Bear with me

while I get the new commenting system up and running. Haloscan’s owners decided to start charging for a more annoying system. All the moving parts aren’t moving yet. Probably better not to add comments to any posts older than this one.

If a blogger on Blogspot with the JS-Kit Echo system installed is reading this, it would be very helpful if you could send me, by email or as a comment, the html code from its gadget box on the Page Lageout page.

Today -100: December 22, 1909: Of the spirit of a good son going to the rescue of his beloved mother

Madriz is sworn in as president of Nicaragua, saying, “I assume the Presidency unmoved by personal ambition, but by the spirit of a good son going to the rescue of his beloved mother, harassed and imperiled.” He announced a political amnesty.

However, the fighting continues, with the Estradists beating the government forces near Rama. The NYT attributes this to the former being “armed with the latest equipment and machine guns”. Huh. Wonder how that happened.

Shot

I thought better of titling this post “The President’s shot.” Anyway, Obama got his swine flu shot today. CAPTION CONTEST.

But is it kosher?

The various news stories and blogs talking about a supposedly discontinued Israeli program of secretly harvesting the organs and skin of dead Palestinians (and others) all fail to mention the reason Israel has a chronic shortage of organs: Orthodox Jews claim their religion prevents them being organ donors but not organ recipients.

Today -100: December 21, 1909: Of sick immigrants, lynchings, lynchings, and more lynchings, and all this Santa Claus business

Reading the 1909 papers goes a lot quicker if you don’t bother reading any of the stories about the controversy over whether Cook reached the North Pole.

The Commissioner of Immigration has decided that “physically or mentally unfit” immigrants will no longer be treated by the government but made the responsibility of the steamship companies that brought them.

As in NY, Philadelphia shirtwaist manufacturers are willing to concede pretty much every demand of the strikers – except union recognition.

The NY shirtwaist strikers’ ally, the Woman’s Trade Union League has introduced an innovation into the practice of picketing: the automobile. It will be used to cover all the factories where scabs are working. One striker, the amusingly named Fanny Fireman, has been sentenced to five days in the workhouse for throwing a rotten egg at a scab.

Here’s a picture I forgot to post earlier, I think from the paper 100 years + 2 days ago.


The Nicaraguan Congress has unanimously elected José Madriz, Zelaya’s nominee, to be the nation’s president. Gen. Estrada vows to fight on. US Secretary of State Philander C. Knox has issued a strong note saying that Madriz will have to show he is capable of directing a responsible government and make reparation for the execution of Cannon and Groce. But the US will not yet recognize either Madriz or Estrada.

In your lynching news of the day, a man who fatally wounded a marshal was lynched in Rosebud Texas; the Illinois National Guard is being moved to Belleville to protect another black man suspected of being involved in a fatal street car robbery in East St. Louis; a black man was shot to death by a mob in a jail cell in Devil’s Bluff, Ark.; and a lynch mob in Magnolia, Alabama was searching for 4 black brothers suspected of killing a white man. When the house one of the brothers was hiding in was set on fire, he shot at the mob, killing one and wounding two others, but was fatally shot himself as he tried to escape the blaze. Two others were arrested and narrowly escaped lynching; the fourth brother remains at large. “Nearly every negro resident left Magnolia to-day. The whites are all armed.”

Mark Twain announces “I am through with work for this life and this world.”

More front page news: The 6-year-old grandson of Rep. McMorran (R-Mich.) has been having doubts about “all this Santa Claus business.” So his parents told him to ask President Taft about it. Taft suggested that if he writes a letter to Santa and Santa then brings everything he asks for, that should be proof enough. The boy agreed, and is now busily writing his letter. Probably asking for a monkey-on-the-stick, whatever that might be (this?).

And that boy grew up to be Ben Nelson.

Mirror mirror

There is indeed a joke about the warlord running the Ministry of Energy and Water. Given the reliability of the power supply in Kabul, he is called the Minister of Darkness.

Karzai: “We have tried to ensure that the cabinet is a mirror of Afghanistan’s people, a cabinet that all Afghan people can see themselves in.” Evidently the Afghan people are only 4% female.

Would explain why Afghan men always seem so pissed off.

Sir Jean-Luc Picard! Make it so.

This is not renaming the post office

So to make up for the terrible abortion provisions in the health care bill, the D’s will create a Pregnancy Assistance Fund to convince pregnant women and teenage girls that forced childbirth is okay. The fund will provide money for “maternity and baby clothing, baby food, baby furniture and similar items.” The fund will be $25 million per year. Yup, that should cover it.

(Update: Smintheus points out “the most astounding aspect of this provision: It encourages teenage pregnancy by offering financial rewards to pregnant teens.”)

Mitch McConnell: “This is not renaming the post office. Make no mistake -- this bill will reshape our nation and our lives.” Although to be fair, he’d probably bitch and moan and filibuster and obstruct about renaming the post office too.

One of the warlords in Karzai’s cabinet is minister of electricity and water. There’s probably a joke in there somewhere.

Today -100: December 20, 1909: Of late trains

The shirtwaist strike spreads to Philadelphia, which has been getting orders from some of the NY firms being struck.

Another slow December news day, as demonstrated by a NYT headline gracing the front page: “Taft Train an Hour Late.”

What is the capital of Nelsonia?

As part of the deal Harry Reid cut with Ben Nelson, Nebraska will henceforth be known as Nelsonia. Adjust your maps accordingly.

Meaningful and unprecedented

Obama called his little deal at the Copenhagen summit a “meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough.” Because if there’s one thing that is both full of meaning and totally without precedent, it’s the world’s nations agreeing to “take note” of a non-binding aspirational document with no targets or compliance oversight that even if adhered to wouldn’t come close to averting global environmental catastrophe.

George Monbiot calls the closed-door negotiations among the big states “a scramble for the atmosphere comparable in style and intent to the scramble for Africa.”

Some people, of course, think even this goes too far.

Today -100: December 19, 1909: Of college girls, scabs, and monkey-on-the-sticks

Manhattan’s District-Attorney-Elect Charles Whitman (Wikipedia tells us that he was later governor, that Christine Todd-Whitman is married to his grandson, and that he was not the Texas tower sniper) (I had to look him up to get his first name; the NYT in 1909 was absolutely allergic to using first names) has chosen a deputy assistant, Cornelius McDougald, who is an actual negro, and will appoint a woman deputy to oversee work in the Children’s Court.

The Sunday paper, has a feature on “college girls,” by which they mean recent college graduates such as women’s suffragist Inez Milholland and her Vassar cohort, who have been joining the shirtwaist strikers on the picket line, attempting to prevent arrests, and arguing on behalf of the strikers in court. (The NYT also reports that wealthy suffragist Alva Belmont has been providing lawyers and bail money to arrested strikers.) Seeing the treatment of female strikers by police and Night Court, and hearing from the shirtwaist-makers about their work conditions, has been a radicalizing experience for them. Strikers have been invited to give talks to many middle- and upper-class women’s clubs.

Here’s a helpful tip if you’re ever on a picket line in 1909 New York: the word “scab,” shouted at the scabs, is against the law, and you can be arrested for it. “Strikebreaker” is okay. The scabs can yell pretty much anything they like at the strikers.

A story in the Sunday magazine section has Santa Claus complaining about these kids today: “Years ago children were satisfied with Jack-in-the-boxes, monkey-on-the-sticks, and other inexpensive baubles, but nowadays they’re looking for a whole string of iron cars, miniature automobiles, and flying machines.”

Torture is constitutional. It’s official.

Chris Floyd says what needs to be said about the Supreme Court’s decision to let the D.C. Circuit Court’s ruling in the Rasul case stand, as the Obama Justice Dept urged. I’d just add a link to my post two years ago on that ruling, which was remarkable for asserting that torture was precisely what was intended when Guantanamo was set up, so the torturers could not be sued because they were just doing the job for which they were employed.

Today -100: December 18, 1909: Of exiles and fish splits

Zelaya plans to leave Nicaragua.

Headline of the Day -100: “Harvard Split Over Fish.” Sadly, the story doesn’t live up to the potential of that headline, although the news day was so singularly uneventful that it was on the front page. The fish in question is not of the piscine variety, but Hamilton Fish III, captain of the football team (and later an isolationist congresscritter, rabid anti-semite and centenarian; not to be confused with the publisher of The Nation), who lost the class election to be First Marshal (I think it’s like class president) to someone who hadn’t made the football team. There are many bitter feelings and Fish fled Harvard for New York, but claims he “didn’t care a rap which way the election went.”

But I think it’s wrong

John McCain, complaining after Al Franken, presiding over the Senate, cut off Joe Lieberman’s 10-minute speech at 10 minutes: “I don’t know what’s happening here in this body, but I think it’s wrong.”

Why is it

that whenever I hear a news story about American drones killing people, I think of Joe Lieberman?

Today -100: December 17, 1909: Of fallen presidents, dead kings, trouble-making tin mills, immigrants’ children’s heads, and lowering standards

Nicaraguan President José Santos Zelaya resigns. To avoid further bloodshed and to avoid giving the US “a pretext for intervention,” he says, not because he was losing militarily.

The US has graciously decided to postpone demanding payment from Cuba of the $6,509,511 it claims Cuba owes the US compensate it for the expense of occupying Cuba.

US Steel responds to the declaration of war by the unions (2 days ago) by announcing a plan to dismantle its “trouble-making” tin mills (in the words of the president of the US Steel-owned American Sheet and Tin Plate Company) in Pittsburg altogether and build a new one in Gary, Ind. for $4,500,000.

A Immigration Commission report to Congress says that the children of immigrants look more like Americans. Actually, it only looked at Sicilians and Eastern European Jews in New York, but evidently the heads of the Sicilians’ children are no longer so long and those of the Jews are no longer so round and Jewy.

The British general election, called for January 1910, is in full swing, and many Conservative members of the House of Lords have been heckled and shouted down at election meetings. In part this is because it’s traditional for peers to keep out of elections to the other House, and in part because this election is largely about the constitutional position of the House of Lords, which has been screwing with the Liberal government’s bills for years (think Joe Lieberman), but went far beyond what most people considered its legitimate role to be when it rejected the budget, something the Lords hadn’t done for 250 years.


The suffragettes have also been actively heckling candidates, mostly Liberals. One jumped into Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George’s car and “upbraided and shook” him.

Leopold, the king of the Belgians, died.

Incoming Yale science and engineering students will no longer have to know Latin.

Does every post have to have a clever title? I think not.

Headline of the Day (London Times): “Oldest Butter in the World Found in Robert Scott’s Antarctic Hut.”

Sarah Palin, who certainly isn’t pandering for a 2012 presidential run, has a post about the true meaning of Hanukkah on her Facebook page. Since it was written by her ghost writer, the moral of the story of the oil that burned for 8 days is “With hope and dedication nothing is impossible, and the Almighty never abandons those who seek the light” and not “drill, baby, drill.”

If Obama thought that we’d accept moving some of Guantanamo’s prisoners to Illinois while continuing the Bushian system of extra-legal indefinite confinement to be the fulfillment of his campaign promise to “close Guantanamo,” he could have just changed Guantanamo’s name, put up a few new signs, and saved a whole lot of money.

Ben Bernanke named Time’s Man of the Year. Joe Lieberman will have his revenge for this, oh he will have his revenge.

Now for another electrifying edition of Here Are Some News Stories, Write Your Own Damn Jokes, I Have a Headache: The D.C. city council voted 11-2 for marriage equality. One of the dissenters was Marion “Bitch Set Me Up” Barry.

Annotated White House Flickr feed.

Today -100: December 16, 1909: Of Carrie Nation, divinity students, racist congressmen and Nicaraguan presidents all behaving badly. Also, cork legs.

Rep. Foster of Ill. introduced a bill for Civil War veterans who were honorably discharged (and presumably had had their leg or legs amputated) to be given new artificial cork legs every three years.

Carrie Nation visited the House and Senate buildings. Finding a House messenger smoking, she knocked the cigarette out of his mouth.

Divinity students at the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago hanged and then burned the effigy of a professor of Hebrew in front of his residence. The students had failed to get the Faculty to drop Hebrew from the curriculum. What Would Ku Klux Klan Jesus Do?

Rep. J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama introduces a bill to segregate street cars in D.C. Heflin, the NYT reminds us, shot a black man (and, by ricochet, a white bystander) on a D.C. street car in 1908 for drinking whiskey in the presence of ladies (here’s the original story on that. Heflin said, “Under the circumstances there was nothing else for me to do.” Clearly.), and 21 months later still hasn’t been tried for it (he never will be, and Heflin, truly a vile piece of shit, would brag about the incident in later election campaigns) (he didn’t have to worry about the black vote in Alabama, having drafted the provision of the 1901 Alabama constitution that banned negroes from voting).

One Frederick Palmer has written an article about Zelaya in The Outlook which accuses him of having made a fortune off of state monopolies and that “Zelaya freely practices the droits de seigneur of the Dark Ages.”

Oral Roberts

no longer so oral.

Shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance

News Story of the Day (BBC): “Noisy Sex Woman Admits Asbo Breach”

Every sentence in this story sounds dirty:

“A woman who was given an anti-social behaviour order banning her from making loud noises during sex has admitted breaching the order.” Heh heh, they said “breaching the order.”

“Caroline and Steve Cartwright’s love-making was described as ‘murder’ and ‘unnatural’ at Newcastle Crown Court. Neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise.” And those are just the people she had sex with Tuesday. Zing!

A neighbor said, “I cannot describe the noise. I have never ever heard anything like it.” Then she sighed wistfully and repeated, “I have never ever heard anything like it.”

“In November, Cartwright appealed against a noise abatement notice imposed in 2007, as well as the subsequent Asbo, which banned the couple from shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance’. Her bid was rejected by Recorder Jeremy Freedman, who said: ‘It certainly was intrusive and constituted a statutory nuisance. It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration - this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time.’” Then he sighed wistfully and repeated, “For hours at a time.”

“‘It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.’” Then he sighed wistfully and repeated, “Virtually every night.”

“Sunderland City Council told the court they had recorded noise levels of up to 47 decibels using equipment installed at Cartwright’s neighbour’s house. World Health Organisation guidelines state that 30 decibels is enough to cause sleep disturbance.” World Health Organisation guidelines also state that sex that produces noise levels of 47 decibels is “awesome.”

The world as it is

I didn’t give Obama nearly enough shit for his Nobel Prize speech. For example, I ignored the bit about how the US “helped underwrite global security... with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms” in Vietnam and Grenada, or something.

But what’s still stuck in my craw five days later is the smugness-disguised-as-pragmatism of the line about how he’d really like to live by Gandhi and King’s code but “I face the world as it is.” Really, is that what you do. Gandhi and King faced down Bull Connor and General Dyer, police dogs, fire hoses and the freaking British Army. They willingly went into prison cells knowing they might not come out again, they confronted hate and violence with no weapons beyond their moral courage. I think they faced the world as it is, Barack. Whereas you faced, what, the withering sarcasm of your professor in contract law?

Mr. Obama, here is a dime, call your mother, tell her there is serious doubt about you ever deserving that prize.

Today -100: December 15, 1909: Of toilers’ right of American manhood, boozing it up in Worcester, and war balloons

A labor conference in Pittsburg (according to Wikipedia, it was spelled without the h from 1890 to 1911), presided over by Samuel Gompers of the AFL, has “declared war,” as the NYT put it, on US Steel and its new open shop policy. It passed a resolution asserting that “The gigantic trust... is using its great wealth and power in an effort to rob the toilers of their right of American manhood” and “is now engaged in an effort to destroy the only factor, the organizations of its employes, standing between it and unlimited, unchecked, and unbridled industrial, political, social, and moral carnage.” It asks every member of every union in America to aid the striking workers by contributing 10¢ each.

The NYT’s Nicaragua correspondent (who is openly biased) claims that Managua is in open revolt against Pres. Zelaya, with demonstrations in the streets. The government has broken the armistice, claiming that the negotiations were over, and with them the armistice, when the rebels rejected Zelaya’s nomination of Madriz as a successor. The people are demanding American intervention, says the correspondent. The American company in charge of electricity in the capital is threatening to cut off power if it is not paid pronto.

To date Taft has said nothing in public about Nicaragua, bar one oblique reference in the State of the Union address, even as he dispatches marines and gunboats.

Mexico has sent a special envoy to Washington to present its positions on Nicaragua, but the State Dept has been outright lying about his purpose there and falsely denying that he brought any proposals. Mexico wants Zelaya retained in at least nominal power, or if not him, Madriz.

The NYT responds to yesterday’s report on conditions in steerage, saying that they’re not really any worse than conditions in European or American slum tenements. Therefore, while the snooty investigator might have been disgusted by the smells and dirt and lack of privacy and overcrowding, those people are used to them. So that’s okay then.

The largest “dry” city in the world, Worcester, Mass., voted to end prohibition. 29 Massachusetts cities voted on the question in 1909 – it sounds like they do this every single year. Salem went dry. The Times doesn’t say how many of them are wet or dry, but the total vote gave a 12,467 majority for allowing liquor licenses, compared to a 8,936 prohibitionist majority in 1908.

Headline of the Day -100: “German Dirigibles Frighten France.” Or “war balloons,” as the article also calls them.

Two headlines that could be shortened

Extraneous words in strikeout:

WaPo: “Afghan Government Not Keeping Promises to Insurgents Changing Sides.”

CNN: “Lieberman Opposes Medicare at 55.”

The wrinkliest death panel of all

Saturday I posted about the 98-year-old woman in the nursing home who killed her 100-year-old roommate. In comments, Athenawise wrote, “Somehow the right will find a way to blame liberals” for this. Well, it did happen in Massachusetts.

CONTEST: How will Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, or any other right-wing talking head of your choice blame the liberals?

Today -100: December 14, 1909: Of steerage, sore paws, and the Methodist attack upon Africa

The Immigration Commission reported to the Senate on conditions of the steerage section on steamship. Oddly enough, not good. “Everything was dirty, sticky, and disagreeable to the touch,” said one female agent who traveled undercover. Sexual harassment of women passengers in steerage is common. The agent had to belt one member of the crew (who I’m guessing was also dirty, sticky, and disagreeable to the touch), and fend off constant requests by Leonardo diCaprio to “paint” her. And the sanitation, and the food...

If I may indulge in a little foreshadowing: Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon, asked about the possibility of his retiring as speaker, “elevated the muzzle of his cigar a few degrees and came back with the remark that he ‘wasn’t crossing any bridges until he came to them.’” And Rep. Augustus Peabody Gardner (R-Mass.) (what, you thought somebody named Augustus Peabody Gardner would be a Democrat?) says that he does want some alteration in the powers and/or the person of the speaker, but “The fact that my paws are sore is not sufficient reason for licking them in public.”

With Sen. Isidor Rayner (Blowhard-MD) calling loudly for Nicaraguan Pres. Zelaya to be tried by the United States for the execution of Cannon and Groce, the NYT editorial page brings up an embarrassing precedent: In 1818 Gen. Andrew Jackson, commanding the invasion of Spanish Florida, ordered the execution of British citizens Arbuthnot and Ambrister for aiding the Seminole and Creek Indians.

Pres. Taft gave a speech at Carnegie Hall (after which he was saved by the Secret Service from being pushed off the stage by a crowd of people trying to shake hands with him) in celebration of the diamond jubilee of the Methodist Episcopal missions in Africa or, in Taft’s approving words, “the attack of the Methodist Church upon Africa.” He suggested they establish a bishopric in the Philippines and said that “if I were a missionary I had rather try my hand in a country like China, that has a history of two, three, four, or five thousand years, than to go into Africa, that has no history at all except that which we trace to the apes.”

2009 in Pictures

As I anticipated, the absence of George Bush’s chimp-like visage was a devastating loss to the world of goofy news photos and those of us who depend on them. Still, soldier on we must. Here’s what 2009 looked like.























Here’s a guy who held up a BP station in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex using underwear as a mask:










This summer was marked by a series of highly photogenic riots in Jerusalem against municipal parking lots being open on the sabbath.

Today -100: December 13, 1909: Of imperialist choo choos and fetish-worshipping puritans

The British have completed the Cape-Cairo Railway. 2,147 miles of track.

Anti-women’s suffrage speeches were given by the banker Henry Clews at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, who refused to debate suffragists in the audience, and one Emma Goldman at Lyric Hall, who said that women are worshippers of fetishes, the latest of which is the vote. Women, she said, are narrow-minded and puritanical, “always wanting to clean up something,” as opposed to men, who have outgrown morals. The quest for the vote is a wild-goose chase. Not that she’s against women’s suffrage per se, just that the vote is not worth having. Unlike Clews, she was willing to argue her anarchist position against suffragists, including Maud Malone, who would be arrested in 1912 for heckling Woodrow Wilson on the subject.

The Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, Gen. Clarence Edwards, recommends that US citizenship be given to Puerto Ricans.

Of baggy shorts and saggy skin

Gratuitous Headline of the Day: “Hindu Nationalists Drop Their Baggy Shorts.” Their uniform of baggy shorts, I might add.

Don’t you love stories of senior citizens participating in activities usually engaged in by much younger people? Me too.

Today -100: December 12, 1909: Of sending in the Marines, pancakes, inter-racial banqueting, and marionettes

The NYT is quite confused about what orders the US marines in the region of Nicaragua might have received (and the Taft admin has felt no particular obligation to explain its policy to the public). Gen. Estrada has asked the US consul for some marines to help him break the government siege of Bluefields, on the pretext of protecting American citizens resident in the town. An editorial is surprisingly anti-interventionist, given the paper’s previous anti-Zelaya coverage, noting that the US has “intervened savagely in defense of men attempting to dynamite a troopship” and that the rebels “possess scarcely more of the forms of government than a lynching party.”

The Civic Forum will hold a municipal banquet at which the newly elected city officials will speak. The headline: “Municipal Dinner to Be Inter-Racial.” Also invited: every clergyman in the city and NY’s only woman aeroplanist, Lillian Todd.

Pres. Taft met the 85 supervisors of the Census and warned them sternly against using their offices for political ends (most of the supervisors were recommended by members of Congress).

John D. Rockefeller has placed an order for 100 pounds of buckwheat flour to be sent to his daughter’s house. “Pancakes for the Rockefellers,” the headline says, but that seems like mere speculation. More developments as they occur. Occurred. Whatever.

The shirtwaist strike arbitration failed right at the start, the manufacturers being unwilling to talk about recognizing the union.

In a sign of the times, an Italian marionette theater, the last remaining one in NYC, is being displaced by those new-fangled moving pictures. The story is oddly moving. “So the seven fat volumes of marionette poetry, all the old Italian romances, have been taken up the Parisi tenement. One by one, the hundreds of dolls, those his father and grandfather had, will be put away or sold, and Signor Parisi will open a moving-picture show, too. ‘One must eat and live,’ he says.”

Clear!

The tea party types are planning a “die in” at the Senate office buildings next week, to simulate how we’ll all die waiting for help under Obamacare. May I make one suggestion?


Call it a public option we can all support.

Baby’s first jihad

Ousted Honduran President Zelaya was about to, finally, leave the Brazilian embassy for Mexico, but the coup regime won’t let him unless he first resigns as president and leaves as a political asylum-seeker, prohibited from engaging in any politics.

In Britain, the West Midlands counter-terrorism police unit “confirmed that counter-terrorist officers specially trained in identifying children and young people vulnerable to radicalisation had visited nursery schools.” They want teachers to turn in any nursery school children who draw pictures of bombs or say that all Christians are bad or that they believe in an Islamic state. (To state the perhaps obvious: a child who proclaims the need for an Islamic state is not radicalized so much as repeating what he or she has heard at home. The police are using state institutions to spy on infants as a way to indirectly spy on their parents.)

Today -100: December 11, 1909: Of arbitration, dictators, and bino

The striking shirtwaist-makers and the bosses have agreed to arbitration (the employers are trying to get around recognizing the union).

It turns out that the Nicaraguan government forces characterized in the NYT as feeble were actually a cover for the real operation, as 3,000 troops move on the insurgent provisional government’s hq in the port city of Bluefields. The American consul has promised the outnumbered Estradaists support from the Marines on the Des Moines, anchored there. Another article insists that Estrada’s forces can easily survive a siege, but since it repeatedly refers to Zelaya as “the dictator,” its objectivity might be in some question.

Sen. Isidor Rayner (D-MD) introduces a resolution saying that Zelaya is guilty of murder and if the Estradaists fail to capture him, the US will have to.

In an interview, the, um, dictator Zelaya (in an article subtly headlined “Zelaya Yields To Our Power”) repeats his call for Secretary of State Knox to name a commission to investigate the charges against him (oddly, he never heard back). He says that Cannon and Groce were executed according to the laws of Nicaragua – evidently it’s illegal to command rebels. Zelaya says, “The attempt of Secretary Knox to establish the inviolability of the persons of Americans participating in foreign revolutions will result in constant revolutions led by immune Americans.” Zelaya seems to be looking for an exit strategy, saying he’d happily resign if it wouldn’t lead to faction fights with actual, you know, fighting, and that he is negotiating with the rebels on a successor acceptable to all parties; he has nominated Judge José Madriz. Zelaya blames the US’s hostility to him on President Cabrera of Guatemala.

More US soldiers are going insane in the Philippines than in any other branch of the military. The army blames homesickness, melancholy and bino, a Filipino beverage of some sort.

Money is fungible, you know

How long before the Republicans propose banning women from possessing money, because they might spend it on abortions?

My accomplishments are slight

Obama got his Nobel. He gave a speech. Possibly the most war-mongering Peace Prize speech ever. At one point he got carried away and declared war on Norway. Apostrophe-less transcript.

UNLIKE THOSE POOR SCHMUCKS AT GUANTANAMO – SAY, DIDN’T I PROMISE TO SHUT THAT PLACE DOWN?: “It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations — that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate.”

HELL, KISSINGER AND BEGIN, IF IT COMES TO THAT: “Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight.”


In this long speech, he couldn’t not mention Iraq. Once. Let’s watch him try to slip it past, shall we? “I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 43 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.”

TO REPLACE WHICH ONE WITH THE OTHER? IT’S PROBABLY BEST TO BE CLEAR: “And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict — filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.”

WELL, WITH SECOND MAN, BECAUSE WAR WITH JUST ONE MAN ISN’T AS MUCH FUN: “These questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man.”

SOME PEOPLE (SIGH) THOUGHT GETTING RID OF GEORGE BUSH WAS A GOOD START: “I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.”

Dude brought Will Smith with him.
Much of the speech was about the concept of “just war.” He’s in favor of it. “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

“As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.” AND I WILL SPIT ON THAT WORK IN 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... “But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their [King and Gandhi’s] examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.”

HERE’S THE MESSAGE FROM YOUR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER: WAR IS, IN FACT, PEACE: “So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.”

TO REITERATE, WAR IS PEACE: “I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war.”

YET AGAIN, WAR IS PEACE: “The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That is why NATO continues to be indispensable.”


I DON’T THINK THAT WORD, “ORDERED,” MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: “And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed.” That claim is becoming about as ridiculous as Bush’s claim that “we do not torture.”

He talked about the need to slap down Iran and North Korea, global warming, blah blah blah.


HE WAS FOR HOLY WAR BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT: “Most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint — no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or even a person of one’s own faith.” But earlier in the speech he denied the relevance of the non-violence of Gandhi and King because “make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world.” And it is just – some might even say holy – to go to war against evil. “A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.” Cynicism, hypocrisy, you say potato...

We’re getting to the end, so let’s bring out some of that ol’ Obama inspirational magic: “So let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he’s outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that a cruel world still has a place for his dreams.” And then the soldier who sees he’s outgunned calls in an air strike and blows her and her child to pieces.

Don’t make us get all Viking on your ass

One of the delegates at the Copenhagen summit refers to the controversy over the hacked emails as “a storm in a teacup.” There’s probably a weak joke in there somewhere.

No one expected Obama to attend every Nobel Prize event (I understand the toga party is a highlight), but his ungracious decision to skip even the traditional lunch with the Norwegian king is being taken as a rude snub. In other words, the newest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has managed to piss off... the Norwegians.

Today -100: December 10, 1909: If President Taft set off by train from New York to Chicago and weighs 300 pounds...

The NYT Times Traveler Blog, which inspired my own (lamely titled) Today -100 feature, is being discontinued, but don’t worry, Taft-lovers, we will be continuing together into the brave new world of the 1910s.

Headline of the Day -100: “Democrats Elect Money.” That’s Hernando De Soto Money of Mississippi, who was elected Senate minority leader.

In France, authors of textbooks used in the state schools have sued the Archbishop of Paris for damages for putting their texts on the Index of banned books.

In his State of the Union message, Taft proposed raising the postage rates for magazines, on which the Post Office was losing money because it was paying 9¢ a pound to transport it by rail. One M. T. Richardson, in a letter to the NYT, thinks this is excessive, noting that the railroads charge that rate to convey a 200-pound man, who they have to provide with heat and light and a seat, from NY to Chicago, while someone like, oh say President Taft, is charged less than 6¢ per mile. Because he’s fat, geddit?

Not unlike Jefferson and Adams, I’m sure

CONTEST: Sample dialogue from this meeting of the minds, please.

That’ll leave a mark

Alberto Gonzales has written something for Esquire. He says it was cool to work in the White House. He says that “The notion that what happened at Abu Ghraib was a result of the policies of the Bush administration I just think is totally ridiculous.” And “This may sound egotistical, but to me it is important that when I leave this earth, I would have made a difference -- that people would know Al Gonzales lived, he touched lives, he made a difference, he left a mark.” Oh, I’m sure the prisoners at Abu Ghraib (and Guantanamo and Bagram and....) will tell you that he left a mark.

Today -100, December 9, 1909: Of pro-Americanism in Nicaragua

Sloooow news day. The fighting in Nicaragua too is in a lull. The NYT says “President Zelaya, recognizing the growing sentiment in Nicaragua favorable to the revolutionists and to the part the United States is playing in the contest, has recently been making every effort to incite the people to anti-American demonstration. These efforts have been utterly futile, and nothing but fear of him prevents a pro-American demonstration.” Ain’t it the way. At any given moment, pro-American demonstrations are about to spontaneously break out all over the world, but something always gets in the way.

Who does Blair think he is, Thomas Friedman?

Tony Blair’s claim that Iraq could launch WMDs on 45 minutes’ notice evidently came from... a taxi driver. Who said he’d heard it from two army officers talking in the back of his cab. MI6 told Blair it was “verifiably inaccurate” (so why were they passing it on to Downing Street?) but he used it anyway.

Today -100: December 8, 1909: Of the State of the Union and pickle secrets

Taft has sent Congress his first State of the Union Address (which nobody seems to call by that name). Throughout it, notes the NYT, “runs a strong note of consideration for the commercial welfare of the country.” Unlike the addresses of Teddy Roosevelt, “There is not a bludgeon or a big stick in it”. Taft talks about the maximum tariff feature of the Payne-Aldrich law. Anyone care about that? Then we’ll move on. He recommends an executive council for Alaska and statehood for New Mexico and Arizona, postal savings banks, requiring Congressional candidates to file a statement of their contributions and expenditures, pensions for civil servants, and that army promotions be based on merit. He wants reform of federal court procedures to make them cheaper to use and faster, adding, “I do not doubt for one moment that much fo the lawless violence and cruelty exhibited in lynchings is directly due to the uncertainties and injustice growing out of the delays in trials, judgments, and the executions thereof by our courts.” He says, obviously referring to Nicaragua, that neither the Monroe Doctrine “nor any other doctrine of American policy should be permitted to operate for the perpetuation of irresponsible government, the escape of just obligations, or the insidious allegation of dominant ambitions on the part of the United States.”

Germany’s Prince Frederick von Sayn Wittgenstein is forced to renounce his title because he married a woman of the middling classes.

Headline of the Day -100 Years: “D. W. Bowles Arrested: Son of Samuel Bowles Accused of Trying to Steal Pickle Secrets.”

He knows what he did

The Archbishop of Canterbury can just go fuck himself.

Today -100: December 7, 1909: Of white slaves, mud flats, black hands, and employes

Congress is back in session. Rep. James Mann (R-Ill.) introduces a White Slave Traffic Act (yes, the Mann Act). And Rep. William Sulzer (D-NY) introduces a joint resolution directing the Taft admin to demand the “arrest, trial, and punishment of Zelaya by an impartial tribunal in Nicaragua for the willful murder of citizens of the United States, and ample apology from Nicaragua and such damages and reparation as may be just.” Oh, and “to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States, to such an extent as may be necessary,” to establish a responsible republican form of government in Nicaragua.

Not that Taft (who has a cold) is waiting on permission from Congress. 700 marines are finally underway to Central America, possibly to be used in Nicaragua. Their transport ship got stuck in some mud flats in the Delaware River and had to be replaced after they spent a couple of days trying to get it out.

The Italian Black Hand criminal secret society has been recruiting Italians working on the Lötschberg Tunnel in Switzerland for the American branch of the Black Hand, paying for the passage of 40 men.

The first time I saw this I thought it was a misprint, but evidently in 1909 employee was spelled employe.

The Case of the Funnel Cake Hit-Man

Harry Reid on Max Baucus: “Max is a good friend and an outstanding senator and he has my full support.” This is why people distrust the ethos of Washington: Reid sees nothing inappropriate in citing personal friendship as a reason for him to ignore a scandal. The NYT mentions something I’m kind of curious to hear more about: “Ms. Hanes handled a number of high-profile trials, including a double murder at the Iowa State Fair in 1996, where a husband and wife who operated a funnel cake stand were killed in a murder-for-hire case.”

(Update: Hired by the couple’s daughter and her husband, looking to inherit their property and of course the lucrative funnel cake business.)

Farewell, Big Bill Lister, “Radio’s Tallest Singing Cowboy,” we hardly knew ye.

Something fairly obvious occurred to me while reading Thomas Friedman’s column today, in which he says, “You can’t train an Afghan Army and police force to replace our troops if you have no basic state they feel is worth fighting for.” Indeed. And since there is in fact no basic state in Afghanistan, worth fighting for or otherwise, it follows that the army we’re building is by definition an army of mercenaries.

Swing swing together

Gordon Brown has been making fun of the Conservative leaders for being toffee-nosed (whatever that might mean) upper-class twits. And indeed, the Tories seem rather embarrassed about their upbringings, if by upbringing you mean being shipped off to a boarding school at age 7. David Cameron’s resumé doesn’t even mention his time at Eton, and the Tories’ other public-school-educated leaders have also omitted this information, while attendees of state schools do make note of the fact.

I think it’s a shame that the Tories are not turning their schooling to their advantage, and to that end I propose a CONTEST, an Eton contest if you will, although I understand that for an American blog an eating contest is more traditional: come up with a motto for the Conservative party that is unafraid of its leaders’ status. I’ll get you started:

Waterloo, Eton, playing-fields, ‘nuf said old chap?

We know what it’s like to be forcibly sodomized – now it’s your turn.

Droit de seigneur, it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law