Supreme Court Justice Bischoff thinks testimony should remain secret, saying it is sufficient that the name of the guilty party be published: “He is thus condemned among respectable people.” Justice Gerard also opposes “putting a lot of sickening details... before the public.” Justice McCall believes the full publication of testimony, “while bringing the innocent to the deepest humiliation, the notoriety would be actually pleasing to the depraved persons whose conduct and violation of the most sacred vows made divorce possible.”

Robert Simpson died while under hypnosis during an exhibition of the mesmeric arts at the Somerville (NJ) Opera House. It might not have helped that the hypnotist, a “Professor” Arthur Everton, stood on Simpson’s stomach while he was under. Hypnotists and mesmerists from all over the country have been sending advice on how to wake him up from his trance (a telegram from someone signing himself simply “Svengali” counseled “Suggest heart action to subject.”) Some of them even traveled to the morgue to try their luck. William E. Davenport of Newark, “an amateur hypnotist of some note” tried “alternately whispering and shouting invitations to him to come to life. ‘Bob, your heart action – attend. Listen, Bob, your heart action is strong. Bob, your heart begins to beat. Bob, [loud] do you hear me? Bob, [whispering,] your heart is starting.’” But nothing. “Professor” Everton was arrested (although they allowed him to try to awaken Mr. Simpson for several hours more) and is likely to be charged with manslaughter. A leading authority on hypnotism, Columbia University Professor Emeritus John Quackenbos (as perfect a name for a leading authority on hypnotism as you are likely to find), suggests that he might argue that Simpson was in suspended animation and was actually killed by the autopsy.

Affectionate blender

Name of the Day: a London Times business reporter: Peter Stiff. I’m thinking his parents did not love him.

Forgot to mention: LRB personals (old ones) are now on Teh Twitters. And here are a few recent ones. (As always, the complete WIIIAI collection of LRB personals is here.)

In 2004 I was a love machine…now I’m just an affectionate blender. Whirrr. Box no. 18/02

Privately, I will always regard 1987 as my most successful year but publicly I would state that 2003 brought me more happiness than any other. The 16 year gap between these two points in my life represents roughly half of my overall achievements, whilst the square root of 97 is 9.591663046. None of these things are believed to be coincidental. F, 40. Box no: 21/06

I fear packing peanuts possibly more than other man alive. But I never fail to weep at the simple beauty of swans making love. Carl, 36. Box no: 21/09

Like a faithful hound I will fetch your slippers and newspaper in the morning and follow you for walks on beaches on brisk autumn mornings. Of course, if I bite a small child I will have to be injected with sodium pentobarbital and destroyed. But let’s just accentuate the positive for now. Slippers. Newspaper. Beaches. F, 32. Box no: 21/11

Women to 55 who enjoy cabbage will get along just fine with me! Cabbage-enjoying M, 55. Box no: 21/13

Toles.

The one who created this lei also created our freedom

Thomas Friedman, feeling all tingly with a sense of his own naughtiness, suggests the US tell Israel and Palestine that it is getting out of the peace process business until they “get serious” about it. Oddly, he fails to say whether we should also stop subsidizing one side with billions of dollars of aid each year. Funny, that.

In today’s 100-years-ago news (a NYT feature I just discovered is available only to subscribers), Illinois Senator (and former governor) Shelby Moore Cullom (R) suggests that the South could be convinced to vote Republican if not for that pesky negro suffrage. He’s not for total disfranchisement everywhere, for example not in his home state, but the Northern negro is different from the Southern one: “the Northern colored man uses his ballot with wisdom and fairness. We are satisfied with him, but it is not strange, of course, that the South is not.”

Fortunately, Congresscritters have come so far since those days:



Oh, and Rep. Stupak (whose name spelled backwards, I might point out, is Kaputs) can kiss my ass.

In 100-years-ago-today medical news

Dr. E. F. Bashford reports, in an address to the no doubt astounded attendees of the 16th International Medical Congress in Budapest, that “cancer is not limited to white men.”

There truly is a Shakespeare quote for every occasion

I subscribe to the OED word of the day RSS feed. Today’s word of the day: poop. 1616 SHAKESPEARE Antony & Cleopatra (1623) “The Poope was beaten Gold.”

Tap tap tap. Is this thing on?

Unfortunate Headline of the Day, from a White House press release: “President Obama Taps Cassandra Butts to Serve as Senior Advisor at the Millennium Challenge Corporation.”

Update. Er, 100-year-old update

Gov. Glasscock did succeed in saving those two negroes from being lynched. He snuck them out of jail at dawn, onto a special train and safely out of Gassaway. How their trial went we do not know; the NYT doesn’t seem to have covered it. What politician today would do such a thing?

In other 100-years-ago-today news, Pres. Taft was driven around an auto racing course in Savannah, reaching 52 miles per hour, making him the fastest as well as the fattest president.

By the way, 100 years ago Tuesday, astronomer Percival Lovell announced that the Martians were undertaking new construction work on the canals at that very moment.

President insults South by refusal of beverage

For some time I’ve been enjoying the NYT’s 100-years-ago section. Today’s tells of Governor William, um, Glasscock of West Virginia going in person to stand down a town intent on lynching two negroes. The local militia has told him it will not fire on the mob. At press time, the outcome was doubtful. No fair peaking ahead.

In other news, Pres. Taft, visiting Georgia, refused a mint julep with his breakfast, although it had “been brewed with consummate skill and which reposed apparently harmless in a green-topped glass that had perfect barnacles of frosting on the outside.” Times reporter is thirsty. Taft breakfast: waffles, quail, fried chicken, sausage, steak, broiled ham, broiled chicken and “grits.” Times reporter puts grits in scare quotes. As well he might.

Day 10,958

John McCain gave a speech in the Senate today about the 30th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis. Like Obama, he thinks that Iranian history is all about us: “Today, however, we are also mindful that the pain and suffering that began on November 4, 1979 did not end after only 444 days. For the people of Iran, that hardship continued for 30 more years.” I haven’t seen an Iranian history textbook, but I’m guessing they consider the overthrow of the shah in February 1979 to have been the pivotal event inaugurating the present phase of Iranian history, not the seizure of the embassy in November.

McCain continues:

Iranians are right to ask how much better off they would be if all of the money – the billions and billions of dollars – that Iran’s rulers spend sponsoring terrorist groups, tyrannizing their people, and building weapons to threaten the world were instead devoted to creating jobs, educating young people, and caring for the sick.

Iranians are right to wonder why a country so blessed with natural resources cannot meet the basic needs of so many of its own citizens – and yet, corrupt members of the ruling elite are stuffing the wealth of their nation into their own pockets.

Project much? Is it pleasant, do you think, to live with no sense of irony whatsoever?

Senator Oblivious also complains, in his speech about the 30th anniversary of the hostage crisis, that Iran “seems determined to keep the relationship between our two countries mired in the past”.

Sucker

Remember how the Honduran coup was “resolved” by an agreement that Zelaya would be restored to power – if and when the Honduran congress voted to do so? They seem to be having some trouble working that vote into their busy, busy schedule. But US assistant secretary of state Thomas Shannon helpfully informed them that the US will now recognize the Nov. 29 election even if Zelaya is not returned to office.

There are still 30 Guantanamo prisoners hunger-striking, if anyone cares.

Election November 2009

My voting precinct dropped the fancy voting machines that look and sound just like paper shredders in favor of an old-timey cardboard box with a slit cut in it. To save money. Quaint.

Schwarzenegger gets to nominate a new lt. governor. Danny DeVito? Suggestions in comments, please.

Ohio votes for casinos. Nothing says excitement like casinos in Ohio.

Maine votes for medical marijuana, against marriage equality.

Sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation

Wednesday is the 30th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, and Obama is celebrating by issuing a statement graciously offering to “move beyond this past.” Evidently Obama thinks that the history of US-Iran relations started 30 years ago: “This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation.”

Technically, that’s half true, in that the US embarked on sustained suspicion, mistrust and confrontation. Before that, most Americans (outside the CIA, that is) were unaware of Iran’s existence or that it was the place that used to be called Persia. The Iranian people, on the other hand, had plenty of suspicion and mistrust toward the US, based on the US’s decades-long history of keeping the shah’s foot planted firmly on their necks, the history so thoroughly ignored by Obama.

WHAT, YOU DON’T THINK “DEATH TO AMERICA” IS AN AGENDA SUFFICIENT UNTO ITSELF? “We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future is it for.” It’s that sort of condescension that should get us off that path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation.

Headline of the Day

BBC: “Bear Kills Militants in Kashmir.”

Stigma

Hamid Karzai vows to remove the stigma of corruption from Afghanistan. Not the corruption, just the stigma.

Determined in accordance with Afghan law

Hillary Clinton has had to qualify her praise for Netanyahu’s “unprecedented” temporary pause in settlement activity (except for the massive construction projects that won’t be pausing) (and East Jerusalem) (and all the “illegal” building). Evidently she hadn’t realized that the remarks would not go over well among Palestinians and in the Arab states. Has anyone noticed that she really isn’t very good at her job? She now says Netanyahu’s policy “falls far short of what we would characterize as our position”.

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The second round of voting has been canceled in Afghanistan, against the stated wishes of Karzai, who thought he could win a single-candidate without having to forge quite so many ballots and also keep his followers happy by letting them steal some more of that UN election money. Says Obama, “Although the process was messy, I’m pleased to say that the final outcome was determined in accordance with Afghan law”. Glad he’s pleased to say that. His staff must have worked long into the night to come up with some way to praise this election, and they came up with “determined in accordance with Afghan law.” Indeed, it is a veritable triumph of “determined in accordance with Afghan law,” a shining example of “determined in accordance with Afghan law.” (Well, except for all that massive fraud. Oh, and there’s some question about whether the election commission actually had the authority to cancel the second round.)

Nutt sacking

Headline of the Day (London Times, headline on the UK News page; the one on the story URL is different): “Nutt Sacking ‘Threat to All Expert Advisers.’” If I were an expert adviser, being threatened with a nutt sacking would be very worrying indeed. (Prof. David Nutt was fired as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in Britain, for noting that the legal penalties for use of various drugs do not correlate with scientific evidence about their actual harmfulness. He has pointed out that alcohol is more dangerous than pot and horse-riding more dangerous than ecstasy.)

Why we fight

Iraq gets ready for its first public hanging since Saddam. Freedom, ain’t it grand?

I never expected that anywhere, someone would make such a big statue of me

Bill Clinton attends the unveiling of an 11-foot-tall bronze statue of himself in Pristina, Kosovo. That’s actually the first statue of Clinton I’ve heard of. Does anyone know of another? Bill said, “I never expected that anywhere, someone would make such a big statue of me.”


Actually looks more like Kennedy, doesn’t it? Those papers bear the date March 24, 1999, the day NATO started bombing Serbia.

And here Bill is holding a traditional Albanian prophylactic hat.

Unprecedented

Hillary Clinton says that Abdullah²’s likely decision not to contest the fixed presidential race, given Karzai’s refusal to fire his sycophantic election chief and the decision to increase the opportunities for fraud by creating still more ghost election stations, does nothing to reduce the legitimacy of that election: “When President Karzai accepted a runoff without knowing what the outcome would be, that bestowed legitimacy from that moment forward, and Dr. Abdullah’s decision does not in any way take away from that.” Yes, if there’s one thing that’s a complete fucking mystery, it’s the outcome of an Afghan election.

Hillary has also praised Bibi Netanyahu for his great, ahem, restraint, on settlements: “what the prime minister has offered in specifics, of restraint on the policy of settlements, of no new starts, for example, is unprecedented”.

So, I have to ask you, the discerning reader,

poll by twiigs.com

(Update: Eli wrote practically the same post, though without a nifty poll, 41 minutes earlier. I blame Google Reader’s lackadaisicalness for my not having known that.)

Headline/Bad Pun of the Day

“Beauty Spots May Get New Homes.” (Sunday Times of London). I guess Cindy Crawford can afford to buy a house for hers.

In the end the people of Connecticut will respect me for that

Holy Joe Lieberman says that his constituents overwhelmingly support the public option because they are “confused.” He just hopes that when he votes against their wishes, “in the end the people of Connecticut will respect me for that.” If they do, I guess it proves his point about them being confused. Really, really confused.

My favorite anti-public option line, which Mary Landrieu and Lieberman and others have used, is that the public option is so popular because people think it’s performed gratis by the health care elves. Landrieu: “I think when people hear public option they hear free health care. Everybody wants free health care. Everybody wants health care they don’t have to pay for.” I’m not surprised that they’re so contemptuous of the American public, but I’m a little surprised that they feel free to express it so openly.

George Bush, speaking in India, said that because there was a law calling for regime change in Iraq (“It was a law passed by the Congress and the previous administration”), it was his “official duty” to invade Iraq. So that’s okay, then.

WHO GEORGE DOESN’T HATE: “Please don’t let the propagandists tell the people that George Bush and America hate you [Muslims].”

WHO GEORGE DOES HATE: “I hate people who hijack a great religion to murder innocent people.”

“It wasn’t nobody’s fault. People shouldn’t be pointing fingers.”

LA Times reporter Sandy Banks, on the Richmond gang rape: “The students I talked to after the fact at Richmond High all said they would have intervened. And yet, none of them denounced the kids who didn’t.”

Oh, seeing Dick Cheney is treat enough

The American Prospect asked “What will Dick Cheney give trick-or-treaters this year?” Some of the answers:

“A playful waterboarding, followed by threats, if they don’t tell him which house is handing out the fun-size Snickers.” -- Megan Carpentier, Air America

“An unexpectedly warm and firm hug.” -- Baratunde Thurston, The Onion

“Buckshot in the face, naturally.” -- Eric Alterman, The Nation

To which I would add, “A terrifying look inside his man-sized safe.”

Or, “A pod, the exact same size of the trick-or-treater, to be kept in their basement...”

Or, “A glimpse into the empty void that is his soul. So cold. So very, very cold.”

Other suggestions?

Thought crime

Just saw someone objecting to the new hate crimes provision protecting LGBTs as creating a “thought crime.” A standard Republican talking point. Don’t see them objecting to the distinction between first-degree murder and manslaughter as a thought crime.

Wherein is revealed what makes Hillary Clinton a happy person

Before her trip to Pakistan, Hillary Clinton sat down for an interview with Dawn tv, in which she in no way pandered to her Pakistani viewers: “I love the food, I wear shalwar kameezas. I mean, I want people to know that I am no stranger to Pakistan or Pakistani culture. ... I mean, give me a seekh kebab and some gow and I’ll be a happy person.”

Oh, and it would also help if I were president of the United States. And had Bill’s balls in a box. A nice teak one.

Headline of the Day

London Times: “Sarkozy Plans New Patriotism Based on Values of ‘La Douce France.’” That’s douce. Douce! Not that other word!

I know, I know. I’m a little ashamed of myself.

If we don’t do that, we’ll be insulting democracy

Interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Hamid Karzai asserted that the first round of the presidential election had been “defamed, was called a fraud,” and that he had, in fact, won 54% of the vote in a “clean” election. The decision to have a run-off anyway was his and his alone: “I decided -- for peace, for stability and for the future of democracy in Afghanistan and for the future of institutional order in Afghanistan -- to call for a runoff.” The runoff must now go ahead, he says (i.e., no power-sharing deal), because “If we don’t do that, we’ll be insulting democracy”.

And if there’s one thing Karzai hates, it’s an insult to democracy.

Some adult content

A Saudi court has sentenced a woman journalist to 60 lashes for being coordinator on a show that had on a man who talked about sex (he gets 1,000 lashes).

It’s just like America, really: sex bad, violence good.

Criss cross

The Taliban bomb a wedding party in Pakistan, possibly by mistake. Are they us now?

Michelle Obama and the Socialist Hula Hoop of Doom

At the Healthy Kids Fair on the White House south lawn Wednesday. CAPTION CONTEST (alternatively, how will Fox News spin this (geddit, spin this, geddit, geddit?) as showing that Michelle hates whitey and/or America?

He’s the Motivaterer

Every blog has already pointed out the “Get Motivated!” seminar in Fort Worth with motivational speaker George Bush (hey, I’m always motivated when George Bush speaks, aren’t you?).


One of the other speakers is Colin Powell. What I like about the idea of Bush and Powell crossing paths is that, sure, it’ll be incredibly awkward, but Bush will never know why.

Everyone’s a critic

The Denver alt newspaper Westword (motto: nothing can go wrong can go wrong can go wrong) is planning to hire a pot reviewer. It has received 120 applications so far, “many of them offering to do the reviews for free.”

Compare with this NYT story (Well this sucks. The NYT has disabled the program by which bloggers could insert links to stories that wouldn’t go dead in a few days.) about the AP reporter whose job it is to attend executions in Texas – 300+ of them – and how fewer and fewer other news outlets even bother anymore.

Chilling thought of the day: they could probably easily find 120 Texans offering to do that job for free.

(Some of you are thinking it, so I’ll just pre-empt it appearing in comments: even more people would offer to combine the two jobs. But really, do you want to have a case of the munchies in the death chamber viewing room? And showing up with cheetos is just bad manners.)(Even if you offer to share.)

Your daily dose of batshit crazy

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, foams at the mouth all over the pages of the Washington Post (or is it on the website only?) about the threat from “secular saboteurs” and the gays and “moral anarchists” and the gays and “sexual libertines” and the gays and Hollywood and the gays and the ACLU and the gays and Democrats and the gays. It must be read to be believed. Last paragraph:

The culture war is up for grabs. The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels.

I don’t know: every time you walk your dog, an angel dies.

Keeping faith with the best interests of the Afghan people

With 1/3 of Afghan ballots tossed out as probably fraudulent, it is, evidently, time to declare the Afghan presidential election a resounding success.

Hillary Clinton: “And after many weeks of counting ballots and much debate over the flaws in the vote, Afghans showed today that their processes work.” One of those processes (I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in the Afghan constitution): begging, cajoling, blackmailing and threatening Karzai into accepting the necessity to steal a second round of elections. Indeed, “The leadership shown by the President, Dr. Abdullah and all of the other candidates...” If by leadership, you mean ordering their followers to stuff ballot boxes “...has strengthened Afghanistan and kept faith with the best interests of the Afghan people.” You’d almost believe that all the fraud existed in spite of the candidates.

Obama: “This is an important step forward in ensuring a credible process for the Afghan people which results in a government that reflects their will.” Like a mirror reflects a vampire. Or something. “President Karzai’s constructive actions [not defying the ruling of the election commission] established an important precedent for Afghanistan’s new democracy.” Some precedent. Some democracy.

Throughout the two-month-long post-election wrangling, we’ve been told, essentially, that if only we removed most of the fraudulent ballots, whatever remained would be a legitimate election. This is to willfully ignore the large number of people in areas without polling stations, or who were turned away from polling stations, or whose ballots were thrown out, or who didn’t bother participating in an obvious farce. Further, the process of weeding out fraudulent ballots involved discarding entire precincts whose results were unbelievable, disfranchising all their residents.

The run-off will now be done so quickly, in order to beat the Afghan winter, that the only question is whether the election monitors or the ballot-stuffers can organize faster.

(Update: the Guardian anatomizes the failed election.)

Name of the Day

The composer (and singer) of the Addams Family theme song, who just died at 93: Vic Mizzy. Somehow the perfect name.

Why don’t I have an official harpist?

Prince Charles’s former official harpist is on trial for burglarizing four houses. Heaven knows what his unofficial harpist gets up to.

Headline of the Day

AP: “Tijuana Police Find Body Hanged from Bridge, Again.” Oh, I see: not the same body, a different body.

Happy Loma Prieta Day, everybody!

Programming note

Fox has decided to close down the Fox Reality Channel (currently running a marathon of something called The Househusbands of Hollywood). Is it permissible to reverse one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Headline of the Day

From the LA Times: “Dead Man Slumped on Balcony Mistaken for Halloween Decoration.”

(Update: the NYT quotes one of his neighbors, giving Mr. Zayed an epitaph for the ages: “He looked fake.”)

An opportunity to score propaganda points missed

The Italians, naturally, aren’t going to admit to having paid those bribes to the Taliban (see previous post), and nobody, not even the French, who have reason to be a tad miffed, is willing to embarrass them. Which is too bad because the Taliban would presumably also be embarrassed, and their legitimacy undermined, by their having taken bribes not to fight being trumpeted far and wide.

Allies

So, Italian forces in Afghanistan were bragging about how peaceful their area was. Turned out, they were paying bribes to the Taliban to prevent attacks. And it worked, by the way, for not really a lot of money: the Taliban can be bought. Anyway, then they left and handed off to the French, without telling them about the bribes. So they thought they were taking over a nice pacific region, and the ambush that killed ten of their soldiers (oh, and the mutilations) came as a bit of a surprise.

The Americans found out about the bribes through intercepted telephone conversations and formally protested to Italy. Two months before the ambush. So the US didn’t warn the French either.

This business we call show trial

Stalin’s grandson has lost his libel suit against a newspaper which suggested that his grandfather was not a very nice man. His lawyer complained, “We are sure the judge decided this case in advance.” Oh, the irony.

In fourteen hundred and ninety two, some white guy got lost

Hey, evidently yesterday was Columbus Day. I celebrated by attempting to try out that pizza place that just opened, but it was closed for some reason. Obama issued a proclamation. It’s fun watching the first bi-racial president attempt to reconcile praising Columbus’s “bold attempt to expand human understanding of the known world” with the, you know, Indian thing.

“These immigrants joined many thriving indigenous communities who suffered great hardships as a result of the changes to the land they inhabited.” Changes to the land? Like having a lot of murdered Native Americans buried under it, that sort of change?

“Although their competing ways of life were initially at odds, ...” At Odds! “...over time, the ‘New World’...” Oo, sarcastic quote marks. “...became a culturally and ethnically diverse place where we now enjoy the free exchange of ideas and democratic self-governance. Tribal communities continue to strengthen our Nation through their rich heritage and unique identity.” Casinos, you mean casinos, don’t you?

“Italian Americans continue to contribute immeasurably to the identity of our Nation, as role models, leaders, innovators, and committed public servants. From the boardroom to the classroom, they are prominent in every facet of American life.” Casinos, you mean casinos, don’t you?

More election tampering in Afghanistan – this time by the watchdogs

The international Electoral Complaints Commission for Afghanistan has decided that, purely in the interests of time, they will penalize all candidates equally by the percentage of suspected fraudulent votes in each polling box, rather than penalize candidates in proportion to their actual responsibility for fraud. In other words, they are now knowingly invalidating legitimate votes for the more honest candidates.

Unfortunate Headline of the Day

London Times: “Gay Activists Demand Action from Obama.”

Obama at the Human Rights Campaign Dinner

Obama gives good speech. Really. It should be quoted back to him every time he doesn’t live up to it. Although he was able to cite one thing he has actually done for Teh Gays: “Michelle and I have invited LGBT families to the White House to participate in events like the Easter Egg Roll -- because we want to send a message.” (Oh, all right to be fair, also something about ordering federal agencies to extend employment benefits to the partners of gay employees.)

I did like his reference to “the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.” Which, yes, would mean more if he actually supported gay marriage. Gay people should be conspiring to contrive a situation where Obama has to introduce a married gay couple as “Jane Doe and her wife Sarah” or “Adam and his husband Steve.”


Not according to Fox News

Passion for porridge

In slow news day news, an American, Matthew Cox, has rocked the world of porridge by winning the Golden Spurtle award. Now, had you not known that a spurtle is a stick used to stir porridge,


you might have thought the Golden Spurtle award had something to do with the adult film industry (headline on a Scottish news site: “US Man Takes Golden Spurtle” – the article uses the phrase “the coveted Golden Spurtle”) rather than being given out at the World Porridge Championships in Scotland. (Today is World Porridge Day, by the way. Celebrate appropriately.) The only American to participate, Cox flew from Milwaukie, Oregon to Scotland to compete in a porridge contest or, as he put it, “to celebrate our passion for porridge”. The special porridge category was won by one Anna Louise Batchelor, for her steamed porridge spotted dick with custard.

Rocked the world of porridge. Coveted Golden Spurtle. World Porridge Day. Passion for porridge. Steamed porridge spotted dick with custard. There is no phrase in this post I did not enjoy typing. Spurtle spurtle spurtle. Porridge porridge porridge.

Switzerland and the minarets of doom

Switzerland will vote on a referendum next month on banning the construction of new minarets on mosques. It is expected to fail. Some cities have banned (in publicly owned spaces) as racist, and some have allowed, this poster by the Swiss People’s Party.


This is what actual Swiss minarets look like.

Meet the most persecuted person in the entire history of the world and the history of man

It’s Silvio Berlusconi. He said so himself, so it must be true: “I am without doubt the person who’s been the most persecuted in the entire history of the world and the history of man.”

For example, he said, he’s had to fork out 200m euros in legal expenses on “consultants and judges.” He then “corrected” himself to say “consultants and lawyers.”

Are you taking the (Nobel) piss (prize)?

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” and his “emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.” In crushing Iran like a bug, for example. And for his “outreach” to the Muslim world. For example, he has ordered bombing in at least four Muslim countries. Really, what’s the maximum number of countries in which you can kill people and still win this prize?

CONTEST: What should Obama do with the 10 million kronor prize money?

(Update: Fafblog: “In other news, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to a man who set fire to a library and then promised to write a book about it.”)

(Updatier: Evidently Obama plans to give it to charity. Actually, I had assumed ethics rules prohibited him accepting a large cash prize related to his official work. Certainly they should do so.)

Wherein the appropriate response to the new Oklahoma abortion law is suggested

Next month, Oklahoma’s We Know Where You Live Act will go into effect, requiring the posting on the internet of detailed information about women who have abortions (the law also bans abortions for sex selection, which many feminists are conflicted about. Personally, people who would abort on those grounds are precisely the people I don’t want to force to raise a baby they don’t want. Also, if abortion is a right, having one for a stupid reason is also a right; that’s what a right means.)

People have suggested that the intention of the law is to intimidate and that the specificity of the questions asked of the pregnant women (on pages 8-17 of the law [note: pdf]) will make it possible to identify those in more sparsely populated counties.

Fortunately there is a way out, which I would commend to all abortion patients in Oklahoma: lie. Lying is appropriate, ethical, and does not even seem to be illegal.

Berlusconi versus the Red Judges of Doom

The law Silvio Berlusconi designed to give him legal immunity is overturned as unconstitutional (in that it was passed as a regular law rather than a constitutional amendment and it violated the principle of equality before the law) by “red judges,” as Berlusconi today called the Constitutional Court, adding, “Viva Italia, Viva Berlusconi!”, which wasn’t creepily fascistic at all.

His argument for demanding immunity was that being tried for bribing judges, bribing MPs, embezzlement, tax fraud, false accounting, witness-tampering, etc etc would be a “distraction.” He much prefers being distracted by, well....

Unemployment is nearly 10%, but Trader Joe’s still employs someone

(at least I assume they do; it’s the only logical explanation) whose sole job is to follow me around the store and then discontinue at random some product I like. Today: the potato and cheese perogies.

First above equals

Silvio Berlusconi’s lawyer, arguing that he deserves immunity from prosecution: “He is no longer ‘first among equals’, but ought to be considered ‘first above equals.” “The law is equal for everyone, but not always in its application.” Especially if you bribe the judge, which is one of the charges he wants immunity from.

And Haiti once again wins the gold braaaaaiiiins

Will Durst tweets: “Too bad, the Olympic vote wasn’t held in Chicago. That way the dead could have voted for the city early and often.”

Not a great joke, but it occurs to me that Chicago should have argued that if they got the Olympics, the dead could compete. Zombies are very popular right now.

My laziest contest ever

A McDonald’s is to open in the Louvre, or, as it’s known to American tourists, “Can We Just Look at the Mona Lisa and Get Outta Here?” According to an unnamed art historian, “This is the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odours in the context of a museum.”

(A personal note: when I first visited Paris, there were no McDonald’s. The company had just closed all their restaurants in the city because they weren’t up to the McDonald’s corporate standards. Imagine that.)

LAZY CONTEST: In fact, a contest contest. Come up with your own contest about the Louvre McDonald’s – more snooty quotes from art historians? something about freedom fries? Pulp Fiction riffs? – then submit an entry.

Logic

Dear lord, but Michael Steele is a blithering idiot. Which I knew, and you knew, but this one has just been irritating me for days for some reason. Denying Obama’s claim that requiring health insurance is just like requiring car insurance, which should be easy because health insurance is actually not just like car insurance, Steele said, “I think that analogy kind of falls off the radar screen because of the frequency with which I get sick versus the frequency with which I drive a car. I am more likely to need car insurance because I get in my car 7, 8, 20 times a day, where I’m surely not getting sick 8, 10, 20 times a day.” Apples and oranges. If you only “need” health insurance when you’re sick, as opposed to when you have the potential to become sick, then you only need car insurance when you crash, which you’re not doing 7, 8, 20 times a day (unless you’re Lindsay Lohan).

It’s awful, those little teeth

Jacques Chirac has had to get rid of his “depressed” dog Sumo after it bit him for the third time. But here’s the sentence which the BBC reporter most enjoyed writing: “In January this year, Mr Chirac had to be hospitalised after the dog sank his teeth into an unnamed body part.”

Another detail about French presidential canines: Sarkozy, known to be hilariously sensitive about his height, used to own a chihuahua named Big.

(Update: further research – Jesus Christ I’m bored – reveals that the unnamed body part was his butt.)

Burning justice

Texas Gov. Rick “Good Hair” Perry attempts to cover up evidence of the innocence of a man executed for a crime that never happened. Or, as they call this sort of thing in Texas, Thursday.

It’s like I slapped my own family in the face

The government has finished its prosecution of a third Marine for an incident in which four unarmed, surrendered Iraqi prisoners were murdered in Fallujah in 2004. After two others were acquitted, Sgt Jermaine Nelson, who had confessed six different times to executing one of the prisoners, was convicted – of dereliction of duty, in a plea agreement in which the government dropped the murder charge. He will be reduced in rank to lance corporal, serve no time and not be dishonorably discharged. His lawyer said he got such a good deal because he was so cooperative with investigators, although he had refused to give evidence against his sergeant last year (the gov did not go after any of the three for contempt of court in their pact not to testify against each other). (My posts on that trial here and here.)

Said Nelson, “I gave in to the peer pressure and now I have to live with it for the rest of my life... I let down the Marine Corps, which is my family. It’s like I slapped my own family in the face.” Adding, “Oh, and it’s also like I shot that one Iraqi guy in the face.” I may have made up that last part.

He went on, “If the Marine Corps will allow me to stay in, I’d love to stay in.”

(Sources: BBC, AP, North County Times, ditto, San Diego Union-Tribune.)

Guns for cons

It’s now legal to bring guns into bars in Arizona. Project for some day when I’m bored: join NRA, attend meeting of same, propose ending the unfair infringement of the 2nd Amendment rights of prisoners, see how much support I get.

Veiled

From a NYT story that asks the burning question, “Is Iran Designing Warheads?” (I’m picturing arches and majestic domes): “The Israelis, who have delivered veiled threats of a military strike...” Yes, veiled, just the word I was looking for. Because there is nothing more subtle than the Israeli threats to bomb the shit out of Iran.

Propaganda kills

an Afghan girl. The Times: “This is believed to be the first time that a civilian has been killed by a box of public information leaflets.”

A courtesy

The Honduran coup regime’s foreign minister threatens to de-embassize (that’s a word, right?) Brazil’s embassy if it doesn’t hand President Zelaya over or remove him from Honduras within ten days, but “As a courtesy, we are not planning to invade the place.” Because no one – no one! – can accuse Honduras’s coupsters of lacking courtesy.

Don’t you hate it when an anecdote just trails off?

Obama, yesterday: “I was up at the G20 -- just a little aside -- I was up at the G20, and some of you saw those big flags and all the world leaders come in and Michelle and I are shaking hands with them. One of the leaders -- I won’t mention who it was -- he comes up to me. We take the picture, we go behind. He says, ‘Barack, explain to me this health care debate.’ He says, ‘We don’t understand it. You’re trying to make sure everybody has health care and they’re putting a Hitler mustache on you -- I don’t -- that doesn’t make sense to me. Explain that to me.’ He didn’t understand.”

Er, so how did you explain it to him?

I got nuthin’

Baltimore public schools institute Meatless Mondays, replacing the traditional Mystery Meat Mondays.

So, does Dexter, serial-killer trying to blend in with a society whose mores he does not feel, = Don Draper? Discuss.

For extra credit, where does Roman Polanski fit in to this thesis?